Lullaby

by Ed McBain

  'We're investigating a double homicide,' Carella said. 'One of the victims is a girl Scott Handler knew. We're trying to establish his whereabouts between twelve-thirty and two-thirty in the morning.'

  'On New Year's Eve,' Strothers said.

  'Yes. Well, New Year's Day, actually.'

  'Right. So this is pretty serious, huh?'

  'Yes, it's pretty serious.'

  'But if those times are critical . . .'

  'They are.'

  'Then Scott isn't your man.'

  'Why do you say that, Mr Strothers?'

  'Because I know where he was during those hours, and it wasn't out killing anybody.'

  'Where was he?'

  'With me. And my girl. And his girl.'

  'Do you want to tell us their names?'

  'Isn't my word good enough?'

  'Sure,' Carella said. 'But if two other people can swear to it, your friend would…'

  'Who says he's my friend?'

  'I thought . . .'

  'I hardly know him. I met him at a gallery opening around Thanksgiving. He was down from Maine, he goes to a private school up there.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'He'd just broken up with some girl, he was really . . .'

  He stopped dead.

  There was sudden understanding in his eyes.

  'Yes?' Meyer said.

  'Is that who got killed?'

  The detectives waited.

  'The girl who dumped him?'

  'What'd he tell you about her?'

  'Only that she'd shown him the door. It couldn't have been too serious a thing, he seemed to be over it by New Year's Eve.'

  'Had you seen him at any time between Thanksgiving and . . .'

  'No. I told you. We met at this opening, and then him and me and my girl went to a party afterward. At this loft an artist friend of mine has down in the Quarter. Scott seemed very down, so we asked him to come along. Then he called me just before New Year's Eve, told me there was going to be a party at his house, could I come and bring Doro . . .'

  He cut himself short.

  'Is that your girlfriend's name?' Carella asked. 'Dorothy?'

  'Yes.'

  'Dorothy what?'

  'I'd like to leave her out of this, if that's okay with you,' Strothers said.

  'Sure,' Carella said. 'So you got to this party at about nine-thirty, ten o'clock . . .'

  'The pits,' Strothers said. 'If he'd told me we were gonna be the only young people there ... I mean, everybody there was thirty, forty years old!'

  Meyer's expression said nothing.

  'How long did you stay there?' Carella asked.

  'We left a little after midnight.'

  'You and Dorothy, and Scott and his girlfriend.'

  'No, his girl wasn't there. That's where we went. To her place.'

  'She wasn't at the Handler party?'

  'No.'

  'Any idea why not?'

  'Well, she's older than Scott, maybe he wasn't too keen on having his mothermeet her.'

  'How much older?' Meyer said.

  'Well, she's pretty old,' Strothers said.

  'Like what?' Meyer asked. 'Thirty? Forty?'

  His expression still said nothing.

  'Close to it, that's for sure. She's got to be at least twenty-seven, twenty-eight.'

  'What's her name?' Carella asked.

  'Lorraine.'

  'Lorraine what?'

  'Greer.'

  'Her address?'

  'I don't know. Someplace down in the Quarter. We went by taxi from Scott's apartment.'

  'But you don't remember the address?'

  'No, I'm sorry.'

  'What does she do, do you know?'

  'She's a waitress. Wants to be a rock star.'

  Strothers shrugged elaborately, rolled his eyes, and then grimaced, making it abundantly clear what he thought her chances were.

  'What time did you get to her place?' Meyer asked.

  'Maybe a quarter to one? Something like that.'

  'You left Scott's apartment at a little past midnight . . .'

  'Around twenty after.'

  'And you got downtown at about a quarter to one.'

  'Yes.'

  'And what time did you leave Miss Greer's apartment?'

  'A little after five. Some of the people were already having breakfast.'

  Meyer asked the big one.

  'Was Scott Handler with you all that time?'

  'Yes.'

  'You're positive about that?'

  'Well . . .'

  'What is it, Mr Strothers?'

  'Well ... we were together when we left his apartment, of course . . .'

  'Of course.'

  'And we were together when we got to Lorraine's place . . .'

  'Yes?'

  'But it was sort of a big party there, you know . . .'

  'Did you lose track of him, is that it?'

  'Well, Dorothy and I sort of drifted off, you know . . .'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'So we were sort of... well . . . out of it, you know, for maybe . . . well, an hour or so.'

  'By out of it . . .'

  'In the bedroom, actually.'

