by John Lutz
“Forgot all about it,” Pearl said, realizing she was hungry. “Been kinda busy.”
“Wanna go out or do room service?”
Pearl didn’t like the idea of a bellhop coming into the room. “Coffee shop downstairs any good when it comes to dinner?”
“Good enough that I eat there almost every night,” Jeb said. “Not to mention cheap enough.”
He swiveled his body and sat up on his side of the bed, his bare feet on the floor. Pearl studied the lean musculature of his back. He had to be a journalist who worked out regularly.
“Let’s take a shower,” he said.
“Together?”
“Has to be that way. There’s only one cake of soap.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Pearl said, and stretched her arms and legs before getting up out of the warm, perspiration damp bed. The air was cool on her bare buttocks and legs.
Jeb sauntered into the bathroom ahead of her and turned on the shower.
Pearl wasn’t surprised that he’d gotten the temperature just right.
Half an hour later they sat in a booth in the Waverton coffee shop, showered, dressed, reasonably unrumpled, and not so obviously lovers.
Pearl had followed Jeb’s recommendation and ordered chicken pot pie. They were both having draft Budweisers in frosted glasses. Pearl enjoyed her cold beer while looking across the table at Jeb and waiting hungrily for her food. She thought life was pretty good. Rare for her.
A broad-hipped waitress with a name badge that said she was Maize arrived with their food on a large round tray and began placing plates on the table. “You must like the pot pie,” she said to Jeb.
“Or maybe it’s you,” he said with a grin.
Maize shook her head and looked at Pearl. “He ordered the same thing for supper last night.”
“You were working then, too,” Jeb said, still flirting but in no way meaningful.
Maize grinned with crooked teeth. “Yet I don’t think we have anything going together except as tipper and tipee.”
Jeb aimed his grin at Pearl. “Maize serves humor with the food.”
Maize kept a straight face. “But only if its yesterday’s special. It’s a distraction.” She placed the last dish on the table. “Getcha anything else?”
“We’ve got it all,” Jeb said, smiling at Pearl.
Knowing when to be silent, Maize returned to behind the counter.
“You had this same dish here last night?” Pearl asked.
Jeb nodded and poked his fork into browned pot pie crust, causing a faint curl of steam to rise. “I told you, I eat here most of the time. You’ll see why. It’s delicious.”
Careful not to burn her tongue, Pearl dug into her pot pie and found she agreed. Maybe it was because she’d worked up such an appetite in Jeb’s room. Or maybe it was because Maize had just supplied her new lover with an alibi for last night, when Anna Bragg was murdered.
Of course it was always possible Jeb had convinced Maize to lie for him. They were tipper and tipee.
Pearl told herself not to be so cynical and sipped her beer.
33
Celandra left the audition thinking she didn’t have a chance, but also telling herself that sometimes those were the roles you got. This business was full of surprises. But if you halfway expected them, they weren’t really surprises. But if she understood that, then she must think there was a chance.
The hell with it, she thought. It was all too complicated. All she knew was that she’d waited her turn on stage and read the lines of the mad housewife. Mad as in insane. In the six years she’d been pursuing an acting career in New York, she’d landed several off-off Broadway roles, and a few juicy Off Broadways, but she hadn’t experienced what she’d define as success. And here she was almost thirty. She was a handsome rather than pretty woman, with a pale, somber face and tall, athletic build. She’d gone heavy on the eye makeup for this audition, so that her large brown eyes appeared darker and sunken, and she’d made her shoulder-length brown hair suitably mussed.
When she left the theater through a stage door alongside the marquee, she found that the heat had built to an uncomfortable level, and the humidity lay like damp felt on her bare arms. She hailed a cab rather than ride the smelly, stifling subway to get to her apartment in the West Nineties. The last time she’d ridden the subway, coming home from buying a knockoff Prada purse on Canal Street, some goon had rubbed himself against her, and as she was getting off pinched her left buttock hard enough to leave a bruise. When she’d turned to confront him, she was looking at the mass of people eager to get out through the sliding doors before the train pulled away for its next stop. Apparently her assailant had faded into the crowded car and left by one of the other doors. Or maybe the creep was still on the train, hunched in a seat and hiding behind a newspaper or magazine.
Celandra didn’t have the time or opportunity to find him. People glared at her, or looked right through her, as they streamed from the train, forcing her to exit along with them. On the way out, she was buffeted by people boarding the train. New York, the city that got you coming and going.
When she’d arrived home and examined the bruise developing low on her ass, she vowed never to ride the subway again, knowing she would someday break that vow, so maybe it wasn’t really a vow. But if she was going to break whatever it was, today wouldn’t be the day. She was still in a quandary after her audition, and there was the cab right in front of the theater, like a consolation prize from the city.
She told herself not to be an idiot; the city wasn’t God, maintaining a celestial equality, answering prayers or handing out damnation on a whim. Though sometimes it seemed that way.
She settled back in the soft upholstery while the cab rocked and jerked about as the driver fought his way into heavier traffic on West Forty-fourth. Horns blasted. From somewhere came an angry shout. Away from the curb lane at last, the cabbie cursed under his breath and shook his head. “…ing city…” she heard him grumble. “Hard as rock…”
Tell me about it.
