Lullaby

by Ed McBain

The song brought tears to Lorraine's eyes whenever she sang it. Rebecca thought it was one of their better efforts, though her personal favorite was a feminist song they'd written called 'Burn,' in which Joan of Arc was the central metaphor. Rebecca wore her dark hair in a whiffle cut. Sometimes, Lorraine wondered if she was gay. She'd seemed inordinately angry about Scott moving in.

  Lorraine hadn't expected to go to bed with Scott.

  He'd just shown up on her doorstep, his eyes all red, his face white, she'd thought at first it was from the cold outside. He told her he'd got her address from her father, who'd remembered when she used to babysit for him, and she'd said Oh sure, that's okay, come on in, how are you? She hadn't seen him now in it must have been three, four years. Since he'd gone off to school in Maine. He'd looked like a kid then. Pimply-head, lanky, you know. Now he looked like . . . well ... a man. She was really surprised by how handsome he'd turned out. But of course he was still a kid.

  He told her he remembered how he used to tell her everything when she used to sit for him, how he used to trust her more than he had his own parents.

  She said, 'Well, that's very nice of you, Scott.'

  'I mean it,' he said.

  'Thank you, that's very nice of you.'

  She was wearing a short red skirt with red tights and yellow leg warmers. Short, soft, black leather boots. She was wearing a green blouse, no bra. She was sitting on the couch, long legs tucked under her. She had offered him a drink, which he'd accepted. Apple brandy. Which was all she had in the house. He was on his third snifterful. The snifters were a birthday gift from Rebecca. This was the twenty-eighth day of December. It was very cold outside. Wind rattled the windows in the small apartment. She was remembering how she used to take him to the toilet in his Dr Denton's. Hold his little penis while he peed. Sometimes he had a little hard-on. Six years old, he'd have a little hard-on, he'd piss all over the toilet tank, sometimes the wall. She was remembering this fondly.

  He told her this girl he'd been going with had suddenly ended their relationship. She thought this was cute, his using a very grown-up word like relationship. But, of course, he was eighteen. Eighteen was a man. At eighteen, you could vote. When he was home for Thanksgiving, he said. Some Thanksgiving present, huh? She wondered if people exchanged gifts for Thanksgiving. Maybe the Indians and the Pilgrims had. She wondered if there was an idea for a song in that. He was telling her the girl had made it final last week. He'd gone over to see her the minute he'd got home for the Christmas break. She'd told him she never wanted to see him again. He'd been crying for the past week, well, actually nine days now. She hoped he didn't think he was a baby, coming here like this. And then he started crying again.

  She'd held him in her arms.

  The way she'd done when he was six and she was fifteen and he woke up crying in the middle of the night.

  She'd kissed the top of his head.

  Comforting him.

  And next thing she knew . . .

  Well, one thing just sort of led to another.

  His hands were all over her.

  Under the short red skirt, down the front of the green silk blouse.

  Christmas colors.

  Falling away under his rough, manly hands.

  That was on the twenty-eighth.

  He'd been living here since. Today was the sixth of January. Not five minutes ago, he'd told her what he'd said to Annie the last time he'd seen her. Annie Flynn, that was the girl's name. About killing them both. Annie and her new boyfriend, whoever he was. And now someone had really killed Annie and he was afraid the police might think it was him.

  'Which is why you have to go to them,' she said.

  'No,' he said.

  Nibbling at his lower lip. Handsome as the devil. She got damp just looking at him. Wanted him desperately, just looking at him. She wondered if he knew what effect he had on her.

  'Unless, of course, you did kill her,' she said.

  'No, no,' he said.

  He wasn't looking at her.

  'Did you?' she asked again.

  'I told you no.'

  But he still wasn't looking at her.

  She went to him.

  Twisted her hand in his hair. Pulled his head back.

  'Tell me the truth,' she said.

  'I didn't kill her,' he said.

  She brought her mouth down to his. God, such sweet lips. She kissed him fiercely.

  And wondered if he was telling the truth. Somehow, the idea was exciting. That maybe he had killed that girl.

  * * * *

  José Herrera was sitting on a bench in the second-floor corridor when Kling came in that night. Head still bandaged, face still puffy and bruised, right arm in a cast.

