Deadly Lullaby

by Robert McClure

  Cellphone in hand, I look at Maggie. “I have no choice,” I say. “I will explain later, but it is a prison thing.”

  “What does prison have to do with—”

  “Shush,” I say, and flip the top open again.

  Babe and Leo

  “¡Hola!”

  “Hey, this is the guy who called a few minutes ago. Don’t hang up on me. Just listen. My real name is Detective Leonardo Crucci. Sorry to give you another name earlier but I’m a Los Angeles police detective involved in a murder investigation. So don’t hang up and don’t give me that ¡Hola! crap. I know you speak English because your Spanish accent sucks. Now, who am I speaking with?”

  “…”

  “Hello?…Damn it, don’t you dare hang—”

  Leo

  Click.

  “Sonofabitch!”

  Babe

  “What’s wrong?” Maggie says.

  Stunned mute from shock and confusion, my throat dry, I wipe my mouth and say, “That was Leo.”

  Maggie scrunches her eyebrows, now more confused than me. “And you hung up on him without saying a word?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he want with you?”

  “He was not calling me.”

  She sighs, leans back on the sofa, crosses her legs, and places her hands in her lap. As if speaking to a retarded kid, she says, “Sweetie, are you telling me that you hung up on your son simply because he called you by mistake?”

  Her condescension irritates me. “In a sense, yes, but not in the same sense you are thinking.” I display the cell to her. “You see, Maggie, I have never given Leo the number to this disposable phone. I only use this to communicate with Joe Sacci and his crew. Leo said—”

  Interrupting me with a show of her palm and slowly shaking her head, saddened and dismayed by my display of low intelligence, she says, “Have you considered that maybe you accidentally called him from that phone, and that he has that number mixed up with another one?”

  “No, I have not considered that. It feels like something else is going on here, and it does not feel right. Why, I cannot say exactly, but the first time Leo called he said—”

  I get her palm again. “Wait,” she says to her lap before glaring at me. “You mean that was him calling the first time the phone rang, too?”

  “Yes, that time he said—”

  The phone rings again.

  Maggie throws her head against the couch cushion, closes her eyes and talks to the ceiling. “Please just answer it, Babe, and be yourself this time. Your mind gets so twisted in knots when it comes to Leo.” She opens her eyes and turns her head to me. “Try being a father to him. Try being honest with him.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I say, and answer the fucking phone.

  Babe and Leo

  “Leo?”

  “Detective Crucci to you, pal. You’ve got a lot of nerve hanging up on a—”

  “Leo, this is your father you are talking to. You know, John Leonardo Crucci?”

  “…”

  “Yeah, that was my reaction when you told me who you were the second time you called. Where did you get this number? And why the Marvin Ford and lost-phone crap?”

  “I still can’t believe I’m talking to you….You won’t believe it either once I explain all of this. Look, I’ll answer all your questions and more, but you have to do something for me first.”

  “What?”

  “Look at the call list on the phone you’re using and tell me who called you two days ago at two thirty-three in the afternoon.”

  “The afternoon after we went to, well, you know, in the morning?”

  “Right.”

  “Hang on…hang on…All right, I found it, but the number is unfamiliar to me….Wait, at that time I was at the Little Tokyo Hotel with the whor—um, ahem, lovely ladies I told you I had arranged for me and you and…Yeah, now I remember. Michael Fecarotta called and woke me up. Joe had him call to get me to come down the hall for a meeting with him and Donsky.”

  “…”

  “Leo.”

  “Does Fecarotta drive Joe around?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he a short, muscular guy with slicked-back hair? Middle Eastern features?”

  “Yes.”

  “…”

  “Leo, I answered two more questions than I said I would. Now you have to answer mine. You can start by, you know, telling me what the fuck is going on?”

  “The answer to that question has so many angles to it you may not want to hear it. But I’m going to tell you anyway because I don’t know who else to tell. To give you an overall snapshot of it, Michael Fecarotta could damn well be a murderer.”

  “This does not constitute a news bulletin to me. Who might he have murdered?”