She decided she’d take the cab all the way home unless it got bogged down in traffic. If that happened, and she was within eight or ten blocks of her apartment, she’d get out and walk the rest of the way. Celandra liked to walk. It was good exercise and she was used to it, having spent her formative years on a wheat and soybean farm in Kansas.
Celandra had almost gone insane there, which was why she’d come to New York after her drama coach at the University of Missouri assured her she had real talent. But then she knew she was one of his favorites in another way, too. Not that she’d truly encouraged him or he ever really tried to get in her pants, but he’d made it obvious that was what he wanted. But then, if he hadn’t actually tried…
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. It seemed there was nothing definitive in her life. Was it that way with everyone? Weren’t there some people who understood exactly where they’d been, where they were at the moment, and where they were going, and planned and noted the steps along the way? She tried to plan her life, but everything turned out to be a goddamned surprise. She’d be an old lady before she knew it, surprised to see the wrinkles. But wasn’t that true of everyone?
The cab hit a pothole, jarring her so she actually rose a few inches off the seat.
A few blocks farther and it slowed to an intermittent crawl, then a complete stop. Traffic was backed up and unmoving for as far as Celandra could see through the windshield. And it was getting too warm in the cab. Maybe the driver had switched off the air conditioner so the engine wouldn’t overheat in the stopped traffic, or to save precious gas. They did that sometimes. She used the power button to lower the window, and even warmer air fell into the cab. Out of patience, she plucked her wallet from her purse and told the driver she was getting out.
“I get you to the curb,” he said, when he saw the bills wadded in her perspiring hand. His accent, which she hadn’t noticed earlier, was one she didn’t recognize.
“This is fine,
” she assured him, stuffing the bills into the little swivel tray in the Plexiglas divider, leaving a generous tip.
“You be killed,” he said in his peculiar accent, not wanting to lose his fare. “Run flat over. Be my fault.”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted, thinking there was nothing moving out there to run over her.
“I want no—”
She didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying, because she already had the cab’s door open.
Three steps, then up on the curb, and she was on the sidewalk and striding away from the stalled cab. Horns blared behind her. Probably one of them was the cab’s, but she ignored the brief but violent torrent of noise and walked on.
A medium-height, well dressed man walking in front of her turned around to see what all the honking was about, and their eyes met. Celandra looked quickly away, not wanting to give the guy ideas, but it did register in her mind that he was handsome and well groomed. More than that—there was the mysterious instantaneous something between them that everyone was always searching for. Forces had met, with undeniable potential. But in the beginning there was always a choice.
Right now, still upset over the audition, Celandra told herself she wasn’t interested. And apparently he wasn’t interested in her. He didn’t glance back at her again as he stopped at the intersection and waited for the light to change so he could cross.
He also didn’t bother looking at her as she strode past him and he stepped down off the curb to cross with a dozen other people.
So maybe he hadn’t felt the magic. It didn’t always work in both directions. She might have been flattering herself.
After walking another block, Celandra had forgotten the man.
It never occurred to her to look for him on the other side of the street, where he was walking parallel to her, dipping a shoulder to ease between people on the crowded sidewalk, occasionally bumping into someone and mumbling a perfunctory “’Scuse me” as he continued at his pace.
At her pace.
Keeping his gaze glued to her.
Making up his mind.
Later, when she left her apartment, he followed her to a Starbucks where she met two other women. Hanging back, he ordered a cappuccino and watched them have Danish and coffee in a booth near a window. Not a low-calorie lunch, but a light one in bulk. All of the women had trim figures, but then they were all young.
After following her home, he’d gleaned her last name from the slot over the mailbox she’d perfunctorily checked before going upstairs to her apartment.
She hadn’t seen him, and might not recognize him now if she noticed him in Starbucks, sitting only two booths away, where he could overhear the three women.
So far, none of them had called each other by name. It was amazing how, after the initial meeting, people seldom used names to address each other. He did learn from their conversations that they were actresses. That didn’t surprise him, considering the beauty and bearing of the woman he’d followed. The woman he’d chosen.
So she was an actress, which meant it shouldn’t be difficult to learn her given name. He smiled. Her name might even be up in lights somewhere.
All he really needed now was her name.
34
Four days later, early in the morning, Pearl was sitting on a bench in Washington Square, watching a homeless guy finding his way awake on an opposite bench. He was wearing ragged clothes two sizes too large, and he moved arthritically though he didn’t appear to be older than forty. An empty can of Colt 45 malt liquor lay beneath the bench, probably his sleeping pill.
Pearl watched as the man sat up, glared angrily at her as if she’d caused his bad luck, then made it to his feet and staggered toward Macdougal Street. Lauri passed him walking the other way, toward Pearl, and gave him a wide berth. He didn’t seem to notice her.
In sharp contrast to the homeless guy, Lauri strode with the sureness and lightness of youth, through about a dozen disinterested pigeons pecking about on the pavement, causing them to flap skyward with obvious reluctance. She was smiling. She and Pearl had met for lunch, or simply to walk and talk, several times, and had come to like each other. Pearl knew the teenager admired and trusted her, perhaps too much.
