by John Lutz
She began stealing glances behind her and caught just a glimpse of a figure quickly moving away on the periphery of her vision. After another block, she pretended to turn slightly and excuse herself for bumping into a man with a briefcase and saw the same sudden movement. This time whoever it was had ducked into a Duane Reade drugstore. A big one that Pearl knew had a downstairs, so it wouldn’t do to enter it and try to find whoever was tailing her. There might be fifty customers inside. She and her tail would simply be playing cat and mouse up and down the aisles.
She told herself not to get excited. Her shadower might simply be some guy who liked short women with black hair and big boobs. Easy enough to understand. But she was curious.
One way to find out.
She decided first to put him at ease and end any of his suspicions that he might have been spotted. Without once more checking to see if he was there, she abruptly went down the concrete steps to a subway stop. She joined a crowd of people hurrying toward the turnstiles. The air was unnaturally still and heavy, as if an underground thunderstorm were due. Maybe someday New York would have one. As an escalator carried her even deeper belowground, she could hear the mournful, echoing notes of someone playing a harmonica not very well.
Not bothering to look up or down the platform, she waited about five minutes, then boarded a train.
She emerged aboveground from another stop four blocks from Jill’s—and Jewel’s—apartment building and strolled toward it. The sun was bright on the tinted windows of traffic headed past her at a crawl going the opposite direction, painting reflections of the street and sidewalk. When a large truck hissed its air brakes and slowly passed, she angled her stride slightly, moving toward the curb, so the reflection in its big side window gave her a brief but panoramic view of the block behind her.
She glimpsed the reflection she thought she might.
You’re still there.
If some guy was following her simply because he liked her looks and was working up the nerve to approach her, he was going to a lot of trouble.
Not that I’m not worth it.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Great!
Quinn, maybe.
Pearl unobtrusively pulled the buzzing phone from her pocket and saw the number of Golden Sunset. She didn’t want to talk to her mother now. She slid the phone back in her pocket.
It continued to vibrate. Pause. Vibrate.
After eight or ten steps she knew the phone was going to drive her nuts. She was sure her mother would let it vibrate ninety times before giving up and breaking the connection. Pearl could set the phone to kick over to voice mail, but she knew her mother would simply call back, maybe ninety times.
Not breaking stride, she removed the phone from her pocket again and flipped it open.
“Hello, Mom.”
“Pearl?”
“Who else would it be? You just called me.”
“Really? I thought I’d dialed the number of my friend Mrs. Kahn.” Pearl knew this was a lie. Her mother pressed on: “Where were you, on the commode? Never mind. But speaking of Mrs. Kahn, how is your relationship going with her nephew Milton? I should say Doctor Milton Kahn. A girl could do worse—and here I know I get personal but why shouldn’t I with my only daughter—than marry a successful dermatologist. And judging by my conversations with Mrs. Kahn, the aunt, Milton, the nephew, is successful in ways monetary as well as professional. She said he spent his early years in practice doing charitable work—which bespeaks a good heart, though we both know he has that—but now has a thriving practice with patients who pay. Has marriage so much as come up in a conversational manner? I think enough time has passed since your first meeting together that it would at the very least have been at some time a topic of casual conversation.”
“Do I get a turn to talk?” Pearl asked.
“That’s what I’ve been asking you to do, dear. Tell me about the status of your relationship with Doctor Milton Kahn. Since it was I who, you might say, arranged—along with Mrs. Kahn, the aunt, of course—that you two lovebirds meet, I feel I have some right to ask the question. That is, about the status of your relationship in regards to matrimony.”
“I think Milt’s a nice guy. That’s where we’re at.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Well, it’s still true. Mom, I’m—”
“I’m inquiring about the relationship not so much on a platonic plane. Where has it progressed to on—and here I attempt delicacy—more of a physical plane? In a successful relationship the line between the platonic and the physical isn’t so noticeable as time and love work their—”
“Mom, I’m working.”
“Exactly my point, dear. Is that necessary? I mean, this pertains to my still unanswered question, wouldn’t you agree?”
“No.” Pearl thought shock therapy might work. “I’m being followed by a man with a gun.”
“Would it be likely in the slightest that the wife of Doctor Milton Kahn, renowned dermatologist, would even in this crazy world be followed by a man with a gun?”
“No,” Pearl had to admit. “But I’m not anyone’s wife, and I’m working, and you must understand that I don’t have time to talk.”
“People are judged by the time they take to—”
Pearl broke the connection and switched off the phone.
Still without a glance behind her, Pearl briskly took the steps of the apartment building’s entrance and pushed through the front door. There was no one in the outer lobby, no one in sight through the windowed door to the inner lobby that would show anyone about to exit the building.
She counted to five slowly, then spun on her heel and burst back out through the door and down the two concrete steps onto the sidewalk.
And came face-to-face with Ed Greeve.
45
Pearl hadn’t seen Greeve in over a year, but recognized him immediately. He hadn’t changed. Same narrow, stooped build; same black suit; same lugubrious expression. A born mortician who’d somehow become a cop. She knew his nickname, “The Ghost,” and felt briefly proud that she’d been able to spot him on her tail.
