Bloody River Blues

be happy to.”

Chapter 7
    PELLAM PRECEDED THE two agents out of the house, past a row of location vans, dollies, and generator trucks, then down the street. They kept motioning him along the sidewalk, away from the curious eyes of the cast and crew and the crowd of locals, who stared with fascination at the equipment and occasionally waved—some timidly, some like relatives—at the cast.
    One middle-aged man pointed at Pellam and whispered something to the woman by his side. Their faces seemed to darken and they stared, unsmiling, as he walked out of sight behind a row of shaggy hedges. When he turned, as directed, into an alley between two empty houses he could glimpse the couple again. They still stared with apparent hostility, and several others had joined them.
    Halfway through the alley, which Pellam thought led to the agents’ car, the two men stopped, one on either side of him.
    “We can talk here.”
    “Here?” Pellam stepped back to put some distance between him and the agents. He brushed against thebrick wall of one of the houses. He turned and found himself hemmed in.
    Pellam turned back to Bracken. “Couldn’t we—”
    “Shut up,” barked the unscruffy Monroe.
    Bracken pointed a stubby finger at Pellam’s chest and pushed him hard against the wall. “We know he got to you. We know he’s pulling your dick.” Though they both shaved, Bracken had done the sloppier job of it. He smelled of sweat. No after-shave for these boys.
    Grim-faced, Pellam waved his arm in the air and started toward the mouth of the alley. “You can go to hell.”
    Two huge fists suddenly grabbed his shoulders and slammed him back into the wall. His head bounced against the window, which cracked under the impact.
    “We’re not getting through to you,” Monroe said.
    An unlicensed pistol in his waistband, Pellam did not want to be frisked. He lifted his arms unthreateningly, palms outward. “Why don’t you just tell me what this is all about.”
    “A witness to a federal crime who refuses to testify or who fabricates testimony known to be false can be guilty of contempt, obstruction of justice and perjury.” Bracken wore a thick gold bracelet on his hairy wrist, which seemed unbecoming on an agent of the federal government.
    “As well as conspiracy if a link can be shown between him and the primary perpetrator.”
    Bracken lowered his face into Pellam’s. “I’m talking about if you haven’t got the balls to tell us whatyou saw that night we’re looking at you as an accessory.”
    “Are you arresting me?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Then this is harassment. I think it’s time I called my lawyer.”
    Braken took him by the lapels again and shoved him back against the wall. Pellam remembered to keep his head tilted forward so he wouldn’t break any more windows. “We know you saw Crimmins in the Lincoln and we want you to identify him.”
    “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
    “The man who’s paying you off? You don’t remember him?”
    A surveillance photograph appeared from Monroe’s pocket. It had been lifted from a videotape and the time and date were visible in the right-hand corner. The picture showed a heavyset man with a broad, Slavic face and receding hairline. His mouth was open and he was turning his head to speak to an unseen person walking behind him.
    “I’ve never seen him.”
    “Look again, Pellam. That’s Peter Crimmins.”
    “I do not—”
    “Look again, Pellam,” Monroe said. “He’s the man who was in the Lincoln. He’s the man responsible for the death of Vincent Gaudia and for the shooting of a Maddox policeman. He’s the man you saw. All we need is your confirmation.”
    “I can’t confirm what I didn’t see.”
    “You’re not going to cooperate?” Bracken barked.
    “This is cooperation—listening to you two. In fact, it’s beyond cooperation. I’m leaving.”
    IT HAD BEEN a long, long hour.
    Peter Crimmins was sweating. His Sea Island cotton shirt was wet in the small of his back and under the arms. The sweat would bead on his chest hair, and when he moved, would press, cold, against the skin. Sweat was gathering too in the deep folds of fat where his waist met his chest. It trickled down his back.
    Crimmins knew that at any time he could have asked the agents to leave and then they would either have to let him go or arrest him. But if they arrested him—which they might easily have done—that meant he would have to have his friend and