by John Lutz
Is my mind slipping?
Was the woman real?
Jesus! Oh, Jesus! This city…This city…
She glanced around, embarrassed and still afraid.
Still, no one looked at her. The train thundered through the darkness.
22
Jill had calmed down by the time she got to work. There was no one at Tucker, Simpson, and King she wanted to tell about the subway incident. She didn’t know anyone there well enough. And they might think she was crazy. They would think she was crazy. The incident now seemed almost as if it hadn’t happened. It was so incongruous to her surroundings aboveground, at work, in the normal world.
But of course it had happened.
Something had happened.
She’d been at work about half an hour and was filing papers concerning a traffic violation appeal when a voice said, “It’s for you.”
Jill turned around. The receptionist, an older woman named Judy, was staring at her. “Line three.”
“Excuse me?”
“You said your name was Jill Clark, right?”
“Right,” Jill said.
“You have a phone call. Line three.”
Jill straightened up. She looked around and then went to a phone on the other side of the office, where she’d have some privacy.
She pressed the glowing line button and said hello.
“Is this Jill Clark?” A woman’s voice. Familiar.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“The woman from the subway.”
Jill’s heart jumped. She told herself the caller was lying. The voice on the phone wasn’t so hoarse, and it was controlled, almost cultured. Not like the subway woman’s. But it carried the same note of desperation.
“Don’t hang up, Jill. Please!”
“Why shouldn’t I? My arm still hurts!”
“I’m sorry about that. You have to understand my state of mind.”
I think I do. Insane.
Behind the receptionist’s desk, Judy glanced at Jill, then looked away.
Jill lowered her voice, not wanting to attract attention. “Leave me the hell alone! Stop following me! Stay away from me! Stay out of my apartment!”
“Don’t hang up!” the woman pleaded again.
“I haven’t, have I?”
“I’ve never been in your apartment,” the woman said. “My name is Madeline Scott, and we have to talk.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“That’s the point, damn it!”
“My arm still hurts,” Jill repeated.
Jill hung up, careful not to bang the receiver.
American Airlines flight 222 out of Mexico City via Atlanta arrived ten minutes early, and the plane touched down gently on LaGuardia Airport’s south runway. When the reverse thrust of the plane’s powerful engines had brought it almost to a halt, it taxied toward its assigned gate.
The plane veered gently and arrived at the mobile enclosed ramp to the concourse. The engines stopped whirring, a faint bell chimed pleasantly, and the clacking of unfastening safety belts rippled through the fuselage.
Maria Sanchez, who’d been sitting in a coach window seat just beyond the wings, wrestled her carry-ons from overhead storage and filed off the plane with the other passengers.
She exchanged a polite and perfunctory “G’bye” with the smiling flight attendant at the plane’s door. Maria’s formerly long dark hair was dyed blond, and she was traveling under forged identification. She’d made it a point not to be at all memorable to the other passengers or the flight crew.
When she emerged from the enclosed walkway into the terminal, she lowered both of her large red carry-ons to the floor and raised their telescoping handles. She followed the stream of passengers along the concourse toward the baggage area, then increased her speed, lengthening her stride and pulling the two rolling suitcases behind her.
She went outside the terminal and waited her turn in line for a taxi. A cabbie finished stuffing a young couple’s tons of luggage into his taxi’s trunk, then got in and drove away with a brief squeal of tires. The cab lying in wait behind his leaped forward to take its place and came to a rocking stop. Maria’s turn.
She watched her driver place her two suitcases in the trunk, then got in the cab and waited for him to join her. When he was settled into his seat and had turned an ear toward her, she gave him an address in Manhattan.
The cab made a squeal like its predecessor’s and shot forward, speeding toward the island like a wolf returning to its lair.
Jill stood in the hall outside her apartment door and used two keys to unlock two dead bolts. She was exhausted from her day of filing and following instructions at Tucker, Simpson, and King. That and her morning’s misadventure had left her weary and uneasy. It would be good to kick off her shoes, get a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and slump onto the sofa. In fact, it would be heaven.
She opened the door and was immediately aware of an unpleasant odor, then a presence close behind her, crowding her. She was abruptly pushed into the apartment and followed. The door clicked shut.
Jill took two skidding steps on the hardwood floor, almost falling, then whirled and saw the homeless woman from the subway, the one who’d called her at work and identified herself as Madeline Scott. Fury and indignation rose in Jill. She didn’t know any Madeline Scott and didn’t want to know this one.
Then her anger became fear. She was alone with this woman who might be crazy, who might do anything.
Mad Madeline.
The woman’s hair was unkempt and her eyes were wild. Her clothes were wrinkled and frayed. She’d obviously been living on the streets and might be crazy or on drugs. Unnaturally strong. If it came down to it, Jill didn’t think she could subdue her. Didn’t want to touch her.
Her fear must have shown on her face.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Madeline Scott said. Her wild blue eyes paralyzed Jill. “But I’m determined you’re going to hear me out.”
Jill was ashamed of the terror in her own choked voice as she backed on stiff legs into the living room and said, “I’m listening.”
