Lullaby Town

by Robert Crais

  I said, "Yes, ma'am."

  Pike nodded once, and his mouth twitched.

  Karen Lloyd said, "Will you need me for anything else tonight?"

  "Nope," I said. "I think that about covers it."

  She went to the front door and opened it. The cat slipped out and was gone. She said, "I appreciate what you've done, and I don't mean to be abrupt, but it's late and I'm tired. If you need to speak with me tomorrow, you can call me at the bank."

  "Sure."

  "Good night."

  She closed the door before we were off the porch.

  Pike said, "Tough lady."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Maybe too tough. Like she's got something to prove."

  I nodded.

  Outside, the night air was crisp and chill and sparkling in its clarity, smelling strongly of oak and elm. Orion hung sideways in the southern sky, and a three-quarter moon hung in the east. We walked out onto the lawn and stood by the Taurus and watched Karen Lloyd's house. One by one, the lights went out and the house grew dark. With every light that died, the night grew closer.

  I said, "A long time ago, she made the choice to be the way she is. She earned the job and the house and the position within the community. She rose above the bad thing in her life and has tried to get it out of her life and is trying again. I think she made gutsy choices. Be a shame if she had to regret them."

  Pike moved in the dark, and the orange and white cat came from beneath the car and rubbed against him. Pike bent and picked up the cat and held him close. "You're right when you say that Charlie's already pissed. She doesn't show when he expects her, he might drive around to find out why. He might try to make sure it doesn't happen again."

  "Think you could stay close to her, keep him from doing that?"

  Pike's mouth twitched in the moonlight. "Uh-huh."

  I nodded, and Pike put down Karen Lloyd's cat and we got into the Taurus. The final light went out in Karen Lloyd's house, and all was darkness.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Roland George called at 7:32 the next morning and said, "NYPD owns a guy named Walter Lee Balcom. Busted him seven weeks ago on two counts of murder and one count kidnapping and about two dozen ancillary counts. Most of them smut and sex crimes."

  "Do the DeLucas run porno?"

  "No. That's the DeTillio family. But Waiter's not mob. He's just been around for a long time and knows people who know people who know people. He's been singing up a storm to try to cut a deal, and Charlie DeLuca's name has come up a few times."

  "Can I talk with him?"

  "Ten o'clock at the Hall of Justice, downstairs, room B28. I'll meet you there."

  "Right."

  Rollie hung up.

  At a quarter before ten I pulled into the parking garage next door to the Criminal Courts Building on Centre, just north of Foley Square in Chinatown, then walked across and down to subbasement B. A fat cop sitting behind a narrow table asked my business. I told him I was looking for Roland George in room B28. The fat cop looked through a little box, took out a pass with my name on it, and jerked a thumb to the right. "That way."

  Subbasement B of the Criminal Courts Building looked like a breeding ground for cops with green cement walls and tile floors that were maybe a thousand years old and the faraway smells of disinfectant and urine. Cops of both sexes moved through the halls, uncomfortable in spotless, starched uniforms, called in by prosecutors to rehearse before appearing in court. Defense attorneys on their way into or out of interview rooms glared at the cops with angry eyes that were looking to cut a deal for clients everyone knew were guilty. The lawyers looked like chronic gamblers. The cops looked like drunks.

  When I got to B28, Rollie George and a fireplug-shaped guy with a blond crew cut were standing outside the door. Rollie said, "Elvis, this is Sid Volpe. Sid's with the Justice Department, and he's the guy who's letting us see Balcom."

  We shook. Volpe's hand was dry and hard. He said, "I got you sandwiched in between the IRS and the feds. You can have him for twenty minutes starting now, so let's not waste time."

  We went in.

  Walter Lee Balcom was a pale man in his late forties with fine, straw-colored hair that was thinning on top. He was sitting at a narrow wooden table, chain-smoking Lark cigarettes and wearing gray prison fatigues. A boxy Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorder sat to his side on the table, along with a couple of gray legal pads. There were four metal chairs scattered around the table, but there weren't any pencils or pens or other sharp things.