He was puffing slightly as if he’d been running and had just skidded to a stop. She moved in close to him, catching a whiff of cheap cologne that reminded her of formaldehyde.
“Why are you following me?” She almost snarled the question.
Greeve didn’t change expression, but he backed away a step. “I just happened to see you on the street a few blocks back and wanted to say hello. You’re a fast walker. I tried to catch up without breaking into a run.”
Pearl gave him a vicious grin that made it perfectly clear she knew he was talking bullshit.
That seemed to be okay with Greeve. There was no way for her to know for sure if he’d been deliberately tailing her. Certainly no way to prove it. He wasn’t about to let this pint-sized pit bull take charge here.
He smiled and motioned toward the building. “So who lives in there?”
“A friend.”
“Jill Clark?”
Pearl understood Greeve was letting her know that he’d followed her before, and that she was being observed. Trying to make her lose her temper so he could get on top in the conversation.
She didn’t bite. “Yes. Jill’s an old friend. If she’s home, you can meet her.” Letting Greeve know Jill wasn’t home, or she wouldn’t have extended the invitation.
He gave her his undertaker’s smile—someday you’ll be mine—and made a motion as if tipping his hat. “Thanks anyway. Maybe some other time.”
“I don’t want to catch you following me again,” Pearl said.
“You won’t.”
He walked away without saying good-bye.
Pearl went back inside the building and became Jewel. She rode the elevator up to the eighth floor and her half-assed, barely habitable apartment.
The first thing she wanted to do was call Quinn, but almost as soon as she’d shut the door her cell phone began to buzz and v
ibrate in her pocket.
She took it out, flipped it open, and saw the phone number of Golden Sunset. Her mother again.
She tossed the phone, unanswered, onto the cot and then crossed the room to the landline phone.
Picked up the receiver.
Lowered it back in its cradle.
If Greeve, and by extension Wes Nobbler, knew that Jill Clark lived in the building, they might also know Pearl was staying there as Jewel. The line to this apartment might be tapped.
Probably not, but maybe.
Pearl returned to the cell phone on the cot.
It was wedged between the blankets and had stopped vibrating.
Quickly she snatched it up and pecked out Quinn’s number. If her mother called again, she’d get a busy signal.
Maybe she’d even think Pearl was busy.
Ruth stopped believing anything they told her as the big Chrysler slowly pulled in beneath the steel overhead door that was still rumbling open above them, like thunder portending a storm.
As the car braked to an abrupt stop, the lean but muscular arm of the woman in the backseat snaked around Ruth’s neck, and Vlad leaned over and held her arms pinned to her sides. Behind the car, the door was already clanking and rattling closed. The outside light faded with its descent.
The arm around Ruth’s neck tightened, making her attempted scream a strangled screech no louder than the cawing of a crow. As Ruth fought for breath, she thought she could hear and feel the cartilage in her throat cracking.
There was an increasing pressure in her head, as if her skull were full of expanding gas, and the dimness of wherever they were became total blackness as suddenly as if someone had yanked down a shade.
Ruth gained consciousness before she opened her eyes.
Think!
She realized she was breathing through her nose. Her lips felt bruised. She explored with the tip of her tongue, wedging it between her lips with effort. Something tacky, some kind of tape, had been fastened across her mouth. She tried to move her hands, but could only wriggle her fingers. Her arms were bent behind her back, her forearms tightly taped together and immovable. Tight seemed to be the operative word.
There was the certain knowledge without memory that time had passed, and she’d missed it.
Think!
Memory rushed in. Her mind quickly put together the pieces of what had happened since she’d gotten in the big dark car.
Ruth began to panic but quickly brought herself under control. She might be a costume designer now, but there was a time when she’d been a soldier, when she’d learned to organize and do difficult things right. She’d served in the U.S. Army in Kuwait, as a sergeant in a supply depot. She hadn’t seen action but she might have, and now her training took over. It was as if she were five years younger, thinking as she had back then. This was a tough spot; that was for damned sure. But she kept her head.
Don’t panic. Assess your situation. Plan.
Here was the situation: Supply Sergeant Ruth Malpass was lying nude on her stomach on a flat metal surface, her feet off the ground. Has to be the car’s hood. It was still warm, bare flesh against heated, ticking steel. Legs not bound. I can still kick.
Plan!
While you’re planning, act!
But when she attempted to kick, she realized how widely her legs were parted. Her calves and feet flailed frantically, contacting nothing but air. She couldn’t put her legs together.
She stopped kicking and moved her legs slightly in a soft pincers motion to feel the obstruction. Someone was standing between her thighs, up close to her crotch so her knees were far apart.
She lay still then with her eyes closed, thinking her leg movement might be taken as automatic reaction to being bound and gagged. Her captors might assume she was still unconscious.
“She’s awake,” a man’s voice said immediately. Vlad.
Bastard Vlad.
There was no sense in playing possum now. They knew she’d regained consciousness.
Ruth opened her eyes.
