Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

The dialogues clever, and the actions lean and pictorial, with gunshots pinging like mad pinballs.

Voice Literary Supplement

Cole delivers the goods in the kind of bravura performance only a pro can give.

Kirkus Reviews

This novel shows why the Elvis Cole series has become one of crime fictions best.

Detroit Free Press

Sue Graftons Kinsey Milhone has become a fixture in the genre [and] Robert Craiss Elvis Cole ought to become one, too. Cole is fast replacing Spenser as the best of the intelligent but sensitive tough guys.

Detroit Free Press

Elvis Cole is lean, mean and completely lovable.

People

Crais flips a quick, cutting wit at Hollywood hucksters, and shows a keen ear for their inane industry prattle.

The New York Times Book Review

The ghostly influence is Robert B. Parker, including the wisecracks and the incessant attention to food. But once Crais gets past the mandatory wise-mouthing and sets his story in motion, forget influences; he is his own man.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Cole noshes like Spenser and he views the world through the same darkly moral shades as Marlowe and Archer.

Chicago Tribune

Elvis is the greatest. [Hes] perhaps the best detective to come along since Travis McGee.

San Diego Tribune

Crais is in a class by himselfhe is quite simply the best.

Eric Van Lustbader

ACCLAIM FOR ROBERT CRAISS

AWARD-WINNING FIRST ELVIS COLE NOVEL

THE MONKEYS RAINCOAT
WINNER OF THE ANTHONY AND
MACAVITY AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL;
NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AND
SHAMUS AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL

Far and away the most satisfying private eye novel in years. Grab this oneits a winner!

Lawrence Block

Cole is simply the most mesmerizing new P.I. in years.

Booklist

In Crais, a new star has appeared on the private eye scenea dazzling first novel.

Tony Hillerman

*THE MONKEYS RAINCOAT

*STALKING THE ANGEL

*FREE FALL

*LULLABY TOWN

VOODOO RIVER

SUNSET EXPRESS

L.A. REQUIEM

HOSTAGE

DEMOLITION ANGEL

THE LAST DETECTIVE

Available from Bantam Books

LULLABY TOWN
A Bantam Book/

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published April 1992
Bantam paperback edition / June 1993

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from Karn Evil 9, First Impression Part 2 by Emerson Lake & Palmer. Reprinted by permission of Leadchoice Limited.

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1992 by Robert Crais.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-36185.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-78993-8

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, New York, New York.

v3.1

Dedicated with love
and respect to
my mother,
Evelyn Carrie Crais,
who saved me from the monsters.

Theres a quaint little place they call Lullaby TownIts just back of those hills where the sunsets go down. Its streets are of silver, its buildings of gold, And its palaces dazzling things to behold.

Theres a peddler who carries, strapped high on his back, A bundle. Now, guess what he has in that pack. No, hes not peddling jams nor delectable creams. Would you know what hes selling? Just wonderful dreams!

from Lullaby Town
by John Irving Diller

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. Were so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!

Emerson, Lake, & Palmer

published in The Best Loved Poems of the American People selected by
Hazel Felleman,
Doubleday and Company, 1936, p. 399.

Patricia Kyle said, Is this Elvis Cole, the worlds greatest detective?

Yes, it is. I was lying on the leather couch across from my desk, enjoying the view that I have of the Channel Islands. I used to have chairs, but a couch is much better to relieve one of the rigors of world-class detecting.

She said, Were you sleeping?

I gave her miffed. I never sleep. Im waiting for Cindy to come out onto the balcony next door. The glass doors leading out to my little balcony were open to catch the breeze that was blowing up Santa Monica Boulevard into West Los Angeles. It was a nice breeze, cool and smelling of salt and sea birds. The open doors were also better to let me hear Cindy.

Whos Cindy?

I switched the phone from the left ear to the right. The left ear was still sore from having been hit hard two times by a Cajun with large forearms and no teeth. Cindy is a beauty supply distributor who took the office space next door.

Pat Kyle said, Hmm. Ill bet I know what she distributes.

Your callousness and insensitivity are unbecoming. She is a very nice woman with a ready laugh.

Unh-hunh. I know whats ready.

The private-detecting life is a lonely one. After cleaning the guns and oiling the blackjack, whats a guy to do?

You could have lunch with me at Lucys El Adobe Caf across from Paramount.

I said, Cindy who?

Pat Kyle laughed. It was clear and without apology, the way a laugh should be. Pat Kyle is forty-four years old and five feet four, with curly auburn hair and good bones and an athletes build. When we met six years ago, she looked like the Graf Zeppelin and was having trouble getting out of a bad marriage. I helped. Now she ran four fast miles every day, had her own casting agency, and was engaged to a dentist from Pasadena. Maybe one day Id learn to like him. She said, Im casting a film for Kapstone Pictures and a director named Peter Alan Nelsen. Do you know who he is?

He makes action pictures.

Thats right. With great success. Time magazine called him the King of Adventure.

They called him a few other things, too. Arrogant, demanding, brilliant. I had read the article.

Yes. There is that. You could hear something behind her. Voices, maybe. Peter has a problem and I mentioned your name. The Kapstone people want to talk with you.

Okay. I swung up into a sitting position and put my feet on the floor. The detective, ready for action.

When Peter was in film school, he broke up with his wife just after they had their only child. A boy. Peter hasnt seen or heard from his former wife or their son since, and he wants to find them. I told him that finding people is one of your best things. Are you interested?

Its what I do.

Kapstone has offices at Paramount. Ill leave a pass at the main gate for you to see Donnie Brewster. Donnies the head of production. Donnie. A twelve-year-old running a film company. Can you be here in about twenty minutes?

Let me check my calendar.

She said, Ha. What calendar?

Callous. You dames are callous.

She made the nice laugh again and hung up.