Bloody River Blues

FOUR

Pellam put a twelve-foot skid mark from the curb to the catering table on the set of Missouri River Blues and hopped off the Yamaha only to find the dusty Ford Taurus braking to a stop six inches from his thigh.

Pellam shrugged and Stile emerged from the Ford out of sorts. He had lost the race because he had stopped for a red light that Pellam had ignored.

"Didn't know we weren't playing by the rules," Stile grumbled, wandering off toward wardrobe. "I'll gitcha next time."

Pellam walked to the scaffolding that rose above that mornings setup.

Tony Sloan was a hawkish man, muscular, very lean in the face, which was why he sported a black beard. He was wearing blue jeans and a faded green T-shirt. His black hair, dusted with gray, was pulled back in a short ponytail. Occasionally he talked frantically. Other times, not at all. His eyes, perhaps reflecting his thoughts, would either dart about or lift slowly and hover before descending momentarily onto the face of the person he was speaking with.

These eyes now landed hungrily on Pellam.

"John, gotta get that phone fixed. Listen, I've been rethinking the ending. I want them to get that house, you know." He fidgeted with his beeper.

"Ross and Dehlia?"

"I've got an image of what they should have. I can see it. You find me one? A fifties sort of house. You know, a bungalow maybe." Sloans gaze rose, did a few slow circles, and returned to Pellam, who was trying to recall the most recent ending for the film.

"That's instead of what?"

"The bus depot," Sloan answered. "We don't need the bus depot anymore."

"Okay. That's easy. You want a house. You want to do interiors there?"

"I don't want to, no." Sloan's voice was exasperated. "Why would I want to?"

"I didn't mean want to, Tony. I meant are you going to?"

The eyes rose. "I want to build a set. On a sound-stage. I don't want to have to cram all the damn equipment into a twelve-by-fourteen-foot living room. But I don't have any choice."

"You want a bungalow with a twelve-by-fourteen living room."

"Well, I want bigger. If you can get me bigger."

"I'll-"

The voice was very close to Pellam's ear. "Excuse me." He started in surprise.

They turned.

"One of you John Pellam?"

Pellam smiled a greeting.

"I'm Detective Gianno, this's Detective Hagedom. With the Maddox Police Department."

Pellam saw ID cards and gold badges and immediately forgot their names. An Italian detective, dark-complected and short. And a WASP detective, blond, athletic, tall. He had a very square jaw. Pellam smelled after-shave. Something dry. He had been close to cops a few times in his life and could not recall smelling aftershave on a law enforcer.

Sloan said, "What's this all about?" His eyes now alighted on the Italian detective's and remained fixed.

The cop asked in response, "Who're you?"

'Tony Sloan." When they registered no response he added, "I'm the director."

The WASP turned away from him. "If you'll excuse us we'd like to talk to Mr. Pellam here."

"If there's some problem, I'm in charge of-"

"There won't be a problem, sir-" he glanced at Sloan as if he were a nagging panhandler "-if you'd just give us a few minutes alone with Mr. Pellam here."

Sloan gave him an astonished glance then turned to Pellam, who shrugged. "I'll get you that house, Tony."

The director wandered off to a motorized camera crane, a Chapman Apollo, the boom extended and the camera platform nearly ten feet above the ground. Sloan paused in the shadow of the boom and glanced back at the two men now standing on either side of Pellam. Several grips and gaffers noticed Sloans frown and stopped what they were doing to watch the three men.

The WASP stepped closer. The scent of lime was very strong. "The Post-Dispatch did a story about this film." He spoke with the same stilted formality that marks conversations between cops and civilians all around the world.

"It's a crime movie? About bank robbers?" The Italian detective said this as if people would not think of breaking the law if movies didn't put the idea into their heads.

"Armored car robbers," Pellam corrected.

"We've never had a movie made in Maddox," he added solemnly. "I hope you portray the town in a good light. We've had our share of trouble but that's not our fault."

"No, it isn't," said the WASP.

"What exactly," Pellam asked, "do you want?"

"Last night there was a shooting. We're wondering if you could give us some information about it."

"Around here?"