Madeline smiled and said, “That’s all I ever wanted.”
23
Madeline Scott didn’t sit down. Jill didn’t make the offer.
The two women had drifted farther into the living room and stood facing each other, keeping their distance. The odor coming off Madeline seemed to have dissipated, or maybe Jill was simply getting used to it. Some of the wildness had left Madeline’s eyes, leaving Jill at least reassured that the woman wasn’t going to abruptly attack her.
“I only want to talk while you listen,” Madeline said with surprising calm.
Jill swallowed. “All right. So talk.”
Get whatever you have to say over with, and then get out. Get out.
“Not so long ago I was in your position,” Madeline began. “I was from out of town, with no real family, and not very long in New York. Things hadn’t gone as well as I thought they would when I moved here from Illinois.”
Jill began to feel somewhat relieved. Madeline had obviously rehearsed this, or at least given it a lot of thought. This was going to be a sob story, ending, she was sure, in an appeal for money. Okay, maybe she could buy her way out of this. Out of this dread she hated to admit to herself.
“I was working dead-end, impersonal jobs,” Madeline continued, “where they’d hardly miss me if I didn’t show up. I had no real friends to speak of. Dates? Yeah, a few. But you know how that goes. The men I let pick me up wanted the usual and then out. All the acquaintanceship you might want is out there, but not friends, not people who’ll remember you even the next day. So I did what a lot of lonely people in New York do after they’ve wasted time dating enough losers. I contacted a reputable matchmaking service.”
Jill’s mind had been distracted, still trying to figure a way out of this awkward situation, a way to cut it short. What would it cost her? Suddenly she began paying close attentio
n.
“It was the same online matchmaking service you used,” Madeline said. “E-Bliss.org.”
Jill moved to a chair and sat down. Madeline went to the sofa and sat on the very edge of one of the end cushions.
“Everything I just told you about,” Madeline said, “E-Bliss learned about on my personality profile form. That and more.”
“There’s nothing wrong with E-Bliss,” Jill said, wondering as she spoke why she was defending the online dating service.
But she knew why: she wanted desperately for the matchmaking service to be legitimate. So much of her intimate and vulnerable self was invested in it now.
Madeline smiled sadly, as if knowing what Jill was thinking. “I believe they’re mostly a legitimate matchmaking service,” she said, “but they operate another service within that one. It requires women without close family, new to the city, and still mostly without close friends or connections. I fit the profile, and so do you.”
Jill took a deep breath and tried to organize her thoughts. “What does this service within a service do?”
“It searches through all the profiles, probably with some kind of computer software, and settles on the right applicant. Then the company sends someone to gain your trust and learn all about you. Everything from your Social Security and charge account numbers to your favorite candy. Meanwhile, someone else is learning about you, watching you, spending time in your apartment when you’re not there, wearing your clothes, even being glimpsed around the building as you. Practicing to be you. And then…she becomes you.”
Whoa!
“You said, ‘becomes me’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it says.”
Madeline stared at her silently.
“Why me in particular?” Jill asked, astounded. And afraid again, but not exactly in the same way. There was something creepy about this that was working its way into her marrow. Something some part of her mind knew that the rest of it hadn’t yet caught up with. “I mean, there are plenty of women like you described living in New York. This is the most anonymous city in the world.”
“Why you?” Madeline said thoughtfully, obviously considering. “I don’t know for sure. But I followed the man you know as Tony Lake from the offices of E-Bliss to you. Only I knew him as Dwayne King. I’ve given this a lot of thought. In fact, it’s all I’ve thought about for weeks. My guess is you resemble someone who wants to disappear, and who’s paid E-Bliss so she can take your place.”
“What about the real me?” Jill asked, dreading the answer even though she wasn’t sure she believed any of this.
“The real you ceases to exist. You’re shot and killed, as they tried to do to me. I managed to break free and run. They kept shooting at me, but I escaped by climbing into an approaching car and urging the driver to get us away. I read in the paper a week later that a man I’m sure was the driver was found dead in Riverside Park from a drug overdose. I don’t think it was suicide or an accident.”
Jill’s mind was still wrestling with what she was hearing. “But why would they do this, substitute people for each other?”
“Money,” Madeline said simply.
“Of course. Money. Like everything else. But what do their clients want? What’s the reason for the substitutions?”
“I don’t know,” Madeline said. “But I know that what E-Bliss is doing must work. They choose their victims carefully from thousands of Internet applicants for relationships. These women must meet the qualifications and resemble whoever’s going to become them. If you’re a victim client and you’ve happened to make a friend who might care or suspect there’s something wrong, the new you simply moves away suddenly, as people often do in Manhattan, leaving a note or the last month’s rent so there’s no doubt the departure was voluntary. I’ve seen the other Madeline coming out of my apartment on West Seventy-second Street. She isn’t my exact double, but with the same hairdo, makeup, and my wardrobe and apartment, not to mention identification, charge cards, and passport, maybe even some minor cosmetic surgery, she became me.”
“My God!” Jill’s mind was working furiously, warning her again that this woman was crazy, that what she was saying was impossible.
