Pulse

by John Lutz

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” Ms. Culver said.

  PART TWO

  That a lie which is half a truth

  Is ever the blackest of lies

  —ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, “The Grandmother”

  46

  “I don’t quite know what you mean by that,” Quinn said to Jody, over supper in the brownstone that evening. They were having ravioli along with a salad Pearl and Jody had spent over an hour preparing in the kitchen. Quinn mused that Jody had awakened in Pearl a domestic side that was new to him. Not that she wasn’t in other matters still the old Pearl.

  Jody swallowed a bite of ravioli. “I think what they’re doing to Mildred Dash could be interpreted as illegal.”

  “Interpreted?” Pearl said, taking a sip of the merlot Quinn had bought on the way home from the office.

  “Mildred has a clause in her lease requiring all the tenants’ permission before the building can be razed in the event of eminent domain, and for at least six months’ notice before having to leave the property.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Pearl said. “Especially that first part.”

  “Sounds illegal,” Quinn added.

  “That, or we’re talking about the penumbra of the law,” Jody said with a wicked grin.

  “Seems it wouldn’t hold up in court,” Pearl said.

  “Of course not, but it would take a while to wend its way through the legal process. And for Meeding Properties, time is money.”

  “And that’s what Mildred Dash is counting on,” Quinn said. “We understand that, but what’s her endgame?”

  Jody swallowed too big a bite. She was excited. Her face was flushed and her red hair seemed to be standing on end. Quinn was enjoying this. And he couldn’t help but notice that, except for the wild and colorful hairdo, Jody sure looked like Pearl when she was argumentative.

  A sip of wine, another huge gulp, and Jody was calm enough to talk. “Mildred is no fool. She’s an attorney herself. My guess is that she’s trying to stall them long enough that they’ll be losing so much money by not building, they’ll be forced to change their plans so the development doesn’t require that particular patch of ground.”

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Pearl said, “Meeding Properties owns that patch of ground, compliments of the city of New York.”

  “But the terms of the sale specified that the leases went with the property. Mildred became a Meeding tenant on closing; Meeding is held party to the lease, and they want to evict her illegally.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Meeding must think so, or they would have forcibly removed her,” Jody said.

  “She has a point,” Quinn said. “Mildred Dash might not have a chance in hell legally. But every day Meeding doesn’t evict her, her position grows stronger.”

  “Playing for time is an accepted and even heartily endorsed legal process,” Jody said.

  Quinn doubted that but said nothing.

  “How are you getting all this information about the case?” Pearl asked.

  Looking at Jody, Quinn tried not to smile.

  “You’re snooping around where you shouldn’t be, aren’t you?” Pearl said.

  “I’m monitoring the files to see if I might perceive something illegal.”

  “That is illegal, no matter how you pretty it up with obscure language. At the least it will get you fired for snooping.”

  “You might call it snooping. I regard it as investigating. Something you and Quinn do.”

  “You got some idea of what we do when you went with us to that homicide scene,” Pearl said. “That’s the sort of thing that justifies our snooping.”

  “And illegally evicting a poor woman doesn’t?”

  Quinn backed his chair away from the table and stood up.

  Was he about to run out on his responsibility to help Pearl deal with Jody?

  Pearl glared at him. “Where do you—”

  “To smoke a—”

  “Oh, no, you’re—”

  “I’m only kidding, Pearl.”

  Jody stood up abruptly, as if to say, I’ve had enough of this! She wiped her mouth with her napkin as if trying to remove her lips, and then stomped out of the dining room and upstairs.

  Pearl started to go after her, but Quinn laid a big hand on her shoulder. “She’s only trying get out of helping with the dishes,” he said.

  “She’s gonna screw up her internship, with this Mildred Dash crap,” Pearl said.

  “That’s how she’ll learn to control her temper.”

  Pearl gave him a look and then sat down again and took a sip of her wine. Quinn sat back down across from her.

  “You haven’t figured her out very far,” Pearl said.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “She wasn’t as angry as she seemed.”

  “I know. She’d rather be up in her room in a snit than down here helping with the dishes.”

  “That’s not what I mean. She was working us. She cares about the Mildred Dash business, but not that much. She’s using that case for an excuse to snoop at the Enders and Coil offices.”

  Quinn didn’t quite follow Pearl. Not a new sensation.

  “She’s wants us to know she’s onto something,” Pearl said, “but my guess is it’s bigger than some stubborn woman who might get evicted in the name of progress. What Jody was fishing for was our tacit permission to go ahead and sneak around where she’s working, and you gave it to her.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. It obviously amused you that she was taking risks for some youthful empathetic reason she didn’t begin to understand. And remember you bought into that penumbra-of-the-law bullshit.”

  “I wouldn’t say I bought into it.”

  “Jody would. She’s on to something bigger,” Pearl said. “Believe it.”

  Quinn considered what Pearl had said. For it to be true, Jody would have to be a damned good actress. And how could they know how good she was? She didn’t have a track record with them. “Maybe we should talk to her about it.”

  “She wouldn’t talk. Remember, she comes already lawyered up.”

