by John Lutz
“Oh, God, I’m not sure of anything, Jack! Honestly!”
“That’s your problem, Nell, you can’t be anything but honest.”
Jack, if you only knew.
“Don’t make a final decision until you’re absolutely sure. That’s all I ask of you. Okay?”
“Okay, Jack.” She had to sip coffee and look away, afraid she’d goddamn start to cry!
She felt his cool fingers touch the back of her left hand then softly massage her ring finger. “You all right, Nell?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah, fine.” She sat up straighter. “Let’s have some more coffee, then I’ve gotta get to work.”
Right now the red carpet, the red drapes, the red napkins, reminded her of blood.
Melanie stood on the sidewalk outside the entrance to Richard Simms’s apartment building. The doorman wouldn’t even let her stand in the lobby, where it was cool.
As he had all day yesterday and earlier today, he’d informed her that Simms wasn’t home. This time she refused to believe him, and she’d raised enough hell that if she promised to wait outside, he’d call upstairs to make sure. Apparently others had suffered her fate, but for different reasons, because there was a litter of cigarette butts around where she stood.
The afternoon was heating up in earnest, and the hairdo she’d gotten yesterday and was nursing along was a tangled mess in the humidity. A bead of perspiration broke from her hairline and trickled along the side of her forehead. As she raised a wrist to look at her watch, she felt the tug of her clothes sticking to her and got the faintest whiff of her deodorant.
When Melanie was almost to the point of giving up hope and going back into the lobby to give the doorman one more blast of insults before storming away, the tinted glass door swung open wide, held by the doorman. He gazed blankly at her, unassailable in his position and uniform, as an African American man the size of a locomotive pushed past him and outside and looked down at Melanie. His straightened hair was gelled and combed sleekly back, and his eyes were tilted down at the outside corners to give him a permanent pained expression. He had on a flowered shirt and muted plaid pants held up by broad red suspenders, an obvious color and design mismatch to attract attention. Combined with his size, it worked. People hurrying past on the sidewalk couldn’t resist glancing his way, and the somewhat startled looks they gave him lingered and suggested trepidation.
“I’m Lenny,” he said to Melanie in a surprisingly high voice. “I work for Mr. Simms.”
Melanie struggled to find her voice. “I’m-”
“I know who you are,” Lenny interrupted. “Seen you in court.”
Melanie tried again. Her throat seemed to be blocked. “I-”
“You wanna see Mr. Simms. That’s unfortunate, ’cause Mr. Simms, he ain’t seein’ nobody today.”
“What about yesterday and tomorrow?” Melanie asked, feeling less intimidated and more angry.
“You’d have to ask Mr. Simms ’bout that.”
“But I can’t get in to see Mr. Simms.”
Lenny shrugged massive shoulders. “Way the world works.”
Melanie fought to remain calm, but her hands were trembling. She knew her lower lip was, too. She tried to choose her words carefully, but they were slippery and kept whirling around in her mind and were difficult to grasp and match with her intent. “I want you to take-I want you to deliver a message.”
“I can do that.”
“You tell Cold Cat-Mr. Simms-that there’s a madman in this city killing people for doing what I did for Mr. Simms. What I did was save Mr. Simms’s life. The least he could do is see me, talk to me. He doesn’t answer my phone calls and he doesn’t invite me up when I come here personally. That isn’t right.”
“Maybe his lawyers have advised him not to talk to you,” Lenny said. Was he smiling? Ever so slightly?
Despite herself, Melanie felt her heart leap with hope. “Is that true? Have they told him that?”
Now Lenny was most definitely smiling, and there was cruelty in those dark, angled eyes. “You’d have to ask Mr. Simms.”
That goddamned smile!
“The Mr. Simms I can’t get in to see so I can ask him?”
“Uh-huh. Same Mr. Simms.”
“You tell Mr. Simms I feel used!” Melanie was aware she was out of control but couldn’t help herself. Her rage, her shame, were in charge. Spittle flew as she spoke, catching the sunlight and adding to her humiliation. “You tell him I risked my shitting life for him, and I feel used!”
