Killing Critics

by Carol O'Connell

  Riker shook his head. “I don’t get it. Starr was a real moneymaker for Koozeman, wasn’t he? What you call a hot property?”

  “The hottest,” said Quinn, tasting the wine and approving it.

  “So why is he smiling?”

  “Well, he has an inventory of work. After Starr died, Koozeman raised the price two hundred percent. Of course he’s smiling.”

  And now, another man, slender and slow-footed, made a more ordinary entrance, not emerging from a wall, but by the more conventional front door. An escaped shock of light brown hair hung over one eye, and his tie had gone awry, but otherwise, his well-styled clothes put him in the same species as J. L. Quinn. He seemed to drift toward the coffin by accident. In a confusion of manners, he sighed at the little minister and waved to the corpse.

  Riker was watching the man and flipping through his notebook. “Should I know that guy?”

  “That’s Andrew Bliss,” said Quinn. “The art critic who wrote the review on Starr’s death.”

  “Not one of your favorite critics?” Riker made a note.

  “Actually, he writes very well, but he always waits until the other reviews are in, and then he goes whichever way the wind blows. That’s why his last column was so unusual.”

  Riker found the background sketch in his notebook. According to the bio, Andrew Bliss was forty-eight years old, but the detective was looking at the face of a boy. This illusion was helped by Bliss’s large blue eyes and full lips. Riker felt suddenly uncomfortable. Old children were wrong in the world.

  “And how did Mr. Bliss feel about the dead artist? Was he—”

  Conversation broke off as a gallery boy replenished Riker’s wine. He looked down at his glass, and Quinn graced him with a smile.

  “It’s because you’re with a critic. The boy won’t allow your glass to go even half-empty. He could be fired for that.”

  Riker stared into his wine and wondered how his own religion would square with the gallery philosophy, for he believed it was a sin to allow a glass to remain half-full.

  He looked back to the second row where Andrew Bliss was seated. And now Riker noticed that Bliss’s gray hairs were fast overtaking the light brown. As he stared at the man with the young face and the old hair, Riker noticed the reddened nose. Broken veins? The slackness of the jaw, the slow-moving eye which was not obscured by strands of hair, all were familiar signs he remembered from his own shaving mirror.

  So Andrew Bliss was a drunk.

  “How did Bliss and Starr get along?” He chugged back his wine, and in sidelong vision, he saw a gallery boy snap to attention.

  “Hard to say,” said Quinn. “I only saw them together one time. Andrew seemed a bit tense at the gallery opening.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were at the gallery that night.”

  “Ah, but you knew, didn’t you, Riker? I’m not exactly a low-profile guest at a function like that. And now you want to know if I was there when he died. Do you know the exact time of death?”

  “The jerk who screwed up the autopsy didn’t get the stomach contents. We know he was alive at seven-thirty, and the security guard found the body at ten-fifteen.”

  The gallery boy was back and weighting down Riker’s glass again.

  “I was there until eight o’clock,” said Quinn. “I never saw anything suspicious, unless you count the artwork.”

  Riker tipped back his glass, the sooner to forget Koozeman’s walk through the solid wall. He might need reading glasses, he would cop to that, but there was nothing wrong with his long-distance vision. And what about the myopic hundred guests at the Dean Starr show? “I still can’t believe Starr got stabbed in a room full of people and nobody saw it.”

  “Well, Koozeman’s patrons are a rather self-absorbed group,” said Quinn.

  The reporters were being led away from the feeding tables by Avril Koozeman. He was flanked by gallery boys holding wine bottles as lures. Bearing full glasses and paper plates filled to overflowing, the ladies and gentlemen of the news media settled into the remaining seats.

  One rowdy press photographer in the back row yelled, “Bring on the noise!”

  The minister cleared his throat, and tapped the microphone on the lectern.

  Riker was feeling the ten cups of coffee drunk before all the wine was slugged back. Seeing no signs with familiar men’s room symbols, he pressed his legs together as he leaned close to Quinn and whispered, “So where is the can?”

