Darkfall

dark end of the room, into the shadowy hallway; it moved fast. Again, Nayva failed to get a good look at it.

“Damn,” she said.

She had the unsettling feeling that the critter — whatever in God's name it might be — was just toying with her, playing games, teasing.

But that didn't make sense. Whatever it was, it was still only a dumb animal, one kind of dumb animal or another, and it wouldn't have either the wit or the desire to lead her on a merry chase merely for the fun of it.

Elsewhere in the apartment, the thing shrieked, as if calling to her.

Okay, Nayva thought. Okay, you nasty little beast, whatever you may be, look out because here I come. You may be fast, and you may be clever, but I'll track you down and have a look at you even if it's the last thing I do in this life.

CHAPTER TWO

I

They had been questioning Vince Vastagliano's girlfriend for fifteen minutes. Nevetski was right. She was an uncooperative bitch.

Perched on the edge of a Queen Anne chair, Jack Dawson leaned forward and finally mentioned the name that Darl Coleson had given him yesterday. “Do you know a man named Baba Lavelle?”

Shelly Parker glanced at him, then quickly looked down at her hands, which were folded around a glass of Scotch, but in that unguarded instant, he saw the answer in her eyes.

“I don't know anyone named Lavelle,” she lied.

Rebecca was sitting in another Queen Anne chair, legs crossed, arms on the chair arms, looking relaxed and confident and infinitely more self-possessed than Shelly Parker. She said, “Maybe you don't know Lavelle, but maybe you've heard of him. Is that possible?”

“No,” Shelly said.

Jack said, “Look, Ms. Parker, we know Vince was dealing dope, and maybe we could hang a related charge on you—”

“I had nothing to do with that!”

“-but we don't intend to charge you with anything—”

“You can't!”

“-if you cooperate.”

“You have nothing on me,” she said.

“We can make life very difficult for you.”

“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