Lullaby

by Ed McBain

Wondered if he should wait till she was asleep. Go in, shoot her in the head. Empty the gun in her, make it look like some lunatic did it. Maybe smash a few priceless vases afterward. Cops'd think somebody went berserk in there.

  In a little while, the upstairs bedroom light went out.

  He waited in the dark in the fog.

  * * * *

  In her dream, the wind was rattling palm fronds on some Caribbean island and there was the sound of surf crashing in against the shore. In her dream, she was a famous writer sitting in a little thatched hut, an old black Smith-Corona typewriter on a table in front of her, a little window open to a crescent-shaped beach and rows and rows of palms lining an aidless shore. The sky was incredibly blue behind the palms. In the there were low, green-covered mountains. She searched the sky and the mountains for inspiration.

  In her dream, she reached idly for a ripe yellow banana in a pale blue bowl on a shelf near the open window. Beautifully shaped bowl. Bunch of bananas in it. She pulled a banana from the bunch. And peeled it down to where her hand was holding it. And brought it to her lips. And put it in her mouth. And was biting down on it when suddenly it turned cold and hard.

  Her eyes popped wide open.

  The barrel of a gun was in her mouth.

  A man was standing beside the bed. Black hat pulled low on his forehead. Black silk handkerchief covering his nose and his mouth. Only hiss eyes showed. Pinpoints of light glowing in them, reflections from the night light in the wall socket across the room.

  He said, 'Shhhhh.'

  The gun in his left hand.

  'Shhhhh.'

  The gun in her mouth.

  'Shhhhh, Joyce.'

  He knew her name.

  She thought, How does he know my name?

  He said, 'Your baby is dead, Joyce.'

  His voice a whisper.

  'Susan is dead,' he said. 'She died on New Year's Eve.'

  All whispers sounded alike, but there was something about the cadence, the rhythm, the slow, steady spacing of his words that sounded familiar. Did she know him?

  'Are you sorry you gave the baby away?' he said.

  She wondered if she should say Yes. Nod. Let him know she was sorry, yes. The gun in her mouth. Wondered if that was the answer he was looking for. She would give him any answer he wanted, provided it was the right answer. She was not at all sorry that she had given the baby away, had never for a moment regretted her decision, was sorry now that the baby was dead, yes, but only because she'd have been sorry about the death of any infant. But if he wanted her to say-

  'I killed the baby,' he said.

  Oh Jesus, she thought.

  'Your baby,' he said.

  Oh Jesus, who are you? she thought.

  'And now I'm going to kill you,' he said.

  She shook her head.

  He was holding the gun loosely, allowing it to follow the motion of her head. Her saliva flowed around the barrel of the gun. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. The barrel was slippery with spit.

  'Yes,' he said.

  And turned her head so that she was facing him.

  Used the gun to turn her head.

  A steady pressure on the gun in her mouth, turning her head so that the left side of her face was on the pillow, his arm straight out, his hand and the gun perpendicular to the bed.

  She began to whimper.

  Small whimpering sounds around the barrel of the gun.

  She tried to say Please around the barrel of the gun. Her tongue found the hole in the barrel of the gun, and pushed out against it as if to nudge it gently and unnoticed from her mouth. The barrel clicked against her teeth. She thought at first that he had moved the gun because he'd discovered she was trying to expel it from her mouth. But she realized all at once that the reverse was true. The gun was steady in her mouth; it was her trembling jaw that was causing her teeth to click against the barrel.

  'Well ...' he said.

  Almost sadly. And paused. As if trying to think of something else to say before he pulled the trigger. And in that split second, she knew that unless she herself said something brilliantly convincing, unless she spit that gun barrel out of her mouth and pleaded an eloquent-

  The first shot took off the back of her head.

  * * * *

  11

  The person Carella spoke to at the Coast Guard's Ship Movement Office was named Lieutenant Phillip Forbes. Carella told him he was trying to locate a ship.

  'Yes, sir, which ship would that be, sir?' Forbes said.

  'I don't know exactly,' Carella said. 'But I'll tell you what I do know, and maybe you can take it from there.'

  'Who did you say this was, sir?'

  'Detective Carella, 87th Squad.'

  'Yes, sir. And this is in regard to?'

  'A ship. Actually a person on that ship. If we can locate the ship.'

  'Yes, sir. And you feel this ship may be in port here, is that it?'

  'I don't know where it is. That's one of the things I'd like to find out.'

  'Yes, sir, may I have the name of the ship, please?'

  'The General Something. Are there ships called the General This or the General That?'

  'I can think of at least fifty of them off the top of my head, sir.'

  'Military vessels or what?'

  'No, sir, they can be tankers, freighters, passenger ships, whatever. There're a lot of Generals out there on the ocean.'

