Bloody River Blues

hooked up to your leg muscles to send in jolts of electricity to stimulate them in a certain order. Eventually, using this device, you could propel yourself in a jerky fashion by using canes or a walker.
    She kept talking but Donnie Buffett stopped listening. He was deciding that whatever FNS was exactly he’d never get hooked up to anything like that. Buffett knew he could sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and maybe cry sometimes and maybe scream and he could see himself pitching a lamp through the TV set after watching Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune one too many times. And he could picture himselfwheeling out of the house and getting a job. Learning to do wheelies, learning to go over curbs by himself, developing huge, ball-buster arms and a fifty-inch chest. But no machines. Just like, if he were blind, he would use a cane but never rely on a dog. He couldn’t explain what this distinction was exactly but to him it was real and it was the difference between his heart being alive and being cold dead.
    He noticed that Weiser had stopped talking and it seemed as if she had asked him a question. He didn’t feel like asking her to repeat it. He said, “Would you go out with me?” He added, “I mean, have dinner.”
    When she declined, as he had somehow known she would, it wasn’t with a shocked or, what would have been worse, maternal smile. She looked at him with the intrigued gaze of a married woman at a party, propositioned discreetly by a man she finds attractive.
    A pleasant regret, not an astonished surprise.
    She added, “We should stay friends, you know.”
    And when she said that, the Terror nudged Donnie Buffett once, hard, bringing sweat to his forehead, but then it curled up somewhere inside him and, for the time being, fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Chapter 25
    “THERE’S A MAN to see you, sir. He says his name is Pellam.”
    “Pellam? Do I know him?” Philip Lombro said, running a chamois over his Bally shoes.
    “He knows you, sir.”
    “I’m busy. Take his card.”
    Lombro sat back in his leather chair and stared at the floor. Dense clouds passing by outside would cast diffuse shadows on the green carpeting then a moment later the harsh sunlight would return.
    The intercom clicked again and startled him. The electric voice said, “He says it has to do with the late Mr. Bales.”
    Lombro cleared his throat. “Send him in.”
    Pellam walked into the office. He looked around at the somber burgundy and navy books—business books, lawyer books. The desk. The pattern of cloud shadows on the verdant carpet. The view out the window, the smooth deco designs on the old brick building across the street.
    Pellam sat down, uninvited, in the chair directly opposite Lombro’s. “Your hit man is dead.”
    Lombro swallowed and folded the square of chamois carefully. Yes. It was him. The one with the case of beer, the man who’d seen him. “You’re the witness.”
    “The witness.” Pellam said the word slowly, tasting it, letting the sibilant draw out over his teeth.
    “Mr. James?”
    “No, it’s Pellam.”
    Lombro shook his head at this, confused. Then he said cautiously, “You cheated me.”
    Pellam frowned. “I’m sorry?”
    “You took my money and you still went to the U.S. Attorney. I heard the news conference.”
    “What money?”
    “The fifty thousand? The money Ralph gave you . . .”
    The voice faded and Pellam obviously came to the conclusion that was setting prominently into Lombro’s mind. They shared rueful smiles.
    Lombro said, “I see.”
    “The quality of your hired help leaves a little bit to be desired.”
    “So it seems. He’s dead, you say?”
    “An accident.”
    “I see. Are you here to kill me?” This he asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
    “No,” Pellam said.
    “I swear I forbade Ralph to hurt you. All he was going to do was pay you to—”
    “But, he came to the Federal Building yesterday with a gun. You knew that.”
    Lombro’s mouth closed and he touched some strands of silver hair at his temple.
    “I want to know why you had Gaudia killed.”
    “Are you a policeman?”
    “No.”
    “But you have a microphone on you.”
    Pellam took off his jacket and turned out the pockets of his shirt and jeans. Lombro, eyes fixed on the grip of the Colt in Pellam’s waistband, took the bomber jacket and felt through the pockets.
    “I just want to know,” Pellam said sincerely.
    Lombro crossed his legs and gripped his ankle with his right hand,