by John Lutz
Not that Marcy had to worry about the creeps. She belonged to someone already, even if she didn’t yet know it.
He would follow her up to the multicolored surface from the drab subway stop, then down the street to her apartment in the building with the dirty stone facade. Then he’d cross the street and find a spot where he could stand out of the flow of pedestrian traffic and watch the Grahams’ apartment windows.
He would see one or the other of them pass from time to time, fleeting movement behind glass panes. Glimpses into another world in which he was only a ghost and she its brightest inhabitant.
Only a few minutes, perhaps ten, would he stay there. Best not to attract undue attention. But it intrigued him that Marcy and her husband were unknowingly walking where he’d walked, touching what he’d touched, maybe sitting in a chair not long cooled from his own warmth. Living, breathing, touching themselves and each other. Being their private selves in the place he’d just left in order to follow her back to it. He didn’t shadow Marcy home from work so he could find out where she was going, but to observe her closely when she thought she was alone.
This evening was cooling down and comfortable. It wouldn’t be dark for several hours, so the apartment lights wouldn’t come on anytime soon. That was a shame, because he particularly wanted to see what would happen this evening between Marcy and Ron. After night fell was when watching was best, when Marcy and her husband moved behind the glass. When, if they happened to glance out, they could see only in—their own reflections and the reflection of their world.
When, even if by chance had they looked precisely in his direction, they couldn’t see him.
Color me invisible.
A uniform wanted to see him and only him. Captain Vince Egan was puzzled. It took a lot for a uniformed cop to skip the chain of command and confide in a captain. It meant trouble for the cop if he guessed wrong, and if what he had to say wasn’t deemed worthwhile.
Glancing with satisfaction around his paneled office, Egan understood why it took guts for a mere patrolman to approach him. There were framed photos of Egan with various NYPD elites, posed at banquets and various ceremonies with top New York pols. Among the career photos and commendations were a few shots of Egan with show business types, like the old black-and-white photograph of Egan with his arm slung around Tony Bennett, taken years ago in L.A., though Egan always said it was in San Francisco. And there was one in color with Egan chatting with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Bridget Fonda after a New York movie premiere a while back. Egan with Wayne Newton. All of these photographs were signed.
An impressive office. An impressive and important person must occupy it. Somebody you didn’t approach lightly with a shit piece of information or some whine about how the department was run.
Egan was getting tired of waiting. Who the fuck was this guy, and what did he want? And what would be his future after he said his piece and walked out of here?
This better not be about charity. Some kind of pet cause Egan couldn’t refuse to contribute money or time to without looking like an ass.
Like the time the guy swallowed his nervousness and asked Egan to make a public announcement about the abominable way chinchillas were treated on chinchilla ranches before they became coats.
What did Egan care about chinchillas? What the fuck actually was a chinchilla?
Egan glanced at his watch and wished again the guy would get here. He was already five minutes late, which was inconveniencing people. Like Doris, Egan’s uniformed secretary who called herself his assistant, who ordinarily would have left by now but was waiting in the outer office.
Doris, sitting straight as a soldier behind her desk as she always did, like she had a pole up her ass, maybe catching up on some word processing. Egan leaned back in his leather desk chair and thought about Doris. She wasn’t a beauty, and Egan didn’t usually mix business with fornication, but since her divorce six months ago, Doris was beginning to look more attractive to him. Sure, she was in her fifties, but she still had a shape, and if she wasn’t a blue-ribbon beauty, she wasn’t butt ugly. And there was another thing Egan liked about her: now more than ever, she needed to hold on to her job.
Egan smiled. Doris was highly ethical and acted around the office like she didn’t even have erogenous zones. But with hubby having left her for some younger cunt, she still might come around, like her predecessor. What some women will do to stay employed….
There was a familiar three-knock tattoo on the office door; then it opened halfway and Doris stepped into sight.
Was she wearing tighter uniform slacks since she’d become single? She was definitely getting grayer, Egan noticed, and thicker through the middle. Still…
“Patrolman Mercer is here, sir.”
