by John Lutz
“What about the birth date?” Fedderman asked.
“Let’s not mention it,” Renz said. “There’s no guarantee the killer will use it again, and it might cause women not born on Quinn’s birthday to be complacent.”
Everyone agreed that made sense.
As they stood to leave Renz’s office, Quinn made a thing of maneuvering his chair back into some kind of alignment. It enabled him to sneak a look at who or whatever was in the silver frame on Renz’s desk.
It was Renz.
No cell phone vibrator had been found among Florence Norton’s possessions, but Pearl was bored, so she figured why not?
It might not be a bad idea to return to Nuts and Bolts this evening. The lounge was, after all, the one thing other than last initials that seemed to connect at least two of the killer’s victims.
As Pearl had suspected, the place looked better when open for business, illuminated and full of customers. The soft lighting from the rows of dim crystal chandeliers helped obscure imperfections in the ambience and the patrons. And there was music. The background kind. A woman was diddling melodically and faintly on a piano that Pearl hadn’t noticed on her previous visit, seemingly letting her imagination prompt her fingers over the keys without any planning whatsoever, somehow making it work to create a pleasant, restful mood.
Most of the tables were occupied, and all but a few of the stools at the bar. Behind the bar stood Victoria, looking much more beautiful in the flattering light, wearing a paisley blouse that allowed for some cleavage. Her highly piled hair didn’t look so structured now, and her dark bangs were parted in the middle and pushed to the side, making her overly made-up eyes seem larger.
Pearl walked over and stood alongside an empty stool, near where a white towel was spread out on the bar. It was where the servers bustled over to pick up the drinks Victoria concocted.
“Busy place,” Pearl said, when Victoria noticed her and moved to stand by her.
Victoria smiled. “We do a lively business, despite Sinclair’s bitching.”
“Bitching is what bosses do,” Pearl said, one working girl to another.
“Mostly. Get you something? Or are you on duty?”
“Yes and no. I’ll have a Bud Light.”
“Beer drinker, huh?”
“You know it,” Pearl said. “Beer and doughnuts. All part of being a cop.”
Victoria drew the beer from a tap and placed the glass in front of Pearl on a coaster on the bar. “I don’t believe in stereotypes.”
“Me, either,” Pearl said. She glanced around. “Most of your customers are women, well dressed, respectable looking. Same way the men. Thirties and forties, mostly. Old enough to have good sense while having a good time. At least you’d think it by looking at them. But it’s surprising what they can be up to.”
“You would know, being a cop.” Victoria forgetting all about her stereotype ban.
She excused herself and moved down the bar away from Pearl to wait on a man and woman who’d just come in. They both ordered what looked like martinis. The woman sampled hers and smiled. Pearl took the time to listen to the music. The woman at the piano was still playing nothing Pearl could identify, and she was reasonably sure the music was impromptu. Still, it was mesmerizing. It always amazed her how in New York there was so much talent to be found in unexpected places.
When Victoria returned, she said, “Most of our customers are single, or pretending to be. If they come in alone, connections are sometimes made. That’s one reason we’re in business.”
“God bless connections,” Pearl said, lifting her frosted glass in a toast before sipping draft beer that felt icy and good going down.
“Amen,” Victoria said. “The ones who stay late, they’re the ones most likely to be troublesome.”
“Late and alone?”
Victoria seemed to think about that. “Yeah, maybe pissed off because they’re not gonna get laid.”
Pearl lifted her glass again. “God bless getting laid.”
“I like to think He does,” Victoria said.
A man on the good side of forty edged up to the bar, almost pressing against Pearl. She could feel the vibrancy of his presence, smell his cologne or aftershave. She looked at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar-regular features, average size and build, well groomed, tailored blue suit with white shirt and nondescript tie. Not much for a woman to complain about. Not on the surface, anyway.