  'Buenas noches, he said, and grinned like one of the Mexican bandits in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Kling wanted to go hide the silver.

  'You waiting for me?' Kling asked.

  'Who else?' Herrera said. Still grinning. Kling wanted to punch him right in the mouth - for the way he was grinning, for the way he'd behaved at the hospital the other day. Finish off what those black guys had started. He went to the railing, opened the gate, and walked into the squadroom. Herrera came in behind him.

  Kling went to his desk and sat.

  Herrera came over and took a chair alongside the desk.

  'My head still hurts,' he said.

  'Good,' Kling said.

  Herrera clucked his tongue.

  'What do you want here?' Kling asked.

  'They let me out this afternoon,' Herrera said. 'I think they let me out too soon, I may sue them.'

  'Good, go sue them.'

  'I think I may have a good case. My head still hurts.'

  Kling glanced at a Ballistics report he had requested on a shooting that had taken place during the four-to-midnight on Christmas Eve. A family dispute. Man shot his own brother on Christmas Eve.

  'I decided to help you,' Herrera said.

  'Thanks, I don't need your help,' Kling said.

  'You told me at the hospital . . .'

  'That was then, this is now.'

  'I can get you a big drug bust,' Herrera said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, glancing over to where Andy Parker was on the telephone at his own desk.

  'I don't want a big drug bust,' Kling said.

  'These guys who were trying to dust me? I'll bet you thought they were just regular niggers, am I right? Wrong. They were Jamaicans.'

  'So?'

  'You familiar with Jamaican posses?'

  'Yes,' Kling said.

  'You are?'

  'Yes.'

  The Jamaican gangs called themselves posses, God knew why, since traditionally a posse was a group of people deputized by a sheriff to assist in preserving the public peace. Kling figured a little bit of Orwellian doublethink was in play here. If War was Peace, then surely Bad Guys could be Good Guys and a Gang could be a Posse, no? The Jamaicans couldn't even pronounce the word correctly. Rhyming it with Lassie, they called it passee. Then again, when they wanted to say 'man,' they said 'mon.' Either way, mon, they would break your head as soon as look at you. Which they had successfully but not fatally done to Herrera.

  And now he was ready to blow the whistle.

  Or so it seemed.

  'We're talking here a posse that's maybe the biggest one in America,' he said.

  'Right here in our own little precinct, huh?' Kling said.

  'Bigger than Spangler.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'Bigger than Waterhouse.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'You know Shower?'

  'I know Shower.'

  'Bigger even than Shower,' Herrera said. 'I'm talking about dope, white slavery, and gun-running. Which this posse is muscling in on all over the city.'

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said.

  'I'm talking about a big dope deal about to go down.'

  'Really? Where?'

  'Right here in this precinct.'

  'So what's this big posse called?'

  'N
ot so fast,' Herrera said.

  'If you've got something to tell me, tell me,' Kling said. 'You're the one who came here, I didn't come knocking on your door.'

  'You're the one who wanted me to back your story about . . .'

  'That's a thing of the past. They're convinced downtown that I acted within the . . .'

  'Anyway, it don't matter. You owe me.'

  Kling looked at him.

  'I owe you? he said.

  'Correct.'

  'For what?'

  'For saving my life.'

  'I owe you for saving your life?'

  'Is what I said.'

  'I think those baseball bats scrambled your brains, Herrera. If I'm hearing you correctly . . .'

  'You're hearing me. You owe me.'

  'What do I owe you?'

  'Protection. And I'm not gonna let you forget it.'

  'Why don't you take a walk?' Kling said, and picked up the Ballistics report.

  'I ain't even talking cultures,' Herrera said.

  'That's good, 'cause I'm not even listening.'

  'Where if you save a person's life, you are responsible for that person's life forever.'

  'And which cultures might those be?' Kling asked.

  'Certain Asian cultures.'

  'Like which?'

  'Or North American Indian, I'm not sure.'

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said. 'But not Hispanic'

  'No, not Hispanic'

  'You're just muscling in on these cultures, correct? The way this Jamaican posse is muscling in on dope and prosti . . .'

  'I told you I ain't talking cultures here.'

  'Then what the fuck are you talking, Herrera? You're wasting my time here.'

