Killing Critics

by Carol O’Connell

  When the running gunman was out of sight, Mallory holstered her revolver and turned back to the old don. “Was that one of your hotshot bodyguards?”

  Angry now, the don reached for the car phone. “That punk is a dead man.”

  Mallory grabbed his wrist. It took very little effort to restrain him. “Who are you going to call? Another bodyguard? One of your nephew’s kids?” She sat quietly for all the time it took him to grasp this simple thing-he was the dead man.

  She opened the door and stepped out of the car. “Might be smarter to call a cab and head for the airport.” She closed the door slowly, saying, “Don’t light in any one place for too long. You know the drill, old man.”

  Mallory crossed the street to the condominium. Frank the doorman was smiling as he held the door open. “Two cops came by, miss.” He followed her into the lobby. “They showed me their badges and told me to let them into your apartment.” He pushed the button to fetch her an elevator. “But they didn’t have a warrant, so I told them to go screw themselves into the ground. I hope I did the right thing.”

  She put two twenty-dollar bills into his coat pocket to tell him he had done exactly the right thing.

  The elevator doors opened, and she looked up to the mirror mounted high on the back wall. It gave her a compressed view of an empty interior. When she stepped off the elevator at her floor, she had her revolver out of the holster. The gun preceded her into the apartment. After checking all the rooms and closets, she sat down on the couch and rifled her tote bag for the cellular phone.

  It was gone. But where-

  She checked her watch again. Now she reached over to the standard telephone on the end table and dialed Father Brenner’s number.

  Where is the damn cellular?

  While she talked to the priest, she searched the drawer of the table-a futile activity. Mrs. Ortega, world’s foremost cleaning woman, had put the apartment back in order after the robbery. So what were the odds that a single item would be out of place? Where had she lost the damn cellular phone?

  She finished her instructions to Father Brenner. “I want you to say a mass for her.”

  “Consider it done, Kathy. What was your mother’s name?”

  “You don’t need her name. When you talk about her, just say she was a woman who was brutally murdered. And leave me out of it.”

  She glanced at the messages accumulated on her answering machine.

  “Kathy?”

  “That’s all you get. It’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’ll say the mass tomorrow.”

  “No, do it tonight, I need it tonight.”

  “All right, tonight it is. So you’re not looking for spiritual comfort for yourself?”

  “No. You can save that routine for the believers, the suckers.”

  “Are you still lighting the candles, Kathy?”

  Mallory hung up the phone.

  She emptied the tote bag on the coffee table, and spread the files and notebooks-not here. The last time she had seen the cellular phone it was in this bag, wasn’t it? No, wait. She remembered sliding it into the pocket of her blazer last night. She reached out for the desk phone, ignored the pulsing light of the messages waiting, and pushed the buttons for the number of her cellular phone.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was Andrew’s. So she had left it behind on the roof. “Hello, Andrew. How are you?”

  “Oh, Mallory. I was hoping you might call. Shall I give you your messages?”

  “Sure.”

  “You have one from Jack Coffey. He says the chief’s boys are after you with orders to bring you in. Oh, and J. L. Quinn called and asked for you. But he didn’t leave a message.”

  “Did Quinn say anything?”

  “Well, we did have a lovely chat. But there’s no message. He said he’d probably catch up with you later in the day.”

  “Thank you, Andrew.”

  Picking up a spare phone from her office was next on her list of things to do. It was shaping up to be a busy day. She pulled out her notebook and ticked off what she would need from her apartment.

  The doorman called on the house phone to announce J. L. Quinn. She should tell Frank to turn the man away. Time was precious, and she had already stayed here too long. What could Quinn want now? Perhaps his long chat with Andrew had raised a few questions.

  “Send him up, Frank.”

  When she admitted Quinn to her apartment, he was wearing his courtesy smile. She was learning to categorize his facial expressions, discovering small variations in the mask. He casually examined the surroundings, as if he were looking for something.

  She remained standing and folded her arms to let him know he would not be staying long. When he turned to face her, his smile was unaltered, but his eyebrows were raised, and she knew he was going to apologize.

  “Sorry to drop by without calling first, but if you recall, the only number you gave me was for the cellular phone, and it seems that Andrew Bliss has that.”

  He glanced at the long leather couch, probably waiting for an invitation to sit down. She ignored the subtlety.

  “So, Quinn, I understand you had a long talk with Andrew.”

  “Yes, he told me he made a confession to a green-eyed angel. I was surprised you hadn’t arrested him.”

  “Andrew’s idea of confession is my idea of a rambling drunk. I think we got as far as the sins of puberty. What do you want, Quinn?”

  He was staring at the walls, bare but for the single clock, a piece of minimal design with dots in place of numerals. The furnishings of her apartment were expensive, and stark. There should be nothing here to give away any shading of her personality. But by the faint nod of his head, she knew these environs were what he had expected to find; that much was in his face when he turned back to her.

  “Mallory, I wonder if you’d have dinner with me tomorrow night. And perhaps the theater.”