"It happened on Third, near the river."

He tried to remember if he had heard anything. He couldn't recall but with the tape deck playing and the Cardinals on TV and the noise of five men playing poker, a lot of sound outside would get missed. Pellam shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't think I can help you." He started to walk away.

The WASP detective put a firm grip on Pellams shoulder and laughed in surprise, like a schoolteacher insulted by a student. "Hey, hey, hold up there a minute. We're not through yet."

Pellam shrugged the hand off and turned around. "I can't help you."

"Well, we think you can, sir. A policeman was shot and critically injured and two people were killed. Vincent Gaudia and a Miss Sally Ann Moore."

"I'm sorry. That doesn't mean anything to me." *

"People are killed and you don't care?" the WASP asked. His hands, palms up, rose at his sides.

"I don't mean that. I just mean I don't know who they are.

The Italian was saying, 'The car? The Lincoln? Does that ring a bell?"

"No. I… Oh, wait. There was this guy got out of a big car, maybe it was a Lincoln. I didn't really notice. I'd bought some beer. He bumped into me."

"Could you describe him?"

"Was he the guy who was killed?"

"Description?"

"Not too tall, stocky, balding, a beard or mustache, I think. Mid or late thirties."

"Race?"

"White."

"Any scars or markings?"

"I don't remember any."

"What was he wearing?"

"A jacket, I think. Jeans. Dark mostly."

"He was alone in the Lincoln?"

"No. There was somebody else. They drove off after a while."

"They?"

"Well, he."

"Could you describe him?"

"I didn't see him."

The detectives didn't exactly exchange glances but their eyes swung like slow pendulums toward each other.

Sloan called, "Pellam, you gonna get me that house, or what?"

The Italian detective called back, "This is official police business, mister."

Oh, brother. Pellam cocked his head helplessly at Sloan and said, 'They're just asking me a few questions."

Sloan continued to stare for a moment, eyes no longer flitting with artistic distraction but now boring angrily into the cluster of men from the shadow of the crane.

"The thing is, Mr. Pellam," the Italian cop continued, "the officer who was shot…"

"He was shot a number of times in the back," his partner said.

"God, that's awful."

"… said he saw you talking to someone in the car. He-"

"He was the one got shot? That policeman? Danny? What was the name?"

"Donnie Buffett."

That's terrible. Yeah, I was talking to him. Is he going to be okay?"

They don't know," the Italian cop said.

In the thick silence that followed they stared at him. Pellam felt guilty under these gazes. "I didn't see him. The driver, I mean. I looked. I looked into the car but I wasn't really talking to him. I was just saying things. It wasn't like a conversation."

"How did you know it was a man?"

Pellam didn't speak for a moment. That's a good question. I don't really. I just assumed it was."

"You seem pretty sure it was a man," the WASP said. "You said him."

"I was assuming it was a man."

The Italian cop said, "It'd just be kind of strange, wouldn't it, you're standing a few feet from someone? not to at least see what they were wearing? What their sex was? Whether they were black or white?"

"I don't know what's strange or not, but that's what happened. It was night-"

"Adams is lit up like Gateway Park," the Italian cop said.

The WASP detective looked at his partner. "All those car accidents. That's why they put in sodium vapors."

"There was glare," Pellam said. That was one of the problems. On the windows. I was blinded."

"So the fact it was night wasn't the problem," said the WASP. "I mean, you said it was night as if you meant it was too dark to see anything. But now what you're saying is it wasn't dark at all. It was too bright."

"I guess," Pellam said.

"What kind of Lincoln was it?"

"Black."

"What kind?"

"How do you mean?"

Town Car? Continental?"

"I didn't notice. I wish I had but I only remember it being big and black."

"You're sure it was black?"

"Well, it was dark. Navy blue maybe."

They asked about license plates, dents, scratches, damage, bumper stickers…

Pellam couldn't help them.

The cops fell silent.

"Do you think I'm lying?"

"It's just kind of strange is all we're saying."

"What's strange?" Pellam rocked on his boot heels.

"Being so close and all and not seeing anything," the WASP said. That's strange."

