Jeffery Deaver - Bloody River Blues

"Take a message, darling," Nelson snapped. He returned to a lengthy set of interrogatories.

"It's a Mr. Pellam and he says-"

Click.

"Mr. Pellam, Mr. Pellam. How are you? This is Mr. Peterson's assistant, Nelson Stroud. Is there something I can do for you?"

"I want to talk to Peterson."

"Is this about the Crimmins situation?"

Pellam said that it was.

"Well, is there anything I can help you with?"

"Where is he?"

"Mr. Peterson? He's in court. He won't be back for several hours."

"Oh." There was a long silence. Nelson gripped the phone hard and believed that if he breathed too loud, he would blow away the fragile phone connection.

"You're a lawyer?"

"Assistant U.S. Attorney for the-"

"Okay. I want a meeting."

Bingo!

"Fine, absolutely fine. You name a time, you name a place. Whatever."

"Your office, I'd like it to be in your office."

"Sure, that's fine. Tomorrow? Tomorrow morning?"

"Sure, tomorrow morning. Only…"

"What is it?"

"Only there's a problem. I need some assurance from you."

"Assurance, assurance, of course." Nelson's hands were vibrating. This was the big time, this was negotiating with vital witnesses, and he was terrified. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

"I want some guarantee that I won't be prosecuted," Pellam said.

"Why would you be prosecuted?"

There was a pause. "Because I lied when I told you I hadn't seen Peter Crimmins in the Lincoln."

The press conference that evening was short.

The reporters had hoped for something hot-perhaps Peterson's announcement that he was resigning to run for the Senate or that he was handling some big corporate whistle-blower case or that the Justice Department would dish up something photogenic for the newshounds-like a good drug bust, the sort where the FBI and DEA lay out all the Uzis and Brownings in the front of the table and all the plastic bags of smack or coke in the back and declaim about the progress in the war on organized crime.

But all they got was Peterson standing at a chipped podium emblazoned with a U.S. Department of Justice seal, droning on and on and on…

He spoke to them in the vast monotone that marked his delivery at all of his press conferences. "I'm pleased to announce that a witness in the Vincent Gaudia killing has come forward and agreed to testify before the grand jury. This is an individual whom my office identified immediately after the killing and who had serious, and understandable, concerns about his safety, and who expressed those concerns, but who has now come forward in exchange for my agreeing not to prosecute for obstruction of justice."

Which was a jaw-cracker of a sentence and left the reporters thinking up fast paraphrases.

When asked if this was a reliable witness, Peterson said, "He looked into the front seat of the car driven by the man we are certain is responsible for the killing. He was no more than three feet away. He assures me he can make a positive ID."

A reporter shouted, "Has Peter Crimmins been identified as the man in that car?"

But Peterson knew the game of reporter dodge; he was not going to give the defense lawyers a chance to claim prejudice.

He said, "All I can say at this time is that the witness will be giving us a formal statement at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. We anticipate an arrest within twenty-four hours of that"

Peterson then deflected a number of questions about the killing and talked about several drug busts and other recent prosecution victories of the U.S. Attorney's office recently.

"I heard rumors," a woman reporter called in an abrasive voice, "that you arrested Tony Sloan, the movie director who's currently shooting a film in Maddox."

Peterson glared into the video camera lights. "That is absolutely untrue. The movie company brought a large number of automatic weapons into the district. Both FBI and BATF agents from the Treasury Department observed what appeared to be an irregularity in the firearm permits and we just wanted to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't fall into the wrong hands. We did not at any time contemplate criminal action against Mr. Sloan and the film company. The local police in Maddox, I understand, took it upon themselves, for some reason, to make an arrest. Our findings are that the permits are in order and I'm releasing the weapons presently."

"Are you saying that the Maddox police arrested Mr. Sloan improperly?"

"I won't comment on the judgment of fellow law enforcement agencies. The arrest was a Maddox Police Department decision. Ask them about it."

There were several other no comments. Finally a very preoccupied Ronald Peterson wandered off the stage, leaving the press corps to call their desks or tape their intros. Most of the TV reporters were far more interested in the Tony Sloan angle than the Gaudia killing and decided to run some clips from Circuit Man in the segment about Sloan's arrest.

But hard news is hard news and everybody wrote up at least a news bite about the witness for ten o'clock. Vince Gaudia was, after all, Maddox's only honest-to-God hit for as long as anyone could remember.

As it turned out, Ralph Bale was playing darts and did not happen to hear the story. Philip Lombro, however, did. And by nine that evening was on the phone.

"He cheated us," Lombro said. "He took the money and he cheated us! He's going to testify!" His voice was high. Some of this was indignation and some of it was anger. But most of his agitation came from disgust with himself that this whole thing had gotten wildly out of hand.

"Looks that way," Ralph Bales said. "He's meeting Peterson tomorrow?"

"At nine-thirty."

After a lengthy silence, in which he heard the sound of male laughter in the background, Lombro said, "What exactly are you going to do?"

"Okay, I think you've gotta agree we don't have much choice."

Lombro sighed deeply. He did not agree with anything that Ralph Bales said or thought. But the whole matter had moved beyond him now. He realized he was being asked a question and said, "What?"

"I said, you haven't by any chance heard from a guy named Stevie Flom, have you?"

"Who?'

"A guy working with me."

"No. I don't even know him. Why would I?"

"No reason. I haven't heard from him."

"Why would he call me?"

"I mentioned I worked for you once. It's not important. Anyway, about our situation-"

"Just finish this thing," Lombro said desperately. '"Finish it."

"You want me to…"

"Do what you have to" were Lombro's closing words but they had hardly the energy to carry forty miles to the other end of the phone line.

The hour was not late; it was not his normal bedtime, but Philip Lombro, hoping that tomorrow would appear and then vanish with invisible speed, took two sleeping pills and, in his silk pajamas, slipped into his bed.

He lay awake for a long time, tormented by thoughts of what he had done, thoughts about the witness's betrayal, thoughts about how he was soon going to have another man's blood on his hands. But under the sedation of the Valium, he calmed, and eventually the man who was going to die tomorrow did not occupy his thoughts. Nor did Vincent Gaudia nor Ralph Bales. Philip Lombro was in that netherworld between sleep and waking. Bits of dreams floated past like the papers caught in the fickle currents around the Maddox Omnibus Building. He saw faces, most of them grotesque. Melting into other shapes. They were real to him, intense, three-dimensional. They reminded him of the images seen through those plastic three-dimensional viewers he used to buy his nieces and nephews thirty years ago, the ones that held cardboard disks of fairy tales and cartoons.