by John Lutz
“And vacated the place in a hurry. When she got feeling needy, she had to come back for her stash. Got careless, somehow punctured a Baggie or dropped some of the product while she was snorting.”
“In a hurry and shaky,” Quinn said, picturing it.
“Or maybe we’ve got it wrong,” Fedderman said. “Maybe she came back to hide something behind the panel.”
Quinn didn’t think that was likely, but it was possible. Most of these old access panels stayed just as they were for years.
While he was kneeling, he took a closer look at the wooden access panel. It was fastened to the wall by large screws at each corner. There was no paint in the slots, and the screws looked loose. A few flakes of paint lay on the floor beneath them. Obviously somebody had been at the panel recently.
“Go see if you can borrow a screwdriver from the painters, Feds.”
“On my way.”
When Fedderman had left the bedroom, Quinn gathered his strength and stood up on his noisy, wobbly knees. The leg that had taken a bullet didn’t feel any more unsteady than the other leg. Time had healed. He felt light-headed for a moment. Feeling my age. Nothing good about that.
“Regular or Phillips?” Fedderman called from the living room.
“Bring both,” Quinn called back.
He didn’t feel like kneeling again to reexamine the screws.
The new Madeline hadn’t hidden anything behind the access panel in the back closet wall. When Quinn removed the plywood panel he found only the bathtub plumbing, and some more white powder on the floor. The spaces between the floorboards were wider there, and quite a bit of the powder had fallen down into them.
It was easy to see what had happened. There was a bent nail sticking out of the right side of the access opening. It was sharply pointed and had traces of white powder on it. Quinn pointed it out to Fedderman.
“She must have snagged the plastic pouch her coke was in and spilled some of it.”
“You can see where she tried to scoop it up and put it back in the bag. A lot of it went down into the floor.”
“Better than up her nose,” Quinn said.
Quinn held the panel flat against the wall and began replacing the screws.
When he straightened up and backed awkwardly out of the closet, he said, “We know she’s a user. And since she lost a lot of her stash here, she’ll probably need more soon.”
“Narcotics is liable to pick her up.”
“We don’t want that,” Quinn said.
“So we gotta make sure she doesn’t get nailed on a drug charge.” Fedderman shook his head. “Some police work. The new Madeline is a pain in the ass.”
“If we think she is,” Quinn said, “imagine what a pain in the ass she must be to E-Bliss. It can’t have been part of their plan to supply one of their new identities to a cocaine addict.”
“Maybe they don’t know she’s a user.”
“Maybe not yet,” Quinn said.
“But we know it,” Fedderman said. “Now we gotta figure out some way to use what we know.”
“Or avoid getting hurt by it,” Quinn said, closing the closet door.
They returned the painters’ screwdrivers, pointed out where they’d missed a spot, and left the apartment.
52
Her skin was itching on the inside. Maria Sanchez, the new Madeline, was having difficulty sitting still. If Jorge could see her now he’d be disgusted. He had been so disdainful of people in the business who got hooked on the product. She wondered what his reaction would have been if he’d known she’d become a user, then a cokehead. And she knew that was what she’d become—a cokehead. Knew it now, this minute, more than ever.
She felt trapped in the apartment E-Bliss.org had moved her into after they’d hustled her out of the one the old Madeline had occupied. Once they’d decided she should move, they’d watched over her every step, so there’d be no mistakes, nothing traceable left behind. She hadn’t even been alone long enough to sneak her stash out from behind the bathroom plumbing access panel on the back wall of her bedroom closet. Which meant she’d have to return.
And she did return to get what was hers, before anyone else had a chance to move in.
In a rush, already shaking because she’d waited too long, she snagged the plastic Baggie on a nail and ripped it open as she withdrew it from behind the plywood panel.
Shit!
At least half the high-quality cocaine spilled from the bag. Some of it she managed to scoop up, but the rest was a loss. It had sifted down in the cracks between the floorboards.
Like my crappy life.
Gonna be lots of wired cockroaches.
