Frenzy

by John Lutz

  “It’s an old pile of crap, too,” the cabbie said. “And some poor bastard’s trapped in the trunk and trying to get out.”

  “Could be a classic,” Jamal said.

  “Stand back,” the cabbie said, bearing his weight down on the pry bar. “Might be a guy with a gun in there.”

  The lock gave and the trunk lid sprang open.

  It wasn’t a guy with a gun. It was a woman. She was nude and bound with duct tape, including a piece over her mouth that she’d worked half off. Her hair was plastered to her face with perspiration and she looked like somebody had beat the shit out of her. Even had what look like knife cuts and cigarette burns on her nude body.

  The cabbie began using his pocketknife to cut the tape away.

  The woman lay still except for sucking in huge breaths of the night air.

  “Bet it was stuffy as hell in there,” Jamal said, unable to look away from the abused naked woman. Despite her abysmal condition she was actually kind of—

  Weaver glared at him and said, “Look in your pockets instead of at me, and see if you can find a cell phone.”

  She climbed out of the trunk. She was unsteady at first, leaning on the car, then was able to stand.

  “You sure ain’t got a phone in any of your pockets,” Lucky said.

  “I can call in and get the cops here, lady,” the cabbie said.

  “I am a cop,” she said.

  Jamal and Lucky began backing away.

  “Stay where you are!” Weaver said. “Please.”

  They continued to backpedal. “It ain’t like you got a badge or a gun or anything proves you’re a cop,” Jamal said.

  “They got a point,” the cabbie said, heading for his cab with its two-way radio.

  “Why the hell are you hopping?” Weaver asked Jamal.

  “He just does that,” Lucky said. “Hops around. Only sometimes.”

  “There a cure for that?”

  “Heavy stuff in his pockets.”

  Weaver licked her fingertips, then touched them to some of the cigarette burns on her breasts.

  Both boys stood still, staring, mesmerized. Jamal’s jaw was hanging open.

  “Don’t run, but don’t stare at me.”

  They began shifting their weight. They were made for movement.

  Weaver put her hands on her hips. “Listen, you run and I’m gonna remember your faces.”

  “We sure ain’t gonna remember yours,” Lucky said.

  Both teenagers hooted. Jamal hopped. Then they ran like hell.

  “Little pricks,” Weaver said.

  The cabdriver was back. He was carrying a light blanket that looked like it had oil stains on it. “Help’s on the way,” he said. “I thought you might want this.”

  “Thanks, I do, even though it’ll hurt.”

  He handed her the folded blanket and looked in the direction the two teenagers had run. “They saved your life.”

  “I wanted to thank them.”

  “Notice how that tall one’s always hopping?”

  “Yeah. He should carry something heavy in his pockets.”

  A hunched-over woman pushing a two-wheeled wire grocery cart had spotted them, seen that Weaver was in trouble, and was coming toward them at a slow but steady pace.

  “A good Samaritan,” the cabbie said.

  “Another one,” Weaver said. “I wonder if she’s got a cell phone.”

  73

  Quinn pulled the Lincoln to the curb and answered his cell phone. Pearl gave him a look. Quinn said, “It’s Weaver.”

  “Damned right it is,” said the voice on the phone.

  “I was letting Pearl know.” He turned the volume up on the phone so Pearl could hear. “You okay, Nancy?”

  Heavy breathing. Gathering herself. Quinn didn’t like this.

  “Nancy—”

  “The bastard worked me over, Quinn. Then he left me locked in a car trunk to die there.”

  “What did he—”

  “Never mind. I survived. But he made me talk. I couldn’t help it.”

  Everybody talks.

  “Did he believe what you told him?” Quinn asked.

  “I don’t know. It might be true. I don’t think I could have convinced him otherwise, unless I at least half believed it myself. Anyway, I’m sure he’s gonna act on the information.”

  “Which is?”

