Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

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 directly 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'd seen 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.

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.

"What the fuck is this?"

"Transaction records of your money-laundering operation through the First Chelam Bank. You remember Karen Lloyd?"

Sal nodded again.

I glanced at Vito and Angie. "You want to do this alone?"

Sal said, "You're not from New York. Where you from?"

"California."

He made a little head move, like that explained it. "This is my brother Vito. This is my cousin Angie. We're family here. You understand family?"

"Yes."

"Say what you came to say."

I walked them through the eight accounts. I showed them how the deposits in Charlie's private account went from nickel and dime to the mid-five figures starting about five months ago, when Charlie had met Gloria Uribe and through her fell in with Jesus Santiago. I told them that Charlie had turned a Gamboza hype named Richie Sealy and that the hype fed information to Charlie about incoming Gamboza dope shipments and that Charlie then sold the information to the Jamaicans so that they could hijack the dope. I told them about following Charlie to Queens and the meeting that I had witnessed between Charlie and the Jamaicans and the cop from Kennedy airport. I told him about Peter and Dani and what had happened in Brooklyn under the Manhattan Bridge. I spoke slowly and carefully and I gave them names and addresses and times of day.

When I was finished, nobody said anything. Angie was chewing at his upper lip and Vito was staring at the fireplace. It was a long time before Sal moved or spoke, and when he did it wasn't to me. "Vito, we hear anything about the Gambozas getting ripped off?"

Vito shrugged, not wanting to commit himself. "Something about maybe some niggers took down a load of Gamboza dope. Who listens? We got no financial interest in dope anymore. We gave that up to the Gambozas."

Sal shook his head. "We traded with them, Vito. We gave them our piece of the dope for their piece of the labor."

Angie said, "Hey, Sal, this mook's talking about your kid, for chrissake. I think he's fulla shit."

Sal went over to the fireplace and stared at the dead coals, already knowing it was true. He said, "We got somebody in the coroner's over in Queens?"

"Yeah."

"Check it out."

"Jesus Christ, Sal. It's Charlie."

"Check it out. Who's running the nigger whores for the Gambinos?"

"Marty Rotolo."

"Call'm. Find out about this Gloria Uribe."

Vito picked up the phone and punched in a number and spoke in a voice that was difficult to hear. He spoke for a few seconds, then hung up, but he stood with his hand on the receiver, not moving for maybe five minutes. Sal moved less than Vito. The Rock. When the phone rang, Vito picked it up and listened without saying anything. When he finished with that call, he made two more and then put down the phone and turned back to Sal. "They found a woman's body when they found Carmine. Under the Manhattan Bridge."

"Dani," I said. "Her name was Dani."

"Stevie says Charlie's catting around with the Uribe woman. He said the Gambinos don't know anything about her because she's Jamaican. She's mixed up with some other Jamaican named Jesus Santiago."

Sal made a soft hissing sound, steady and high-pitched, as if some core of deep pressure within him had been tapped. Angie said, "Jesus Christ, Sal."

Sal went to the door and told Freddie to come in. "Find Charlie and tell him I want to see him."