“So can the Carramazzas. I'm not talking about them.”
“We aren't asking you to talk about them,” Rebecca said. “Just tell us about this Lavelle.”
Shelly said nothing. She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip.
“He's a Haitian,” Jack said, encouraging her.
Shelly stopped biting her lip and settled back on the white sofa, trying to look nonchalant, failing. “What kind of neese is he?”
Jack blinked at her. “Huh?”
“What kind of neese is this Lavelle?” she repeated.
“Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese…? You said he was Asian.”
“Haitian. He's from Haiti.”
“Oh. Then he's no kind of neese at all.”
“No kind of neese at all,” Rebecca agreed.
Shelly apparently detected the scorn in Rebecca's voice, for she shifted nervously, although she didn't seem to understand exactly what had elicited that scorn. “Is he a black dude?”
“Yes,” Jack said, “as you know perfectly well.”
“I don't hang around with black dudes,” Shelly said, lifting her head and squaring her shoulders and assuming an affronted air.
Rebecca said, “We heard Lavelle wants to take over the drug trade.”
“I wouldn't know anything about that.”
Jack said, “Do you believe in voodoo, Ms. Parker?”
Rebecca sighed wearily.
Jack looked at her and said, “Bear with me.”
“This is pointless.”
“I promise not to be excessively open-minded,” Jack said, smiling. To Shelly Parker, he said, “Do you believe in the power of voodoo?”
“Of course not.”
“I thought maybe that's why you won't talk about Lavelle — because you're afraid he'll get you with the evil eye or something.”
“That's all a bunch of crap.”
“Is it?”
“All that voodoo stuff-crap.”
“But you have heard of Baba Lavelle?” Jack said.
“No, I just told you—”
“If you didn't know anything about Lavelle,” Jack said, “you would've been surprised when I mentioned something as off-the-wall as voodoo. You would've asked me what the hell voodoo had to do with anything. But you weren't surprised, which means you know about Lavelle.”
Shelly raised one hand to her mouth, put a fingernail between her teeth, almost began to chew on it, caught herself, decided the relief provided by biting them was not worth ruining a forty-dollar nail job.
She said, “All right, all right. I know about Lavelle.”
Jack winked at Rebecca. “See?”
“Not bad,” Rebecca admitted.
“Clever interrogational technique,” Jack said. “Imagination.”
Shelly said, “Can I have more Scotch?”
“Wait till we've finished questioning you,” Rebecca said.
“I'm not drunk,” Shelly said.
“I didn't say you were,” Rebecca told her.
“I never get potted,” Shelly said. “I'm not a lush.”
She got up from the sofa, went to the bar, picked up a Waterford decanter, and poured more Scotch for herself.
Rebecca looked at Jack, raised her eyebrows.
Shelly returned and sat down. She put the glass of Scotch on the coffee table without taking a sip of it, determined to prove that she had all the will power she needed.
Jack saw the look Shelly gave Rebecca, and he almost winced. She was like a cat with her back up, spoiling for a fight.
The antagonism in the air wasn't really Rebecca's fault this time. She hadn't been as cold and sharp with Shelly as it was in her power to be. In fact, she had been almost pleasant until Shelly had started the “neese” stuff. Apparently, however, Shelly had been comparing herself with Rebecca and had begun to feel that she came off second-best. That was what had generated the antagonism.
Like Rebecca, Shelly Parker was a good-looking blonde. But there the resemblance ended. Rebecca's exquisitely shaped and harmoniously related features bespoke sensitivity, refinement, breeding. Shelly, on the other hand, was a parody of seductiveness. Her hair had been elaborately cut and styled to achieve a carefree, abandoned look. She had flat wide cheekbones, a short upper lip, a pouting mouth. She wore too much makeup. Her eyes were blue, although slightly muddy, — dreamy; they were not as forthright as Rebecca's eyes. Her figure was too well developed; she was rather like a wonderful French pastry made with far too much butter, too many eggs, mounds of whipped cream and sugar; too rich, soft. But in tight black slacks and a purple sweater, she was definitely an eye-catcher.
She was wearing a lot of jewelry: an expensive watch; two bracelets; two rings; two small pendants on gold chains, one with a diamond, the other with what seemed to be an emerald the size of a large pea. She was only twenty-two, and although she had not been gently used, it would be quite a few years before men stopped buying jewelry for her.
Jack thought he knew why she had taken an instant disliking to Rebecca. Shelly was the kind of woman a lot of men wanted, fantasized about. Rebecca, on the other hand, was the kind of woman men wanted, fantasized about, and married.
He could imagine spending a torrid week in the Bahamas with Shelly Parker; oh, yes. But only a week. At the end of a week, in spite of her sexual energy and undoubted sexual proficiency, he would most certainly be bored with her. At the end of a week, conversation with Shelly would probably be less rewarding than conversation with a stone wall. Rebecca, however, would never be boring; she was a woman of infinite layers and endless revelations. After twenty years of marriage, he would still find Rebecca intriguing.
Marriage? Twenty years?
God, just listen to me! he thought, astonished. Have I been bitten, or have I been bitten?
To Shelly, he said, “So what do you know about Baba Lavelle?”
She sighed. “I'm not telling you anything about the Carramazzas.”
“We're not asking for anything about them. Just Lavelle.”
“And then forget about me. I walk out of here. No phony detention as a material witness.”
“You weren't a witness to the killings. Just tell us what you know about Lavelle, and you can go.”
“All right. He came from nowhere a couple months ago and started dealing coke and smack. I don't mean penny ante stuff, either. In a month, he'd organized about twenty street dealers, supplied them, and made it clear he expected to expand. At least that's what Vince told me. I don't know first-hand 'cause I've never been involved with drugs.”
“Of course not.”
“Now” nobody but nobody deals in this city without an arrangement with Vince's uncle. At least that's what I've heard.”
“That's what I've heard, too,” Jack said dryly.
“So some of Carramazza's people passed word to Lavelle to stop dealing until he'd made arrangements with the family. Friendly advice.”
“Like Dear Abby,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Shelly said. She didn't even smile. “But he didn't stop like he was told. Instead, the crazy nigger sent word to Carramazza, offering to split the New York business down the middle, half for each of them, even though Carramazza already has all of it.”
“Rather audacious of Mr. Lavelle,” Rebecca said.
“No, it was smartass is what it was,” Shelly said. “I mean, Lavelle is a nobody. Who ever heard of him before this? According to Vince, old man Carramazza figured Lavelle just hadn't understood the first message, so he sent a couple of guys around to make it plainer.”
“They were going to break Lavelle's legs?” Jack asked.
“Or worse,” Shelly said.
“There's always worse.”
“But something happened to the messengers,” Shelly said.
“Dead?”
“I'm not sure. Vince seemed to think they just never came back again.”
“That's dead,” Jack said.
“Probably. Anyway, Lavelle warned Carramazza that he was some
sort of voodoo witch doctor and that not even the family could fight him. Of course, everyone laughed about that. And Carramazza sent five of his best, five big mean bastards who know how to watch and wait and pick the right moment.”
“And something happened to them, too?” Rebecca asked.
“Yeah. Four of them never came back.”
“What about the fifth man?” Jack asked.
“He was dumped on the sidewalk in front of Gennaro Carramazza's house in Brooklyn Heights. Alive. Badly bruised, scraped, cut up — but alive. Trouble was, he might as well have been dead.”
“Why's that?”
“He was ape-shit.”
“What? “
“Crazy. Stark, raving mad,” Shelly said, turning the Scotch glass around and around in her long-fingered hands. “The way Vince heard it, this guy must've seen what happened to the other four, and whatever it was it drove him clear out of his skull, absolutely ape-shit.”
“What was his name?”
“Vince didn't say.”
“Where is he now?”
