Bloody River Blues

the film. I’m worried about my job. I can’t afford that right now.”
    Buffett shrugged. “If you didn’t see anything, you didn’t see anything.”
    “Yeah, but they don’t feel that way and they’re all over the place. The FBI’s talking about looking into the company’s tax returns and corporate documents.” Pellam made a helpless gesture with his hands.
    “Oh, the feds’re pricks from the git-go,” Buffett said as if explaining something as basic as gravity. Then he nodded. “Ron Peterson—he’s the U.S. Attorney—he’s a maniac.” He explained about Gaudia and Crimmins and the 60 Minutes program. “Peterson’s going to get Crimmins and nothing in this world is going to stop him.”
    Pellam continued, “I want to help. I don’t want to be a GFY but—”
    This brought a spark to Buffett’s eyes. He started to laugh.
    “What’s so funny?” Pellam was irritated.
    “Somebody called you a GFY?”
    “Your friends. The detectives.”
    “Gianno and Hagedorn.” Buffett laughed again. “Nobody told you what that means?”
    “They told me it meant a reluctant witness.”
    “Pellam, believe half of what cops tell you. It means, go fuck yourself.”
    “Very funny. Very goddamn funny.”
    Buffett continued to laugh.
    After a moment, Pellam’s mouth curled upward and he laughed loud. “GFY. That’s good, I gotta admit.”
    “Listen, Pellam, I got a deal for you. I want you to do me a favor. You do it and I’ll tell the department tolay off. I can’t do anything with the Bureau but they’ll listen to me at Maddox Police.”
    “You’d do that?”
    “You got my word.”
    “What’s this favor?”
    “No big deal. There’s something in my house I want you to get for me.”
    “Me?”
    “If you wouldn’t mind.”
    “No, I guess not.” Buffett saw Pellam’s eyes flick to Buffett’s wedding ring. He asked, “Why not have your wife bring it when she comes to visit?”
    “The thing is,” Buffett said, as his determined and cheerful eyes moved from Pellam’s face to the fuzzy TV screen, “it’d upset her.”
    IT WAS A small neighborhood of bungalows set on postage-stamp-size lawns five minutes from downtown Maddox. Both the dark brick houses and the grass were well tended and trim. Pleasant. Pellam believed he had cruised along this street on his quest for the perfect Tony Sloan bungalow. The traffic from a nearby expressway was an irritating sticky rush that filled the air and yellow haze from a half dozen brick smokestacks hung thick over the yards.
    Pellam climbed off the Yamaha. He paused in front of the house and checked the address. There was a white Nissan in the driveway and behind it a brown Mercury station wagon with Illinois plates.
    The small garden in front held the corpses of flowering plants. Stalks mostly. Bleak. Pellam knew nothing about gardening but if this had been his lawn, he would have added some evergreens. He walked upthe winding brick path to the small porch. One other thing he noticed: There were no tricycles or other toys here as there were in all of the other yards.
    He pressed the bell. There was no answer. He opened the screen door and banged a large brass knocker. A moment later the door opened. He was looking at a thin brunette with a long face, cautious and nondescript. Late twenties. She had flawless skin. Every time he glanced away from her he forgot what she looked like.
    “Mrs. Buffett?”
    “Yes?” She held the door as far open as the thick brass chain would allow. A sickening sweet scent—maybe air freshener, maybe cheap perfume—flooded out.
    “I’m John Pellam.”
    A blink. Then understanding. “Right right right. Donnie said you were coming by.” A formal smile. She didn’t offer her first name. Buffett had told him it was Penny.
    “I have to pick up a few things.”
    “That’s what he said.”
    The door closed then opened, the chain unhooked. She motioned him inside. He saw two other people. Her parents, he guessed. The woman was what Penny would be in twenty years: thin, white-haired with beautiful skin. And very cautious. Penny’s father was in his late fifties, with a businessman’s paunch under his pink, short-sleeved shirt. They both stared at Pellam. He introduced himself.
    “Stan Brickell,” the man said. “I’m Penny’s father. This’s my wife, Ruth.” The woman nodded.
    It occurred to him that if he said, “I’m sorry” byway of general sympathy, they might think Buffett had died. He asked, “You