Their eyes met in the mirror and he smiled at her-nice smile-then turned his attention to Victoria and held out something gold. Pearl diverted her gaze from the mirror and looked at the object. A cigarette lighter, knife-thin and expensive looking.
“I found this wedged down behind a seat cushion,” the man said. “Somebody must have lost it.”
“There’s no smoking in here,” Victoria said.
“I know, but I figured somebody might want this back anyway.”
Victoria accepted the lighter. “I’ll put it on a shelf where it can be seen. Maybe somebody’ll claim it. Nobody does, you can have it.”
“I don’t smoke,” the man said. He pushed back away from the bar. As an afterthought, he turned and said, “Thanks.”
“You’re the good Samaritan,” Victoria said. When the man was gone, she grinned at Pearl. “You shoulda spoke up. You could’ve had a nice lighter.”
“At least,” Pearl said.
Victoria laughed. It was a loud laugh that held nothing back.
“But I don’t smoke, either,” Pearl said. “Do you?”
“Secretly. Like a lotta people.” She winked at Pearl. “Cops are secretive about some things, right?”
“Meaning why am I here?”
“I guess so.”
“I wanted to see what kind of place two of the victims spent time in,” Pearl said, “so it might give me more of an idea of the kind of women they were.”
“Can I ask if you’re married,” Victoria said, “or if you’ve got a special someone?”
“Yes, you can ask. I won’t be secretive. Answers are no and no.”
“Then you should understand. We just get your average career woman in here. They’re from the office buildings in the neighborhood. Average working guys, too. White-collar drones. Tired from a long day at the office, needing a drink, maybe some understanding the wife doesn’t give them. I guess what I’m saying is, there’s probably not much you can learn about those two victims here, other than that they led more or less average lives.”
Pearl knew about average lives. “Sure, and they happened to stop in at Nuts and Bolts.”
“And probably some other places around here.”
“And bought Dial In cell phones from you.”
“Yes, they did. How many grown-up women do you know who don’t have a vibrator?”
“We’re back to that secretive thing again,” Pearl said.
Victoria emitted another loud laugh. The place seemed to be getting more crowded, more alive with conversation. The piano was louder and playing something identifiable. “Night and Day.” One of Pearl’s favorites. She wouldn’t have minded sitting for a while and listening, but she knew she shouldn’t. And Victoria was right, there was probably nothing to be learned here. It was simply another Manhattan nightspot, someplace she and Quinn might have frequented when they were together.
Quinn.
Why am I thinking of Quinn? He’s still interested, and he knows I’m not. Over. It’s over.
The music was insistent and hypnotic.
“Want another?” Victoria asked.
Pearl looked down and noticed with some surprise that her glass was empty.
“No, thanks,” she said. “Early day tomorrow.”
She placed some bills on the bar and stepped away to leave.
“I thought maybe you’d learned something,” Victoria said. “You looked so thoughtful, like maybe you were detecting.”
“I wish it worked that way. Drink a beer, then detect. What you took for detecting was just
my mind wandering.”
Cops are secretive about some things, right?
“See you.”
“Maybe,” Pearl said.
Victoria watched her leave. She kind of liked Pearl the cop, and felt sorry for her. There was something sad about her. Maybe because, with her job, she saw mostly the worst in people.
A man three stools down ordered a scotch rocks, and Victoria went to the back bar to pour it, noticing the gold lighter somebody had lost. It did look pretty expensive, like real gold, and even had some engraving. A fancy letter N.
14
The subway system lay like arteries just beneath the city’s flesh.
A fanciful thought, but those weren’t uncommon for Marilyn.
Marilyn Nelson loved riding the subway. She relished the cool breeze of an approaching train, the piercing twin lights down the long dark tunnel, then the great rush of wind and the metallic creak and strain underlying the train’s roar. Car after car would flash past, the illuminated windows like personal instant tableaux that were here then gone. There was no sign of slackening speed. Surely the train was going to roar on beyond the station. But it didn’t. Instead it slowed smoothly but with surprising abruptness, like a living thing suddenly drained of energy, and came to a complete stop. A pause, and the doors would hiss open with an urgent whisper that seemed to spur on the people spilling out onto the platform or wedging their way into the cars.
