Bloody River Blues Read online

  ***

  The U.S. Attorney was in court when the call came in.

  The secretary buzzed Nelsons office and asked, "There's a man on three. He says it's important. When will Mr. Peterson be back?"

  "Take a message, darling," Nelson snapped. He returned to a lengthy set of interrogatories.

  "It's a Mr. Pellam and he says-"

  Click.

  "Mr. Pellam, Mr. Pellam. How are you? This is Mr. Peterson's assistant, Nelson Stroud. Is there something I can do for you?"

  "I want to talk to Peterson."

  "Is this about the Crimmins situation?"

  Pellam said that it was.

  "Well, is there anything I can help you with?"

  "Where is he?"

  "Mr. Peterson? He's in court. He won't be back for several hours."

  "Oh." There was a long silence. Nelson gripped the phone hard and believed that if he breathed too loud, he would blow away the fragile phone connection.

  "You're a lawyer?"

  "Assistant U.S. Attorney for the-"

  "Okay. I want a meeting."

  Bingo!

  "Fine, absolutely fine. You name a time, you name a place. Whatever."

  "Your office, I'd like it to be in your office."

  "Sure, that's fine. Tomorrow? Tomorrow morning?"

  "Sure, tomorrow morning. Only…"

  "What is it?"

  "Only there's a problem. I need some assurance from you."

  "Assurance, assurance, of course." Nelson's hands were vibrating. This was the big time, this was negotiating with vital witnesses, and he was terrified. "What exactly do you have in mind?"

  "I want some guarantee that I won't be prosecuted," Pellam said.

  "Why would you be prosecuted?"

  There was a pause. "Because I lied when I told you I hadn't seen Peter Crimmins in the Lincoln."

  TWENTY-TWO

  The press conference that evening was short.

  The reporters had hoped for something hot-perhaps Peterson's announcement that he was resigning to run for the Senate or that he was handling some big corporate whistle-blower case or that the Justice Department would dish up something photogenic for the newshounds-like a good drug bust, the sort where the FBI and DEA lay out all the Uzis and Brownings in the front of the table and all the plastic bags of smack or coke in the back and declaim about the progress in the war on organized crime.

  But all they got was Peterson standing at a chipped podium emblazoned with a U.S. Department of Justice seal, droning on and on and on…

  He spoke to them in the vast monotone that marked his delivery at all of his press conferences. "I'm pleased to announce that a witness in the Vincent Gaudia killing has come forward and agreed to testify before the grand jury. This is an individual whom my office identified immediately after the killing and who had serious, and understandable, concerns about his safety, and who expressed those concerns, but who has now come forward in exchange for my agreeing not to prosecute for obstruction of justice."

  Which was a jaw-cracker of a sentence and left the reporters thinking up fast paraphrases.

  When asked if this was a reliable witness, Peterson said, "He looked into the front seat of the car driven by the man we are certain is responsible for the killing. He was no more than three feet away. He assures me he can make a positive ID."

  A reporter shouted, "Has Peter Crimmins been identified as the man in that car?"

  But Peterson knew the game of reporter dodge; he was not going to give the defense lawyers a chance to claim prejudice.

  He said, "All I can say at this time is that the witness will be giving us a formal statement at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. We anticipate an arrest within twenty-four hours of that"

  Peterson then deflected a number of questions about the killing and talked about several drug busts and other recent prosecution victories of the U.S. Attorney's office recently.

  "I heard rumors," a woman reporter called in an abrasive voice, "that you arrested Tony Sloan, the movie director who's currently shooting a film in Maddox."

  Peterson glared into the video camera lights. "That is absolutely untrue. The movie company brought a large number of automatic weapons into the district. Both FBI and BATF agents from the Treasury Department observed what appeared to be an irregularity in the firearm permits and we just wanted to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't fall into the wrong hands. We did not at any time contemplate criminal action against Mr. Sloan and the film company. The local police in Maddox, I understand, took it upon themselves, for some reason, to make an arrest. Our findings are that the permits are in order and I'm releasing the weapons presently."