“I guess Don Carramazza's got him somewhere.”
“And he's still… crazy?”
“I guess so.”
“Did Carramazza send a third hit squad?”
“Not that I heard of. I guess, after that, this Lavelle sent a message to old man Carramazza. “If you want war, then it's war.” And he warned the family not to underestimate the power of voodoo.”
“No one laughed this time,” Jack said.
“No one,” Shelly confirmed.
They were silent for a moment.
Jack looked at Shelly Parker's downcast eyes. They weren't red. The skin around them wasn't puffy. There was no indication that she had wept for Vince Vastagliano, her lover.
He could hear the wind outside.
He looked at the windows. Snowflakes tapped the glass.
He said, “Ms. Parker, do you believe that all of this has been done through… voodoo curses or something like that?”
“No. Maybe. Hell, I don't know. After what's happened these last few days, who can say? One thing I believe in for sure: I believe this Baba Lavelle is one smart, creepy, badass dude.”
Rebecca said, “We heard a little of this story yesterday, from another victim's brother. Not so much detail as you've given us. He didn't seem to know where we could find Lavelle. Do you?”
“He used to have a place in the Village,” Shelly said.
“But he's not there any more. Since all this started going down, nobody can find him. His street dealers are still working for him, still getting supplies, or so Vince said, but no one knows where Lavelle has gone.”
“The place in the Village where he used to be,” Jack said. “You happen to know the address?”
“No. I told you, I'm not really involved in this drug business. Honest, I don't know. I only know what Vince told me.”
Jack glanced at Rebecca. “Anything more?”
“Nope.”
To Shelly, he said, “You can go.”
At last she swallowed some Scotch, then put the glass down, got to her feet, and straightened her sweater. “Christ, I swear, I've had it with wops. No more wops. It always turns out bad with them.”
Rebecca gaped at her, and Jack saw a flicker of anger in her eyes, and then she said, “I hear some of the neese are pretty nice guys.”
Shelly screwed up her face and shook her head.
“Neese? Not for me. They're all little guys, aren't they?”
“Well,” Rebecca said sarcastically, “so far you've ruled out blacks, wops, and neese of all descriptions. You're a very choosy girl.”
Jack watched the sarcasm sail right over Shelly's head.
She smiled tentatively at Rebecca, misapprehending, imagining that she saw a spark of sisterhood. She said, “Oh, yeah. Hey, look, even if I say so myself, I'm not exactly your average girl. I've got a lot of fine points. I can afford to be choosy.”
Rebecca said, “Better watch out for spies, too.”
“Yeah?” Shelly said. “I never had a spic for a boyfriend. Bad?”
“Sherpas are worst,” Rebecca said.
Jack coughed into his hand to stifle his laughter.
Picking up her coat, Shelly frowned. “Sherpas? Who're they?”
“From Nepal,” Rebecca said.
“Where's that?”
“The Himalayas.”
Shelly paused halfway into her coat. “Those mountains?”
“Those mountains,” Rebecca confirmed.
“That's the other side of the world, isn't it?”
“The other side of the world.”
Shelly's eyes were wide. She finished putting on her coat. She said, “Have you traveled a lot?”
Jack was afraid he'd draw blood if he bit his tongue any harder.
“I've been around a little,” Rebecca said.
Shelly sighed, working on her buttons. “I haven't traveled much myself. Haven't been anywhere but Miami and Vegas, once. I've never even seen a Sherpa let alone slept with one.”
“Well,” Rebecca said, “if you happen to meet up with one, better walk away from him fast. No one'll break your heart faster or into more pieces than a Sherpa will. And by the way, I guess you know not to leave the city without checking with us first.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” Shelly assured them.
She took a long, white, knit scarf from a coat pocket and wrapped it around her neck as she started out of the room. At the doorway, she looked back at Rebecca.
“Hey… uh… Lieutenant Chandler, I'm sorry if maybe I was a little snappy with you.”
“Don't worry about it.”
