Bloody River Blues

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.

"That's what the message said," Nelson explained cautiously, looking away from his boss's enraged eyes. "And there's no answer at his phone, the phone in his camper. I sent an agent to Maddox. The camper's not in the trailer park. Somebody in one of the vans said Pellam'd been fired and they don't know where he is."

"Think Crimmins got him?"

"Well, according to the receptionist, he didn't sound coerced."

"Why the fuck didn't she put through the call? She's fired. She's out of here."

Nelson said delicately, "He didn't want to speak to you. He wanted to just leave a message."

"What exactly did it say again?"

"Just that he'd changed his mind. That was it."

Peterson clicked a fingernail and thumbnail together seven times. "Any hint from the taps on Crimmins?"

"Nothing useful. Business as usual. We can take that one of two ways. Either he's using a safe phone to talk to his muscle.

Or he heard the press conference and for some reason he's not concerned about the guy testifying."

Why wouldn't he be concerned?

One reason: He wasn't the man in the Lincoln after all.

"Why," Nelson pondered, "would Pellam be jerking our leash like this?"

Peterson had told no one about the freelance FBI agent who had gone after Pellam's girlfriend and then Pellam himself to

"help" Pellam remember about Crimmins and vanished shortly afterward. Nor did Nelson know that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with Tony Sloan's federal firearm notices. Nelson therefore didn't know that Pellam had some very good motives for jerking leashes. "Cold feet, I suspect," the U.S. Attorney suggested.

"What about the first option? That Crimmins got to him?"

Peterson shook his head. "Even Crimmins wouldn't be that stupid. Hell. The press'll play it like we've got hairy palms."

"What do you want to do?" Nelson gazed down at the press release.

"What's your assessment of the case against Crimmins without Pellam's testimony? I'm speaking of the Gaudia hit."

Nelson thought for a minute. Peterson made a cats cradle with a rubber band and studied his protege, whose squinting eyes and pursed lips only partially revealed the lavish anxiety he felt. "I'd say probable cause if we want to arrest him. But we won't get an indictment." Nelson cleared his throat.

"And the original indictment, the RICO charges, without Gaudia's testimony?"

He said, "Acquittal. Sixty-forty." Nelson's grimace was the equivalent of hunkering down in a bunker before a bomb detonated.

But Petersons sole reaction was to press his teeth together. His breath hissed out from between them and then he chewed on his tongue in rapt contemplation. He slowly concluded that there was as much danger for him in the Crimmins case as there was potential to score one for the good guys.

It was time for the whole thing to go away.

He told this to Nelson and added, "Call Crimmins's lawyer. See if we can plead him away for a few years."

Nelson quickly responded, "Will do," and noted coolly that this order was tantamount to scuttling two years of work.

"What about Pellam? There's still somebody out there looking to hurt him. Should we get Bracken or Monroe on it? I mean, the guy could be in trouble."

Peterson wound up a toy Donald Duck, which walked for ten inches, hit an indictment, then marched in place until the spring wound down. "It's Pellam's problem now. He's on his own."

She drove quickly, racing along Main Street in Maddox, past the empty storefronts, the darkened real estate brokerages, the Goodwill Store. The car spun up a wake of bleached, dull leaves.

Nina had driven from Cranston to the Federal Building in St. Louis. She hadn't been able to find Pellam though his camper had been parked in a lot across the street. It had been empty. Where, she wondered, had he gone? She paced in panic up and down the sidewalk. She suddenly believed she knew. She had leapt into the car and sped back to Maddox.

Now, driving along deserted Main Street, she was not so sure she had guessed correctly. The emptiness seemed to laugh at her. Where the hell is he?

As she skidded around a curve beside abandoned grain elevators, images jumbled in her mind. Pellam standing in the field beside the brown Missouri, aiming his Polaroid. Nina herself applying makeup to a petite blond actress wearing a yellow sundress riddled with bullet holes. Pellam lying in bed next to Nina herself. The huge kick of the Colt automatic that jarred her arm from wrist to shoulder every time she fired it.

"You know something?" Ralph Bales asked the question in a normal volume, though it echoed loudly through the empty factory. He looked around quickly, startled by the sound of his own words returning.

The beer man did not apparently want to know anything. Ralph Bales continued, "I don't even know your name."

Introductions were not, however, made. The man prodded him farther inside with the barrel of the cowboy gun.

Despite the muzzle at his back, though, Ralph Bales did not feel in danger. Maybe it was how the man was holding the gun-without desperation, more like a bottle of beer than a weapon. Maybe it was his eyes, which were no longer as eerily serene as they had been. They seemed more purposeful, as if the man just wanted to talk.

In the rear of the warehouse was a small cul-de-sac beneath a balcony. It was very dark here, lit only by indirect light filtering in from the huge arched windows, covered with grime and dust. The floor was dusty, too, but much of that had been disturbed by footprints. Directly in front of a Bee Gees poster was a wood-and-canvas director's chair.

Ralph Bales stopped. The beer man motioned him forward to the chair. "Sit down."

He sat. "This place is pretty nifty. You shooting your film here?"

"Put these on each wrist." The man handed him two pairs of handcuffs. "Right first, then hook it to the arm."

"Kinky." Ralph Bales looked at them closely. Property of Maddox Pol. Dept. was stamped on the side. "Where'd you get these?"

"Put them on."

Ralph Bales relaxed further. A guy like this, an amateur, was definitely not going to hurt a man handcuffed to a chair. He clicked one pair of cuffs on his right wrist then to the chair. Then he locked the other cuff to his left wrist. The beer man stepped forward slowly and, with a ratcheting sound, hooked the remaining cuff to the other arm of the chair.