  She turned away from him and covertly scanned her front room as though for the first time. What did Quinn see in this place? Perhaps it was what he did not see: no personal items to connect her to another human being, no dust, nothing out of place, and no wall hanging to indicate an interest in anything but time. The large clock dominated the space. The furniture was arranged in precision symmetry.

  And now she understood.

  This extreme order had not created the intended false front of a guarded personality-the real effect was all too personal, next to naked exposure. It was an effort to shake off the feeling of violation.

  “I’m free tomorrow,” she said. “Would you like to do something a little more exciting than dinner and the theater?”

  “Name it and it’s yours.” One splayed hand indicated that his offer included the whole earth. “Anything.”

  “A fencing match.”

  His smile was back, but only for a moment. “So Charles told you about the scar.” He walked over to the couch and ran his hand over the back of it, approving the quality of the leather, and perhaps wondering how she had managed it on a cop’s salary. “A fencing match. Well, that does sound more diverting.”

  She sat down in a chair and gestured to the couch. “Do you still keep your hand in? You have a membership at a fencing club?”

  “Yes, on both counts.” He settled into the plush leather cushions and crossed his legs. “What’s your background, Mallory?”

  “One semester of fencing classes at school, but I think I can take you.”

  It was predictable that he would not smile at this. He would never be rude enough to suggest that she was blowing smoke.

  “The agility of youth goes a long way, but it won’t take you all the way. Don’t count on an easy win.”

  “I can beat you. I’m willing to place a bet on it.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t do money with you.”

  “Not money. I was thinking along the lines of anything I want, against anything you want.”

  “Those are outrageously high stakes, Mallory. I won
’t take advantage of you. No bet.”

  How predictable.

  “You shouldn’t be afraid to bet-unless you’re afraid to lose.” She looked at the clock. She must leave soon.

  “You can’t possibly win, not with your limited experience. It’s not a fair wager.”

  “I’m not worried. If you do win, I know you’ll pick a forfeit I can easily make.” She had to do this quickly.

  “You know that for a fact?”

  I know you.

  “It’s your character, Quinn. Charles tells me you’re the quintessential gentleman-I know the breed.”

  “You’re right. I would never ask a forfeit you couldn’t afford. So I’ll concede that you know me very well.” He stood up and turned to face the clock. “But no one knows very much about you, Mallory-not even the people who knew you best.”

  He moved to the window and spoke to the glass. “Your origins are a complete mystery. You wouldn’t give the necessary information to the Markowitzes so they could formalize your adoption. Child Welfare made an exhaustive search, but they could never trace your family. Juvenile Hall records show two brief incarcerations at ages eight and nine, but no success in learning your right name. And they were never able to hold on to you for more than a few days each time. There’s a note in a folder with your photograph. It says, ‘Brilliant child.’ ”

  He turned around to see what effect his words had on her. He seemed pleased with the result. “My own investigators are very thorough. They’re the best in the world, and they have no idea where you came from. Suppose your forfeit was to tell me everything I wanted to know about you, your history, everything. Could you afford that?”

  She had underestimated him.

  “I keep them in here.” Charles stood aside to let her pass through the door. Mallory had never been in his bedroom before. She did not seem overly excited by the seventeenth-century dower chest at the end of his hand-carved bedstead. She probably thought if she had seen one precious antique, she had seen them all. What captured her attention was the glass case mounted on the wall over the chest. It contained a pair of crossed swords.

  “Charles, they’re wonderful. These are nothing like the sabers we used at school.”

  “You trained with a blunt saber, right?” He opened the closet and took out a long brown leather bag and unzipped it. He carefully lifted out a pair of swords. Holding one in his right hand, he sliced the air with its tapered rod. “Now this is what you’ll be using with Quinn. It’s a competition saber. It’s wired so you can be scored on a machine that-”

  She wasn’t listening. She put one knee on the carved chest and reached up to the case, looking to him for permission. He nodded. She opened the case and removed one saber from the rack. She eased off the chest and stood at the center of the large room, hefting the sword in her right hand. Now, with utter disregard for the weight of the steel and its sharp edge, she easily slung the handle through the air from one hand to the other. She held the edge up to examine it. She smiled to say, Now this is a weapon.

  “This has a really wicked point.” She touched the sharp edge of the blade. “It could use some sharpening, but not bad.”

  “Well, it’s the real thing. It’s much heavier than what you’re accustomed to.”

  “No, it’s about the same.”

  What? Oh, of course. She was comparing the weight of the sword to the weight of her gun.

  “The pair was an heirloom of the Quinn family. Jamie made me a present of them after I’d scarred him. It was an outrageous gesture. They’re very old and quite valuable. I think he gave them to me because he was afraid that the accident might put me off the idea of fencing.”

  “He is a gentleman, isn’t he?”

  “To the nth degree. He’s also the finest swordsman I’ve ever met.”

  “But you scarred him.”

  “That was an embarrassment, not a victory.” Oh, wait. That wasn’t properly translated into Malloryspeak. “It was a pure accident, a fluke.” He held up the competition saber. “This is a very good blade. You’ll need a mask-I’ve got that. Now the fencing jacket. I have an old one that might fit you. And the vest, the body wire- the club will have those items, no need to buy them.”