Lauri plopped down next to Pearl on the bench. She was wearing jeans and a yellow sleeveless blouse, joggers without socks. The morning sun glinted off her zirconia nose stud.
“You talk to my dad?” she asked.
“Beautiful morning,” Pearl said.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. Inward directed, I guess.”
Pearl figured the kid must have been watching Dr. Phil.
“It is a beautiful morning,” Lauri said, applying the grease.
Pearl didn’t actually think it was particularly beautiful. There was trash all over the ground, including some broken crack vials, and four or five homeless reminders of life’s travails still lurked about. The pigeons Lauri had stirred up were back. Dirty things. Pearl didn’t like pigeons.
“Pearl—”
“I did ask your dad what he thought about me giving you pointers on what it means to be a cop. He was okay with that. In fact, he likes us talking with each other. But he also doesn’t want you to be a cop.”
“Why not? He is.”
“He thinks you can do better.”
“Can or should?”
“Both, I would imagine.”
“Mom and that Elliott geek were always pushing me to do better. Like I was some kind of Rhodes Scholar.” Lauri made a face as if she were disappointed. “I didn’t think Dad was like that.”
“Wanting the best for his kid? Why shouldn’t he?”
“Because not everybody can be a Rhodes Scholar. Some of us want to be cops. Like you.”
“I don’t think it’s that, Lauri. Your dad doesn’t want you to see certain things.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I see them? He has.”
“Exactly. He has, and he knows. Also, he doesn’t want certain things to happen to you.”
“Such as?”
That one was easy. “Getting shot or stabbed to death.”
“Oh.”
Pearl stood up from the bench. “I’d better get going, Lauri. I’ve gotta meet your dad and Feds in about twenty minutes.”
“I thought we were gonna have breakfast.”
“No time now. You were almost an hour late.”
Lauri bowed her head to gaze at a gray-and-white pigeon that had wandered close. “Yeah, I need to work on promptness.”
Pearl smiled. “It’ll come.”
“What about the other?” Lauri asked. “Did you talk to Dad again about that?”
“He didn’t seem warm to the idea of you tagging along with me while I’m working.”
“How do you mean?”
“He said he’d shoot me.” Pearl waited until Lauri looked up from the pigeon to her. “I think it’s a bad idea, too, Lauri. This isn’t a job like word processing or selling insurance. You can learn by watching, but you can also get hurt.”
“I’m willing to take the chance.”
“He isn’t.”
“And he’s Dad, is that it?”
“Yeah. And he’s my boss.”
“I guess we both have to settle for that.”
“Now you’re learning.”
But Pearl knew this was too easy. Lauri was, after all, Quinn’s daughter, and Pearl knew a thing or two about Quinn.
“We can still meet now and then as friends,” Lauri said. “Still talk.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pearl said.
Lauri stood up, shrugged, and smiled. “Then I guess that’s the way it is. That’s what life’s about, settling for what you get.”
“Part of what it’s about,” Pearl said. “Car’s parked over there. Want a lift uptown?”
“No, I’ve gotta check in to work soon.” Big smile. Made her look like Quinn. “Gotta be prompt.”
“Atta girl,” Pearl said. You are so full of bullshit, like your father
.
When she reached the car, Pearl turned and saw Lauri walking in the opposite direction, away from her. Standing there with her hand on the sun-warmed car roof, she felt a sudden and unexpected fondness for Quinn’s daughter, a protectiveness. Maybe even a stirring of something maternal.
Scary.
When Pearl arrived at the office, Quinn was seated behind his desk, wearing the drugstore reading glasses he used for fine print and looking at the postmortem results on Anna Bragg. They were those weird glasses that sat low on the nose and looked as if they’d been sawed in half lengthwise. Fedderman was across the room, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“Want one?” he asked, glancing over at Pearl.
“Not this morning.” Pearl’s stomach felt oddly unsettled, maybe because of her probably futile conversation with Lauri and the unfamiliar maternal instinct it had provoked.
“Orange juice? I stopped and got a carton.”
“Nothing, thanks.” Leave me the hell alone.
“This is more of the same, almost down to the number of cuts the killer made,” Quinn said dejectedly, tapping the report with a blunt forefinger. Pearl wouldn’t have wanted to be tapped that hard.
“Cause of death?” she asked.
“Drowning. Like the others. He puts them in the bathtub, runs the water, then drowns them before carving them up.”
“What about the tape residue?” Pearl asked. “Is that the same?”
“Yeah. Same kind of duct tape, sold everywhere. Same MO all the way. Taped tight as a Thanksgiving turkey, and with a rectangle of tape across the mouth. When they’re dead and silent forever, he removes the tape, including the gag, before going to work with his blades and saw.”
“Time of death?”
Quinn adjusted the narrow glasses on his nose and glanced down to make sure. “Says here between six and nine P.M.”
Pearl thought that was about perfect. Unless Maize the waitress was lying, Jeb Jones had his alibi.
Jeb…
“Her colleagues at Courtney Publishing all seemed to like her.”