"It was dark." Pellam tried to sound as frustrated as they were.

"And there was a lot of glare," the Italian added. Sarcastic? Pellman couldn't tell.

"Officer Buffett said he saw you talking to whoever was in the car."

"I told you, I wasn't having a conversation with him… or her." Pellam saw, in the distance, the curtain in a window of Sloan's van pull aside for a moment. A black gap was visible and in that gap Pellam imagined he could see the two tiny, paranoid eyes of an impatient visionary director. He said to the WASP, who though bigger seemed more reasonable, "Look, I'm very busy just now. This is a bad time for this."

The blond cop just repeated, "Officer Buffett said you were talking to the driver. What are we supposed to think about that?"

Pellam sighed. "I was mad. I was just talking to let off steam. I don't remember what I said. I was muttering."

"Why were you mad?"

"The guy I told you about, the one who got out of the car, bumped into me and I dropped a case of beer."

"Why did he do that?"

"It was an accident. He didn't do it on purpose."

"If it was an accident," the WASP asked slowly, "why were you so mad you were talking to yourself?"

The Italian cop offered," 'Muttering,' you said."

"Okay, that's it. I've got nothing more to say." Pellam started away, tensing his muscles, ready for another vise grip.

Neither cop followed, but the blond said, "There's two dead people and a cop shot in the back."

His partner offered, "People sometimes get scared. They don't want to volunteer, to be witnesses. You don't have to be worried. We can protect you."

"I didn't see anybody get shot. All I saw was some guy who nearly knocked me on my ass."

"We're more concerned with the person in the car. We think he's the one who ordered the hit."

"Sorry. Now, if there's nothing else…" Pellam lifted his hands like a TV preacher confronted with more sin than he can absolve.

"Will you at least help us do a sketch of the man you saw?"

"Yes. Sure. But not now."

The WASP cop shifted his weight like an impatient college boy. He was no longer reasonable. "He's not going to cooperate."

"Cooperate?"

The WASP said to his grimacing partner, "Let's go. He's a GFY." The cops put their notebooks away.

"What's a GFY?' Pellam demanded.

"An official term we use about reluctant witnesses."

"I'm not reluctant. I didn't see anything."

When they got to the perimeter of the set, the Italian cop turned suddenly and said, "Look, mister, a lot of local people cooperated with you so you could shoot this damn movie here. They aren't going to be too happy to hear you're not so cooperative in return."

The WASP cop waved his arm. "Aw, he's a GFY. Why bother?" They walked off the set.

In Sloan's trailer, the curtain fell closed.

The indictments against him read:

Counts 1-2: Conspiracy to sell controlled substances.

Counts 3-32: Criminal federal income tax fraud.

Count 33: Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights.

Count 34-35: Perjury.

Count 36: Extortion.

Counts 37-44: Criminal violations of the Racketeering-Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.

Peter Crimmins did not exactly have the words memorized but this-the paraphrase-he knew, the essence of the government's case against him.

Crimmins (the name was his father's impulsive recasting of Crzniolak) was fifty-four. He had a body like a pear, a face like a potato. His hair was combed forward in bangs, Frank Sinatra style, over his high forehead, on which a single dark mole rested above his left eyebrow like a misplaced third eye. He was presently sitting in his office, which overlooked the parking lot of his trucking company and, through windows in the opposite wall, a large room filled with gray desks, filing cabinets, overhead fluorescent fixtures and a dozen office workers who appeared simultaneously bored and anxious.

Peter Crimmins had a thousand business decisions he should be making but it was the words of the indictment that kept running through his mind. And they made him furious. Oh, several counts were nonsense and had been thrown in by an eager runt of an assistant U.S. Attorney. The civil rights thing, ridiculous. Conspiracy, ridiculous. The drug counts were absurd. He had never sold an atom of any controlled substance. The extortion, well, that was somewhat true but only a little. But what infuriated him were the counts that were accurate-the RICO charges.