She’d been in New York a little over four months, after spending most of her adult life in Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha was a nice enough city, she thought, but it had nothing like Times Square, the Village, or Central Park-or the subway, which to Marilyn was the very essence of her newly adopted city.
She emerged from underground at West Eighty-sixth Street near the park, as impressed as she always was by how quickly she’d made it here by subway from her apartment near Washington Square. It was late afternoon, Sunday, and as she entered the park the dwindling sunlight lancing between the buildings highlighted her long dark hair. A slim, attractive woman in a white blouse with large patch pockets, and jeans that were tight everywhere except for the bulging cargo pockets on each thigh, she drew the attention of almost every man she passed. The thick leather belt and fringed boots didn’t detract from her appeal, either. The belt and boots were black, and the belt had a large silver buckle that glittered like the matching studwork pattern on the boots.
The farther into the park she got, the quieter it became. Marilyn stepped off the asphalt trail onto soft earth that was easier on her feet, and began crossing the grassy area toward where the concert would be held.
Ross Bossomo was going to play here soon, along with his backup musicians. Marilyn had grown up listening to Bossomo’s hit records, then followed his career as he became less mainstream and more experimental. A free concert! She’d read about it in the Village Voice. Not much like this happened in Omaha. At least, not very often. But here, in New York, there seemed to be surprises every day. Serendipity, she told herself, smiling. Serendipity city.
She could see the raised platform that would be Bossomo’s stage. There was already sound equipment set up, even speakers mounted on the trunks of some of the surrounding trees. Straps and ropes held the speakers so there’d be no harm to the environment. This would be something, once the sun went down. Maybe people would hold up candles or cigarette lighter flames the way they used to all the time at concerts, even though New York was practically a total no-smoking zone.
She picked up her pace. Her hair swung in rhythm with her switching hips; fringe dangled as her long legs stretched her stride, and her buttocks rode against taut denim, emphasized by the blossoming cargo pockets. She was the only one wearing such jeans now, or anything resembling her sleeveless blouse with the oversized patch pockets and large brass buttons, but soon that would change. It was part of her job to change it. Part of her job to be seen in the Rough Country line.
The speakers began to hum. So did Marilyn, an old Ross Bossomo hit, “Love Goin’ to Pieces.”
The Butcher turned to see what so many male heads had swiveled to look at, and she took his breath away. He’d never seen that kind of motion in a woman. It was a shame he was being so choosy these days, or she’d be one of his for sure.
He had to have her. But he was extremely disciplined and didn’t always partake of what he had to have. He prided himself on that.
She’d changed direction and was striding up a gradual rise, her body leaning forward slightly to compensate for the grade, coming toward him where he stood along with several dozen people who’d arrived early for the concert. There was a faint smile on her face, lips pressed together, as if she might be humming.
He was probably the only one more interested in the concertgoers than the music. He’d barely heard of Ross Bossomo.
“Joe?”
He turned toward the slight, dark-haired woman he’d been talking with in an attempt to draw out her name.
He smiled at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to daydream.”
She glanced at the woman in the fringed boots and shook her head. “I know what kind of daydreaming you were doing.” She seemed miffed.
He beamed his charm at her. “You never told me your last name.”
The woman gave him a knowing smile and moved away. “I never told you my first. And I don’t think I’m going to.”
Screw you, he thought.
He turned his attention back to the woman in the fringed boots. If he’d already been penalized for looking, he’d have another look.
Like many beautiful women, especially ones who dressed so distinctly and obviously relished being observed, she seemed used to being stared at. It didn’t offend her. It was, in fact, homage to her very being.
Some getup she’s wearing.
