Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

I looked through the rest of her bedroom and her closet and then I went into her bathroom. The trick book was wrapped in a freezer-strength Baggie and taped to the underside of her lavatory, along with a little vial of crack cocaine. It had taken me exactly eight minutes and forty seconds to find it. Cops probably do it in less.

I took the book out into the living room, sat on the couch, and looked through it. There were entries dating back ten months to the beginning of the year, and sure enough, exactly five months and one week ago, there was the first mention of Charlie DeLuca. He had seen Gloria on three consecutive days the first week they had met, then five times the following week. The notes were mostly abbreviations, but the abbreviations were obvious. I read them and tried to feel detached and professional, but all I managed was smarmy and embarrassed. None of the notes related to Charlie's business or to anything Charlie might've said about his business.

I looked through every day of every week up until the present and noticed that starting in the fifth week, whenever Charlie's name appeared, another name appeared, too. Santiago.

Hmm.

I flipped back to the beginning of the book again and this time went through looking for Santiago . His first mention was during that fifth week, with Charlie. Maybe Charlie had brought him along. I kept looking. Sometimes Gloria wrote the full name, sometimes she just wrote S. For the next few weeks, every time there was an S , there was also Charlie's name, but after that sometimes there was just the S. Luther had said that Charlie had been around last Tuesday and Friday, but there was no mention of him on those days in the book, just Santiago. Maybe Charlie didn't come around to see Gloria anymore and maybe that's why she didn't list him. Maybe he came to see Santiago.

Hmm, again.

Santiago was penciled in for tomorrow at four-thirty in the afternoon. A Friday. Hmm. Charlie wasn't scheduled, but that was okay. Neither was I.

I closed the trick book, put it back in its plastic bag, then retaped it beneath the lavatory in Gloria Uribe's bathroom and let myself out. When I got down to the street, Luther and his friend were back leaning against the Pontiac. Luther grinned when he saw me, flashing more of the Mike Tyson teeth. I said, "Luther, you know a guy named Santiago, comes around here sometime?"

Luther stopped grinning and shook his head. "I don't want no part of that." He pushed off the Pontiac and walked past me into Clyde's.

I looked after him, and then I looked at Luther's friend. Luther's friend shrugged.

I said, "What was that all about?"

Luther's friend said, "Santiago's her pimp. Few years ago, when she come here, Luther try to get her in his stable and Luther and Santiago have a thing. Santiago 'bout kill Luther. Stick him with an ice pick."

"Oh." Great. "He run any other girls around here?"

"Nah. He been moving up. He some kind of Jamaican gangster now, and he doin' real well. Drives a nice car, wears a fine cut of clothes. I think Luther feelin' jealous."

"Huh."

Luther's friend pushed off the Pontiac. "I better see about Luther. You don't see about him when he get like this, he sulks."

"Right. Thanks for the help."

Luther's friend went into Clyde's.

It was two-forty-five. Still plenty of time to get back to Karen's by four.

I took my time walking back to the Taurus, remembering what Roland George had told me about the Italian mafia hating the Jamaicans and the Cubans and the Asians. Maybe I was on to something. Maybe this was a clue. Maybe if I could ferret out its true and hidden meaning, Karen Lloyd and Toby Lloyd and Peter Alan Nelsen could all live happily ever after. Just like in a movie.

For all of the drive back to Chelam, I wondered what Charlie DeLuca might be doing with a Jamaican gangster named Santiago. All I had to do was find out what.

Igot back to Karen Lloyd's home at twenty minutes before four that afternoon. Karen's LeBaron sat in the drive, but Toby's red Schwinn mountain bike wasn't leaning in its spot against the garage. I parked on the street to leave room for Peter. Karen answered the door in a long beige skirt and a sea-green top with a large ornate necklace that looked like something a Zulu chieftain might wear. Her makeup was freshly applied. She said, "Thank God you're not Peter."

"Yes. I've often thought that myself."

"I'm trying to get the place straight."

The carpet had been vacuumed and the magazines on the hearth tidied and the pictures on the mantel dusted and arranged symmetrically according to size, the largest frames centered around the Early American electric clock, the smallest at the ends. Pike was sitting at the table, sipping tea and staring at the world through his dark, expressionless glasses. I said, "Where's Toby?"

Karen said, "School. He wanted to stay home, but I said no."

"Okay."

"I told him that our lives weren't going to stop because of this. I said that we're still going to be the same people and live here and that he would go to the same school and still have basketball practice."

I looked at Pike and Pike raised his eyebrows. I guess it had been like this all afternoon. I said, "Consistency is important."

"That's right. It is."

She stood in the center of the room, left hand on her left hip and right hand under her chin, inspecting plant location and knickknack placement.

"Are you nervous?"

"Certainly not. I'm tense. That's different." She glanced at the Early American electric, then at her watch. Whatever she saw there didn't agree, so she went to the mantel and added two minutes to the Early American. She straightened a copy of Good Housekeeping that was on an end table next to the couch, picked up a piece of thread from the rug, then went down the hall and into her bedroom. There was a quality of tension to the way she moved that I hadn't seen before.

Pike said, "News crew came to the bank, sniffing around about what she was doing at the Ho Jo with Peter Alan Nelsen. She had the guard throw them out."

"Ah."

"She left early and came home. She's been cleaning all day."

"She's scared. Someone who threatens her sense of identity is about to invade her home."

"Awful lot of cleaning for someone about to invade your home."

"The zen of housecleaning allows one to reach inner peace."

Pike nodded again and sipped more tea. "I've always found that to be true."

I went into the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, then went back into the dining room and sat down with Pike. Karen came out of the hall, stared at the living room for thirty seconds, then went back down the hall. Zen.

I said, "Charlie make contact today?"

Pike shook his head.

"I don't like it. Guys like Charlie don't let it go. They freak out and try to teach you a lesson. He must be working something."

Pike nodded. "You get anything?"

I told him about Gloria Uribe and the Jamaican. Pike said, "The mob doesn't mix with those guys."

I shook my head. "Nope."

Pike said, "Hmm."

At eight minutes before four a black stretch limo came roaring up the street and pulled into the drive. I said, "They're here."

Karen came back down the hall and went to the window. The sea-green top had been replaced by an elegant black sweater and a small but tasteful string of pearls.

Car doors slammed and Karen stepped away from the window. She drew herself up and placed her hands at her sides. "Damnit, I was hoping Toby would get here early." She seemed pale, but maybe it was the light.

I said, "Let's hide and pretend no one's home."

"Very funny."

I'm a riot, you get me going.

She stood in the center of the room and did not move until the doorbell rang. Then she looked at me and said, "I will bet you twenty-five million dollars that the first thing he says will mark him as an asshole."