by John Lutz
She watched the changes in his eyes. He was thinking furiously. Wondering how he might possibly be involved. Or wondering how to lie so he’d seem uninvolved.
“That Lilly Branston!” he said.
“The dead one,” Pearl said.
“She was next on a list of women I was going to get in touch with.” Levin began to pace, three steps this way, three back, swiveling neatly on the plush carpet. The leather soles of his deck shoes looked as if they’d never been outside. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. It came to me gradually who she is. Was. Lately I’ve looked at a lot of photos of a lot of women.”
“So you’ve met a number of women through Coffee and Conversation.”
“No, only two. I’m very selective. I’ve been divorced for three years. I’ve learned to be careful about my relationships. Maybe too careful.” He made a sweeping motion with an arm to take in the vast, well-furnished living room. “As you can see, I’m what you’d call more than reasonably wealthy.”
“You’re concerned that women might be after your money instead of you?”
“Yes. But only insofar as they might turn out to be a waste of my time. Fact is, I wouldn’t want a woman who didn’t at least take my wealth into consideration. I like very smart, very aggressive women. When I saw that Lilly Branston was a real estate agent with the Willman Group, I knew she had to be both those things.” Levin tried a smile. “Have you ever noticed how aggressive female real estate agents are?”
“Like female cops,” Pearl said.
He gave her a speculative up-and-down look. “I do read the papers. It’s interesting that a cop who’s the serial killer’s type—and quite beautiful, I will add—is searching for the monster. Kind of like the baitfish seeking the shark.”
“We won’t go to that part of the ocean,” Pearl said. “We were talking about your search for a soul mate.”
“Yes. Anyway, what I liked about Coffee and Conversation was that, if things didn’t work out after your first meeting, there were no loose ends. I mean, nobody had anybody’s address or phone number. Maybe not even their real name. They had only rudimentary information, and maybe the photo that was on the C and C website, and that was it. Nobody was going to…”
“Stalk you?”
“Not so much that. More cling to me. I’ve found women to be clingy.”
“You’re not short on ego.”
“No, I am not. But I do attract women on the hunt. That’s why the C and C concept appealed to me. You contact C and C, and if the other party is willing, they set up a time and date for coffee and a get-acquainted meeting. You are literally strangers when you meet. If either of you so chooses, you can keep it that way.”
“Did your meetings with the first two women on your list go any further than caffeine and conversation?”
“No. I think I was way too aggressive for them.”
“You didn’t mention their names.”
He gave Pearl two names that she jotted in her notepad. She would check later and make sure they were C and C clients.
Pearl placed her notepad and pencil in her lap. “When you say you were ‘too aggressive,’ do you mean sexually? In your sexual practices?”
Levin stopped pacing and appeared genuinely shocked. “No, no, nothing like that. What I mean is that I don’t apologize for wanting to make even more money, for wanting even more prestige and power. More of everything. It’s part of Darwinism, part of being human. Too many people don’t accept that. You’d be surprised how many women out there want to turn the world green, or spray paint people wearing fur coats, or eat nothing but arugula lettuce and beans—and all to the exclusion of everything else.” He looked sincerely at Pearl. “Detective, I don’t give a flying flip if the world is two degrees hotter in twenty years or if the ocean rises six inches. I want to be the guy who gets rich building dikes.”
Pearl looked at him. Hoo, boy!
“So you were what…too honest for those women?”
He laughed. “You might call it that. I don’t want to get involved with any woman under false pretenses. Best to get our beliefs and ambitions out there in the beginning. Do I want to be fantastically wealthy and take over the world? Be the king of everything? Sure, if the opportunity presents itself.”
“Are you legally sane?” Pearl asked.
At first she thought he was going to get mad, but he simply laughed again. “We both know I can’t answer that one, so why did you ask it?”
“You, uh, remind me of someone.” She picked up her notebook again and glanced at what she’d jotted down. “Did you meet either or these women night before last?”
“Sure did.” He gave Pearl the woman’s name, which she underlined. “We spent three hours learning about each other in the Weekly Grind coffee shop, and then we had a late supper and strolled around the city for a while. Till well past midnight, actually.”
“Sounds romantic. You must have hit it off at least somewhat.”
“I thought so. Three lattes’ worth, anyway. She even gave me her phone number, but when I called yesterday she said she’d thought about it and didn’t want to carry the relationship any further. It was because I’d kicked at a stray cat while we were walking. The thing might have had rabies, for all we knew. She confessed she was a member of PETA. I told her I liked animals and would join PETA myself, but it didn’t impress her.”
“Maybe for some reason she thought you were being insincere.”
“But I do like animals. Enough, anyway.”
“Maybe it was the caffeine talking. Do you still have her phone number?”
“I think so, sure.” He walked to where a phone sat on a table near the foyer and flipped the top page of a stack of yellow Post-its. He read a phone number to Pearl. “You can call and check. She’ll verify what I assume is my alibi.”
“I will,” Pearl said, writing down the number
“That’s when Lilly Branston was killed, wasn’t it? When I was with my C and C friend?”