A giggle burst from her at the thought. Then the image intruded and she decided it wasn’t funny. Wasn’t funny at all.
She replaced the panel and got out of there fast, certain that no one had noticed her, and returned to her new apartment.
The cocaine had carried Maria for a while, and then it was gone and the waiting had begun. She’d seen it enough times with other cokeheads and knew how it was going to feel.
It started sooner than she’d expected, and it worsened fast.
She sat with her legs drawn up in a corner of the threadbare sofa. She’d been trembling, and now she was hot. Perspiring. The temperature was always off one way or another in this goddamned rat hole. This wasn’t the kind of environment she was used to. Palmer Stone had promised to move her yet again, into an apartment where the water didn’t run brown. It couldn’t happen too soon for Maria.
She stood up and began to pace, had to move, had to keep moving. Something she’d read somewhere returned to her:
“All the trouble in the world is caused by people who can’t sit still when they find themselves alone in a room.”
Wasn’t that the truth? And most of the trouble they caused was for themselves.
The part of her stash Maria had saved had gone so fast it had surprised her. And disturbed her. She hadn’t realized how much stuff she was using, and with increasing frequency, increasing need. She hadn’t suspected how deep into the trick bag she’d fallen.
Stone had warned her to be cautious, especially for the first six months. Six months! He had no idea what he was asking. She was going absolutely, undeniably insane.
She began to scratch her arms, her neck, leaving tracks from her gnawed fingernails. Maria knew she’d soon become a quaking mess if she didn’t make a connection and get a fix. She’d seen people like that, users colliding with reality. How pathetic she’d thought they were. How weak and contemptible. Maria wasn’t sure she’d changed her opinion of them now that she was one of them. She felt weak and contemptible.
She had to take the chance soon, or it would be too late. Once the nausea began—and it soon would—she’d be such a wreck nobody would trust her enough to sell to her. It would be impossible to score any kind of drug, and if she did happen to connect with a dealer, her desperation would be so obvious she’d be robbed of everything she had. The pathetic thing was that she knew she’d turn it over willingly, even eagerly, for the smallest sample of whatever would help her. She couldn’t let it reach that point, where she’d do anything for salvation for an hour.
Maria decided the smart thing, the cautious thing, would be to act before it became too late. If she explained it to Palmer Stone, she was sure he’d understand. If only he’d take the time to listen and think about it.
She sat back down, got back up, paced some more.
Without recalling how she got there, she found herself in the kitchen. She opened the freezer door of the refrigerator and got out the bottle of vodka she kept there. It was only half empty. It wasn’t what she needed, but it would help. For a while, anyway.
She removed the cap from the bottle and let some of the cold vodka slide down her throat. The alcohol content kept the vodka from quite freezing, increasing its viscosity without lessening its effect. It would help her to stave off the need and agony.
Buying time. That’s wh
at she was doing, buying time and passing time and going mad.
The time she was buying was worth less by the minute.
She picked up the remote and switched on the TV. The news was on, some hick sheriff’s deputy or something from someplace down South being interviewed by a woman in a tight sweater and bad hairdo. The volume was too low to hear, but the crawl across the bottom of the screen said the alleged Torso Killer, Tom Coulter, had been spotted and almost caught in Louisiana.
Maria laughed. It sounded slightly maniacal even to her. She switched off the TV and tossed the remote over on the couch.
Crazy world! Crazy!
She walked from room to room, carrying the bottle, tracking the same path of her despair along worn carpet and sagging wood floor.
Maybe Stone wouldn’t understand. Or care. He was a lot of talk, Palmer Stone. A lot of bullshit.
She knew Stone’s type all too well. She couldn’t count on him, and she didn’t have to. The only person she could count on in this insane and unfair world was herself. She had to make a connection somehow, and soon.
Soon, God, soon!
She wanted to sit down but couldn’t. Something in her wouldn’t allow it.
