Lullaby Town (1992) (28 page)

"Yes."

"If you do, Tommy Gamboza swears that he will find out. If you do, the entire Gamboza family will seek you out no matter where you might hide, and we will kill you. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Get out of here."

He ran out of the alley, knocking into a garbage can, then bouncing off a wall, then disappearing around the corner and into the street.

Pike said, '"Seek you out'?"

"Too dramatic?"

Pike frowned.

Everybody's a critic.

Karen Lloyd gave me confused. "He's stealing from other criminals?"

"Yes."

"How can you go to the police with that?" She was leaning against the front edge of her desk at the bank with her arms crossed. Pike and I were sitting in the two chairs opposite. It seemed colder in Chelam than it had in New York, but maybe that was because it was later and the damp clouds and the cold air pushing down from Canada had gained greater purchase over the woods and the fields and the small clean buildings.

I said, "We won't go to the police. We'll go to Charlie. He isn't just stealing money and hiding it from his father and the other capos in his own family,h e's stealing from another family in direct violation of a treaty that the DeLucas made with the other families." I gave her what Rome George had given me, how the families had divided up territory and crime, and how nobody much liked it but everybody had been living with it. "Until now."

She nodded, seeing it as a banker would see it, IBM and Xerox negotiating a market arrangement. "All right. He's violating a trade agreement."

"Yeah. Only he's got more to worry about than the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the Gambozas found out that Charlie DeLuca was stealing from them in collaboration with the Jamaicans, they'd kill him and they'd probably try to kill Sal, too."

Karen blinked at Pike, then at me. "Does Sal know?"

"Probably not, but it doesn't matter. If he doesn't know, it makes things cleaner because we only have to deal with Charlie. If Sal's in on it, then we have to deal with him, too. A little more complicated, but the outcome is the same."

She wet her lips, getting anxious with it, thinking it through and seeing the potential, but unwilling to commit until all the i's were dotted and the fs crossed. She shook her head. "Even if he goes along, we'll still know. Charlie's going to think that. He's going to think that the only way to keep himself safe is to kill us."

I said, "He'll think about it, but we'll set things up so that he can't. We'll bring in Rollie George. We'll make sure that other people know what we know, and we'll prove it to Charlie so that he knows it, too. If he kills us, he gets screwed. Do you see?"

She wet her lips again and made a very small nod, still thinking it through. "We go to Charlie, we say that he has to let go of me or we tell the Gambozas."

"Yes."

"We tell him that people we trust know, too, so that if anything happens to us, the Gambozas will still be told."

"Yes. If we die, he dies. We make this deal, it's a deal we honor forever. We can't change our minds. Do you see?"

She nodded again, stronger. "Of course. When are you going to do this?"

"I'll call Rollie this evening and maybe drive down to the city to talk with him. He knows people in publishing and on the cops we can trust. We'll have to get together with them and set up what we know and how to prove it to Charlie. It'll take a couple of days."

"And then we do it."

"Yep. We do it."

She wet the lips again and looked at Pike, then me. "What if it doesn't work?"

"If it doesn't work, we go to the Gambozas and you go in to the cops for witness protection. It isn't what you want, but it's the best hand we've got."

She made a hissing sound and her eyes sort of fluttered for a moment, but then she nodded. "Yes. I believe it's the best we can hope for, too." She went around behind her desk and sat with her fingers laced in front of her, very much like she did the first time I came into her office. Businesslike. "I've thought about what you said last night. I've decided that you're right. It would be best for everyone if Toby went back to California with Peter until this is resolved."

"Okay."

"Peter can take Toby as soon as possible. I'd like him to be in California before we meet with Charlie."

"All right. I'll stop by the motel and set it up."

She nodded tightly. "Thank you. I'll tell Toby when I see him after school."

Pike and I drove to the Howard Johnson's looking for Peter, but the limo was gone. We went in to the front desk and asked if they knew when Mr. Nelsen would be back. They said they didn't, but that his friends were in the bar and that they might know. We went into the bar.

Nick and T. J. were sitting at a little round table, drinking Heinekens and eating hamburgers. Nick said, "Hey, look, it's Mike Hammer and his sidekick, Tonto."

T. J. laughed with his mouth full.

I said, "Where's Peter?"

Nick said, "Peter said you're canceled, pal, so he's taking care of business himself. We don't need you anymore."

I said, "What do you mean, Peter's taking care of business?"

"He got tired of waiting around. He and Dani went to straighten out the wop."

"He and Dani went to see DeLuca?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"A little while ago."

Pike moved next to me.

"Where?"

Nick gave me the smirk. "Hey, fuck you. It's not your business."

Pike stepped in close, took out his .357, and touched it to Nick's upper lip. "Tonto wants to know."

Nick stopped smirking and T. J. stopped laughing. Nick said, "Some meat place. He got the address from the operator."

Pike and I ran out of the Ho Jo and pushed the Taurus hard back along the state road to the expressway and then down to Manhattan.

We were half a block from the meat plant when a brown Nissan Sentra nosed out of the parking lot and into the street. Two guys I hadn't seen before were in the front seat and Ric was in the back with Dani and Peter. Peter's head was sort of lolling to the side.

Pike said, "We get the chance, we take them in traffic.'' He took out his Python and held it in his lap.

I let the Sentra make its first corner, then I jerked the Taurus around and caught up to them going east on Canal to climb the Manhattan Bridge across the East River to Brooklyn.

