Loverboy

by R. G. Belsky

  But I kept his damn card.

  After I finished the story, I waited around until the editions came off the press. Norm Malloy plopped one of the first copies down on my desk.

  “Page one again,” he announced in a loud voice. “You’re on a roll, Shannon.”

  After that, Walter Barlow came over and told me I’d done a great job. Other reporters patted me on the back and shouted out compliments. Even Victoria Crawford had something nice to say.

  I looked down at the headlines on the two stories, which took up virtually all of the front page.

  COPS PROBE LOVERBOY LINK IN NEW MURDERS KILLER TALKS TO BLADE REPORTER

  Exclusive

  by Lucy Shannon

  After all this time, I was a hero again.

  I had a big story. My editors loved me. And a guy was even interested in me.

  What was it the note in Julie Blaumstein’s apartment had said?

  Just like old times.

  Chapter 12

  I spent the next morning going through the clips on the Loverboy murders.

  Most newspaper libraries are totally on the computer now. If you want to read about an old case, you just press a button and it comes up on the screen. But the Blade still kept the actual clippings in boxes and drawers piled high on top of one another. The newsroom had joined the ’90s, but the library was still somewhere around the 1940s. Like something out of a Humphrey Bogart movie. I loved it. I sometimes wished I could just disappear into the place.

  I read through the stories about Loverboy. The first one was in the summer of 1978. The killer jumped out of some bushes and opened fire on a young couple named Bobby Fowler and Linda Malandro, who were necking in a scenic, secluded area in upper Manhattan, near the George Washington Bridge. She died, he survived.

  After that, the killings continued. Slowly at first. Months would go by, sometimes years. It took a while for the cops to even realize they were connected. So the horror of a serial murderer roaming the streets of New York didn’t fully emerge into the public’s consciousness until much later. Near the end of the bloody spree.

  During the summer of 1984 the killer—now calling himself Loverboy—started writing letters to a reporter covering the story. Each of the letters contained the phrase “I love you to death.” Maybe he got the idea from Son of Sam. The serial killer as media superstar. Son of Sam had sent his letters to Jimmy Breslin. Loverboy picked one reporter to be his friend too.

  That reporter was me.

  I was only twenty-four years old, and suddenly I was thrown into the biggest story of my life. I became a superstar too. Linked forever with a madman.

  There were thirteen killings in the six-year period. Eight other people were wounded. All the victims were young. The primary targets were always women. And the killer used the same powerful .44-caliber gun in each shooting.

  The victims included a couple who’d just graduated from high school, a cocktail waitress, a college sophomore, a nurse and all sorts of other assorted New Yorkers. There was no predictable pattern to Loverboy’s madness. He struck at least once in every borough.

  Some of the wounded had been lucky—they were able to get on with their lives. Others hadn’t. One girl was in a wheelchair, a paraplegic—paralyzed from the waist down. A young man was legally blind. I knew them all from when I’d first covered the story, but a lot of time had passed since then. So I wrote the names down in my notebook.

  There were screaming headlines. Stories about a city living in fear, its young people afraid to go out at night and maybe become the next victim. “No One Is Safe,” the New York Post warned in one headline.

  The circulation of every newspaper in town soared by at least 20 percent during Loverboy’s spree.

  The police vowed they were zeroing in on prime suspects. No one believed it. Neighborhood protection groups started sprouting up all over town. People went out and bought guns.

  And then, just as suddenly as they had started, the killings stopped.

  Everyone held his breath waiting for the next one, but it never came. Eventually the case drifted off the front page and out of people’s minds. Loverboy was never caught.

  The prevalent theory among law enforcement types was that he was dead.

  “I think the guy offed himself,” said Detective Jack Reagan in one yellowed clip I found.

  It said Reagan had been one of the top investigators on the special task force hunting for Loverboy. The article was dated about six months after the last killing, when the special task force was being disbanded.

  “The guy was a nut, we know that. So I think one day it all just got to him and he put the forty-four to his head and pulled the trigger. We’ll never know for sure. But that’s what I think happened.”

  Asked what made him feel that way, Reagan explained: “The killing stopped, that’s why.”

  I smiled.

  It didn’t surprise me that Jack Reagan would have said that.

  The most recent clip in the Loverboy file expressed a different view. It was from an interview with Michael Anson, the director in town making the movie about Loverboy’s killing spree.

  “I think he’s still out there,” Anson said. “Waiting. Waiting to start killing again.”

  Of course, it was in Anson’s best interest to take that view. The idea that Loverboy was still loose helped drum up excitement in the movie.

  There was another recent clip called “Where Are They Now?” It listed some of the main players in the story and told what had happened to them over the years. I was on the list. But I didn’t need to read that.

  I was interested in Tommy Ferraro. He’d been the head of the Loverboy task force.

  Now he was Thomas J. Ferraro, and he was a big man around town. He was the police commissioner. And there was even a lot of talk about him running for mayor. There were pictures of his house in Pelham Manor, of his loving family and of him at fancy social events and dropping in at celebrity hot spots like Elaine’s. He’d come a long way in twelve years.

