by John Lutz
“We’re trying to appeal only to the hunter side of the killer,” Helen said. “The sportsman with a code. That’s the part of him that will respond to the letter.”
“It isn’t in our contract with the city that we fight duels,” Pearl said.
“It would be more like a hunt,” Helen said. “That’s the point.”
“And hunting is in your contract,” Renz said, “however it might be phrased. Hunting is what we do.”
“We?” Pearl asked.
“I’ll do it,” Quinn said, before Renz could answer Pearl. He smiled at Renz. “It’s true that we have nothing to lose if the killer doesn’t respond.”
“We knew you’d want to do it,” Helen said.
Pearl gave her a dark look. Helen seemed unimpressed.
Renz took the letter back from Quinn. “I’ll fax this to Cindy Sellers at City Beat,” he said. “Give them a shot at a special edition. The other papers won’t be far behind.”
“They’ll all be behind the Internet and cable news,” Fedderman said. They all knew how newspaper offices, as well as the NYPD, sprang leaks.
Renz shrugged. “That’s the plight of print journalism. Sellers will have to understand it.”
“I hope the killer doesn’t respond,” Pearl said, as they were standing up to leave the office.
Renz began to fume. His jowls actually shook.
Quinn raised a hand before Renz could speak. “Let’s all keep this running smoothly,” he said, looking at everyone but Renz.
“Helen knows the mind of the killer,” Renz said, as they were filing out.
“It will work,” Helen added.
Quinn turned to look at her. “Do you guarantee it?”
“No,” Helen said. “There are no guarantees in what we do. This is more like an extended warranty.”
“My new idea for some fresh material,” Mitzi said. “Two serial killers, married to each other.”
Mitzi and Jackie Jameson had run through their routines and were killing time sitting and sipping cold drinks in what passed for Say What?’s green room. It was a twelve-foot-square windowless room with a few old easy chairs and recliners, some gray steel folding chairs, mirrors and more mirrors, and an old refrigerator. Nothing in it was green. The two comics faced each other in opposite threadbare easy chairs. Jackie was drinking a Coke in intermittent gulps. Mitzie, one Levied leg thrown over a chair arm, sipped bottled water.
“It could be funny, Mitz,” Jackie said. “But keeping a marriage like that together could be murder.”
“In sickness and in health,” Mitzi said.
Jackie grimaced.
“See what I mean?” Mitzi said. “Possibilities. Grim, so probably funny. And I could recycle some of the old husband-and-wife jokes in a new context and they’d seem fresh.”
“I dunno, though,” Jackie said. “Considering what’s going on out there these days, will people think you oughta be joking about serial killers?”
“I’m not sure. Whaddya think?”
“Yeah, it might go over okay. Take it from a guy who’s got no taste.”
“That’s why I sought your advice.”
“If you do decide to go in that direction, maybe you oughta learn some more about serial killers, give your material more edge.”
“Talk to a few serial killers?”
“Might be easier to talk to a guy named Quinn,” Jackie said. “He’s—
“I know who he is,” Mitzi said. “I read the papers every day for material. Oh, that Middle East.”
“So give him a call. He might help you out.”
“In his spare time,” Mitzi said.
Jackie grinned at her. “You scared to call him?”
“He’s a scary guy.”
“He’d be awed to hear from a celebrity like you.”
“I could tell him I’m Whoopi Goldberg.”
Jackie dug his cell phone from one of his pockets and tossed it over so it landed on what there was of Mitzi’s lap, the way she was sprawled in the chair.
“So call him,” he said, and threw back his head to drain the rest of his Coke. He bent a kink in the empty can and tossed it into a plastic-lined trash receptacle.
“You into throwing things?” Mitzi asked.
“It’s a kind of therapy. Helps me to let loose. Go ahead and call him.”
“Anybody ever tell you, Jackie, you’re kinda pushy?”
“You got nothing to lose, Mitz. He might surprise you. Serial killers might be a barrel of laughs.”