  “The Cam—Shit…Look, I have to go now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m on a stakeout, and something’s going down. I’ll call you in a few minutes when I figure out what it is. We need to talk in person to figure out what to do about Fecarotta. Bye.”

  “Do not wait too long to call me—”

  Click.

  Leo

  The deductions rushing through my mind multiplied exponentially when a light popped on and flooded the rear gate of the compound just as a line of vehicles pulled into the alley from Pacific. Then it became impossible to continue talking to the old man. Not only was he a distraction, but the bright lights rendered my infrared binoculars useless, and I needed both hands to retrieve the standard ones from my glove box and adjust the focus. Now I raise the binoculars to my eyes and zoom in, seeing two Malabar Plumbing Supply delivery vans stopped at the gate.

  The big shipment?

  Cellphone to his ear, M & M slides open the gate and stands to the side so the vehicles can enter. The vans file through the gate, stop in line at the service building and wait while the driver of the lead van honks his horn once. The mechanical door ascends and the caravan drives inside.

  Cellphone still to his ear, M & M almost gets the gate closed, but stops when two late-model luxury cars, a Mercedes S-Class and a BMW 7 Series, turn into the head of the alley from Pacific. They roll up to the gate and M & M almost jumps out of his Air Jordans when he notices them. He slides the gate open much faster than he did before, bowing, practically genuflecting, when the cars parade past.

  M & M cuffs sweat from his forehead and slides the gate shut.

  The cars park in slips in back of the office, and six Asian males pile out, four of them hustling to the rear of the cars. The trunks pop open and they withdraw assault weapons, one of them a shotgun. These four are young and decked out in gangsta chic like M & M—red bandanas, leathers, hoodies, baggy jeans, Timberland boots, Doc Martens. The other two are older and wearing hip suits, one with a tie, one open collared. Honcho types. These two pause on the concrete porch of the office building and scan the compound as if this is the first time they’ve seen it. They nod at each other and bump fists, then direct two of the four to a station behind a huge metal dumpster. The other two run with their weapons to the left, into the warehouse through the open mechanical door. Three other males, all similarly dressed and carrying their own weapons, greet them there and lead them away.

  After scanning the compound one more time, the honchos nod at each other, get behind the wheels of the two luxury cars, and drive them inside the warehouse. The mechanical door descends and the dim lights in the yard go out. Then the lights flooding the rear gate go out.

  This looks like an ambush.

  I grab my disposable to call the old man back when three vehicles, an ’03 Mercury Marquis followed by two newer vans, one a white Econoline and the other a dark GMC Savana, turn the corner from Pacific into the alley, not speeding, but not wasting time. The bigger vehicles slow to a stop and allow the Marquis to get four, five lengths on them before it pulls up to the gate.

  I grab my infrared binoculars.

  M & M steps to his side of the fence to address the driver of the
Marquis. An instant later he jumps back, reaching under his sweat top for his piece.

  Too late—two muzzle flashes from the car window, the intense light from them flaring my infrared image, mushrooming the flashes five times their size. M & M’s feet fly from underneath him and he’s flat on the pavement, motionless. I heard no shots, and even at this distance I should have. The shooter must have used a silenced weapon.

  There’s no return fire from the compound. They sacrificed M & M so the assailants will enter the killing field inside the yard.

  A male jumps from the backseat of the Marquis—a big sonofabitch, tall and wide, with shoulder-length hair. He’s carrying an assault rifle, and he—

  Wait just a fucking minute here.

  Unable to believe my eyes, I toggle the zoom switch in order to zero in on the big bastard: Jack Barzi, aka Chief.

  What the…

  The Marquis backs up about five meters while Barzi yanks open the gate.

  My thoughts racing, I zoom in on the drivers and passengers of the vehicles, but the vans spring to life and speed around the Marquis to veer hard into the compound, blocking my view of the men in the Marquis or moving so fast the motion blurs the infrared images of those inside the vans.