The big man gazed calmly down at her with disinterest. The smile only a shadow now. “That it?”
Melanie glared fiercely at him. “That is goddamned it!”
Lenny simply turned his huge bulk away from her and opened the tinted glass door to enter the lobby. He was part of Cold Cat’s security, probably his personal bodyguard, or one of them. His business with Melanie was finished.
“Woman got a mouth on her,” she heard him remark to the doorman as the door swung closed.
Melanie thought of making further trouble for the doorman but decided against it. She’d made enough of a fool of herself for one day-enough for the rest of her life.
She stalked along the crowded sidewalk, gripping her purse tightly and swinging it almost as a weapon to clear a path for herself. She knew one thing-she would never again play the fool for any man. She hated all men, every single one of them. They were the enemy.
And one in particular terrified her.
Beam set aside his coffee cup after finishing a lunch of angel hair pasta in an Italian restaurant on Second Avenue. He glanced again at the forensics report on Judge Parker. The bullet wound to the head was the only injury to the judge and had proved instantly fatal. The bullet, still intact after penetrating the skull, was indeed a thirty-two caliber, and it matched the others that had been used in the Justice Killer murders. There wasn’t the slightest doubt that it was fired from the same gun.
He doesn’t care if they match. He wants them to match. Likes to taunt. Helen the profiler is so right about that one.
Beam’s mobile phone buzzed. He set aside the lab report and dug the phone from his pocket. Probably Nell or Loop; he’d assigned them to interview people close to the late Judge Parker. Drone work that would probably lead nowhere, but it had to be done. Every side road along the way had to be explored, because any one of them just might lead to a six-lane highway.
But it was neither Nell nor Looper on the phone.
At first Beam didn’t recognize the voice. Nola.
“Beam, I need for you to come to the shop as soon as possible.” Her voice, always so level and without emotion, had a slight quaver in it.
Fear?
“You alone, Nola?”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“No. As soon as possible.”
“I can get a radio car to you within minutes.”
“No, I want you.”
“I’m on my way.” Beam signaled for the waiter.
“The closed sign will be up,” Nola said, “but the door’s unlocked.”
She broke the connection.
On the wild drive to Things Past, Beam worked the phone’s keypad with one hand and called to talk to her again. He got only her machine with its recorded message. Nola but not Nola.
44
They were moving rapidly through the lobby. Carl Dudman couldn’t have felt better. He could see that it was a wonderful afternoon outside, with sunlight brightening his side of the street. He’d been on the phone most of the morning, and now it seemed as if his efforts were going to pay off and the agency would represent sales of a projected new West Side condominium tower.
What real estate bubble?
Dudman patted Mark the doorman on the shoulder as he passed. The considerable bulk of Chris Talbotson, his bodyguard, was in front of him. As soon as he’d cleared the door Mark was holding open, Chris’s head began to swivel. Dudman followed him outside into the clear, sun-washed air. Th
e orange scaffolding was still up in front of the building, but new sidewalk had been poured and the fresh concrete looked pale and unspoiled.
Chris had impressed upon Dudman that timing was important. Chris would precede Dudman, open the waiting limo’s right rear door, and without hesitation Dudman would follow and duck as he approached the big car, then remain low and lean forward as he entered. Chris would quickly follow. All within seconds. All carefully choreographed.
Gripping his black leather attache case, Dudman lowered his head and made for the inviting dark sanctuary of the limo beyond its open door. He edged past Chris, placed one foot off the curb in the street, and began to duck into the limo. The traffic signal had changed up the street; he was vaguely aware of a string of cars rushing past, the smell of exhaust fumes that would dissipate as soon as he was inside the limo.
It was the exact time that his foot touched the street and he was beginning his forward lean that he felt the sharp pain high on the right side of his chest.
What?
He was sitting awkwardly, one leg in the street extended beneath the limo, the other bent beneath his body. His attache case had come open and papers were scattered all over the sidewalk.
