Free Darkfall by Dean Koontz

you anything about the Carramazzas.”
    “We’re not asking for anything about them. Just Lavelle.”
    “And then forget about me. I walk out of here. No phony detention as a material witness.”
    “You weren’t a witness to the killings. Just tell us what you know about Lavelle, and you can go.”
    “All right. He came from nowhere a couple months ago and started dealing coke and smack. I don’t mean penny ante stuff, either. In a month, he’d organized about twenty street dealers, supplied them, and made it clear he expected to expand. At least that’s what Vince told me. I don’t know first-hand ‘cause I’ve never been involved with drugs.”
    “Of course not.”
    “Now, nobody but nobody deals in this city without an arrangement with Vince’s uncle. At least that’s what I’ve Heard.”
    “That’s what I’ve heard, too,” Jack said dryly.
    “So some of Carramazza’s people passed word to Lavelle to stop dealing until he’d made arrangements with the family. Friendly advice.”
    “Like Dear Abby,” Jack said.
    “Yeah,” Shelly said. She didn’t even smile. “But he didn’t stop like he was told. Instead, the crazy nigger sent word to Carramazza, offering to split the New York business down the middle, half for each of them, even though Carramazza already has all of it.”
    “Rather audacious of Mr. Lavelle,” Rebecca said.
    “No, it was smartass is what it was,” Shelly said. “I mean, Lavelle is a nobody. Who ever heard of him before this? According to Vince, old man Carramazza figured Lavelle just hadn’t understood the first message, so he sent a couple of guys around to make it plainer.”
    “They were going to break Lavelle’s legs?” Jack asked.
    “Or worse,” Shelly said.
    “There’s always worse.”
    “But something happened to the messengers,” Shelly said.
    “Dead?”
    “I’m not sure. Vince seemed to think they just never came back again.”
    “That’s dead,” Jack said.
    “Probably. Anyway, Lavelle warned Carramazza that he was some sort of voodoo witch doctor and that not even the family could fight him. Of course, everyone laughed about that. And Carramazza sent five of his best, five big mean bastards who know how to watch and wait and pick the right moment.”
    “And something happened to them, too?” Rebecca asked.
    “Yeah. Four of them never came back.”
    “What about the fifth man?” Jack asked.
    “He was dumped on the sidewalk in front of Gennaro Carramazza’s house in Brooklyn Heights. Alive. Badly bruised, scraped, cut up—but alive. Trouble was, he might as well have been dead.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “He was ape-shit.”
    “What?”
    “Crazy. Stark, raving mad,” Shelly said, turning the Scotch glass around and around in her long-fingered hands. “The way Vince heard it, this guy must’ve seen what happened to the other four, and whatever it was it drove him clear out of his skull, absolutely ape-shit.”
    “What was his name?”
    “Vince didn’t say.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “I guess Don Carramazza’s got him somewhere.”
    “And he’s still ... crazy?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Did Carramazza send a third hit squad?”
    “Not that I heard of. I guess, after that, this Lavelle sent a message to old man Carramazza: ‘If you want war, then it’s war.’ And he warned the family not to underestimate the power of voodoo.”
    “No one laughed this time,” Jack said.
    “No one,” Shelly confirmed.
    They were silent for a moment.
    Jack looked at Shelly Parker’s downcast eyes. They weren’t red. The skin around them wasn’t puffy. There was no indication that she had wept for Vince Vastagliano, her lover.
    He could hear the wind outside.
    He looked at the windows. Snowflakes tapped the glass.
    He said, “Ms. Parker, do you believe that all of this has been done through ... voodoo curses or something like that?”
    “No. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. After what’s happened these last few days, who can say? One thing