She was in a basement garage of some sort. As soon as she saw it, she could smell it, the faint scent of oil and gasoline. She had a headache and was squinting. She couldn’t see the source of the light, but it was harsh and shone from above, probably from bare fixtures. There were stark shadows along the walls.
Don’t give up! Plan!
Her neck was twisted and she was being held fast against the car so her left cheek was splayed against the hood. She saw the woman who’d been in the car—Vlad’s sister, Ivana—walk around the hood of the car. Heard something that might be soft plastic rustling beneath her feet with each step.
Something on the floor. Covering it.
Supply Sergeant Malpass could find nothing there that might be used to her advantage. But she could guess the waterproof plastic sheet’s purpose. Her captors wanted to contain any mess they might make.
Ivana was nude, her breasts small and pointed, her ribs prominent. Her black hair was still combed severely back into a tight bun. Her dark eyes still burned. She was holding something with both hands. A mop? A broom? She reminded Ruth of a witch—the narrow, hard features; the black hair and intense eyes; the broom. An evil witch.
She raised the broomstick and Ruth saw that she was wearing white rubber gloves. When she held the broomstick still higher, Ruth saw that it wasn’t as long as she’d assumed. It might have once been attached to a broom, but it had been sawed off well above the bristles. It was about three feet long, and sharpened to a fine point.
“I wanted you to see this,” the woman said, grinning as she had when Ruth first saw her in the car.
Ruth felt the bulk of the figure between her legs move in tighter, felt strong hands on her knees, the thumbs digging into the soft, sensitive flesh behind them, pressing harder and painfully, causing her to go limp as he forced her thighs further and further apart. Then her left leg was pinned tight against the car by the heavy weight of a body, and the powerful hand released its unnecessary grip on that knee.
The witch moved back around the car, out of sight behind Ruth, and Ruth felt more hands on the backs of her legs, up high, higher, forcing her buttocks apart.
“Are you still with us, sweetheart?” the witch who called herself Ivana asked.
“She’s more conscious than she’s ever been,” Vlad said calmly.
“We’ll do this very slowly,” the witch said.
Ruth made a final, frantic, and futile effort to break free. Vlad laughed, bearing his weight down on her hard so she grunted in pain and stopped struggling.
She knew now that all the planning in the world wouldn’t change a thing. She surrendered entirely. All she wanted now was for this to please be over. It was the end of plans. Everything ended sometime. Everything. This must end soon.
It must!
She screamed over and over soundlessly into the thick layers of duct tape, praying for unconsciousness and oblivion, a refuge from an agony she’d have thought impossible. It was there, almost within reach. She could sense it. A vast blackness without pain or dread knowledge.
“I brought smelling salts,” she heard the witch say in a faraway voice.
“You plan for everything,” her brother said.
46
“It happened two days ago,” Linda said. “That’s about as close to a time of death as we’re going to get.”
They were in Quinn’s bed, sated by good food, good wine, and good sex. Quinn was lying on his back looking up at Linda, who was sitting propped on her pillow, which she’d wedged against the headboard. He knew she’d deliberately waited before telling him this. He understood and was glad, because he thought he knew where it was going and it figured to make him mad as hell.
Linda had just told him about a woman found dead in a landfill outside Newark, New Jersey. Found pretty much by luck, actually, because a bulldozer operator happened to notice a human foot protruding from the dozer’s scoop as he was about to drop a load into a valley of varied tr
ash that would soon be filled over with earth.
“Let me guess,” Quinn said. “Wes Nobbler got this from the Newark police and is keeping it secret for now.”
“Good guess. Nift hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, either. But they’ll both have to soon, even though their position is that the dead woman’s simply another homicide victim and has nothing to do with the Torso Murders.”
“If she was found in Newark, how come we have her body here in New York?” Quinn asked.
“Nift and Nobbler pushed hard, told Newark there’s a possible tie-in with the Torso Murders.”
“And Newark’s keeping this quiet.”
“For now. Nobody wants to screw up catching this guy.”
“But that’s exactly what Nobbler and Nift are doing.”
“I agree. But that wouldn’t be their spin.”
Quinn felt his anger rise. “They’re going to get away with this shit?”
“For a while,” Linda said. She seemed to have given this a lot of thought and become resigned to it. “It seems there’s only one thing that links this one to the Torso Murders. She died of massive internal bleeding from injuries caused by the insertion of a sharpened broomstick stake.”
“Quite a link, I’d say.”
“Yes and no.”
“Renz isn’t aware of any of this?”
“He knows about the homicide victim. Not about the broomstick.” Linda reached over for her warm can of Diet Pepsi. It was leaving a damp ring on a magazine lying on the table on her side of the bed. She took a long swig, made a face, and put the can back down. “More importantly, he doesn’t know what they found out yesterday, that the broomstick’s the same kind used in most of the Torso Murders. Nift is keeping it from his media mistress, too, but he’ll have to tell her soon or she’ll know he stalled on it. He wouldn’t want to get Cindy Sellers pissed off at him.”
“For damned sure.” Quinn found himself again longing for a cigar. Here, in his own bedroom, smoking one wasn’t even remotely possible. Women and cigars. “No bullet wounds in this one?”