Then, suddenly, they all stopped moving and were motionless, as if a command had come to them. Gradually, they began to sway from side to side, their beaming eyes describing small arcs in the darkness. Their metronomic movement was in time with the song that Baba Lavelle sang in another, distant part of the city.
Eventually, they stopped swaying.
They did not become restless again.
They waited in the shadows, motionless, eyes shining.
Soon, they might be called upon to kill.
They were ready. They were eager.
CHAPTER THREE
I
Captain Walter Gresham, of Homicide, had a face like a shovel. Not that he was an ugly man; in fact, he was rather handsome in a sharp-edged sort of way. But his entire face sloped forward, all of his strong features pointing down and out, toward the tip of his chin, so that you were reminded of a garden spade.
He arrived at the hotel a few minutes before noon and met with Jack and Rebecca at the end of the elevator alcove on the sixteenth floor, by a window that looked down on Fifth Avenue.
“What we've got brewing here is a full-fledged gang war,” Gresham said. “We haven't seen anything like this in my time. It's like something out of the roaring twenties, for God's sake! Even if it is just a bunch of hoods and scumbags killing one another, I don't like it. Absolutely won't tolerate it in my jurisdiction. I spoke with the Commissioner before I came over here, and he's in full agreement with me: We can't go on treating this as if it were just an ordinary homicide investigation; we've got to put the pressure on. We're forming a special task force. We're converting two interrogation rooms into a task force headquarters, putting in special phone lines and everything.”
“Does that mean Jack and I are being pulled off the case?”
“No, no,” Gresham said. “I'm putting you in charge of the task force. I want you to head back to the office, work up an attack plan, a strategy, figure out everything you'll need. How many men — both uniforms and detectives? How much clerical support? How many vehicles? Establish emergency liaisons with city, state, and federal drug enforcement agencies, so we don't have to go through the bureaucracy every time we need information. Then meet me in my office at five o'clock.”
“We've still got work to do here,” Jack said.
“Others can handle that,” Gresham said. “And by the way, we've gotten some answers to your queries about Lavelle.”
“The phone company?” Jack asked.
“That's one of them. They've no listed or unlisted number for anyone named Baba Lavelle. In the past year, they've had only two new customers named Lavelle. I sent a man around this morning to talk to both of them. Neither is black, like your Lavelle. Neither of them knows anyone named Baba. And neither of them made my man the least bit suspicious.”
Driven by a sudden hard wind, snow grated like sand across the window. Below, Fifth Avenue briefly vanished beneath whirling flakes.
“What about the power company?” Jack asked.
“Same situation,” Gresham said. “No Baba Lavelle.”
“He might've used a friend's name for utility connections.”
Gresham shook his head. “Also heard back from the Department of Immigration. No one named Lavelle — Baba or otherwise — applied for any residency permit, either short-term or long-term, in the past year.”
Jack frowned. “So he's in the country illegally.”
“Or he's not here at all,” Rebecca said.
They looked at her, puzzled.
She elaborated: “I'm not convinced there is a Baba Lavelle.”
“Of course there is,” Jack said.
But she said, “We've heard a lot about him, and we've seen some smoke…. But when it comes to getting hold of physical evidence of his existence, we keep coming up empty-handed.”
Gresham was keenly interested, and his interest disheartened Jack. “You think maybe Lavelle is just a red herring? Sort of a… paper man behind which the real killer or killers are hiding?”
“Could be,” Rebecca said.
“A bit of misdirection,” Gresham said, clearly intrigued. “In reality, maybe it's one of the other mafia families making a move on the Carramazzas, trying to take the top rung of the ladder.”
“Lavelle exists,” Jack said.
Gresham said, “You seem so certain of that. Why?”
“I don't know, really.” Jack looked out the window at the snowswept towers of Manhattan. “I won't pretend I've got good reasons. It's just… instinct. I feel it in my bones. Lavelle is real. He's out there somewhere.
He's out there… and I think he's the most vicious, dangerous son of a bitch any of us is ever going to run up against.”
II
At Wellton School, when classes on the third floor recessed for lunch, Penny Dawson wasn't hungry. She didn't even bother to go to her newly assigned locker and get her lunchbox. She stayed at her desk and kept her head down on her folded arms, eyes closed, pretending to nap. A sour, icy ball lay lead-heavy in the pit of her stomach. She was sick — not with any virus, but with fear.
She hadn't told anyone about the silver-eyed goblins in the basement. No one would believe she'd really seen them. And, for sure, no one would believe the goblins were eventually going to attempt to kill her.
But she knew what was coming. She didn't know why it was happening to her, of all people. She didn't know exactly how it would happen or when. She didn't know where the goblins came from. She didn't know if she had a chance of escaping them; maybe there was no way out. But she did know what they intended to do to her. Oh, yes.
It wasn't merely her own fate that worried her. She was scared for Davey, too. If the goblins wanted her, they might also want him.
She felt responsible for Davey, especially since their mother had died. After all, she was his big sister. A big sister had an obligation to watch over a little brother and protect him, even if he could be a pain in the neck sometimes.