  Facts add up in my head: Barzi worked for Macky + Joe whacked Macky + Barzi once worked for Joe = Barzi now works for Joe = Joe’s crew is now raiding the—

  The Marquis roars past Barzi, and he moves to the side of the gate to stand watch, his assault rifle at the ready.

  The vehicles slide to a rest inside the compound, the vans in front of the warehouse, the Marquis in front of the office building. The men pile out, all wielding shoulder arms. Three from the Marquis rush the front door of the office building and stop when they find the light out and the double doors locked—one remains there to stand guard while the other two sprint for the warehouse. No fewer than eight break from the vans and push through the pedestrian door of the warehouse.

  The two Asians positioned behind the dumpster open up on the guard at the office door, and he drops to the porch so fast it’s as if he died immediately. The men who rushed the warehouse door are met with multiple shotgun blasts and rattling automatic-weapon fire once they make it inside. Gunfire convulses the compound—distinct AK-47 chatter—pounding the metal walls of the warehouse, echoes lingering after the initial reports. Muzzle flashes light up the windows. More bursts of AK-47 fire, two more shotgun blasts, three, four more blasts. There’s a pitched battle inside.

  Barzi’s untouched and is still at his post, a cellphone now to his ear. Throwing the cruiser in gear, I’ve just decided to rescue him when a white Jeep Cherokee roars into the alley from Pacific and screeches to a halt in front of the gate. My instant thought is the Cherokee is there to pick up Barzi. He drops his cell, though, raises his assault weapon and opens fire. His fire is instantly returned from inside, muzzle flashes pluming from the back passenger window.

  Barzi stumbles backward, falls, and lands on his back.

  Fuck, he’s hit, but now he’s rolling behind the concrete abutment for cover.

  I have to try to save him. The fact I abandoned him earlier today has a lot to do with it, but not all—if he lives and is taken into custody, he might cut a deal and squeal about me and the old thug being at Macky’s the day he disappeared.

  I burn rubber and turn hard left into the alley, reaching behind to snatch my M4 Benelli shotgun from its rack on the back of my seat.

  Before I make it to the gate, the guy who shot Barzi leaps from the backseat of the Cherokee, an Asian guy in coveralls, sees me bearing down on him and swings his weapon around from his hip and TAT TAT TAT TAT a column of bullets splits my windshield in the middle and I throw my arms over my face just in time—my right forearm burns, stings. I check it out. No bullet wound, just cuts from flying glass I’m thinking while braking and throwing the gear in park and shouldering open the door and rolling onto the pavement, M4 in hand. Hook the semiauto bolt action with my forefinger to jack a round in the chamber, and roll once on the pavement before rocking up on my haunches to squeeze off a load of buckshot at the fuck who shot at me. The recoil feels great in my hands and the guy’s at such close range his chest opens up in a gush of blood blooming through the burnt gashes in his shirt. The force of the blast punches him backward and his body thumps on the pavement, the only other sound being the clatter of the weapon he dropped, As two more shots ping my grill, ricocheting off the engine block, and I fire off a reflexive load at the driver’s side of the front window, which explodes in a halo of glass and brains.

  Seeing no one in the yard, hoping, praying, that the two Asians who were positioned out there are now busy inside the warehouse, I run to the gate to check on Barzi. He’s raised on one elbow in the gravel, holding his chest and moaning. When I bend down to talk to him there are two holes in the chest plate of his bullet-proof vest, no blood apparent; he’s stunned from the impact of the bullets, but still alive.

  I lean into his face, grab him one-handed under his arm and say, “Barzi, look at me, look at me!”

  He turns his face to my voice, his eyes wandering around their sockets as if wired to independent circuits. “Barzi, Barzi, this is Leo Crucci,” I say. “We’ve gotta get your ass out of here,” and move to his side and try to heave him up.

  He shakes his head, looks at me, still stunned, confused. “Leo…Crucci…”

  “Move your ass, goddammit. Get up. Help…me…get…you…up!” I say, and I heave. “C’mon, man, cops will be here any second.”

  “Cops,” he says, “fuck,” and as I heave he pushes himself off the ground with his right hand, grabbing his AK-47 with the other.

