by John Lutz
The name didn’t mean anything to Pearl for several seconds. Maybe because of the drugs. Then it came to her.
“The infamous drug lord? But he was killed in Mexico City.”
“Not the real Sanchez. The man the Mexican police shot to death was one of Sanchez’s several doubles, who was tricked into leaving the hotel Sanchez and his wife were in. The police took him for the real Sanchez and killed him. Even Sanchez’s wife, Maria, thought Jorge was dead. She had to have been shocked to see him in the dark passageway when he stepped out of the shadows and killed Greeve.”
“Greeve had been shocked, too,” Pearl said. “He wasn’t killed by any prostitute. They just made it look that way. He was trying to pronounce Jorge’s name before he died.”
“Right. Jorge is in the hospital now, and talking. But he isn’t going to make it. He was planning to join his wife in New York after assuming the identity of an E-Bliss client himself. They were going to meet again as two other people and move out of town, away from the drug trade. And it might have worked out for them if Jorge could have killed Jill. She was the only one who could swear she saw both Madelines and could tie them in with E-Bliss. Jill was the link he had to destroy. But Jorge’s plans went about as sour as Palmer Stone’s.”
“So Maria Sanchez was the new Madeline.”
Quinn nodded.
“What about Tony Lake?”
“Victor Lamping?”
“Yeah.”
Quinn was surprised she’d forgotten; he’d told her all about Lamping while holding her and waiting for the medics in Jill’s living room. “He was dead before they got him to the hospital.”
Pearl let her head sink back into her pillow and thought about that. About handsome, smiling, lying Tony Lake. Everything about him a lie.
“Good,” she said.
Quinn said nothing.
“E-Bliss,” Pearl said. “What a nightmare.”
“Even more than you think,” Quinn said. “Stone and Victor’s sister, Gloria Lamping, whom Stone ratted out, are trying to outtalk each other, cutting deals that aren’t going to happen. That’s where I got much of my information. Gloria’s still recovering from being run down by a cab. She knew about the killings. Stone says she even committed some of them.”
“A woman doing that to another woman.” Pearl managed to shake her head slightly on the pillow. “A nightmare,” she said again.
“One that’s over,” Quinn said. “You’re awake now, Pearl.”
He touched her hand as gently as he’d ever touched her.
Quinn stayed with Pearl until almost midnight, then went home to his apartment and found Linda’s note.
She’d thought things through, the note said, and she realized she could never be a cop’s wife. She was also going to quit her job with the city. She felt there was no choice, after being exposed as an informant who’d chosen sides in an NYPD internal dispute. No one would trust her after that. And she didn’t deserve Quinn’s trust.
She’d signed her name under the word good-bye.
Quinn felt like sobbing, then like breaking up the furniture, but he did neither. He thought about trying to phone Linda. But he didn’t do that, either. He knew she’d made her decision, and he wouldn’t be able to argue with the fatalistic logic in her note even if she did answer his call.
In truth, he was saddened but not surprised. He knew where she probably was now, someplace where they served booze. He cared but he understood that it was hopeless to try to help her. Some people you couldn’t save. Some people you couldn’t save from themselves.
Those were the ones who haunted you, because you could have tried harder even though you knew it was hopeless, because somehow or another, on the way out, they made others partners in their destruction. Even the people they loved. Maybe especially them.
He folded the note carefully, as if he might keep it.
Then he reconsidered, wadded it small and tight, and dropped it in the wastebasket.
79
A month later, Quinn was sitting at an outside table of a West Side restaurant nursing some kind of overpriced latte that was actually pretty good. An old woman sat at the table opposite his. She had three precisely aligned narrow gouges in her left cheek where her cat had clawed her. If that’s what had happened. If the woman even owned a cat. Quinn never got tired of observing people in New York and trying to read them.
A signal changed and traffic streamed past in the street only ten feet away, raising the noise level and leaving a low-lying haze of exhaust fumes. Pedestrians hurried along the sidewalk, occasionally bumping and shoving at each other in the narrowed space between restaurant railing and curb.
