Darkfall (16 page)

He said, “This crudball Lavelle told me these things on the phone. My unlisted home number. I keep having the number changed, but the creep gets the new one every time, almost as soon as it’s installed. He tells me ... he says... after he has killed my friends, nephews, sons, grandkids, then... he says he’s going to ... he says he’s going to ...”

For a moment, recalling Lavelle’s arrogant threats, Carramazza was unable to speak; anger locked his jaws; his teeth were clenched, and the muscles in his neck and cheeks were bulging. His dark eyes, always disturbing, now shone with a rage so intense, so inhuman that it communicated itself to Jack and sent a chill up his spine.

Eventually, Carramazza regained control of himself. When he spoke, however, his voice never rose above a fierce, frigid whisper. “This scum, this nigger bastard, this piece of
shit
—he tells me he’ll slaughter my wife, my Nina.
Slaughter
was the word he used. And when he’s butchered her, he says, he’ll then take my daughter from me, too.” The old man’s voice softened when he spoke of his daughter. “My Rosie. My beautiful Rosie, the light of my life. Twenty-seven, but she looks seventeen. And smart, too. A medical student. Going to be a doctor. Starts her internship this year. Skin like porcelain. The loveliest eyes you’ve ever seen.” He was quiet for a moment, seeing Rosie in his mind’s eye, and then his whisper became harsh again: “Lavelle says he’ll rape my daughter and then cut her to pieces, dismember her... in front of my eyes. He has the balls to say such things to me!” With that last declaration, Carramazza sprayed spittle on Jack’s overcoat. For a few seconds, the old man said nothing more; he just took deep, shuddering breaths. His talonlike fingers closed into fists, opened, closed, opened, closed. Then: “I want the bastard stopped.”

“You’ve put all your people into the search for him?” Jack asked. “Used all your sources?”

“Yes.”

“But you still can’t find him.”

“
Nooo
,” Carramazza said, and in the drawing-out of that one word, he revealed a frustration almost as great as his rage. “He’s left his place in the Village, gone to ground, hiding out. That’s why I’m bringing this information to you. You can put out an APB now that you’ve got his picture. Then every cop in the city will be looking for him, and that’s a lot more men than I’ve got. You can even put it on the TV news, in the papers, and then virtually everyone in the whole damned city will have an eye out for him. If I can’t get to him, then at least I want you to nail him and put him away. Once he’s behind bars...”

“You’ll have ways of reaching him in prison,” Rebecca said, finishing the thought to which Carramazza would not give voice. “If we arrest him, he’ll never stand trial. He’ll be killed in jail.”

Carramazza wouldn’t confirm what she had said, but they all knew it was true.

Jack said, “You’ve told us Lavelle is motivated by revenge. But for what? What did you do to him that would make him want to exterminate your entire family, even your grandchildren?”

“I won’t tell you that. I
can’t
tell you because, if I did, I might be compromising myself.”

“More likely
incriminating
yourself,” Rebecca said.

Jack slipped the photograph of Lavelle back into the envelope. “I’ve been wondering about your brother Dominick.”

Gennaro Carramazza seemed to shrivel and age at the mention of his dead brother.

Jack said, “I mean, he was apparently hiding out, in the hotel here, when Lavelle got to him. But if he knew he was targeted, why didn’t he squirrel himself away at his own place or come to you for protection? Under the circumstances, no place in the city would be as safe as your house. With all this going down, surely you must have a fortress out there in Brooklyn Heights.”

“It is,” the old man said. “My house is a fortress.” His eyes blinked once, twice, slow as lizard eyes. “A fortress—but not safe. Lavelle has already struck inside my own house, in spite of the tight security.”

“You mean, he’s killed in your house—”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Ginger and Pepper.”

“Who’re they?”

“My doggies. A matched pair of papillons.”

“Ah.”

“Little dogs, you know.”

“I’m not really sure what they look like,” Jack said.

“Toy spaniels,” Rebecca said. “Long, silky coats.”

“Yes, yes. Very playful,” Carramazza said. “Always wrestling with each other, chasing. Always wanting to be held and petted.”

