Initially, other than the noises Nayva made as she cleaned, the only sounds in the apartment were the periodic humming of the refrigerator motor, occasional thumps and creaks as someone rearranged the furniture in the apartment above, and the moaning of the brisk winter wind as it pressed at the windows.
Then, as she paused to pour a little more coffee for herself, an odd sound came from the living room. A sharp, short squeal. An animal sound. She put down the coffee pot.
Cat? Dog?
It hadn’t seemed like either of those; like nothing familiar. Besides, the Dawsons had no pets.
She started across the kitchen, toward the door to the dining alcove and the living room beyond.
The squeal came again, and it brought her to a halt, froze her, and suddenly she was uneasy. It was an ugly, angry, brittle cry, again of short duration but piercing and somehow menacing. This time it didn’t sound as much like an animal as it had before.
It didn’t sound particularly human, either, but she said, “Is someone there?”
The apartment was silent. Almost too silent, now. As if someone were listening, waiting for her to make a move.
Nayva wasn’t a woman given to fits of nerves and certainly not to hysteria. And she had always been confident that she could take care of herself just fine, thank you. But suddenly she was stricken by an uncharacteristic twinge of fear.
Silence.
“Who’s there?” she demanded.
The shrill, angry shriek came again. It was a hateful sound.
Nayva shuddered.
A rat? Rats squealed. But not like this.
Feeling slightly foolish, she picked up a broom and held it as if it were a weapon.
The shriek came again, from the living room, as if taunting her to come see what it was.
Broom in hand, she crossed the kitchen and hesitated at the doorway.
Something was moving around in the living room. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear an odd, dry-paper, dry-leaf rustling and a scratching-hissing noise that sometimes sounded like whispered words in a foreign language.
With a boldness she had inherited from her father, Nayva stepped through the doorway. She edged past the tables and chairs, looking beyond them at the living room, which was visible through the wide archway that separated it from the dining alcove. She stopped beneath the arch and listened, trying to get a better fix on the noise.
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. The pale yellow drapes fluttered, but not from a draft. She wasn’t in a position to see the lower half of the drapes, but it was clear that something was scurrying along the floor, brushing them as it went.
Nayva moved quickly into the living room, past the first sofa, so that she could see the bottom of the drapes. Whatever had disturbed them was nowhere in sight. The drapes became still again.
Then, behind her, she heard a sharp little squeal of anger.
She whirled around, bringing up the broom, ready to strike.
Nothing.
She circled the second sofa. Nothing behind it. Looked in back of the armchair, too. Nothing. Under the end tables. Nothing. Around the bookcase, on both sides of the television set, under the sideboard, behind the drapes. Nothing, nothing.
Then the squeal came from the hallway.
By the time she got to the hall, there wasn’t anything to be seen. She hadn’t flicked on the hall light when she’d come into the apartment, and there weren’t any windows in there, so the only illumination was what spilled in from the kitchen and living room. However, it was a short passageway, and there was absolutely no doubt that it was deserted.
She waited, head cocked.
The cry came again. From the kids’ bedroom this time.
Nayva went down the hall. The bedroom was more than half dark. There was no overhead light; you had to go into the room and snap on one of the lamps in order to dispel the gloom. She paused for a moment on the threshold, peering into the shadows.
Not a sound. Even the furniture movers upstairs had stopped dragging and heaving things around. The wind had slacked off and wasn’t pressing at the windows right now. Nayva held her breath and listened. If there was anything here, anything alive, it was being as still and alert as she was.
Finally, she stepped cautiously into the room, went to Penny’s bed, and clicked on the lamp. That didn’t burn away all the shadows, so she turned toward Davey’s bed, intending to switch on that lamp, as well.
Something hissed, moved.
She gasped in surprise.
The thing darted out of the open closet, through shadows, under Davey’s bed. It didn’t enter the light, and she wasn’t able to see it clearly. In fact, she had only a vague impression of it: something small, about the size of a large rat; sleek and streamlined and slithery like a rat.
But it sure didn’t sound like a rodent of any kind. It wasn’t squeaking or squealing now. It hissed and ... gabbled as if it were whispering urgently to itself.
Nayva backed away from Davey’s bed. She glanced at the broom in her hands and wondered if she should poke it under the bed and rattle it around until she drove the intruder out in the open where she could see exactly what it was.
Even as she was deciding on a course of action, the thing scurried out from the foot of the bed, through the dark end of the room, into the shadowy hallway; it moved fast. Again, Nayva failed to get a good look at it.
“Damn,” she said.
She had the unsettling feeling that the critter—whatever in God’s name it might be—was just toying with her, playing games, teasing.
But that didn’t make sense. Whatever it was, it was still only a dumb animal, one kind of dumb animal or another, and it wouldn’t have either the wit or the desire to lead her on a merry chase merely for the fun of it.
Elsewhere in the apartment, the thing shrieked, as if calling to her.
Okay, Nayva thought. Okay, you nasty little beast, whatever you may be, look out because here I come. You may be fast, and you may be clever, but I’ll track you down and have a look at you even if it’s the last thing I do in this life.