Right now, Davey was down on the second floor with his classmates and teachers. For the time being, at least, he was safe. The goblins surely wouldn't show themselves when a lot of people were around; they seemed to be very secretive creatures.
But what about later? What would happen when school was out and it was time to go home?
She didn't see how she could protect herself or Davey.
Head down on her arms, eyes closed, pretending to nap, she said a silent prayer. But she didn't think it would do any good.
III
In the hotel lobby, Jack and Rebecca stopped at the public phones. He tried to call Nayva Rooney. Because of the task force assignment, he wouldn't be able to pick up the kids after school, as planned, and he hoped Nayva would be free to meet them and keep them at her place for a while. She didn't answer her phone, and he thought perhaps she was still at his apartment, cleaning, so he tried his own number, too, but he didn't have any luck.
Reluctantly, he called Faye Jamison, his sister-in-law, Linda's only sister. Faye had loved Linda almost as much as Jack himself had loved her. For that reason he had considerable affection for Faye — although she wasn't always an easy person to like. She was convinced that no one else's life could be well-run without the benefit of her advice. She meant well. Her unsolicited counsel was based on a genuine concern for others, and she delivered her advice in a gentle, motherly voice even if the target of her kibitzing was twice her age. But she was nonetheless irritating for all of her good intentions and there were times when her soft voice seemed, to Jack, as piercing as a police siren.
Like now, on the telephone, after he asked if she would pick up the kids at school this afternoon, she said, “Of course, Jack, I'll be glad to, but if they expect you to be there and then you don't show, they're going to be disappointed, and if this sort of thing happens too often, they're going to feel worse than just disappointed; they're going to feel abandoned.”
“Faye—”
“Psychologists say that when children have already lo
st one parent, they need—”
“Faye, I'm sorry, but I don't really have time right now to listen to what the psychologists say. I—”
“But you should make time for just that sort of thing, dear.”
He sighed. “Perhaps I should.”
“Every modern parent ought to be well-versed in child psychology.”
Jack glanced at Rebecca, who was waiting impatiently by the phones. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged as Faye rattled on:
“You're an old-fashioned, seat-of-the-pants parent, dear. You think you can handle everything with love and cookies. Now, of course, love and cookies are a part of it, but there's a whole lot more to the job than—”
“Faye, listen, nine times out of ten, I am there when I tell the kids I will be. But sometimes it isn't possible. This job doesn't have the most regular hours. A homicide detective can't walk away in the middle of pursuing a hot lead just because it's the end of his shift. Besides, there's a crisis here. A big one. Now, will you pick up the kids for me?”
“Of course, dear,” she said, sounding slightly hurt.
“I appreciate it, Faye.”
“It's nothing.”
“I'm sorry if I sounded… abrupt.”
“You didn't at all. Don't worry about it. Will Davey and Penny be staying for dinner?”
“If it's all right with you—”
“Of course it is. We love having them here, Jack. You know that. And will you be eating with us?”
“I'm not sure I'll be free by then.”
“Don't miss too many dinners with them, dear.”
“I don't plan to.”
“Dinnertime is an important ritual, an opportunity for the family to share the events of the day.”
“I know.”
“Children need that period of tranquility, of togetherness, at the end of each day.”
“I know. I'll try my best to make it. I hardly ever miss.”
“Will they be sleeping over?”
“I'm sure I won't be that late. Listen, thanks a lot, Faye. I don't know what I'd do without you and Keith to lean on now and then; really, I don't. But I've got to run now. See you later.”
Before Faye could respond with more advice, Jack hung up, feeling both guilty and relieved.
A fierce and bitter wind was stored up in the west. It poured through the cold gray city in an unrelenting flood, harrying the snow before it.
Outside the hotel, Rebecca and Jack turned up their coat collars and tucked their chins down and cautiously negotiated the slippery, snow-skinned pavement.
Just as they reached their car, a stranger stepped up to them. He was tall, dark-complexioned, well-dressed. “Lieutenant Chandler? Lieutenant Dawson? My boss wants to talk to you.”
“Who's your boss?” Rebecca asked.
Instead of answering, the man pointed to a black Mercedes limousine that was parked farther along the hotel driveway. He started toward it, clearly expecting them to follow without further question.
After a brief hesitation, they actually did follow him, and when they reached the limousine, the heavily tinted rear window slid down. Jack instantly recognized the passenger, and he saw that Rebecca also knew who the man was: Don Gennaro Carramazza, patriarch of the most powerful mafia family in New York.
The tall man got in the front seat with the chauffeur, and Carramazza, alone in the back, opened his door and motioned for Jack and Rebecca to join him.
“What do you want?” Rebecca asked, making no move to get into the car.
“A little conversation,” Carramazza said, with just the vaguest trace of a Sicilian accent. He had a surprisingly cultured voice.
“So talk,” she said.
“Not like this. It's too cold,” Carramazza said. Snow blew past him, into the car. “Let's be comfortable.”
“I am comfortable,” she said.
“Well, I'm not,” Carramazza said. He frowned. “Listen, I have some extremely valuable information for you. I chose to deliver it myself. Me. Doesn't that tell you how important whisks? But I'm not going to talk on the street, in public, for Christ's sake.”