Quinn smiled. He knew that sooner or later one of those pedestrians would be Pearl. She was supposed to meet him here in five minutes for lunch.
Pearl was doing well since her release from the hospital. Last week she’d even begun working again as a guard at the bank. She continued to attract and befuddle Quinn, and he knew she always would.
Quinn glanced at the Times folded on the table. In it he’d read with satisfaction that the latest polls showed Harley Renz was the most popular police commissioner in the city’s history. There actually were rumors concerning a mayoral bid, most of them probably generated by Renz. Quinn figured Renz had come out of the Torso Murders case better than anyone.
Fedderman had also come out okay. He was back in Florida, continuing his uneasy retirement, waiting for another call from Quinn. From time to time he sent Quinn citrus fruit.
Palmer Stone and Gloria Lamping had lawyered up, but in truth they were helpless now. The system had them in its teeth, and the system would shake them and chew them to a fineness that was nothing.
Two weeks ago the dead body of Maria Sanchez had been discovered in a bathtub in a Tijuana motel. Her tongue had been cut out and her mouth stuffed with cocaine.
The Torso Murders had ceased.
Jill Clark had reclaimed her life.
Quinn noticed a bobbing, dark-haired head in the oncoming stream of pedestrians and stood up so he could be seen.
He grinned. Pearl was here.
Don’t miss John Lutz’s next spine-tingling thriller…
Coming from Pinnacle in October 2009!
Rave Reviews for John Lutz
“Lutz’s skill will keep you glued to this thick thriller.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on Night Kills
“Superb suspense…the kind of book that makes you check to see if all the doors and windows are locked.”
—Affaire de Coeur, on Night Kills
“Brilliant…a very scary and suspenseful read.”
—Booklist, on In for the Kill
“Enthralling…Shamus and Edgar award-winner Lutz gives us further proof of his enormous talent.”
—Publishers Weekly, on In for the Kill
“Since Lutz can deliver a hard-boiled PI novel or a bloody thriller with equal ease, it’s not a surprise to find him applying his skills to a police procedural in Chill of Night. But the ingenuity of the plot shows that Lutz is in rare form.”
—The New York Times Book Review, on Chill of Night
“Lutz keeps the suspense high…An ideal beach read.”
—Publishers Weekly, on Chill of Night
“A dazzling tour de force…compelling, absorbing…Lutz ranks with such vintage masters of big-city murder as Lawrence Block and the late Ed McBain.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on Chill of Night
“A great read! Lutz kept me in suspense right up to the end.”
—Midwest Book Review, on Chill of Night
“A tense, fast-moving novel, a plot-driven page-turner of the first order.”
—Book Page, on Fear the Night
“A shrewd and clever novel that delivers thrills as seen through totally believable and convincing characters. John Lutz is one of the masters of the police novel. Highly recommended!”
—Ridley Pearson, on Fear the Night
�
�A twisted cat-and-mouse game…a fast-moving crime thriller…Lutz skillfully brings to life the sniper’s various victims.”
—Publishers Weekly, on Fear the Night
“Night Victims is compelling, suspenseful, and—dare I say it?—creepy. John Lutz knows how to make you shiver.”
—Harlan Coben
“A heart-pounding roller coaster of a tale, whose twists and turns are made all the more compelling by the complex, utterly real characters populating his world.”
—Jeffery Deaver, on Night Victims
“I’ve been a fan of John Lutz for years.”
—T. Jefferson Parker
“John Lutz is a major talent.”
—John Lescroart
“John Lutz knows how to ratchet up the terror with effective twists and a fast pace.”
—Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale), on Night Victims
“Compelling…a gritty psychological thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly, on The Night Watcher
“John Lutz is the new Lawrence Sanders.”
—Ed Gorman in Mystery Scene, on The Night Watcher
“SWF Seeks Same is a complex, riveting, and chilling portrayal of urban terror, as well as a wonderful novel of New York City. Echoes of Rosemary’s Baby, but this one’s scarier because it could happen.”
—Jonathan Kellerman
“John Lutz just keeps getting better and better.”
