Darkfall

that is done, when he’s isolated, lonely, afraid, when he has suffered for a while, when he’s filled with blackest despair, I will at last dispose of him, too, but slowly and with much torture. Then I’ll go away, back to the islands, and you won’t ever be bothered with me again. I am merely an instrument of justice, Lieutenant Dawson.”
    “Does justice really necessitate the murder of Carramazza’s grandchildren?”
    “Yes.”
    “Innocent little children?”
    “They aren’t innocent. They carry his blood, his genes. That makes them as guilty as he is.”
    Carver Hampton was right: Lavelle was insane.
    “Now,” Lavelle said, “I understand that you will be in trouble with your superiors if you fail to bring someone to trial for at least a few of these killings. The entire police department will take a beating at the hands of the press if something isn’t done. I quite understand. So, if you wish, I will arrange to plant a wide variety of evidence incriminating members of one of the city’s other mafia families. You can pin the murders of the Carramazzas on some other undesirables, you see, put them in prison, and be rid of yet another troublesome group of hoodlums. I’d be quite happy to let you off the hook that way.”
    It wasn’t only the circumstances of this conversation-the dreamlike quality of the street around the pay phone, the feeling of floating, the fever haze-that made it all seem so unreal; the conversation itself was so bizarre that it would have defied belief regardless of the circumstances in which it had taken place. Jack shook himself, but the world wasn’t jarred to life like a stubborn wristwatch; reality didn’t begin to tick again.
    He said, “You actually think I could take such an offer seriously?”
    “The evidence I plant will be irrefutable. It will stand up in any court. You needn’t fear you’d lose the case.”
    “That’s not what I mean,” Jack said. “Do you really believe I’d conspire with you to frame innocent men?”
    “They wouldn’t be innocent. Hardly. I’m talking about framing other murderers, thieves, and pimps.”
    “But they’d be innocent of these crimes.”
    “A technicality.”
    “Not in my book.”
    Lavelle was silent for a moment. Then: “You’re an interesting man, Lieutenant. Naive. Foolish. But nevertheless interesting.”
    “Gennaro Carramazza tells us that you’re motivated by revenge.”
    “Yes.”
    “For what?”
    “He didn’t tell you that?”
    “No. What’s the story?”
    Silence.
    Jack waited, almost asked the question again.
    Then Lavelle spoke, at last, and there was a new edge to his voice, a hardness, a ferocity. “I had a younger brother. His name was Gregory. Half brother, really. Last name was Pontrain. He didn’t embrace the ancient arts of witchcraft and sorcery. He shunned them. He wouldn’t have anything to do with the old religions of Africa. He had no time for voodoo, no interest in it. His was a very modern soul, a machine-age sensibility. He believed in science, not magic; he put his faith in progress and technology, not in the power of ancient gods. He didn’t approve of my vocation, but he didn’t believe I could really do harm to anyone-or do good, either, for that matter. He thought of me as a harmless eccentric. Yet, for all this misunderstanding, I loved him, and he loved me. We were brothers. Brothers . I would have done anything for him.”
    “Gregory Pontrain…” Jack said thoughtfully. “There’s something familiar about the name.”
    “Years ago, Gregory came here as a legal immigrant. He worked very hard, worked his way through college received a scholarship. He always had writing talent even as a boy, and he thought he knew what he ought to do with it. Here, he earned a degree in journalism from Columbia. He was first in his class. Went to work for the New York Times . For a year or so he didn’t even do any writing, just verified research in other reporters’ pieces. Gradually, he promoted several writing assignments for himself. Small things. Of no consequence. What you would call ‘human interest’ stories. And then-”
    “Gregory Pontrain,” Jack said. “Of course. The crime reporter.”
    “In time, my brother was assigned a few crime stories. Robberies. Dope busts. He did a good job of covering them. Indeed, he started going after stories that hadn’t been handed to him, bigger stories that he’d dug up all by himself. And eventually he became the Times‘