Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

Peter looked like a little kid who'd just been told to go to bed and didn't like it.

Karen said, "I know you want to see Toby, but I'd rather you wait. He doesn't know that you're here and he doesn't know who you are or anything about you. Give me this evening to talk to him and then you can see him tomorrow."

Peter liked that even less.

Karen said, "If you come out now, you'll just scare him."

Peter shook his head. "Hell, what's he got to be scared of?"

I said, "Any child would be scared, Peter. One day he's comfortable with his life, the next a strange man walks up to him and says, hi, I'm your old man. Everything he knows changes, and everything becomes an unknown. Do you see?"

Peter frowned and sort of pooched out his lips. "Whose side are you on?"

"The kid's. I'm also on yours and Karen's."

Dani said, "You've seen this kind of thing a lot, haven't you?"

I nodded. "A couple of hundred times."

Peter made a big deal out of sighing. Disappointed that he wasn't going to see his kid. "Shit."

Karen said, "I'll tell him this evening, Peter, and that way he has the night to get used to the idea and maybe even excited about meeting you. Then you can meet him tomorrow. You can come to the house. If it goes well, the two of you might go to dinner. You could take him to Dasher's in Brunly. It's his favorite."

"All right. Sure." Peter was starting to nod, thinking that it sounded pretty good.

Karen said, "One thing."

"What?"

She looked at Dani, then at Nick and T.J. "It would be less threatening if it were just the two of you."

"Me and Dani?"

"You and Toby."

Dani shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Peter leaned back and looked uncertain. "I never go anywhere without the guys. What if I get mobbed?"

Karen flattened her hands on the table. "You're not going to get mobbed in my home, believe me."

Peter looked at me, even more uncertain. I nodded. He made a little shrug and then he looked back at Karen. "Okay. That sounds fine. That sounds like you've got it all figured out."

She gave him the flat, cool, vee-pee eyes. "I do. I've been figuring it out for the past ten years, so I'm good at it."

Peter nodded again. "Okay. If that's the way you want to play it. We can check in here. It'll be fine." This wasn't Peter Alan Nelsen. The real Peter Alan Nelsen had stayed in the city and this was Mr. Reasonable, Peter Alan Nelsen's alter ego. Sure. That was it.

The waitress went through a little swinging door they have behind the bar and came back with a fat guy and a skinny black guy with a marcel. She pointed at Peter. Karen watched them for a moment, then said something under her breath and stood. She looked tired again, the way she had the night before when we were going through the bank records and Toby had come out. She said, "Thank you for meeting me here instead of coming to the bank, Peter. And thanks for waiting to see Toby. If we continue to cooperate, I know this all will work out to the good."

Peter looked surprised when she stood, and he took her forearm. "Hey, where you going?"

Karen stiffened as if someone had thrown a switch and she didn't look tired anymore. She looked hard and bright and she stared at his hand without moving.

Peter said, "What?"

Karen's eyes flicked up from the hand to Peter's left eye and held there. Locked on.

Peter gave embarrassed and let go her forearm. "Sorry."

Karen nodded once, giving him okay, then gathered her purse. "I have work."

"That's it? We don't see each other for ten years, and you have work? I've got a lot to tell you. I'll bet you've got questions."

Karen shook her head and smiled at me. "Do you see?"

Peter said, "What's the smile?"

Karen held her purse with both hands and let out a deep breath and looked at him. She said, "Peter, I'm not the same person you knew. I'm not a little bubblehead who wants to be an actress and is impressed when you talk about image density and emotional composition. I'm also not impressed by your success. I don't want your money."

"Hey, who said you did?" Defensive.

"Because I'm not the same, I won't respond to you the way I used to. If I had never seen you again, it would've been fine. But you're Toby's father, and Toby has a right to meet you and know you and judge for himself. I'll work to that end, but don't expect anything more."

Peter made a big deal out of spreading his hands. "I don't understand this hostility."

"Think about it."

He said, "Hey, I'm not looking to get you into the sack. We were married, for Christ's sake. That should mean something. We have a son."

She stared down at him, her face without thought or consideration. "No, we don't," she said. "I do."

She brushed past me and walked across the bar and out the door.

Peter stared after her, his face sort of pinched and confused, and then he shook his head. "I can't believe it. She didn't look happy to see me."

"She wasn't."

He looked at me. "Maybe you were right. Maybe I should play this a little easier." He was nodding to himself. "You've seen this a lot. You know about this."

"Sure."

"Okay, you were right. Peter Alan Nelsen can admit when he was wrong and you were right."

I spread my hands.

He suddenly leaned forward and looked hopeful again. "This didn't go too badly between me and Karen, did it? Not for a first meeting?"

I shook my head. "No," I said. "It went great. She could've shot you."

Pike and I had an early dinner, then went back to our rooms for a fun-filled evening of TV news and East Coast sports. Peter and Dani and Nick and T.J. took three adjoining rooms on the opposite side of the Ho Jo, but didn't join us for the dinner or for the sports. They left in both of the limousines. Taking advantage of the night life, no doubt.

Word of Peter's presence spread, and a news crew from a local television station came out and poked around. A tall thin woman was the on-camera talent. You could tell because she walked fast and every place she went, a short pudgy guy with a minicam followed. Seeking the truth. A few minutes after they got there, a carload of high-school kids cruised by, too. Running down rumors. The tall thin woman interviewed the high-school kids. Truth is where you find it. After that, everybody left. Not much news to be had sitting around a Ho Jo.

The next morning Karen Lloyd phoned me at seven-fifteen. Joe Pike was already gone. She said, "I've spoken with Toby. Tell Peter to be at my home at four o'clock this afternoon." Her voice sounded tired and strained, as if she hadn't gotten much sleep.

"How'd it go?"

"How do you think?" She hung up.

I called Peter Nelsen's room. On the fourth ring Dani answered. I told her about being at Karen Lloyd's at four. She said that she would tell Peter and then she asked if I would like to have breakfast with them. I said that I had things to do, but that I appreciated the offer. There was a little pause and then she said that it might go better this afternoon if I was at Karen's with them. I told her that I would be. She thanked me. She thanked people a lot. I hung up, showered, dressed, ate a short stack of Howard Johnson pancakes and two poached eggs, then drove back to the city to seek out Angelette Silver.

Your Secret Garden was a small shop on 122nd Street between a shoe-repair place and a Rexall Drug Store, along the eastern edge of Morningside Heights, just above the West Side.

As you go north through the West Side, climbing through the nineties and passing into the hundreds, white faces give way to Hispanic and black, and by the time I got to 110th, I was the only white guy around. I kept thinking of Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, but no one was dancing down the streets singing When you're a Jet . I guess they didn't think much of George Chakiris.