  Quinn nudged half-eaten ravioli with his fork. “You should know,” he said. “You’re her mother.”

  Upstairs in her room, Jody read again some of the Enders and Coil files she’d pirated from the firm’s computers. She’d broken the encryption code easily, and was now trying to make sense of what she suspected.

  If it turned out to be true, what did it mean?

  “You’re gonna ruin your figure with this pizza,” Jorge, the kid from Mexitaliano, warned Mildred Dash.

  Jorge was nineteen and skinny enough that he’d never had to worry about eating too much pizza. The regular deliveryman when Mildred ordered food from the restaurant, Jorge had developed an obvious crush on the hermit-like Mildred, trapped as she was in her apartment.

  Mildred, acutely aware that she was almost old enough to be his—my God—grandmother, kept him at a polite distance. Not that he’d have nerve enough to make his feelings known.

  She paid him for the pizza, and the soda in its tall white foam cup with its plastic lid, along with a generous tip. He was, after all, one of her only lifelines to the outside world. Though she did sometimes leave the apartment, she always took great care not to be seen or followed. She didn’t put it past Meeding Properties to have her under almost constant observation.

  Jorge gave her a large smile and a lingering look at her ankles extending from beneath her long robe. “Thanks, Missus D.”

  “You’re welcome, Jorge. By the way, have you seen Cookie?”

  Cookie was Mildred’s large golden tabby, a cat she’d shared her life with for the past several years.

  “Ain’t seen him,” Jorge said. “But I’ll watch for him when I leave, bring him back to you if I see him.” The big smile again, meaningful. “Maybe there’ll be some kind of reward.”

  Jorge, Jorge ...

 
“He isn’t really lost, Jorge, just not home.” Mildred hoped that would throw cold water on Jorge’s naïve sexual ambitions.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him anyway. Anything for you, Missus D.”

  Mildred thanked him and watched him pocket the money and go out the door. She locked the door behind him, then went to the window overlooking the street in front.

  Jorge came into sight below, mounted his delivery bike, and pedaled away, weaving through construction and destruction debris. It was dusk, and she hoped he’d be clear of the vast and unlit deserted area before it became dark enough to be dangerous.

  She stood at the window for a while after Jorge was out of sight, looking for some sign of Cookie, telling herself not to worry, he was probably happily hunting mice or rats.

  It wasn’t like Cookie, though, not to appear this time of evening for his regular tuna-flavored meal.

  Mildred went to the kitchen and ran the electric can opener, just in case Cookie was hiding somewhere in the apartment. The sound of the opener was usually an irresistible invitation to dine.

  No cookie.

  She remembered that when she’d called for the pizza there had been a text message on her phone. She went to the phone and read the text.: “if u have a cat don’t put him out.”

  The anonymous message was from yesterday. Written in time but read too late.

  She waited. Hoping. A lump of worry in her throat.

  No Cookie.

  Just before midnight Mildred was awakened by footfalls and what sounded like muffled laughter out in the hall. Then something soft but not completely soft slammed into her door and thumped to the hall floor.

  She knew what it was. She worked the doorknob, opened the door a few inches, and looked out into the hall with the chain on to be sure. She returned to her bed and wept.

  47

  Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986

  The lost dog posters had brought no response. They faded in the sun and wrinkled in the rain and mists of mornings. Rory no longer felt a twinge of guilt when he walked or drove past them.

  In fact, the posters lifted his spirits now in an unexpected way. He knew logically that he’d done the right thing with Duffy the dog, so there were no longer twinges of regret. Now the posters reminded him of Sherri Klinger. Sometimes when he drove past them, he smiled.

  Rory suspected his mother knew he was sneaking off with the car when she was away, and sometimes even when she was in the house asleep. She was becoming worn down, and simply didn’t want to confront him again.

  He was driving better all the time, obeying traffic laws so he wouldn’t have a run-in with the law, parallel parking with greater skill so he no longer bumped up on the curb or dented cars in front of or behind him.

  She must know he was driving more frequently and becoming better at it. Or maybe his mother was looking the other way when he “borrowed” the car because she approved of him seeing Sherri Klinger.

  Yes, that was possible.

  Sherri was, in everybody’s estimation, a Nice Girl. Meaning she was possibly still a virgin. She would be good for Rory.

  Well, he went along with that.

  On the pretense of searching for Duffy, Rory would pick up Sherri at a prearranged spot—sometimes Creamery Curb Service, near the back, where people drinking soda or milkshakes in their cars were facing the other way and she wouldn’t be noticed getting in the car—and they would simply drive around, Sherri keeping an eye out for the lost Duffy, Rory pretending.

  They talked as they rode, getting to know each other better. After a while, Duffy was seldom mentioned, though they carried on the charade of searching for him.

  “Gas is expensive,” Rory told Sherri one day, as they were tooling along the county road in his mother’s Impala.

  Sherri laughed. “What is that, a news announcement?”

  Rory smiled and took a curve a little too fast. It was a nice sensation. “What I mean is, maybe we oughta park a while and search for Duffy on foot.”

  “That doesn’t sound very efficient.”

