Deadly Lullaby Read Online Free PDF

off with worry. If you want the money I offered, shut up and listen to what I have to say. It’s for your own good,
and
mine.”
    I redirect the stone-cold stare at him,
griiiit
my teeth.
    He doesn’t flinch. “News of Macky’s ‘disappearance’ will leak out fast, but his crowd ain’t the kind to file a missing-person report. Cops will catch wind of it sooner or later, but do you guys ever get bent out of shape when a bad guy disappears? I mean, why complain when somebody disposes of your trash for you, right? Cops won’t pursue any lead that somebody doesn’t shove in their faces, and nobody will do that.”
    Not that I’d ever admit it to him, but he’s right. There are a slew of cold cases frozen solid in the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit that involve dead hoods and their associates. Some LAPD detectives call them “society cleanses,” others call them “brass verdicts,” and they have all been written off as victims of professional hits.
    This, this I know. My mother and her lover are two of them.
    I check my watch. “So the condition attached to the money you haven’t given me yet is that I not worry?”
    “Worry all you want, just do not panic. Do not get antsy and say something to somebody you will regret.” He removes a cheap cellphone from his breast pocket. “This is disposable, and it has the number of my disposable programmed into it. Call me if anything arises I should know about—
anything.
” He jabs a finger at me. “We clear on all that?”
    I stare at his finger like it’s the turgid dick of a mangy dog. Delivered in that fashion, there’s no way I’ll answer his question.
    He. Has. No. Right.
    He’s pissed that I don’t answer him, his lips pressed together in a thin line, and he starts working his mouth, as if chewing up the words that would blow this lunch to smithereens.
    Silence hangs over the table like a storm cloud, the atmosphere growing charged with it.
    A new waiter announces his arrival, merrily slides the old man’s steak burrito platter before him, then shrinks away when he notices that our eyes are exchanging lightning bolts. Our primary waiter makes his follow-up appearance to dole out more beer and four fresh tequila shots, and I give him a curt “Nope” when he again asks whether I want anything to eat.
    I hammer down a shot. It neither cures my headache nor moistens my dry mouth, and causes even more sweat to cascade down my brow.
    He finally draws a heavy sigh. “I admit I misjudged you. I really did not think you would take this as hard as you have. You beat hell out of so many kids when you were young I lost count, and the only reason two of them lived was because your buddies pulled you off. And the other shit you got into, Christ.” A shake of his head. “And Macky, who would have thought you gave a damn about him, of all people?”
    “This isn’t about Macky. It’s about you. It’s about me. It’s about
you
putting
me
in this position. I’m a cop. Jesus.” I snatch another shot but halt it halfway to my mouth, stare at it, burp, and decide against it—for now.
    “This is another thing. I never pictured you as a cop, at least not a cop without an ulterior motive.”
    My primary ulterior motive in becoming a cop was to spite him, which I’m sure he’s figured out by now. He just doesn’t know the rest of it, and wouldn’t understand if I explained.
    “Hell,” he says, and smiles. “When you were a kid, I always thought odds were good we would be cellmates someday.”
    Fuck you,
is what I think.
    I don’t say it out loud because his statement’s so true.
    I was a childhood terror who drove my parents crazy, particularly my mother, since she was the one stuck with raising me until I was sixteen, when I decided to live with my Aunt Connie (which is another story altogether). My mother hated me, this I know.
    Once, when I was about twelve, a gaggle of her friends were coming over to get loose, and for fun I planted a cassette