Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) by Steve Ulfelder Page B

“you want the Congregational place down the street.”
    And a hundred people cracked up.
    And the lights snapped on.
    And there they were.
    The banner behind them said FREE AT LAST .
    And I’m so thick it took me another second to remember: my parole had ended at 12:01 that morning.
    They were hooting and clapping and smiling, but in my head everything went silent as I took them in.
    All of them.
    There were Charlene and Sophie, front and center. I even spotted Jessie, arms folded, along the back row. All the key Barnburners were there: Butch Feeley, Mary Giarusso, Carlos Q (the world’s meanest Colombian, and that’s saying something), a bunch more. Floriano and his wife Maria stood off to one side, not knowing most of the others. Eudora Spoon and Moe Coover, my two favorite old-school AAers, smiled and clapped. Randall stood with his father, Luther. Luther was beckoning me for some reason.
    Hell, even Gus Biletnikov was there. He must have been in on the setup—it explained the smirk that afternoon when I’d dropped him off.
    Roy wasn’t there.
    No reason he would be, really.
    Luther Swale’s beckoning was nearly out of control. I took a step forward, and the hooting and hollering doubled. Luther cupped his hands to be heard. “How does it feel to be off paper?”
    I looked down. They’d taped newspaper just inside the door. It explained the crinkling when I stepped in.
    It was a long way to go for an inside gag. See, parole is called being on paper. The best day of an ex-con’s life comes when he gets off paper. No more weekly PO visits, no more travel restrictions, no more peeing in a cup.
    Charlene strode across the basement and planted a big honkin’ kiss on my lips, putting extra Hollywood on it for the benefit of the crowd. Then the rest of them flooded over and ringed us. Somebody cranked music on a boom box.
    It was a good night. Who says drunks don’t know how to throw a party?
    *   *   *
    The good vibe ended when my eyes snapped open the next morning. My first thought wasn’t of dirt bikes or parties: what popped into my head was the dude outside the Hi Hat. A dude who walked around with a giant handgun stuffed in his pants and didn’t mind showing it to you.
    The dude was Charlie Pundo’s muscle man. But was he also Teddy Pundo’s muscle? Or was he more like Teddy’s babysitter?
    Hell, that was just one thing I needed to look at. First, I’d decided to drop in on Gus Biletnikov’s family. Unannounced.
    Whether Gus acknowledged it, it sure felt to me like whoever’d done Almost Home was trying to kill him.
    Which meant I had to bail out of work today.
    Which maybe happened more often than it should, thanks to Barnburner chores.
    Which didn’t go over so great with Charlene or Floriano.
    I slipped from bed, took the world’s quietest shower, and escaped the house without waking Charlene. Which meant I didn’t have to explain to her that I wasn’t going to work.
    Phew.
    Called Randall while driving east, told him where to meet me.
    Dropped by the shop and told Floriano I had errands to run. His raised eyebrow and the Silent Sam routine as he looked over the day’s appointments were his version of a hissy fit. I told him I’d call Tory again to ease his workload, but he said she was out of action for the rest of the week—getting trained up on the new direct-injection fuel systems.
    Hell.
    Well, Floriano would just have to stay pissed. I needed to keep tugging threads.
    On the ride home last night, I’d worked through it in my head. I’d given Gus two chances to level with me about anybody who might have it in for him. Each time, he’d fed me Andrade and Teddy Pundo. Each time, he’d acted sketchy when I pressed. He wasn’t telling everything there was to tell.
    Far as I was concerned, that gave me license to end-run Gus. And the place to start was with his