“And they were killed in your house.”

Carramazza looked up. “Last night. Torn to pieces. Somehow—we
still
don’t know how—Lavelle or one of his men got in, killed my sweet little dogs, and got out again without being spotted.” He slammed one bony hand down on his attache case. “Damnit, the whole thing’s impossible! The house is sealed tight! Guarded by a small army!” He blinked more rapidly than he had done before, and his voice faltered. “Ginger and Pepper were so gentle. They wouldn’t bite anyone. Never. They hardly even barked. They didn’t deserve to be treated so brutally. Two innocent little creatures.”

Jack was astounded. This murderer, this geriatric dope peddler, this ancient racketeer, this supremely dangerous poisonous lizard of a man, who had been unable or unwilling to weep for his dead brother, now seemed on the verge of tears over the slaying of his dogs.

Jack glanced at Rebecca. She was staring at Carramazza, half in wide-eyed wonder, half in the manner of someone watching a particularly loathsome creature as it crawled out from under a rock.

The old man said, “After all, they weren’t guard dogs. They weren’t attack dogs. They posed no threat. Just a couple of adorable little toy spaniels ...”

Not quite sure how to handle a maudlin Mafia chieftain, Jack tried to get Carramazza off the subject of his dogs before the old man reached that pathetic and embarrassing state of mind on the edge of which he now teetered. He said, “Word on the street is that Lavelle claims to be using voodoo against you.”

Carramazza nodded. “That’s what he says.”

“You believe it?”

“He seems serious.”

“But do you think there’s anything to this voodoo business?”

Carramazza didn’t answer. He gazed out the side window at the wind-whipped snow whirling past the parked limousine.

Although Jack was aware that Rebecca was scowling at him in disapproval, he pressed the point: “You think there’s anything to it?”

Carramazza turned his face away from the window. “You mean, do I think it works? A month ago, anybody asked me the same thing, I’d have laughed, but now...”

Jack said, “Now you’re wondering if maybe ...”

“Yeah. If maybe...”

Jack saw that the old man’s eyes had changed. They were still hard, still cold, still watchful, but now there was something new in them. Fear. It was an emotion to which this vicious old bastard was long unaccustomed.

“Find him,” Carramazza said.

“We’ll try,” Jack said.

“Because it’s our job,” Rebecca said quickly, as if to dispel any notion that they were motivated by concern for Gennaro Carramazza and his blood-thirsty family.

“Stop him,” Carramazza said, and the tone of his voice was the closest he would ever come to saying “please” to an officer of the law.

The Mercedes limousine pulled away from the curb and down the hotel driveway, leaving tracks in the quarter-inch skin of snow that now covered the pavement.

For a moment, Jack and Rebecca stood on the sidewalk, watching the car.

The wind had abated. Snow was still falling, even more heavily than before, but it was no longer wind-driven; the lazy, swirling descent of the flakes made it seem, to Jack, as if he were standing inside one of those novelty paperweights that would produce a neatly contained snowstorm anytime you shook it.

Rebecca said, “We better get back to headquarters.”

He took the photograph of Lavelle out of the envelope that Carramazza had given him, tucked it inside his coat.

“What’re you doing?” Rebecca asked.

He handed her the envelope. “I’ll be at headquarters in an hour.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Two o’clock at the latest.”

“Where are you going?”

“There’s something I want to look into.”

“Jack, we’ve got to set up the task force, prepare a—”

“You get it started.”

“There’s too much work for one—”

“I’ll be there by two, two-fifteen at the latest.”

“Damnit, Jack—”

“You can handle it on your own for a while.”

“You’re going up to Harlem, aren’t you?”

“Listen, Rebecca—”

“Up to that damned voodoo shop.”

He didn’t say anything.

She said, “I knew it. You’re running up there to see Carver Hampton again. That charlatan. That fraud.”

“He’s not a fraud. He believes in what he does. I said I’d get back to him today.”

“This is crazy.”

“Is it? Lavelle does exist. We have a photo now.”