  'How about a General Something that would have been here fifteen months ago?'

  'Sir?'

  'Do you keep records going back that far?'

  'Yes, sir, we do.'

  'This would've been October a year ago.'

  'Do you mean October of last year?'

  'No, the year before that. Can you check it for me?'

  'What is it you want to know, exactly, sir?'

  'We have good reason to believe that a ship named the General Something was here in port fifteen months ago. Would you have any record of...?'

  'Yes, sir, all ships planning to enter the port must notify us at least twelve hours in advance of arrival.'

  'All ships?'

  'Yes, sir, foreign or American. Arrangements for docking are usually made through the ship's agent, who contracts for a berth. Or the owner-operator can do it. Or sometimes the person who chartered the ship. But we also get captains who'll radio ahead to us.'

  'What information do they give you?'

  'Sir?'

  'When they notify you. What do they tell you?'

  'Oh. The name of the ship, its nationality, the tonnage. Its cargo. Where it's been. Where it's going when it leaves here. How long it plans to be here. Where it'll be while in port.'

  'Do they usually dock right here in the city?'

  'Some of them do, yes, sir. The passenger ships. But not too much of anything else, anymore. There're plenty of berths, you know, the port covers a lot of territory. All the way from Hangman's Rock to John's River.'

  'If a ship did dock here in the city, where would that be?'

  'The Canal Zone, most likely. Nothing on the North Side, anymore. It'd be the Canal Zone, over in Calm's Point. Well, the Calm's Point Canal is its right name. That's the only place I can think of where they'd dock. But more than likely - well, this wouldn't be a passenger ship, would it?'

  'No.'

  "Then most likely it'd head for Port Euphemia, over in the next state.'

  'But you said there would be a record . . .'

  'Yes, sir, in the Amber files.'

  'Amber?'

  'Amber, yes, sir. That's what the tracking system is called. Amber. Anytime a ship notifies us that it's coming in, all that information I told you about goes right into the computer.'

  'Do you have access to that computer, Lieutenant? To the Amber files?'

  'I do.'

  'Could you kick up an October eighteenth departure . . .'

  'This wasn't last October, am I right?'

  'October a year ago. See what you've got on a tanke
r named the General Something-or-Other. Possibly the General Putnam. Or a General Putney. Leaving for the Persian Gulf.'

  'Take me a minute, sir, if you'd like to hang on.'

  'I'd like to hang on,' Carella said.

  When Forbes came back on the line, he said, 'I've got two Generals departing on the eighteenth of October that year, sir. Neither of them are tankers. And neither of them are either a Putney or a Putnam.'

  'What are they?'

  'Freighters, both of them.'

  'And they're called?'

  'One of them's the General Roy Edwin Dean and the other's the General Edward Lazarus Kalin.'

  'Which one of them was heading for the Persian Gulf?'

  'Neither one, sir. The Dean was bound for Australia. The Kalin was headed for England.'

  'Terrific,' Carella said, and sighed heavily. Either Joyce Chapman's seaman had been lying in his teeth, or else she'd been too stoned to remember anything about him. 'Well, Lieutenant,' he said, 'thank you very . . .'

  'But you might want to run down there yourself,' Forbes said.

  Carella guessed he meant Australia.

  'The Canal Zone,' Forbes said. 'The Deans in now. I know you're looking for a Putney or a Putnam but maybe your information . . .'

  'Have you got a berth number?' Carella asked.

  * * * *

  The Calm's Point Canal.

  The police had long ago dubbed it the Canal Zone, and the label had seeped into the city's general vocabulary. For the citizens who had never seen it, the name conjured a patch of torrid tropicana right here in the frigid north, a glimpse of exotic Panama - which they had also never seen. The only thing Hispanic about the Zone was the nationality of many of the hookers parading their wares for seamen off the ships or men cruising by in automobiles on their way home from work. Much of the trade was, in fact, mobile. A car would pull up to any one of the corners on Canalside, and the driver would lean over and roll down his window, and one of the scantily dressed girls would saunter over, and they'd negotiate a price. If they both agreed they had a viable deal, the girl would get in the car, and the trick would drive around the block a couple of times while she showed him what an expert could accomplish in all of five minutes.

  There were some thirty-odd berths on each side of the canal, occupied at any time of the year because docking space was scarce anywhere in this city. The General Roy Edwin Dean was in berth number twenty-seven on the eastern side of the canal. A sturdy, responsible-looking vessel that had weathered many a storm and always found its way back to safe harbor, it sat squarely on the water, bobbing on a mild chop that rolled in off the River Dix and the open water beyond.