  'Uh-huh. From when to when?'

  'Well, I'd say maybe from around one o'clock to maybe two-thirty or so.'

  'So then you don't really know for sure that Scott Handler was there all that time.'

  'Well, he was there when we went in the bedroom and he was there when we came out, so I've got to assume . . .'

  'There at one o'clock, and there at two-thirty.'

  'Well, a little later than that, maybe.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like maybe three.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'Or even three-thirty. I guess.'

  'So, actually, you were out ofit for two and a half hours.'

  'Well, yeah. I guess.'

  Which would have given Handler plenty of time to have run back uptown.

  'You said she's a waitress,' Meyer said.

  'Scott's girlfriend? Yeah.'

  'Did she mention where she works?'

  * * * *

  Lewis Randolph Hamilton was pacing the floor.

  'You hear this?' he asked Isaac.

  Isaac had heard it. Fields had just told them both.

  'You're sure it's the same cop?' Hamilton asked.

  'The same,' Fields said. 'The one shot Herbert and James and was ready to shoot me, too, I hadn't lain down the bat.'

  'Together in this bar, huh?'

  'Las Palmas. On Walker.'

  'Sitting together in this bar, talking like old friends.'

  'Like brothers,' Fields said.

  'Now what do you suppose little Joey was telling the man?' Hamilton and.

  Isaac looked at him meaningfully.

  Hamilton walked to Fields and threw his arm around his shoulder.

  'Thank you, Andrew,' he said. 'You were wise to back off when you did. Forget little Joey for a while, okay? Forget little José for now.'

  Fields looked at him, puzzled.

  'You don't want him done?' he asked.

  'Well, now, Andrew, how can you get near him, man? With fuzz growing on him? No less fuzz that has looked you in the eye and knows you?'

  Fields was suddenly concerned. Was Hamilton blaming him somehow? Was Hamilton saying he had fucked up? The way James had with the ball bats?

  'They didn't see me, Lewis,' he said. 'Neither one of them. Not the spic not the cop neither.'

  'Good,' Hamilton said.

  'So if you still want me to dust him . . .'

  'But what has he already told the cop?' Hamilton asked.

  * * * *

  A fairy tale.

  Kling was almost embarrassed to report it to the lieutenant.

  This was the story according to Herrera:

  A ship was coming in on the twenty-third of January. A Monday night. Scandinavian registry, but she was coming up from Colombia. There would be a hundred kilos of cocaine aboard that ship. No
rmal purchase price would have been fifteen to twenty-five thousand a key, but since the posse was taking delivery on the full shipment, the price was a mere ten grand per. A kilo was two point two pounds, ask any kid on the block. A million dollars in cash would be exchanged for two hundred twenty pounds of cocaine. That was a lot of coke, friend. That was a great big mountain of nose dust. On the street, that huge pile of flake would be worth twelve and a half million bucks.

  So far it sounded within the realm of reason. The normal return on a drug investment was five to one. The return here would be twelve and a half to one. So, okay, the stuff was being discounted.

  But this was where the brothers Grimm came in.

  According to Herrera, the posse had made arrangements for the cocaine to be delivered to an address right here in the city, which address he didn't know as yet, but which he would find out for Kling if Kling made sure the posse didn't kill him in the next few days. The million dollars was supposed to be turned over at that time, after the customary testing and tasting. That was where Kling and his raiders would come in, busting up the joint and confiscating the haul - as soon as Herrera found out where delivery would take place, of course.

  'Of course,' Kling said.

  He was wondering what was in this for Herrera.

  He didn't ask him as yet.

  He asked him instead what the name of this posse was.

  Herrera said again that it was bigger than Shower or Spangler, bigger even than the Tel Aviv posse, which was a strange name for a gang run by Jakies, but it happened to be real nonetheless. As a side excursion, Herrera told Kling that the way the Jakies decided to call their gangs 'posses' was from watching spaghetti Westerns down there in the Caribbean, which were a very popular form of entertainment down there, the Westerns. Kling thought that was very interesting, if true. He still wanted to know the name of the posse.

  'I don't know the name of this posse,' Herrera said.

  'You don't.'

  'I do not,' Herrera said.

  'These guys want to kill you, but you don't know who they are.'

  'I know the people you arrested were trying to kill me.'

  'Did you know those people before they tried killing you?'

  'Yes,' Herrera said. 'But not who they were.'

