by John Lutz
When Elaine Pratt was gone, he sat for a while and thought about Jody Jason, and whether she could be a fit at Enders and Coil. She was hamstrung so much by idealism. But then, that was the condition of so many bright young people. Sooner or later, they learned. And the sooner the better.
Idealism, he mused, was the bane of his existence.
He swiveled in his chair and looked out the window. Whatever clouds there’d been had fled, and the sky was a soft, unbroken blue.
A perfect day for flying, he thought. When he was in the air, things on the ground seemed so much more patterned and controllable.
More and more, he enjoyed flying.
28
Q uinn was going to stay late at Q amp;A. Pearl left the office by herself.
The evening was pleasantly cool and she was walking to the brownstone. There was leftover pizza in the fridge there, along with diet soda and the makings of a salad. Also, she was sure there was an unopened bottle of blush wine. That could be enough for them tonight, unless Quinn wanted a late supper out.
Pearl had crossed Amsterdam when she noticed the woman again. She didn’t have on the yellow dress this evening. Instead she was in jeans and a blue blouse. Pearl caught a glimpse of springy red hair poking out from beneath a blue baseball cap. Changing her appearance so Pearl wouldn’t recognize her. Pathetic. The way the woman stopped and turned away with feigned casualness to look into a show window where real estate flyers were taped to the glass was so obvious. There was no doubt in Pearl’s mind that the woman was on her tail.
Pearl picked up her pace, which was easy to do because her blood was up. She crossed the street, walked in the opposite direction, went in one door of a store, and out another. The woman stayed with her. She was either an amateur with a gift for being sticky, or she wanted Pearl to know she was back there like a persistent shadow. That last possibility bothered Pearl. It was the kind of game the killer might play, openly stalking his prey, instilling a fear that could eventually grow potent enough to paralyze.
Was Pearl amusing herself by leading her shadow on a merry chase, or was her shadow the one controlling the game?
Either way, Pearl had had about enough of this being-followed business.
Dusk had enveloped the city, but there was still enough light for the woman to see her. Pearl didn’t glance back as she turned down a side street. There was very little traffic there, and only a few people on the street. Half a block down, Pearl slipped into a narrow walkway between two gray stone apartment buildings.
The woman behind her would figure her to pick up speed once around the corner, and if the narrow passageway went through, to dash to the next block and finally shake herself free. The smart thing for the woman to do was to run to the corner and cut to the next block, rather than pursue Pearl into a possible ambush. Or try to get close enough so she could follow her through the passageway.
Pearl stopped a few feet into the passageway and stood still, pressed against a brick wall. Beyond her she could see a chain-link fence and some stacked plastic trash bags. She couldn’t get through to the next block if she had to. Was she the one who’d been outsmarted?
She fished into her small leather strap purse and pulled out her nine-millimeter Glock.
She waited, gun at the ready. You never knew what might come around a corner.
The rapid tapping of what sounded like flapping leather sandals sounded faintly on the pavement, drawing nearer.
Pearl waited.
The footfalls ceased, nearby. She could hear rapid breathing.
Waited silently…
The woman rounded the corner, said, “Huh!” as Pearl lowered a shoulder and went into her hard, knocking her back against the brick wall. She braced her left forearm against the woman’s throat and pointed the Glock at her head so she could see it. The woman was all high-pitched breaths that were almost shrieks. Impossibly round blue eyes. Her blue baseball cap fell off, a Mets cap. Pearl kicked it away in disdain.
“Turn your ass around,” Pearl said, as she withdrew slightly and spun the woman so she was facing the wall. She made her place her hands high and wide against the wall and then with a series of short, abrupt kicks moved the woman’s feet back and apart so she was braced at an angle against the wall and couldn’t make a sudden move.
“Why are you following me?” Pearl asked.
“I wasn’t.”
“Bullshit!” Pearl grabbed a handful of springy red hair and held it. “You’ve been behind me for blocks, crossing every street I crossed, turning every corner I turned.”
“You say.”
“Damned right I say. You were wearing a yellow dress yesterday.”
“Wasn’t.” Angry now, like a petulant teenager.
“ Was.”
“I don’t own a yellow dress.” The woman started to push herself away from the wall to get more comfortable. Pearl tightened her grip on her hair and shoved her back into position, hard. “Knock off that stuff!” the woman said. “I’ll report you.”
“ You’ll report me? I’m going to place you under arrest for harassing a police officer.”
“I want to talk to my mother.”
“You get one phone call.”
“What’s your number?”
29
“B ullshit!” Pearl said.
“You keep saying that,” the woman told her.
Pearl no longer had the young woman with the springy red hair up against the wall and was pacing, fast, three steps each way, breathing hard and glaring at the woman. She wished her heart would stop hammering.
The woman bent down and retrieved her Mets cap that Pearl had knocked off her head and then kicked. She dusted it off on her thigh, then put it on perfectly straight and tucked strands of unruly hair beneath it.
“Cody’s girl,” the woman said calmly, staring straight at Pearl from beneath the cap’s curved brim.
