Mister X fq-5

by John Lutz

  “Hamsters, I think you mean,” Mishkin said.

  “Hamsters,” Vitali agreed.

  “I feel like a rat sometimes,” Mishkin said.

  “She seems to have disappeared,” Fedderman said. He was standing up and putting on his suit coat, preparing to leave the office.

  “Our shadow woman?” Quinn asked. He’d just come from meeting with Harley Renz in the Campbell Apartment bar in Grand Central Station, where they’d had some of the best martinis in the city and Quinn had brought the police commissioner up to date on the investigation.

  “Our client,” Fedderman said. “I wanted to pump her for some other names. Common acquaintances she and her twin might have had. Been trying to call her all day on her cell.”

  Quinn realized Chrissie had never let him know where she was staying. Her cell phone was the only way to contact her, and now it appeared she’d rabbited again.

  But why?

  “Her cell’s turned off,” Fedderman said.

  Quinn nodded and went over and sat behind his desk. “We’ve got a client not to be trusted, Feds.”

  “Yeah. Whaddya think her game is?”

  “A different one from the one we’re playing.”

  “Like chess and checkers.”

  “We need to make sure we’re chess,” Quinn said.

  “Anything else going for today?” Fedderman asked.

  “No. Go on home and get some rest. Or go see a movie or Broadway play.”

  Fedderman looked off to the left, as if calling on his memory. “I haven’t seen a Broadway show since Cats.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “One good song, but I can’t remember it.” Fedderman waved a good-bye, his shirt cuff flapping like a flag, and went out onto West Seventy-ninth Street.

  Quinn watched him-tall, disjointed, with a head-bowed, lurching kind of walk-pass the window along with the steady stream of pedestrians trudging home from work. Fedderman always seemed to be pondering. Probably he always was.

  Quinn settled back in his desk chair and got a Cuban cigar from the humidor in the bottom left drawer.

  He fired up the cigar and sat for a while smoking, knowing that tomorrow morning Pearl would probably bitch about the lingering tobacco scent.

  He pondered for quite a while himself, searching his memory, but he never was able to recall the one good song.

  33

  When Quinn got to his apartment he found that he wasn’t tired. Too much adrenaline in his blood. Too much coffee. And probably the cigars didn’t help.

  He stayed away from both as he went to his den, sat behind his desk. He couldn’t help noticing that the apartment was stuffy and smelled like cigar smoke. May would raise hell if she still lived here. So would Pearl. Women didn’t seem to like cigars. Was there some Freudian reason?

  Freud would probably say so.

  Quinn got his legal pad from the shallow middle drawer.

  He read over and thought about what he had so far: Tiffany Keller years ago, last victim of the Carver. Her twin, Chrissie, wins the Triple Monkey whatever slot-machine jackpot and finds herself suddenly moderately wealthy. Decides to use the money to find sister’s killer. Or, more accurately, to avenge sister’s death. NYPD demonstrates no interest in reopening the case. Chrissie, after pretending to be Tiffany’s ghost to get attention, finally admits who she is and hires Q. amp; Assoc. to find the Carver. After paying a handsome retainer, Chrissie disappears. Pearl notices Chrissie deleted any and all photographs of Tiffany from news items in the folder she left with Quinn. Photos on the Internet reveal that Chrissie and Tiffany looked nothing alike. Renz phones and tries to warn Q amp;A off the case.

  Then there was the notation that Chrissie was not to be trusted. Well, nothing had changed there.

  The next entry on the legal pad read: Maureen Sanders found dead, wounds unlike those made by the Carver, too shallow, silver spoon in mouth, like Carver’s sick humor. Carver, but older so more hesitant? Mary Bakehouse attacked before Maureen Sanders. Carver frightened away? Chooses more helpless victim Sanders? Chrissie still missing. Carver victim?

  Quinn noticed as he had the last time he’d used the pad that there were too many question marks.

