Lullaby

by Ed McBain

  For the second test, Herrera used plain water from the tap.

  The man from Miami watched in utter boredom as he scooped a spoonful of the white dust out of its plastic bag, and dropped a little bit of it into a few ounces of water. It dissolved at once. Pure cocaine hydrochloride. Herrera nodded. If the powder hadn't dissolved, he'd have known the coke had been cut with sugar.

  'Okay?' the man from Miami said, in English.

  'Bueno,' Herrera said, and nodded again.

  'How much of this are you going to go through?' the man asked, in Spanish.

  'Every bag,' Herrera said.

  * * * *

  From where he stood in the doorway across the street, Kling saw the man with the mustache coming out of the building, still carrying the dispatch case. He did not look at the two Chinese, and they did not look at him. He walked between them where they were still flanking the stoop, made a left turn and headed up the street. Kling watched him. He unlocked the door to a blue Ford station wagon, got in behind the wheel, started the car, and then drove past where Kling was standing in the doorway. Florida license plate. The numerals 866 - that was all Kling caught. The street illumination was too dim and the car went by too fast.

  He waited.

  Five minutes later, Herrera came out of the building.

  * * * *

  'No trubber?' Zing asked.

  'None,' Herrera said.

  'You have it?' Zang asked.

  'I've got it.'

  'Where?' Zing asked.

  'Here in the bag,' Herrera said. 'Where the fuck you think?'

  His eyes were sparkling. Just holding the dispatch case with all that good dope in it made him feel higher than he'd ever felt in his life. Five kilos of very very good stuff. All his. Take the Chinks back to the place on Vandermeer, kiss them off, leave them there for the cops to find when somebody complained about the stink in apartment 3A. Take his time disposing of the coke, so long as he got rid of it by the fifteenth of February. Catch the TWA plane to Spain on the fifteenth. The plane to Spain is mainly in the rain, he sang inside his head. Christ he was happy!

  The twins were on either side of him now.

  Like bodyguards.

  Zing smiled at him.

  'Henny Shoe say tell you hello,' he said.

  * * * *

  From where Kling stood across the street, he heard the shots first and only then saw the gun. In the hand of the Chinese guy standing on Herrera's right. There were three shots in rapid succession. Herrera was falling. The guy who'd shot him backed away a little, giving him room to drop. The other Chinese guy picked up the dispatch case from the sidewalk where it had fallen. They both began running. So did Kling.

  'Police!' he shouted.

  His gun was in his hand.

  'Police!' he shouted again and watched them turn the corner.

  He pounded hard along the sidewalk. Reached the corner. Went around it following his gun hand.

  The street was empty.

  His eyes flicked doorways. Hit doorways. Snapped away from them. Nothing. Where the hell had they . . . ?

  There.

  Partially open door up ahead.

  He ran to it, kicked it fully open, fanned the dark entrance alcove with his gun. Open door beyond. Went to that. Through the doorway. Syeps ahead. Not a sound anywhere in the hallway. An abandoned building. If he went up those steps he'd be walking into sudden death. Water dripped from somewhere overhead. A shot came down the stairwell. He fired back blindly. The sound of footfalls pounding up above. He came up the steps, gun out ahead of him. Another shot. Wood splinters erupted like shrapnel on the floor ahead of him. He kept climbing. The door to the roof was open. He came out into sudden cold and darkness. Flattened himself against the brick wall. Waited. Nothing. They were gone. Otherwise they'd still be firing. Waited, anyway, until his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and then covered the roof, paced it out, checking behind every turret and vent, his gun leading him. They were gone for sure. He holstered his gun and went down to the street again.

  As he approached Herrera lying on his back on the sidewalk, he saw blood bubbling up out of his mouth. He knelt beside him.

  'José?' he said, 'Joey?'

  Herrera looked up at him.

  'Who were they?'

  They won't let you live in this city, Herrera thought, but they won't let you out of it, either.

  His eyes rolled back into his head.

  * * * *

  Sitting in the automobile, Hamilton and Isaac watched the two Chinese men from the Tsu gang entering the building.

  Hamilton smiled.

  The thing about the Chinese, he thought, is that they know business but they have no passion. They are cool lemon yellow. And tonight, they were going to get squeezed.

  The two men from Miami were waiting upstairs in apartment 5C.

  This according to what Carlos Ortega had told him.

