Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

Peter was shaking his head. "You're gonna follow him around and hope you see a connection? Christ, that could take years."

"It's what we can do."

Peter went to the window. Outside, Toby passed the ball to Dani, who shot and missed. She laughed when she missed and said something that I couldn't understand. Peter said, "All right. If that's the way things are, that's the way things are. I'll take care of it." He was looking sort of pleased with himself.

Karen said, "What do you mean, you'll take care of it?"

Peter made a little no-big-deal gesture with his right hand. "I'll talk to the guy. I'll pass a little cash and smooth him out. I'll take care of you, Karen."

The skin beneath Karen's right eye began to jump. "You'll take care of me." Her voice was soft.

"Sure. We don't need all this running around and following."

I said, "Peter, this isn't some mid-level union fixer looking for a payoff."

"I know what this guy is." Annoyed.

I said, "No, you don't. This guy is a professional nut case who made his bones when he was sixteen years old by killing a man. This guy is not going to do what you want because you're from Hollywood. He's capo of the largest crew in the DeLuca family, and one day he's going to be boss of all the other capos . If he wants to pal around with people from Hollywood, he'll buy a studio."

Peter leaned toward me, giving me the Donnie Brewster treatment. "And I'm telling you I can smooth this guy out. I come three thousand miles and find out the mafia got my family, I know what to do. I'm Peter Alan Nelsen."

Karen leaned toward him. "We're not your family."

Peter's face went red and he blinked behind the thick glasses. "Hey, I'm just trying to help. I'm just trying to take care of the boy. All this following around and waiting, something could happen. Someone could get hurt."

Karen said, "Elvis knows how to do this. If you come barging in, you'll mess it up."

Peter rolled his eyes and made a big deal out of waving his hands. "That's right, that's right. I don't know anything." He looked at me, and then he looked at Karen, and then he shook his head. Mr. Incredulous. "You got no idea how lucky you are. There must be four hundred million women out there wish they had been married to me. You oughta wake up and take advantage."

Karen's face went very white and a small dimple appeared below the corners of her mouth, and she said, "You arrogant sonofabitch. Get out of my home." You could hear her breathe.

Peter slammed out of the door. Outside, the ball stopped bouncing and the voices grew hushed.

Neither of us said anything for a time, and then Karen went to the window and looked out. She lifted her hands and looked at them and said, "My God, I'm shaking."

I nodded.

She put one hand in the other and held them down, looking again at whatever was on the other side of the glass. "I guess I'll have to let him own me a little while longer, won't I?" I didn't know if she was talking about Peter or Charlie, but maybe it didn't matter.

"Yes," I said. "I guess you will."

She nodded. "Okay. If that's what it takes, I can do that."

"You're doing fine."

"I'm surviving."

"Sometimes that's enough."

"No," she said. "It used to be. But it isn't anymore."

Karen Lloyd put out blankets and pillows and towels for Pike and me in a little spare room that she used as a home office. There was a couch and a desk in the little room, and just enough floor space for one of us on the couch and one of us on the floor. Pike said he'd take the floor.

We drove back to the Ho Jo, got our things, and checked out. The waitress who had always wanted to visit California was in the lobby when we paid. She said that she hoped she would see us again soon. I said anything was possible. By the time we got back to Karen Lloyd's, Peter and Dani were gone, Toby was in his room, and Karen had gone to bed. Twenty minutes after seven. Guess it had been a rough day all the way around.

At nine-forty-two the next morning Pike and I cruised past Clyde's Bar on 136th Street, Pike's head moving slightly to check out the fire escape, the alley, the street, the people. Luther and his buddy weren't around, and neither was their Pontiac, but maybe sixty or seventy thousand black people were on their way to work or school or doctor's appointments or the market. Pike said, "Be tough to maintain a low profile around here."

"Maybe we could do the stakeout in blackface."

Pike's mouth twitched.

I felt as obvious now as I had before, but neither was the first time I had felt that way. The first time had been in 1976, not long after I had left the Army, walking with a man named Cleon Tyner in Watts. It was a feeling that everyone was staring at me, even though I could see that they were not. When I told Cleon, he said, now you know what it's like to be black. Cleon Tyner had died in Beverly Hills ten years later, shot to death by an Eskimo.

I said, "Gloria Uribe is on the third floor, 304, up two flights of stairs, on the east side of the building."

"What time is Santiago coming?"

"Four."

"Let me out."

I pulled to the curb, let him out, and drove around the block. My third time around, Pike came out from the alley and slipped into the car. He said, "Maintenance entrance in the back next to an old coal chute, but no way up to the third unless you come through the lobby. You can get up the fire escape in the alley, but a guy coming here for business wouldn't use it Thirty-foot drop to the roof from the next building."

"So anyone who comes or goes is going to come or go through the lobby."

Pike nodded. "We try to hang around here all day, everyone on this street is going to know it. So will the woman."

I turned south on Fifth and dropped down Central Park toward the Village. "We can pick up Charlie. If Charlie doesn't come, it doesn't matter if Santiago shows up or not."

Pike grunted and settled back in the seat. "Let's do it"

I pulled to the curb by a pay phone, called information, and got the numbers for the Figaro Social Club and the Lucerno Meat Company. I called the social club first and asked if Charlie DeLuca was there. A guy with a voice like a rusty gate said no. I called the meat plant and said, "Charlie's office, please." A woman came on and I told her that my name was Mike Waldrone and that Charlie's dad Sal had said that I should call and could I speak to him. She told me that he was on the other line and asked if I wanted to hold. I said no thanks, hung up, and went back to the car. "Meat plant," I said. "Piece of cake."

Twenty-eight minutes later we parked the Taurus just off Grand around the corner from the meat plant, walked back to a fruit shop with a little juice bar in the window, ordered a couple of papaya smoothies, and sat down to watch for Charlie DeLuca. Elvis and Joe go hunting in the city.

Econoline vans and eight-wheel delivery trucks came and went and guys in stained smocks loaded and unloaded packages of meat. At nineteen minutes after ten Ric the Vampire came down the sidewalk carrying a little white bag and took it into the meat plant. Danish, no doubt. At eleven-fifty-one Charlie and Ric came out and got into the black Town Car. Charlie was wearing a three-thousand-dollar Johnson amp; Ivers topcoat and climbed into the front seat. Pike and I hustled back to the Taurus and followed them northwest up across the Village to a little café two doors down from Foul Play Bookstore on Abingdon Square. Charlie went into the restaurant and Ric stayed in the car. In the cafe, Charlie met three other men, also in Johnson amp; Ivers topcoats, and sat in the window where they laughed and talked and read racing forms. Power lunch, no doubt Who will we rob today? Who will we kill?