  Meyer and Carella had not called ahead; the truth was, they didn't know how to make a phone call to a ship. Lieutenant Forbes had given Carella the number of the berth, and he and Meyer simply showed up at five minutes past one that Wednesday afternoon. A fierce wind was blowing in off the water. Whitecaps crested as far as the eye could see. Carella wondered why some men felt they had to go down to the seas again, the lonely sea and the sky. Meyer was wondering why he'd forgotten to wear his hat on a day like today. There was a gangplank. Carella looked at Meyer. Meyer shrugged. They climbed to the deck of the ship.

  Not a soul in sight.

  'Hello?' Carella shouted.

  Not a soul, not a sound.

  Except for the wind banging something metallic against something else metallic.

  A door beckoned. Well, a hatchway, Carella guessed you called it.

  Darkness beyond it.

  Carella poked his head inside.

  'Hello?' he said again.

  There was a staircase going up. Well, a ladder.

  They climbed it. Kept climbing till they reached a small house on top of the ship. Well, a cabin. There was a man in the cabin. He was sitting on a stool behind a counter, looking at a map. A chart. Listen, the hell with it, Carella thought.

  'Yes?' the man said.

  'Detective Carella, my partner Detective Meyer,' Carella said, and showed his shield.

  The man nodded.

  'We're investigating a double homicide . . .'

  The man whistled.

  He was, Carella guessed, in his late fifties, wearing a heavy black jacket and a peaked black cap. His sideburns were brown, but his beard had come in white, and he sat on his stool like a salty-dog Santa Claus, dark eyebrows raised now as his low whistle trailed and expired.

  'May I ask who we're talking to, sir?' Carella said.

  'Stewart Webster,' he said, 'captain of the Dean.'

  The men shook hands. Webster had a firm grip. His eyes were brown, sharp with intelligence. 'How can I help you?' he asked.

  'Well, we're not sure you can,' Carella said. 'But we figured it was worth a shot. We're looking for a ship we have as the General Putnam or the General Putney . . .'

  'That's a long way from Dean,' Webster said.

  'Yeah,' Carella said, and nodded. 'Supposed to have departed for the Persian Gulf on the eighteenth of October, a year and three months ago.'

  'Well, I'm pretty sure we were in these parts around then . . .'

  'But didn't you leave on that day?'

  'I'd have to check the log. It would have been on or near that date. But, gentlemen…'

  'We know,' Meyer said. 'You went to Australia.'

  'Haven't been anywhere near the Middle East since Reagan got those marines killed in Beirut. We were there when it happened. The owner cabled us to load our cargo and haul ass out. Afraid he'd lose his ship.'

  'We've also got a seaman named Mike,' Carella said.

  Webster looked at him.

  'If that's his name,' Meyer said.

  Webster looked at him.

  'We know,' Carella said. 'It's not much to go on.'

  'But it's all we have,' Meyer said.

  'Mike,' Webster said.

  'No last name,' Carella said.

  'Presumably on the Dean,' Webster said.

  'Or a ship with a General in its name.'

  'Well, let's take a look at the roster, see if we've got any Mikes,' Webster said.

  'Michael, I guess it would be,' Meyer said.

  There were no Michaels in the crew.

  There was, however, a Michel.

  Michel Fournier.

  'Is he French?' Carella asked.

  'I have no idea,' Webster said. 'Do you want me to pull his file?'

  'If it's no trouble.'

  'We'll have to go down to the purser's office,' Webster said.

  They followed him down a different ladder from the one they'd climbed earlier, walked through several dark passageways, and came to a door that Webster opened with a key. The compartment resembled Alf Miscolo's clerical office back at the Eight-Seven. There was even the aroma of coffee on the air. Webster went to a row of filing cabinets - gray rather than the green in Miscolo's space - found the one he wanted, opened the drawer, began thumbing through folders, and then yanked one of them out.

  'Here he is,' he said, and handed the folder to Carella.

  Michel Fournier.

  Born in Canada, the province of Quebec.

  When he'd shipped on, three years ago, he'd given his address as Portland, Maine.

  No address here in the city.

  'Was he with you in that time period we're talking about?' Carella asked.

  'If he shipped on three years ago and his folder's still here in the active file, then yes, he was with us fifteen months ago, and he's still with us now.'

  'You mean he's aboard ship now?'

  'No, no. The crew went ashore the moment we docked.'

  'Which was when?'

  'Two days ago.'

  'When are they due back?'

  'We won't be sailing again till early next month.'

  'Any idea where Fournier might be?'

  'I'm sorry. I don't even know the man.'

  'Where does he sleep aboard ship?'

  'Well, let's see, there ought to be a quarters-assignment chart s
omeplace around here,' Webster said, and began opening drawers in his purser's desk.