  For ten percent, the ungrateful bastard.

  The two men from the Tsu gang were now on their way upstairs to make payment and take delivery. The earlier testing and tasting, wherever the hell that had taken place, had apparently gone off without a hitch. Hamilton had no interest whatever in those shitty five keys that had vanished in the night. Upstairs in apartment 5C, there were ninety-five keys of cocaine and only four people to look after all that dope.

  He nodded to Isaac.

  Isaac nodded back and then flashed his headlights at the car up the street. He still didn't understand all the details of the deal. He only knew that tonight they were making a move that would catapult them into the big time where posses like Spangler and Shower roamed at ease. He was confident that Hamilton knew what he was doing. You either trusted someone completely or you didn't trust him at all.

  Together, they got out of the automobile.

  Up the street, the doors on the other car opened. Black men in overcoats got out. The doors closed silently on the night. The men assembled swiftly, breaths pluming on the frosty air, and then walked swiftly to the front steps of the building. Eight of them altogether. Hamilton, Isaac and six others. Hamilton knew the odds would be two to one in his favor.

  Together they climbed to the fifth floor of the building.

  Hamilton listened outside the door to apartment 5C.

  Voices inside there.

  Three separate and distinct voices.

  There now.

  A fourth voice.

  He kept listening.

  He smiled. Held up his right hand. Showed four fingers. Isaac nodded. Four of them inside there. As promised by Ortega. Isaac nodded to the man on his right.

  A single burst from the man's AR-15 blew off the lock on the door

  The Jamaicans went in.

  Hamilton was still smiling.

  There were not four people in that apartment.

  There were a dozen Colombians from Miami and a dozen Chinese from right here in the city.

  Henry Tsu was one of those Chinese.

  In the first ten seconds, Isaac - who still did not completely understand all the details of this deal - took seventeen slugs in his chest and his head. Hamilton turned to run. His way was blocked by the Jamaicans behind him. They, too, had realized all at once that they had walked into an ambush, and they were now scrambling in panic to get out of the trap. They were all too late. A second wave of fire cut them down before they reached the door. It was all over in thirty seconds. The only shot the Jamaicans had fired was the one that took off the lock.

  Hamilton, still alive, started crawling over the bodies toward the doorway.

  One of the Chinese said, 'Henny Shoe say tell you hello.'

  Then he and another Chinese who looked remarkably like him fired twelve shots into Hamilton's back.

  Hamilton stopped crawling.

  Henry Tsu looked down at him.

  He was thinking it was all a matter of which was the oldest culture.

  * * * *

  17

  Carella signed for the Federal Express envel
ope at ten minutes past nine the following morning. It was from the Seattle Police Department and it contained a sheaf of photocopied pages and a handwritten memo. The memo read: Thought you might like to see this. It was signed: Bonnem. The pages had been copied from Paul Chapman's will. They read:

  My daughters are Melissa Chapman Hammond and Joyce Chapman.

  I give and bequeath to my trustee hereinafter named the sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000) to hold same in trust for the benefit of the first child born of my said daughters, and to manage, invest and reinvest the same and pay all costs, taxes . . .

  'He was making sure the family line would continue after he was gone,' Carella said.

  'If his daughters were still childless at his death, he was giving them a good reason to change the situation,' Meyer said.

  'To get on with it.'

  'To get going.'

  'Melissa's words.'

  'Here's the motive,' Carella said, tapping the page of the will that spelled out the firstborn provision.

  'He was signing little Susan's death warrant,' Meyer said.

  'Because if she'd never been born . . .'

  'Melissa's baby would be the firstborn child . . .'

  'And that's where the million-dollar trust would go.'

  Both men continued reading in silence.

  All the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, of whatsoever nature and wheresoever situated, which I may own or to which I may in any way be entitled at the time of my death, including any lapses or renounced legacies or devises, is referred to in this, my will, as my residuary estate.

  'Defining his terms,' Carella said.

  'The rest of his estate.'

  'Millions of dollars, isn't that what she said?'

  I give, devise and bequeath any residuary estate in equal shares to my daughters living at my death . . .

  'Just what she told us.'

  ... or if a said daughter shall predecease me ...

  'Here comes the motive for Joyce's murder . . .'

  . . . then I give, devise and bequeath all of my residuary estate to my then surviving daughter.