But she made the extreme, outdoorsy outfit work. With a body like that, rags would look good on her.
The sun’s glitter off the studded boots and oversize belt buckle drew his eye.
And held it.
He felt the way he had one time when, while playing high-stakes poker, he’d been dealt a straight flush. Such luck he couldn’t believe!
The large buckle was definitely in the form of a fancy letter N.
A monogram. Her initial.
He calmed himself. A straight flush and then this? Nobody was that lucky. And the N might be for her first name, Nancy or Norma, or maybe it was simply the logo of the belt manufacturer.
He quickly regained his composure, his smile, his style, and approached the woman.
Four heavily tattooed men who looked like motorcycle types were standing nearby talking. One of them-a weightlifter, no doubt-had his shirt off and tied by the arms around his waist. His sculpted torso was marked with the crude, faded blue tattoos that suggested prison time. They all paused and looked at the Butcher and smiled slightly, as if they knew he had no chance with a woman like the one he was moving in on.
You don’t know me, assholes.
“Nadine? Is that you?”
She regarded him with appraising brown eyes. They had an intelligence in them that made him decide on caution. He knew exactly what she was seeing: a handsome man in his thirties, average height, regular features, neatly styled dark hair, blue eyes. He was well dressed (not like the tattooed geeks), and had a reassuring smile. Always he possessed a vision of himself, as if he were another self looking on.
“Sorry,” she said, “I’m not Nadine.”
He put on a crestfallen expression. Then his smile was back. “Well, I’m sorry, too. I haven’t seen Nadine in a long time, and you look a lot like her. Then I noticed your belt buckle, the big letter N, and I thought���”
“It’s for Nelson,” she said.
He laughed. “You don’t look like a Nelson.”
She met his laughter with her own. She laughed so easily and naturally, an innately friendly girl. A people person. They were so easy. “That’s because it’s my last name.”
“Ah! And your first?”
“Marilyn.”
“Nice name.” He feigned awkwardness, but for just a few seconds, letting it register on her.
“Who’s Nadine?” she asked.
“Someone I was very fond of a long time ago in another place.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
He took a step away, then turned back. “Maybe it was fate that I thought you were Nadine.”
“Fate?”
“You know. Destiny.”
“I’m not sure I believe in destiny.”
“What do you believe in?”
“Well, I believe you’re trying to pick me up.”
He put on the awkward act again, standing with his body square to hers, hands jammed in pants pockets. “I’m trying too hard, I guess. I apologize.”
“Accepted.”
“The pickup or the apology?”
The easy laugh again. “Maybe both.”
The speakers yeeeowled! as a sound technician adjusted them. People laughed, groaned, or cupped their hands over their ears.
The handsome man grinned at her. “That noise they heard was me expressing pleasure at your answer,” he said. Don’t be too smooth yet. Not with this one.
Marilyn thought it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her. And there was one thing they had in common already-they were both Ross Bossomo fans.
“I don’t know your name,” she said. The speakers screeched again, and she winced and repeated what she’d said.
“Joe. Joe Grant.”
“Grand?” The speakers again.
“Grant,” he said. “You know, like the Civil War general. Ulysses.”
“I know,” she said. “The one on the winning side.”
He glanced down. “By the way, I like your boots.”
She gave him a wide grin. “Good. What I’m wearing is clothing from Rough Country. They’re a Midwestern chain, except for a small trial store in Queens, and they’re going to enter the New York market in a major way. That’s why I’m here. I’m an interior designer specializing in retail space. I’m going to lay out their stores for them.”
“Talented woman.”
She waited, as if giving him a chance to tell her what line of work he was in, but he remained silent, raising his head and glancing at the trees. Dusk was just beginning to close in. Enough people had gathered to constitute a crowd. Their collective conversation and laughter was louder now. Half a dozen scruffy-looking young guys with musical instruments were filing up onto the stage. A warm-up band.