Don’t Look Now

by Richard Montanari

  With a force Rita thought reserved only for linebackers and dockworkers, the woman pushed her, head first, into the middle stall. She hit the door hard and it flew open with enough force to smash into the partition, shattering its lock. Rita tried to get up but the room was spinning out of control now, the floor was slick with filthy water. By the time she was able to right herself, the woman put her spiked heel gently up against Rita’s chest and thudded her back down to the floor.

  The last thing Rita saw, before she fell unconscious, was the upside-down face of Melissa Adelaide Paris, staring out from under the partition, surrounded by a cartoon universe of stars.

  44

  SAILA HAD JUST gotten her key into the BMW’s door. Her other hand held Melissa firmly by the wrist. They both heard Paris’s footsteps in the alley before they saw him, but it was enough time for Saila to walk Melissa to the center of the parking-lot and put the barrel of the .25 semi-automatic pistol to the girl’s temple.

  Melissa closed her eyes and waited for the pain.

  45

  WHEN PARIS SAW the two of them – perfectly posed, oddly familiar statuary under the lone street-lamp – he pulled up in his tracks and held his hands out to his sides.

  He was twenty-five feet away.

  ‘Hello, detective,’ Cyndy Taggart said. ‘Good work.’

  ‘Cyndy, don’t.’

  ‘Pull it out, left hand, and place it on the ground,’ Cyndy said. ‘You know the drill.’

  ‘Are you okay, Missy?’ His daughter remained silent, but Paris could see in her eyes that she had not been harmed. If anything, at that moment, she looked simply exhausted. She wore a short black dress and earrings in the shape of red cherries.

  ‘Now, detective.’

  ‘Okay, Cyndy.’ Paris slowly reached inside his jacket and extracted his weapon with two fingers. He placed the gun on the ground and kicked it along the asphalt.

  ‘Talk to me, Cyndy.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘I want to know how we get out of this with no one getting hurt.’

  Cyndy thought for a moment. ‘What do you have for me?’

  ‘What do you want, Cyndy? My hand to God, if I can get it, I go get it right now, and I lay it at your feet. Tell me.’

  ‘You know what I want. Everything you have on Pharaoh.’

  ‘You’ve got it all. Think about it. Without those photographs, they’re never going to reopen the case.’ Paris tried to remember something, anything, from his three hours of hostage-negotiation training. Of course, it was never supposed to be his daughter. ‘The house on Tarleton Street is history. Everything in it is history. You get to keep the straight razor with my prints on it. You can set me up three years from now if you feel like it. What more do you want?’

  Cyndy looked from Melissa to Paris, then back at the car, calculating the odds. ‘She’s not going to shut up about this,’ Cyndy said, fingering the trigger, nodding toward the trunk of the car. ‘Neither is little Lois here.’

  ‘Let me handle it,’ Paris said, the motion not lost on him. His experience was that it meant that the shooter was getting ready to shoot. ‘Diana will be pissed off, sure. But I’ll take care of it. If you didn’t hurt her, she won’t press charges. I promise.’

  Cyndy laughed. ‘You don’t know the first fucking thing about women, Jack.’

  Then came a sound, a steel-on-steel sound, echoing from an alcove immediately to Paris’s left. Although the alcove was engulfed in darkness, Paris figured it was Nick Raposo, trying, and failing, to arrive quietly at the scene. The sound instantly drew Cyndy’s attention, causing her to relax her grip, her guard, for the briefest of moments.

  But the moment was long enough.

  Melissa, sensing the opportunity, shifted her weight, lifted her right foot high into the air and brought it down hard on the top of Cyndy’s right foot.

  ‘Heee-yah!’ Melissa shouted.

  ‘No!’ Paris screamed.

  Melissa ran toward her father as fast as she could.

  In that moment, in that brief instant that Jack Paris saw his daughter running toward him – her long hair swirling fiercely about her face and neck and shoulders – he noticed, with curiosity, that she had Beth’s face. Beth’s wise, motherly, made-up, adult face on Melissa’s gangling figure, the figure of a still-growing girl, a girl destined to become a tall, graceful woman.