  Walter Lee Balcom gave me a nice smile as we walked in. "Hello, Mr. Volpe, hello, Mr. George, is this the gentleman you told me about?" His voice was soft and papery.

  Volpe said, "This is him, Walter." Volpe sat in one of the chairs and turned on the Nagra. "Don't let Walter's manner fool you, Cole. Walter recruited a sixteen-year-old male prostitute named Juan Roca to help him kidnap a nineteen-year-old nurse's aide named Shirley Goldstein. They took her over to a tank farm outside Newark where Roca raped her and tortured her to death with a butane torch while Walter here got it all on videotape. Then Walter walks out in front of the camera in a Groucho Marx nose and shoots Roca four times in the chest and back with a .45 automatic butt-packed with hollow points."

  Walter Lee Balcom sat impassively while Volpe said it, using the stub of one Lark to light another. The air smelled of pipe tobacco from the Larks.

  Volpe said, "There's no business like show business, right, Walter?"

  Walter said, "That wasn't me in the videotape, Mr. Volpe. That was someone made up to look like me." A voice like whispers.

  Volpe said, "Shit," then grinned at Rollie. This asshole is so fucking perverted even the goddamned DeTillio family wouldn't touch half the smut he handled."

  Walter shrugged, as if this were all part of a meaningless conversation he was having with strangers at a bus stop.

  I said, "Do you know many organized-crime figures, Walter?"

  Another shrug. A deep puff. "A few. I've been in the industry for quite a long while. It has always been profitable."

  "Do you know Charlie DeLuca?"

  "Not personally. I know who he is, of course."

  Rollie said, "We're told that DeLuca's name has come up a few times in the songs you been singing."

  Shrug. A whisper. "You hear things."

  Rollie crossed his arms and sat back in the chair. "Your kind of business, they've got to be dirty things."

  Walter made the nice smile again. "One man's garbage, Roland."

  Sid Volpe leaned across the table and hit Walter Lee Balcom in the face with the back of his left hand. Walter went backward out of the chair and landed on the floor. The broken Lark landed on the table next to the pack, its coal still red and smoking. Walter Lee slowly got up, righted his chair, and sat again. There was a trickle of blood from his right nostril.

  Volpe said, "It's Mister George, Walter."

  Walter made an embarrassed smile. "Yes, of course. My apologies." Walter took a fresh Lark out of the pack and lit it with what was left of the coal. Volpe took a white handkerchief out of his pants and tossed it onto the table next to Walter. "Get your nose."

  Walter dabbed at his nose.

  Roland watched without moving, then said, "Thanks, Sid. I think we can take it from here."

  Volpe said, "Whatever you want," then got up and left.

  When he was gone, Rollie turned off the Nagra. "You want some ice for that, Walter?"

  "No. Thank you."

  Rollie said, "When I was starting out, we used to call these rooms the garden rooms. Can you guess why?"

  Walter shook his head the slightest bit, made the gentle smile.

  "We called'm the garden rooms because this is where we took out the hoses. You see?"

  "Ah." The smile.

  "I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now, but I don't like you, either. I just can't abide beating on a man when he can't fight back. Even a piece of trash like you."

  "Ah."

  "Just
so we understand each other."

  Walter nodded and took more of the Lark. Rollie crossed his arms and settled back.

  I said, "I'm looking for a handle on Charlie DeLuca, Walter. Do you have any ideas?"

  "As I said, I don't know him."

  "But you hear things."

  "Yes. But none of it has been of particular interest to my friends with the Justice Department."

  "I don't have to worry about building a case or following the rules of evidence. This is private. I have reason to believe that Charlie might be involved in something that he doesn't want the rest of the family to know about." Rollie's eyes shifted over to me when I said it. "You got any idea what that might be?"

  Walter shook his head. "No. I'm sorry. I know quite a bit about what the DeTillios are into, and the Gambozas, but really very little about the DeLucas."