Did I fall? Slip off the curb?
He knew Chris was trying to help him up, looming over and gripping him, but he couldn’t feel anything from the neck down.
My suit…Ruined…
Chris was talking, his face contorted, but Dudman heard nothing.
“Chris, my papers…”
No one reacted. He hadn’t made a sound.
Then the pain in his chest was back, blossoming, exploding!
And suddenly it wasn’t afternoon. It was dusk. Dark. Nighttime.
The pain faded with the light.
As it turned out, the shot had actually been a simple one. The street Dudman’s agency was on ran one way, so the limo had been on Justice’s left, the driver’s side of the car. The angle and opportunity were brief, but there, for just a few seconds, diagonally above the trunk of the limo, a shooting line straight to the target. Dudman. Deadman.
Justice had time to lead Dudman crossing the wide sidewalk. The target paused as the limo door was opened. Dudman actually seemed to pose as he ducked his head preparing to enter the vehicle.
Almost simultaneous to the shot, Justice managed to take his left hand from the wheel long enough to drop the plastic vial out the window into the street near the limo.
That was important.
They would know he was the one. The bullet, the letter, the hammer of fairness and fate and balance, balance…
After the shot, he’d turned the corner and was gone. He was positive no one even knew for sure the shot had come from a passing car-any passing car.
Driving legally at the speed limit, blending with the thousands, millions of vehicles in New York, he had to giggle at how easy it had been. How easy it would be to execute anyone in the city.
He missed the moment of ice, but that couldn’t be helped. And Dudman did seem to hesitate getting into the limo, as if somehow he knew. Perhaps the cold moment of knowledge had frozen him, presented him to the bullet that would deliver him. Either way, this one had been warranted.
It had been righteous. He would do it again.
He would do it again.
Brake lights flared ahead. Horns honked. His foot darted from accelerator to brake and he brought the car to a halt with a brief skid and squeal of tires. Vehicles around him also slowed and stopped. All of them lined up neatly, drivers patiently staring at the traffic signal.
Red light. Had to stop. The law.
Da Vinci was a little out of breath from hurrying when he entered his office, and what he saw actually made him gasp.
The police commissioner was seated in one of the brown upholstered chairs angled toward the desk.
Da Vinci smiled, stammered, and absently smoothed back his slightly mussed hair.
“Startle you?” the commissioner asked. He’d moved the chair slightly so he had a better view of the door. Its legs had left deep depressions in the carpet, marking its previous position.
“Well…yes, sir, you did. It’s just that I’m not used to anyone being here when I come in after lunch.”
“Natural,” said the commissioner. “It’s your office.”
Da Vinci didn’t know quite what to say to that.
“I thought we needed to talk,” the commissioner said.
That the commissioner had come to da Vinci’s office, rather than the other way around, seemed to da Vinci to be meaningful. This meeting wasn’t for public consumption.
It was also meaningful that the chief wasn’t here. Trouble at the top? The kind of pressure the press and pols were applying could cause all sorts of dissent and ruptured relationships. But da Vinci had no doubt that the chief was, or would be, fully informed at some point by the commissioner. Timing could be everything.
Heavy, brooding, and intense, the commissioner was in civilian clothes, a chalk-stripe gray suit, white shirt, and blue silk tie. In his younger days, his knowing, solemn expression had spooked many a tough suspect into deciding to cooperate with the law. Whether you were a creep or a cop, gravitas was gravitas. He sat at ease and gazed balefully as da Vinci walked around to sit behind the desk.
“Adelaide Starr,” the commissioner said. “She’s getting to be a hell of a problem, Andy.”
The commissioner was one of the few people who called Deputy Chief Andrew Da Vinci Andy. Da Vinci didn’t correct him. “I take it we both saw her performance last night on the Matt Black show, sir.”
The commissioner nodded.
Da Vinci cleared his throat. “We’re still deliberating on what to do about it,” he said.