  "Are you saying that the Maddox police arrested Mr. Sloan improperly?"

  "I won't comment on the judgment of fellow law enforcement agencies. The arrest was a Maddox Police Department decision. Ask them about it."

  There were several other no comments. Finally a very preoccupied Ronald Peterson wandered off the stage, leaving the press corps to call their desks or tape their intros. Most of the TV reporters were far more interested in the Tony Sloan angle than the Gaudia killing and decided to run some clips from Circuit Man in the segment about Sloan's arrest.

  But hard news is hard news and everybody wrote up at least a news bite about the witness for ten o'clock. Vince Gaudia was, after all, Maddox's only honest-to-God hit for as long as anyone could remember.

  As it turned out, Ralph Bale was playing darts and did not happen to hear the story. Philip Lombro, however, did. And by nine that evening was on the phone.

  "He cheated us," Lombro said. "He took the money and he cheated us! He's going to testify!" His voice was high. Some of this was indignation and some of it was anger. But most of his agitation came from disgust with himself that this whole thing had gotten wildly out of hand.

  "Looks that way," Ralph Bales said. "He's meeting Peterson tomorrow?"

  "At nine-thirty."

  After a lengthy silence, in which he heard the sound of male laughter in the background, Lombro said, "What exactly are you going to do?"

  "Okay, I think you've gotta agree we don't have much choice."

  Lombro sighed deeply. He did not agree with anything that Ralph Bales said or thought. But the whole matter had moved beyond him now. He realized he was being asked a question and said, "What?"

  "I said, you haven't by any chance heard from a guy named Stevie Flom, have you?"

  "Who?'

  "A guy working with me."

  "No. I don't even know him. Why would I?"

  "No reason. I haven't heard from him."

  "Why would he call me?"

  "I mentioned I worked for you once. It's not important. Anyway, about our situation-"

  "Just finish this thing," Lombro said desperately. '"Finish it."

  "You want me to…"

  "Do what you have to" were Lombro's closing words but they had hardly the energy to carry forty miles to the other end of the phone line.

  ***

  The hour was not late; it was not his normal bedtime, but Philip Lombro, hoping that tomorrow would appear and then vanish with invisible speed, took two sleeping pills and, in his silk pajamas, slipped into his bed.

  He lay awake for a long time, tormented by thoughts of what he had done, thoughts about the witness's betrayal, thoughts about how he was soon going to have another man's blood on his hands. But under the sedation of the Valium, he calmed, and eventually the man who was going to die tomorrow did not occupy his thoughts. Nor did Vincent Gaudia nor Ralph Bales. Philip Lombro was in that netherworld between sleep and waking. Bits of dreams floated past like the papers caught in the fickle currents around the Maddox Omnibus Building. He saw faces, most of them grotesque. Melting into other shapes. They were real to him, intense, three-dimensional. They reminded him of the images seen through those plastic three-dimensional viewers he used to buy his nieces and nephews thirty years ago, the ones that held cardboard disks of fairy tales and ca
rtoons.

  One of these faces, though, was not grotesque. It was a girl's face, a young girl's. She was beautiful. Her features did not melt. Her eyes simply looked toward him. Lombro was powerless to touch her or speak. He was merely observing; you don't participate in dreams like this.

  Then the girl's face suddenly grew so terribly sad that Lombro became completely awake, pierced by an urge to cry, and he sat up abruptly.

  This was the hardest part of living alone, Philip Lombro knew. Waking from dreams by yourself.

  ***

  Pellam was up at seven-thirty. He had slept in a location van-one of the big Winnebagos used for makeup. He rose silently and walked into the bathroom, where he took a tepid-water shower. Then he brushed his teeth with his fingers and a spoonful of Arm & Hammer. He felt groggy and hoped he would find something energizing in the medicine cabinet-diet pills, NoDoz. But there was nothing other than a prescription drug he had never heard of. The label warned against operating machinery or driving a car while taking the medicine.