The past came rushing at Pearl and hit her like a wall. She’d been twenty, pregnant, and in love with Cody Clarke, who studied music at NYU and supported himself playing saxophone in night spots around the city.
Cody Clarke. The first one. Jesus!
Pearl’s mother had warned her not to try living on her own in New York. Warned her about this very thing. How could Pearl have gone home to New Jersey and told her what happened? That she’d made the biggest, most blundering mistake possible?
Pearl could see Cody now in the clarity of time, sitting in his underwear on the mattress laid out on the floor, the covers bunched around him, his wild red hair a jumble of curls. The roach-infested apartment’s ancient radiator was hissing and spitting. Why am I remembering that?
“We can’t get married, babe,” he’d told her.
“That wasn’t in my mind,” she’d lied. She went to him, sat down next to him on the mattress, and they hugged each other.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Don’t ask me that. Of course I’m sure.”
“You been-”
“To a doctor? Yeah. He confirmed it.”
“I know another doctor,” Cody said.
“Don’t even think about that.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Breezy Cody. “I gotta leave next week for California. The tour with the guys.” The guys were Happy, Joey, and Tex. Happy played the drums, Tex the bass guitar. Joey played about everything. They were all mediocre musicians except for Cody, who could play saxophone like a wild man. Cody was the glue and the draw. He had to go to California.
“So go,” Pearl said. “Don’t let me interfere with your plans. You’re not gonna interfere with mine.”
He looked at her almost as if he loved her. “What are your plans, babe?”
“Adoption.”
He squeezed her. “That could be hard on you. I know a girl who
…”
“What?”
“Never mind. Are you gonna tell your mom about this?”
“I won’t have to. She’ll know. But we’ll never talk about it. She doesn’t
want to disown me.”
“God, Pearl!”
“I’m gonna have the baby, Cody. Don’t try talking me out of it.”
“I wouldn’t do that. It’s your choice.”
“You don’t have to worry.”
“About what?”
“Child support, whatever. I’m gonna put it up for adoption. Not even gonna look at it.”
“You might change your mind about that,” Cody had said.
But she didn’t. The next week she saw him and the guys off to California in the beat-to-hell Volkswagen bus they’d found somewhere. Somebody had painted yellow stars all over the thing. She could see it now. And hear it. And feel the tug of the parting. Cody…
“Pearl?” The woman’s voice. Her daughter’s. The bittersweet past was gone.
“Yeah?”
“You do believe me, don’t you?”
I believe you. I dreamed about you. I searched for you during the first few years of your life. When I look at you, every part of me believes you.
“Yeah. I think so. How’d you find me?”
“I’ve been looking for you off and on. Finally came across you on the Internet. ’Least I thought it was you. It seemed like you. Then I saw you on campus with that other cop.”
“Quinn.”
“Whatever. I figured you were investigating the Macy Collins murder. So I asked around. Learned it was you. I decided to find and follow you.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity, I guess.”
“You been curious about your father?”
“Not for a while. He died fifteen years ago in a nightclub fire in Holland, along with a dozen other people. He was there playing music. I never met him.”
Pearl wasn’t prepared for the way her heart dropped. She began to sweat and felt dizzy.
“You okay?” the woman asked.
Pearl straightened up. I’m not okay. You dropped a nuclear bomb on me. I feel sick. “Yeah. Listen, what’s your name?”
“Juditha Jason. People call me Jody.”
“Juditha…?”
“I think somebody wrote my name down with a flourish.”
“And you’re a student at Waycliffe?”
“Studying law.” She grinned. “You find ’em, I put ’em away.”
“Lame,” Pearl said, dabbing perspiration off her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Yeah.”
“Er, Jody? Your time growing up? I mean…”
Jody smiled. Pearl saw Cody and almost keeled over. “It was good. I loved the Jasons. They loved me.” The smile widened. “You did right by me. The right thing.”
“Are they…?”
“Both gone now. Mom of breast cancer two years ago. Dad had a stroke six months later.”
Mom… Dad… Would Pearl ever get her mind around this? “I’m sorry, Jody.”
Jody gave a sad smile. “Thanks. And thanks for giving me my time with them.”
Pearl took a deep breath and felt better, as if she’d been carrying around a weight most of her life and it had been lifted, though in truth she’d outlived the guilt she’d felt for putting Jody up for adoption. Yet here, along with surprise and joy was-not guilt, but something like guilt. She hadn’t even seen her daughter before the Jason family had obtained her. Of course Pearl hadn’t known their names. Or her baby’s. Nobody knew anybody then. The agency wanted to keep it that way. It had made sense to Pearl then. Still did.
For a few seconds she felt a deep anger directed at Jody. Then it passed. What had the girl done other than grow up well and search for her mother and father? She’d found her father. At least his memory.
And now… what? Could all this… disruption… be true?
Pearl looked hard at Jody, who grinned and shrugged her shoulders to great effect but without much movement. The way Pearl shrugged her shoulders.
“We need to talk,” Jody said.
“One of us was bound to say that.”
“It figured I’d be the one.”
“I know a quiet place near here,” Pearl said.