All the trouble in the world…
They were in the office on West Seventy-ninth Street. The window air conditioner was noisy and fickle, being ornery. Right now it was too warm in the office. Pearl, in an uncharacteristic burst of domesticity, had gotten them all coffee and delivered the cups to the desks on round cork coasters she’d found somewhere. The coasters featured ads for some kind of ale Quinn had never heard of. In the warmth created by the malfunctioning air conditioner, neither Quinn nor Fedderman really wanted the steaming coffee, but they took sips from time to time so Pearl wouldn’t get mad.
“The new Madeline must have E-Bliss spooked,” Quinn said. “They had the initial problem when the real Madeline Scott somehow escaped when they tried to kill her. Then the new Madeline must have picked up on something from when Pearl spotted her in the elevator, so they moved her out of the building. Thanks to Pearl—” he glanced toward where she was perched on the front edge of her desk—“we know where she’s living now.”
“And we know she needs coke,” Fedderman said.
“We’ll keep a watch on her,” Quinn said. “Except for Pearl, whom she’s already seen. When the time comes, the new Madeline will make a hell of a witness for the prosecution.”
“We’ve got leverage on her,” Fedderman said. “Major drug rap. She’ll cut a deal and cooperate.”
“If they don’t kill her,” Pearl said.
She understood why she wouldn’t be included in the watch on the new Madeline. Not only would she be a familiar face, but she’d be too busy elsewhere playing Jewel and looking after Jill Clark. And she could still feel Greeve following her, even though there was no sign of him. He wasn’t nicknamed “The Ghost” for nothing. If he didn’t know about the new Madeline, there was no point in leading him to her.
“We’ll watch her partly to protect her,” Quinn said, “and partly to see where she goes. Apparently she’s still in contact with E-Bliss from time to time.”
“We looking at her as bait?” Pearl asked. She knew it would be a coup to nail Tony Lake, or Vlad, or whatever name he was using, or maybe even Palmer Stone, in the act of trying to kill the new Madeline. And they might feel she had to be killed if they found out she was into drugs and vulnerable. She had to be a danger to them.
“We’ll play this close,” Quinn said. “Renz will give us some undercover help we can trust not to leak anything. And I’ll bring in Nancy Weaver to fill in for Pearl. We’ve used Weaver before. She’s good, and we can trust her, especially if there’s a possibility of promotion in it for her. Between us, we’ll keep a close tail on the new Madeline.”
“Starting when?” Fedderman asked.
“Renz has already got an undercover outside her apartment. One of us will relieve him this evening. Word is, she stays cooped up, keeps the blinds closed.”
“Scared,” Fedderman said. “That’s good.”
“What’s left of her stash might be running out,” Quinn said.
“Also good.”
“But pure hell for her.”
“She took the elevator down,” Fedderman said. “Far as we know, nobody forced her to get in.”
“Meanwhile, let’s go over the murder book on Ruth Malpass,” Quinn said. “See if between us we can spot something useful, especially if it makes a closer connection to E-Bliss.”
“Weaver?” Pearl said. “Weaver filling in for me?”
It wasn’t out of the blue. Quinn had been expecting it.
“Weaver,” he confirmed. He tried to use a tone of voice that would discourage Pearl from making a drama out of it.
Pearl wasn’t crazy about seeing Officer Nancy Weaver brought in on the case. The two women didn’t like each other, maybe because similarity bred contempt. And competition. Weaver and Pearl shared the same relentless approach to their work, as well as the same tendency to raise hackles. Weaver didn’t have Pearl’s short fuse, though. Quinn had to give her that.
“Weaver’s back in uniform,” Pearl said. “Got some shit-hole assignment over in Brooklyn. She got caught fooling around with a married lieutenant on the vice squad.”
“Seems the place to do it,” Fedderman said. “What the vice squad’s all about.”
Quinn wished Fedderman would take it easy. There was no point in detonating Pearl.
“That woman put the ‘cop’ in copulate,” Pearl said.
“But she’s good at what she does,” Fedderman said. “Being a cop, I mean.” He tried but failed to take a sip of his searingly hot coffee. “Almost at the boiling point,” he said, looking at Pearl and not his coffee.