  'Kill Joyce and Melissa gets it all,' Carella said.

  'Love or money,' Meyer said and sighed. 'It never changes.'

  There was more to the will.

  But they already had all they needed.

  And the phone was ringing again.

  * * * *

  There were no windows in the room.

  This was the first time Eileen noticed it.

  Neither was there a clock.

  Must be Las Vegas, she thought.

  'Something?' Karin asked.

  'No.'

  'You were smiling.'

  'Private joke,' Eileen said.

  'Share it with me.'

  'No, that's okay.'

  She was wearing a digital watch. Nothing ticked into the silence of the room. She wondered how many minutes were left. She wondered what the hell she was doing here.

  'Let's play some word games,' Karin said.

  'Why?'

  'Free association. Loosen you up.'

  'I'm loose.'

  'It's like snowballing. Cartoonists use it a lot.'

  'So do cops,' Eileen said.

  'Oh?'

  'In a squadroom. You take an idea and run with it,' she said, suspecting Karin already knew this. If so, why the expression of surprise? She wished she trusted her. But she didn't. Couldn't shake the feeling that to Karin Lefkowitz, she was nothing but a specimen on a slide.

  'Want to try it?'

  'We don't have much time left, do we?'

  Hoping she was right. Not wanting to look at her watch.

  'Twenty minutes, anyway,' Karin said.

  Christ, that long?.

  'I'll give you a word, and you give me the first word that pops into your head, okay?'

  'You know,' Eileen said, 'I really don't enjoy playing games. I'm a grown woman.'

  'Yes, so am I.'

  'So why don't we just skip it, okay?'

  'Sure. We can skip the whole damn thing, if you like.'

  Eileen looked at her.

  'I think we're wasting each other's time,' Karin said flatly. 'You have nothing to say to me, and if you don't say anything, then I can't help you. So maybe we ought to . . .'

  'The only help I need . . .'

  'Yes, I know. Is quitting the force.'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, I don't think I can help you do that.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because I don't think it's what you really want.'

  'Then why the hell am I here?'

  'You tell me.'

  Eileen folded her arms across her chest.

  'Here comes the body posture again,' Karin said. 'Look, I really don't think you're ready for this. I don't know why you came to me in the first place ...'

  'I told you. Sam Grossman sugg . . .'

  'Yes, and you thought it was a good idea. So here you are, and you have nothing to tell me. So why don't we call it a day, huh?'

  'You want to quit, huh?'

  'Just for now, yes. If you change your mind later . . .'

  'Too bad I can't quit just for now, huh?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'The force. Leaving police work is forever.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Come on, willya?'

  'I really don't know why you feel . . .'

  'Don't you ever talk to cops? What do you do here? Talk to architects? Bankers? I mean, for Christ's sake, don't you know how cops think?

  'How do they think, Eileen? Tell me.'

  'If I quit now . . .' She shook her head.

  'Yes?'

  'Never mind, fuck it.'

  'Okay,' Karin said, and looked at her watch. 'We've got fifteen minutes left. Have you seen any good movies lately?'

  'I just don't like having to explain the simplest goddamn things to you!'

  'Like what?'

  'Like what everyone would think if I quit!'

  'What would they think?'

  'And why it would be impossible to . . .'

  'What would they think, Eileen?'

  'That I'm scared, goddamn it!'

  'Are you?'

  'I told you I was, didn't I? How would you like to get raped?'

  'I wouldn't.'

  'But try to explain that to anyone.'

  'Who do you mean?'

  'People I've worked with. I've worked with cops all over this city.'

  'Men?'

  'Women, too.'

  'Well, surely the women would understand why you'd be afraid of getting raped again.'

  'Some of them might not. You get a certain kind of woman with a gun on her hip, she's sometimes worse than a man.'

  'But most women would understand, don't you think?'

  'I guess so. Well, Annie would. Annie Rawles. She'd understand.'

  'Rape Squad, isn't that what you told me?'

  'Annie, yeah. She's terrific'

  'So who do you think might not understand? Men?'

  'I've never heard of a man getting raped, have you? Except in prison? Most cops haven't been in prison.'

  'Then it's cops you're worried about. Men cops. You don't think they'd understand, is that it?'

  'You should work with some of these guys,' Eileen said.

  'Well, if you quit, you wouldn't have to work with them anymore.'