  Tommy Ferraro.

  Jack Reagan.

  And me.

  Funny, how things had worked out for all of us.

  But then no one ever said life was fair.

  Chapter 13

  At 4 p.m. every day, Vicki Crawford had a news meeting in her office.

  It had been a long time since I’d been invited to one of them. Most of the people on the desk went. Walter Barlow. A couple of assistant city editors. Brian Tully, the national editor. Karen Wolfe, the sports editor. And sometimes even a reporter who was working on a really big story.

  This time they went around the room, talking about the rest of the stuff in the news before they got to today’s big story.

  My story.

  “Here’s the news item to make your day,” Tully was saying. “A guy goes into the hospital in Chicago for hemorrhoid surgery. Only he’s real nervous and has a lot of gas buildup. I mean, we’re talking a lot of gas. Anyway, when the doctors start to cut him, he involuntarily lets it go on the operating table. An oxygen unit nearby catches fire, there’s a big explosion and the whole operating team gets blown backward by the force of the blast . . .”

  Everyone cracked up around the room.

  “Anyway, the poor schmuck’s lying there with half his rear end gone, the doctors and nurses had to get first-aid treatment, and now the hospital’s looking at a huge malpractice suit.”

  “I guess the operation backfired, huh?” someone said.

  “Is that why they call it the Windy City?” Karen Wolfe asked.

  Even Vicki was laughing.

  “All right,” she said, “but do it short and straight. Very straight. And no bad puns in the headlines.”

  She turned to Wolfe.

  “What’s your lead sports story, Karen?”

  “The Jets have offered their first draft choice five million dollars.”

  “Five friggin’ million?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not even the story. The guy turned
it down.”

  Vicki shook her head.

  “Let’s do a real breakdown of five million dollars. Put it in terms the average working stiff can understand. How many groceries it could buy, how many cars, how many shoes for the kids.”

  She turned to Barlow.

  “What have you got on city side, Walter?”

  “Well, there’s a hearing on the budget, a bomb scare at La Guardia, an announcement from the Mayor’s office that they’re going to finish construction work on the FDR by the end of the year . . .”

  “Didn’t they say that last year?” Tully asked.

  “They said it during the goddamned Lindsay administration,” Vicki snapped. “C’mon, Walter—what have we got on Loverboy?”

  “Okay, Loverboy’s a big story, so—”

  “No, Walter, it’s not a big story. A big story is a cop being shot. Or some politician caught in bed with a hooker. This is a lot more than that. This is a gift from heaven. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  There were nods and murmurs around the room.

  A newspaper war was going on in New York City. The players were the Times, the Daily News, the Post and the Blade. Of these four papers, most analysts predicted the city could support only two—possibly three at the most. So a desperate game of musical chairs was under way to see which would make it and which would be left by the wayside. The Times was pretty much invulnerable and above the fray. The Daily News and the Post had big money problems, but they also had a hard-core base of longtime readers to build on. The Blade had Ronald Mackell’s millions.

  Vicki wanted a big story. Not just for the Blade, but for herself. She wanted to make her mark in New York journalism to prove she wasn’t just Ronald Mackell’s little bimbo. I knew that. And I was covering the story that could give her what she wanted. Life works in strange ways sometimes.

  “The only thing you can even compare this with is the Son of Sam killings back in 1977,” she was saying. “Do you know what that did to newspaper sales? It sent them through the roof.”

  “People were terrified,” Barlow said.

  “I’m not so sure everyone’s that scared this time,” Tully pointed out.

  “They will be by the time we’re finished,” someone suggested.

  Everyone laughed.

  “Hell, this is better than Son of Sam,” Vicki said. “Son of Sam killed a lot of people, but he did it in one big spree. This guy kills a bunch of people, but over a six-year period. Then he lays low for more than a decade. Everyone figures he’s dead. But suddenly he comes back and starts up again. Unbelievable.”

  “It’s not the same guy,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The first guy is probably dead. Or in a mental ward or something. This is a copycat.”

  “You got any proof of that?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know this for a fact?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Vicki thought about it for a second. “Screw it, let’s assume we’re dealing with the same guy. Loverboy is back. It’s a better story that way.”

  “What if we’re wrong?” Barlow asked.

  “So what? Is the real Loverboy gonna sue? Is he going to claim we defamed him by saying he killed sixteen people when he really only snuffed out thirteen? C’mon, Walter, we can’t lose either way on this one.”

  “I thought we dealt in facts,” I said.

  “You don’t have any facts. Get me some.”

  “Well, I guess we just have to wait until the killer strikes again,” Walter said. “Then we can—”

  “Wrong!” Vicki’s fist slammed down on the desktop in front of her. “That’s exactly what we won’t do.”

  “But—”

  “For chrissakes, Walter, this guy might not hit again for days or even weeks. In the meantime, we have to put out a daily paper. We can’t just sit around and wait for something to happen. We need to make news ourselves. I want to see something on this case every day that’s going to keep the readers interested in it.”

  “What exactly did you have in mind?” I asked.

  “It’s your story,” Vicki snapped. “You tell me.”