  "Could be anything, Walter. Maybe he's cheating one of the other capos. Maybe he's ripping off Sal."

  Walter shook his head. "I'm sorry."

  I sat back in the hard chair and crossed my arms and looked at him. "Okay, forget that angle. I'll take any dirt you can give me."

  Walter closed his eyes and drew in deep on the Lark. "There are maybe other people who might help you."

  "Like who?"

  The smile. "Mr. DeLuca often used an intermediary to acquire films featuring young women of color. I'm told that he had a taste for black hookers, especially those who had appeared in films and videotapes."

  Rollie said, "Who told you this stuff?"

  "A fellow named Richie. A sometime customer of mine. He spoke of Mr. DeLuca with great familiarity. He said they were associates."

  I said, "Does Richie have a last name?"

  Walter gave me sad and shook his head. "I'm sorry."

  Rollie said, "So the man likes kink with black chicks. Mob dagos been going for the dark meat since the speakeasy days in the twenties. Sal ain't gonna give a shit about that."

  "It's more than just a taste for the dark, Mr. George." The smile, the cigarette glowing hotly. "I'm told that his passion is short-lived, but that he pays very well. I would think that if anyone would know something, a person in that position might."

  "You got a name?"

  "There was a woman named Angelette Silver, though she's no longer in the trade. I believe she works in a florist shop on 122nd Street

  , in Harlem." The smile. "But she may not be likely to help."

  "Why not?"

  "Charlie uses them up rather quickly, you see. He can be quite a violent man." Walter's eyes twinkled when he said it, as if somehow the knowledge of it was delicious. Then he shook his head sadly. "Their parting wasn't on the best of terms."

  "But he pays very well."

  The smile. "Yes. For every buyer there is a seller, for every seller, a buyer."

  Rollie said, "Shit."

  I said, "Walter, you in here ratting on the mob, aren't you scared they'll nail you?"

  The smile, the Lark. "I've always been willing to sell what no one else would sell, Mr. Cole. I find it quite" – the smile grew broader and the Lark glowed hotly – "gratifying. Do be careful with Mr. DeLuca. He's quite mad, you know."

  "That's what they tell me, Walter. Thanks."

  "I hope this has helped you."

  "Sure, Walter. Maybe it has."

  Volpe opened the door and tapped his watch. "The guys from the Bureau are here."

  Roland nodded, and then we went out into the hall, leaving Walter Lee Balcom sitting quietly at the table, smoking and smiling a gentle smile to himself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Out in the hall Rollie said, "What's this business about Charlie being up to something?"

  I told him what I had.

  When I finished, he said, "You figure Charlie's got his own private little nest egg growing down in Barbados."

  "That's what I need to find out. If he does, then I can use it to make him turn loose my client."

  Rollie nodded. "What kind of money we talking here?"

  "Forty, sixty grand at a crack during the last five months. Smaller money before."

  Roland whistled. "That's serious crime. Sal wouldn't mind the nickel-and-dime stuff, postal scams, unregulated hijacking, that kind of thing, all the capos got something going, but fifty grand." He shook his head.

  "Could Charlie's crew be turning that kind of cash with nobody knowing about it?"

  "No way. When these guys talk about family, they really mean it. Guys in Charlie's crew got brothers, cousins, uncles in all the other DeLuca crews. These guys get drunk together, they have barbecues. It'd be easier to keep a secret in a newsroom."

  "So if Charlie's got something going, he's keeping it from his own crew."

  "That's a pretty good bet." Rollie looked thoughtful, then watched as a trim Chinese woman came out of the elevator and walked down the hall to a door with frosted glass. She had nice calves. When the door was closed, he looked back at me. "Course, Sal might be the only other guy in the family who knows. Sal might be skimming a little off the top for Charlie 'cause it's his kid."

  "I thought about that."

  "And if Sal's in on it, you're screwed."

  I spread my hands. "It's a position I'm accustomed to. Do me another favor?"

  "Name it."

  "Can you check the JD files for anyone named 'Richie' in the DeLuca family?"

