"I don't think so, Lucy. A nice try, but pretty feeble. Anyways—sweet dog you have here," he said, scratching Claud's head—"I'm not wasting time, Lucy. I'm having fun." He smiled. His handsome face looked monstrous. "This is the way Patty and I used to have fun. I thought you might want to see what it was like." He undid another button on her blouse, and pulled it further open. Her breasts were exposed. She squirmed, trying to avoid his hands. He traced his fingers across her nipples. She shuddered involuntarily. "Very nice, Lucy," he said. "Not quite as—lush—as Patricia, but very nice. I'm sure we can have ourselves a wonderful time here today. Don't you think so, Claud?" He pushed Lucy, in her chair, against her desk, and stood over her. Terrified, she fought back tears, trying to figure a way out.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe—and a couple of clear plastic bags of white powder. "Well, well, look what we've got here," he said. "A little bag of heroin, and a little bag of cocaine. Would you like some heroin, Lucy? Your friend Patricia liked heroin, Lucy. Did you know that?"
"You're a liar. You forced Patty to take it. Look. What do you want—I'll stop this—I don't care what dope you sell, I was just trying to find out what happened to her is all. Her father—"
"Shut up, Lucy," he said. In his madness, his French accent grew stronger. "Shut up and I'll tell you—and then I will show you—exactly what happened to her. But first, I need to get some water to cook up your special injection. You just relax, Lucy, and in just a minute I'll give you a nice fix, and then I will take off your clothes and fuck you while the heroin kills you. Won't that be wonderful, Lucy, sex and death, no real pain, but oh, what fun it will be for you to hear what happened to Patricia, your friend, and then to have the very same experience yourself."
She watched him head into the kitchen. Then she knew what to do. Quickly and quietly pushing with her feet she rolled her wheeled desk chair back over to the desk. Behind her back she pulled open the third drawer down, left side of her desk, stretched her arms down as far as they would go, and grabbed one of her Dad's two hunting knives she'd brought home from Portland. She quickly shook it loose of the scarf it was wrapped in. Then she swung it around; she gripped the knife by the blade, cutting her hand on its honed edge, but managed to position it so she could work it against the rope. She jammed herself against the desk and jerked the knife spasmodically, cutting the silk, cutting her hand repeatedly. She sliced through the silk in a few seconds. This guy was overconfident, or insane, to the point of carelessness, thank God. She could hear him in the kitchen. Could she make the door? No, here he came, back in sight. She kept her hands in position, as if tied, but they were no longer tied—and she held the knife in one. Surprise would be important, as he was a big strong man. Hopefully he wouldn't see her dripping blood. "You know, Rene, the police are going to know exactly who did this. It's not as if they don't know who you are, and what you've—"
"When you die of an overdose, comfortably naked in your own bed, people look at what you Americans call your lifestyle. What does this mean? When I anonymously provide the police with photographs of you visiting known drug dealers, and purchasing street drugs in the East Village, I don't think they will bother with you, any more than they bothered with Patricia."
"You mean you've been watching me? Taking pictures of me?"
"Oh, I've always had an interest in photography. In fact, I have a camera with me today." He put the glass of water and spoon down on the desk, and pulled out a little digital camera. "Fully automatic, so I can—" he aimed it at her breasts, and snapped—"point and shoot without even thinking." She had to fight the instinct to cover her breasts with her hands.
He put the camera down and began preparing the drug, first tapping some powder from each of two bags into the spoon. "A little heroin, a little cocaine, a tasty little mix, don't you think?" He scooped a little off one pile with a fingernail, and sniffed it. "Ah, good, pure cocaine. Nothing but the best for you, Lucy." He took a little more, and softly rubbed it across her wounded cheek. "It's a local anaesthetic too, you know." He took the needle off the top of the syringe, and drew water into it, then squirted the water into the spoon with the drugs. "Now, I need cotton and matches." He leaned close to look in her desk.
Lucy lunged with the knife, shouting, "Take that, you bastard!" He parried her stabbing thrust, but she cut his arm deeply, and he fell back onto her bed, howling in rage, clutching at the cut with his other hand. She quickly slashed the rope binding her feet and ran towards the door. "Let's go pup," she shouted. Claud ran with her.
"You bitch," he snarled. 'I'll have you dead for dinner." He jumped up, moving to cut her off. Then suddenly Claud bared his teeth in a vicious snarl, turned, and leaped, lunging at his face. "Fucking dog," he shouted, shoving the dog aside, but Claud's flying weight knocked him off balance and he slipped and went down again, spraying blood from his arm as he fell. Lucy unlocked the door and threw it open. "Run for it, puppie!" Claud broke for the door, charged through, and Lucy ran after him.
Lavoisier charged after her. "I've got a gun, and I'll use it, you bitch," he snarled. He fired a shot, and it hit wood near her head as she flew around the corners, charging down the stairs. She reached the bottom and shoved the door open and ran out, Claud at her side. She whipped around the corner on to Broome Street, screaming "Watch out! Watch out! He's got a gun!" Lavoisier came around the corner ten yards behind her. He drew up and pointed the gun at her and was ready to pull the trigger when a young black man tackled him from behind, and the gun went flying.