He stepped back like a carpenter surveying a good flooring job. He pulled the Colt out of his belt. "Now. Who was in the Lincoln?"

So he had a tape recorder hidden somewhere, trying to get a confession. "What Lincoln would that be?"

"Who was it?"

"Okay," Ralph Bales said with amused frustration. "This is some kind of bullshit."

"The man in the Lincoln. Who?"

"I don't know what you're-"

"What did you come down to the Federal Building for?" Ralph Bales lifted his hands as far as he could. The tiny chains clinked. "I wanted to talk to you is all."

"What did you want to say to me?"

"Okay, I was going to pay you to keep quiet about what you saw."

"But you had a gun in your pocket, and only-" He squinted, trying to remember. "-forty bucks on you."

"I was going to pay you a lot of money-more than I'd want to carry around-"

"Who was in the Lincoln?" the beer man recited persistently.

"I don't know, I really don't. Sorry."

"I wish you'd be more cooperative," the beer man said with disappointment, and shot Ralph Bales squarely in the center of his stomach.

John Pellam walked through the cloud of sulfury smoke and looked down. "Not bleeding badly," he announced.

Ralph Bales stared in terror at the wound. His mouth was open. "Why…?" he whispered. "You shot me… God, that hurts."

"Who was in the car?"

"Why'd you do that for, why'd you do that?"

"Who," Pellam asked evenly, "was in the Lincoln?"

"My God," Ralph Bales whispered, gazing with shocked bewilderment at Pellam. "I'm going to die."

"If you don't tell me I'm going to shoot you again."

"I don't-"

Pellam shot him again.

A huge explosion. The bullet hit a few inches to the left of the first wound.

"No, no, man… Stop! I'll tell you." Ralph Bales jerked his head to flick sweat out of his eyes. "Okay! Philip Lombro! Now call a doctor!"

"Who's he?"

Ralph Bales did not hear. "Please! I'm going to bleed to death. Please…"

"Philip?"

"Lombro! Lombro!"

"Who's he?"

"Oh, man, I'm going to faint."

Pellam cocked the gun. "Who is he?"

"No, no, don't, man, not again! He's some real estate guy. Don't do it again."

"Spell it."

"Spell what? Oh, man…"

"His name."

"L-O-M-B-R-O."

"Why did he want Gaudia dead?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask. I'm going to faint. Oh, shit. Some personal thing. I swear to God. He hired me to do it. I'm bleeding to death."

"Where does he live?"

"I don't know. Man, believe me. I don't know. In Maddox somewhere. His office is on Main, that's all I know. He's in the phone book. What do you want from me? For Christsake, call a doctor." With tearful sincerity he said, "I'm a good Catholic."

Pellam did not move for a minute. He smiled.

"No, man, no. Don't do it. You're just going to leave me, aren't you? Don't let me die! I told you what you wanted. Call the cops. Turn me in. But for God's sake, get me to a doctor!"

"Would you testify against this Lombro?"

"Absolutely. Oh, man, you want it, you got it."

Pellam repeated the word softly. "Absolutely." He rubbed the gun with his left hand. Ralph Bales was crying. This seemed to irritate Pellam. He said, "They're wax bullets."

Ralph Bales kept sobbing.

Pellam said again petulantly, "Would you stop crying? They're not real bullets."

"What?'

"I wish you'd stop that," Pellam said, referring to the crying.

Ralph Bales slowly caught his breath. He frowned. He looked down at his gut-at the two large splats of bright red blood. As far as the handcuffs allowed, he pulled his shirt apart. There were huge reddish welts where the bullets had struck him but the skin was not broken. Fragments of white wax were bonded to the cloth which was stained with dark blood.

Ralph Bales began to cry again, but they were tears from hysterical laughter. "You son of a bitch, you goddamn…"

That was when a shadow appeared on the floor beside the men.

The heads of both the men snapped sideways. They saw sensible pumps, a woman's pants, a denim jacket. Nina Sassower's pale, pretty face.

And the gun in her hand.

"Nina!" Pellam called.

Ralph Bales began to relax.

Pellam said, "What are you doing here?"

Her voice was distant, as if she were speaking through layers of silk or gauze. "I thought you'd come here."

"You should leave. What's that gun for? This's got nothing to do with you."

She stepped closer, looking gaunt and pale. Her skin was matte and her eyes were two dark dots. She looked at them both and her eyes quickly settled on Ralph Bales's wounds.

"Oh, God, Pellam…"

He told her they were fake bullets, then squinted as he noticed her concerned eyes gazing at the man in the chair. "Do you know him?" he asked.

She turned to him. "I'm sorry, Pellam."

"What do you-?" He started toward her.

She quickly lifted the big Colt toward his chest. "No. Stay where you are."

"Nina!"

"Put it on the floor. Your gun, put it down."

Pellam did. Then he laughed bitterly. "It was all planned, wasn't it?"

"It was all planned," she whispered.

"You picked me up at the hospital, you had me get you a job so you'd be close by… Who are you working for? Lombro?

Or Crimmins? Peterson? Who?'

"I'm sorry, Pellam. I'm so sorry."

Ralph Bales said, "Did Phil send you? Oh, man…"

He moaned in relief. "Come on, honey. Get me out of here."

Nina squinted, almost closing her eyes. Pellam knew what this meant. He leapt to the floor as the three jarring explosions from Ninas automatic filled the room. Windows rattled, and dust from the tin ceiling floated down around the three of them like gray snow. The shadows of startled pigeons zipped across the windows.