by John Lutz
She nodded and then whispered something no one understood.
Quinn moved closer and bent low so he could hear. She turned her head so her lips were close to his ear.
“Archer.”
73
“You mean Keller,” Quinn said.
Lisa shook her head no again. Her breathing was ragged. “He’s here in New York, been here a while, under the name Archer. You called him on his cell phone thinking he was in Detroit. He’s been here, and he must have found me somehow, maybe followed me from the hospital.”
Addie arrived with a glass of water and handed it to Quinn, who held it in front of Lisa. Her throat worked noisily as she took half a dozen swallows, spilling most of the glass’s contents onto her blouse. Quinn saw what might have been specks of blood on her blouse along with the water.
“Take your time,” he said, still holding the water close. “Tell us about it when you’re ready.”
She pushed the glass away. “He approached me on the street near my hotel. I didn’t recognize him at first, but Chrissie’d told me about him, shown me some of the old family photos.”
“You’re sure it was Keller?” Pearl asked.
“Yeah. No doubt about it. He’s been in New York trying to find Chrissie, and he figured I’d know where she is. He didn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t know, so he tried scaring me into telling him. Then he tried to beat it out of me, kept hitting me and asking over and over.”
“You told him?” Quinn asked.
“I couldn’t. I didn’t know Chrissie’s whereabouts. Still don’t know. Keller’s afraid that if she’s taken alive, not only will his dual identities come out, but so will his darker secrets. He’ll be professionally, politically, and personally ruined.”
She made a fish mouth and strained to move her head forward. Quinn tilted the glass so she could slurp down more water, feeling some of it slosh coolly over his thumb.
“I’m sure Keller intends to kill Chrissie,” Lisa said. “He has to. She’s the only eyewitness to what he did back in Ohio. He wants to short-circuit any investigation or testimony that will substantiate Tiffany’s childhood molestation.”
“Makes sense,” Fedderman said, giving Quinn a look.
Quinn didn’t have to be told. “While you were shadowing our investigation so you could get prior information to Chrissie, Keller was shadowing you so he could locate Chrissie.”
“Right,” Lisa said. “I knew somebody was tailing me, but I didn’t know who. It wasn’t a pro, so I ruled out anybody here, and Vitali or Mishkin. I wouldn’t have known I was being shadowed at all if it was someone like that. I also had no idea what my shadow wanted.”
“But now you do.”
“Yeah. I’m sure I always shook him; it was easy. And I never led him to Chrissie. He must have gotten frustrated and decided to confront me. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“Of course not.” Quinn patted her arm.
Lisa drew in a deep, harsh breath and braced herself with her hands on the chair arms. She stood up, swayed, and then remained steady. She smoothed her clothes, brushing futilely at the stains on her blouse.
“I had to come here and tell you,” she said. “I thought you should know about Archer putting one over on you.”
“Keller,” Quinn said.
“Whatever. Long as we’re talking about the same creep. Long as you know his real purpose is to see that Chrissie’s killed before she can talk about him. About the past. He’ll tell you he has her best interests at heart, that he wants to keep her safe. But he’s lying.”
“Everyone seems to be,” Quinn said. “Are you sure you don’t know where Chrissie is?”
Lisa’s blood-rimmed eyes met and held Quinn’s gaze. “I do not know.”
“And we believe you.”
She shuffled toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Addie asked in alarm.
“My hotel. Gotta rest.”
“You shouldn’t be alone,” Quinn said.
“I’ll be all right. Archer—Keller—finally believed me when I said I didn’t know where Chrissie was. In my job, I’ve been beat up before. I’d know if I was hurt bad. If I just get some rest I’ll be okay. Company’s the last thing I need.”
“We can’t force you,” Fedderman said.
Lisa managed a painful grin. “I always hear that, then damned if somebody doesn’t try.”
“If you say you’re not badly hurt, we’ll take your word for it,” Quinn said. “But at least let one of us drive you to your hotel.”
“No, I’ll take a cab.”
“We can call one.”
“They’re easy to hail down at the corner.”
Quinn knew that was true. Lisa could walk to the corner, and within minutes she’d be gone. “That address you gave the hospital,” he said, “it isn’t accurate.”