"Motherfucker!" the guy said, slamming Lavoisier's face into the sidewalk as he wrestled him down and sat on him. "You think I gon' stand here while you shoot that lady? No way honky dickhead."
The landlord came around the corner. "What is goink on here?" he said, looking suspiciously at Lucy, and the young scruffy black man sitting on the elegant middle-aged white man on the sidewalk. "Lucy Ripken, what is this?"
"Nothing," she said, quickly buttoning up her shirt. She was covered with blood from her cut hand, but she felt oddly relaxed. She wasn't going to be raped and murdered after all. This lent the whole situation a somewhat uplifting feeling. She pointed. "That guy was about to shoot me is all, when this other guy stopped him."
"Shoot you? What are you sayink?"
"See the gun? Don't touch it—it's his."
"She's crazy," Lavoisier said through teeth gritted against the pain from the cut in his arm. "I was walking along when this punk tried to mug me. I fought with him, and knocked his gun loose. Why don't you grab it before somebody else does? He already cut my arm, see?"
"Don't do it," Lucy said. "He's trying to get someone else's prints on it. Just leave it there." A siren sounded in the distance. "Didn't you hear the gunshot in the building?"
"Motherfucker say I tried to mug him?" the black man said. "What kind of crazy bullshit's that?" he said, grinding Lavoisier's face a little harder into the sidewalk. "This guy try to shoot the lady's what happen, man," he said to the landlord, and to the several other people who'd stopped to check out this little piece of street drama.
The cop car stopped, the uniforms tumbled out, tended to the wounded Lucy and the wounded Lavoisier, and listened to the stories. Then, following SOP racist techniques, they rousted the black man, and found nothing. Then they rousted Rene Lavoisier, and found an ounce bag of white powder in one pocket and another ounce bag in another pocket. And a one way first class ticket to Paris, along with his diplomatic passport, in a third. With this they were at last convinced, and they took him in.
Rene Lavoisier was charged with possession of heroin with intent to sell, possession of cocaine with intent to sell, attempted murder, attempted rape, breaking and entering, assault and battery, and, last but not least, murder in the death of Patricia Moody.
Lavoisier bailed out two weeks later, although the prosecutor pointed out that he was almost certain to leave the country. He immediately disappeared. The cops set up a stake-out, but he never returned
to his apartment on Central Park West.
Lucy led the police to the Russians' apartment in the East Village, but they found it abandoned and empty. They declined to pursue it any further. Harold said the DEA was on the Russians' case, but no one was every arrested. Riles the cop also disappeared.
In November a small-time Jersey hood got popped for shooting the owner of a jewelry store in Washington Heights, and he plea-bargained the charge down to manslaughter by confessing to that killing, and another, the shooting of the astrologer. He also gave up Patricia Moody's father, who was arrested for complicity in the murder of Dr. Lucien Schwartzhill. It had cost him five thousand in cash. He eventually beat the charge on a temporary insanity plea.
Lucy was bummed. Like Katya, she’d been certain the Russians had done the Nova murder. Now, even if he wasn’t going to do any time, Moody’s life was ruined. What was left of it.
A month later, Katya left the de-tox center Harry had gotten her in, and on Lucy's urging went to the Ford Modeling Agency to see about work. They signed her up on the spot, and put her to work the next day.
Two weeks before Christmas, Lucy received a package postmarked New York City. It contained a ruby ring and nothing else. A week later she flew home to Portland, to spend Christmas with her Mom. Clara Kellett called her on Christmas Eve to announce that she'd sold the book again, and because it had already gone to the galley stage at the now defunct Foot & Wong, it would be out in spring.
And so on a warm spring evening Lucy had her book party at Parkistan. Vadim gave her the Icon Grotto for the night, and she invited everyone she knew, including the Kremlin boys who'd become international design stars since appearing on the cover of SPACES in February; Loretta Sandusky, no longer gainfully employed and quite pleased with her new digs on Lexington Avenue; Rosa, who had moved to the Upper West Side; Harold Ipswich and his new wife; and Billy Ritz, whose photograph of Katya Novotny Schwartzhill Ipswich adorned the April cover of Elle magazine.
Lucy had witnessed Harold and Katya’s City Hall wedding. She had given them her blessing. She had gone home from their wedding alone, and now, heading back to the loft from her book party, she was, once again, alone, and happy to be that way.
This concludes book five of the Lucy Ripken Mysteries. Book six, Sex and Death: The Movie will be out in December of 2015.
To hear as soon as it comes out, like Lucy’s Facebook page here.
In the meantime, f you’ve missed any of the previous books, you can find them here:
Murder on Naked Beach
Mexican Booty
X-Dames
Lucy’s Money
Lost in New York: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 5) Page 18