  She kept her eyes to the sword in her hand. “I wish we could fence with these.”

  “Not a chance. He’d never agree to that. These are not sporting weapons. He wouldn’t risk hurting you. You know, you can’t beat him, Mallory.”

  “I have to beat him. The stakes are very high.”

  “I know this man. He won’t hold you to the bet. I’m sure he didn’t want to make it in the first place.”

  “I have to win.”

  “I don’t think you understand what it means to be an Olympic champion. You don’t respect your opponents, and that will cost you.”

  He took the cavalry sword from her hand and replaced it with the competition saber. Next, he handed her a white fencing jacket he had worn as a child, albeit a rather large child. “See if this fits.”

  When she had zipped up the jacket and fastened the high collar, only the wide shoulders were outsized.

  He reached up to the top shelf of the closet and pulled out two white helmets with dark steel mesh. “Put this on.” He threw her one mask. She caught it easily and put it on, slipping the strap over the back of her head, and settling her chin into the screen cage. He didn’t like the sight of her in the mask. It made her face a near-black oval, and gave her the appearance of an unfinished machine, an imitation of a human without a face.

  He pushed the few pieces of obstructing furniture to the wall and moved to the center of the wide room. She gracefully followed him into the en garde position, feet placed at right angles with space between them, her body straight and evenly balanced between her heels.

  She did not wait for the courtesy of the saluting swords. With no warning, she lunged, arm and sword extended for the thrust to his midsection. Her speed was astonishing, but he easily parried the thrust and sent her blade away from his body.

  “If you’re counting on the element of surprise to beat him, you will lose in that first move, and you’ll have nothing left. Strategy is everything, and it’s intricate.”

  He lunged and feinted the sword to her left, then quickly described a half circle in the air to make a strike to her right side. She parried, but badly and too late. One hour later, he could not fool her with that maneuver, but she had made very few strikes and lost every bout.

  He ended the last round by removing his mask and saluting her. She followed his every move, bringing the hilt of her sword to her lips, blade pointing straight up, and then down.

  He settled into a chair by the wall. She sat on his bed.

  “You need a strategy to win, Mallory. But you haven’t the experience to formulate one. Every move you can make will be predictable to him. Experience and skill are everything. Your reaction time will be twenty-five years younger, but that won’t save you. You’re very fast, but he’ll destroy that edge by always being moves ahead of you.”

  She seemed skeptical of this.

  He sighed. “It’s rather like a chess match. Now aren’t you sorry you wouldn’t let me teach you that game?” Apparently she was not. She only stared at the tip of the sword.

  He stood up and crossed the room. Gently, he lowered the point of her blade to get her attention away from it. “Every time you angle your saber, you telegraph the move you’ll make, and he’s there before you. You see?” No, she didn’t. She saw nothing but the sword in her hand.

  “Mallory, you can’t beat me, and I can’t beat him. You are nothing if not logical. So, you can see that this is a lost cause.”

  Riker looked up as she walked into her office with a leather bag slung over one shoulder. It was shaped like a basketball with a rifle barrel.

  “What’s in the bag, Mallory?”

  “A sword and a mask.”

  “You’re joining the opposition? A thief with a sword? I like it.”

  �
��It’s for the fencing match with Quinn. But, yeah, I might be crossing sides for a while. Coffey says Blakely’s after me. It looks like he’s going to put up a fight.”

  “It figures. That stupid bastard doesn’t know how to lie down and die right.”

  “I need a place where Blakely wouldn’t think of looking for me. A hotel is a bad idea, and I can’t stay with Charles again. I don’t want him involved if this all goes bad on me.”

  “Well, I’m taking the graveyard shift with Andrew tonight. You can use my place. No one would ever suspect you of hiding out in a smelly ashtray. But the decor might put you off.”

  “Decor? You mean the spiderwebs in every corner, the garbage piling up in the kitchen, and the forty-two mostly empty pizza cartons? That decor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “As I recall, it was only the plastic Jesus night-light I really hated. Very tacky. You can kiss that thing goodbye. Thanks, Riker.”

  “You’ll need a way in.”

  “You mean a key?”

  “Sorry. Sometimes I forget who I’m talking to.” And now he grabbed her hand and pressed the key into her palm. “Use it. And where are you going now?”

  “You know where I’m going.”

  The main room of the East Village gallery was a blaze of television lights. The script girl was making him wild. She questioned every little thing. She found fault with every item in his story as she was working out the motions of a murder. “Mr. Watt,” she said, “I just have one more question. How could it have happened that way if you-”

  “I don’t know!” yelled Oren Watt.

  The script girl backed away, eyes a little more open now, perhaps suddenly remembering that this was the Monster of Manhattan who was screaming at her.

  “Get out of my face! I don’t know!” He pushed the girl out of his way, and she left the lobby at a run. The director called for a break, and the crew members withdrew to the far side of the long room to light up cigarettes and squat in conversational groups. Only the cop remained with Oren.