Pike slipped his hands into the pockets of his parka and we walked past a smaller pond where an older man and a couple of young girls were sailing a model sailboat. A man and a woman decked out in serious biking apparel were standing with a tandem bike, watching them. We stopped and watched them, too, and I wondered how deeply into winter the pond could venture before it would freeze. The brisk fall wind carried the boat well across the pond. Pike said, "Elvis?"

"Yeah?"

"I remember being afraid. I was very young."

We watched the old man and the girls and the boat, and then we left the park and walked down to the brownstones that used to belong to Sal DeLuca. There were no limos at the curb or thugs hanging around the stoop. There was a black bow on the door.

Joe stayed on the corner at Fifth Avenue and I went up to the door and rang the bell once. In a little bit Freddie opened the door and looked out at me. His face was flat and without expression. "Yeah?"

"You hear about Charlie?"

"We heard."

"I'm at the Park Lane."

"Swell. Have a party."

"Tell Vito. Tell Angie. I'll be there until this is squared away."

Freddie gave me the patented tough-guy sneer. "We got no business with you."

"That's where you're wrong. Tell Vito and Angie. The Park Lane."

The next morning there was a three-inch article on page six of The New York Times The New York Times. It reported that a prost.i.tute named Gloria Uribe and a man believed to be her pimp, one Jesus Santiago, were found shot to death in a warehouse in lower Manhattan. Authorities had no leads as to the circ.u.mstances of their deaths. In a separate article on page eighteen a Jamaican national and known drug dealer named Urethro Mubata was found murdered in the front seat of his late-model Jaguar Sovereign in Queens. His throat was cut so deeply that the head was almost separated from the body. Police speculated his death to be the result of a drug deal gone sour. The New York Post New York Post reported that Richard Sealy, a drug addict, had been found dead in a Port Authority men's room with multiple fractures of the head, neck, both arms, and left leg. Guess junkies don't rate the reported that Richard Sealy, a drug addict, had been found dead in a Port Authority men's room with multiple fractures of the head, neck, both arms, and left leg. Guess junkies don't rate the Times Times.

Loose ends were being tied.

Two days later, in the afternoon, I was walking down Central Park West across from the Hayden Planetarium when a blue Cadillac Eldorado pulled up beside me. Pike was maybe forty yards back and across the street. Vito DeLuca opened the door and looked out at me. "Get in."

I got in. Freddie was in the front seat, driving. Vito was in back, alone. Vito said, "I'm capo de tutti capo capo de tutti capo. You know what that means?"

"You're Marlon Brando."

Vito smiled, but there was something hard and tired in it. The weight of responsibility. "Yeah. You killed a lot of our guys."

"Charlie's people."

"Some of the capos capos, they don't like it. They think something should be done."

"What do you think?" Out the window, past Vito, I could see Joe Pike moving closer, talking to a guy who was selling Middle Eastern food from a little cart.

Vito looked out the window but saw only people on the street. "I think Charlie came very close to bringing dishonor to the family. He was my nephew, my blood, but Sal was my brother. Sal knew how a man acts. You behaved like a man behaves. These guys, they talk about California and granola and Disneyland, I say, Christ, he put ten of our guys in the ground. If he was Sicilian, I'd kiss him on the mouth. He could be a made guy."

"What about Karen Lloyd?"

Vito turned back and looked at me. He said, "Sal DeLuca was capo de tutti capos capo de tutti capos, and when he spoke, he spoke for the family. The DeLucas honor their word. Capisce? Capisce?"

"Charlie wouldn't."

"Charlie's dead."

I nodded.

"She's out. She will never be seen by DeLuca family eyes again. The DeLuca family will always honor that."

He put out his hand and we shook. When we shook, he squeezed my hand hard, so hard that it cut off the blood. More than one rock in the family. He said, "The agreement works both ways. Does the woman know that?"

"Yes."