Jack said, “Get in, Rebecca.”
With an expression of distaste, she did as he said.
Jack got into the car after her. They sat in the two seats that flanked the built-in bar and television set, facing the rear of the limousine, where Carramazza sat facing forward.
Up front, Rudy touched a switch, and a thick Plexiglas partition rose between that part of the car and the passenger compartment.
Carramazza picked up an attache case and put it on his lap but didn't open it. He regarded Jack and Rebecca with sly contemplation.
The old man looked like a lizard. His eyes were hooded by heavy, pebbled lids. He was almost entirely bald. His face was wizened and leathery, with sharp features and a wide, thin-lipped mouth. He moved like a lizard, too: very still for long moments, then brief flurries of activity, quick darlings and swivelings of the head.
Jack wouldn't have been surprised if a long, forked tongue had flickered out from between Carramazza's dry lips.
Carramazza swiveled his head to Rebecca. “There's no reason to be afraid of me, you know.”
She looked surprised. “Afraid? But I'm not.”
“When you were reluctant to get into the car, I thought—”
“Oh, that wasn't fear,” she said icily. “I was worried the dry cleaner might not be able to get the stink out of my clothes.”
Carramazza's hard little eyes narrowed.
Jack groaned inwardly.
The old man said, “I see no reason why we can't be civil with one another, especially when it's in our mutual interest to cooperate.”
He didn't sound like a hoodlum. He sounded like a banker.
“Really?” Rebecca said. “You really see no reason? Please allow me to explain.”
Jack said, “Uh, Rebecca—”
She let Carramazza have it: “You're a thug, a thief, a murderer, a dope peddler, a pimp. Is that explanation enough?”
“Rebecca—”
“Don't worry, Jack. I haven't insulted him. You can't insult a pig merely by calling it a pig.”
“Remember,” Jack said, “he's lost a nephew and a brother today.”
“Both of whom were dope peddlers, thugs, and murderers,” she said.
Carramazza was startled speechless by her ferocity.
Rebecca glared at him and said, “You don't seem particularly grief-stricken by the loss of your brother. Does he look grief-stricken to you, Jack?”
Without a trace of anger or even any excitement in his voice, Carramazza said, “In the fratellanza, Sicilian men don't weep.”
Coming from a withered old man, that macho declaration was outrageously foolish.
Still without apparent animosity, continuing to employ the soothing voice of a banker, Carramazza said, “We do feel, however. And we do take our revenge.”
Rebecca studied him with obvious disgust.
The old man's reptilian hands remained perfectly still on top of the attache case. He turned his cobra eyes on Jack.
“Lieutenant Dawson, perhaps I should deal with you in this matter. You don't seem to share Lieutenant Chandler's… prejudices.”
Jack shook his head. “That's where you're wrong. I agree with everything she said. I just wouldn't have said it.”
He looked at Rebecca.
She smiled at him, pleased by his support.
Looking at her but speaking to Carramazza, Jack said, “Sometimes, my partner's zeal and aggressiveness are excessive and counterproductive, a lesson she seems unable or unwilling to learn.”
Her smile faded fast.
With evident sarcasm, Carramazza said, “What do I have here — a couple of self-righteous, holier-than-thou types? I suppose you've never accepted a bribe, not even back when you were a uniformed cop walking a beat and earning barely enough to pay the rent.”
Jack met the old man's hard, watchful eyes and said “Yeah. That'
s right. I never have.”
“Not even one gratuity—”
“No.”
“-like a free tumble in the hay with a hooker who was trying to stay out of jail or—”
“No.”
“-a little cocaine, maybe some grass, from a pusher who wanted you to look the other way.”
“No.”
“A bottle of liquor or a twenty-dollar bill at Christmas.”
“No.”
Carramazza regarded them in silence for a moment, while a cloud of snow swirled around the car and obscured the city. At last he said, “So I've got to deal with a couple of freaks.” He spat out the word “freaks” with such contempt that it was clear he was disgusted by the mere thought of an honest public official.
“No, you're wrong,” Jack said. “There's nothing special about us. We're not freaks. Not all cops are corrupt. In fact, not even most of them are.”
“Most of them,” Carramazza disagreed.
“No,” Jack insisted. “There're bad apples, sure, and weak sisters. But for the most part, I can be proud of the people I work with.”
“Most are on the take, one way or another,” Carramazza said.
“That's just not true.”
Rebecca said, “No use arguing, Jack. He has to believe everyone else is corrupt. That's how he justifies the things he does.”
The old man sighed. He opened the attache case on his lap, withdrew a manila envelope, handed it to Jack. “This might help you.”
Jack took it with more than a little apprehension.
“What is it?”
“Relax,” Carramazza said. “It isn't a bribe. It's information. Everything we've been able to learn about this man who calls himself Baba Lavelle. His last-known address. Restaurants he frequented before he started this war and went into hiding. The names and addresses of all the pushers who've distributed his merchandise over the past couple of months — though you won't be able to question some of them, any more.”
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