  He picked up a pen from the desk and added on the legal pad: Renz tries to shut down case. Q. calls Cindy Sellers to help pressure Renz to continue investigation and so info flows both directions. Chrissie returns. (Brown eyes now blue-used contacts to look more like Tiffany.) Shadow woman almost caught in Mary B. apt. bldg. (Trust no one.)

  That was about it, Quinn thought, putting the pad back in the desk drawer. He wasn’t sure whether to call it progress or additional frustration.

  He went into the kitchen and poured himself two fingers of Famous Grouse scotch in a water glass, added some ice cubes.

  Then he went in to watch television. A French movie was on PBS. Quinn was partial to French movies. You never knew what direction they were going to take. So like life.

  “You should move in with me,” Yancy said to Pearl.

  “We hardly know each other.”

  “We know each other superficially, and that’s the best way.”

  They were having breakfast in his kitchen. Pearl had made cheese omelets. She had a lacy but functional apron tied around her waist. Yancy had wanted her to wear it and only it, but she’d demurred and gotten dressed in slacks and a knit pullover before donning the apron. She hadn’t felt so domestic in years.

  “I mean,” Yancy continued, “you’re spending your nights and parts of your days here anyway, so why shouldn’t you throw some clothes in a suitcase and stay here with me?” He was showered and fully dressed in shirt and tie, looking at her as if all he saw on her was the apron. Theater of the mind.

  She took a bite of omelet and chewed for a while, letting him think she was mulling over his proposition. “It isn’t so simple, Yancy.”

  “So bring some furniture.”

  “I don’t mean that. It’s the���”

  “What? Appearances?”

  “No, I don’t give a rat’s ass about appearances. I’m talking about how it’d be between you and me.”

  “It’d be the way it is now, only more of it.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be exactly the way it is now. We’d soon become���a couple.”

  He smiled handsomely at her with his refreshing blankness. “Yeah, I can count.”

  “What you’re proposing is something like a marriage. In fact, if we lived that way long enough it’d become a common-law marriage.”

  He forked in more omelet, then swallowed and took a sip of coffee. “A legal technicality.”

  “I’m not cut out for marriage of any kind.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. You’re a hell of a good cook. And you look terrific in that apron.”

  “Ugh! See, you’re trying to domesticate me already.”

  “Like a wild mare in a corral,” he said.

  Horse analogies while I’m wearing an apron like June Cleaver? What the hell does he mean by that?

  This was the kind of thing that could be a problem. While Yancy was ostensibly transparent, there were times when he thought in ways that baffled her. Or was that simply a complicated way of saying he was devious and a skilled liar?

  Pearl warned herself: Don’t make a two-sided problem six-sided. For that matter, don’t create a problem where there’s no problem at all.

  An amused comprehension glowed in his blue eyes. “Do you think I’m too old for you?”

  “No. You don’t seem too old for anybody.”

  “Maybe you don’t like the white hair,” he said.

  “It’s more the dark roots.”

  “I explained why I-”

  “Yeah, but it seems dishonest.”

  He seemed mildly surprised. “It’s not dishonest. Not even illegal, immoral or fattening. It’s simply me, slightly altered for convenience.”

  “But you seem to alter almost everything for your convenience.”
r />   “Why not, if it’s convenient?”

  She smiled to temper any insult. “To tell you the truth, darling, everything you say is subject to doubt.”

  “That kind of consistency is hard to find in a man. Anyway, truth is an amorphous concept.”

  “You do tell the kind of lies I like. Practical lies.”

  “So move in with me. We’ll tell the neighbors we’re siblings. Let them think we’re doing unspeakable things to each other.”

  Yuk! Yet Pearl had to admit there was something about such a charade that tickled her perverse side. Not the notion of sibling sex-that was absolutely repugnant. But its very repugnance made it kind of appealing as a pretend way to put one over on the neighbors. Yes, horrifying the neighbors could be fun.

  No, no, no!

  But for a moment the devil in her mind had considered it. That was the sort of thing that made her uneasy about being so close to Yancy. He seemed to understand her entire spectrum of emotions, and he could play it as if it were a harp. That made her feel vulnerable. Floating a sister-brother illicit relationship rumor as a diversion while simply living together. Quinn would never suggest such a sick thing, even jokingly.