  I tried to think quickly. Everyone in the room was staring at me.

  “Well, there’s the movie they’re making here about the Loverboy case. It’s pretty bizarre that that’s happening at the same time as these new killings. There’s gotta be some kind of connection. The director called me—she wants me to be in the movie. I can do an interview with her.”

  “Good idea. Anything else?”

  “I was thinking about the victims from the first Loverboy spree. A few of them survived. Plus, there’s the families of the dead ones. Why not go talk to them about all the terrible memories this brings back? Put a headline on it like, ‘The Nightmare That Won’t Die.’”

  Vicki smiled broadly. “Now you’re getting the hang of it. You know, you shouldn’t give up on this reporting business, Shannon. You might figure out how to do it right someday.”

  When I got back to my desk after the meeting, Janet was waiting for me. She nodded toward Vicki’s office, visible through the glass window.

  “I have some dirt about our fearless leader,” she said.

  “Good news or bad news?”

  “You’ll like it.”

  I waited. Janet didn’t say anything. She was milking this for all it was worth. It must be really good.

  “I hear all is not well in paradise between our editor and her husband, our owner and publisher.”

  “There’s trouble in the marriage?”

  “Trouble with a capital D. As in divorce.”

  “She’s getting one?”

  “Him. I hear he’s talking to his lawyers. My source says it’s just a matter of time. There’s another woman . . .”

  “There usually is,” I said.

  I glanced over at Vicki in her office. She was on the phone and seemed totally in control. But if the marriage really was falling apart, Mackell wouldn’t want his ex-wife to be editor of his newspaper. That meant the Vicki Crawford era would be over.

  “I told you you’d like it,” Janet said.

  “I love it!”

  Chapter 14

  The movie company was shooting at the Limelight, a nightclub at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twentieth Street.

  A fleet of trucks and vans sat parked on the street outside. People milled around carrying cameras, cables and lighting equipment. I walked up to a bearded man wearing a baseball cap and asked him where I could find Michael Anson. He pointed to one of the trailers near the front entrance.

  A crowd of fans was being kept back by a rope, which had a sign on it that said: movie shoot today. no parking. A policeman was standing next to the rope. I showed my press card to the cop, who let me through.

  A woman opened the door of Michael Anson’s trailer. She was over six feet tall and had muscular arms and a body like a female bodybuilder. She was wearing jeans, a sleeveless T-shirt and a necklace made out of some sort of animal teeth. She was also scowling at me. When I told her who I was, she motioned me inside. But she didn’t stop scowling.

  A half-dozen people were in the trailer, all of them engaged in animated conversation with a woman sitting at a table. There, were lots of typewritten pages spread out in front of her. The woman at the center of all this looked up at me.

  “You’re Lucy Shannon?” she said.

  “Right.”

  “I’m Michael Anson.”

  She shook my hand.

  “Not bad,” she said. “Not bad at all. You’ll do.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  Michael Anson was about thirty-five, with dark hair cut very short and a cute, pixielike kind of face. She was wearing a tailored black pantsuit with a cranberry silk blouse. Her makeup was perfect, despite the heat. She clapped her hands loudly and told everyone to take a fifteen-minute break. They all left. All except the big woman at the door.

  “That’s Micki
,” Michael said.

  She was glaring at me.

  “You mean, like Mickey Mouse?” I asked.

  “No. Micki. With an i.”

  “How ya doing, Mick?” I said.

  Micki just glared some more. She didn’t really seem to be a people person.

  “So you’ve decided to be in my movie, after all, Miss Shannon.”

  “Actually, I’ve come to ask you some questions about the case.”

  “Maybe we can help each other out.”

  “Meaning you’ll talk to me if I take the part?”

  “Why not?”

  “I just always thought that if I got discovered by Hollywood, it would be more romantic. You know, like some producer sees me sitting at a soda fountain in a drugstore—like Lana Turner—and says, ‘I’m gonna make her a star.’”

  “They don’t have soda fountains in drugstores anymore, Miss Shannon.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’ve never made it into a movie.”

  Anson shook her head.

  “Let’s cut the crap, huh? These new killings have raised the ante on the part. We’re big news. I was going to have you do just a walk-on part, but now I’m thinking about a much bigger role. The real-life reporter who’s still chasing the killer. What do you think?”

  “It’s catchy.”

  “Do yourself a favor. Grab a little of the glory. You could parlay this into something really big. You don’t want to be a newspaper reporter covering fires all your life, do you?”

  “There’s worse things in the world than covering a fire,” I said.

  “Yeah. Covering two fires.”

  I hit her with the question that had been on my mind ever since I got the Loverboy note.

  “It’s quite a coincidence that these killings started up at the same time you began shooting this movie,” I said. “What do you make of that?”

  “I suppose the killer read about us—and that prompted him to do it.”

  “That would make you sort of responsible for murder.”

  Anson shrugged. “Oh, come on. I have no control over what other people do because of my movies. Any more than Martin Scorsese could control John Hinckley because he saw Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. But hey, it’s good publicity for the movie. It couldn’t have worked out better.”