Peter Crimmins thought of himself as a blue-collar philosopher and had decided that there were simple rules in life you could figure out without anyone's help. Not the Ten Commandments, which were a little too simple-minded even for a good Russian Orthodox like him to buy. But rules like: A man's dignity should be respected, take care of those who cannot take care of themselves, do your duty, support your family, don't hurt anyone innocent…

You live your life by those rules and you will do just fine. So here he was, doing his duty, supporting his family, not hurting anyone (anybody innocent, at any rate), making a living, going to church occasionally-and what happens? He runs smack into another set of rules. And these rules made no sense to him at all.

They were pure idiocy.

The problem was that they were collected in Title 18 of the United States Code. And if you happened to break these rules, people would come after you and try to put you in jail.

But what was the most frustrating of all was that he was wrestling with these forty-four indictments solely because of a single mistake, which was that he had hired a maniac, Vincent Gaudia, now deceased, gunned down the day before.

The two men were contrasts. Crimmins had noticed this immediately, at their first meeting, in a German restaurant in Webster Groves, Missouri. Crimmins was unflashy. He had years of experience as a labor negotiator before he left the union and opened his own business. He drank vodka in moderation and smoked Camels and wore boxer shorts and white shirts and combed his hair with Vitalis every day and he loved playing pool and boccie with friends he had known for years. He was faithful to his wife of thirty-three years and he served on the planning and zoning commission of his suburban hometown. Crimmins was a controlled man, a disciplined man, a solid man.

Gaudia, on the other hand, was a man controlled by his appetites. He wanted women's bodies and wet food and sweet drinks with straws. Gaudia's primary organs were his tongue and his penis.

Still, Crimmins had been in business long enough to know that other peoples weaknesses can be your strengths.

He had noted Gaudia's lusts and hired the man immediately because Gaudia was more than a minor hood with a busy tongue. He was one of the best-connected people in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois. Crimmins checked around and got a feel for the labyrinthine network Vince Gaudia was hooked into. It was inspiring. The pipeline did not reach to Washington and, curiously, Gaudia could not fix a parking ticket in St. Louis. But hundreds of those in between-court clerks, judges, councilmen, county executives, banking commissioners, administrative agency workers, in St. Louis, Jeff City and Springfield-were all snug in his pocket. And his skills went beyond knowing who. They extended to how. He had a feel for the ethics: who would take a case of J &B but resent a gift of money, who would take a junket, who a job for their kid, a P &Z decision reversal, a co-op in Vail.

Gaudia was an expert at bartering and the product he dealt in was influence.

Crimmins, who had established the most complicated and high-volume money-laundering operation in the Midwest, decided Vince Gaudia could make a major contribution to his company.

The match looked heaven-sent and although they were temperamental opposites, Gaudia and Crimmins hit it off extremely well. Crimmins's laundering was making bold inroads into Kansas City and he had an eye on Chicago. He pioneered the use of not-for-profit organizations as money-laundering vehicles and was probably the only person in the world, certainly the only Christian, who cleaned money through both an Orthodox synagogue in University City and a Nation of Islam mosque in East St. Louis, both unwitting cocon-spirators. Crimmins's business, with Gaudia as his lieutenant, would have become one of the major profitable enterprises in the metropolitan area if it were not for the coincidental occurrence of two things.

The first was a network TV news expose-60 Minutes, no less-about a problem in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. There had been a string of bungled drug cases. Well, putting bad guys away is not easy, and the good guys get cut a lot of slack from judges but these slipups were so egregious- and so lip-smackingly exposed on nationwide TV-that the attorney general himself took action. He called the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, Ronald Peterson, and brought him to Washington for a talk about the botched prosecutions. Peterson kept his job by a thread and returned from D.C. with a renewed sense of devotion to put away people like Peter Crimmins.

The second coincidence was that Vince Gaudia slept with the wrong woman.

He would not have described her that way, probably. She was a sullen brunette with long, icy red nails and disks of green eyes. She talked in a little-girl singsong voice that made his mind glaze over instantly but forced his cock to attention just about as fast. They had only one date, during which they became wildly drunk and made love for four hours. She claimed later that he proposed she come live with him in his riverfront co-op. Gaudia did not remember saying that. Nor, when she finally tracked him down after a week of not returning her phone calls, did he remember her name.