  The minister’s voice was amplified in volume, but carried little weight with the crowd as he began to speak over the babble of conversation. “I’m afraid I know very little about Mr. Starr. I’m told he’s only been an artist for a short time. I know nothing about his life before that. Perhaps I may call on others to help fill in the gap.”

  Riker’s 1-got-to-pee-or-die body language was escalating with the crossing and recrossing of his legs.

  Quinn inclined his head toward Riker. “Sorry?”

  “Where is the toilet?” Riker spoke with the slow careful enunciation of foreigners and drunks, and in a volume to be heard above the minister, who was making his second appeal.

  Quinn pointed to a hallway off the main room. “It’s that way, first door to your right.”

  Quinn turned back to the second row and nodded a greeting to Andrew Bliss. It was a courtesy of long acquaintance, but not friendship. He noticed that Bliss was not his usual twitchy self today. In fact, the man was so inebriated, it could only be inbred good manners that kept him from sliding to the floor.

  “Hey, Bliss,” called one of the reporters from the back row. “Loved the art terrorist column. How come you didn’t throw in the old Oren Watt murders?”

  Ever the chameleon, Bliss’s complexion changed from a rosy, sotted flush to a pale cast of clammy skin, perhaps the better to blend in with the dead man. Summoning a burst of energy, Bliss gathered up his raincoat and fled the gallery with unnatural speed.

  Now Quinn displayed that flicker of emotion that Riker had been hoping for in the restaurant.

  He resumed his mask and willed his mind to other things—the increasingly rowdy guests and the little minister, who solemnly shook his head, taking this afternoon’s entertainment far too seriously from Quinn’s point of view.

  A young woman entered the gallery and set off a flashbulb in the camera of a drunken, yet discriminating photographer in the bleachers. The light show spread across the rows in a chain of pops and blinding lights, accompanied by the music of low whistles.

  She was tall, and it took Quinn’s eyes a while to travel over all of her. The black leather running shoes were top-of-the-line. Though he could not see the back pocket of her jeans, he knew it would bear a designer’s name. A long black trench coat was draped over the shoulders of her blazer, which was cashmere, and her T-shirt was silk. He would bet his stock portfolio that her curls were styled in a Fifty-seventh Street salon, but not dyed there, for this was that most unusual creature, a natural blonde in the spectrum of burnished gold.

  In every other aspect of her, a lifetime’s experience in stereotyping humans had failed him. He could not hazard her occupation or her exact status in the world. All he knew for certain was that her eyes were green, and if it was true that one could read another’s soul by the eyes, this young woman didn’t have one.

  She sat down next to him. Her perfume was expensive and discreet.

  He knew they had never met; one did not forget such a face. Yet she was familiar.

  Riker was back from the men’s room and tugging on his sleeve. “Be careful of that one. She carries a big gun.”

  Quinn smiled indulgently.

  “Okay, watch this.” Riker leaned across his person to say, “Hey, Mallory. You got the paperwork on the stiff?”

  She reached into her blazer, which had an inside pocket. The garment was obviously tailor-made. Women who bought their clothes off the rack were denied such pockets. And now her upper body was turning toward him, her hand pulling out folded sheets
of paper, and he could see the large gun in her shoulder holster. She ignored him, passing the fold of papers across his body as though he were merely an inconveniently situated object.

  And now he placed her, but he had to travel back many years to do it. She was the child of Special Crimes Section.

  He had only seen her on a few occasions in Inspector Markowitz’s office. All those years ago, he had found it amazing to see a little girl moving in and out of discussions of murder. She had been stealthy, appearing suddenly, lighting by the desk to hand Inspector Markowitz a stack of printouts, and then off again, later returning to Markowitz to wheedle money for the candy machine. In passing, the child had glanced at the art critic, found him uninteresting, and passed on.