  “I overheard a phone conversation at the restaurant. Winston Castle was talking about where Bellezza was hidden.” Weaver’s voice trailed off. Quinn wondered if she was hurt more seriously than she assumed. Was she thinking straight?

  “Nancy—”

  “Shut up and listen, Quinn. Information flows both ways. Winston Castle said Bellezza was hidden at the restaurant, concealed inside the birdbath near the garden maze.”

  “Inside?”

  “It was used as the base and core of all that fancy concrete work that even the birds weren’t happy about. You ever see a bird take a bath in that thing?”

  Quinn hadn’t. He thought about the bust inside a layer of concrete, preserved as if encased in a time capsule. “You think the bust might really be there?”

  “Question is, does the killer think it might be there. I don’t know for sure, but my impression was that he believed what I was saying, considering what he was doing with the burning tip of his cigarette.”

  “Who was Winston talking to?”

  “I never figured that one out.”

  “Listen, Nancy, this might seem like a dumb question, but—”

  “He enjoyed it, Quinn. The bastard loves inflicting pain.” She paused. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “God, no, Nancy. But it’s what I expected to hear. I had to make sure.”

  In the corner of his vision, Quinn saw the muscles in Pearl’s jaw tighten. She was staring straight ahead when he spoke into the phone. “Nancy, I promise you we’ll get the—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I gotta go now, Quinn. Ambulance is coming for me. And a patrol car, too.”

  There was a medley of noise on the phone, none of it recognizable.

  “I love all this attention.”

  “Nancy—”

  “You be careful, Quinn. I mean that.”

  “Tell her to lie back down,” a male voice said in the background. One of the paramedics. “Ma’am, please—”

  “Careful, Quinn,” she said again.

  And the connection was broken.

  The Lincoln didn’t have a siren, but there was an old cherry light Quinn had bought at a police memorabilia sale in New Jersey. The kind with the big magnetic base you could clamp onto the car’s metal roof. He stuck the round plug, at the end of the wire he was holding, into where the lighter used to be. Then he straightened out in his seat, opened the window, and let in a blast of humid wind and a few raindrops. He crooked his arm and stuck the flashing red light to the car’s roof, directly over his head. Then he raised the window as far as it would go without crimping the wire.

  “To the Far Castle!” he said, in reply to Pearl’s questioning look, feeling a little like a character in King Arthur’s Camelot. What he needed was a lance.

  “Drive like we’ve got a siren,” was Pearl’s advice.

  74

  The killer worked the flat steel base of the two-wheeled dolly beneath the bulk of the birdbath. He used his body weight to help tilt back the heavy mass of concrete, and perhaps marble, and Bellezza was free of the ground.

  It was caked with remaining concrete and clods of mud, and it didn’t look like a thing of beauty. It looked like the kind of big chunk of whatever it was that Con Edison had to dig and chip around on most of their jobs.

  The dolly’s rubber tires made ruts in the mud and an impression in the wet grass. The killer shoved with both legs to get the dolly moving. The going was slow. It was imperative to keep the heavy load’s forward momentum as the killer found traction and slowly moved the dolly and its burden toward the parked van.

  The killer noticed a large b
lack car turn the corner at the nearest intersection. A Lincoln town car.

  How could they know I’m here?

  But he knew how. The bitch from the NYPD had somehow made it out of the BMW trunk. You’re supposed to be dead. His mind’s eye saw her dead—only she wasn’t. She’d contacted Quinn and told him the same story she’d told the cops.

  Two figures emerged from the black Lincoln. They were still almost half a block away. Both of them looked as if they were holding guns.

  That was all right. The killer had his own guns. A cut-down Kalashnikov automatic, as well as a small handgun strapped to his ankle. If you knew whom to ask, where to look, you could practically buy guns on the street corners in New York.

  The killer did a half spin and rolled the dolly back the way he’d come, off the solid, smooth walkway and onto the damp grass. Nothing in his movements or attitude suggested he was anything other than a manual laborer at his task.

  “Better stay right where you are!” Quinn called.

