Bloody River Blues

the room.
    Pellam put his hands on the cluttered desk, knocking aside a windup set of dentures. He leaned forward. “I want protection for myself, my friends, and for everybody with the film company. A friend of mine was just attacked. I want an agent at her apartment now! She lives in Cranston, on—”
    “Have a seat, Mr. Pellam.”
    Pellam remained standing, glancing from the windup toy collection into the man’s serene olive pits of eyes. The U.S. Attorney motioned to a chair. “Please.”
    Pellam sat down.
    “You say she was attacked, this friend of yours?”
    Pellam told him about the factory and the man with the birthmark.
    “Crimmins.” Peterson’s troubled eyes scanned the colorful foliage outside his window. He spat out, “That son of a bitch.”
    “Your agents told me he’d hired some hit man in Chicago or Detroit or something. This’s him. This is the guy. I want protection.”
    “Protection?”
    “Agents,” Pellam exploded. “You know, bodyguards.”
    “U.S. Marshals? That’s a lot of taxpayers’ money to devote to protecting someone.”
    “You’ve got this witness protection . . .”
    “Ah, the key word. Witness .”
    Pellam said, “Look, you’re playing a game. You know his name. Crimmins. Go arrest him.”
    Peterson said, “I’m confused. If you didn’t see him, why would he threaten you?”
    “Well, he doesn’t know I didn’t see anything. Why are you hesitating? You want Crimmins. He’s just threatened me and assaulted my friend. Go arrest him.”
    “The attack that you say—”
    Pellam was on his feet. “I say?  . . . My friend—”
    Peterson held up a hand. “Excuse me. My mistake. I apologize. Please—have a seat.”
    Pellam sat down.
    The U.S. Attorney said, “What exactly do you want?”
    “I want protection. I keep saying that.”
    “I suppose we could put one man on it for a while. But what happened to your friend isn’t a federal crime. It’s an assault. There’s no federal jurisdiction—”
    “You mean it’s not a crime to threaten a federal witness?” His voice faded in reverse proportion to Peterson’s smile.
    “We come back to that again. See what I’m saying?You’re not a witness. No jurisdiction. There’s nothing we can do.”
    Pellam’s voice was soft. “That’s the kind of technicality you people like to use.”
    Peterson paused a moment, maybe wondering which category the you people described. “The point is, even if we got a conviction for this attack, the best we could do is put him away for a year, tops. He’d be out and after you again twice as mad. Or after your friend.”
    “Bullshit.”
    Peterson pressed an intercom button. A middle-aged woman in a white blouse and tan skirt appeared in the doorway. “Yessir?”
    “Bring me the Crimmins file, please.”
    “All of it, Mr. Peterson?”
    “No, sorry. Just the background file. The first Redweld.” He looked at Pellam. “You really don’t know who Peter Crimmins is? Well, let me tell you. Second-generation Russian. Ukrainian, I mean. I suppose we have to be careful with that nowadays. He made a lot of money in the trucking business and we know that he’s built up a huge money-laundering operation. It was some people that work for him got into a battle with a Jamaican street gang in East St. Louis.”
    Pellam pictured the windup toys strolling off the edge of the desk and some young assistant attorney scurrying to retrieve them from the floor. “What exactly—”
    “Twelve people were killed.” Peterson frowned but did not seem to be particularly shocked or mournful.
    “What’s that got to do with me?”
    “‘Massacre.’ That’s what the Post-Dispatch said. Not exactly hyperbole. Seven of them were bystanders.”
    “Tough luck in an election year.”
    Peterson was immobile for a moment. He lifted a very white finger to his earlobe and stroked it absently three times. When he spoke his voice was temperate. “The office of U.S. Attorney is an appointed position.”
    Pellam gazed at him skeptically.
    “I have no aspirations to be mayor of this city. Or governor of the state or senator. I have yet to understand why anyone would want to be a representative.”
    The secretary appeared and set a large, battered red-brown file folder on Peterson’s desk. The U.S. Attorney opened the file and pulled out a number of stacks of papers and clippings. He upended one stack on his lap and began flipping through it, squinting.
    The pictures spun out, flying like