She apparently had a much better memory than he did, however, and in a letter to U.S. Attorney Peterson, described almost verbatim many of the secrets a drunken Vince Gaudia had shared with her.

U.S. Attorney Peterson saw a chance to redeem his career and wired an FBI agent, who posed as an administrative hearing judge. He met with Gaudia in a bad Italian restaurant near the Gateway Arch. After a little soft-shoe the agent accepted five thousand dollars in exchange for agreeing to overlook an EPA violation by one of Gaudia's clients. One minute later Gaudia was arrested and about an hour after that a deal was struck: In exchange for a probation plea recommendation Gaudia would hand over Peter Crimmins's balls on a fourteen-karat gold plate.

But now Gaudia was dead as a rock and Peter Crimmins knew that U.S. Attorney Peterson had yet another count he wished to add to those forty-four indictments: Crimmins's murder of a government witness.

Crimmins was lost in thought about this situation when the outer door to his office opened and his lawyer entered. They shook hands and the man sat. The lawyer was beefy, with an automatic pilot of a smile that would lack in at any time for no seeming reason. He played tennis on powerful legs and drove a Porsche. He said things like, "Pete, my man, I'd look at that deal with a proctoscope." And "As your counselor and as your friend I'd advise you…"

Crimmins had never told the man he was his friend.

The lawyer now asked bluntly, "Where were you Friday night?"

"What are you asking?"

"I gotta know, Pete. Were you with anybody?"

"You think I killed Gaudia?" Crimmins asked.

"I don't ask my clients if they're guilty or not. I want to establish your alibi, not your innocence."

"Well, I'm telling you," Crimmins said. "I didn't loll anybody."

The lawyer tightened the titanium knot of his silk tie. "Did you hint to anybody-?"

Crimmins raised his voice. "I didn't do it."

The lawyer looked sideways and clearly did not believe this denial. "It's not what I think. It's what the U.S. Attorney is going to think. And I'll tell you, with Gaudia gone, Petersons got you by a lot less short hairs than he did two days ago."

Crimmins knew this, of course. "You think the indictment won't stick?"

"Peterson's a whore pup. Your conviction is his ticket to D.C. He believes in his soul you killed Gaudia and he's going to turn you fucking-"

"I don't like those words you use," Crimmins muttered.

"-inside out. Your case gets thrown out, he's going to lose his media defendant."

"There are plenty of defendants to go around."

The lawyer was losing patience. "But he wants you. You're the one he told the world he was going to get. You're the one he had. He'll be a bitch in heat. Mark my words."

"This is selective prosecution." Crimmins believed he knew enough law to be a lawyer himself.

"I've got your closing statement all prepared, Pete. I don't need to hear your version of it."

Why was Crimmins putting his life-well, his liberty and pursuit of happiness, at least-into the hands of this slick man with a resonant belly and a vicious backhand?

"If--for the sake of argument-you had to have an alibi-"

"Humor me, Pete. If, if, if you had to have an alibi for the time that Gaudia was shot, would you have one?"

Crimmins did not answer.

The lawyer sighed. "All right. What I'm going to do is ask around some. See who knows what. See what Petersons going to do about this. I've got some friends're cops. They owe me. Supposedly there's a witness nobody's found yet."

"A witness?"

"It's just a rumor. Some guy who saw the shooter."

The lawyer stood up. "Another thing: They think the getaway car was a Lincoln."

Crimmins was silent for a moment. He said softly, "I drive a Lincoln."

"A dark-colored Lincoln is what they said."

Peter Crimmins had selected Midnight Blue. He found it a comforting color.

The lawyer walked to the door, pulling his short-brimmed hat on his bullet-shaped head.

"Wait," Peter Crimmins said.

The lawyer stopped and turned.

This witness. I don't care what you have to do. What it costs…"

The lawyer was suddenly very uncomfortable. His hand went to his belly and he rubbed the spot where presumably his sumptuous breakfast was being digested. "You want me to-"

"Find out who he is."

"And?"

"Just find out," Peter Crimmins whispered very softly as if every lampshade and picture frame in the room contained a microphone.