Mercer. Damn it! He’d told Charlie Mercer not to come here unless it was important. Even now, four years later.
Egan felt suddenly uneasy. So, maybe it’s important.
He nodded and sat forward in his leather chair, using his right hand to push away some papers on his desk, as if he’d been busy contemplating them.
“Send Officer Mercer in, Doris.”
9
Marcy Graham couldn’t figure it out, and she wondered if she should even try.
There was the leather coat she’d tried on at Tambien’s, the one that had prompted the argument between Ron and that salesclerk who was trying so hard to work her; just doing his job, and Ron got all pissy. It was lying draped over the arm of the sofa, not carelessly but as if someone had carefully arranged it there so she’d see it when she came in. A nice surprise.
Marcy put down her purse on a lamp table and went to the coat, touched it, stroked it. The leather was so soft. That really was what had attracted her to it in the first place. She lifted a lapel, then an arm, and could find no sales tag.
She held up the coat at arm’s length and looked it over. There was no clue as to where it had come from. She slipped it on, thinking it felt as good as it had at the shop, and walked to the full-length mirror near the door.
Smiling at her reflection, she turned this way and that, almost all the way around, gazing back over her shoulder as if at a lover she was leaving.
She removed the coat and placed it back on the sofa arm. A gift from Ron? Most likely. In fact, that was the only possible explanation. He felt guilty about smarting off and almost blowing up in Tambien’s, and he wanted to make it up to her. It wouldn’t be unlike him. He had a temper, but he could be sweet.
She stood with her hands on her hips, staring at the coat. Now, how should she react? What would Ron expect when he walked in the door? Should she leave the coat on the sofa? Maybe it was better to hang it in the closet, play dumb, toy with him and make a game of it. The kind they used to play. Or she could lay the coat on the bed and let him find it. That might be interesting. Then she’d show him her appreciation for his unexpected gift, making a gift of herself. The old games.
There was a slight sound in the hall; then the ratcheting of a key in the dead-bolt lock.
The door opened and her options disappeared as Ron stepped into the apartment.
At first he didn’t notice her or the coat as he turned and closed and relocked the door. Then he turned back, saw her, and immediately his gaze shifted to the sofa where the coat lay. He appeared genuinely puzzled, but she knew he could act convincingly if he had to, feigning surprise at seeing the coat.
“Isn’t that—”
“You know it is,” she interrupted, smiling.
“You went back and bought it?” She could see his confusion changing now to anger, and silent alarms went off in her head.
“Of course not. You know I didn’t!”
“How would I know that?”
“Because you bought the coat and put it there on the sofa so I’d find it when I came home.”
He yanked his tie loose violently so it hung crookedly around his neck, reminding her of a hangman’s noose, then jutted out his chin and unfastened his top shirt button. �
�Now why the hell would I do that?”
Marcy was stunned, searching for words. “I…uh…Well, I don’t know.”
Not because you love me. Your eyes and that throbbing vein in your temple say now isn’t the time to remind you of that.
“You thought it was a gift from me?” He pulled the narrow end through the knot and let the tie drape loosely around his neck. Almost as if he were preparing to remove it and strangle her with it if that was what he decided.
“What else would I think? I came home from work and there was the coat you knew I wanted.”
“And that we didn’t buy.”
“You could’ve changed your mind.”
“The point is, I didn’t change it. So where’d the coat come from?”
“I told you, I assumed it was from you. Who else would have left it there? I was at work all day, and you and I are the only ones who have keys. Except for Lou the super.”
Ron shook his head. He might have been angrier, only he couldn’t quite figure out who was his target. “Lou’s sixty-five years old and couldn’t afford a coat like that. Besides, it’s impossible to get him in here to fix a leaky faucet, much less shower us with gifts. After the chat I had with him, Lou wouldn’t let anybody in here even for a minute without one or both of us being present.”
“Then who?”