  “It’s getting harder and harder to keep the gas gauge off empty,” Rory said.

  “So you’re saying we don’t have much choice.”

  “My wallet’s saying it.”

  “You don’t have a credit card?”

  “I used one my mom gave me, but she confiscated it when it got up near a thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus, Rory! She’s got some nerve. I mean, it’s your card.”

  “It does have her name on it.”

  “So?”

  “Anyway, it’s a nice day for a walk.”

  Rory found a place where they could pull off the road and the trees were spaced out so they could drive the Impala into the woods just far enough so that it was invisible from the road. The underbrush might have scratched the paint on the side of the car, but not so much that Rory’s mom would notice. And if she did notice, she’d probably think she’d done it herself.

  Rory leaned over to work the door handle for Sherri just as she was leaning forward to grip it herself. Unexpectedly, they were close. This had to be more than coincidence. This was fate. They kissed. Then kissed harder, using their tongues.

  The kisses became more than kisses. And then became something wonderful.

  Afterward Rory folded his shirt so Sherri could sit on it and not get blood on the Impala’s seat.

  “What are we going to do now?” Sherri asked.

  “That,” Rory said. “Again.”

  They both laughed.

  “God, Rory!”

  “Nobody has to know,” he said.

  “In a way,” she said, “I want everybody to know.”

  He stared at her, horrified.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, and patted his knee.

  “We’re acting like an old married couple,” Rory said.

  She punched him hard in the side of the neck and then hugged him. They hugged each other, not wanting to let go. This was fine. This could be perfect. If no one would ever disturb them. Ever.

  Finally they pulled apart.

  “Ready to go back to the real world?” Rory asked.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “I’ll put the window down so it won’t look funny, me driving without a shirt.”

  “You are so devious.”

  “I guess we both have to be devious now,” he said.

  “Maybe everyone learns that sooner or later. It’s called growing up.”

  As he maneuvered the Chevy back out onto the road, Sherri was thinking how her mom and dad would wring her neck if they ever found out about this. She had already been taking birth control pills she’d gotten from Hattie, the school nurse, without anyone knowing.

  Rory noticed they weren’t far from where he’d killed and buried Duffy. Now here they were, him driving shirtless, and the untouchable Sherri Klinger sitting beside him with her wadded panties and his shirt under her bare rump so she wouldn’t get blood on his mom’s car.

  Some wide and wonderful world.

  Some future!

  “Want to stop at Creamery Curb Service and get some milkshakes?” he asked.

  “Rory!”

  48

  New York, the present

  They were driving in Quinn’s black Lincoln, on their way to pick up Sal and Harold. The sun was low and the shadows stark and angled. The day’s ferocious heat was hanging around with the remaining light, but the big car’s air conditioner kept the interior comfortably cool. Now and then a smattering of rain spotted the windshield, taunting with the notion that the brutal heat would be broken.

  Ordinarily Pearl would complain about the lingering cigar smoke smell in the car that meant Quinn had been puffing on one of his precious Cubans, but this evening she had things on her mind that made the cigar problem seem minor.

  “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it,” Pearl said. “Then I wonder if it’s not just me, but that’s the way it is—you can’t stand the obnoxious twerps, but you know if t
hey were gone you’d miss them so much it would hurt.”

  “You talking about Sal and Harold?” Quinn asked.

  “You know damned well I’m talking about Juditha Jane Jason,” Pearl said.

  He switched on the wipers. Switched them off. He was aware of her watching him as he drove. He hadn’t known Jody’s middle name was Jane, but he should have. But then, no one had told him. He kind of resented that.

  “You raised a daughter,” she said. “Being a parent? Is it like that?”

  Quinn thought about Lauri and smiled without realizing it. “Sometimes it’s tough. Other times it’s grand.”

  “You’re proud of Lauri. You love her and you’re proud of her. I can tell.”

  “I am,” Quinn said. “And sometimes she could drive me nuts, just like you know who.”

  They drove for a while without talking. Quinn cut off a cab at a gridlocked intersection and the driver yelled and cursed at him and made obscene gestures. Quinn ignored him. Sometimes, Pearl thought, he was like something made out of marble. But she knew his warm and beating heart, and part of his soul.

  “How do you feel about Jody?” she asked.

  He didn’t divert his gaze from the madness of Manhattan traffic. “I’m beginning to feel possessive.”

  Pearl scooted across the Lincoln’s big bench seat and snuggled up to him.

  He glared down at her. “Pearl, you’re a cop.”

  “Private,” she said. “Very private.”

  Jody stood in the lobby of Enders and Coil and looked through the tinted glass at a patch of sky. Even through the tinting, low-hanging dark clouds could be seen. Rain clouds. Or a tease? Probably it wouldn’t rain, but it might.

  She placed her purse on a nearby leather chair and put on the light raincoat she’d had the foresight to bring to work. She had stayed late, letting her penchant for romping through Enders and Coil’s up-to-date files and recent correspondence pass for hard work and ambition.

  There was a full-length mirror at the other end of the lobby, and she went and stood before it, making sure the coat, which had never fit her well, hung low enough to cover her skirt and didn’t look ridiculous.