"Does her husband? The movie guy?" Peter Alan Nelsen, the movie guy.

"Yes. I'll be responsible for them."

He nodded. "That's right. You will. For the rest of your life."

He let go of my hand and I got out of the limousine and walked across the street. Joe Pike and I went back to the hotel, called Karen Lloyd at her bank, and told her what Vito DeLuca had said. We checked out that afternoon.

Forty-one.

October moved into November, and three weeks later, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, I was on my deck grilling salmon steaks and j.a.panese eggplant for Cindy, the beauty supply distributor, and Joe Pike and another woman named Ellen Lang. Ellen Lang had been a client once, several years ago, and since then she and Joe Pike have seen each other, time to time. She had a deep tan, and when she laughed there were dimples high on her cheeks. Laughter came easier to her now than in that earlier time.

Joe Pike and Cindy and Ellen Lang were inside, making salad and garlic bread and mint tea, when the phone rang. Someone inside answered it, and Ellen Lang came out and said, "There's a call for you. It's Peter Alan Nelsen. The director."

I said, "Wow. Maybe this is my big break."

She said, "Oh, you."

Ellen stayed with the salmon and I went inside and took it in the kitchen. On the counter next to the sink, Pike sliced the long French bread and put it on a tray while Cindy watched him. Cindy had soft auburn hair and expressive brown eyes. I liked watching her watch Pike's precise moves.

Peter said, "They're coming out to visit."

"Karen and Toby?"

"Yeah. He's got a week off for Thanksgiving and I asked'm to come out."

"Great." I already knew, because Karen had called and told me.

"She doesn't want him traveling alone, so she's coming, too."

"Even better."

"She's not coming by herself. She's bringing some guy." She had also told me that.

"She's got a life, Peter. That's a good thing. Why don't you get a date and the four of you can go out one night. Leave Toby with me."

"I know. I know." He didn't say anything for a little bit. "Listen, when they're out, I'm gonna bring Toby to the set, take'm to Disneyland, that kind of thing. You think you could sorta be around some of the time? At first."

Pike finished cutting the garlic bread and Cindy took it outside. She wriggled her eyebrows as she pa.s.sed and gave me a yum-yum smile. She smelled of daisies. Yum, all right. "Sure, Peter. Not the whole time. But if you need me around at first, sure."

"Hey, thanks. I really appreciate that. I really do." He sounded relieved. "I'm out at the Malibu house. You wanna come out?"

"I've got company."

"Another time, okay? You ever wanna come out, you don't even have to call. Just come."

"Sure." Elvis Cole, detective to the stars.

I hung up and Pike said, "What's up?"

"Karen and Toby are coming out and he's scared. Growing up is a scary time."

"He asks you a lot. Maybe he should try growing up without you."

"He calls me less now than he once did. He'll call me less still. He's getting there."

Pike nodded. "Yeah. I guess he is. Karen getting any chaff from the DeLucas?"

"Vito's been good at his word. All of the DeLuca accounts through the First Chelam Bank have been collapsed and the funds in the Barbados accounts have mysteriously vanished."

"So she's free."

"Yes. She's as free as you can be when you've got the memories she has, but, like Peter, she's getting there, too."

Outside, Ellen Lang moved the fish to the side so it wouldn't overcook and Cindy put the garlic bread in the center of the grill. Pike washed off a yellow pepper, cored it in the sink, then sliced it into thin rings. Each ring was uniform, no thicker or thinner than any other ring. When the pepper was cut, he added the rings to the large salad that had already been built and we took it out to the deck.

Ellen Lang says that if you stand on my deck and close your eyes, with a breeze coming up the canyon to blow across your face, it's easy to imagine that you're flying free through the sky, over the city with Tinkerbell and Mark and Wendy, off to Never Land to find the lost boys.

I haven't told her, but I've always thought that, too.