He clenched his right hand into a fist, holding it close to his chest. “That asshole salesclerk at Tambien’s—Ira.”
“But how could he? Why would he?”
“He knew you wanted the coat.” Ron went to the coat and lifted it, then wadded it and tossed it in a heap back on the sofa. “There was no note or anything?”
“Nothing. I found it just like you saw it.”
He picked up the coat again and tucked it, still wadded, beneath his arm. “C’mon!”
“Come on where?”
“To Tambien’s.”
“You’re taking it back?”
“No. I never took it from! We’re giving it back to Ira the wiseass salesclerk, along with a warning.”
“We simply can’t give this back, Ron! I can’t. Let’s put this off, think about it some more.”
“There’s no place else the coat could have come from. Nobody else who might have given it to you.”
“How could Ira get in?”
“I don’t know, Marcy,” Ron said impatiently. “I don’t know how magicians guess the right card, either, but they do.”
“But why would he give me a gift? What would he expect to get out of it?”
“Jesus, Marcy, what do you think?”
“We only met once, and you were there.”
“So what? Maybe he’s one of those fucked-up psychos who only have to see a woman once and some kind of weird connection’s made.”
“I guess that’s possible….”
“Goddamned right it is!”
“If it is, I don’t want to go near him again.”
Ron drew a deep breath, then sighed and dragged his forearm across his mouth, as if he’d just taken a long, sloppy drink from a stream.
“All right,” he said. “You stay here. I’m gonna take this thing and return it to Tambien’s. We’re gonna find out about this! And do something about it!”
And he was out the door and gone.
An hour later Ron was back, empty-handed. Marcy watched her husband remove his sport coat and drape it on a hanger in the hall closet. He seemed calmer now. His face wasn’t so flushed, and the blue vein in his temple wasn’t even visible. “Did they take the coat back at Tambien’s?”
“No,” Ron said. “They claimed they didn’t sell it. Said it was sold in at least a dozen shops in and around New York. I told them maybe Ira just walked out with it so he could give it to you. Ira got pissed and I threatened to twist his head off. He just smiled, the little bastard.”
“I think he might be dangerous,” Marcy said. “There’s something creepy about him.”
Ron shrugged. “Whatever he is, I told him if he ever came around here again, I’d cut off his balls.”
Before or after you twist off his head? “What did he say?”
“That Tambien’s wouldn’t take the coat in return unless I had a sales slip. He and that numb-brain manager went into their professional salesclerk mode, polite but underneath it acting like assholes.”
“So what’d you do?” Marcy asked.
“I told them I didn’t want a refund; then I tossed the coat on the floor and walked out the door. You shoulda seen the look on their faces.”
“That’s an eight-hundred-dollar coat, Ron.”
“Not to us, it isn’t. It’s worse than worthless.” He stalked into the kitchen and a few minutes later returned with a glass of water with ice cubes in it. Marcy watched him take a long sip, his head back, the Adam’s apple working in his powerful neck.
“You still think Ira somehow sneaked in here and left the coat?” she asked when finally he lowered the glass.
He’d downed half the water. His head bowed, he stared into the glass and swirled its remaining contents around so the ice cubes rattled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t. But if it was him, he won’t do something like that around here again. He’s been scared away.”
Marcy wasn’t so sure.
For some reason she doubted if Ira had ever been scared away from anything in his life.
10
This time Harley Renz knocked politely on Quinn’s apartment door.
Quinn peered through the round peephole and viewed the distorted police captain. Renz shifted his weight impatiently and raised his elongated arm to look at his watch. Busy man in a hurry, taking valuable time off to talk to a lowlife like Quinn.
Quinn waited awhile, until Renz knocked again, louder, before opening the door.
“Quinn,” Renz said simply, nodding hello. “I would’ve called up on the intercom, but I saw there was sixty years of enamel over the button.” He studied Quinn, who was in his stocking feet but was wearing new gray slacks and a white T-shirt, and didn’t look quite so like a thug as he had during Renz’s last visit. “You got a haircut.”
