Lullaby Town (1992) (29 page)

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Authors: Robert - Elvis Cole 03 Crais

BOOK: Lullaby Town (1992)
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"All right."

Pike took Peter by the arm and led him back to the car.

I took off my G-2 jacket, ripped my name out of the inside collar, and put it over Dani's head. Then I followed after them.

Lullaby Town<br/>THIRTY THREE

I stopped at the Texaco station in Chelam and used the pay phone to call Karen Lloyd at the bank. I had to pull off the shoulder rig and the Dan Wesson and leave them in the car. No jacket. The old guy in the hunting cap was still sitting in the hard chair and the old retriever was still lying on his piece of cardboard. The retriever wagged his tail when he saw me.

I told Karen that something had gone wrong and that she should pick up Toby from school and go home. She wanted to know what. I told her that I was at the Texaco station and would tell her when she got home. I said, "Are the printouts of the DeLuca transactions at your house or at the bank?"

"The bank."

"Bring them."

At ten minutes of four we parked in Karen Lloyd's drive and went into the house. Karen was in the living room, looking nervous, and Toby was with her. Peter was sort of slack-jawed and distant and walked as if his knees were stiff. They stared at him. Karen said, "What's wrong?"

"Plans have changed."

Peter said, "They killed Dani."

"What?"

Peter went to the couch and Joe Pike went past them down the hall to Karen's study.

I said, "You guys are going to have to go away for tonight. Maybe a couple of nights. Throw whatever you need into a bag."

Karen started to ask another question, then looked at Toby. "Tobe. Do what he says. Go pack an over-nighter."

Toby took a couple of steps back along the hall, then stopped.

Joe Pike came back with his duffel bag and took out a 12-gauge Winchester autoloader and a box of Remington Long Range Express shotgun shells. Number 4 buck. The autoloader had an illegal 14-inch barrel and a pistol grip in place of a stock. When Karen saw the shotgun, she said, "Oh my God. What is happening here?"

Pike took a Browning .32 automatic in an ankle holster out of the bag and showed it to me. "You want the backup?"

"Yes."

He handed it to me and I put it on. I made sure the safety was off.

"Tell me what happened!"

I told her. I told her that at about the time Pike and I had been in her office, explaining what we hadf ound out and what we were going to do with it, Peter and Dani had gone to see DeLuca and that now Dani was lying beneath an on-ramp to the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn. When I said the part about Dani, Karen's face went gray and she said, "You stupid sonofabitch."

Peter looked at the floor.

I pulled my pants leg down to cover the Browning and Karen said, "What are we going to do?"

"It's not just Charlie anymore, but there's still maybe a way to do this without the cops. Before, we had it contained and we could have worked it so that we were dealing only with Charlie, but now that's different. We shot two DeLuca soldiers. One of them is dead and the other might be. Charlie's going to have to explain where the dead guys are and how they got dead."

"So what will he do?"

"He'll hit us. He'd rather lose the laundering setup than risk the other capos or the Gambozas finding out what he's been doing."

Karen said, "Maybe we can talk to him. Maybe we should call him."

"It's past that."

"What can we do?"

Pike said, "Sal."

Karen looked at Pike, then me.

I nodded. "Sal's our only way out. Charlie's thinking he's got to end it. He's got to get all of us before we send up the flare. So we go to Sal and we lay it out for him just like we were going to lay it out for Charlie. Sal won't want the Gambozas or the other families to find out what Charlie has been doing any more than Charlie."

Karen nodded, maybe looking hopeful. Toby had worked his way back to the living room and she hadh er arm around him. He was staring at Peter.

"Did you bring the account records?"

She got them out of her purse in the dining room and gave them to me.

I said, 'Joe will stay with you. Does Charlie know about May Erdich's place?"

Karen shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Go there. If they come here looking for you tonight and don't find you, they might get the idea to look around. They'll check the Ho Jo, so don't go there. Get a room with May Erdich. If it goes okay, I'll come to May's when it's done."

"All right."

Maybe Peter could feel the weight of Toby's eyes. He looked up and he said, "I got her killed. I'd make it better if I could, but this is what I've done."

Toby turned and ran down the hall.

Peter Alan Nelsen, the King of Adventure, put his face in his hands and sobbed like a baby.

I borrowed Pike's coat and pulled it on. It was a little big, but it fit well enough. I folded the account records and put them in the right outside pocket.

Karen said, "Peter."

Peter's shoulders shook and what you could see of his face looked red and splotched.

Karen said, "Goddamnit, Peter, we don't need to listen to this."

Peter cried harder.

Karen crossed her arms and looked out the window, and then she walked over to Peter Alan Nelsen and put her hand on his back. Peter gulped air and made a deep, racking sob and hugged her around the hips and cried into her skirt. Karen Lloyd stared at the ceiling and patted his back.

I walked out of the house and climbed into the Taurus and drove hard through the falling darkness all the way down to Manhattan and Sal DeLuca's.

Lullaby Town<br/>THIRTY FOUR

Sal 'The Rock" DeLuca had three adjoining brown-stones just east of Central Park on 62nd Street. One block in from the park a homeless woman with two children was building a little hut out of cardboard against somebody's front gate while a wino staggered by and offered her a drink. The wino didn't look where he was going, tripped over something, stumbled around in a wide orbit with a lot of hand waving, then fell onto the cardboard and threw up. The homeless woman kicked him in the balls. Anywhere else in America, East 62nd Street was a place you'd avoid after the sun went down, but not in New York. In New York, people paid millions to live on East 62nd Street. There were trees on East 62nd. The French Embassy was around the corner. Charlie DeLuca's black Lincoln Town Car wasn'ta round, but a couple of guys in a maroon Mercedes were. If Sal knew what Charlie was up to with the Jamaicans, I figured that Charlie would come to Sal first for damage control. If Sal didn't know, then Charlie would charge straight out to Chelam and try to end it before Sal found out. The black Town Car not being around was a good sign, but maybe Charlie had come with somebody else. He even might've taken a cab.

