The drugstore was an antique, like the ones I remember from childhood, like Bucky's was, in downtown Dunetown, before it became Doomstown. It had a marble fountain top and wire-rung chairs and smelled of maraschino cherries and chocolate instead of vitamin pills and hair spray. A gray-haired black man behind the counter sized us up and nodded toward the Kid, who was sitting back from the front window, sipping something pink that looked medicinal. He was watching a two-story row house, which stood alone in the middle of the block. A vertical neon sign over the front door of the place said that it was the Saint Andrew's African Baptist Church.

"I didn't know he was the Reverend Graves," I said.

"Used to be the church," Mufalatta said. "When they moved to their new place, the sign ran the wrong way, so Nose bought it. He calls the place the Church."

"Doesn't that upset the Saint Andrew's African Baptist congregation?" I asked.

"Naw, he's head of the choir," the Kid said, and left it at that.

"Who's around?" the Stick asked.

"Two carloads of 'em just went inside," Mufalatta said. "Man, are they feelin' high. You never saw such grins in your life."

"How did they waste the shrimp company?" I asked.

"Just drove in, two cars of 'em, pulled up to the front door, got out, and checked to make sure the place was empty. Then they doused it with Molotov c.o.c.ktails and tossed a couple sticks of dynamite in the front door as they was leaving. Man, the place went sky high."

We all stood there, staring across the street at the Church, wondering what to do next.

"If we're going to arrest him, don't we need a warrant?" I asked.

"Arrest them? Arrest who, man? Graves?" was the Kid's amazed response. "The four of us are gonna sashay in there and bust Nose Graves and maybe eight of the meanest motherf.u.c.kers south of Jersey City? Us four? s.h.i.t, man. Death with honor, si; death by suicide, bulls.h.i.t."

"Then why don't I just go in and have a talk with him," I suggested.

Mufalatta looked at me like I was certifiable. Dutch chuckled deep in his throat, like he had just heard a dirty joke. The Stick didn't do anything; he stood there and pro and conned the idea in his head. He broke the silence.

"Why?" he asked.

"He's being suckered," I said. "Maybe we can stop this craziness before anybody else dies."

"Do tell," said the Kid. "And you think he's gonna give a royal s.h.i.t what you think, man?"

"What've we got to lose?" I said. "Stick and Dutch, keep an eye on our front and back doors. The Kid and I'll go in and gab with Graves."

"Absolutely crazy as s.h.i.t," the Kid said.

"I'll second that," said Dutch.

"h.e.l.l, why not?" the Stick said. "Sometimes crazy s.h.i.t like that works."

Dutch sighed. "Let's get some more backup over here," he said.

"Why?" I asked. "This isn't the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We just want to talk."

"The man just blew up a business," Dutch reminded me. "If he knows he was seen doing it, he's not gonna be too receptive to any chitchat with the cops. "

I shrugged. "Then we won't tell him yet," I said, and walked out the front door and across the street with Mufalatta legging it beside me.

"This is crazy, man," he said. "This guy has no fuse at all, okay? No fuse, man. You light him up, he blows all over the f.u.c.kin' place. They will hear it in West L.A. s.h.i.t, they will hear it in West f.u.c.kin' Berlin, is what they'll do. You hear me talkin', man? Am I just makin' my gums bleed for fun?"

"I heard you, Kid," I said. "He's got a short fuse."

"No fuse, brother. None. N-o-n-e. None!"

We entered the club.

"Okay, okay," Mufalatta said as we walked into the dark stairwell. "Just let me get us to the man, okay? Let me do that because, see, I think in this case I have a gift of communication which you don't."

"How's that?" I said.

"Because you're a thick-headed, f.u.c.kin' honky, that's why, and this man don't even trust high yellows."

"Get us to the man," I agreed with a nod.

We walked up a short flight of steps to the main floor of the building. It was a cathedraled room with a pulpit at one end and pews shoved back in a semicircle to form a large dance floor. The room was tiered. On the second tier there were low-slung tables surrounded by large cushions. The color scheme was cardinal red and devil black. Four stereo speakers the size of billboards were booming against visible sound waves. The music was so loud it hurt my Adam's apple. Not a ray of sunshine penetrated the once sacred interior.

Two black giants were sitting in wooden chairs at the top of the stairs. They looked both of us up and down, then one of them said rather pleasantly, "Sorry, gents, no action till four o'clock."

"It ain't that way," Mufalatta shouted. "We're here to talk with the man."

The two giants exchanged grins, then laughed loud enough to drown out the music. One of them yelled, "What you gonna do, turkey, ask him to boogie?"

"Yeah," I said, taking out my wallet and letting it fall open to my buzzer. "Here's our dance card."

"s.h.i.t," the Kid said. "There goes diplomatic relations down the f.u.c.kin' toilet."

The big guy doing the talking looked like I was waving a pretzel at him. He looked at Mufalatta, then me, trying to put us together, then pointed at me. "You stay right there, both a you," he said, and to his partner, "Keep an eye on them."

He turned and lumbered across the dance floor, up into the shadows. The other giant stood and glared at us alternately, his eyeb.a.l.l.s clicking back and forth. Obviously he was a man who followed orders to the letter. When you're that big, you don't have to think.

There was a minute or two more of musical torture and then the music magically stopped.

"Up here," Ape One yelled down. "Do them first."

"On the wall," Ape Two said. "I'm gonna toss you."

He patted us down and took a .357 and a switchblade knife away from Mufalatta. All I had that looked threatening was a nail file, which he studied for several moments.

"It's a nail file," I said finally.

"No s.h.i.t," he said. "I thought it was a toothpick."

