by John Lutz
Fedderman appeared puzzled. “Why Pearl in particular ?”
“Because he knows we’re living together,” Quinn said. “He sees Pearl as my possession and wants to show me he can take it away whenever he chooses.”
“Women as toys for the sadist,” Pearl said.
Fedderman sipped his coffee, which had become cool. “I dunno, Pearl. It could simply be that you’re his type and he wants you the way he wanted those other women. That’s what the pouch might signify—he’s objectifying you. You’re no more to him than another souvenir pouch.”
“Thanks,” Pearl said.
“Or some other kind of souvenir,” Helen said.
“No, he’s a breast man,” Fedderman said.
Pearl shot him a glance that would have stung a more sensitive person.
“The package was addressed to me,” Quinn reminded them.
“He wouldn’t send something valuable like that direct to a mere possession of yours,” Helen said.
“That might well be,” Quinn admitted. Once you figured out where Helen was coming from, she tended to make a lot of sense.
“Men!” Pearl said. “It’s always about you.”
“Helen’s the one that worked it out,” Fedderman said, “and she’s a woman.”
Pearl had no adequate response to that, but she wished now that she hadn’t fetched Helen’s coffee.
“Whatever is in this sicko’s mind,” Quinn said, “Pearl is in danger.”
“And she’s being followed,” Fedderman said.
“That one’s been worked out,” Pearl reminded him.
“That’s right,” Helen said. “Your daughter.” She smiled. “I’d like to meet her.”
“I’m sure you will someday,” Pearl said.
She wondered as she spoke, had Jody been active in any kind of sport?
51
This was odd, Renz thought.
Jim Tennyson, an undercover officer on the vice squad, had requested a private interview with him. Ordinarily Renz would have told him to go though the proper channels; scroungy undercover cops didn’t just call their way up the telephone ladder to Harriet Gibbs, Renz’s secretary, and have the unmitigated—or maybe it was mitigated—gall to leave a message asking for an appointment with the police commissioner. It was one word in Tennyson’s rambling message that caused all of Renz’s orifices to draw up: Olivia.
He’d granted Tennyson the interview.
Olivia’s name also prompted Renz to request Tennyson’s file and learn what he could about the undercover cop. These undercover guys could get too close to the goods sometimes and cause problems. Could, in fact, become the problem.
Tennyson had been in uniform for five years before becoming a plainclothes detective, then had almost immediately transferred to Vice and undercover work. He’d requested the transfer.
He’d used his gun once, winging a dealer who was waving his shotgun at the occupants of a crowded subway car. Renz thought about that. A close call, deciding to fire a shot in a crowded subway car. Turning loose one bullet to keep a scattering of deadly buckshot from being fired. Took some balls.
The shotgun had turned out to be empty. As far as Renz knew, Tennyson had had no way of knowing that. The review board had seen it the same way. Tennyson had not only been cleared by the board but had received a commendation.
Renz had to admit, the man’s record indicated he was a good cop. Still, those undercover guys ... especially the ones who’d infiltrated the drug world.
Here he was standing slouched in front of Renz’s desk, wearing a dirty sleeveless T-shirt lettered CRASH CAB, equally dirty jeans, and worn-out brown shoes tied with white laces. Renz noticed that the bows were double knots. The shoes wouldn’t let Tennyson down if he found himself on either end of a footrace. Renz saw that the UC wasn’t wearing socks, and his ankles were dirty. All in all, he looked like Robert De Niro playing a role.
“Nice disguise,” Renz said.
Tennyson smiled. A front tooth was missing. Probably only during working hours. “It gets me by.” He didn’t seem at all nervous, even though he was seriously outranked. That worried Renz.
Renz said, “What the hell do you want?”
Tennyson looked genuinely confused. “I don’t want anything.”
“You mentioned someone named Olive Krantz.”
“Olivia. I came across a conversation about her.”
What was this? Blackmail? Renz thought he’d get out ahead of it.
“Came across?”
“In an indirect but reliable way.”
“If you’re here to tell me Olivia’s a call girl, I already know that. And I know she’s damned good at her job.”
“She works for Prime Escorts,” Tennyson said.
“Right again. Now get to the point.”
“Word is she’s playing you.”
“We play together.”
“Different games, maybe.”
“You mentioned a word? Whose word?”
“I don’t know the source, and that’s the God’s truth.”
“Leave God out of this.” Renz leaned back in his desk chair and expanded his already bloated physique. He looked almost as dangerous as he was.
Tennyson’s bearing changed. He was a pro who could see a storm coming. Doubt had found its way in. Maybe he’d mishandled this.
“I’m not interested in any word from any drug fiend or psycho who doesn’t know shit about what he’s yammering,” Renz said. “Why should I be?”
“Olivia might be a fine person, sir. I don’t care squat what she does for a living. But she’s in the trade, so I came across her, and what she was doing. What was the source? Like I told you, I don’t know. But it might’ve been Olivia herself, when she was under the influence.”
“Influence? What trade we talking about?”
“Coke, heroin.”
Heroin! Jesus! Why did Tennyson have to come walking through that door?
“Olivia’s not a user.” Renz heard the hollow defensiveness of his own words.