  Serious, obsessive Quinn.

  It struck her again: Maybe Yancy’s appeal was that he was so unlike Quinn.

  So what’s wrong with that?

  “If it would make you feel better,” Yancy said, “we could tell people we’ve been married twenty years. Even have families out there from previous marriages. And in-laws. Though I don’t have any of either.”

  More lies.

  “Do you have any family in the area?” he asked.

  Pearl hesitated. But why lie like Yancy?

  “Just my mother,” she said. “In New Jersey.”

  “No kidding? I’d like to meet her. You know what they say, if you’re going to pretend to be married to a woman, you should meet her mother.”

  “No,” Pearl said, “you shouldn’t.”

  “So think about my offer,” Yancy said.

  “This is me thinking,” Pearl said. She stood up from her chair and began clearing the table, even though there were a few remaining bites of omelet on Yancy’s plate. “I’ve gotta get outta here and go to work.”

  Yancy sat back and crossed his arms, watching her and grinning lewdly.

  “That apron!” he said. “There’s something about a really sexy woman wearing an apron.”

  “Try thinking of something else.”

  “Washing the dishes bare-breasted?”

  “Don’t ever do that in front of me,” Pearl said.

  34

  Renz had finally relented and agreed to talk to the woman. Now he wasn’t sorry.

  Her name was Adelaide Price, and she was from Detroit. In several letters to Renz she’d explained how she’d been attacked six years ago by a masked assailant. She’d fought her way free and crawled from her apartment into the hall. Her attacker had followed and dragged her back. Then, for some unexplained reason-possibly fearing she’d been seen in the hall-he broke off the assault and ran.

  She’d turned the attack into an opportunity. After a locally bestselling book, degrees in psychology and criminal justice, and a series of media appearances, she’d become a frequent guest on Detroit TV as an expert on crime and criminals. Her fame had lasted more than fifteen minutes. She was good for ratings and someone to be taken seriously.

  Now she was badgering Renz for an assignment as profiler in the reopened Carver investigation. Not only was she personally politicking for the job, she’d enlisted the help of several prominent people in Detroit who might know several prominent people in New York. That got Renz’s attention.

  Finally he’d agreed to see her for a number of reasons, not the least of which were her references. Her freelance work as a crime psychologist and profiler had led to several arrests and convictions in Detroit, and a Captain Mark Drucker had given Adelaide Price the highest of recommendations. So high that Renz suspected that Drucker, an old friend of Renz’s who was a notorious womanizer, had an intensely personal reason for helping Adelaide Price. That was okay with Renz. He owed Drucker a favor, and in the world of Renz and Drucker, favors owed and paid were the currency of the realm.

  And here she was.

  Adelaide Price was surprisingly attractive, in her thirties, tall, with honey blond hair, brown eyes somehow made to appear blue with violet eye shadow, and full red lips. Her build was slender but athletic, and she had long, shapely legs that showed well in the short brown skirt she wore.

  Renz smiled at her, and she smiled back. If Drucker had gotten into her pants, Renz could understand his motivation.

  “We need to be honest with each other,” he said.

  She nodded and gave him a glance with her brown-blue eyes. She knew how to use those eyes so she seemed to be gazing up at Renz even though they were seated on the same level.

  “Honesty above all,” she said.

  Renz thought that was just what someone dishonest would say. He decided to give her a taste of honesty to see how she’d react.

  “Okay,” Renz said. “My understanding from people I’ve talked to in Detroit is that you are an ambitious, hard-driving bitch.”

  “That’s pretty much true,” Adelaide Price said. “And my friends call me Addie.”

  Her sexy, throaty voice reminded him of someone he couldn’t quite place.

  “We’re not friends yet,” he said, “but I’ll make it Addie. You can call me Commissioner Renz.”

