by John Lutz
By the end of the second day, no one had recognized the ring, or the hallmarks or characteristics of whoever had created it. Beam did learn, on his first stop at a small shop in the diamond district, that Nola had it wrong-the ring was worth about two thousand dollars. It was fourteen-karat gold, and the rubies were glass. The diamonds were real, but of low quality. All as Nola had said. Still, two thousand dollars. Because of the gold and the workmanship. That would be wholesale, the jeweler had said. Insure it for three thousand.
So they did learn one thing: The Justice Killer probably wasn’t poor, though maybe not particularly rich.
Another odd thing: Harry’s unearthing seemed to draw Beam and Nola closer together. There the past had been, lying in a casket, and they’d survived the encounter and reburied it. It no longer conveyed ambiguous obligation, and it wasn’t nearly as threatening as the present.
No longer were they haunted.
Later that evening, but well before dusk, Beam was walking with Nola in Central Park. The heat had let up, and there was a nice breeze rattling the leaves overhead. Nola had briefly held hands with Beam, then gently withdrew her hand. They were strolling side by side, but close together. Beam was coming to realize that trust and forgiveness didn’t come overnight.
Nola said, “Some cop’s been hanging around the neighborhood near the antique shop.”
“I know,” Beam said. “I arranged for you to have protection.”
“I don’t think I need it. There’s no reason the Justice Killer would be interested in me.”
“He left that ring in your shop. And he knows how I’d feel if anything happened to you.”
“He’s also scaring away some of my customers.”
“They’re not selling you hot Chippendale and Limoges, are they?”
“I don’t know, Beam. And I don’t ask.” She glanced over at him and smiled. “I’m glad to know you’re learning something about the merchandise.”
“Learning about you,” he said.
They slowed, then stopped, in the shadow of a large elm. No one else seemed to be around. The wind kicked up, bending the tall grass in a field that stretched away toward a low stone wall and Central Park West, stirring the leaves over their heads so they alternated dappled light and darkness like a dancehall’s reflecting mirrored ball. Beam leaned down and kissed Nola on the lips, and she kissed him back, slowly, letting it linger. Thinking about it.
No words afterward. Beam thought, Lani. Almost, I’m sorry.
Almost.
They continued walking along the path. Nola had his arm now, leaning her head lightly against his shoulder. Beam wondered what she was thinking. Was it about Harry? He hoped it wasn’t about the past. They should be thinking about the present and future. They could do that now.
“What’s that?” Nola asked, pointing ahead and off to the left.
Beam looked, squinting into the lowering sun. There were trees there. Movement that suggested people. A park entrance.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Looks like some kind of demonstration.
Even as he said it, he understood what he had loosed.
Melanie settled in before a large tuna melt with fries and a chocolate milkshake. Food comforted her, especially here, in her favorite diner on First Avenue. There was always a pleasant scent of simmering spices here. The help was friendly. There were signed and framed black-and-white photographs of celebrities hanging on the wall behind the counter. Real celebrities. Frank Sinatra, Lani Kazan, Miles Davis. People who created real music.
The tuna was warm, and the milkshake was almost cold enough to give Melanie a headache. She felt better. Some of her anger at again trying futilely to see Richard Simms fell away. At least now, and for the next fifteen minutes, she’d have exactly what she wanted.
The door opened and a man wearing badly wrinkled khakis, a T-shirt lettered FREE ADELAIDE, and worn jogging shoes entered and sat at the table directly across from hers. Melanie’s annoyance meter climbed. There were plenty of other places in the diner to sit, so why did he have to crowd her? She doubted it was her looks-not right now, anyway. Her hair was mussed, she’d been perspiring heavily, and irritation must show on her face.
She glanced again at the lettering on his T-shirt.
“Adelaide Starr,” he explained.
“Ah, the woman who refuses to serve as a juror.”