The bridge was electric with late-afternoon congestion as thousands of cars raced for home before the bridge gridlocked. If the bridge was locked now, what we were trying to do would be easy, but the bridge wasn't locked. Traffic coursed and bumper-to-bumper cars weaved from lane to lane, cutting each other off, hitting their brakes and making it hard to keep the Sentra in sight. Pike rolled down the passenger window and climbed out to sit on the door, but it didn't help. Eight cars ahead of us and two lanes over, the Sentra took the second exit ramp over the Brooklyn shore and that's where we lost it.

Pike said, "Off-ramp."

I blew the horn and cut in and out between three cars and knocked the bumper off a green Dodge station wagon, but I kept going.

We jumped across the two right lanes and hit the off-ramp in a skid and followed it down in a great looping arc over factories and waterfront and chain-link fences and bridge supports, Pike standing as tall as he couldi n the window, trying to spot the Sentra, finally yelling, "Got it."

The Sentra was below us in a U-Stor-It yard under one of the on-ramps leading back to Manhattan. The two guys were out of the Sentra's front seat and Ric and Peter and Dani were getting out of the back. One of the guys from the front was wearing a red leather jacket with very wide shoulders. The other had a gun out. Revolver.

We came off the ramp at the rear of the storage yard on the wrong side of a ten-foot chain-link fence. I said, "Faster to go over it."

We went up and over and came out between two corrugated-metal storage sheds eighty yards away as Ric took out the stainless-steel ten, pointed it at Peter, and said something to the guy with the revolver. Peter was standing with his hands up the way he'd had actors stand in his movies. Eighty yards away, you could see that his face was white and his eyes looked scooped out behind the thick glasses. Dani was maybe a half step in front of him. Peter said something to Ric and put out his hands, maybe saying please don't shoot, and Ric raised his gun to eye level and Dani went for him. I yelled, but it didn't do any good. Ric's gun popped once and the right back quarter of Dani's head blew off. Then I had the Dan Wesson out and Pike had his .357 and we were firing at them, eighty yards away, me screaming at Peter to get down, but Peter standing there, still with his hands up.

The guy with the revolver went down.

Ric ran toward the Sentra, firing as he went, and the guy in the red jacket pulled out a black automatic. Bullets slapped into the little corrugated sheds around us with the sound of hammers hitting garbage cans and left silver streaks on the tarmac where they hit and bounced into ac oncrete bridge support. The guy in the red jacket fired fast, bapbapbap, and then he went for the Sentra, too. I shot him in the back. He fell in through the Sentra's front passenger window as Ric roared away, fishtailing into storage sheds and a boat trailer, and then through the far gate.

When the Sentra was gone, the storage yard was still.

We got to Dani as fast as we could, but there wasn't anything to do.

Peter said, "He told that guy Ric to kill me." He was talking fast and there was a knot below his left eye, like maybe someone had hit him there. His hands were still in the air. 'Just like that, he said kill'm. I said I'm Peter Alan Nelsen. I said you can't kill me. He said, you wanna bet? And then these guys were bringing us out here and they were gonna kill me." Me. Me and I.

I stood up. "Dani."

He was hopping from foot to foot, confused and squinting at me. "What?"

"They killed Dani." I said it carefully, each word distinct.

He gave me more of the confused and said, "What?" Pike was squatting next to her body and I was standing over her, and Peter and I were talking about her, but he hadn't looked at her and he hadn't said anything about her. He said, "I told'm you can't do this to me. I'm Peter Alan Nelsen."

I went over to him and said, "Put down your hands."

He put down his hands.

I punched him in the chest with my right hand. He fell backward and landed hard on his butt and said, "Hey, what did you hit me for?" Surprised.

I grabbed him by the hair and lifted him as high as I could and I hit him in the face. His nose popped with a little spray of blood and I hit him again. He started to cry. I said, "Who's lying right there? What's her name?"

"Dani." He still wouldn't look at her.

"Look at her."

"No." Blubbering now.

I knotted his hair between my fingers and turned his face toward the body and pointed at her. "Look at her."

He clenched his eyes tight. "No!"

I slapped him hard on the left side of his face two times and then I dug my fingers at his eyes, prying them open. I said, "Look at her, you sonofabitch. Dani's lying there and not you. They killed Dani. Do you see her? They didn't kill you." Peter covered his face, peering out from between his fingers at what was left of the woman who picked up his candy wrappers. I said, "Do you see her, Peter?"

He coughed out a great whooping sob. "Dani."

I let go of him.

He rocked forward and crawled toward her body. "It's my fault," he said. "Oh God, it's my fault."

I didn't say anything. I was breathing hard and something sharp throbbed behind my right eye.

Peter sat on his knees next to her, and touched her muscular arm, and cried all the harder. It made me feel ashamed.

Pike came up behind me. "Ric will go to DeLuca. Things will happen fast now."

"Yes." I took a deep breath and let it out. "Peter?"

"What?" He didn't look at me.

"Did you tell Charlie that we were on to the Jamaicans?"

He nodded, still not looking at me.

"Did you tell him we knew about the secret accounts?"

Another nod.

It felt cold and damp and ready to snow. Above us, the roadway vibrated with cars and trucks and thousands of people. Around us was a city of millions. We'd fired maybe fifteen high-velocity pistol rounds, yet no one came.

Pike said, "Charlie will panic. He'll do the first thing he thinks of and that means he'll come for us and for Karen and the boy. He won't want anyone around who knows about the accounts or the Jamaicans."

I looked down at Dani. "We'll have to leave her."

Pike said, "Yes."

I lifted Peter Alan Nelsen to his feet. He didn't look at me or at Pike and he didn't resist; he stared at Dani's body.

I said, "Did you hear? Did you understand?"

Peter nodded.