  And here the fairy tale began to grow and grow like Jack's beanstalk.

  Or Pinocchio's nose.

  According to Herrera, he'd been sitting in this very same bar, Las Palmas, where he and Kling were sitting at the time of the tale, in one of the booths there across the room, when he overheard a discussion among three black men sitting in the adjoining booth.

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said.

  'These three men were talking about the shipment I just told you about.'

  'Talking all the figures and everything.'

  'Yes.'

  'The hundred kilos . . .'

  'Yes.'

  'The discounted price . . .'

  'Yes, all of that.'

  'And the date of delivery. All the details.'

  'Yes. Except where. I don't know where yet.'

  'You overheard all this.'

  'Yes.'

  'They were talking about a shipment of cocaine, and they were talking loud enough for you to hear them.'

  'Yes.'

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said.

  But, according to Herrera, they must have seen him when he was leaving the bar, and they must have figured he'd been listening to everything they'd said, so they probably asked the bartender later who he was, and that was how come they'd tried to kill him on New Year's Eve.

  'Because you knew about the shipment.'

  'Yes.'

  'And, of course, you could identify these men.'

  'Of course.'

  'Whose names you didn't know.'

  'That's true, I didn't know their names.'

  'James Marshall, and Andrew Fields and . . .'

  'Well, yes, I know the names now. But then, I didn't know the names.'

  'You didn't.'

  'I did not.'

  'So why were they worried about you? You didn't know who they were, you didn't know where delivery would be made, why should they be worried about you?'

  'Ah-ha,' Herrera said.

  'Yeah, ah-ha, tell me,' Kling said.

  'I knew the delivery date.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'And how much cocaine would be on the ship.'

  'Uh-huh. What's the name of the ship?'

  'I don't know. Swedish registry. Or Danish.'

  'Or maybe Finnish.'

  'Maybe.'

  'So they got very worried, these three guys in this posse - they did mention a posse, huh? When you were listening to them?'

  'Oh, yes. The posse this, the posse that.'

  'But not the name of the posse.'

  'No, not the name.'

  'Too bad, huh?'

  'Well, that I can find out.'

  'The way you can find out where delivery's gonna take place, huh?'

  'Exactly.'

  'How?' Kling asked. 'These guys are trying to kill you, how do you plan to find out where they're gonna take delivery of this shit?'

  'Ah-ha,' Herrera said.

  This was some fairy tale.

  According to Herrera, he had a cousin who was a house painter in Bethtown, and this man's wife cleaned house for a Jamaican whose brother was prominent in posse circles, who in fact reputedly belonged to the Reema posse, which wasn't the posse in question here. Herrera knew that if his cousin's wife, who was his cousin-in-law, asked a few discreet questions about the person - Herrera himself - who'd almost got killed on New Year's Eve, she could find out in three minutes flat the name of the posse the three assassins belonged to. And once she told Herrera the name, the rest would be easy.

  'How do you know this isn't the Reema posse?' Kling asked.

  'What?' Herrera said.

  'You said the Reema posse was not the posse in question.'

  'Oh. I know that because my cousin's wife already asked some questions, and it wasn't this posse that tried to do me.'

  'So once you learn the name of the posse in question, why is the rest going to be easy?'

  'Because I have connections,' Herrera said.

  'Uh-huh,' Kling said.

  'Who know such things.'

  'What things?'

  'Posse business.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  Kling looked at him.

  Herrera ordered another Corona and lime.

  Kling said, 'So what's in this for you, José?'

  'Satisfaction,' Herrera said.

  'Ahhh,' Kling said, 'satisfaction.'

  'And, of course . . . protection. You owe it to me.'

  Here we go with the owing again, Kling thought.

  'You saved my life,' Herrera said.

  Kling was wondering if there was even the tiniest shred of truth in anything Herrera had told him.

  * * * *

  The Steamboat Cafe was in a newly created mall-like complex directly on the River Dix. South and west of the midtown area, Portside had been designed with an adult trade in mind. Three restaurants ranging from medium-priced to expensive to very expensive. A dozen better shops. But, alas, the teenagers who discovered the area weren't interested in eating at good restaurants or buying anything in up-scale shops. They were interested only in meeting other teenagers. Portside was a good place to do that. Day and night, teenagers began flocking there from all over the city. In no time at all, thousands of them were wandering through the beautifully landscaped area, congregating on the benches, holding hands on the walks, necking under the trees on the cantilevered riverside platforms.