  But Paris also knew, in his shattering heart, that everything he had ever feared for his daughter was happening all at once: crib death, undertow, scarlet fever, cocaine, the pervert in the car parked near the school.

  In that moment, Jack Paris knew that his daughter had lived her whole life.

  And that he had killed her.

  In that moment, in that brief instant, Cyndy Taggart hesitated, her right instep afire, her two lives colliding in a hurricane of procedure and pain and sexual disgrace. Her arms felt leaden and weak, her body seemed loath to respond to her immediate demands.

  Then, just as quickly, she recoiled and sprang.

  She raised her weapon into the air, took careful aim at the center of Melissa’s back, and squeezed the trigger.

  In that moment, in that brief instant that Jack Paris saw a mad-eyed woman fire a small handgun at his daughter, a much larger 9-mm bullet, fired from the alcove, tore into the left side of Cyndy Taggart’s chest, then exited her shoulder blade in a furious gush of red tissue. The bullet clanked against the steel fender of a GMC truck halfway across the parking-lot, then skittered on to the asphalt.

  Sergeant Cynthia Jean Taggart stood for a few moments, rusted in time, poised to make one final appeal, then followed the warm lead slug to the ground.

  46

  MELISSA SCREAMED ONCE and stumbled forward the last few steps, slamming into her father’s chest. Paris scooped her into his arms, turned on his heels and sprinted back down the alley, head down, not knowing for certain who had fired the other shot or where it had come from, not knowing if Missy had been hit.

  They rounded the corner and burst into the fluorescent brightness of the Good Egg Restaurant. Paris ran the length of the black and white diner and lifted Melissa into the last booth, far away from the windows. He shielded her from the street.

  ‘Are you okay, baby?’ Paris dropped to his knees and frantically checked her back, her arms, her legs, her face, hoping, praying, that his fingers would not come back coated with red. ‘Did she hurt you, baby?’

  ‘No, Daddy,’ Melissa said, shivering now, nearing her ballast of tears.

  ‘I’m so sorry, baby.’ Paris held her tightly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He pulled back and took another long, careful inventory of Melissa’s well-being. Cyndy had missed her completely, it appeared. Paris grabbed a napkin and began dabbing Melissa’s face.

  A minute later Paris arose and turned back to the diner. The restaurant’s five or six patrons were watching his every move in a state of near-catatonic silence, their sandwiches and eggs and Danish pastries poised halfway to their mouths. He asked of them all: ‘Who’s the owner?’

  A pair of elderly rock-and-rollers in studded denim, sitting at the counter, pointed to a man restocking a potato chip rack near the front. Paris vaulted the counter and approached him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Paris asked.

  ‘Akim,’ the man said, his hands locked around five or six bags of chips each, his eyes nearly vibrating with alarm. He had heard the shots in the alley and now this man had run into his place of business with a little girl made up to look like a harlot. What was coming next?

  ‘This is your place?’

  The man nodded, his mouth too dry to speak.

  ‘Akim,’ Paris said. He put his hand on to the shoulder of the short, solid man in the greasy blue apron. ‘I’m a police officer, and this is my daughter. This thing may not be over out here, I’m afraid. I have to leave for a while and I want her to stay right in that booth. I’m going to leave her in your care. Let nothing happen to her. Do you understan
d me?’

  Akim had dealt with many police officers – first in Beirut, then in New York City, and now at the Good Egg in Cleveland – and he knew exactly what this particular brand of Do you understand me? meant. He dropped the chips.

  ‘She will be safe,’ Akim said. He looked into the back room, snapped his fingers twice and shouted something in Arabic. Almost immediately a stout, broad-shouldered woman of fifty appeared. She plopped down next to Melissa and thrust her big legs into the aisle.

  Paris stopped at the front door and turned back to Akim. ‘Call nine-one-one. Tell them shots were fired in this alley. Tell them a woman has been badly injured. Tell them to send an ambulance.’

  Akim picked up the phone behind the counter and punched in the numbers.

  Paris left the restaurant and stepped, haltingly, weaponless, into the blackness of the alley.

  The whole transaction had taken less than two minutes, yet Paris felt years older.