“That’s the time frame,” Pearl said. “By the way, did you lie about not recognizing Lilly Branston when I showed you her photo?”
“No, no! The photo really didn’t ring a bell. Then I did mistake her for some woman whose photo is in the subway stops. But when I heard you say her name, it all came into focus.”
She asked him about his whereabouts at the times of the other Carver murders. He couldn’t remember where he was during most of them, but he was out of town at a shareholders’ meeting at the time of Joyce House’s murder. Witnesses and charge account statements would back him up.
Pearl figured that was probably true or he wouldn’t have been so bold about it, but she dutifully wrote down the information to be verified later.
She slipped her notebook back in her small leather purse and stood up. Slung the purse with its strap sideways across the front of her blazer. She thanked Levin for his time and went to the door.
“Maybe you would have gotten along with Lilly Branston,” she said.
Levin gave her a bright smile. “A woman real estate wolf? You betcha.”
Pearl wondered why she couldn’t help having a shred of sympathy for this thoroughly reprehensible human being.
But she knew why, and it had to do with the diamond engagement ring on her finger.
She remembered that Yancy—she and Yancy—lived not far from here.
Levin escorted her to the elevator when she left. A real gentleman. She thought about telling him what a shallow and obvious cad he was but realized that would be unprofessional.
And useless.
He’d been her second interview of C and C clients. Neither interview had been productive.
Late as it was, Pearl decided to call it a day’s work and walk the half dozen blocks to Yancy’s apartment. She could call the woman who was Levin’s alibi from there. Or maybe tomorrow morning she should go interview her in person. Be thorough.
As she descended to lobby level in the elevator, she found herself humming a song from l
ong ago in her life. At first she couldn’t place it, and then she did:
“Love Is Strange.”
Pearl had dropped by the office to work up her report on her interviews when Fedderman came in exhausted and gleaming with sweat.
“You look like you’ve been sprayed with WD-40,” Pearl said.
“It’s damned hot out there.”
“Have any luck?”
“Naw! I drew a lover boy named Gerald Lone. Only I followed every avenue and there is no Gerald Lone. Well, I take that back. There’s one in Queens who’s ninety-three years old. Not our man. It’s a dead-end search for a guy using a made-up name and address so he can make out.”
“You shoulda been able to get to him some way.”
“I tried every way. He used an Internet café or library computer to register his alias on C and C. Then they did the rest for him, secure as the CIA. He’s covered his tech tracks like a terrorist hacker. He might as well not exist.”
“To the law, maybe.”
“More likely to his wife, when he’s out being whoever he’s pretending to be to get in somebody’s knickers.”
“Knickers?”
“Yeah. They’re catching on again, I hear.”
“Only with you, Feds. And whatever it is you’re dating.” Pearl finished her word processing and shut down her computer. She could print tomorrow. “Speaking of long shots, what do you think of this computerized dragnet?”
“I think it doesn’t work, because the computer nerds at C and C are smarter than the ones at the NYPD.”
Pearl nodded. “Love will find a way.”
Quinn took his yellow legal pad to study after eating an early and light dinner at the Lotus Diner. He ordered a second cup of coffee. He wanted to smoke a cigar but didn’t. The other diners might turn on him.
He was reading where he’d left off on the pad:
Shadow woman appears again at crime scene.
As he was about to put pencil to pad, Thel arrived to top off his coffee. She squinted down at the pad as she poured.
“What’s that? You writing a book?”
“Sort of,” Quinn said.
“Either you are or you ain’t,” Thel said.
“Who said that? Plato?”
“Plato’s our Greek salad, right at the top of the menu.”
The coffee ran over, and Quinn had to move the pad fast to keep it dry.
“Sorry,” Thel said. “I was philosophizing.”
Quinn hadn’t had any dessert. “Are there any doughnuts left from this morning?”
“Sort of,” Thel said, and retreated with the glass coffeepot.
Quinn returned his attention to his legal pad, figuring either he’d get a doughnut or he wouldn’t.
He wrote:
Pearl engaged to Yancy B.
Then he crossed that out. It had nothing to do with the investigation.
He took a sip of coffee and resumed writing with his stubby yellow pencil:
Lilly Branston’s body found. Carver’s M.O.
Witness—Stephen Elsinger. Telescope.
Shadow Woman caught. Lisa Bolt. Coma. One Chrissie accounted for.
Geraldine Knott, Addie Price, same person.
C & C site found on Branston’s flash drive.
Comp. nerd’s software program, seven names.
Thel reappeared and placed a plate containing a damaged cake doughnut in front of Quinn.
“Last one,” she said.
“It looks as if mice have been at it.”
“They know what’s good,” Thel said. “You want a warm-up on your coffee?”
“No thanks.” He was staring at the legal pad, trying to pull some sort of pattern or meaning from it.
“Book got you stumped?” Thel asked. To her, the pad was upside down. “Looks like a mess. Like you don’t know how it’s gonna end.”
“I don’t,” Quinn said.
“What kinda book’s it gonna be?”
“Mystery.”