Only it was possible, and Jill knew it. Loneliness made it possible. Jill remembered loneliness.
Madeline, knowing what Jill must be thinking, again showed her sad smile. “People who don’t know us well or long don’t look at us all that closely, Jill, and the new me even has my gestures and speech patterns down pat.”
“This other you,” Jill said, “why didn’t you confront her?”
The gleam of terror in Madeline’s eyes was answer enough for Jill.
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
Madeline shook her head. “I tried. They brushed me off as just another deranged street person. And there’s no way for me to prove I really am me. Sometimes I doubt it myself. This is larger than either of us knows, Jill. The police might be in on it.”
Jill was jolted by the thought. And again she thought Madeline might simply be paranoid, one of the poor and forever lost who roamed the Manhattan streets talking to everyone and no one, suspecting everything and everyone.
And yet…
“How could the police even know we talked?” Jill asked.
“They’ll know. Or at least there’s no guarantee they won’t. And you can’t take the chance, Jill. I’m sorry I did this to you, but I need your help. I was like you, living my life, and suddenly I’m mixed up with…I don’t know. Organized crime would be my guess. Or maybe anyone who can pay whatever E-Bliss.org charges for its special service. They might have infiltrated the police and they’ll learn what’s going on and see that any investigation stops. And that I’ll be killed. And now that I’ve talked to you, that you’ll be killed. How can we know whom to trust? If we confide in the wrong people, we’ll wind up like the rest of those women. What’s left of our mutilated bodies that can’t be identified will be put into a pauper’s grave or cremated by the city.”
“Left of our bodies? You mean the Torso Murders—”
“Being on the run, I didn’t watch or read the news regularly, but when I happened to learn about the Torso Murders, I knew there was probably a connection. That was what was going to be left of me after I ceased to exist as a person. And that’s the plan for you, Jill. I’m sure you’ve never been fingerprinted or submitted a DNA sample, and if you disappeared there’d be no one to miss you or even report your absence.”
Jill had to admit that Madeline was right about the fingerprints and DNA. And the family she didn’t have. There was no one who cared enough to make a spirited inquiry.
“You’re halfway to nothing already.” Madeline took a deep breath. “Do you believe any of this?”
Jill sat silently for almost a minute staring at the woman who might be mad. Who certainly appeared mad.
Only she wasn’t mad. And Jill knew it.
“I believe enough of it,” she finally said, remembering filling out her endlessly detailed and personal E-Bliss.org profile.
Do you take cream in your coffee?
What brands of cosmetics do you use?
Do you ever wear a hat or cap?
Would you drink from someone else’s water bottle without first wiping it?
Do you jaywalk?
Do you use an electric toothbrush?
Madeline stood up from the sofa. The look on her face suggested she might rush over to Jill and hug her.
But she didn’t.
“I’ll go now,” she said. “I know your mind must be whirling. You need time to think about all this. Let’s meet tomorrow, around noon, just inside the main library on Fifth and Forty-second. They don’t throw anyone out of a public library, and I can neaten myself up enough so they won’t think I’m a panhandler. We both need to think this over and then have a talk, try to come up with some kind of plan.”
“A plan…?”
“Some kind of plan,” Madeline repe
ated. Her eyes brimmed with tears, pleading. “Will you be there, Jill?”
Jill couldn’t look away from those eyes. They didn’t seem insane now. Desperate, but not insane.
“I promise I’ll think about it,” she said.
Madeline nodded.
“If you think about it, you’ll be there.”
24
So here Quinn was in a blazing forest, terrified animals streaking past him, ignoring him. Deer, bears, rabbits, a lion. What next? A unicorn?
Quinn had fallen asleep in the brown leather chair in his den while reading about the Torso Murders in the Post. It amazed him how so much could be written on something everyone knew so little about. The Cuban cigar he’d been smoking lay smoldering in an ashtray on the carpet beside his chair. That was the sort of thing Pearl often warned him about. He was going to start a fire, kill them both, kill everyone in the building. Pearl, who’d melted the shower curtain with her curling iron.
He smelled cigar smoke and almost woke up. But not quite. His dreams weren’t ready to release him. The smoke grew denser.
He was wearing only a plastic raincoat with a hood and, like the animals surrounding him, he was terrified of the advancing wall of flame. Even without the heat of the forest fire, he was sweltering in the plastic NYPD coat. The California heat was merciless.
California?
Where was Lauri? Was she safe from the fire? Was Wormy?
Pearl?
A phone was ringing. Or was it the urgent jangle of a fire engine? Gotta pull the damned car over to the side of the road.
Hold on! He wasn’t driving. He knew that because he couldn’t find a steering wheel.
He realized he’d fallen asleep. He struggled up out of the chair, wearily stumbled toward the phone. Snatched up the receiver and almost said, “Pearl?”
But he didn’t say it. The word hadn’t quite escaped.
Why did I think of Pearl? I was worried about Lauri. Even Wormy.
He smelled something burning and terror took a swipe at him. Then he noticed the smoldering cigar in the ashtray on the floor.