  47

  CYNDY HAD LOST a lot of blood. Her body had the twisted, tangled look of someone just pulled from a hellacious high-speed crash. Her face bore a milk-blue pallor.

  Paris had come around the corner and immediately found his weapon where he kicked it. It was still fully loaded. He called Nick’s name a few times, but figured, after firing the shot that dropped Cyndy, Nick had probably come looking for him.

  Paris followed the trail of blood around the green Buick parked next to Cyndy’s car. When he skirted the trunk, and saw Cyndy’s condition, his heart nearly went out to her.

  Nearly.

  Then he remembered Eleanor Burchfield’s throat.

  Cyndy was propped against the rear fender of the BMW. From the right side of her chest grew a short, purplish sprout of viscera. She was alive, and she had the barrel of her pistol pressed tightly against the car’s gas tank.

  ‘Don’t come any closer Jack,’ Cyndy said. ‘Got your girlfriend in the trunk.’ She tapped the back fender with the gun. ‘Half a tank of gas, too.’ She looked skyward for a moment, calculating something, then back at Paris. ‘Five bullets.’ She managed a crooked grin, then placed the barrel of the gun back up against the tank.

  ‘Where’s Rita?’ Paris asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rita,’ Paris said. ‘The one you took the two-way radio from?’

  ‘Oh her,’ Cyndy said. ‘Taking a nap on the ladies’-room floor. Probably having the time of her life, too, considering the way you dressed her for the evening.’ Cyndy smiled, her teeth red and glistening in the light thrown from the nearby streetlamp. ‘You sick fuck.’

  Paris took another step, his weapon at his side. ‘Cyndy.’

  ‘So, what do you think, Jack? We’re both pretty good shots, right? Which do you think will happen first? Me hitting the gas tank just right or you hitting a vital organ?’

  ‘It’s over.’ Paris moved another step forward. He was five feet away now. ‘You know there’s no way out of this. EMS is already on the way. You’ve got to let me get you to a hospital.’

  Paris attempted another small step, but the blast from Cyndy’s weapon – the muzzle flash startling him more than the loud pop – shoved him back on his heels, his hands instinctively to his chest. Cyndy had aimed, without taking her eyes off him, and blown out the side light on the rear fender of the Buick.

  Paris then heard Diana’s muffled screams coming from inside the BMW’s trunk.

  ‘Four bullets now.’ Cyndy struggled to sit upright. Paris could see the foamy pink saliva coming from the corners of her mouth. She put the gun back up to the gas tank. ‘Let’s deal.’

  ‘Okay. Talk to me.’

  ‘Let me ask you something first,’ she began. ‘Why do you think women become cops?’

  ‘Jesus, Cyndy. Is this what—’

  ‘Answer … the fucking … question.’

  Her tone was flat, commanding. In deference to Diana, Paris pushed the anger back for the moment. ‘I don’t know. Same reason as men, I suppose.’

  ‘Only partially, Jack. With women, it’s not just about control, you see, it’s about control over men. The ability and the authority to tell men what to do, when to sit, where to stand. To handcuff them whenever we want. Fuck them up when we want. It’s not just a job, Jack. It’s an adventure.’

  Paris tried to stop himself, but failed. ‘Why the women, Cyndy? Why the innocent women?’

  Another red smile. ‘Don’t be so quick to assume they were innocent. Nobody’s innocent.’

  It was a judgment call, but Paris decided to push it a little, to keep her talking. ‘Why’d you kill Tommy?’

  ‘Well, I was kind of hoping that that would be the end of things,’ she said. ‘See, I don’t have to do what I do. It’s not a drug, not really. And believe it or not, I didn’t really have any plans to do it again. No Son of Saila conversations with my cat, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Was Tommy Pharaoh?’

  ‘What do you think? You’re the detective.’

  Paris took a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing that the longer she kept talking, the more energy she would spend.

  ‘I couldn’t let you get to the Quality Inn, Jack,’ Cyndy continued. ‘Elliott would’ve surely reopened the case. You know that. The “Saila does Quality” photo you found was a mistake.’

  ‘Please, Cyndy. Let’s end this.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing to tie me to Pharaoh. Nothing …’

  ‘You’re right,’ Paris said. ‘You’re absolutely right. So let me have the gun, okay?’