“Right up your alley.”
“Should be,” Quinn said.
“I wouldn’t try to dunk that doughnut.”
62
The uniformed doorman at Yancy’s building was half a block down the street, chatting with a woman trying to control a huge fluffy dog on a long leash. The leash was looped around one of the doorman’s legs. Some security, Pearl thought, as she pushed through the glass double-door entrance to the lobby.
Yancy was due back later tonight. He’d be surprised to find her in his bed, but he wouldn’t mind. He liked those kinds of surprises. He’d no doubt wake her up. That was the kind of surprise she didn’t mind.
As she rode the absolutely silent elevator, she mused that she was moving up in the world literally as well as figuratively. Yancy had money and, like Fred Levin, would probably always have it. The similarities between the two charm dispensers were still kind of unsettling. But she loved Yancy. She was sure that would be impossible with Levin. The differences between the two men might have to do with the heart. Something about Levin hinted that he harbored malice, that he found a subtle sadistic enjoyment in being detached and purely pragmatic. Yancy might have the substance of shadow, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of maliciousness in his carefree soul.
After stepping out of the elevator, she walked soundlessly down the carpeted hall. There was no one else in sight. She still hadn’t met her and Yancy’s neighbors on either side. Hadn’t seen them in the halls or even heard them through the walls. Maybe rich people were like that, leading lives insulated by their wealth.
She keyed the apartment door and pushed it open. It made a soft brushing sound over the thick throw rug in the foyer in a way she liked. Careful not to muss her hairdo, she lifted her purse strap over her head and laid the purse on a small, marble-topped table. Then she removed her blazer and held it in her right hand, planning on draping it over the sofa arm before going to the kitchen and getting something cold to drink.
Two steps off the foyer tile and onto the living room carpet, Pearl knew something was wrong.
But she didn’t know what. Didn’t know how to react.
She did know with a thrill of fear that she wasn’t alone.
Something struck her hard just above the small of the back, causing the breath to whoosh out of her, momentarily paralyzing her. She dropped to one knee, bending over as if trying to find something on the floor. She tried to breathe but couldn’t. Her brain was struggling to work, to comprehend what was happening.
…Gun’s in my purse.
She was thinking self-preservation and self-preservation only. All she knew for sure was that she was in deep trouble. The rest of her mind was a muddle.
A hand from behind cupped her chin and yanked her hard so she was lying on her back on the floor. She involuntarily drew up her knees, still trying to breathe.
He was standing over her, slender but strong-bodied, wearing a loose-fitting dark sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. Jogging shoes that were black but for their white soles and toe caps. He had on a black knit balaclava so that nothing of his face was visible other than his eyes. Pearl thought the eyes might be familiar, but she couldn’t be sure.
She also, for a moment, thought about the careless doorman. That carelessness must be how the man had entered the building and found his way to Yancy’s apartment.
The intruder straddled her, yanked her arms sideways, and kept them that way as he scooted forward so he could place his knees on her upper arms and bring his full weight to bear on them, pinning them, and her, to the floor.
Pearl immediately recognized the method and knew who he was—the Carver. She knew how much danger she was in and how precious life was.
At first she thought he had no fingernails, and then she saw that he had on skin-tight latex gloves that were flesh colored. From the pouchlike pocket of his sweatshirt he drew a knife with a long, slender blade.
Moving her arms only feebly from the elbows down, Pearl helplessly clawed the air. The strength
had left her arms quickly in her awkward position under the man’s weight. She was starting to regain her ability to breathe and considered screaming, but she was sure that if she made any noise he’d use the knife. He was leaning slightly forward, staring down at her and slowly waving the knife blade back and forth before her eyes, as if trying to hypnotize her. She somehow got the impression that beneath the balaclava he was smiling.
He wants my full attention. He wants me to grasp what’s going to happen.
Not the eyes this time, but something about the man seemed familiar. It was in the way he moved.
Who is this bastard?
She kicked out with her feet, trying to loosen the crushing weight on her arms. He simply bore down harder with his knees. Her upper arms ached so badly they began to go numb.
Think, Damn it! You’re running out of time. Out of life.
Think!
If I can’t use my arms, I’ll use my legs!
She brought both knees up sharply and suddenly, and did manage to make contact with his back with one knee. But it wasn’t enough to do anything but anger him. Or perhaps amuse him. He held the point of the knife close to her right eye and shook his head no, letting her know she’d better not kick again.
From beneath the black knit that covered his mouth, he said in a deep muffled voice, “I’m going to explain to you what I’m doing while I’m doing it.”
He used his free hand to yank up her blouse, and then with the knife he deftly sliced through the material between the cups of her bra. He flicked the cups away right and left with the point of the knife, and her breasts were bare.
Pearl knew the ritual, and knew that once he began it the pain and terror would render her completely helpless.
She was determined to keep struggling as long as possible. She controlled her breathing, drawing air deeply so she could muster her strength for one more attempt to buck the man off her and somehow try to put up a fight. Maybe she could kick him in a vital spot, slow him down, and reach her gun in her purse.