  "Sure." Then he said, "Elvis?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "What he said in there about Charlie being nuts, you remember that."

  I gave him a smile. Dawn Patrol. Errol Flynn courageous in the face of certain doom.

  I left Rollie downstairs and took the elevator up to the lobby where I used a pay phone to get the number for the New York City Florists Association. The Florists Association told me that there were four flower shops on 122nd Street

  , two in Morningside Heights, one in Harlem, and one in East Harlem. They had no listing for an Angelette Silver as a licensed florist, and they couldn't tell me in which shop she might work. I copied down the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the four shops, thanked them, and hung up.

  I got change at the little cigar stand they have there in the lobby, then went back to the phones and called Victor's Floral Gifts and asked to speak to Angelette Silver. A businesslike woman who sounded to be in her forties said that she was sorry, but no one by that name worked there. I thanked her, hung up, and called the Gilded Lily. A man with a heavy, masculine voice told me that he didn't know anyone named Angelette, but that he was certain he could meet my every need without her help. I thanked him and hung up and called Rudy's Florist. Rudy didn't know anyone named Angelette, either, though he did know a guy named Angel. Would that do? I said that I thought not. The fourth shop was a place called Your Secret Garden. An older woman with a soft southern accent answered.

  I said, "May I speak with Angelette Silver, please?"

  There was an uncertain pause. "You mean Sarah?"

  There were voices in the background, then something covered the mouthpiece, then a heavy male voice came on. "You got the wrong number. Nobody by that name works here." He hung up. Hard.

  Hmm.

  I picked up the Taurus from the parking garage, then took Canal over to the West Side Highway, then went north past the Village and the Lincoln Tunnel on my way up to 122nd. Maybe I was on to something. Walter Lee Balcom had put me on to Angelette Silver, who very likely was living under the name Sarah, and maybe Angelette Silver could connect me either to someone named Richie or someone who knew what Charlie DeLuca was up to. If I could just keep Charlie DeLuca from killing either Karen Lloyd or me until I knew who or what that was, all of this might work out. Stranger things have been known to happen.

  On the Henry Hudson Parkway

  at 86th Street

  , halfway up the island and along the Hudson River, I spotted a metallic-brown Chevrolet following me four cars back and one lane over.

  I swung south on Broadway, then east on 86th, then south again on Columb
us, but he stayed with me, always four cars back, once gunning it through a red light to keep his position. Pretty good. I wondered if it was Ric.

  An eight-wheel flower truck was parked on Columbus in the right-turn lane at the corner of 76th Street

  . Traffic was backed up and horns were blowing and people who wanted to turn right had to work their way slowly around the truck. I turned right with them and slowed it down even more, staying hidden behind the flower truck until the traffic had cleared ahead of me. I goosed the Taurus half a block down, then threw it into park in the middle of 76th Street

  and was out of the car and walking back up the sidewalk when the metallic-brown Chevrolet came around the corner. It wasn't Ric.

  The guy behind the wheel played it well. Traffic was backing up again and more horns were blowing and the other cars were putting on their blinkers and trying to get around the Taurus, so he put on his blinker and got into line to get around the Taurus, too.

  I walked out into the street behind him and went up around his car and put the Dan Wesson in through the driver's side window. "Surprise."

  He was a medium-sized guy in his early forties with a precise manner and a nice tan and thick hair. He kept both hands on the steering wheel, left in the ten o'clock position and right in the two o'clock position, just like they teach in driving school. He was staring at the gun. "Jesus Christ, put that away. Where the hell do you think we are, Beirut?"

  Around us, drivers were blowing their horns and a fat guy with a three-day stubble called us assholes and told us to get out of the street and nobody seemed to mind too much that I was holding the Dan Wesson. Just another story in the naked city.

  "Take out the wallet very slow. If you jerk, I'll shoot you."

  He did it, still with his eyes on the gun. He said, "I don't know what in hell you've got going on here, but it's not worth pulling the trigger."