“She’s my hero,” the man said. He was in his mid-thirties, well proportioned if slightly pudgy, and had his own hair and regular features. Worth talking to, Melanie decided, then reminded herself she’d sworn a private oath to hate all men.
Of course all men weren’t like Cold Cat. They couldn’t be. “She’s my hero, too,” Melanie said. “I don’t think anybody should have to serve on any jury. I think we should just electrocute people like Richard Simms.”
“Forgive my asking,” said the man across the aisle, “but who’s Richard Simms?”
“Cold Cat, the rap art-singer.”
“That guy who killed his wife and walked. Yeah. I don’t dig his music. Sounds like somebody banging his head and scraping his nails on a blackboard at the same time.” The man ordered, only coffee, then turned his attention again to Melanie. “So what do you care about Cold Cat? You glad he’s free to make more noise?”
“Hardly. I think he killed his wife.”
“You and lots of other people. I followed the trial in the papers. Witnesses had him someplace else when she was killed. That didn’t leave the jury much choice but to acquit. Personally, I think if he didn’t do it himself, he hired it done.”
Talking about the trial was bringing back Melanie’s anger. She’d saved Cold Cat’s life, and now he refused even to be in her company. “One witness was currying favor from the police,” Melanie said. “The other hero-worshipped Cold Cat.”
“You think they were lying?”
“Of course they were lying.”
“So how come the jury didn’t see it that way?”
“Why do sheep cross the road?”
“Maybe they wanted to show they weren’t afraid of the Justice Killer,” the man suggested. He accepted a mug of coffee from the waiter, sipped it, then decided it needed cream and poured some in from the small white pitcher on the table. He stirred noisily with his spoon. “Human nature.”
“That kind of false bravado might have helped to get him off,” Melanie agreed. She finished half her tuna melt and sipped at her milkshake. The ice cream in the shake made the roof of her mouth ache so the pain spread higher in her head, behind her eyes. Does everything good in the world have to bring pain?
“I personally think all that legal stuff comes down to who has the best lawyer,” the man said. “That’s the way this country works.”
“Oh, Simms had a good lawyer. He could afford the best.”
“You seem to know a lot about the trial. You manage to get into the courtroom and actually see any of it?”
“No,” Melanie said, “just followed it in the papers and on TV. I don’t think you had to be there to know Cold Cat killed his wife.”
Suddenly her appetite left her. She managed to finish her milkshake, then she asked for a take-out box for the other half of her tuna melt and most of her fries. Tomorrow’s lunch.
“When I finish this coffee,” the man said, “I’m gonna take a cab over to the park. There’s gonna be a Free Adelaide demonstration. The bastards threw the poor little thing in jail.”
“I didn’t know that.” Too wrapped up in my own problems.
“You wanna join me?”
“Thanks, but I’m too tired. Way too tired.”
The waiter came with the take-out box, and Melanie carefully transferred her half sandwich and fries.
“Nice talking to you, Melanie,” the man said, as she headed toward the cash register near the door.
“Same here.”
“Have a nice evening.”
It wasn’t until she’d walked several blocks and was descending the steps to a subway
stop that she realized something was bothering her.
“Nice talking to you, Melanie.”
Try as she might to reconstruct their conversation, she couldn’t remember telling the man in the diner her name.
48
“It’s a mob,” Nola said.
Beam said, “Not quite yet.”
He estimated there were about a hundred people. They streamed silently into the park from Central Park West. They were flanked and followed by news vans and media types on foot, some of them lugging cameras. Many in the crowd were carrying signs, but from this distance, and in the failing light, Beam couldn’t make out what the lettering said. A few had flashlights, even what looked like lighted candles, which they waved around or held high.
The crowd was led by a man and a woman who strode out about twenty feet ahead of everyone, maintaining their distance. There was a businesslike eagerness about these people. Beam thought that if everyone had rifles and uniforms, they would have looked like those Civil War reenactors who replicate famous battles-the advance and silence before the shouting and shooting. They seemed to know exactly where they were going.
