Deadly Lullaby (4 page)

Not that I'd ever admit it to him, but he's right. There are a slew of cold cases frozen solid in the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit that involve dead hoods and their associates. Some LAPD detectives call them “society cleanses,” others call them “brass verdicts,” and they have all been written off as victims of professional hits.

This, this I know. My mother and her lover are two of them.

I check my watch. “So the condition attached to the money you haven't given me yet is that I not worry?”

“Worry all you want, just do not panic. Do not get antsy and say something to somebody you will regret.” He removes a cheap cellphone from his breast pocket. “This is disposable, and it has the number of my disposable programmed into it. Call me if anything arises I should know about—
anything.
” He jabs a finger at me. “We clear on all that?”

I stare at his finger like it's the turgid dick of a mangy dog. Delivered in that fashion, there's no way I'll answer his question.

He. Has. No. Right.

He's pissed that I don't answer him, his lips pressed together in a thin line, and he starts working his mouth, as if chewing up the words that would blow this lunch to smithereens.

Silence hangs over the table like a storm cloud, the atmosphere growing charged with it.

A new waiter announces his arrival, merrily slides the old man's steak burrito platter before him, then shrinks away when he notices that our eyes are exchanging lightning bolts. Our primary waiter makes his follow-up appearance to dole out more beer and four fresh tequila shots, and I give him a curt “Nope” when he again asks whether I want anything to eat.

I hammer down a shot. It neither cures my headache nor moistens my dry mouth, and causes even more sweat to cascade down my brow.

He finally draws a heavy sigh. “I admit I misjudged you. I really did not think you would take this as hard as you have. You beat hell out of so many kids when you were young I lost count, and the only reason two of them lived was because your buddies pulled you off. And the other shit you got into, Christ.” A shake of his head. “And Macky, who would have thought you gave a damn about him, of all people?”

“This isn't about Macky. It's about you. It's about me. It's about
you
putting
me
in this position. I'm a cop. Jesus.” I snatch another shot but halt it halfway to my mouth, stare at it, burp, and decide against it—for now.

“This is another thing. I never pictured you as a cop, at least not a cop without an ulterior motive.”

My primary ulterior motive in becoming a cop was to spite him, which I'm sure he's figured out by now. He just doesn't know the rest of it, and wouldn't understand if I explained.

“Hell,” he says, and smiles. “When you were a kid, I always thought odds were good we would be cellmates someday.”

Fuck you,
is what I think.

I don't say it out loud because his statement's so true.

I was a childhood terror who drove my parents crazy, particularly my mother, since she was the one stuck with raising me until I was sixteen, when I decided to live with my Aunt Connie (which is another story altogether). My mother hated me, this I know.

Once, when I was about twelve, a gaggle of her friends were coming over to get loose, and for fun I planted a cassette recorder under the living room sofa before I hit the streets. Played it back later that night, and in the midst of their drunk and stoned gossip about who was fucking who and what assholes men were, a slurry-voiced woman asked my mother, “Hey, Lorraine, what's the latest on Rosemary's Baby?” As if that's how her friends referred to me all the time, my mother replied, “I told the little fucker he had to go to bed without dinner for a week after he got caught dropping soda bottles on cars off that highway overpass—then what's he do? He comes home with a canned ham he boosted from Albertsons. I tell you, that devil's spawn is beyond salvation.”

The old man says now, “I was shocked when I heard you had applied to be a cop.” He shakes his head in wonder. “Did you know a background investigator actually interviewed me? She said you put my name on the application.”

I shrug, saying nothing. The fact of the matter is I was going to write on the academy application he was dead, but a cop I knew said I'd never get away with it.

He tilts his head, thinking back. “This woman visits me at the Q, reading questions from a checklist. The one that made a big impression on me was ‘Please comment upon your son's suitability for the position of peace officer.' Christ, I almost gagged. I told her I didn't know you anymore, that we had disowned each other. The truth, as far as it went. The whole truth and nothing but would have hosed you.” A shrug. “I figured, what the hell. If the kid wants to be a cop, it is his life; let him ruin it.”