“Got a lot of them cut,” Quinn said. “You wouldn’t have noticed just one.”
Renz smiled. “Some new threads, too. I’m glad you put the money I sent to good use. May I enter your shit can abode?”
“Sure. You’re a fit with the decor.” Quinn stepped back and to the side, closing the door behind Renz after he’d entered.
Renz sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs, then looked around. “I don’t know or care if that’s an insult. You’ve cleaned up the place. No magazines, newspapers, or orange peels on the floor. And is that new mold in the corner?”
“Mold’s the same. Orange peels clashed with the carpet, so they had to go. You clash, too.”
“Remember I’m your friend now, Quinn. Your way up and back in.” Renz made a big deal of sniffing, wrinkling his nose, and squinting. “It doesn’t smell as bad in here. Is that insecticide? Or are you burning incense?”
“Have you come to pay me more money?”
“Do you need more?”
“Not yet,” Quinn said honestly.
“Come up with anything in the Elzner apartment or murder file?”
“Not much,” Quinn said. “The groceries bother me. The strawberry jelly.”
“Jelly?”
“Jam, actually. A fairly expensive gourmet brand. There were two jars in with the groceries in the plastic bags and on the kitchen table. And there was a nearly full jar of the same stuff in the refrigerator.”
Renz uncrossed his legs and crossed his arms, thinking about that. “Somebody else bought the groceries. Somebody who didn’t know the Elzners had plenty of jelly.”
“Jam.”
“Still odd, though. Two jars…”
“Maybe they were a gift from somebody who knew how much one or both of the Elzners liked that kind of jam.”
“A gift.” Renz made a steeple of his fingers. He liked
the idea of a gift, except for…“But why would somebody buy the Elzners a gift and then kill them?”
“Maybe he hadn’t planned on killing them.”
“Maybe.” Renz grinned. “And he just happened to be carrying a gun equipped with a silencer. The important thing is, if you’re right, it points to a third party for sure. A killer still on the loose.”
“A third party who might’ve left before the Elzners were killed.”
Renz sneered at Quinn. “Don’t send me up, then bring me down. You’re coming around to my way of thinking about this case; you know you are.”
“I’ve moved in that direction,” Quinn admitted. He didn’t want Renz to think he’d moved almost all the way. “Also, it might be coincidental that the plastic grocery bags aren’t the kind that have the name of the store on them. Or it could be the killer deliberately bought groceries someplace where they couldn’t be traced by the bags and someone might remember him.”
“Very good, Quinn. I was sure you’d have a different slant on this and come up with something new. You didn’t disappoint me.”
“I’m flushed with pride. Are you here to tell me anything new?”
“Yeah. I’m afraid things have changed. Egan found out you’re on the case. I think from a uniform named Charlie Mercer.”
“Big, square-shouldered guy, blue and brown?”
“Fits him.”
“He was coming out of the elevator in the Elzners’ building when I stepped in.”
“He get a good look at you?”
“Like I got at him.”
“Then there’s no mistaking it; the bastard must’ve told Egan.” Renz’s brow furrowed. “Mercer’s made a mistake. One he’ll pay dearly for, and sooner than he thinks. Egan’s probably already notified the chief’s office. Maybe somebody in the news media. That last won’t help him.”
“Why not?”
Renz’s forehead relaxed, but the furrows didn’t fade away. “Because I’ve gone on the offensive. I’ve notified all my media contacts I’ve taken a chance on a good man—that’d be you. The safety of the community comes before NYPD politics and petty revenge, so I’ve asked Frank Quinn to look into the Elzner case because he’s the best. If the story’s not already on the news, it will be soon, before Egan’s. The department won’t move to take you off the case, because it’d be bad PR. There was never a criminal charge and a trial in the rape case. The public’ll see you as a hero, Quinn. A victim of unsubstantiated rumor who deserves a second chance. I’ve also assigned a team of detectives to work under your command.”