Their destination was the wide area of windblown grass Beam had been admiring. In the approximate center of the field, the two leaders stopped and waved their arms, gathering people closer together, bringing in stragglers. The media vans and personnel took up position, quickly set up equipment, and suddenly the area was brighter than noon. So much for flashlights and candles.
The crowd began to chant. Beam and Nola couldn’t make out what they were saying, so they moved in closer.
Beam wasn’t surprised that the chant repeated what most of the signs said: “Free Adelaide!” Other signs declared that the city didn’t care about its citizens, and that cops were the tools of fascists. The lettering was neat and all of the same type; obviously the placards had been turned out by a sign shop or similar printing facility. Of course, computers these days…
“Are you really a tool of fascists?” Nola asked.
“Have been for years,” Beam said.
The chants were getting louder, the crowd more raucous. Television cameras did that to people.
Someone had clued in the police. Two radio cars arrived, their flashing roof-bar lights creating red and blue ghosts everywhere. Beam heard sirens in the distance, getting closer.
“Time for us to leave,” Beam said. “I don’t want any media to recognize me.”
They wandered into the gathering dusk, an anonymous couple in the most anonymous of cities. The chanting had grown in volume and intensity: “Free Adelaide! Free Adelaide!” Beam tried to block it out as he and Nola angled toward the low stone wall running along Central Park West.
He climbed over the wide stones, then helped Nola.
They were out of the park now, suddenly among tall buildings, and bright, heavy traffic flowing along a busy avenue. Most of the vehicles had their lights on. The scent of leaves and grass had given way to that of exhaust fumes.
A bus rumbled past, accelerating to beat the traffic signal. When the sound of its engine had faded, Beam and Nola could still hear the chanting wafting from the park.
“A hundred or so people,” Beam said, “but on cable news tonight they’ll look like a thousand.”
“That young woman’s got this city under her thumb,” Nola said. She sounded secretly pleased.
Maybe not so secretly.
They crossed the street, moving away from the park, and strolled toward the corner. A man and woman holding hands walked toward them. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt; she had on red shorts, a white blouse, and sandals. They walked as if they were in no kind of hurry. The woman smiled and nodded as they passed. Beam thought the man looked a little like Harry Lima, but he didn’t mention it.
Without breaking stride, Nola moved closer to Beam.
“I think it’s time,” she said.
Her tone was matter of fact, but that was Nola.
He knew what she meant and didn’t ask if she was sure.
They made love in Nola’s apartment, in Nola’s bed beneath a cracked ceiling and the creaking sounds of the upstairs tenant pacing. Nola was tentative at first, but when he entered her she moaned and bucked upward and upward beneath him. Then she met his gaze and very calmly dug her nails into his back, marking him, making him hers alone. And she gave herself back to him in ways that made it clear she was his.
They lay quietly together afterward, each aware that the world had changed. Both hoped the change was for the better. Both knew that now what they thought made little difference; there was no going back for either of them.
A powerful current held them and would keep them. The fascist tool and his lover.
49
“Did you anticipate this?” da Vinci asked.
“Not so soon,” Beam admitted, “and not so many.”
They were in da Vinci’s stifling office, looking at tapes of the Free Adelaide demonstrations that had occurred throughout the city last night. The overhead fixture was off, as was da Vinci’s desk lamp. The office door was closed, and the blinds were adjusted tight to admit as little light as possible. It was as if da Vinci had prepared the office for a movie screening. Beam noticed that the small TV that usually sat on top of the DVD player on one of the file cabinets had been replaced by a much larger one; which came in handy, because several demonstrations were being shown simultaneously in split screen shots. As it turned out, the demonstration in Central Park had been the smallest.
“So what’s your advice now?” da Vinci asked, using the remote to switch off the TV just as a camera zoomed in on a demonstrator frantically waving a FREE ADELAIDE! sign.