“I bet you also figured, old man, that there'd be a day when you could corrupt me to your advantage.”

“No, you are wrong. That thought never crossed my mind until I heard you were working for Sacci's crew. Then I figured you would not give a shit what went down with Macky so long as you got cut in on the action.”

Slowly shaking my head, I look away to think before addressing him again. “Now it's you who's wrong. I
do
give a shit. I was a mean kid, I'll give you that, and hadn't improved much before I joined the force. But I don't see that as being my fault. The uniform, the badge…” I have to look away again for a couple seconds to think of the right way to phrase my thoughts. “I don't expect you to understand this, but being a cop made me feel good about myself, like I was one of the good guys. It filled a hole you and—” I almost bring my mother into this but I can't—I
won't
—and pause yet again to weigh my words. “Face it, the way I was raised made dysfunction seem normal, made wrong seem right. I got to the point where I wanted to be normal, to do right.

“And I've been a good cop—a great one when I was in uniform. Considering the brass knows you're my father, I'd raise too many eyebrows if I didn't kick ass and take names, especially the first five years or so out of the academy. And the stuff I do for Sacci hasn't changed any of this.” The thought of working for Sacci throws me off a beat, concerns me, before I stuff it in the back of my mind and continue. “Joe's crew is something I got pulled into because I needed money, bad. There's a big difference between collecting shylock payments to make ends meet and sanctioning murder.”

His face, his eyes, reveal nothing before he says, “I always heard compulsive gamblers get all gushy and reflective when they are free of their debts.”

“Fuck you,” I say, out loud this time.

“I am not judging,” he says, “but I would feel guilty if I failed to bring up what I perceive to be a problem you are having.”

“
You?
Pointing out
my
problems?”

He holds up a palm. “Forget me for the moment. All I am saying is you should address your gambling problem before it dooms you.”

“Gambling problem. Jesus.” I rub the back of my neck. “Old man, one drunk night at Macky's roulette wheel with a wild woman I'd just met doesn't add up to a gambling problem. If you can't see the biggest problem I have at the moment, look in the mirror.”

This doesn't sit well with him.

The truth hurts.

“Fine,” he says. “Let's get the most pressing problem you have with me out of the way right now. Just promise to keep your mouth shut and I will hand over the money I pretended to give Macky.” He hesitates before saying, “And I will chuck in another thirty-five grand and some change to make it an even fifty.”

He stuns me almost as much as he did when he wasted Macky.

“Fifty grand.”

“You heard correctly.”

A lot of fuckin' jack.

So much fuckin' jack that all thoughts of doing the right thing fly from my mind, as do thoughts of overdue notices and calls from debt collectors. These thoughts are replaced by images of me in Bellagio's high-roller room in Vegas; I'm decked out in a tailored silk suit, a Cuban panatela's stuck in the corner of my mouth and coked-up, sexually depraved women in tiny dresses stand at my side.

“You got a deal.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes.”

“Do not take the money if you are the least unsure of your intentions.”

“You're not gonna get a blood oath. When I say it's a deal, it's a deal.”

He works his mouth, his thoughts churning as if he wants to hammer down the understanding more completely, but doesn't know how to do it without fouling the air with a threat. He doesn't have to express the threat. It's all right there behind his eyes.

I say, “I have a condition of my own.”

He nods but not in a way you would describe as agreeable.

“Don't ask me to do anything else for you. I'm going to tell Joe Sacci the same thing.”

This concerns him. “You are quitting Joe?”

“Yeah.”

“You should let today blow over before you do that. Joe and his people might get the wrong idea.”

“And whack me.”

He bobs his head affirmatively. “You know the people you are dealing with as well as I do.”