I made the block twice, then parked on Fifth and walked back, trying to figure a way to see Sal without getting killed. The two guys in the Mercedes watched me as I walked past.

The homeless woman and her children were huddled in their little cardboard house and the wino was sitting with his back against the building, holding his crotch with one hand and his bottle with the other. I made a big deal out of weaving as I walked and stopped a couple of times as if I had to steady myself and then I sat down next to the wino and studied the block. There were no fire escapes to creep up and no alleys to slip within and no second-story landings to leap to in a single bound. There were only the two guys in the Mercedes and another guy hanging around on Sal the Rock's top step. Phoning for an appointment probably wouldn't work.

The wino burped softly and gingerly fingered his crotch.

I said, "Pretty nasty shot she gave you."

He nodded ruefully. "Women have been my ruination."

"Is there any wine left in your bottle?"

The wino lifted the bottle and looked at it forlornly. "Alas. Non." Our breaths were fogging in the cold night air.

"May I have it?"

He placed the bottle carefully on the sidewalk. "My world is yours to share."

I picked up the bottle and wobbled across the street.

The two guys in the Mercedes and the guy standing on the top step watched me, but it was the guys in the Mercedes I was worried about.

I leaned against one of the trees for a while and pretended to drink, then continued along the sidewalk until I came to Sal DeLuca's. When I got to Sal's, I sat on the bottom step.

The guy on the top step said, "Beat it, rummy." He was a little guy with a squinty face.

I mumbled something and hugged the bottle.

"Hey, asshole, I said beat it." He pounded down the steps and grabbed me by the back of the jacket and tried to lift me. When he lifted, he pulled me to him and I pushed the Dan Wesson into the soft flesh beneath his ribs. I said, "If you give it away, you die first."

He stopped moving and stared direcdy into my eyes.

I said, 'Take me up the steps. Walk like you're helping me. We're going inside. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Is Sal DeLuca in there?"

"Yes."

"Is Charlie DeLuca in there?"

"No."

"Who else is in there?"

"The old man. Vito and Angie. The staff." I didn't know who Vito and Angie were, but it didn't seem to matter.

"Let's go."

We went up the steps, walking close so that the gun was hidden between us.

Halfway up, the passenger side of the Mercedes opened and one of the guys got out. "Hey, Freddie."

I dug the gun into Freddie's side a little harder. "Tell'm you're getting me something to eat"

Freddie told him.

The guy at the Mercedes laughed and called Freddie an asshole.

We went up the rest of the way and Freddie let us into a long marble entry with a high ceiling and ornate stairs. The house was quiet. I said, 'Take me to Sal."

"You gotta be crazy."

"If I was crazy, I'd have said take me to your leader." I gave him another prod.

We went down the long entry, then through a living room that looked like it was maybe a hundred years old and then into a wood-paneled den with a fireplace. Sal DeLuca was sitting with a couple of well-dressed guys close to his age, the two guys on one couch and Sal on another, facing each other across a little table. Vito and Angie. They had hard, lined faces, and one of them had a gray mustache, and both of them looked at me with the sort of mild curiosity you reserve for a strange dog with a skin rash. Capos. Mafia executive material.

Sal looked surprised. "What do you want?"

Then Sal saw the gun.

Sal DeLuca was in his early sixties and maybe five ten but he was very wide, with the sort of muscular density that allows great strength. He would've been very strong when he was younger, and he was probably very strong now. They don't call you Sal the Rock because you're wuzzy. He had a round face and protruding eyes and a wide mouth and fleshy lips, sort of like a frog's. He was wearing a deep blue smoking jacket. The last guy I'ds een in a smoking jacket was Elmer Fudd, but I didn't tell him that. Instead I said, "Two of your soldiers were killed today in Brooklyn. I'm the guy who killed them. Charlie DeLuca is partnered with a Jamaican gangster named Jesus Santiago. No one knows it yet, but they're stealing dope from the Gamboza brothers."

The guy with the gray mustache said, "Hey."

The other guy said, "You gotta be outta your fuckin' mind."

Sal DeLuca didn't say anything, but when I mentioned Charlie, something cold flickered in his eyes and I felt scared.

I said, "I wanted you to find out first, Sal. I didn't want it to get around before you knew." I lowered the Dan Wesson.

Lullaby Town<br/>THIRTY FIVE

Sal said, "Vito."

The guy with the mustache hopped up and took the gun. Vito. I said, 'There's a .32 on my right ankle." He took that, too, and put both guns on the little table between the two couches. Sal picked up the Dan Wesson with his left hand, felt its weight, and then he looked at me and nodded. "You got balls, I'll give you that. What's your name?"

"Elvis Cole."

"That's a stupid fucking name."

"Better than Elvis Jones."

Sal made up his mind about something and leaned back in the chair, still holding the Dan Wesson. "Okay. You got fifteen seconds to tell me something that will save your life."

Sal said, "Freddie, you wait in the hall."

Freddie looked nervous. "He had the gun, Sal. I couldn't help it."

"Wait in the hall." The cold thing still alive in his eyes.

Freddie went out into the hall.

Angie said, "Sal, you don't believe this shit, do you? Guy comes in like this, a stranger?"

Sal made a little hand move. "So now he has to prove it."

I said, "Take something out of my right front pocket?"

Sal nodded.

I took out the computer sheets and gave them to him.

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