  It would be coffee or nothing.

  Pellam dressed in the bathroom, the cloth of his shirt and jeans darkened by the water he had failed to towel off. He brushed his damp hair and forwent the noisy blow dryer. He was here as a spy or, at best, refugee, and wanted his presence kept secret. Slipping outside, he hurried down the front steps and shivered in the cool fall air. There was a rich, loamy scent of water, which he knew would be the river though he could not see it from here.

  At the curb he paused to let pass a powder blue car, slowing as it passed the trailer. On the side was a sign. Out of Work 117 days. The number 17 was on a separate piece of cardboard, freshly taped over the previous day's record. "I do odd jobs," the man called but he drove on before Pellam could say a word.

  Ralph Bales found his heart was beating like the wings of a panicked sparrow.

  He looked at his wrists, focusing on the veins, surprised that they were not vibrating with blood. His hands returned to the steering wheel. Ralph Bales was waiting downtown-in a stolen Chevy-outside the Federal Building on Mission, waiting for John Pellam to arrive. And the reason his heart was beating so fast was that this was a terrible site for a hit.

  On the way here, he had passed a car wash whose name was World O' Wash. The phrase kept going through his mind, and all he could think of was World O' Cops. FBI, Treasury agents, federal marshals and city cops and probably Missouri Bureau of Investigation agents all over the place-them, plus court security guards who had never fired a piece except to get their tickets and had been waiting for years to draw first blood in the line of duty.

  World O' Cops.

  Inside the entryway of the building were two white-shirted guards, big men, with large, square heads crowned with fade cuts. Secretaries and clerks and lawyers in running shoes over their dress socks or stockings were streaming into the office. Everyone looked young and eager.

  There were several entrances to the Federal Building but Ralph Bales was parked in front of what seemed to be the main one. He supposed there would be a service door or two. He could see a driveway that seemed reserved for garbage pickups.

  That would be a good place to sneak a witness in. But he had no partner- Stevie still had not shown-and all he could do was cover the main entrance. '

  He had arrived early, thinking the beer man would get here well before nine thirty for security reasons. For an hour Ralph

  Bales sat in the car, the engine running. He moved it only once, when a meter maid waddled by. She held her citation book out like a gun, threateningly. He did not let her get close enough to see his face. He pulled away slowly, did an around-the-block and by the time he got back-maybe three minutes later-she was gone. He parked again in front of the building.

  It was now nine-fifty.

  He watched the mist in the air, the sunlight flashing off the tall arch; he smelled the burnt metallic air laced with exhaust. The factories on the east side of the Mississippi were busy this morning. His heart fluttering… Maybe it was the caffeine in the coffee. He glanced down. He had left the cup in the car, the cardboard carton, blue and white, with pictures of Greek gods or Olympic athletes or something. A cup with his fingerprints all over it. Careless.

  He reached down and picked it up, crumpling the cardboard and slipping it into his pocket.

  It was then that the trash basket-one of those big, filthy orange things-went through his back window.

  Jesus Mother Holy…

  Not exactly through the window. Even cheap American cars had strong glass. The bottom rim of the basket pushed the window in a couple inches, and the glass turned opaque with frost from the fractures. The basket rolled off the car and onto the street.

  "Son of a-"

  When he turned back to pull the door handle up, there was a gun muzzle in his face, and the man's other hand was shutting the engine off.

  He understood. Ralph Bales knew exactly what had happened.

  "Put your gun in the back," the beer man said. "On the floor."

  Ralph Bales said, "I don't have a-"

  The man's voice terrified him with its serenity. "Put your gun on the back floor of the car."

  "Okay, whatever you want."

  "Put your-"

  "I heard you," Ralph Bales said, "I'm going to do it."

  "Now."

  "Okay."