  “That’s my kid, ” the inspector had told him then, behind the child’s back and with obvious pride. Though Quinn later realized that pride was not in the child’s beauty but in the quick intelligence behind her glittering eyes. He then learned that the girl frequently came in after school to jump-start the glitch-ridden computer system for her foster father. Markowitz had not resisted the urge to brag.

  “Kathy can do anything with a computer, ” Markowitz had said. “This afternoon, she taught it to fetch the newspaper.”

  The proof of this was in the copy of a crime reporter’s column, a fresh spate of information leaked from NYPD. It contained a plethora of typos and misspellings and could only have come from the city editor’s personal computer. This had been part of Markowitz’s plea for special cooperation, for concealment and covert assistance. And so Quinn’s conspiracy with this policeman had begun over an illegal computer theft by the baby hacker, Kathy Mallory. The other documents she produced had led them down dark streets of utter madness and up steep inclines of theory. The child had been a prolific thief.

  “I was sorry to hear of Inspector Markowitz’s death,” he said to the young woman beside him. “I liked your father very much.”

  And this was true. Markowitz had been a man of deep grace and charm, undisguised by his excess poundage and a bad suit. When Quinn had read of the man’s death in the papers, he felt the planet diminish beneath his feet because this policeman was no longer among them. He could count on three fingers the people who had so affected him.

  “I believe I was of some assistance to your father. If I can help you, of course I will.” He handed her his card, and with it the unlisted number which was given out to few people in this world.

  “I’ll need to talk with Gregor Gilette,” she said. “You might be able to help with that. We can’t work the old case in the open, so you could prepare him for the interview, ask him to keep it quiet.”

  “That would be difficult. He spent so many years getting over his daughter’s death. He won’t want to deal with this again.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, because it’s going to happen. It’s all new again. I’m starting over.”

  Her speech patterns spoke of good schools beyond the salaries of most city employees. Whatever the cost and sacrifice, Markowitz had invested wisely in his foster child.

  Her tone of voice strictly defined who was in charge here. And when Quinn ventured the proper form of address, he learned that he was to call her, not Miss, not Ms., nor by her given name, but only Mallory, and he was not likely to forget that—ever.

  “It’s impossible to get an appointment with Gilette,” said Quinn. “He’s in the middle of preparations to unveil his new building. I might be able to manage a brief social meeting. He’ll be at a charity ball at the Plaza. My mother hosts that ball every year.”

  Even before she spoke, he realized he had been telling her what she already knew.

  “I’ve seen the guest list,” she said.

  “I could arrange an invitation.”

  “It’s been arranged.”

  Apparently, she didn’t really need him at all; that was made very clear as she turned her face away from his.

  “Mallory,” said Riker, “is the meat wagon out front?”

  She nodded. Riker walked across the room and placed the papers in Koozeman’s hand. When Quinn looked her way again, Mallory was staring at him. The long, slanted eyes were beautiful and unsettling. Her expression was inscrutable, though he did detect a kindred coldness there.

  “Riker tells me you’re hoping to tie Dean Starr to the old murder case.”

  “I won’t discuss that here.” She turned toward the coffin, dismissing him again.

  Neither of them noticed the reporter taking a seat behind them at that moment. A pen scribbled furiously behind their backs.

  Riker was back again, checking all the rows and asking, “Where did Andrew Bliss go?”

  “He left right after you went to the men’s room,” said Quinn. “The other children were teasing him about his column.”

  Suddenly he found himself sitting alone, watching Riker and Mallory moving across the wide floor toward the door. A reporter fell over his own feet to leave the bleachers and catch up to Mallory. He stepped into her path, and a second later, stumbled backward, though Quinn could swear she never touched the man.

  The place Mallory had occupied was now filled by the less attractive person of a reporter, a man with sparse hair, a wide girth and grinning nicotine-yellow teeth.

  “Mr. Quinn, would you say this death is a great loss to the art community?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. There are perhaps ninety thousand other hack artists in New York to fill the void.”