  The killer drew his automatic weapon from beneath his shirt and laid down a field of fire between himself and his pursuers. As soon as he fired the last shot, he took advantage of Quinn and Pearl’s (the woman must be Pearl) temporary fear and disorientation. He leaned his weight hard into the two-wheeler and reversed direction. Another burst of gunfire came his way, but too late. They’d let down their guard for a few seconds and he’d taken advantage of it.

  Another three, four, five shots. He heard the bullets rustle the leaves around him and snap a few small branches.

  Not even close.

  They were using peashooters compared to the Kalashnikov.

  “Where the hell did he go?” he heard the woman ask.

  “Where else?” Quinn said. “Into the hedge maze.”

  The killer had taken precautions, both in his surveillance and his preparation for the unexpected. He knew he might eventually be searching or trying to remove Bellezza from the Far Castle. He had a place to go.

  Nearby.

  Close enough.

  The trick now would be in getting there.

  Abandoning the heavy concrete bust, D.O.A. forged ahead through the thick maze. His meticulous memorization of the maze paid off. He could maneuver through the hedges swiftly and never have to double back. Not only that, he could hear Quinn and Pearl pursuing him and know precisely where they were. Once they were in a pathway directly opposite his own. He kept quiet, knowing they would soon come to a cul-de-sac and have to retrace their steps.

  Meanwhile, he knew he was near a spot in the maze where he could break through the hedges and make his way into the street in the next block. From there he could get to the decrepit building where he’d rented the small office to use as an observation post. Once in the building, he could actually watch his pursuers give up the chase. They were welcome to the stolen van and equipment. He even looked forward to watching unseen from above and across the street, as they pored over the abandoned vehicle, searching for clues that weren’t there.

  If he’d had another few minutes, he might have had the bust loaded into the van.

  The only thing that could have interfered with his plans then was Nancy Weaver escaping from the BMW’s trunk before heat or madness overcame her.

  And obviously she had escaped. She was alive and talking.

  75

  It was easier for the killer than he’d anticipated to break out of the hedge unseen and get to the building that lay diagonally across the street from the Far Castle.

  The door, which the killer had oiled, made no sound as he admitted himself. He took the rickety wooden stairs fast, listening carefully to make sure that he wasn’t being followed. That no one had seen him.

  Once ensconced in his tiny observation post, he began to tremble. This encounter had been close. His planning, his thinking ahead and superior strategic instincts had saved him again. Luck had helped. No, not luck—fate. His covenant with fate was intact.

  They had to believe in each other.

  Controlling his breathing, he made himself calm down.

  So close . . .

  Nancy Weaver had done her best, and here he was, still functioning, still winning the game. More police would soon be arriving, and they’d search everywhere for him, for where he’d left Bellezza. No doubt they’d tromp and blunder through the hedge maze and locate the bust. Maybe they wouldn’t notice it was no longer a birdbath.

  The killer smiled at the thought. He held the police in the lowest regard. If it weren’t for Quinn, the game wouldn’t be half as exhilarating.

  Quinn didn’t go to bed that night, because he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Not until he learned the results of the lab tests he’d requested be rushed. The microscopic life forms found in hairline cracks of the marble Bellezza abandoned near the Far Castle hedge maze would tell him what he needed to know.

  At 3:30 A.M. Quinn’s desk phone in his den jangled. Caller ID informed him that the caller was Renz.

  Quinn picked up. “Whaddya know, Harley?”

  “You were right, Quinn. Lab says that bust that was hiding inside the birdbath is no more that ten years old. Possibly a lot younger than that.”

  “What are the odds of accuracy?”

  “Lab says there are no odds because there is no doubt. Science, Quinn. I’d explain the various tests they did, but I wouldn’t understand them myself. That bust that came out of the Far Castle garden is a work well done, but it was never so much as touched by Michelangelo. Not unless the restaurant’s got an employee who goes by that name.”

  “If they do,” Quinn said, “I bet he’s part of the family.”