“Damn right. Donsky, his new number-one guy, is an asshole, and I hear his new bodyguard is much worse—Fecarotta is his name, but I've never met him.” Then something dawns on me. “Does Sacci know I was going with you to Macky's?”

He nods. “Yeah, but—”

“
But
nothing, old man. Now the fucker's got something
else
to hang over my head.”

He smiles. “Calm down, kid. The only two people on earth who know you were at Macky's are me and Chief, and Chief will say nothing. I will just tell Joe I changed my mind about having you along.”

This takes a few seconds to sink in. “You can pull this off?”

He shrugs. “What is there to pull off?”

“If he knows Macky demanded that I be there today, it might not be as easy as you think.”

Completely unconcerned, the old man waves off the thought. “Who cares what Joe knew this morning? Remember who I am to him. I will tell him my version of what went down and he has no reason to doubt it. Just act like nothing has changed, go about your business, and no one will care.”

I nod. “I'll give it a couple weeks before I quit.”

“All right,” he says. “On
that
condition, I will give you the fifty K and expect you to do nothing else for me.”

We nod at each other, and he finally digs in to his food.

Another uncomfortable interval of silence passes between us. At least it's uncomfortable from my end. One reason for this is the old man's eating style—a study in anal retentiveness. He separates his burrito and rice and
charro
beans so they're certain not to touch. Carefully slices the burrito. Cuts the burrito into four equal pieces. Dabs four dots of green tomatillo sauce on each piece, then four dots of red Tabasco. Cuts each fourth into eighths. He will eat seven pieces and not touch the eighth, as if leaving it in tribute to his pagan gods. Only then will he eat any rice, and will eat every grain before moving on to the beans.

The primary reason for my discomfort: the old man hasn't handed over my fucking money.

“In my considerable experience,” I say as he's slicing the last fourth of his burrito into eighths, “when a cop accepts an offer of cash in exchange for illegal services, the offeror immediately coughs up said cash unless otherwise agreed.”

“I don't want you to leave yet….Say, tell me how Nico's doing.”

This would be Nico Wang, an old family friend and the guy who got me connected to the Sacci Family. “Nico's Nico, you know.” I check my watch again. “Look, I really have to go.”

“You mean you have to leave here, right now?”

“Yeah.”

“You
have
to?”

“You could say it's an urgent necessity, yeah.”

“When we arranged the time of the meeting with Macky yesterday, you said you had to stop by and see Nico real quick, then you were free all day, that you had the night off.”

Cornered. Never a good idea to back me into a corner.

I down my mug of beer and try to pour a refill from the full pitcher on the table. The mug overflows and my hand's so numb I can't feel the moisture.

“Frankly, I don't have anything else to say to you. One could even say I'm becoming uncomfortable in your presence.”

His eyes become round and moist and innocent, like those of a disappointed child. “That saddens me more than you know. I was hoping to recover enough of your esteem that you'd go to the ball game with me today.” He pats his breast pocket. “Dodgers and Giants, two tickets in the lower level, third-base line. I even lined up some girls for after the game.”

“A
ball game
?
Whores?
” I look away and bite my lip to keep from laughing. “If you think dangling a whore in front of me is going to get me to a ball game with you, you're even more deranged than I thought you were. It just ain't gonna happen, old man. Today, tomorrow, nev—”

He throws out his hands, beseeching me. “C'mon, Leo, gimme a break. What's the matter with you? I—”

“What's the matter?” The way I laugh reminds me of the way mad scientists cackle in old movies. “What's the
matter
?” I stand too quickly and become light-headed in the process, have to place both hands on the table for support. Reeling, feeling the room tilt, I slur my words. “You're a fuckin' killer, man, that's what's the matter. You kill everybody who gets too close to you.” I jab my thumb into my chest. “So me?
Me?
I'm not gettin' any closer to you than I have to.”

He stands slowly and leans across the table, his expression as slack as a dead man's. “So, that's it. Your mother.”