  “What’s your personal response to the death of Mr. Starr?”

  “One down and eighty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go. Is there anything else?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you think it’s a little odd they didn’t arrest Oren Watt?”

  Quinn’s posture was aloof, his expression slightly bored, but beneath the skin, where everyone’s innards were equally inelegant, was the sickening confusion of emotions tied to his niece and all her butchered body parts.

  Emma Sue Hollaran, head of the Public Works Committee, had pinned him to this appointment. Thus pinned like a butterfly, Andrew Bliss had been drinking steadily, wings astiffening throughout the day. Emma Sue, root of every bender, probably had no idea that he was drunk each time they met, for she never saw him in any better condition. She must believe he lay over every armchair as a second skin to the brocade, and that his eyes were always languid.

  Among the evolved humans, Andrew was too quick to be kept track of. His normal everyday eyes were rocketing pinballs, powered by manic energy. And when he was in the depressive stage, his eyes were dark crawling slugs. But tonight, he was merely in the bag and unfocussed.

  He stood up on wobbly legs and walked to the French windows, which opened onto the terrace. He inhaled the fresh air and eyed the near ledge.

  If she doesn’t shut up, I’ll jump.

  Ah, but they were only five flights up, and the fall might not kill him immediately. He abhorred messy scenes. He was trapped then, escape cut off—so scowling Emma Sue might have the pleasure of doing the same to his soft parts.

  She droned on in a testy nasal twang. Few of her words penetrated his skull. Only the tone was clear. She was pissed off.

  What is it this time?

  Did she hate his review of her pet artist of the month? And however did she get those boys into her bed? Who had so much ambition and such control of the flesh as to keep it from crawling off the bones when she touched him?

  There was one ugly drawback to being mercifully swacked out of his mind: his reaction time was poor. He was not quick enough to dodge the flying spittle as she stomped toward him.

  At some point in her fifty-one years, Emma Sue must have noticed that people would not come close to her, not within spitting range. He credited her alienation from all things human and good to this one tragic flaw. Even with her gift for self-delusion, how could she be unaware of it?

  The darker possibility was that she was aware of it.

  As a personal quirk, spit did have its fascination.
This woman was not a hairy biker, but a power broker in the art community, directing the funds of every architect’s budget to include the mandatory bit of sculpture which graced, or more frequently wrecked, each public plaza.

  Her most glaring visible flaws began with the ankles of a plow horse. From there up, she bore a family resemblance to a succession of other animals, despite years of cosmetic surgery. No reputable doctor would touch her, for the best of surgeons could not make a muzzle into a human-scale nose, nor could they enlarge upon the piglet eyes. And so she had been relegated to the hacks of Fifth Avenue, putting all her faith in a good address.

  She had the look of a jury-rigged job in the misalignment of her features. Deep chemical peels had tightened the skin of her face to expose the contours of fat deposits and bulging veins. The flesh was scarred and discolored beneath many coats of concealing makeup. And yet, with each new procedure, the magic mirror of her mind was telling her that she was becoming more beautiful.

  On the upside, her wardrobe was flawless—and here he complimented himself. It was his chore, as her personal advisor, to dress her properly, though not literally. Saliva was their only intimacy.

  Though her face was still puffy from her last surgery, her makeup was perfect, and kept perfect throughout the day, thanks to his scheduling of pit stops at the makeup counters of Bloomingdale’s. Now, out of habit, he checked her fingernails. Perhaps he should send her back to the shop for a nail wrap. It was always something, wasn’t it?

  What is she going on about now?

  Ah, the new artwork for the Gilette Plaza. So old Gregor hadn’t left her any room to sufficiently vandalize the plaza of his new building? Really? Brilliant man—the only architect in New York who’d found a way to foil her.

  All her verbal defecation was being sifted and sanitized through a gauze of alcohol. His thick wine stupor prevented her from knotting his insides while she damped his skin.