Lullaby Town (1992) (15 page)

The bartender saw me first and flagged his hand. "Hey, can't you read? We're closed to the public."

"I know. I'm here because I want to see Mr. DeLuca." You give them the mister when you're hoping for cooperation.

DeLuca and the two guys at his table looked over, and so did Joey Putata. When Joey Putata saw me, he stopped wrestling with the beer keg and said, "Oh, shit." He hadn't said anything about the clam bar.

"My name is Elvis Cole, Mr. DeLuca. I want to talk with you about Karen Lloyd." I was laying it on thick with the mister.

DeLuca blinked at me, then looked at Joey Putata. "I thought you got rid of this fuck." Probably wasn't laying it on thick enough.

Joey said, "Hey, Charlie, we gave him the word. I took Lenny and Phil with me. We gave him the word real good."

Charlie turned back to me and went back to work on the pasta. I think he was eating tongue. "You're the creep from Disneyland, right?"

"Nope. I'm the creep from Los Angeles."

"What's the fucking difference? It's all talking rabbits out there anyway, ain't it?"

The two guys sitting with Charlie and the little bartender thought that was a good one. One of the guys sitting with Charlie had big arms and a lot of gut and a gray sharkskin jacket over a blue shirt. His collar tips were long and stuck out over the jacket. Twenty years out of style. He said, "Hey, Charlie, you think this mook knows Minnie Mouse? You think he plays hide the salami with old Minnie?" Everybody laughed except the guy back at the pool table. He was staring at the pool table and holding the cue stick as if it were a guitar, gently bobbing his head in time with the music.

Charlie said, "You got some nut coming here. Didn't Joey tell you to knock it off and go home?"

"Joey didn't do a good job."

Joey said, "Hey, fuck you."

Charlie turned back to me with the same hard eyes he was giving Joey. 'Joey's a piece of shit. I got guys who can do better, Mickey Mouse." He turned enough to look back toward the pool table. "You think you can do better than this piece of shit, Ric?"

The guy with the pool cue nodded, still staring at the pool table. Ric. He looked almost seven feet tall.

Charlie said, "You're bothering my friend Karen, Mickey Mouse. That's not good."

"Not anymore, Charlie. Now I'm working for her because she's working for you and she wants to stop. You see?"

Charlie stopped with the knife and fork and said, "Karen."

"She'd like to retire."

"Karen been talking to you?" He wasn't liking it.

"I found out some things and I asked her about them. She's hoping we can work something out."

Charlie put down the knife and fork and made a little hand move to the guy with the twenty-year-old clothes. "Tudi, see if he's wired."

Tudi came around the table and patted me down. I stood with my hands raised and sort of out to the side while he did it. He took out the Dan Wesson, opened it, pushed out the bullets, closed it, put the bullets in my left pants pocket and the Dan Wesson back in my shoulder rig. He took out my wallet and tossed it to Charlie DeLuca. Tudi started at the tops of my shoulders and went down each arm and my back and my front and my crotch and each leg. He took off the G-2 and went over the seams and the fabric, and then he took off my belt and checked that, too. While he did it, Ric knocked pool balls around and Charlie DeLuca looked through my wallet. Tudi said, "He's clean."

DeLuca closed my wallet and tossed it back to me. "I never met a private dick before. Private dicks around here know they fuck with Charlie DeLuca, they end up with the fish. You know what they call me?"

"Charlie the Tuna."

"You know why they call me that?"

"They can't think of anything better."

Joey said, "You see? The guy's a wiseass. I couldn't help the wiseass wouldn't listen." Whining.

Charlie said, "Shut up, you piece of shit."

Joey shut up.

I said, "Karen wants to move on. Maybe we can work something out so that you get what you want and she gets what she wants."

Charlie nodded, two guys sitting around a bar, shooting the breeze. "What's your cut? You fuckin' her?"

"No cut. I'm just trying to help a friend."

"Yeah. You know the old saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

I said, 'There are ways we can work this. You can find another bank to launder your money."