“Sit tight,” Beam said.
“Where I’m sitting,” da Vinci said, “it’s getting tighter and tighter.” As if moved by his words, he stood up and opened the blinds. Light reclaimed the office, accompanied by harsh reality.
“The Adelaide fuss might blow over.”
“Yeah. Like a tornado.”
Beam took another tack. “We’re canvassing all the jewelry stores and custom manufacturers. The Justice Killer might have made a mistake with that ring.”
“I suspect it’s pretty much a waste of time,” da Vinci said, sitting back down behind his desk. “I think this business with the ring is just another diversion. Our killer’s too smart to have dropped such a big shiny clue into your lap unless he thought it might send you off in the wrong direction.”
“He did it because he hates me,” Beam said. “We’re getting close to him, and he knows it. It’s tight where he’s sitting, too.”
Da Vinci gave a humorless chuckle. “I talked to Helen the profiler about that. She doesn’t think he hates you. Says he hates himself, knows he’s sabotaging himself because subconsciously he yearns to be caught. It’s like a disease that grows in most serial killers, she says. The killing he’s done is beginning to haunt him.”
“What do you think?” Beam asked.
“I think she doesn’t know diddly.”
A uniformed assistant knocked, then entered the office with a tray on which was a glass coffeepot, two mugs, and a folded newspaper. A stolid, attractive woman devoid of makeup, she placed the tray near the motorcycle sculpture on the desk. Her unblinking eyes, the stiffness of her cheeks, suggested she wasn’t crazy about this part of her job.
Da Vinci absently thanked her as she left and closed the door behind her. The inner sanctum was sealed and inviolate again.
Da Vinci laid the folded Post on his desk where Beam could reach it, then began pouring coffee into the mugs. Both men were prepared to drink their coffee black, which was fortunate, because there was no cream or sugar on the tray. Was their absence an expression of disdain from the annoyed assistant? Another rebellious woman in da Vinci’s world?
“You seen the papers yet this morning?” da Vinci asked, as he poured.
Beam said he hadn’t, then reached for the folded paper, as he was sure da Vinci intended.
“Page five,” da Vinci said.
“I know,” Beam said. “I see the teaser on the front page.” He drew his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on.
On page five of the paper there was a transcript of an exclusive interview with Melanie Taylor.
As Beam scanned it, da Vinci said, “She’s changed her mind. Now she thinks Cold Cat killed his wife.”
“I can believe it,” Beam said, “but why was she dumb enough to say it?”
“You read between the lines, you can tell some asshole journalist conned her. She probably thought she was talking off the record, maybe not to a journalist at all.”
“Still, she said it. She must not have realized what it meant. Maybe she doesn’t yet. Though when she sees this she’s gonna be mad as hell.”
Da Vinci handed Beam his coffee. Beam accepted it with one hand, tossing the Post back on the desk with the other.
“Somebody else who’s gonna be mad is the Justice Killer,” da Vinci said. “He figures to go after her. Helen says its almost a cinch Melanie will be next. I have to concur.”
“We’ve got to give Melanie protection.”
“She’s already got it, even though she might not have read the paper yet and know she needs it.” Da Vinci sipped his coffee and made a face, as if he’d encountered something unexpectedly distasteful.
It made Beam hesitant to try his coffee.
“We’ve got Melanie’s apartment staked out and there’ll be a tail on her,” da Vinci continued. “We don’t have unlimited resources, so it takes some police presence away from Cold Cat. Seems the move to make, though, since Melanie all but painted a target on her ass. But I’ve gotta tell you, if the Justice Killer could get to Dudman, with all his high-priced professional security, I’ve gotta bet on him to nail this airhead Melanie.”
“Helen the profiler quote you any odds on that?” Beam asked, thinking da Vinci and Helen seemed to have been discussing things together a lot lately.
Da Vinci nodded. “She said it was about ninety percent he’d make the kill.”