ROBERT CRAIS is the bestselling author of eleven suspense novels, including The Monkey's Raincoat, Stalking the Angel, Lullaby Town The Monkey's Raincoat, Stalking the Angel, Lullaby Town, and Free Fall Free Fall, all available from Bantam Books. He has written for such award-winning television shows as L.A. Law L.A. Law and and Hill Street Blues Hill Street Blues, and he lives in Los Angeles.

Visit his website at www.robertcrais.com.

If you enjoyed Lullaby Town Lullaby Town, you will want to read Free Fall Free Fall, now available in paperback at your local bookseller.

FREE.

FALL.

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ROBERT CRAIS.

Here is a special preview of Free Fall Free Fall.

FREE FALL.

Robert Crais Jennifer Sheridan walked into my office as if she were Fay Wray and I was King Kong and a bunch of black guys in sagebrush tutus were going to tie her down so that I could have my way with her. It's a look I've seen before, on men as well as women. "I'm a detective, Ms. Sheridan. I'm not going to hurt you. Perhaps I'll even be polite." I gave her my best Dudley Do-Right smile.

She smiled back but she didn't look any less uncomfortable. If Dudley Do-Right didn't work, maybe the Groucho Marx nose?

Jennifer Sheridan said, "Is what we say privileged, Mr. Cole?"

"As in, attorney-client?"

"Yes."

I shook my head. "No. My records and my testimony can be subpoenaed and, under California law, I must provide them."

"Oh." She didn't like that.

"But there is lat.i.tude. Sometimes I forget things."

"Oh." She liked that better, but she still wasn't convinced. We were standing in the doorway to my office, four stories above West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard. I was holding the door, but Jennifer Sheridan couldn't seem to make up her mind whether to come in or to leave. Across the hall you could hear laughter coming from the insurance office and one door down two very attractive Hispanic women came out of the beauty products distribution outlet. One of them had about nine cubic feet of teased hair and probably kept the distributor in business by buying hair spray. They went to the elevator. Jennifer Sheridan said, "This isn't easy for me, Mr. Cole. I'm not sure I should be here and I don't have much time. I'm on my lunch hour."

"We could talk over sandwiches, downstairs." There was a turkey and Swiss on a French baguette waiting for me in the deli on the ground floor. I had been thinking about it for most of the morning and with each pa.s.sing moment seemed to be thinking about it all the more.

"Thank you, no. I'm engaged."

"That wasn't a s.e.xual proposition, Ms. Sheridan. It was a simple offer to share lunch and perhaps more efficiently use both our times."

"Oh." Jennifer Sheridan turned as red as a beating heart. She was wearing a light-blue cotton skirt with a white blouse and a matching light-blue bolero jacket and low-heeled navy pumps. The clothes were neat and fit well, and the cuts were stylish but not expensive. She would have to shop and she would have to look for bargains, but she had found them. I liked that. She carried a black imitation leather purse the size of a Buick. She held it with both hands.

"Also, Ms. Sheridan, I'm getting tired of holding the door."

Jennifer Sheridan made up her mind and stepped past me into the office. She walked quickly and went to one of the two director's chairs across from my desk. There's a couch, but she didn't even consider it. Jennifer Sheridan had sounded young on the phone, but in person she looked younger, with a fresh-scrubbed face and clear healthy skin and dark auburn hair. Pretty. The kind of happy, innocent pretty they call girl-next-door. The kind of pretty that dimples when it smiles and wins your heart, and deserves to. That kind of pretty. The kind that starts deep inside and doesn't stop on the way out.

I made her for twenty-three but she looked eighteen and she'd still be carded in bars when she was thirty. I wondered if I looked old to her. Nah. Thirty-eight isn't old.

I closed the door, went to my desk, sat, and smiled at her. "What time do you have to be back?"

"One. I'll have to leave here by twelve forty-five."

"All right. What do you do?"

"I'm a secretary for the law firm of Watkins, Ok.u.m & Beale. We're in Beverly Hills."