  This reminded Ralph Bales of when the cop caught him just after the Gaudia hit. Only today there'd be no Stevie Flom acting like a madman and stepping out of an alleyway to save him. With a sudden sickening feeling, he had a good idea about what had happened to Stevie Flom.

  He dropped the Colt in the back. The man opened the back door and scooped it up. He sat in the backseat and pressed the muzzle of his gun, an old one, against his ear. "Turn all your pockets inside out."

  What if the meter maid shows up now? Christ, this guy could panic and shoot them both.

  "I don't have anything, I mean, like a weapon or-"

  "All your pockets."

  Ralph Bales did, dropping the contents on the seat. The beer man prodded the money and the wallet and the crumpled cup and the Swiss Army knife. "Okay, put it back in your pockets. Except the knife. Leave the knife."

  Ralph Bales laughed. "The knife? You're kidding."

  He was not kidding. Ralph Bales did what he was told.

  The man put his seat belt on. "Drive to Maddox. Now."

  "But-"

  "Drive."

  Bales reached for the shoulder strap.

  "No belt." He rested the gun against the back of Ralph Bales s neck. "This is a single-action gun. You know what that means?"

  "You have to cock it before you can pull the trigger," Ralph Bales said like a student answering a teachers question.

  "I have it cocked. It goes off real easy."

  "Okay, listen. If we hit a bump…"

  "Then I'd drive real slow if I were you."

  ***

  The dream was wonderful.

  She was beautiful.

  Nina Sassower believed that although men came on to her-and did so quite frequently-they did so only because of the size of her breasts and her thin legs. She believed they tolerated her face, which she saw as pointed and narrow and pinched.

  But in the dream, something had happened. Perhaps she had had an operation, maybe she had just been mistaken all her life. She did not know what had changed. But the person she was in the dream was tall and willowy and had sharp, intelligent, beautiful eyes.

  The image didn't last long. It shifted into something else, a street she couldn't identify. Then other people began milling around and the dream ended.

  She woke up.

  For perhaps two seconds she felt the afterglow of the dream.

  She sat up straight, looked at the clock, and spat out, "Oh, no! Son of a bitch!"

  It was nine o'clock.

  She pulled off her nightgown and yanked open the drawer to her dresser. Panties, bra-no bra. She couldn't find one. She kept looking. Forget it! She s
lipped a sweater on, thinking that it was the first time since the age of thirteen that she had left the house without a bra. Slacks, anklet stockings… They don't match, where's the mate, where? Hell with it! Go! Beige pumps.

  Go, go, go!…

  Nina pulled on her blue jean jacket. She hadn't washed her face and she felt a rim of sweat on her forehead. She paused in the mirror to brush her hair and she did that only because she didn't want to look conspicuous.

  For what she was about to do, conspicuous would not be good.

  She left the house and hurried to her car. After she started the engine, she looked into her purse to make certain that it contained what she had put there the night before.

  A military-issue.45 semiautomatic pistol, the classic 1911 Colt, sat heavily between an Estee Lauder compact and a pink plastic Tampax container.

  Nina knew the gun about as well as she knew her Singer sewing machine. Although she could not field-strip it blindfolded she could dismantle it sufficiently to clean and oil the bore and the parts and did so every time she fired it. This gun happened to be identical to the ones Ross's gangsters carried in Missouri River Blues, although Nina's was loaded with ten rounds of live ammunition and was not registered with the federal government or with anybody else.

  Nina now started the car's engine and, not even slowing at a single stop sign or red light, sped through the quaint, quiet burg of Cranston, Missouri, then skidded onto the expressway, hurrying south toward where she believed John Pellam would be.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Being a lawyer, he was used to rewriting.

  Ronald Peterson never signed off on a letter, interrogatory, complaint, motion, or brief without hours of revision. But the two-page press release describing Peter Crimmins s indictment for the murder of Vince Gaudia had taken more time, per word, than anything that Peterson had written in years.

  He had just learned, however, that this was one press release that was not going to be released to anyone.

  "He changed his mind?" Peterson whispered, barely controlling his fury.