He smiled and spread his hands and looked at Tudi. "Tudi, you know what this guy is talking about, launder our money?"

Tudi said, "Shit."

I said, "Okay. How about you move someone else into Karen's place. She'll stay on until they're in place, and then she'll leave. That way you don't lose a thing and everything stays just as it is."

Charlie made the smile again and did more with the hands. "I don't get this guy. I say one thing, he says another. Maybe he don't speak English out there in Disneyland. Whatta they talk there, mousetalk?"

Tudi went, "Eep, eep." Everybody thought that was a riot.

I said, "Karen wants out, Charlie. She's leaving."

Charlie pushed his plate of pasta carefully to the side and leaned forward. "Try to get this through your head, mook. What she wants does not matter. Do you know what matters?"

"What you want."

"Right. And you know what I want right now?"

"To fit into size-34 pants."

Joey said, 'You see, Charlie? You see? A wiseass."

Charlie DeLuca's eyes went dark and he looked at me the way you look at a parking ticket you've found under your wiper blade. He said, "I want you to watch this." He turned and made the little hand move to Joey Putata. "Come here, piece of shit."

Joey glanced at the short, muscular guy and then at the bartender, and then he walked out to stand in front of Charlie DeLuca's table. The principal's office. "What?"

"You told me you got rid of him. I sent you on the job to get rid of him, and here he is. I don't like fuckups, piece of shit."

Charlie wasn't looking at Joey; he was looking at me. Joey was staring at Charlie, sweating now, scared and wondering what was going to happen, and everyone else was staring at Joey. Except for Ric. Ric made a nice, smooth shot and the clack of the balls was the only sound in the bar.

Charlie said, "Smack yourself, piece of shit."

Joey said, "C'mon, Charlie, please. I took Lenny and Phil. We gave him the word."

Charlie still didn't look at him; he stared at me. "Do it, piece of shit. Hit yourself in the face."

Joey sort of slowly raised his right hand and looked at it, then slapped himself in the face. It wasn't very hard.

"Close your hand."

Joey started to cry. "Hey, c'mon, Charlie."

"Piece of shit."

Joey closed his hand and sort of punched at his jaw.

"Harder."

Joey hit himself harder, but it still wasn't very hard.

Charlie said, "Ric, this piece of shit needs some help."

Ric put down the pool cue and moved up by the bar, head still bobbing to music only he could hear. When he moved, he sort of glided, as if the tight pale skin were laid over steel cables and servo motors instead of muscle. He took off the Wayfarers and put them away in the black shirt and then he took out a stainless-steel Smith Wesson 10mm automatic. You don't see many 10-mils. Style.

Joey said, "Hey, Charlie, hey, I'll do it, look at this." This time his lip split.

Charlie nodded. 'That's better, piece of shit. Now a couple more."

Joey hit himself twice more. The second time opened the split and blood ran down Joey's chin and dripped onto his shirt. Ric put away the 10mm. Charlie DeLuca got up from the little table and came around and looked at me. "You see the way it is."

I said, "Sure."

"I want you gone. Ric, you and Tudi walk this fuck outta here and show him that I get what I want."

I said, "Does this mean I can't stay for lunch?"

Ric peeled himself away from the bar and the guy with the big arms took out a short-barreled Ruger .38 revolver. He showed it to me, then put it in his coat pocket just like they do in the movies. Ric didn't bother with the 10mm. I guess he just brought it out on special occasions.

Charlie DeLuca was turning away as if he were going around the table to finish his tongue when he hit Joey Putata a wide, looping right hand that caught Joey blind and knocked him over a couple of chairs and down to the floor. Joey covered up and DeLuca kicked him in the kidneys and the back and the legs, yelling, "Piece of shit, rotten piece of shit." He grabbed a fork from somebody's plate and stabbed Joey in the fleshy part of thes houlder. Joey Putata screamed and Charlie went back to kicking him. Tudi and the bartender and the other guys watched, but took a step back as if they didn't like what they were seeing and they were frightened that they might be pulled into it. Except for Ric. Ric glided up behind Charlie and put his hands on Charlie's shoulders and mumbled until Charlie stopped kicking and cursing and was finally standing there, breathing hard and finished with it. Ric the cooler, talking down the nut case. Charlie went back to the table, sat, but stared at the plate as if he didn't recognize what was in front of him.