CHAPTER TWO
I
They had been questioning Vince Vastagliano’s girlfriend for fifteen minutes. Nevetski was right. She was an uncooperative bitch.
Perched on the edge of a Queen Anne chair, Jack Dawson leaned forward and finally mentioned the name that Darl Coleson had given him yesterday. “Do you know a man named Baba Lavelle?”
Shelly Parker glanced at him, then quickly looked down at her hands, which were folded around a glass of Scotch, but in that unguarded instant, he saw the answer in her eyes.
“I don’t know anyone named Lavelle,” she lied.
Rebecca was sitting in another Queen Anne chair, legs crossed, arms on the chair arms, looking relaxed and confident and infinitely more self-possessed than Shelly Parker. She said, “Maybe you don’t know Lavelle, but maybe you’ve heard of him. Is that possible?”
“No,” Shelly said.
Jack said, “Look, Ms. Parker, we know Vince was dealing dope, and maybe we could hang a related charge on you—”
“I had nothing to do with that!”
“—but we don’t intend to charge you with anything—”
“You can’t!”
“—if you cooperate.”
“You have nothing on me,” she said.
“We can make life very difficult for you.”
“So can the Carramazzas. I’m not talking about them.”
“We aren’t asking you to talk about them,” Rebecca said. “Just tell us about this Lavelle.”
Shelly said nothing. She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip.
“He’s a Haitian,” Jack said, encouraging her.
Shelly stopped biting her lip and settled back on the white sofa, trying to look nonchalant, failing. “What kind of neese is he?”
Jack blinked at her. “Huh?”
“What kind of neese is this Lavelle?” she repeated. “Japanese, Chinese,
Vietnamese ... ? You said he was Asian.”
“Haitian. He’s from Haiti.”
“Oh. Then he’s no kind of neese at all.”
“No kind of neese at all,” Rebecca agreed.
Shelly apparently detected the scorn in Rebecca’s voice, for she shifted nervously, although she didn’t seem to understand exactly what had elicited that scorn. “Is he a black dude?”
“Yes,” Jack said, “as you know perfectly well.”
“I don’t hang around with black dudes,” Shelly said, lifting her head and squaring her shoulders and assuming an affronted air.
Rebecca said, “We heard Lavelle wants to take over the drug trade.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Jack said, “Do you believe in voodoo, Ms. Parker?”
Rebecca sighed wearily.
Jack looked at her and said, “Bear with me.”
“This is pointless.”
“I promise not to be excessively open-minded,” Jack said, smiling. To Shelly Parker, he said, “Do you believe in the power of voodoo?”
“Of course not.”
“I thought maybe that’s why you won’t talk about Lavelle—because you’re afraid he’ll get you with the evil eye or something.”
“That’s all a bunch of crap.”
“Is it?”
“All that voodoo stuff—crap.”
“But you have heard of Baba Lavelle?” Jack said.
“No, I just told you—”
“If you didn’t know anything about Lavelle,” Jack said, “you would’ve been surprised when I mentioned something as off-the-wall as voodoo. You would’ve asked me what the hell voodoo had to do with anything. But you weren’t surprised, which means you know about Lavelle.”
Shelly raised one hand to her mouth, put a fingernail between her teeth, almost began to chew on it, caught herself, decided the relief provided by biting them was not worth ruining a forty-dollar nail job.
She said, “All right, all right. I know about Lavelle.”
Jack winked at Rebecca. “See?”
“Not bad,” Rebecca admitted.
“Clever interrogational technique,” Jack said. “Imagination. ”
Shelly said, “Can I have more Scotch?”
“Wait till we’ve finished questioning you,” Rebecca said.
“I’m not drunk,” Shelly said.
“I didn’t say you were,” Rebecca told her.
“I never get potted,” Shelly said. “I’m not a lush.”
She got up from the sofa, went to the bar, picked up a Waterford decanter, and poured more Scotch for herself.
Rebecca looked at Jack, raised her eyebrows.
Shelly returned and sat down. She put the glass of Scotch on the coffee table without taking a sip of it, determined to prove that she had all the will power she needed.
Jack saw the look Shelly gave Rebecca, and he almost winced. She was like a cat with her back up, spoiling for a fight.
The antagonism in the air wasn’t really Rebecca’s fault this time. She hadn’t been as cold and sharp with Shelly as it was in her power to be. In fact, she had been almost pleasant until Shelly had started the “neese” stuff. Apparently, however, Shelly had been comparing herself with Rebecca and had begun to feel that she came off second-best. That was what had generated the antagonism.
Like Rebecca, Shelly Parker was a good-looking blonde. But there the resemblance ended. Rebecca’s exquisitely shaped and harmoniously related features bespoke sensitivity, refinement, breeding. Shelly, on the other hand, was a parody of seductiveness. Her hair had been elaborately cut and styled to achieve a carefree, abandoned look. She had flat, wide cheekbones, a short upper lip, a pouting mouth. She wore too much makeup. Her eyes were blue, although slightly muddy, dreamy; they were not as forthright as Rebecca’s eyes. Her figure was too well developed; she was rather like a wonderful French pastry made with far too much butter, too many eggs, mounds of whipped cream and sugar; too rich, soft. But in tight black slacks and a purple sweater, she was definitely an eye-catcher.