“So he exists? That doesn’t mean voodoo works!”

“I know that.”

“If you go up there, how am I supposed to get to the office?”

“You can take the car. I’ll get a uniform to drive me.”

“Jack, damnit.”

“I have a hunch, Rebecca.”

“Hell.”

“I have a hunch that... somehow... the voodoo subculture—maybe not any real supernatural stuff—but at least the subculture itself is inextricably entwined with this. I have a strong hunch that’s the way to approach the case.”

“Christ.”

“A smart cop plays his hunches.”

“And if you don’t get back when you promise, if I’m stuck all afternoon, handling everything myself, and then if I have to go in and face Gresham with—”

“I’ll be back by two-fifteen, two-thirty at the latest.”

“I’m not going to forgive you for this, Jack.”

He met her eyes, hesitated, then said, “Maybe I could postpone seeing Carver Hampton until tomorrow if...”

“If what?”

“If I knew you’d take just half an hour, just fifteen minutes, to sit down with me and talk about everything that happened between us last night. Where are we going from here?”

Her eyes slid away from his. “We don’t have time for that now.”

“Rebecca—”

“There’s a lot of
work
to do, Jack!”

He nodded. “You’re right. You’ve got to get started on the task force details, and I’ve got to see Carver Hampton.”

He walked away from her, toward the uniforms who were standing by the patrol cars.

She said, “No later than two o’clock!”

“I’ll make it as fast as I can,” he said.

The wind suddenly picked up again. It howled.

The new snow had brightened and softened the street. The neighborhood was still seedy, grimy, litter-strewn, and mean, but it didn’t look half as bad as it had yesterday, without snow.

Carver Hampton’s shop was near the corner. It was flanked by a liquor store with iron bars permanently fixed over the display windows and by a shabby furniture store also huddled behind bars. Hampton’s place was the only business on the block that looked prosperous, and there were no bars over its windows, either.

The sign above the door contained only a single word:
Rada.
Yesterday, Jack had asked Hampton what the shop’s name signified, and he had learned that there were three great rites or spiritual divisions governing voodoo. Two of those were composed of evil gods and were called Congo and
Petro.
The pantheon of benevolent gods was called the
Rada.
Since Hampton dealt only in substances, implements, and ceremonial clothing necessary for the practice of white (good) magic, that one word above the door was all he needed to attract exactly the clientele he was looking for—those people of the Caribbean and their descendants who, having been transplanted to New York City, had brought their religion with them.

Jack opened the door, a bell announcing his entrance, and he went inside, closing out the bitter December wind.

The shop was small, twenty feet wide and thirty deep. In the center were tables displaying knives, staffs, bells, bowls, other implements, and articles of clothing used in various rituals. To the right, low cabinets stood along the entire wall; Jack had no idea what was in them. On the other wall, to the left of the door, there were shelves nearly all the way to the ceiling, and these were crammed full of bottles of every imaginable size and shape, blue and yellow and green and red and orange and brown and clear bottles, each carefully labeled, each filled with a particular herb or exotic root or powdered flower or other substance used in the casting of spells and charms, the brewing of magical potions.

At the rear of the shop, in answer to the bell, Carver Hampton came out of the back room, through a green bead curtain. He looked surprised. “Detective Dawson! How nice to see you again. But I didn’t expect you’d come all the way back here, especially not in this foul weather. I thought you’d just call, see if I’d come up with anything for you.”

Jack went to the back of the shop, and they shook hands across the sales counter.

Carver Hampton was tall, with wide shoulders and a huge chest, about forty pounds overweight but very formidable; he looked like a pro football lineman who had been out of training for six months. He wasn’t a handsome man. There was too much bone in his slablike forehead, and his face was too round for him ever to appear in the pages of
Gentleman’s Quarterly;
besides, his nose, broken more than once, now had a distinctly squashlike appearance. But if he wasn’t particularly good looking, he
was
very friendly looking, a gentle giant, a perfect black Santa Claus.

He said, “I’m so sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

“Then you haven’t turned up anything since yesterday?” Jack asked.