“And thanks for the advice.”
“Us girls gotta stick together,” Rebecca said.
“Isn't that the truth!” Shelly said.
She left the room.
They listened to her footsteps along the hallway.
Rebecca said, “Jesus, what a dumb, egotistical, racist bitch!”
Jack burst out laughing and plopped down on the Queen Anne chair again. “You sound like Nevetski.”
Imitating Shelly Parker's voice, Rebecca said, “Even if I say so myself, I'm not exactly your average girl. I've got a lot of fine points.” Jesus, Jack! The only fine points I saw on that broad were the two on her chest! “
Jack fell back in the chair, laughing harder.
Rebecca stood over him, looking down, grinning. “I saw the way you were drooling over her.”
“Not me,” he managed between gales of laughter.
“Yes, you. Positively drooling. But you might as well forget about her, Jack. She wouldn't have you.”
“Oh?”
“Well, you've got a bit of Irish blood in you. Isn't that right? Your grandmother was Irish, right?” Imitating Shelly Parker's voice again, she said, “Oh, there's nothing worse than those damned, Pope-kissing, potato-sucking Irish.”
Jack howled.
Rebecca sat on the sofa. She was laughing, too. “And you've got some British blood, too, if I remember right.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, gasping. “I'm a tea-swilling limey, too.”
“Not as bad as a Sherpa,” she said.
They were convulsed with laughter when one of the uniformed cops looked in from the hallway. “What's going on?” he asked.
Neither of them were able to stop laughing and tell him.
“Well, show some respect, huh?” he said. “We have two dead men here.”
Perversely, that admonition made everything seem even funnier.
The patrolman scowled at them, shook his head, and went away.
Jack knew it was precisely because of the presence of death that Shelly Parker's conversations with Rebecca had seemed so uproariously funny. After having encountered four hideously mutilated bodies in as many days, they were desperately in need of a good laugh.
Gradually, they regained their composure and wiped the tears from their eyes. Rebecca got up and went to the windows and star
ed out at the snow flurries. For a couple of minutes, they shared a most companionable silence, enjoying the temporary but nonetheless welcome release from tension that the laughter had provided.
This moment was the sort of thing Jack couldn't have explained to the guys at the poker game last week, when they'd been putting Rebecca down. At times like this, when the other Rebecca revealed herself — the Rebecca who had a sly sense of humor and a gimlet eye for life's absurdities — Jack felt a special kinship with her. Rare as those moments were, they made the partnership work able and worthwhile — and he hoped that eventually this secret Rebecca would come into the open more often. Perhaps, someday, if he had enough patience, the other Rebecca might even replace the ice maiden altogether.
As usual, however, the change in her was short-lived.
She turned away from the window and said, “Better go talk with the M.E. and see what he's found.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “And let's try to stay glum-faced from now on, Chandler. Let's show them we really do have the proper respect for death.”
She smiled at him, but it was only a vague smile now.
She left the room.
He followed.
II
As Nayva Rooney stepped into the hall, she closed the door to the kids' bedroom behind her, so that the rat — or whatever it was — couldn't scurry back in there.
She searched for the intruder in Jack Dawson's bedroom, found nothing, and closed the door on that one, too.
She carefully inspected the kitchen, even looked in cupboards. No rat. There were two doors in the kitchen; one led to the hall, the other to the dining alcove. She closed them both, sealing the critter out of that room, as well.
Now, it simply had to be hiding in the dining alcove or the living room.
But it wasn't.
Nayva looked everywhere. She couldn't find it.
Several times she stopped searching just so she could hold her breath and listen. Listen…. Not a sound.
Throughout the search, in all the rooms, she hadn't merely looked for the elusive little beast itself but also for a hole in a partition or in the baseboard, a breach big enough to admit a largish rat. She discovered nothing of that sort.
At last, she stood in the archway between the living room and the hall. Every lamp and ceiling light was blazing. She looked around, frowning, baffled.
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