Tennyson said nothing. His self-assurance had returned.
Renz deflated and sat forward again, his elbows on his desk. His stomach felt like rats were running in it. He didn’t look so threatening now. More threatened.
“I’m not wearing a wire,” Tennyson said.
“I know you’re not. I got a little thingamajig that detects those and electrocutes anyone coming in here wearing a wire.”
“Really?” It was impossible to know if Tennyson was asking a serious question. Toying with Renz now, the asshole.
“Of course.”
“Like I said,” Tennyson told him, “I only wanted to let you know. Avoid any possible trouble. It goes no further than me, whatever you decide to know or not know.”
“You gonna name a sum?”
“I don’t want a sum,” Tennyson said, almost angrily.
“But you wouldn’t mind an angel looking over you from the dizzying height of the police commissioner’s office.”
“Sure, I wouldn’t. Let’s be honest. I wouldn’t mind at all if promotions came to me a little easier. Or more fairly. I don’t want anything I haven’t earned.”
“And you think you’re earning something coming here to me with this bullshit?”
A thin smile ran across Tennyson’s lips. “I took a helluva chance.”
“You did,” Renz said.
“My good deed for the year.”
“Humph! Loyalty. That’s what you’re selling.”
“I don’t think you can put a price on loyalty.”
“And it should work both ways,” Renz said.
Tennyson nodded. “It’ll run both ways. If you want, I can see that nobody repeats the word, that nobody bothers this Olivia.”
“That’s Harry Primo’s job.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“So many of us are.” Renz stared hard at Tennyson, who seemed unperturbed. “You all done here?”
“That’s it.”
“Now leave.”
Tennyson took his time sauntering to the door, going out.
Renz thought, There’s a young copper with a bright future.
What exactly does he know? How much does he know?
How brief is that future ?
52
Crazy Legs. Weird.
Neeve hadn’t been crazy about this new manuscript, a biography of Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, when she’d picked it up from the editor at Hamilton Publishing. Who the hell is he? Neeve had wondered. It had sounded like the book’s subject was a gangster, like Legs Diamond.
But Crazy Legs hadn’t been a gangster. He’d been a football player, and a great one, known as Crazy Legs because he ran so wildly and unpredictably he was difficult to tackle. Neeve was a football fan, so how was it she’d never heard mention of Crazy Legs Hirsch? Well, people often ignored four-leaf clovers they were standing over.
Truth was, Neeve felt lucky. She’d really gotten into Overbite, and wound up enjoying it immensely. And now here she was back on her bench in the park and all wrapped up in Crazy Legs: Elusive Legend. Two good books in a row to copyedit. Life was at least okay.
She did wish Crazy Legs was on disk rather than paper, or had been sent to her electronically. Instead of using her computer, here Neeve was again lugging around a thick stack of twenty-weight copy paper.
Suddenly she realized she was chilled. Leaves rattled above her, and she looked up to see that the sky had darkened and a breeze was wafting through the park, swaying the foliage. Dark leaves silhouetted against the gathering gloom did their restricted dance in the wind. Off in the distance, a man and woman hurried side by side along the trail, in the direction of the exit onto Central Park West. The man had his arm around the woman’s waist. Neeve felt a pang of... what? Envy? Loneliness?
She pressed down on the manuscript in her lap, making sure none of the pages would be caught by the breeze, and looked up at the sky. Stars were becoming visible, and a pale moon was almost full. There were only a few wispy clouds, so the breeze was a bluff; it didn’t figure to rain.
Unhurried, she gathered up her things, sliding the thick manuscript into her computer case, along with pencil, eraser, sharpener, and a paperback Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary that she needed a magnifying glass to read.
She was about to stand up when a figure suddenly sat down beside her, and something was clamped over her mouth and nose.
Startled, she gasped and inhaled something that made her dizzy, and then relaxed, and then very, very sleepy.
Neeve opened her eyes.
Terrific! I’m in Central Park after dark.
None of that wondering where she was, or what had happened to her. Neeve almost instantly remembered exactly what had happened. Only it was much darker now, with shadows moving slightly on the grass of her near and low horizon. She had no idea how much time had passed.
Jesus! I’m twisted like a pretzel.
She was lying on her stomach, her wrists bound behind her, and apparently tied to her ankles that were drawn up close to her wrists and also tightly bound. Hog-tied. The awkward position put a terrible strain on her back, and her movements were restricted to none.
Neeve was breathing through her nose because something—it felt and tasted like tape—was fixed firmly over her mouth. Her lips were mashed open by the suddenness of what had happened. And there was the faint smell she’d experienced moments before passing out. Chloroform was her guess, though she’d never before smelled chloroform.
The way her body parts that touched each other felt, the subtle movement of air over her body, made her sure she was nude. No, she felt something. Her assailant hadn’t removed her panties.
A voice said, “Ups-a-daisy,” and warm hands were placed beneath her shoulders. She had no illusions that this was a rescuer. She was tilted back onto her knees, her spine still bowed, so that she was staring straight up at a full yellow moon visible between overhead branches.
