“The cops ain’t smart enough to hold me,” Ace said tiredly.
“You really do them bitches, Ace?” Ivan asked.
“They deserved it,” Ace said.
“I got a question,” Super Hooper said.The cue ball smacked into the 12 ball, which careened toward the side pocket but bounced off the cushion short of its destination. “Shit. Why didn’t you fuck them chicks?”
Ace didn’t like Super Hooper’s tone of disbelief. “I didn’t feel like it.”
“Hell, Supe,” Ivan said. “Ace here don’t need to hold a gun to a chick’s head to get her bod. Chicks swarm over our man, Ace. Ain’t that right, Ace?”
Ace wasn’t too fond of Ivan’s tone, either. “Where’s Big John?” No one answered.
Ivan sank the eight ball. “You owe me twenty big ones, Supe.”
“Lucky fucker,” Super Hooper said as he peeled off a bill. “Hey, Ace, you got any dough on you these days?”
“Lots, man.Why?”
“Care for a game?”
“Can’t, man. Gotta keep moving. Cops after me.”
Ivan laughed. “You’re a dangerous dude to be around, Ace.”
“Nobody’s after you, asshole. I got forty bucks says you can’t take me in eight ball,” Super Hooper said.
“Well —”
Big John lumbered out of the back. “That was your voice I heard. Can’t you stay out of this fucking town?” Everybody in the place laughed. “You look like shit.”
“Big John, you heard any word on my mother? Last I heard —” Big John used to be a customer of his mother.
“Oh, her,” Big John said. “Who keeps track? Didn’t she O.D. on booze in Florida somewhere? Who keeps track?”
“Yeah, well, I figured maybe —”
“You got a phone call,” Big John said.
“It’s the cops,” Ivan said with a laugh.
“Guy name of Jackie Why,” Big John said. “From New York. Says somebody told him you used to hang here. The phone’s in my office. You can talk to him, but you better fucking not steal so much as a paper clip or I’ll have your ass.”
Ace’s tongue played over his lips. “Jackie Why? I ain’t here. Tell him I ain’t here.”
“I already told him you’re here, Ace,” Big John said. “You saying you don’t want to talk to the gentleman?”
Ace hobbled out the door into the hard, cold judgment of the rain. His ankle burned. He didn’t see the puddles and his feet soon were drenched.
Jimmy Conlon kept flipping through his notes and checking out Chip’s crowded office, which lay behind glass at the edge of the newsroom. Laird was busy on the phone regaling a pal about some mutual acquaintance. At last, the group that had been meeting around Chip’s desk got up and left. Jimmy dashed for the office.
“Chip, I got a great tip.”
Chip regarded him with the twisted expression that lay between disgust and disbelief. “Does this have to do with the West Side Crisis Center, by any chance?”
“Absolutely. My source with the cops —”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Chip said. “Sit down, please.” He closed the door with the grim efficiency of an executioner.
“About what?” Jimmy asked, taking a chair.
Chip took his place behind his desk. His seat was several inches higher than Jimmy’s. “We got a very disturbing call from an official at the crisis center concerning your behavior.”
“What?”
“This official, Nita Bergstrom, said you threatened to drag the crisis center’s name through the mud unless you went out with her. Is that true?”
“Are you kidding?” Jimmy looked wildly about him, jaw agape like a beached fish. “That’s bullshit.”
“She sounded very rational. A bit upset, perhaps, but I was astounded to hear what she had to say.”
“Me, too.You believe her?”
“The matter merits examination,” Chip said.
“Christ almighty,” Jimmy exclaimed. “You believe this woman you’ve never met over a member of your own staff?”
“I’m not saying I believe her or not. Simply that you no longer can work this story until a determination has been arrived at. Are we clear on this?”
Jimmy tried to see some compassion in his cast-iron face. “Jesus, you take the prize.What about my tip?”
“Tell Laird. Maybe he’ll follow up.”
“Tell Laird,” Jimmy mimicked. “His social life is a little too busy for him to follow up a blessed thing.”
Chip made a dismissing motion with his hand. “I’d love to chat. But I have work to do.”
“That sucks,” Dave said. “Those bastards.”
“I suppose I can’t help you,” Jimmy said into his beer. The after-work crush at McSorley’s packed in people next to
their stools.The din was deafening.
“Maybe you have, anyway. I bet you’ve shaken up the crisis center
some. They might be more open now with at least the prospect of a
bad story in the paper about them. They have no means of knowing
that the paper won’t run it.”
“I’m not that confident,” Jimmy said. “She’s a devilishly clever
one, that Bergstrom. And you know what’s funny? As good looking as
she is, I wouldn’t go out with her for a jillion dollars.That would be a
date straight out of hell.”
“She’s like a god around the crisis center,” Dave said. “Those people seem to enjoy being manipulated by her. Especially Megan. It’s scary, really.”
“Date with Megan tonight, right?”
“Yep. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking the time to see her now, with everything heating up. But — she’s special. Say, I better get going. I need to feed the cat, then clean up.This date is important. I want it to go right.” Dave flopped some money on the bar.