  “I been thinking about something,” Renz said. “This bust that was in the birdbath under concrete is by all reports a damned good imitation. So suppose—”

  Quinn knew what Renz was going to say and said it first: “Suppose what everybody’s been chasing—the bust that made its way over here from France—is also an imitation?”

  “It does seem that someone would have figured it out by now.”

  “They say museums are full of great imitations,” Quinn said. “But we’ve got carbon testing to determine age. The birdbath bust wasn’t old enough to have come over here from Europe during World War Two.”

  “True,” Renz said. “That’s comforting.”

  “Like DNA is comforting,” Quinn said, “even though it leaves us at the mercy of the experts.”

  “I’ll sit on the test results like you asked, Quinn. But tomorrow I’ve gotta tell Minnie Miner or she’ll nail my future career to the wall right next to my balls.”

  “Sounds painful and unprofitable.”

  “So you’ve got your answer on the age of the birdbath bust,” Renz said. “And while it’s an imitation, it’s a damned good one. So if nothing else, we’ve further established that Michelangelo was a breast man. Now we can go to bed.”

  “I don’t think I will.”

  Renz knew his old fellow cop and knew the signs. There had been a subtle but profound change in the investigation. A quickening. “We’re getting close, aren’t we?”

  “Closer,” Quinn said.

  After hanging up on Renz, Quinn went into the office’s half bath and rinsed his face with cold water. When he toweled dry and glanced at his reflection in the mirror over the basin, he was surprised. The man staring back at him was the familiar amiable thug he was used to seeing, but tonight there was also a curious lupine quality to his bony features. An intensity.

  He knew the look. It frightened some people. It was that of a predator about to close on its prey. There was nothing about it that suggested reason or mercy. The time for conscious planning was past.

  The fang was ahead of the brain.

  76

  Renz hadn’t wasted any time in telling Minnie Miner about the imitation bust at the Far Castle. And she hadn’t wasted time in making use of the information. Her guest on her morning program was Winston Castle. Quinn watched like a loyal fan.

  Castle was wearing a
nicely tailored suit and a red-and-blue-patterned ascot with matching handkerchief. He sat calmly in his wing chair, while Minnie sat facing him in a seemingly identical chair that had been made artfully and unobtrusively higher than its mate. There was a small table between the angled chairs on which were glasses of what appeared to be water. Minnie wouldn’t have her guests run dry.

  “And you had no idea that Bellezza was hidden in your birdbath?” she was asking Winston. She was bright and incredulous.

  “Nor that the bust was an imitation,” Castle said. He sounded absolutely British on TV. Quinn was impressed.

  He and Pearl were seated at their kitchen table in the brownstone, facing the small flat screen on the counter.

  “I’m glad we decided to watch this,” Pearl said. “Winston is a really great bullshitter.”

  “World-class,” Quinn said.

  “You’d think he just tossed on his post-foxhunt suit and was a guest at a summer lodge. Are you sure he isn’t really British nobility?”

  As if he’d heard her, Winston nonchalantly crossed his legs and draped an arm over the back of the wing chair.

  “I don’t think he’s sure what he is,” Quinn said.

  “Are you and your incredibly dedicated family planning to continue the search for the genuine Bellezza?” Minnie asked Winston.

  “Of course. But I think we’ll want to learn more about the imitation that was concealed in the birdbath in the Far Castle garden. We don’t want to dash off half-cocked somewhere and have everything go all pear shaped.”

  Pear shaped?

  “No,” Minnie said thoughtfully. “I suppose not.”

  “Even on a noble quest like ours,” Winston said, “there come times when the most productive thing one can do is simply nothing. It gives the mind a chance to catch up with all this dashing around we’ve been doing.” He smiled broadly. “I will say the search has become even more interesting.”

  Minnie smiled broadly, knowing they were going into a commercial. “Thanks very much for being our guest, Sir Winston Castle. Or should I call you Duke or Earl?”