  It was then that Cyndy heard the first wail of a police siren in the distance. Black-and-whites were rolling. She closed her eyes and let the .25 semi-automatic pistol ring her finger. She dropped the gun to the ground. ‘Just don’t let that bitch in the trunk prosecute the case.’

  Paris stepped forward and picked up Cyndy’s gun.

  ‘Three to five, max,’ Cyndy said, drifting off. ‘You’ll see. Three to five.’

  Paris thought about how easy it would be at that moment to just lean over and step on Cyndy’s chest. To put all of his weight on her widening wound, grinding in the filth of a thousand infections. Or to simply wind up and stomp her heart right out through the carnage that was her back. Send her to hell in a red fucking dress.

  But no, Paris thought. He had other plans. ‘I don’t think so, Cyndy,’ he said.

  Paris switched hands with his weapon and reached into his pocket. He held up the slender silver machine, the digital recorder Melissa had given him for his birthday.

  ‘Listen to this,’ Paris said. ‘Kitty-cat.’

  He stuck the recorder near Cyndy’s ear and pressed play.

  ‘… kill Tommy?’ Paris’s voice asked from the tiny speaker.

  He raised the volume.

  Then came Cyndy’s soft, eerie alto: ‘Well, I was kind of hoping that that would be the end of things, Jack. See, I don’t have to do what I do. It’s not a drug, not really. And believe it or not, I didn’t really have any plans to do it again. No Son of Saila conversations with my cat, I’m afraid …’

  She looked at Paris with one hazel eye and one eye, unnervingly, the color of chlorinated water. Cyndy had lost a lens. ‘Well played.’ She closed her eyes.

  Paris heard the EMS unit shriek to a halt at the other end of the alley and knew it was time to get down to business. He got very close.

  ‘Where’s the razor?’

  Cyndy’s head lolled on her shoulders. Her skin had taken on the color and texture of well-worn putty. ‘Drazer.’

  ‘The razor, Cyndy.’

  She opened her eyes briefly, then closed them again, the whites giving way to the green mucus gathering at her lower lids. She was beginning her death throes.

  ‘Where’s the fucking razor?’

  Paris could hear the rattle of the aluminum gurney starting down the alley, a fifty feet away. The blue lights swirling on the dirty brick walls around him also told him that at least one black-and-white cruiser had already arrived at the scene. The call h
ad gone out ‘shots fired’. They would be coming down the alley with their weapons drawn.

  ‘The recording for the razor, Cyndy. Where is it?’

  Paris shook Cyndy Taggart once, violently, drawing thick bubbles of blood from her mouth and nose.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, fading now, near the extreme edge of consciousness.

  ‘Where is it?’

  Cyndy closed her eyes.

  Paris began to rummage through her purse – Kleenex, Life Savers, Nivea, Tampax, Rolaids – but the razor was nowhere to be found. He was just about to search Cyndy’s pockets when his hand closed around a plastic sandwich bag with a weighty, flat metal object inside. The feel of the scrolled tip and the small, smooth rivet told Paris it was the straight razor. He could also feel that the inside of the bag was still moist.

  ‘Police!’

  The shout came from the other side of the green Buick to his left. Ten feet away. Paris could hear the adrenaline streaking through that voice. The cop was young and pumped: inner-city call, shots fired, clear night, dark alley.

  Paris worked open the zipped top of the plastic bag with one hand. He upended it, dumped the straight razor into the blackness of Cyndy’s purse and began to move it furiously around with the back of his hand, the side of his hand, up against a leather glove, up against something that felt like an eelskin wallet, up against—

  ‘Drop it!’ came the voice from directly behind him.

  Had he been seen with his hand in the purse?

  ‘Now, motherfucker!’

  Had he obscured his fingerprints?

  Paris didn’t know.

  He dropped his weapon and held his hands high.

  48

  THE NURSE’S AID couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, but Paris managed to charm her into it.

  ‘Okay, but you’re not going to sneak him any food or liquor, are you?’ she asked. ‘He’s been driving us nuts with that stuff.’

  ‘Would a three-foot Genoa salami and a quart of fried peppers be considered food?’