Lullaby Town

open hand then thumbed him in the right eye. He went white this time and stumbled backward and fell over his stool into the bar and down to the floor.

The bartender and the other four guys at the bar looked at me. I said, 'Think I did the Heimlich a little too hard.'

The nearest guy said, 'You want I should call an ambulance?'

'Maybe in a bit.'

Joey was scrambling around on the floor, holding his face with one hand and trying to get up. He screamed, 'You poked out my fuckin' eye! I'm gonna be blind!'

I pulled him up and led him farther back into the bar. The bartender and the other guys were making a big deal out of not seeing it. I said, 'Nah. I took it easy. Let me see.'

He let me see. I thumbed him in the other eye.

Joey made a sort of gasping sound and grabbed at the other eye and tried to turn away but he was against the wall and there was no place to go. The eyes were red and tearing but he would be fine.

He said, 'You sonofabitch, you're supposed to be gone. We got rid of you.'

'You did a lousy job.'

He lurched forward and threw another right hand and I pushed it past just like the first and drove a spin kick to the right side of his head. It slammed him sideways into the bar and he fell down again. The guys at the other end of the bar and a couple of people in the booths stood up. The bartender said, 'Hey, I'm gonna call the cops.'

I said, 'Call'm. This won't take long.'

I reached down and pulled Joey up again and sat him on the stool and dug out his wallet and looked at his driver's license. Joseph L. Putata. Jackson Heights.

I put the wallet back in his pocket. 'Okay, Joey. What's a used rubber like you got to do with Karen Lloyd?'

One of his eyes was looking up and the other was sort of rolling around and he was blinking a lot. He shook his head, like he didn't know what I was talking about. 'I dunno. Who's Karen Lloyd?' His hands were down at his sides.

'The lady at the bank.' Maybe she hadn't sent them.

Joey's eyes started coming together and he looked scared. 'Oh, shit, I told him we run you off. I said you were outta here.'

'Who? The guy in the Lincoln?'

The bartender said, 'I just called the cops.'

Joey looked from me to the bartender, then back to me. Confused along with the scared.

I said, 'Why'd the guy in the Lincoln want me to forget about Karen Lloyd?'

'I dunno. He said you were bothering her. He said she was a friend.' He looked even more scared, like talking about the guy in the Lincoln brought it out in him. 'I told him you were gone.'

'Who is he?'

'Who?'

'The guy in the Lincoln.'

Joey looked at me like I'd just beamed down from the Enterprise. 'Jesus Christ, you don't know?'

'No.'

He looked at the other people at the bar and then he lowered his voice. He said, 'We're talking about Charlie DeLuca. Sal DeLuca's kid.'

'So?'

Joey shook his head and put on a face like he was about to wet his pants. 'Sal DeLuca is the godfather, you dumb fuck. The capo de tutti capo. He's the head of the whole damned mafia.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was twenty minutes before five that afternoon when I turned down the neat, clean blacktop off the county road above Chelam and pulled into Karen Shipley's drive. The sun was most of the way down in the southwest, and would set in another hour. The LeBaron was parked in the garage.

Toby Lloyd was pounding a basketball on the drive, hopping sideways and swiveling his head as if he were being covered by David Robinson and Magic Johnson. I parked about thirty feet back to give him room to work the ball and got out. 'Hi. Remember me from the bank?'

'Sure.' He bounced the ball a couple of times, then turned and launched one toward the basket. It banged off the backboard and went through the net.

I said, 'Gotta be tough shooting in the cold. Gets your fingers stiff.'

He nodded and scooped up the rebound. 'You want to see my mom?'

'Yeah. She inside?'

'Sure. C'mon.' Elvis Cole, friend of the family, comes to call.

He led me through the garage and a laundry room and into their kitchen. The walls and the ceilings and the floors and the appliances were still new-house bright, without the ground-in dirt that comes as the years put their wear of life on a place. A thick spaghetti sauce was simmering on top of a Jenn-Air range, a fine spray of the sauce a red shadow on the enamel. Toby yelled, 'Hey, Mom, there's somebody here to see you!'

We went out of the kitchen and through the dining room and into the living room. Karen Shipley came out of a hallway from the back of the house in a pink sweatshirt and faded blue jeans and white socks with little pompoms at the heels. She said, 'What did you say, hon?' Then she saw me.

I said, 'Hi, Karen.'

There was a small part of a moment as she saw me when her eyes flickered and her breath might have caught, but then she forced a pretty good smile for the boy like everything was fine. 'You're still here.'

'Uh-huh.'

More of the smile for the boy. 'Tobe. Mr. Cole and I have something to discuss. Would you leave us alone for a while?'

'Okay.' Like he was used to having to be out of the way when she talked business and that was just fine with him. He charged back through the kitchen and the laundry.

The living room was large and comfortable, with a vaulted beamed ceiling and peg-and-groove floors and Early American furniture across from a used brick fireplace with a mantel. Colonial. A white and orange cat was asleep on the couch.

Karen Shipley said, 'You're wasting your time, Mr. Cole. My name is not Karen Shipley.'

I said, 'You're owned by the mob.'

She went very still, and then her left foot moved as if her balance had abruptly and without warning shifted and she had to catch herself. Her mouth opened, then closed, and she wet her lips. She did not look away from me. Outside, Toby bounced the basketball. There was a faraway electric hum from something in the kitchen and something else behind me in the living room. Clocks. She said, 'That's,' and then she said, 'Silly.'

'Two hours after I saw you in the bank four days ago, three men came to the Howard Johnson's and told me to forget about you and get out of town. I didn't. This morning you met a man driving a black Lincoln Town Car at a secluded place off the road near Brunly. The man in the black Lincoln gave you a nylon duffel bag, then made advances on you which you refused. He struck you. The man left first and then you brought the duffel to the bank. The Lincoln Town Car is registered to the Lucerno Meat Company in lower Manhattan and was driven by a man I've identified as one Charlie DeLuca, son of Sal DeLuca, head of the DeLuca crime family. I went to the meat plant and observed one of the three men who had come to the Howard Johnson's. His name is Joseph Putata. That links Putata to Charlie DeLuca. I didn't see what was in the bag, but I'd bet it was money, and I'd bet you wash it for the DeLucas by running it through an account without reporting it to the IRS. I'd also bet that if I went to the cops with this, they'd be pleased as peaches to see me.'