The warm hands cupped her breasts, hefted them, and then released them. There was a darker dark above her that blotted out the stars. Movement. And then a hand held a knife before her eyes so she couldn’t help but stare at it. The hand rotated the blade deftly so it glinted silver in the moonlight.
“You know who I am?” a voice asked.
Neeve made a soft whimpering sound. She read the papers, watched the news. She understood who had her.
Her feet, her painfully bent legs, her brain, her soul, wanted to leap up and run. She heard herself grunting with effort that resulted in no movement other than a shuddering that ran through her body.
The hand without the knife patted her cheek fondly.
The pain began.
Quinn lay next to Pearl in the dim bedroom, aware of the subtle movement of her body as she breathed evenly in deep sleep. She was facing away from him, still nude after their lovemaking, covered lightly with the sheet as if in modesty. It was cool in the room, and the air conditioner had cycled off. The varied sounds of the sleeping city haunted the night, as well as nearer noises of the old brownstone.
Quinn often thought that if houses could indeed be haunted, New York’s brownstones of the 1800s would be among them. During the day he sometimes felt lonely in the looming old building, but at night he seemed somehow not to be alone even when Pearl wasn’t with him. Jody, upstairs, almost didn’t seem to count, so insulated was she by the thick walls and floors of the old brownstone.
Well, if there were ghosts about, there should be no reason to fear them. He might even thank them for the company.
Oddly comforted by that thought, he fell asleep.
A huge wasp was chasing him down a long dirt road, sometimes buzzing past him and circling again behind. The damned thing was as big as a bird, and its buzz sounded like a model airplane engine. Quinn lengthened his stride and ran faster than he thought possible. His heart was pounding.
Then he tripped and fell on the gravelly dirt road, skinning bare arms and elbows. And the harsh buzz of the wasp grew louder.
He scrambled to get up, knowing the wasp meant business now. Its droning didn’t vary; it was no longer circling. It was coming right at him. He forced himself to turn and look at it.
There it was on the bedside table, beyond it morning light piercing the edges of the blinds. He realized he was awake, but the damned wasp ...
His cell phone, set to vibrate, was buzzing and droning as it danced over the hard wood surface of the table, not falling to the floor only because it kept coming into contact with the lamp base.
The fright of Quinn’s dream dissipated. The clock radio’s glowing red numbers said it was a little past 6:00 AM.
Christ ... !
He was alone in the bed. Pearl must be up already, maybe in the kitchen. Quinn tried to wake up all the way, shook the numbness of sleep from his right arm, and reached for the buzzing, vibrating phone.
He grasped it, flipped the lid up, and silenced the damned thing.
His sleep-fogged eyes were too unfocused to make out who was calling, but he immediately recognized Renz’s voice.
“Time to get up, sleepyhead. Time for a walk in the park.”
53
The sun was barely up, shining through a low, glowing haze that lurked between tall buildings. Half a dozen steps outside the brownstone, and already Quinn’s shirt was sticking to him. When he got into the car, the leather upholstery felt comfortably cool on his back. For about five seconds.
Pearl got into the passenger seat and fanned herself with an old playbill from Catch Me If You Can. The humidity was going to be a bitch. Maybe Pearl was, too. The heat.
“It smells suspiciously like cigar smoke in here,” she said.
“Don’t start.”
“You talking to me, or the car?”
“Depends on which one of you gives me a lot of shit.”
They were both quiet the rest of the way. Neither of them liked where they were going.
Quinn and Pearl left Quinn
’s big Lincoln parked on Central Park West and entered the park on foot. Renz’s directions were easy to follow. Yellow crime tape was visible ahead and to the left, along with one of several uniformed cops posted to keep people away from the scene. It was something they’d realize in an instant that they’d rather not have seen.
Nift was already there, along with a police photographer and the crime scene unit. Renz stood back about twenty feet from all the activity, wearing an expensive blue suit that made his corpulent body look almost svelte. He was standing away because he was calmly smoking a cigar and didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene. The scent of the cigar immediately made Quinn want to smoke one. That sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. Not with Pearl within half a mile. He absently touched his shirt pocket, seeking a cigar, and found only a ballpoint pen.
“Sorry to rouse you two so early,” Renz said, winking at Pearl.
“We were already up and back from our morning jog,” Pearl lied.
Renz didn’t know if she was kidding. He looked confused for a moment and puffed on his cigar. Blew some smoke.
“Is it still legal to smoke in the park?” Quinn asked.
Renz shrugged. “Who the hell cares?” He motioned with his head toward whatever was on the ground and the center of attention just beyond the small rise of dew-damp grass.
Quinn squinted in that direction. “Who found her?”
“Pair of young lovers,” Renz said. “Or so they say. They might have been young muggers. One of them was carrying a sock full of marbles.”
“The girl have a weapon?”
“They were both girls. The one without the marbles let out a scream that attracted attention, so they slipped into the mode of good citizens.” Renz flicked his cigar, holding it well away so ashes wouldn’t drift onto his suit. “They’re at the precinct house making a statement. You can talk to them if you want, but they’re just who they say. I called there and neither one has a sheet. One’s an artist and one isn’t, and they both get money from mom or dad.”