  'I'm talking human decency and responsibility,' Herrera said.

  'Oh, dear God, spare me,' Kling said, and rolled his eyes heavenward.

  'Because if you hadn't stopped them Jakies . . .'

  'Jakies?'

  "Them Jamaicans.'

  Kling had never heard this expression before. He had the feeling Herrera had just made it up. The way he'd made up his cockamamie Asian or North American Indian cultures that held a man responsible for saving another man's life.

  'If you'd have let them Jakies kill me,' Herrera said, 'then I wouldn't have to be worrying they would kill me now.'

  'Makes perfect sense,' Kling said, shaking his head.

  'Of course it makes sense.'

  'Of course.'

  'This way I'll probably have a nervous breakdown. Waiting for them to kill me all over again. You want me to have a nervous breakdown?'

  'I think you already had one,' Kling said.

  'You want them Jakies to kill me?' Herrera asked.

  'No,' Kling said honestly. If he'd wanted them to kill Herrera, he'd have let them do it the first time around. Instead of getting a tooth knocked out of his mouth. Which he still hadn't gone to the dentist to see about.

  'Good, I'm glad you realize you owe me,' Herrera said.

  Kling was neither a Buddhist monk nor a Hindu priest nor an Indian shaman; he didn't think he owed Herrera a goddamn thing.

  But if a strong Jamaican posse really was about to do a big dope deal right here in the precinct . . .

  'Let's say I do offer you protection,' he said.

  * * * *

  5

  The oriental gangs in this city had difficulty pronouncing his name, which was Lewis Randolph Hamilton. Too many L's and too many R's. The Hispanic gangs called him Luis El Martillo. Which meant Louie the Hammer. This did not mean that his weapon was a hammer. Hamilton was strapped with a .357 Magnum, which he used liberally and indiscriminately. It was said that he had personally committed twenty-three murders during his several years in the States. The Italian gangs called him Il Camaleonte, which meant The Chameleon. That was because hardly anyone knew what he looked like. Or at least what he looked like now.

  There were Miami PD mug shots of Hamilton wearing his hair in an exaggerated Afro, mustache on his upper lip. There were Houston PD pictures of Hamilton wearing his hair in Rastafarian style, so that he looked like a male Medusa. There were NYPD pictures of him with his hair cut extremely short, hugging his skull like a woolly black cap. There were LAPD pictures of him with a thick beard. But here in this city, there were no police photographs of Lewis Randolph Hamilton. That was because he'd never been arrested here. He'd killed eight people here, and the underworld knew this, and the police suspected it, but Hamilton was like smoke. In Jamaica, as a matter of fact, he had for a number of years been called Smoke, a name premised on his ability to drift away and vanish without a trace.

  Hamilton's posse was into everything.

  Prostitution. Exclusively Mafia in the recent dead past, increasingly Chineseever since a pair of lovely sisters named Tina and Toni Pao moved from Hong Kong to San Francisco and began smuggling in girls from Taiwan via Guatemala and Mexico, their operation expanding eastward across the United States until it was now fully entrenched and because of its local-tong and overseas-triad connections - virtually untouchable here in this city. Hamilton had discovered the enormous profits to be made in peddling ass on carefully selected, police-protected street corners. Nothing high-class here. No Mayflower Madam shit. Just a horde of young, drug-addicted girls standing out in the cold wearing nothing but Penthouse lingerie.

  Gun-running. The Hispanics were very big on this. Maybe because, like cab drivers coming back from the airport, they didn't like to ride deadhead. Bring up a load of Colombian coke, you didn't want that ship going back empty. So you filled it with guns - high-powered handguns, automatic rifles, machine guns - which you then sold at an enormous profit in the Caribbean. Hamilton already knew how to bring up the dope. He was now learning - way too damn fast to suit the Hispanics - how to send down stolen guns.

  And, of course, drugs.

  Unless a gang - any gang, any nationality, any color - dealt drugs, then it wasn't a gang, it was a ladies' sewing circle. Hamilton's posse was heavily into dope. With enough weaponry to invade Beirut.

  All of this was why the slants, the spics and the wops wanted him dusted.