  Adelaide-Addie-appeared unmoved by his snub. “My reason for wanting this assignment is due to my ambition,” she said. “It does run strong in me. I never saw wanting to get ahead as a crime. Or a liability.”

  “It’s an asset,” Renz said, recognizing her as one of his own. “So in terms less general than mere ambition, tell me why you want this assignment.”

  “I don’t consider ambition mere, but I get your point. Vengeance figures into it, too.”

  “You think it was the Carver who attacked you in Detroit?”

  “It might have been, the way he displayed a knife, waved it around. There had been another woman attacked that way in Detroit, maybe by the same man. He was scared away that time, too. But in all honesty, it’s mostly ambition that prompted me to politick for this assignment. I think there could be a book in this. I’ve already talked to an agent who’d be interested in handling it.”

  A book���Renz had never considered that. A book about his exploits, his rapid climb from patrolman to the top of the NYPD. Maybe he should consider trying to get an agent, a book contract. He could always find some schmuck to write the thing.

  “This sicko who attacked you and this other woman,” he said, “if it was the same guy. He was never apprehended?”

  “‘Fraid not.”

  She uncrossed, then recrossed her long legs. The swishing sound of nylon on nylon was almost enough to give Renz an erection.

  “I think you could use me,” she said.

  My God, yes!

  Renz’s reaction didn’t show on his saggy features, but he was sure Addie Price was aware of her effect on men.

  “Now that you understand me,” she said, “why don’t you give me a better idea of what to expect if I am assigned to the case?”

  Now they were down to it. Trading this for that. The quid pro quo. Renz’s favorite part. Renz’s world.

  “You could expect to report to me and only me,” he said. “And secretly.”

  “I would be your unofficial undercover operative.”

  “Unofficial is what you need to remember. But let’s not forget confidential. This part of our conversation never took place.”

  The way she smiled and nodded, he could tell she was used to this kind of conniving and in fact enjoyed it. The way he did. He wondered if they might have even more in common than he’d first thought. Who could predict where their relationship might lead? Perhaps it was possible to have a soul mate even without a soul.

  �
��I already have two NYPD detectives working with Quinn and his team,” he said to her legs. “They’re supposed to report to me the way I’d want you to report.”

  “And do they?”

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “You don’t trust them?”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Renz raised his gaze to meet her eyes. “Frank Quinn can be a very persuasive guy. People tend to fall in behind him. Also, he’s not the kind of man you cross. Even hardened cops like my detectives might be afraid to get sideways of him. He locks on to his target like a radar-guided missile fueled by obsession, and he doesn’t always operate strictly within the law.”

  “Is that why you hired Quinn?”

  “Yeah. He and I understand each other, go way back.”

  “Boys’ club.”

  “Sure.”

  Renz suddenly realized who her voice reminded him of-the young Lauren Bacall, vamping it up with Bogie. She was making Renz feel as if he were in a movie. Nice feeling.

  They looked at each other for a long moment. Renz’s heartbeat quickened.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” Addie Price said.

  Soul mates. “Yeah, there is. There’s another reason I can trust my two guys on the case-Vitali and Mishkin-only so far. It’s because I’ve moved up in the NYPD and become police commissioner. I’m seen mostly as a politician now, and not so much as a cop. My blood doesn’t run completely blue, so I’m no longer a member of the club. Not to guys like Vitali and Mishkin, anyway.”

  “They good cops?”

  “The best. Same way with Quinn and his team. They can be a pain in the ass, even to each other, but they get the job done.”

  “Any of them bendable?”

  “No. They’re all dead honest.”

  “Good. That makes them predictable.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Renz said. “Honest isn’t always legal.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting Quinn, if I’m hired.”

  “You’re hired,” Renz said. “Same terms as Quinn and his team. They’re working out of Quinn’s agency over on West Seventy-ninth Street.”

  “I know where it is.”

  Renz gave her his hound-dog smile. “I’ll bet you do. I’ll call Quinn today and tell him you’re part of the team. Don’t be surprised if they don’t welcome you like a long-lost family member.”