Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

Karen Shipley watched him drive away and then she got back into her LeBaron and started the engine and put her face into her hands and cried. She slapped the LeBaron's steering wheel and screamed so loudly that I could hear her even with the windows up and the engine running.

She cried for another five minutes and then she dried her eyes and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, and when it was perfect she drove away.

I ran back through the woods and pushed the Taurus over a hundred on the roads back to Chelam and picked up Karen Shipley again just as she turned into the bank's parking lot. I pulled up beside the grocery and watched. It was six-fifty-two. Still plenty of time before Joyce Steuben or the teller would arrive.

Karen got out of the LeBaron and carried the duffel bag into the bank. Ten minutes later she came out with the duffel now deflated and folded into a tight roll. She walked across the street to a public waste can in front of the hardware store and threw the duffel away.

Someone in a green and white Chevy Blazer drove by, beeped his horn, and waved. Neighborly. Karen Shipley did not wave back. She walked with her eyes forward and her face set all the way back into the bank. She looked tired and old. Older than the lemon-pie girl in the 8 X 10.

I sat in the Taurus in the empty grocery store lot and watched the town come to life. A rural town with small-town ways. The air was cool and smelled of maple and the coming of Halloween. I turned on the radio. A man and a woman were discussing all the fine recipes you could make with pumpkins and the other autumn squash. A little bit of butter. A little cinnamon. A little sugar. After a while I turned off the radio.

Fall used to be my favorite time of the year.

Icalled the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles from a pay phone at a Shell station just off the interstate and said, "This is foot patrol Officer Willis Sweetwell, badge number five-oh-seven-two-four. I need wants and warrants on New York plate sierra-romeo-golf-six-six-one. And gimme the registration on that, too." They either go for it or they don't.

There was a little pause, then a guy with a deep voice said, "Wait one." Score for the Jack Webb.

The deep voice came back on and told me there were neither wants nor warrants on six-six-one, and that it was registered to the Lucerno Meat Company at 7511 Grand Avenue in lower Manhattan.

I said, "You don't have an individual on that?"

"Nope. Looks like a company car."

I said, Thanks for the help, buddy. Have a good day." Cops like to say "buddy."

I took the Merrill Parkway down through While Plains, then went across the peninsula to the Henry Hudson Parkway and down along the western rim of Manhattan with the Hudson River off to my right. A green treesy park followed along the river with joggers and old people and kids who should've been in school hanging out and laughing and having a good time. I passed Grant's Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument and then the Hudson parkway became the West Side Highway and the green strip of park was gone and the road ran along the waterfront. Lee J. and Marlon, slugging it out. You hear that the Hudson is ugly and barren, but I didn't see any dead fish or floating bodies, just a couple of nice sailboats and about a million Japanese container ships and a Cessna floatplane tied to a short pier.

At the Holland Tunnel I went east along Canal, crossing lower Manhattan between Little Italy and Chinatown. The buildings were old and made of red brick or yellow brick or stone, some painted and some not, each webbed with a tarnished latticework of fire escapes. People jammed the sidewalks, and yellow cabs roared over the streets without regard to traffic lanes or bicyclists or human life, and no one seemed to see anyone else, as if each person was inalienably alone and liked it that way, or at least was used to it.

Lucerno's Meat Packing Plant was in a two-story redbrick industrial building between a tire wholesaler and a textile outlet, four blocks from the Manhattan Bridge. There was a drive and a large crushed-gravel parking lot on the side where Econoline vans and six-by trucks turned around and backed up to a loading dock. Five cars were parked at the far end of the lot, out of the trucks' way. The second car from the end was the black Lincoln.

I pulled into the lot past the six-bys, whipped a snappy turn like I was trying to get out of the place, put it into reverse, backed up, and crunched the Lincoln nicely. I turned off the Taurus, got out, and made a big deal out of looking at what I had done. The Lincoln's left front headlight was popped and the chrome around it crumpled and the bumper compressed. A couple of black guys in dirty white aprons up on the loading dock were watching me. One of the black guys went into the warehouse and yelled something, and then a little guy in a white jumpsuit and a clipboard came out. I walked over and said, "I was trying to turn around and I backed into that Lincoln. Do you know who owns it?"

The little guy came over to the edge of the dock and stood with his boot tips hanging over and looked at the cars. Lucerno's Fine Meats was embroidered on the back of his coveralls with red thread and FRANK was sewn over his left breast pocket. His face was sour and lined, like maybe he'd just checked his lunch pail and discovered that his wife had given him a roach sandwich. He said, "Jesus Christ, where'd you learnta drive? Wait here a minute." He went back into the warehouse. The two black guys finished loading a dolly of white boxes into a six-by. They took the boxes off the dolly two at a time and slid them into the six-by so hard that the boxes slammed into the truck with a heavy thud. Tenderizing the meat.

In a little while Frank came back and said, "Forget it you’re off the hook."

I looked at him. "What do you mean, forget it?" Best-laid plans.

"Just what I said. You had a bad break, but we're not gonna bust your chops about it. Take off." The old smash-their-car-and-offer-to-pay-for-it routine wasn't getting me very far.

I said, The headlight's smashed and the bumper's pretty dinged up and the frame around the light is busted. Maybe the owner should come take a look."

"It's a company car. Forget it."

"I don't want to forget it. I'm responsible. I oughta pay something to somebody."

He gave me Desi looking at Lucy, the look saying, Jesus Christ, what did I marry? "I'm giving you a pass, capisce ? What, are you stupid?"

I said, "You know, that's the trouble with America today. Everybody's looking for a pass. Nobody wants to own up. Well, not me. I own up. I take what's coming to me. I pay my way." Maybe I could appeal to his national pride.

One of the black guys adjusted his crotch and laughed. He had two gold inlays on the right side of his mouth. Frank took a deep breath, let it out, and said, "Look, I got work to do. You came in here, you busted the car, and you came looking for someone to do right by it. Great. But I'm standing here telling you that it's okay. I work here. We seen what happened and it's okay. I'm telling you that you ain't gotta pay a dime, you ain't gotta say you're sorry, you ain't gotta do dick. Okay?"

"But you don't own the car?"

He spread his hands and blinked. "What?"

"And you don't own the company."

"What?" His voice was getting higher.

"If you don't own the car and you don't own the company, then how do I know you've got the right to tell me it's okay?"

He shook his head and looked at the sky. "I can't fuckin' believe this."

"Tell me who drives the car," I said. "Maybe the guy who drives the car should tell me it's okay."

"Jumpin' Jesus fuckin' Christ with a hard-on."

"It seems only fair."