“All Weaver wants is to be promoted,” Pearl said.
“I want her promoted, too,” Quinn said, “if it’s for helping us break this case. Weaver’s got her flaws, but she’s also smart and resourceful. Renz will put her back in plain clothes for this, and she’ll work herself to the nub to stay there.”
Pearl made a sniffing sound. “It’s hard for Weaver to stay in any kind of clothes.”
Fedderman gave her a pained look. “Give the woman a break, Pearl.”
“Just don’t give her any trouble,” Quinn said in the voice he used to warn people. No mistaking it. Like God laying down the law from on high.
“You know me,” Pearl said.
53
Some ringing phones are better left unanswered.
Victor had been alone in the offices of E-Bliss.org and fielded Maria Sanchez’s phone call.
He was still pale and obviously angry when Palmer Stone walked in wearing one of his Armani suits and carrying his Hansom and Coach leather briefcase. Palmer was also wearing his usual handsome and benign expression, that of the kind sitcom father who’d never once raised hand nor voice to his make-believe wife and children.
“Something the matter, Victor?” he asked, with a concerned frown, as he set the briefcase alongside his desk and settled into his leather swivel chair. Victor might well have been his troubled son.
Victor, slumped on the sofa, stopped gnawing on his lower lip. “The Sanchez bitch phoned here a while ago, talked like she was crazy. Didn’t even use her Madeline Scott name, called herself Maria. As if Maria Sanchez still actually existed somewhere.”
The concerned frown, genuine now, stayed glued to Stone’s symmetrical features. “I didn’t expect to hear from her again. She seemed to understand the rules, and why they’re necessary.”
Once the new identity was assumed, there was no reason ever to contact E-Bliss.org again. It didn’t exist anymore. The old identity no longer existed except here and there on paper or in obscure databases. Each special client was made to understand that that was the entire idea, to draw a line between an old and a new reality. Madeline Scott (Stone no longer allowed himself to think of her as Maria Sanchez) seemed smart enough to comprehend that.
Seemed safe as a special client. Apparently she hadn’t come as advertised. Stone felt himself getting disturbed and pushed the heat of his anger aside. Anger was an emotion he couldn’t allow. Only one letter away from danger, he reminded himself. Bad for business in so many ways, anger.
Victor, Stone observed, seemed to still be angry over the phone call. Victor, who might himself be a potential problem. Stone wondered, would Gloria, if he asked, be able to deal with Victor?
A problem for another day. Here was Stone, worried about Victor’s anger today.
“What did our troublesome special client want?” he asked Victor
“Said she wants the better apartment we promised her. She wants money. She wants us to live up to our end of the arrangement. She wants things to change. She wants, wants, wants!”
Stone smiled. “She wants quite a lot.”
“No, I think she wants one thing,” Victor said. “A fix.”
Stone thought for a moment, then shook his head no. “Maria Sanchez couldn’t be a drug addict. She was around the stuff, but not a user. Somebody like that, in her position, she wouldn’t survive long if she even started to use.”
“If it became a problem.”
“It always becomes a problem,” Stone said. “Or often enough that no chances are taken. People in the business know that going in.”
“Maybe it was a problem that hadn’t had time to develop enough to be noticeable.”
Stone said nothing. That was a possibility. An unsettling one. The company might have inherited a nascent problem, only just beginning to become a monster.
“I know the signs, Palmer. I know how cokeheads talk, especially when they get desperate. The bitch was unhinged.”
“I still say it’s unlikely that drugs are the problem,” Stone said.
“If she’s not a head that hit the wall, she sure sounded like one. You should’ve heard her, Palmer. She was ranting like she was nuts. She had to be crazy to phone here in the first place.”
Stone thought back to the poised young woman he himself had interviewed, to the background file reaching into her childhood. She’d been something of a revolutionary as a young girl, but a smart one. Near the top of her college class when she met her husband. Stone even knew her IQ, which was in the superior range. He remembered her correct and concise replies to his questions, the calm and appraising intelligence in her cool blue eyes.