The little bartender said, 'Jesus."

Ric straightened his jacket, then came back over to me and pushed me through the red naugahyde door out into the light. It took Tudi a couple of steps to catch up. I said, "He gets sort of carried away, doesn't he?"

Ric said, "Shut up and let's go."

We went up along the street, then turned into a little alley. The alley was black and wet and gritty, with dumpsters and steel garbage drums sprouting like mushrooms along the base of the buildings. A couple of six-wheeler vegetable trucks were parked to the side, enveloped by restaurant steam venting from greasy pipes. Surly white kids and Puerto Rican kids in dirty aprons hung around outside of the kitchen doors, smoking and scratching at tattoos that someone had cut into them with Bic pens and sewing needles. Rotten cabbage was the big smell. I said, "Gee, fellas, I think I can find my way from here."

Tudi said, "We get finished with you, mook, you ain't even gonna be able to find the hospital."

Ric didn't say anything.

Tudi took the little .38 out of his coat pocket and pointed it at me and that's when Joe Pike stepped outf rom behind one of the vegetable trucks, twisted the gun out of Tudi's hand, cocked it, and pressed it against Tudi's right temple. It had taken him maybe a tenth of a second.

Pike said, "Do you want to die?"

It happened quickly and without apparent effort, as if Pike had somehow assembled himself from the air and the trucks and the earth.

Tudi blinked and looked confused, response lagging behind event, and then his eyes bulged and he sucked in a single sharp breath. 'Jesus Christ." His right hand stayed up and out, as if he were still holding the gun.

I said, "You're five minutes too soon. I was just about to let these guys have it."

Pike's mouth twitched. He never smiles, but sometimes he'll give the twitch.

Pike is maybe six-one and lean, all taut cords and veins. He was in straight-legged blue jeans and Niker unning shoes and an olive-green Marine Corps parka over a gray sweatshirt and G. I. pilot's glasses so dark that they were without depth or dimension. He cocked his head to look at Ric. He had to look up.

Ric lifted his hands to the sides, letting Pike see that they were empty. He moved with great care, but he didn't look scared. Outside in the light, his skin was so pale I wondered if he used makeup, his eyes black dots set far back in dark hollows, angry weasels staring out of ice caves.

Pike said, "Your call."

Ric smiled. His teeth were small and yellow and angled backward like a snake's. If he bit you, you'd have a helluva time getting away from him. He reached out and pushed Tudi's gun hand down. "He's got your gun, stupid. All you're holding is air."

Tudi looked at his hand, maybe wondering where his gun had gone. 'The guy japped me."

Pike stepped back and lowered the gun.

I gave Tudi the tsk-tsk. "First Joey the Potato, now you. Charlie's gonna love it."

Tudi's face was red and angry. He looked at his empty hand again like maybe he had made a mistake the first time, like maybe if he looked again, it wouldn't be empty and he could shoot Pike and me and he wouldn't have to tell Charlie that he'd been japped by a guy who came out of nowhere. Only when he looked, the hand was still empty. He looked back at Pike, then grunted and charged, head down. Pike's right knee snapped up hard, and Tudi popped over as if he'd been jerked backward by a leash. He hit the ground flat on his back with a loud slapping sound and that was the end of it.

"Dumb," I said. 'This man has the market cornered on dumb."

Ric smiled some more. "He thinks he's good. All these guys, they think they're good."

Pike was back to looking at Ric. "How about you?"

Ric reached down with the emaciated white scarecrow arm and picked up Tudi and lifted him over his shoulder like a bag of dirty laundry. Tudi had to go two-thirty-five, at least. It was a long way to lift two-thirty-five. "We'll talk again," he said.