Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

He shook his head.

"Would you be afraid at midnight if we were alone?"

He walked a moment. "I have the capacity for great violence."

I nodded. So did I. But I thought that I might still be afraid.

Pike slipped his hands into the pockets of his parka and we walked past a smaller pond where an older man and a couple of young girls were sailing a model sailboat. A man and a woman decked out in serious biking apparel were standing with a tandem bike, watching them. We stopped and watched them, too, and I wondered how deeply into winter the pond could venture before it would freeze. The brisk fall wind carried the boat well across the pond. Pike said, "Elvis?"

"Yeah?"

"I remember being afraid. I was very young."

We watched the old man and the girls and the boat, and then we left the park and walked down to the brownstones that used to belong to Sal DeLuca. There were no limos at the curb or thugs hanging around the stoop. There was a black bow on the door.

Joe stayed on the corner at Fifth Avenue and I went up to the door and rang the bell once. In a little bit Freddie opened the door and looked out at me. His face was flat and without expression. "Yeah?"

"You hear about Charlie?"

"We heard."

"I'm at the Park Lane."

"Swell. Have a party."

"Tell Vito. Tell Angie. I'll be there until this is squared away."

Freddie gave me the patented tough-guy sneer. "We got no business with you."

"That's where you're wrong. Tell Vito and Angie. The Park Lane."

The next morning there was a three-inch article on page six of The New York Times . It reported that a prostitute named Gloria Uribe and a man believed to be her pimp, one Jesus Santiago, were found shot to death in a warehouse in lower Manhattan. Authorities had no leads as to the circumstances of their deaths. In a separate article on page eighteen a Jamaican national and known drug dealer named Urethro Mubata was found murdered in the front seat of his late-model Jaguar Sovereign in Queens. His throat was cut so deeply that the head was almost separated from the body. Police speculated his death to be the result of a drug deal gone sour. The New York Post reported that Richard Sealy, a drug addict, had been found dead in a Port Authority men's room with multiple fractures of the head, neck, both arms, and left leg. Guess junkies don't rate the Times .

Loose ends were being tied.

Two days later, in the afternoon, I was walking down Central Park West across from the Hayden Planetarium when a blue Cadillac Eldorado pulled up beside me. Pike was maybe forty yards back and across the street. Vito DeLuca opened the door and looked out at me. "Get in."

I got in. Freddie was in the front seat, driving. Vito was in back, alone. Vito said, "I'm capo de tutti capo . You know what that means?"

"You're Marlon Brando."

Vito smiled, but there was something hard and tired in it. The weight of responsibility. "Yeah. You killed a lot of our guys."

"Charlie's people."

"Some of the capos , they don't like it. They think something should be done."

"What do you think?" Out the window, past Vito, I could see Joe Pike moving closer, talking to a guy who was selling Middle Eastern food from a little cart.

Vito looked out the window but saw only people on the street. "I think Charlie came very close to bringing dishonor to the family. He was my nephew, my blood, but Sal was my brother. Sal knew how a man acts. You behaved like a man behaves. These guys, they talk about California and granola and Disneyland, I say, Christ, he put ten of our guys in the ground. If he was Sicilian, I'd kiss him on the mouth. He could be a made guy."

"What about Karen Lloyd?"

Vito turned back and looked at me. He said, "Sal DeLuca was capo de tutti capos , and when he spoke, he spoke for the family. The DeLucas honor their word. Capisce?"

"Charlie wouldn't."

"Charlie's dead."

I nodded.

"She's out. She will never be seen by DeLuca family eyes again. The DeLuca family will always honor that."

He put out his hand and we shook. When we shook, he squeezed my hand hard, so hard that it cut off the blood. More than one rock in the family. He said, "The agreement works both ways. Does the woman know that?"

"Yes."

"Does her husband? The movie guy?" Peter Alan Nelsen, the movie guy.

"Yes. I'll be responsible for them."

He nodded. "That's right. You will. For the rest of your life."

He let go of my hand and I got out of the limousine and walked across the street. Joe Pike and I went back to the hotel, called Karen Lloyd at her bank, and told her what Vito DeLuca had said. We checked out that afternoon.

October moved into November, and three weeks later, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, I was on my deck grilling salmon steaks and Japanese eggplant for Cindy, the beauty supply distributor, and Joe Pike and another woman named Ellen Lang. Ellen Lang had been a client once, several years ago, and since then she and Joe Pike have seen each other, time to time. She had a deep tan, and when she laughed there were dimples high on her cheeks. Laughter came easier to her now than in that earlier time.

Joe Pike and Cindy and Ellen Lang were inside, making salad and garlic bread and mint tea, when the phone rang. Someone inside answered it, and Ellen Lang came out and said, "There's a call for you. It's Peter Alan Nelsen. The director."

I said, "Wow. Maybe this is my big break."

She said, "Oh, you."

Ellen stayed with the salmon and I went inside and took it in the kitchen. On the counter next to the sink, Pike sliced the long French bread and put it on a tray while Cindy watched him. Cindy had soft auburn hair and expressive brown eyes. I liked watching her watch Pike's precise moves.

Peter said, "They're coming out to visit."

"Karen and Toby?"

"Yeah. He's got a week off for Thanksgiving and I asked'm to come out."

"Great." I already knew, because Karen had called and told me.

"She doesn't want him traveling alone, so she's coming, too."

"Even better."

"She's not coming by herself. She's bringing some guy." She had also told me that.

"She's got a life, Peter. That's a good thing. Why don't you get a date and the four of you can go out one night. Leave Toby with me."

"I know. I know." He didn't say anything for a little bit. "Listen, when they're out, I'm gonna bring Toby to the set, take'm to Disneyland, that kind of thing. You think you could sorta be around some of the time? At first."

Pike finished cutting the garlic bread and Cindy took it outside. She wriggled her eyebrows as she passed and gave me a yum-yum smile. She smelled of daisies. Yum, all right. "Sure, Peter. Not the whole time. But if you need me around at first, sure."

"Hey, thanks. I really appreciate that. I really do."

He sounded relieved. "I'm out at the Malibu house. You wanna come out?"

"I've got company."

"Another time, okay? You ever wanna come out, you don't even have to call. Just come."

"Sure." Elvis Cole, detective to the stars.

I hung up and Pike said, "What's up?"

"Karen and Toby are coming out and he's scared. Growing up is a scary time."

"He asks you a lot. Maybe he should try growing up without you."

"He calls me less now than he once did. He'll call me less still. He's getting there."

Pike nodded. "Yeah. I guess he is. Karen getting any chaff from the DeLucas?"

"Vito's been good at his word. All of the DeLuca accounts through the First Chelam Bank have been collapsed and the funds in the Barbados accounts have mysteriously vanished."

"So she's free."

"Yes. She's as free as you can be when you've got the memories she has, but, like Peter, she's getting there, too."