Ape Two led us across the hardwood floor and up into the far corner of the room to the only booth in the place. Inside the booth was a round table and, behind it, a hand-carved chair big enough to suit the Queen. Graves was sitting in the chair with one leg draped over an arm. He was dressed like a Brazilian banker, in tan linen with a dark brown handkerchief draped from his jacket pocket and a brown-and-white-striped tie. Like Zapata, he wore sungla.s.ses in the dark.

Several of his lieutenants slipped back into the shadows. They didn't go anywhere, they just became part of the ambience.

Graves leaned forward and pulled his gla.s.ses down slightly, peering over them.

"Well, what do you know, it's the dog lover."

I smiled. The Kid didn't do anything.

"You shouldn't do that," Graves said in a whispery rasp. "Come in a man's place flashing all that s.h.i.t around."

Mufalatta smiled. "Well, what is was, King Kong and Mighty Joe Young there didn't think looks was enough to get us an audience."

Graves smiled. He was a handsome man. Whoever had done the job on his nose had done him a favor.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" he said quietly.

"Feds," I told him.

He whistled softly through his teeth. "That's bad," he said. "Am I drafted?"

"Yeah, the marines can hardly wait," Mufalatta said.

"So, say your thing, man. What's it about?"

"Can we keep this between just a couple of us?" I asked.

Graves looked at Ape Two.

"They's totally clean," the black giant grunted.

Graves leaned back and waved his hands. "Okay," he said, "give us some air. You men drink?"

"Not right now," I said.

"You the talker, dog lover?" he asked, nodding toward me.

I said I was.

"So talk."

I didn't know how I was going to start or exactly what I was going to say. I had to wing it. Graves was no fool. If we were there because of the morning raid on Chevos' shrimp company, we would have come in force with warrants. We wanted to talk and he was all ears.

"Things come to me," I said. "Because of my business I hear things."

"And what's been comin' at you, man?" the lean, ebony mobster said, still smiling.

"It comes to me that a Cincinnati gangster named Tagliani and his outfit came down here to set up shop. They wanted the Front Street action, but they knew they had to get past you, one way or another. They may have had some local help moving in here-that's up for grabs right now-but one person Tagliani definitely did not have help from was Stoney t.i.tan, and since you and Stoney have a deal, they couldn't ease you out. It comes to me that the Taglianis decided to try the water, find out just how tough you were, so they sent an Ohio hoodlum named Cherry McGee in to test you. He couldn't take you, so Tagliani managed to frame you, and after you did your clock, you came out and blew McGee up, along with a couple of his pistols.

"Meantime, they started taking over, squeezing in here and there. They started dealing heavy drugs, mostly cocaine, to service the big rollers from out of town, which, it comes to me, is not your style. They also had big money, and that's where they started hurting you. They were squeezing you out because they had the financing.

"So it comes to me that you decided to make one big move, a c.o.ke connection in South America that would net you maybe twenty, thirty mil on the street plus bite a big hole in their trade.

"Then, last Sunday, Tagliani hijacked your load, killed your people, and burned the boat, which left you without your goods and owing the connections that fronted you. So, it comes to me, you declared war and started wasting Taglianis. And then when Harry Raines got hot under the collar over all the shooting, you put him away."

I paused for a moment and then said, "That's the way it comes to me."

He took off the sungla.s.ses and bored holes in me with cast iron eyes.

"Dog lover, you're so full of s.h.i.t you're contagious," Graves murmured, without humor. "Comes to you, my a.s.s."

"I said that's the way it comes to me, I didn't say that's the way it was. But that's how it could be played, if enough people wanted it done that way."

He leaned back and toyed with the gla.s.ses. Now I had his interest.

"Okay," he whispered, "how do you think it was?"

"Well, here's the way it wasn't. I don't think you killed any of the Tagliani clan, except maybe McGee and some of his gang. And I don't think you put Harry Raines away. Not only that, but I can probably prove you didn't."

"That's d.a.m.n nice of you, brother," he said. "What do you want me to do in return, marry your sister?"

"I want you to call off your guns, right now. Before the shooting really starts and a lot of people who don't have anything to do with this get wasted."

"You want we should stand in the middle of the boulevard and invite that f.u.c.kin' Nance to have target practice on us, that it?" his voice rasped.

"I'll take care of Nance," I said. "I got more reason than you. He's tried to kill me twice."

For some reason that impressed Graves. He said, "I'm not real clear on what it is you're offering me to do for what."

"If you hang up your guns, I'll see to it that the Taglianis do the same. Then all you have to do is sit back and let the Feds put the rest of the Tagliani clan away and it'll be all yours again."

"And the Feds're just gonna leave me alone, right?"

"That's the way it'll work out," I said.

"And what it is, you're just doin' this because you're a fine, upstanding dude that does good work, right? s.h.i.t, man, what you take me for? I wasn't out pickin' cotton when the brains were handed out."

"Look, I know about your deal with Mr. Stoney and I don't-"

"I ain't got no deal with Mr. Stoney," he said. "He don't deal, man, don't come grubbin' around with his hand out lookin' for part of the action, s.h.i.t. That ain't his style. Me and Mr. Stoney have an understanding. If I f.u.c.k up, I get hammered. If I don't, everything's velvet."

"What I'm saying is, I'm after Tagliani. I don't care how you and Mr. Stoney run the town. It looked pretty good to me in the old days."

"You talked to Mr. Stoney about all this?"

"He'll figure it out by himself," I said. "Personally, I think you're getting suckered into this gunfight with Tagliani."

His smile vanished, but the voice didn't change.

"I don't get suckered, dog lover. That ain't my style."

"You want to listen?" I said bluntly.

He put his leg back on the floor and leaned over the table toward me. "Okay," he said, "we've come this far. Just don't p.i.s.s me off."