She touched Jody’s elbow lightly to lead her out of the passageway, and found that she couldn’t release the elbow. She couldn’t. Her legs were numb and weak. Jody could feel her trembling and moved closer to support her. The two women hugged, and both began to sob.
God, Pearl hated this!
30
D eena was skating fast with a tray full of food. Hamburgers, mostly. The famous (so the restaurant claimed) Roller Burger. There were two beers on the tray, a small egg cream, and two orders of fried onion rings. She didn’t see Rolf, one of the busboys, with his tray full of plates and stacked cups, speeding toward the kitchen.
“Hey!” a man at one of the tables yelled, seeing the imminent collision.
Both Deena and Rolf turned their heads to look at him, which is why they collided with such force.
Deena was sure she’d blacked out for a moment. Her back hurt, just below her shoulder blades. And her head was throbbing. When she opened her eyes she was looking up at one of the slowly revolving ceiling fans. There was also a circle of faces above her, staring at her. Most of the faces wore concerned expressions. She caught two of the men and one of the women obviously enjoying her pain and embarrassment.
That was when she felt the real pain. Her right ankle sent spasms of agony up her leg.
“Could be sprained,” she heard a man’s voice say.
“It’s not sprained,” Deena said. If she could get upright, the pain might go away. She might not lose her job. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t hurt.”
“It’s gotta hurt, Deena,” her boss said, though she couldn’t see him.
“Gimme a chance!”
Hands reached for her, levitated her, and set her on her skates.
And the pain did go away. Her ankle felt numb, though. One by one the hands removed themselves from her arms and shoulders.
She stood still for a moment, and then attempted to take a step.
Pain ran like electricity up her leg and she heard herself scream. She landed hard on her ass and sat leaning back on her elbows. The woman who’d been enjoying her pain was grinning at her now.
I’ll remember you, bitch.
“Call nine-one-one,” Deena heard her boss tell someone.
“Hey! What about me? I’m hurt, too.” It was Rolf, the busboy. Deena looked over at him. He was lying among a mass of broken plates and cups, but she knew he wasn’t really hurt. He was making a joke of it.
“If we saw bone sticking out of your leg like Deena’s,” a woman said, “we’d take you more seriously.”
Deena’s stomach lurched. She looked down at her ankle. Looked away.
And passed out.
31
P earl was still in shock.
She finished cleaning up after dinner, which took about five minutes. She fed what was left of the reheated pizza to the garbage disposal, resealed the plastic bag of pre-washed salad ingredients and placed it in the refrigerator, then dropped the paper plates and beer and soda cans into the trash. A quick wipe-off of the table with a damp dishcloth, and she was finished. This was the way to eat and clean up afterward, second only to dining out and letting someone else clean up the mess.
Quinn, seated on the sofa, could see into the kitchen and watched her curiously. She was moving like an automaton, with no wasted motion. On automatic.
Pearl had been quiet during dinner, thoughtful. He wondered what was occupying her mind. He knew something was. He also knew this was the time to hold his silence. If Pearl wanted to talk something out, she’d get around to it.
She came into the living room and sat down in a gray wing chair, curling her legs under her. Light from the streetlight in front of the brownstone filtered through the sheer curtains and softened her pale features, darkened her black hair and eyes. She was observing him now, weighing what she was going to say. He wondered if he was going to like hearing it.
“I met my daughter tonight,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You heard me.”
Well, he thought. Well…
“Quinn?”
“But did I hear you right?”
She smiled with a new wisdom. “Yeah, you did. Want me to tell you about her?”
“Maybe later.”
A widening of her eyes. Then the familiar smile. “You bastard!”
He listened intently, not moving a muscle, as she told him about Juditha Jason who was called Jody, about Cody Clarke and the pregnancy and adoption. About the Jason family, who had loved Jody and had been loved by her.
Luck, Quinn thought. It sounds like the kid was lucky.
“I was seventeen, Quinn. I didn’t know myself or the world. All I’ve known all these years is that my baby was a girl.”
Quinn didn’t know what to think. What to say. Other than, “It’s all right, Pearl.”
“Gee, thank you.”
“I mean… well, it’s great, I guess. This Juditha-”
“Jody.” Pearl swallowed. “Jesus, Quinn. She’s really something.”
Forces Quinn didn’t quite understand were at work here. He knew he’d have to come to grips with this and was working on it. Pearl a mother. The father, her long-ago lover, dead. Her daughter, a twenty-two-year-old girl-woman-was here in New York.
Pearl, a mother…
Pearl must have seen the consternation on his face. “You two’ll get along fine,” she said. “I know it!”
“When am I going to meet her?”
Pearl shot a look at her watch.
The intercom rasped. Someone downstairs in the foyer.
“That would be Jody,” Pearl said, and got up to go buzz her daughter in.
Quinn thought, Holy Christ!
“I don’t understand it,” Fedderman said to his wife, Penny. But he did understand. He’d just hoped it wouldn’t happen to them.
“I see you go out in the morning, and all day I keep wondering if I’m ever going to see you again.”
Fedderman nodded. Like so many other cops’ wives. “You knew I was a policeman, Pen. Hell, I’m not even actually that now. I’m a private investigator.”