“They’ve got other uses for barrels,” Mitzi said. She flipped up the lid on the phone. “Whaddya think, nine-one-one or information?”
“I dunno,” Jackie said. “They’re both a bundle of giggles, but nine-one-one tends to take things more seriously.” Looking at her, he thought, that law against two comics, what a shame.
66
Martin Hawk sat that evening in the bar of his hotel and watched the reflection of a television screen on the glass partition of his booth. The TV was over by the cash register. Its sound was down, but volume wasn’t needed for what was being shown. It was a big mob scene somewhere in the park. Backward in the screen’s reflection Martin could see the lettering on the signs and shirts. He mentally flipped the letters: FREE BERTY.
So it was about the latest in the series of murders in the city, all inspired by the honorable blood sport that Martin had perfected and developed into a profitable business. Bertrand Wrenner, a feckless little man who under any other circumstances wouldn’t have dreamed of shooting anyone, had taken the media’s interpretation of Quest and Quarry’s unintentional consequences to heart. The fool actually thought he was dueling, that somehow what was happening in the city put the stamp of respectability on unadorned murder.
Berty Wrenner, Martin was sure, had never gone hunting.
A bowl of peanuts and Martin’s drink sat untouched before him. What was going on now in the city had deprived him of appetite and thirst. Somehow noble opportunity for his clients had been turned into complicity in murders. He knew the crowds demonstrating in the park, the masses plodding to their jobs and then back home every day, wouldn’t understand his goals or accomplishments. They might regard murder as dueling now; and for a while if Quest and Quarry were exposed, they might even regard what its clientele did as hunting. But Martin knew the fickleness of group thought. He might well become a reviled and shunned, not to mention imprisoned, member of society.
And of course there was Quinn, himself a hunter, a man Martin had no choice but to respect. Quinn was always out there trying to track him, thinking about him, attempting to get into his mind and motives. Stalking him.
Martin felt a powerful need for understanding, to set the record straight. To deal with the hunter who hunted him.
He could think of only one way to do that. For the record. For his record. For the fortification of his soul.
He laid some bills and a tip next to the peanut bowl on the table and started to stand up. The news was going to a commercial break, but in the instant before the picture went to a shot of luxury autos driving in formation, the backward crawl at the bottom of the screen said there’d been a new development in the latest series of murders in New York City, involving a letter.
Martin sat back down.
The next morning, Pearl and Fedderman had stopped for doughnuts, just like cops in books and movies.
“Krispy Kreme,” Fedderman said. “How can their doughnuts be so delicious and their stock so lousy?”
Pearl looked over at him. “You in the stock market, Feds?”
“No. It was either that or the supermarket. I never had the money for both.”
They actually tried to pay for the doughnuts, but the guy behind the counter said they were free in return for the protection the cops gave his store. They thanked him and got their coffees refilled in to-go cups. The doughnut guy told them to be sure and come back, and they said they would, meaning it. Sometimes the world felt right.
They g
ot into the unmarked parked illegally at the curb. Fedderman drove. They were on their way to put their heads together with Vitali and Mishkin to see if they could break the logjam in their investigation. Neither of them mentioned the letter Helen the profiler had composed that was released under Quinn’s name. Pearl hoped the killer would ignore the damned thing.
The pressure from on high was real and growing, exacerbated by the Berty Wrenner case. Quinn hadn’t demanded action, as Renz had demanded of him, because he knew they were all pros and treated them as such. But pros felt the pressure just like everyone else, only they could shrug it off. Most of the time.
It was obvious that the stress was wearing on Quinn. His eyes were often bloodshot, as if he wasn’t getting much sleep, and his craggy features had taken on an expression of weary determination. He seemed to be taking more desperate measures, like having Nancy Weaver interview Wrenner’s fellow employees at the real estate agency where Wrenner worked. Everyone there seemed to have hated Alec Farr, so there was a remote possibility Wrenner had had an accomplice.
Pearl and Fedderman didn’t say much as they finished their coffees and left the foam containers in the car’s plastic cup holders.
They were on Broadway, driving north in heavy traffic, when Pearl said, “Hang a left at the next corner.”
“Why?” Fedderman asked.
“I need to make a quick stop.”
“What is this, you gotta pee?” With all that coffee in her, it figures, Fedderman thought.
“Just make the turn, Feds. Please.”
Astounded by the please, Fedderman steered the gray Ford into the turn. They drove for a while. Fedderman could smell something unpleasant now and then, as if someone had vomited in the car and it hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned. Maybe a suspect. They did that sometimes. He’d have opened a window, but the air conditioner was having enough of a problem keeping the summer heat outside.
“Any more instructions?” he asked.
“I just want to—”
“I know where we’re going now,” he said. “Your apartment.” He glanced over at her. “I guess you’re desperate for my body.”
“It would require desperation,” Pearl said.
When he’d parked in front of the brick and stone building, she told him she’d only be a minute and got out of the car. Her slacks felt tight and constricting, as if they’d contracted in the heat, and clung to her lower body. She was aware of Fedderman watching her as she took the front concrete steps and entered the vestibule. She wondered what he was thinking, but she knew. What all men thought.
Showing herself off, Fedderman thought. Tight pants and a flight of stairs; women couldn’t resist the opportunity—if they had it to show. Pearl had it.
Ah! She saw right away that there was something white visible through her mail slot. The postman had been here.
She keyed open the box and withdrew the day’s mail. Only one envelope, and a colorful flier from a new Thai restaurant that had opened in the neighborhood. The flier slipped from her grasp and fluttered to the tile floor. She ignored it and turned over the envelope.
In the top left corner was Dr. Eichmann’s name and office address.
Since Pearl had paid her bill, she knew what must be in the envelope. The pathology report for the biopsy of her mole. It had to be!
She moved over to a corner near the windowed door—where the mingled scents of cleaning solvent and urine were stronger, but the light was better—and started to tear open the envelope.
Then she stopped.
She had to work today, as usual, and there was no way to know how this report would affect her, one way or the other.
Pearl stared at the sealed envelope and decided it was too delicate a matter, too intensely private, to share with Fedderman, and he was waiting out in the car. Probably about to lean on the horn. She didn’t want him to see her reaction to the news, either way.
She stuffed the envelope in a pocket and went back outside, trying to forget it for the time being. It wasn’t going anywhere, and whenever she decided to read it, it would say the same thing.
Live or die, she had to concentrate on today.
She wouldn’t admit that she was terrified of what she might learn, and now that she had the envelope whose contents she’d been so eager to read, she’d delay opening it as long as possible.
Martin Hawk had spent most of the morning on his reply to Quinn’s letter, cutting and pasting from a New Yorker he’d bought at a kiosk several blocks from the hotel.
When it was finished, he decided not to mail it. Instead he took it to a Kinko’s, where he ran a copy of it.
Then he faxed it.
67
They weren’t sorry he was dead.
Nancy Weaver sat in Alec Farr’s office, in the large black leather desk chair that had been Farr’s, and read over the notes she’d taken on the interviews with the employees of the Home Away agency. Though some of the employees were at least polite, including Farr’s personal assistant, a weepy-eyed woman named Gloria Ann, most of them clearly disliked Farr to the point where they were glad fate had stepped in and removed him from their lives.
Mention of Berty Wrenner’s name brought praise and distress. Praise because Berty was such a quiet, thoughtful, warmhearted man. Distress because Berty was in a pickle for killing Farr. Weaver knew how, once they became causes célèbres, the oppressed and imprisoned could grow in everyone’s estimation, but this was ridiculous. Berty Wrenner should be in line for sainthood.
The last name on her interview list was Adam Hastings, the owner of Home Away. He entered Farr’s office without knocking, a tall, slender man in his sixties, with gray hair, glittering blue eyes, and the face of a sly reptile. He sat down in the straight-backed wooden chair where employees must have sat to be excoriated by Farr, smoothed the creases in his neat gray suit, and smiled at Weaver.
“I’m here to tell you what a prince Bertrand Wrenner is and what an asshole Alec Farr was,” he said.
Weaver’s face showed nothing, but she kind of liked the way the interview was starting. She was dealing with the alpha of alpha males here. This could be exhilarating.
“Is that how you really saw it?” she asked.
“I told a half-truth,” Hastings said. He had a smooth, cultured voice, like a late-night DJ on public radio classics. “Bertrand Wrenner is an incompetent little twit, and Alec Farr was a son of a bitch.”
“Did you know that when you hired them?”
“Not entirely. I thought Wrenner might be able to sell, but he turned out to be a wimp. Farr, I knew was a son of a bitch. That was the reason I hired him. I knew he used steroids, not because he was an athlete, but so he’d be more intimidating and aggressive. We’re not in an easy business, Detective Weaver, especially in these times.”
It was Officer Weaver, but Weaver didn’t correct him. “So what your salespeople are saying is true—Farr was a slave-driving prick.”
“Quite so. He demonstrated it on a daily basis. Several of our people quit because they couldn’t take the pressure. Boo-hoo. They were replaceable, and Farr got results.”
“Not lately, he didn’t.”
Hastings smiled again. It was a scary sight. “It’s a punishing economy out there, Detective. You should be glad you’re in public service. When people need a house or a new car, they can delay buying them. When people need a cop, they usually can’t put it off.”
“You make me glad I’m not on commission,” Weaver said.
“You should be glad. But if you ever need a job, consider contacting Home Away. There’s something about you that makes me think you’d be a fit.”
“If ever I start using steroids,” Weaver said.
Hastings stood up. “I’ve told you all I really know. I don’t spend a lot of time on the premises. I hired Alec Farr to run this end of the business, and he did it his way.”
“Like in the Frank Sinatra song,” Weaver said, “only it got him killed.”
“And now
I have to replace two employees.” Hastings sounded self-pitying and mildly piqued, as if some triviality had tripped him up and now he had to waste his valuable time dealing with the consequences.
“Mr. Hastings,” Weaver said, “is that the only reason you’re sorry Alec Farr is dead?”
“Of course it is. He was a valuable employee.”
“Did you like him?”
“Not at all. No one could like him.”
“What about Berty Wrenner?”
“Didn’t really know him, and he can be replaced.”
Everybody’s epitaph, Weaver thought.
“Anything else, Detective?”
“Not at the moment, sir.”
Why did I call him ‘sir‘? Did Farr feel intimidated by Hastings, even in his own office? Is that the kind of pissing contest game they played around here? A game that became more than a game to Berty Wrenner and drove him to murder?
Hastings nodded a good-bye and went out the door.
Weaver stood up from Alec Farr’s chair and glanced around the office. There were a few awards on the walls. Top salesman of this year or that, and a nineteen-year-old business administration diploma from someplace called Pierpont College. Above the black file cabinets was a bad painting of a bald eagle soaring against the background of an American flag. At least Farr had been a patriot. No photographs of wife or kids, as Farr had been a divorced man without children. No shots of any other family members. No Elk membership certificate, mounted trophy fish, personal mementos, or souvenirs from tourist traps.
Weaver decided that Farr had been a lonely man. His job must have meant everything to him. That was the reason he’d stayed instead of run. Not courage, but lonely desperation. She decided that maybe she thought more kindly of Alec Farr than anyone else who’d ever been in this office. Still, she wouldn’t have enjoyed working for him, and she couldn’t say she would have liked him. In fact, she didn’t really like anyone she’d interviewed today.
Feeling a sudden urgency to get out of the office and away from the Home Away agency, she headed for the door. She knew the air would be better outside, uncontaminated by Machiavellian maneuvering and raw ambition. Not to mention fear.