  Which amused Hamilton. All those contracts out on him. If they didn't know what he looked like, how could they reach him? Unless one of his own people turned, there wasn't no way anybody could be out there squatting for him. All highly amusing. Their dumb gang shit. Contracts. What was he, a kid playing in the mud outside a shack? The concept of a Hollywood hood with a broken nose looking high and low for him made him laugh.

  But not today.

  Today he wasn't laughing.

  Today he was annoyed by the way three of his people had mishandled the José Herrera thing.

  'Why baseball bats?' he asked.

  The word 'bats' sounded like 'bots.'

  Very melodious. Heavy bass voice rumbling up out of his chest. Bots. Why baseball bots?

  A reasonable question.

  Only one of the three was standing there in front of him. The other two were in the hospital. But even if the cop hadn't jammed them, they'd have been denied bail. Assaulting a police officer? Terrific. The one who'd been sprung looked shamefaced. Six feet three inches tall, weighing in at two hundred and twelve pounds, big hands hanging at his sides, he looked like a schoolboy about to be birched. Like back in Kingston when he'd been a kid.

  Hamilton sat there patiently and expectantly.

  At an even six feet, he was smaller than the man he was addressing. But he emanated even in his reasonableness a sense of terrible menace.

  He turned to the man sitting beside him on the couch.

  'Isaac?' he said. 'Why baseball bats?'

  The other man shrugged. Isaac Walker, his confidant and bodyguard - not that he needed one. A confidant, yes. It could get lonely at the top. But a bodyguard? Wasn't anyone ever going to take out Lewis Randolph Hamilton. Ever.

  Isaac shook his head. He was agreeing that baseball bats were ridiculous. Baseball bats were for spics out to break a man's legs. For chasing after
a man's woman. Very big thing with the spics, their women. There were women attached to the posse, of course. Camp followers. There when you needed them. But nobody was going to get into a shootout over a mere cunt. Big macho thing with the spic gangs, though. Even the Colombians, who you thought would have more sense, all the fuckin' green involved in their operation. Mess with a spic's woman, it wasn't maybe as serious as messin' with his shit, but it was serious enough. Break the man's legs so he couldn't chase no more. But who had given these three the order to use baseball bats on Herrera?

  'Who told you baseball bats, man?' Hamilton asked.

  It came out 'Who tole you baseball bots, mon?'

  'James.'

  Like a kid telling on his best friend.

  James. Who was now at Buenavista Hospital where they had dug the cop's bullet out of his shoulder. At the hospital, James had whispered to Isaac that he'd knocked out one of the cop's teeth. He'd sounded proud of it. Isaac had thought he was a fucking dope, messing with a cop to begin with. A cop showed, they should have split, saved Herrera for another day. Which they were having to do anyway. Jump up and down on a cop? Had to be fucking crazy. James. Who, it now turned out, had told them to go after Herrera with baseball bats.

  'James told you this?'

  Hamilton speaking.

  'Yes, Lewis. It was James for certain.'

  The Jamaican lilt of his words.

  Andrew Fields was his name. Giant of a man. He could have broken Hamilton in half with his bare hands, torn him limb from limb, the way he'd done other people without batting an eyelash. But there was deference in his voice. When he said 'Lewis,' it somehow sounded like 'sir.'

  'Told you to use baseball bats on the man?' Hamilton asked.

  'Yes, Lewis.'

  'When I specifically said I wanted the man put to sleep?'

  'That message did come down, Lewis.'

  'But you used baseball bats anyway,' Hamilton said.

  Andrew was hoping he believed him. He didn't want Hamilton thinking that he himself, or even Herbert, had been acting on their own initiative. Had somehow taken it in their heads that the way to do the little spic was with ball bats. Herbert had been the third man on the hunting party. The one who'd thrown his bat at the cop. The first one the cop had shot. He'd had nothing at all to do with deciding on the ball bats, James had made that decision. Maybe because the person they were about to do was a spic and spics understood baseball bats. But if the whole idea was to put the man to sleep, then what difference did it make how they did it? Was he later going to remember in his grave that it was a gun or a knife or three ball bats had done him? James's reasoning on this had eluded Andrew. But in a posse, as in any kind of business, there were levels of command. The man had said ball bats, so ball bats it had been.