—Tony Hillerman, on SWF Seeks Same
“For a good scare and a well-paced story, Lutz delivers.”
—San Antonio Express News
“Lutz is among the best.”
—San Diego Union
“Lutz is rapidly bleeding critics dry of superlatives.”
—St. Louis Post Dispatch
“It’s easy to see why he’s won an Edgar and two Shamuses.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Lutz is a fine craftsman.”
—Booklist
“Likable protagonists in a complex thriller…Lutz always delivers the goods, and this is no exception.”
—Booklist, on Final Seconds
“Clever cat-and-mouse game.”
—Kirkus Reviews, on Final Seconds
ALSO BY JOHN LUTZ
Night Victims
Night Kills
In for the Kill
Chill of Night
Fear the Night
Darker Than Night
The Night Watcher
The Night Caller
Final Seconds (with David August)
The Ex
Available from Kensington Publishing Corp. and Pinnacle Books
URGE to KILL
JOHN LUTZ
PINNACLE BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
For Barbara,
As they all are
And to the memory of
John Mangosing,
A good friend gone too soon
Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PART I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
PART II
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
PART III
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable aid of Marilyn Davis and Sharon Huston.
PART I
They change their skies above them, But not their hearts that roam.
—RUDYARD KIPLING,
The Native-Born
Why do I often meet your visage here? Your eyes like agate lanterns—on and on Below the toothpaste and the dandruff ads?
—HART CRANE, The Tunnel
(New York Subway)
1
In the long ago an eagle circled high above a rabbit burrow and would swoop down and lay on the ground a branch of ripe berries, and then climb high again into the sky.
The rabbit would see how high the eagle was and know there was time to leave the safety of the burrow to snatch the berries and return to the burrow before the eagle could reach him from up so high.
Again the next day the eagle would swoop down and leave a branch of berries, but this time a little farther from the burrow. Again the rabbit would see the eagle circling high in the clear sky and seize the berries and return to the burrow before the eagle might reach him.
For seven days this happened, each day the rabbit venturing farther from its burrow, and the eagle simply circled high overhead and looked very small against the pale blue top of the sky. The rabbit decided the berries were a gift, but still the eagle was an eagle and not to be trusted.
On the eighth day the branch of berries was still far from the burrow, but the eagle so small in the sky seemed no threat and like a mote in the rabbit’s wary eye.
But as the rabbit left his burrow the eagle became larger, and it wasn’t an eagle at all this time but a hawk that had seemed so high only because it was smaller than the eagle the rabbit usually saw. Too late the rabbit realized what had happened. There was no time to return to the safety of the burrow.
The weak things in the world have a time to die that is sooner than the strong. That is why the spirit made the weak and the strong. In its heart, the rabbit knew this and was still.
The hawk swooped down, and its wings spread wider and wider and covered the sun and made the sky black. The hawk’s talons cut like blades into the rabbit’s back, and the rabbit screamed as the hawk lifted it higher and higher into a blackness darker than the night. The screams became the wind and the beating of the hawk’s great wings the thunder of the coming storms.
In the long-ago day, these things did happen.
2
New York, the present
Vera Doaks keyed the lock on her apartment door and told herself she needed to be patient.
She’d been in New York a little more than a month. That wasn’t a long time, and already she’d p
laced an article in the airline magazine Nation Travels and sold a short story to a nationally published mystery magazine. Her MFA from Ohio State University was paying off. She told herself it wouldn’t be long before she wouldn’t have to wait tables in order to pay the rent. Some publisher would pay it for her.
She paused by the framed flea-market mirror in the entry hall and tilted her head to the side for a dust jacket publicity shot. The attractive redhead in the mirror smiled out at her, with wide cheekbones like a model’s, intense brown eyes, slightly upturned nose, strong cleft chin, a knowing, confident grin.
Look intelligent now.
Her famous writer look. Vera practiced it frequently.
A career as a novelist was what really interested her. The short story she’d sold was going to be the basis for her first book, a suspense novel set in her new city, New York.