  He drapes his right arm over my shoulder, leans hard on me and wobbles to the cruiser like his legs were removed and replaced backward. “Move,” I shout in his ear. “Concentrate on moving.”

  “Move,” he says, “move,” willing his limbs to obey.

  We make it to the front bumper of my car when we both turn to an old brown Suburban that’s bearing down on us from our right, from Pacific, its engine whining and knocking. A guy’s hanging from the passenger window, a bald guy with a huge fucking head and a pistol pointed at me—at me—and I shoulder Barzi toward the passenger door and swing my M4 around from my hip and throw a load at the fucker in the Suburban the instant before Barzi screams, “Nooooo, don’t.” My shot catches the bald guy in the head, and the back of his head pops, the top of the door frame slinging ropes of brains and skull across the roof as his body flies backward and slumps into the Suburban. The driver cranes his head to look at me—I can’t believe that’s who I think it is—then guns the accelerator and roars down the alley. I spin around to find Barzi by the open passenger door of my cruiser, firing from the hip with his AK-47, popping off rounds at the warehouse entrance.

  Barzi jumps inside after I do, and as I gun the engine I look at him and say, “I think I already know, but tell me why you told me not to shoot.”

  Catching his breath, shaking his head while he rubs his eyes, Barzi finally looks at me and says, “Thanks for the hand.” He pauses to think a second, blinking his eyes, and says, “Hey, why the fuck are you here?”

  Taking a screeching left on Pacific from the alley, I say, “Did you hear what I asked you?”

  His expression puzzled, he works his finger around the inside of his ear, finally shaking his head and saying, “Unh-unh.”

  I repeat the question, louder than last time.

  “Ah,” he says casually, “they were with us. The skinhead you wasted worked for Tarasov, a guy named Bulgin. Donsky was drivin’.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I was afraid of something like that,” and glance out of my window to the left and say, “Oh, great.”

  Leo

  Donsky pulls his Suburban onto Pacific from Fiftieth and tries to ram me in the side, but I gun my engine and barely avoid him. Through my rearview I see the Suburban swerve on its two right wheels and almost tip over before Donsky rights it,
squeals rubber and comes after me, the engine whining. My cellphone chirps seconds later, and I grab it and say, “Get off my ass, Donsky. I can explain.”

  “Sure, Crucci, no hard feelings. Pull over and we’ll talk about it.”

  “I might’ve half-believed that if you hadn’t just tried to ram me.”

  “Pull over, motherfucker! We got massacred back there. You and Barzi ain’t gettin’ away with setting us up for Khang like that!”

  “That is so wrong, Donsky, that even an idiot like you couldn’t get it more wrong if you tried. I just happened by and saw Barzi in trouble. And who the hell is this Khang you’re talking about?”

  “You know damn well who Khang is! You’ve been…”

  “Been what?” I say. “Go ahead, tell me what I’ve been doing.”

  He doesn’t respond but doesn’t have to: Vann Phan must have called Donsky after I rousted him today, which means Donsky had a hand in hiring Phan and Vannak to take out Oliver for his friend Fecarotta. Donsky now assumes I rousted Phan on behalf of Khang, not the good citizens of LA, and also thinks Barzi sold out their plan to me and, vicariously, to Khang.

  I say, “You chickenshit hood, you don’t have the guts to own up to—” I stop talking when I see a male pointing a handgun from the Suburban’s front passenger window, and say to Barzi, “Duck!” as my back window explodes.

  Babe and Leo

  “Look, I’m in trouble. Actually, me and—”

  “No shit? And you call after letting me dangle in the wind today?”

  “Somehow I figured you’d bring that up. Just fucking listen, okay? Barzi’s in the car with me now.”

  “Chief?”

  “Hi, Babe!”

  “Shut up, Barzi….Look, old man, we’re tearing ass down Pacific with Donsky and his crew in hot pursuit.”

  “Donsky?”

  “Yeah, and—holy fuck!”

  “Who was that shooting?”