She was wearing a tot of jewelry: an expensive watch; two bracelets; two rings; two small pendants on gold chains, one with a diamond, the other with what seemed to be an emerald the size of a large pea. She was only twenty-two, and although she had not been gently used, it would be quite a few years before men stopped buying jewelry for her.
Jack thought he knew why she had taken an instant disliking to Rebecca. Shelly was the kind of woman a lot of men wanted, fantasized about. Rebecca, on the other hand, was the kind of woman men wanted, fantasized about, and married.
He could imagine spending a torrid week in the Bahamas with Shelly Parker; oh, yes. But only a week. At the end of a week, in spite of her sexual energy and undoubted sexual proficiency, he would most certainly be bored with her. At the end of a week, conversation with Shelly would probably be less rewarding than conversation with a stone wall. Rebecca, however, would never be boring; she was a woman of infinite layers and endless revelations. After twenty years of marriage, he would surely still find Rebecca intriguing.
Marriage? Twenty years?
God, just listen to me! he thought, astonished. Have I been bitten, or have I been bitten?
To Shelly, he said, “So what do you know about Baba Lavelle?”
She sighed. “I’m not telling you anything about the Carramazzas.”
“We’re not asking for anything about them. Just Lavelle.”
“And then forget about me. I walk out of here. No phony detention as a material witness.”
“You weren’t a witness to the killings. Just tell us what you know about Lavelle, and you can go.”
“All right. He came from nowhere a couple months ago and started dealing coke and smack. I don’t mean penny ante stuff, either. In a month, he’d organized about twenty street dealers, supplied them, and made it clear he expected to expand. At least that’s what Vince told me. I don’t know first-hand ‘cause I’ve never been involved with drugs.”
“Of course not.”
“Now, nobody but nobody deals in this city without an arrangement with Vince’s uncle. At least that’s what I’ve Heard.”
“That’s what I’ve heard, too,” Jack said dryly.
“So some of Carramazza’s people passed word to Lavelle to stop dealing until he’d made arrangements with the family. Friendly advice.”
“Like Dear Abby,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Shelly said. She didn’t even smile. “But he didn’t stop like he was told. Instead, the crazy nigger sent word to Carramazza, offering to split the New York business down the middle, half for each of them, even though Carramazza already has all of it.”
“Rather audacious of Mr. Lavelle,” Rebecca said.
“No, it was smartass is what it was,” Shelly said. “I mean, Lavelle is a nobody. Who ever heard of him before this? According to Vince, old man Carramazza figured Lavelle just hadn’t understood the first message, so he sent a couple of guys around to make it plainer.”
“They were going to break Lavelle’s legs?” Jack asked.
“Or worse,” Shelly said.
“There’s always worse.”
“But something happened to the messengers,” Shelly said.
“Dead?”
“I’m not sure. Vince seemed to think they just never came back again.”
“That’s dead,” Jack said.
“Probably. Anyway, Lavelle warned Carramazza that he was some sort of voodoo witch doctor and that not even the family could fight him. Of course, everyone laughed about that. And Carramazza sent five of his best, five big mean bastards who know how to watch and wait and pick the right moment.”
“And something happened to them, too?” Rebecca asked.
“Yeah. Four of them never came back.”
“What about the fifth man?” Jack asked.
“He was dumped on the sidewalk in front of Gennaro Carramazza’s house in Brooklyn Heights. Alive. Badly bru
ised, scraped, cut up—but alive. Trouble was, he might as well have been dead.”
“Why’s that?”
“He was ape-shit.”
“What?”
“Crazy. Stark, raving mad,” Shelly said, turning the Scotch glass around and around in her long-fingered hands. “The way Vince heard it, this guy must’ve seen what happened to the other four, and whatever it was it drove him clear out of his skull, absolutely ape-shit.”
“What was his name?”
“Vince didn’t say.”
“Where is he now?”
“I guess Don Carramazza’s got him somewhere.”
“And he’s still ... crazy?”
“I guess so.”
“Did Carramazza send a third hit squad?”
“Not that I heard of. I guess, after that, this Lavelle sent a message to old man Carramazza: ‘If you want war, then it’s war.’ And he warned the family not to underestimate the power of voodoo.”
“No one laughed this time,” Jack said.
“No one,” Shelly confirmed.
They were silent for a moment.
Jack looked at Shelly Parker’s downcast eyes. They weren’t red. The skin around them wasn’t puffy. There was no indication that she had wept for Vince Vastagliano, her lover.
He could hear the wind outside.
He looked at the windows. Snowflakes tapped the glass.
He said, “Ms. Parker, do you believe that all of this has been done through ... voodoo curses or something like that?”
“No. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. After what’s happened these last few days, who can say? One thing I believe in for sure: I believe this Baba Lavelle is one smart, creepy, badass dude.”