Jimmy made him take it back. “This one’s on me. Tell Megan to say hi to Nita for me, okay?” After his friend had left, Jimmy remembered that he had wanted to tell Dave about the gun that Nita carried in her bag.
FIFTEEN
Jimmy took a long walk home in the evening rain. People scurried past to their safe, warm places. Jimmy’s hat did a fairly good job protecting his head, but the rain had begun to seep through his raincoat. He didn’t care.Then a taxi zoomed close to the curb and doused him with gutter water.
“You fucker,” Jimmy called out to the cab as it disappeared down the block. He put every ounce of his anger at the day and at his life into the curse.
The rain came down harder, ricocheting off the pavement, turning the world into an aquarium. Jimmy got a pizza on the corner beside his building and hurried upstairs before the rain could eat away the cardboard box. He peeled off his clothes, got into some dry togs, then opened the box. It wasn’t what he had ordered — peppers, not pepperoni — yet it would have to do. He sat down to his lonely meal, and he discovered he wasn’t hungry. As the cheese congealed on the pizza, he pondered what to do with his wrecked career. He loved journalism. He was good at it. No one, though, would let him practice it right.
The phone trilled.
“Yes.”
“I have some news for you,” a woman’s voice said. Muffled. Almost recognizable.
“Like what?”
“About the Ladykiller,” she said.
“What is it?” Jimmy, as a newspaper reporter, talked to call-in
nuts a lot.They seldom phoned his home.
“I can tell you who he is.”
“Give me a clue.” Jimmy fingered the cold pizza.
“He doesn’t have anything to do with the West Side Crisis
Center.”
“How do you know I think that?”
She paused. “I have sources in the police department.” “I’d love to talk to you, lady. But I’m tired. So unless you get real
specific, real fast —“
“Meet me outside your building. I can show you his picture. I
have it with me. Him and his .45.”
The woman sounded authoritative, not crazy. Still . . . “It’s
raining outside, lady. Can’t you mail it to me?”
“The killer has targeted another victim. He’s going to strike
tonight. I know the killer.”
Now Jimmy paused. “You know him?”
There was a stifled laugh. “I’ve known him all my life.” “Why does he do it?” Jimmy asked.
“To help—” She stopped herself. “Meet me outside your building.Walk toward Lexington Avenue.” She hung up.
Jimmy didn’t even consider not going. He grabbed his notepad
and a yellow rain slicker, which would do a better job than his soaked
raincoat. He scratched a few notes in the pad as he went down the
stairs.
The rain on the street was even more intense, drumming the
sidewalk in cold, wild abandon. The living had fled indoors. Jimmy
hunched over and trudged toward Lexington, hard drops peppering
his face.
Midway down the block, a figure in a poncho and a low-pulled
hat stepped out in front of him, materializing out of a doorway in the
long brick wall of a school building. Across the street loomed the dark
shape of a church. Jimmy, the native New Yorker, was suddenly aware
that no apartment windows overlooked them.
“Thanks for coming.” It was a woman, dressed in jeans. Jimmy
recognized the voice.
He squinted at her in the rain and dark. “Ms. Bergstrom?” “I had to meet you,” she shouted over the wind. “Did you tell any
one about my .45?”
“No. Why? Do you carry it because you know who the killer is?
Do you feel you’re in danger?” Jimmy already had his notebook out
and was about five questions into the interview in his head. Jimmy was
a pro even in bad weather.
Her leather-gloved hands, folded into her poncho, emerged
gripping the gun. And she pointed it at Jimmy in the rain. At first, Jimmy didn’t understand. “What’s that? What are you
doing?”
“Kneel down,” she commanded. “Now.”
The fear surged up Jimmy’s spine. But he had been in tight spots
before. “Fuck you, lady.” He turned around and headed back to his
apartment.
“Stop,” she cried.
Jimmy broke to the right and dodged between two parked cars
into the street. Nita fired and missed. She raced after him. As Jimmy
sprinted across the empty asphalt, she fired again and grazed his shoulder. He yelped and almost tripped. That earned her several yards.
Jimmy skipped between the parked cars on the street’s far side. Nita’s
third shot punched through his right bicep. He spun around and fell to
the wet sidewalk.
Nita, watching him, tripped on the curb and herself fell hard to
the pavement. Jimmy, jangled by pain and shock, scrambled to his feet. Disoriented, he saw the church and fell again onto its hard steps.
He struggled to climb up the long steps to sanctuary on his hands and
knees. His pain-clouded mind had the idea that if he could get to the
top of the church steps, he would live.
Nita, drenched and panting painfully, came after him. Her gun
bobbed as she aimed at his heaving back in its yellow slicker. This
wasn’t going to be a Ladykiller slaying. No neat shot through the right
side of the brain. Just an ordinary street murder for Jimmy Conlon. As she targeted between his shoulder blades, Jimmy suddenly
turned over on the stairs. “You bitch,” he sobbed.
She readjusted her aim at his chest.Then he launched himself off the stairs and charged her, howling. She pulled the trigger and his momentum slowed for an instant as the bullet tore through him. His body hit her with considerable force.They fell in a tangle on the side
walk, him on top of her.
