Lullaby Town

I thought about it some more and shook my head. 'It's not a world breaker. Charlie shows a little initiative, he makes a few extra bucks. What's Daddy going to do?'

Pike said, 'There's the hype.'

I nodded. The hype didn't figure. You want to keep secrets, you don't do business with a hype. 'Maybe Charlie doesn't have a choice. Maybe, whatever he's doing, he can't do it without the hype.'

Pike grunted. 'Makes you wonder what he's got going, that he can't do it without a hype.'

I said, 'Yes, it does. Maybe we should ask the hype and find out.'

'What if the hype won't cooperate?'

'He'll cooperate. Everyone knows that a hype can't keep secrets. They have low self-esteem.'

We put on our coats and our guns and made the drive into Manhattan in less than fifty minutes.

We parked by a subway entrance near 92nd Street and Central Park West, then walked two blocks to an eight-story gray-stone building with painted windows and a lot of crummy shops on the ground floor and a fire escape.

Pike said, 'Third floor in the back. Three-F.'

We entered the lobby of the apartment building between a place that sold discount clothing and a place that sold donuts. The lobby had a white and black linoleum floor, circa 1952, probably the last year it had been waxed, and someone had scotch-taped a little handwritten sign that said out of service to the elevator. Someone else had urinated on the floor. You watch Miami Vice or Wiseguy, the criminals always live in palatial apartments and drive Ferraris. So much for verisimilitude.

We walked up the two flights, then down a dingy hall past a stack of newspapers four feet tall, Pike leading. An empty plastic Cup-A-Soup was lying on its side atop the newspapers. Three-F was the third apartment on the left side of the hall. When Pike got to the door, he stood there a moment, head cocked to the side, and then he shook his head. 'Not home.'

'How do you know?'

Shrug. 'Knock and see.'

I knocked, then knocked again. Nothing.

Pike spread his hands.

I said, 'Why don't we be sure?'

Pike shook his head, giving me bored.

There was only one lock and it was cheap. I let us into a studio apartment that was just as attractive as the rest of the building. Bags of fast-food wrappers and potato-chip empties in the kitchenette, stacks of the New York Post and the National Enquirer along the walls, paper cups packed with dead cigarettes by a throw-pillow couch, and the sour smell of body odor and wet matches, Nice. No Richard Francis Sealy, though. Maybe Pike could see through walls.

We went back down to the mail drop in the lobby. Most of the little mailbox doors had been jimmied – junkies looking for checks – and most of the boxes were empty. The top box had a little plastic sticker on it that said: Sal Cohen, 2A, mgr.

We went back up to the second floor and found 2-A.

I knocked hard on the door three times. Somebody threw a series of bolts and then Sal Cohen scowled out at us from behind what looked like eight security chains. He was little and dark, and he had a Sunbeam steam iron in his right hand. He said, The fuck you're knocking so loud?'

New York, New York. The attitude capital of the universe.

I said, 'Richard Sealy in three-F, he's a pal of ours. He was supposed to meet us here and he's not around.'

'So what?' Mr. Helpful.

'We're movie producers. We're going to produce a movie and we want him to be the star. We thought you might know when he'd be around so we could get him in on this.'

Sal Cohen blinked at me and then he blinked at Joe Pike. 'Yeah?'

'Yeah.'

Sal smirked. 'What bull. I know cops when I see'm.'

Pike walked away down the hall.

I stepped closer to the door, lowered my voice, and tried to look furtive. I have never in my life met a cop who looked furtive, but there you go. 'Okay,' I said, 'we're on the cops. We need your help in locating Richard Sealy so that we might topple the organized crime structure in our city.'

He said, 'You find him, you get me the eight months' back rent the little bag of shit owes.'

'You got any idea when he'll be around?'

'No.'

'You know where he works?'

'That lazy sonofabitch, work? If he worked, he wouldn't be eight months back on the rent. None of these lazy bastards work.'

'You know where he spends his time?'

'Look down at Dillard's. He's always down there, shooting pool and trying to buy dope, else he's running around with those crazy Gamboza bastards.'

'Gamboza bastards?' Pike came back and stood next to me.

Sal nodded and squinted out at us. 'Yeah.'

'As in the Gamboza family?'

'Yeah.' More squinting.

I said, 'Richard Sealy hangs out with the DeLuca family.'

Sal laughed, and it came out like a series of sharp hacks. 'Hey, you just fall off the lamebrain truck, or what? I run this building thirty-five years. Those fucking Gamboza bastards grew up right over there on Wilmont Street and so did Richie Sealy. They useta throw rocks at the niggers and steal their money, the little bastards, Richie Sealy and Nick and Tommy Gamboza and that nut case Vincent Ricci. Jesus Christ, the DeLucas.' More of the hacking laugh. 'Richie's about as close to being a Gamboza as you can be without the blood. Why else you think I gotta put up with a junkie eight months back on his rent? I heave him out, those bastards would cut out my heart and fry it in a pan.'

I said, 'But how does he fit in with the DeLucas?'

Sal squinted at me past the security chains like I was a new release from Bellevue. 'He don't. Nobody around here got anything to do with the fucking DeLucas. The Upper West Side is owned lock, stock, and short hairs by the Gamboza family. DeLucas got lower Manhattan. This look like lower Manhattan to you?'

I was seeing it. 'Sonofabitch.'

Sal Cohen said, 'No wonder this city's down the toilet, fucking cops like you.' Then he slammed the door.

Joe Pike and I walked down the flight of stairs and out onto the street and looked around at deepest, darkest Gamboza country. Nary a DeLuca in sight.

'Well, well, well,' I said. 'Now I'm beginning to see why Charlie's keeping this secret.'

Pike nodded.

'The Delucas and the Gambozas hate each other, but they have an agreement. They're supposed to be standing together against the foreign gangs.'

Pike's mouth twitched. 'Doesn't look that way, does it?'

'Nope.'

Pike's mouth twitched a second time. Hysterics, for Pike. 'You think whatever these guys are stealing at Kennedy, it's something that would make a lot of people mad?'

'I've got some guesses.'

Pike nodded again. 'Let's go down to Dillard's and see if your guesses are right.'

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE