by John Lutz
“I suppose that’s true,” Quinn said. He hadn’t really thought it out. He’d simply known within seconds that to accept the killer’s challenge, to play the game by his rules, was the honorable thing to do. “Honor,” he muttered.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Zoe said. “Your honor. That is not a small thing, Quinn. And I think it’s important that you know I appreciate that and I stand behind you.”
“The classic male and female roles,” Quinn said.
“That’s true. They’re roles that are ancient and deeply rooted in human experience. Remember all those medieval tales about dragon slaying and rescuing the princess?”
“Enough of them,” Quinn said. “So you’re my princess?”
“Sure am,” Zoe said. “After dinner I’ll show you.”
For her birthday dinner, Rob took Mitzi to Mephisto’s, a marvelous restaurant in Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t where you’d go to dine economically. Mitzi was impressed by the fact that Rob would spend so much simply because she was turning twenty-five. She sampled her marinated mushroom appetizer and glanced around. Of course she knew no one. This wasn’t the kind of place her friends from the club would frequent.
Mitzi smiled across the white tablecloth and glittering crystal at Rob. It was obvious that he wanted to make this an occasion. He’d worn a perfectly tailored blue suit, a white shirt, and a silky floral pattern red tie with a gold tie clasp. There was a gold pin in the form of a soaring bird on his suit coat’s left lapel. Mitzi had to admit she’d never expected to dine in this kind of place with a man so perfect for her on her birthday. And he’d brought a gift for her. At least he’d intimated that it was a gift. It was in a blue carry-on bag that sat beneath the table. She’d tried to pry out of him what the bag contained, but he wouldn’t say anything other than that he wanted it to be a surprise. Men liked to play games. They made games out of just about everything they did. Mitzi had an entire routine about it.
Rob raised his champagne glass to her and fixed her with a smile that dazzled like the crystal. She reached across the table and clinked her glass against his, but not hard. The thing must cost a fortune.
“To Mitzi at twenty-five,” he said. “May you always remain so young.”
She grinned and sipped champagne from the delicate stemmed glass. “If only that were possible.”
“Maybe it is,” he said, “if you believe hard enough.”
“No,” Mitzi said. “Mother Nature’s a joker, just like me.”
“Then you and Mother Nature should be friends.”
“We are,” Mitzi said, “but she’s a bitch sometimes. Like most of my other friends. She seems to get a laugh out of women growing old and men getting tired of them. Look around. You see it happen all the time.”
“You don’t have to worry about that with me, Mitzi. I promise.”
She stared hard into his deep dark eyes and rested her hand gently on his. “For some reason,” she said, “I believe you. More importantly, I think you believe you. But don’t you see that’s the joke? You’ll change your mind. Lovers do. They honestly think they won’t, but they do.”
“Not me,” Rob said. “I’ll love you for the rest of your life.”
With the polished toe of his wingtip shoe he nudged the blue canvas bag beneath the table.
Mitzi sipped champagne and continued gazing into his eyes. Despite the mystery there she decided to believe him with every beating cell of her heart, at least for tonight. If he wanted to make tonight her night—their night—it was fine with her.
How many Robs were there?
How many nights like this were there?
Carpe diem. Seize the day. Like in the Robin Williams movie. How would you say seize the night in Latin?
There had to be a joke in there somewhere. Maybe even in Latin. Latin could be a terrifically funny language.
71
When they left the restaurant after dinner, Mitzi knew she was a little drunk. During the coziness of the cab ride to her apartment, she tried to tease Rob, get him to reveal what was in the blue bag.
Instead of telling her, he teased back, sitting close and keeping the bag well on the other side of him on the back seat. Some of the teasing became sexual, but Mitzi didn’t mind. The cabbie was from some Middle Eastern country, listening to low-volume but insistent Arabic music. He seemed uninterested in what his passengers were doing and might not understand much English.
Rob didn’t direct the cabbie to stop in front of her building. Instead, they got out at the corner, leaving a short walk. That was okay. The night was still warm, but pleasant because of a slight breeze. As the cab drove away, Mitzi hoped she’d be able to walk all right after all the mixed drinks and wine she’d consumed.
She leaned in close to Rob and he put his arm around her, supporting her. Her legs felt all right, but there was an alcohol-induced numbness in her cheeks. And the sidewalk seemed to be moving around a bit on her, like a funhouse floor. She wasn’t sure if she could navigate a straight line without his help. Mitzi walked with her head resting against his shoulder until they had to climb the steps to her building’s entrance.
No one had passed them on the sidewalk, and they rode the elevator by themselves up to her floor. Just before the door slid open, he leaned over and kissed the side of her neck.
Mitzi did have trouble finding her apartment key in her purse, and when she did finally close her fingers on the key chain, it slipped from her grasp. Maybe she was drunker than she thought.
Rob helped her, fishing the key from her purse and placing it in her hand so she had a firm grip on it. He was smiling down at her as she fumbled to insert the key in the lock.
She did manage to do that without his help. She unlocked the brass knob lock, then the deadbolt above, and pushed the door open.
To blinding, flashing brilliance winking from cameras.
Behind the flaring lights she could glimpse figures of at least a dozen people, all facing her. Most of them held cameras high in front of them or in tight to their faces so they could use viewfinders.
Mitzi was stunned. She felt Rob’s grip tighten on her arm so she wouldn’t fall.
“Surprise!” everyone shouted in imperfect unison.
Still stunned, but grinning, Mitzi looked up at Rob. “You! Did you know about this?”
Rob was smiling, yet he did seem genuinely surprised.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I swear it!”
“He’s telling the truth, Mitz.” Jackie’s voice from somewhere over by the sofa. “We didn’t have a chance to tell him. You haven’t been around the club lately, Rob, and Mitzi’s the only one with your phone number, so we had no choice but to surprise you both.”
“More fun that way, anyway,” Ted Tack’s voice said.
Rob’s grip tightened again on Mitzi’s arm, but this time in a gentle signal to gain her attention.
“See, darling,” he said. “I’m honest to a fault.”
“Get them some champagne,” Jackie said. “It’s time for a toast!”
“More champagne,” Mitzi said. “Yeah, I could use that.”
72
Quinn thought that for Zoe’s safety he shouldn’t spend the night. He didn’t tell her that was why he was leaving, but after they’d made love in her bedroom he showered, dressed, and kissed her good night. She seemed to understand why he was going and kissed him back with a special passion.
Quinn smiled down at her. “You make me want to stay.”
“But you can’t,” she said.
“You’re ahead of me.”
“There’s no ahead or behind. I understand you, that’s all.”
“Your job,” he said.
“No, darling. It’s more than my job.”
He kissed her again and didn’t look back at her as he left.
When he got to his apartment building he was surprised that there wasn’t a package waiting for him in his mailbox. He was sure there was room for it, but he found only the usual fliers and bi
lls.
But when he went upstairs there was the package in front of his apartment door. It was about six inches square, tightly encased in brown wrapping paper fastened with heavy tape. There was no label. Quinn’s name and address were printed in black ink directly on the wrapping. He knew there’d be no fingerprints to be found, and the name and address lettering looked as if it had been done with a ruler and would provide no basis for comparison. The wrapping paper, too, would be a common brand and untraceable.
Still, when he got inside the apartment he put on latex gloves before carefully opening the package.
Inside the wrapping paper was a white box of the sort a large piece of jewelry might come in. Inside the box was a small .25-caliber Springbok revolver. It was loaded. Its barrel was almost short enough to be called snub-nosed, colored a dusky blue steel like the rest of the revolver except for its checked wooden grip. It looked cheap, like the kind of piece that might blow up in your hand, but Quinn knew it was simple and effective. A close-in weapon. It would be easy to conceal and make very little noise, but it would do the job.
He called Fedderman, who came within fifteen minutes with a guy from the lab named Peterman, who looked about sixteen years old and was all business. Peterman dusted the revolver for prints and found none. The box, paper wrapping, and tape he put in a plastic evidence bag. He and Fedderman took the bag with them when they left. Quinn knew the contents of the evidence bag would provide about as much workable evidence as the revolver. None.
As they went out the door, Fedderman gave Quinn a sad backward glance that had a disturbing finality about it.
Fedderman and Peterman had been there less than twenty minutes. Time seemed to be running faster now, at least for Quinn. As if it might be running out.
He found a clean, soft rag under the sink and wiped print dust off the revolver, then checked it to make sure it was in good working condition. He felt secure in his apartment, but he tucked the gun in his belt anyway, then went into the kitchen and poured himself two fingers of Famous Grouse scotch in a water tumbler.
He made sure the apartment was securely locked, then sat for a long time at his desk, sipping scotch.
When he finally went to bed, he placed the gun beneath his pillow. Being an old single-action revolver, it would have to be cocked by drawing back the hammer before it could be fired. There was little chance of that happening accidentally. It was a good under-the-pillow gun.
The scotch relaxed him enough that he could get to sleep, but a small corner of his mind remained awake.
Lavern Neeson sat in the chair by the bed for hours, cradling the shotgun almost as if it were a child. She listened to Hobbs snore and to the familiar sounds of the building, the steady hum of the air-conditioning, the faint pop and rattle of pipes, the occasional muffled crack of wood expanding or contracting. In the kitchen, the refrigerator cycled on and off.
Shortly before dawn, she stood up from the chair and replaced the shotgun in the closet. Before closing the closet door, she stared for a long time at the box of shells on the top shelf. Such potential for destruction in such small items. Such potential for change with the simple squeeze of a trigger. Instantaneous, irreversible change. Like being yanked with a bang from one world and dropped into another.
The prospect was intimidating, but with every passing day it was less frightening than the world she lived in.
She stood with her bare feet on the cool wood floor, her face buried in her hands, and began to cry. Her sobs were almost silent, and no one was there to see her shoulders quake.
It didn’t take long for her to get herself under control. She’d become an expert at modulating and manipulating her emotions. Her expression was calm. Only her reddened eyes and the tear tracks on her cheeks remained of her violent fit of sobbing.
Peace and rest. She was beginning to associate the shotgun with peace and rest. That was dangerous and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop it.
Less than a minute later she was back in bed with Hobbs, feeling the heat emanating from his muscular body. He lay on his left side, facing away from her, unmoving and unaware, snoring away.
Lavern drifted into an uneasy sleep for a short while, and then the alarm went off.
The sun had barely risen when the landline phone on the table next to Quinn’s bed rang.
He woke slowly, not sure how many rings he’d missed, and tried to get his body to respond to the urgency he felt to answer the phone.
Finally his partially numb right hand found the receiver and clumsily removed it from its cradle.
Lying on his back, he pressed the receiver to his ear, said, “Quinn,” in a sleep-thickened voice.
The voice on the other end of the connection sounded wide awake, crisp, and authoritative.
It said, “Listen carefully. Don’t talk. These are the rules.”
73
The bedroom was bright with fragments of early morning sunlight when the man Mitzi Lewis knew as Rob Curlew observed her as she slept.
Standing nude, he leaned over her and listened closely to her breathing. She was still sleeping soundly.
Careful to make no noise, he gathered up his clothes and carried them into the bathroom. He ran no water and made little noise getting dressed.
He didn’t want to leave Mitzi, didn’t want to lose this one. But her surprise party last night had been a surprise for him, too. Now almost everyone she knew had seen him and would be able to supply police with descriptions, could identify him. Many of them had photographs of him with Mitzi.
He simply couldn’t take the chance. Sometimes the best of hunters came up empty.
When he was dressed, he found the blue carry-on that he’d promised Mitzi he’d open this morning, and walked softly back to her bed.
He stood very still and listened to her breathe, watched her sleep. She looked so innocent, so unknowing.
She would never know the pivotal moment in her life, the moment that had saved her life. Perhaps the great joke of her life. Being Mitzi, she might very well have looked at it that way.
He wanted to kiss her, but knew that might be a mistake. Instead he left the bedroom quietly, left her apartment, and disappeared into the city that was not yet all the way awake.
At 8:00 A.M., after a breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast, Quinn phoned Renz and described his dawn phone call from the killer.
The rules were simple enough. At nine o’clock this morning the hunt would begin. It was limited to the island of Manhattan. Both men were to be armed only with their identical .25-caliber revolvers. Quinn was safe in his apartment until nine o’clock, but not afterward. From that point on, he was safe nowhere, nor was his opponent.
“He knows where you live, but you don’t know where he does,” Renz pointed out.
“That’s why I’m probably safe here,” Quinn said. “Our killer’s the sort who’d rather make it a sporting proposition. He wouldn’t consider it cricket to shoot me in my bed.”
“Cricket…” Renz repeated thoughtfully. “He use that word?”
“I don’t think so,” Quinn said.
“But you just used it,” Renz said. “Maybe because he did.”
“Maybe,” Quinn said. “Maybe he watches the BBC.”
“There you go,” Renz said. “He also knows what you look like.”
“Only from newspaper photos, and they don’t do me justice.”
“He’s really not as cricket as he’d like you to think,” Renz said. “Let’s not forget he’s just another psycho asshole who makes his own rules.”
“There’s nothing in those rules about leaving my apartment before nine o’clock,” Quinn said. “That’s what I’ll be doing after I hang up on you.”
“Okay. I’ll issue the order again that no one is to interfere with you or the kil—your opponent.”
Both men were silent for a while, knowing this might well be their final conversation, and that there simply wasn’t any more to say other than everything, and that was impossible to
put into words.
“Luck,” Renz said simply, and hung up.
It was when Quinn replaced the receiver that he remembered something. Maybe. It was possible the .25-Caliber Killer had used the word cricket in their phone conversation. He might have a touch of British accent.
Bloody hell!
Not that it changed anything if the killer did happen to be a Brit. He was soon going to find himself in a sticky wicket.
Quinn finished his coffee; then he hand washed and dried his breakfast dishes before leaving the apartment.
He figured a man who’d done the dishes in preparation for his next meal was unlikely to meet death until then. Surely if you planned for the future it was more likely there would be one.
Think alive, stay alive.
But he didn’t intend to spend the day simply trying to stay alive while keeping an eye out for the killer.
He had a destination.
Quinn left his apartment via the fire stairs, then he did a turn around the block to be reasonably sure he wasn’t being followed. It was possible, maybe likely, that his opponent had his apartment building already staked out though it wasn’t yet nine o’clock.
He entered an office building whose lobby, lined with closed shops, ran through to the opposite block. Without pausing, he walked though it and out the opposite tinted glass doors, then doubled back outside, observing all the way. He was reasonably sure he wasn’t being followed.
What he wanted to do was lose himself in the city before nine o’clock.
The morning was warm and still, and with a slight overcast that would burn off by noon. Right now shadows were muted and the light seemed evenly distributed. Shooter’s weather. As he strode along the sidewalk, Quinn was aware of the weight of the Springbok revolver in one suit-coat pocket, his cell phone in the other.