Nita’s last shot had hit him in the neck, piercing an artery, and
jets of hot blood splashed over her face, into her eyes and mouth. She
gagged, pushing frantically at his weight. He was twitching now,
writhing spasmotically.
She finally climbed out from under him. She retched violently,
yet nothing came up. He continued to jerk beside her, dying. The .45 lay a foot from her. She grabbed it and put the barrel
against his left ear. His brains splattered out the other side of his head,
and the hard rainfall sluiced them toward the gutter. Nita had the
presence of mind to feel his pockets for a wallet.Thankfully, she found
one. Robbery.
Weaving down the sidewalk, numb with shock, she let the rain
wash her bare, blood-sticky head. Then her mind cleared and she remembered something. Something important.
She forced herself to retrace her steps. She went back to the
body in front of the church.
Her hat lay crumpled on the steps. She picked up what would
have been a superb piece of police evidence and jammed it on her
head, hoping it would disguise the blood in her hair. At the corner she
reached down to the dirty water rushing into a storm drain and
splashed a handful on her face.Though shivering, she walked the endless blocks to home. It was taking a chance to go into her building, yet
she met no one on the stairs.
Once inside, Nita bolted for the bathroom. Blood was all over
her jacket, gloves, and skin.The rain had washed away some of it. But
it still streaked her face and clung greasily to her twisted hair. Blood
had stained her teeth a garish red. She looked like a warrior, direct
from hell.
She had never been in such physical danger before. Even with Billy
Ray, she had felt sure her wits were a match for him. No one had ever
attacked her with the crazy momentum of Jimmy Conlon’s desperate leap at her on the church steps. It was a new sensation and she had hated it. Now, her elation returned. She had won. Covered with his blood, Nita laughed hysterically for several minutes before she threw up.
Dave and Megan sat down to dinner as the rain thrummed against the restaurant window. “I haven’t told Nita I’m with you tonight,” she said. As if to reward herself for candor, she took a long drink of wine.
“Good,” he said. Then, with a sly smile, “Seems Nita doesn’t exactly like me.”
Megan found herself smiling back. “No, she doesn’t.”
They shared a laugh, the kind where they locked wide, hungry eyes. The talk flowed more easily from there. About their childhoods and parents and the types of people they liked and disliked. In fascination, they quizzed each other about their interests, what they valued. The answers delighted them, made them laugh for no reason. Their knees bumped beneath the table.Their hands drifted together.
Once more, as the meal ended, their mutual destination was unspoken. He excused himself for a moment to call in. He had memorized Megan’s address and phone number, gave them as his next location — the gospel according to Mancuso. Defying the relentless rain, fortune provided a taxi for them in front of the restaurant. In the cab, they kissed in heat, their tongues exploring each other’s mouths.
Inside the welcoming warmth of Megan’s apartment, they didn’t bother with lights or talk. They tugged off each other’s clothes. Dave picked up Megan and carried her to the bed. She brushed the stuffed animals onto the floor and drew him needfully into her arms.
“Slow, slow, slow,” she gasped.
“Yes, yes.”
He entered her with agonizing, exquisite slowness. With each hard, hot inch, she cried out. Her thighs squeezed his hips.
At last, Megan eagerly locked her legs around him.
The pounding on her front door almost matched their rhythm. It took Megan a minute to realize it was not the pounding of her heart. Then she heard the shouting.
“Dave? You in there? Dave? Miss Morrison? This is the police.” “Jamie?” Dave panted.
Megan moaned as he withdrew from her.
“Dave,” Jamie called from the other side of the door. “Bad news, Dave. Real bad.”
Jamie didn’t want to tell him.The car sped to the scene, siren shrieking as the watery colors of the rain-swept night reeled past. She kept her concentration on the driving. Images of Dave kissing Megan good night at her door — Megan with her hair every which way and her face puffy from interrupted lovemaking — replayed in Jamie’s mind. She thought of the anguish that awaited Dave ahead.
“It’s not my mother, right?” Dave said.
“No.”
“You don’t want to tell me, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Tell me.”
“This isn’t a Ladykiller case, Dave,” she said. “I just happened to
be around when the squeal came in.”
“Who is is it, Jamie?” He asked with the mournful quality of one
who already knew.
She told him. Not daring to look at him, she told him. Dave made a small, gasping sound. And said no more. The siren blared its wolf song. The wipers slapped aside the
ceaseless wash of water that teared across the windshield. And Dave
said nothing.
“I was in New Jersey today,” Jamie said to fill in the painful silence. She related what she had discovered. “The numbers on Billy
Ray’s palm appear to be the phone number of the hotline at the West
Side Crisis Center.”
Dave still said nothing.
At the scene, Jimmy’s block, radio cars with their flashing red
strobes clogged the street. A couple of news vans had arrived already.
Even in the hard rain, a crowd was gathered outside the yellow tape. Forgetting to put on his hat or button up his raincoat, Dave
left the car and walked like a zombie through the rubberneckers. He didn’t show his badge as he ducked under the tape. A young cop
bellowed at him and grabbed his shoulders to shove him back. “It’s Detective Dillon, you asshole,” an older cop shouted, and
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