The commissioner raised his eyebrows. “We?”
“Captain Beam and his team, and myself, sir.”
“What are the ideas offered?”
Shit! Da Vinci hadn’t yet talked to Beam about Adelaide Starr’s latest stunt. “Obviously it’s a play for publicity on her part, sir. She thinks by casting the city as elitist, even un-American, she’s placed herself in the role of hero. Or heroine.”
“I know you’re sitting down, but I hear tap dancing, Andy.”
“We’ve decided we can’t possibly declare a moratorium on jury duty, sir. It would shut down the legal system. The problems it would cause are-”
“Unacceptable,” the commissioner finished for da Vinci. “So what’s your plan?”
“Still formative, sir.”
“You don’t have a plan?”
“Yet.”
“You’ve been outwitted by a clever young woman.”
“So far.” Da Vinci felt himself beginning to perspire.
The commissioner looked cool as ice cream. “Here’s what I want you to do, Andy. Issue a statement for the media, saying you’re aware of Adelaide Starr’s position and you’re taking it under advisement. But make it clear that as of now there are no plans to declare a moratorium on juries and, subsequently, trials by jury. That, you will point out, would be disastrous for the city, and a boon for criminals. It would be unfair to the very people Adelaide Starr is trying to protect. Lean on that final point: it would be unfair to all the honest New York citizens who would be the victims of emboldened criminals.”
Da Vinci smiled. “That makes good sense, sir.” And takes the load off me. “And it buys us time.”
The commissioner returned the smile and rose from his chair. “Tap dance, Andy. You’re good at it, and I mean that as a compliment.”
“Yes, sir. Er, thank you.”
“You need to dance more in public, Andy, if you get my meaning. This killer’s becoming too much of a hero. Or an anti-hero. You ever go to movies, Andy?”
“Sometimes. I’m awfully busy these days.”
“Anti-heroes are very popular. People transfer that to real life. Count the newspaper and TV features favorable to the police, and those favorable to the Justice Killer, and I don’t have to tell you
who wins.”
“No, sir.”
The commissioner shook his head. “They don’t see the blood.”
The phone on da Vinci’s desk began to buzz.
“Go ahead and answer,” the commissioner said. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about before I go, regarding the progress of the investigation.”
“Yes, sir.” Da Vinci picked up the phone.
The commissioner seemed to sense bad news on the line. Bad news da Vinci would have no choice but to relate to him immediately, without having time to figure out how best to present it. Why did this call have to come in now and not five minutes later? Da Vinci silently asked himself that question over and over as he listened to one of his trusted lieutenants on the other end of the connection.
When he’d thanked the lieutenant and hung up, the commissioner said, “Trouble, Andy?”
“Carl Dudman was killed while getting into his limo in front of his apartment building. Apparently someone shot him from a passing car, using a silencer.”
The commissioner was very still, thinking. “Dudman…The real estate Dudman?”
“Yes, sir. He was also jury foreman in the Genelle Dixon Central Park slaying trial six years ago.”
“The defendant walked,” the commissioner said, rubbing his clean-shaven chin and recollecting. “Guilty bastard, too. We messed up with the evidence. Unlawful search, as I recall.”
“Yes, sir. Dudman’s security guard was nearby at the time of the shooting. He didn’t have time to react to the gunman, didn’t even see him, but when he realized Dudman was shot he helped him all the way into the limo then got in and instructed the driver to go like hell to the nearest hospital. Dudman was dead by the time they arrived.”
Da Vinci was getting more and more uneasy, with the commissioner standing there staring down at him.
“Something else, Andy?”
“Yes, sir. After the limo pulled away, we found a brown-tinted plastic pharmaceutical vial, the kind prescription medicine comes in. We think it was tossed from the car as it drove past and the shot was fired.”
“Tell me it has the names of the killer and his doctor on it,” the commissioner said.
“It was unlabeled, sir. And empty except for a rolled up slip of paper with a red letter J printed on it in felt tip pen.”