Nocturnal Read Online Free PDF Page A

married ladies.”
    Pookie leaned back, put a hand on his chest. “Assistant DA Wills, I am hurt and offended by your insinuation that I contribute to infidelity.”
    She again bent to her legal pad. Pookie walked back to Bryan.
    “Smooth,” Bryan said.
    “Sexual tension,” Pookie said. “Vital to any good cop drama.” He tapped his forehead. “It all goes in the vault to someday be played out in my brilliant scripts.”
    Steve Boyd walked up to Bryan and Pookie. He had a cup of coffee in his left hand. His right hand scratched at his balls. Where Polyester Rich’s upper-lip scraggle looked like it belonged on the face of a 1950s movie villain, Boyd’s walrus mustache was so thick you could barely see his mouth move when he talked.
    “Clauser, Chang,” Boyd said. The man tilted his head toward the suit. “Word is the nerd brought us a lead on the hitter.”
    Pookie sighed. “The
hitter
? Ball-Puller, you been watching the AMC gangster movie marathon again?”
    “Never miss it,” he said. “I hope he’s got something. We’ve been shaking down all of Ablamowicz’s clients, haven’t come up with jack shit.”
    Robertson clapped three times to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s get started,” he said. Robertson’s thick brown hair had recently started to go gray at the temples, a color that matched his glasses. He always looked half rumpled: neither sloppy nor neat. His blue tie and bluer button-down shirt didn’t quite hide a growing gut. That’s what a desk job would do to you.
    “Let’s make it quick and get you back on the streets,” he said. “I want to introduce Agent Tony Tryon, FBI.”
    The three-piece-suit man smiled. “Good morning. I’m here because I’ve spent the last five years watching Frank Lanza.”
    Ball-Puller Boyd started laughing. “
Lanza
? As in, the Mafia Lanzas of the Long-Ago Time?”
    The FBI agent nodded.
    Chris Kearney crossed his arms over his sweater-vest-covered chest and glared at the FBI agent. Bryan wondered if Kearney doubted the man or was just jealous of the tailored suit.
    “The mob hasn’t been here since Jimmy the Hat died,” Kearney said. “The Tongs and the Russians pushed them out.”
    Jennifer clacked her pen against the table,
tap-tap-tap
. “Wait a minute — did you say
the hat
? His mob nickname was
the hat
? Not exactly frightening, is it?”
    Tryon smiled at her. She smiled back. Bryan noticed Pookie scowl at the FBI agent.
    “James Lanza frightened people just fine,” Tryon said. “He ran the La Cosa Nostra in San Francisco for almost forty years. His dad, Francesco, founded the whole thing back in Prohibition.”
    Tryon picked up a folder off the table and walked to a corkboard at the end of the room. He pulled out black-and-white photos and started pinning them to the board. Pictures of four men went up in a row, with a single face on top. The face in that photo showed a man in his early forties, short black hair parted on the left side. Even in the still shot, Bryan thought the man looked smug and condescending.
    Tryon tapped that top picture. “Francesco Joseph Lanza, known as
Frank
. Son of Jimmy the Hat, grandson of the first Francesco. For years, we’ve known Frank has been asking for permission to take back San Francisco. Looks like he got it. We think he’s been here for six months, maybe more.”
    “Bullshit,” said Ball-Puller Boyd. “We’d have heard he was in town.”
    Tryon shook his head. “Like his father, Frank doesn’t draw attention to himself. He’s probably not here for the clam chowder, if you know what I’m saying.”
    The FBI agent smiled at the other cops, as if waiting for them to laugh at his joke. No one did. His smile faded. He shrugged. “Anyway, Frank Lanza has been here for about six months. He brought a few guys out with him.” Tryon tapped the faces below Lanza as he called out the names. “The big fella with the shaved head is Tony ‘Four Balls’ Gillum, Frank’s right-hand man and