“I was afraid of whoever was shadowing me. It turned out I was right to be scared.”
“You surely were. What’s your hotel?”
“The Middleton Towers on Eighth Avenue.”
She made her way to the door, moving normally now except for a slight limp. She turned and smiled. “Thanks, all of you. And I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused you.”
A few seconds after she went out the office door, Quinn heard the street door open and close.
“Follow her, Pearl,” he said. “And do a fine job of it.”
“Always do,” Pearl said, and went to the door and then stood for a few seconds, playing out some time and distance for Lisa Bolt.
When Pearl was gone, Quinn phoned the Middleton Towers and asked to be connected to Lisa Bolt’s room.
The desk clerk told him there was no Lisa Bolt registered.
Quinn hung up the phone and gave a grin that was more of a grimace. “Is there no one in this screwed-up world who isn’t a liar?” he asked the room in general.
“No one,” Addie said.
74
True to her word, Lisa limped to the corner and waved a cab over to the curb. By that time, Pearl was sitting behind the steering wheel in the unmarked with the engine running.
Traffic was heavy, and from time to time Pearl lost sight of the cab. Once she thought she’d lost it completely. But she’d memorized its number, and after easing the car around vehicles stalled at a traffic signal, she was able to find the cab again. It was traffic-locked as she was.
The familiar silhouette of Lisa’s head and shoulders was still in the cab’s rear window. Lisa didn’t once turn around to check and see if she’d been followed. Pearl guessed the beleaguered woman figured nothing worse could happen to her and was all out of apprehension. That could happen sometimes. It was actually a kind of surrender.
The cab pulled to the curb on Columbus Avenue, and a few seconds later Lisa got out. She stood up gradually, as if her back hurt, and now she did glance up and down the street. Pearl had parked half a block away, but hadn’t yet climbed out of the car. Lisa’s gaze slid right past her.
Lisa began limping along Columbus. She posed no problem for Pearl, who locked the unmarked behind her and casually began to follow. There were enough people on the sidewalks that, even if Lisa glanced behind her again, it was doubtful she’d pick out Pearl, who was nimble and a bit of a chameleon.
At a side street at the end of a line of small shops, Lisa stopped. She opened the brown leather purse she was carrying and appeared to study a slip of paper, as if double-checking an address.
Then she turned the corner and began walking faster and with more purpose.
Pearl watched her ease her way up some concrete steps and enter a four-story stone and pink granite apartment building that looked as if it contained eight units.
Maybe sixteen small units, Pearl suddenly thought. She’d better work her way closer if she was going to find out which apartment Lisa entered.
Trying to time it just right, she jogged down the street to the building and didn’t hesitate going up the steps. If the place ha
d a security door and Lisa had to be buzzed up, Pearl might find herself face-to-face with her in the foyer. On the other hand, if Pearl waited, she might not be able to follow Lisa up the stairs, staying out of sight while she saw which apartment she entered.
Pearl drew a deep breath, pulled open the heavy wooden door, and stepped inside.
No security door. And no Lisa. Not in the foyer or on the stairs.
The building had an elevator. Pearl saw a tentative brass arrow climbing a set of faded numerals. It was at the two.
Immediately Pearl started up the wide wooden stairs, taking them two at a time. She hesitated on the second-floor landing, peeking around the corner to see if the elevator had stopped.
It hadn’t. The brass arrow on that floor was still climbing. If the arrow was accurate, the elevator was almost to the third floor.
Pearl took the steps three at a time, using the slickly worn banister to yank herself along.
She reached the third floor just in time to peer around the corner and see Lisa step from the elevator and walk away from her, down a dim hall with a linoleum floor patterned to look like gray tiles.
Pearl watched her knock on a door and get no reply.
She knocked again, waited a full minute, and then dipped into her purse and came up with what looked like a lock pick. As she bent over to use the pick, she reflexively turned the knob and pushed to make sure the door was locked.
It was unlocked.
Lisa replaced her lock pick in her purse and entered the apartment.
Pearl grinned. Gotcha!
She walked quietly down the hall and noted the apartment number, 3-S, then returned to the stairwell.
What to do now? Her instructions were to follow Lisa, not to confront her. But what was Lisa doing there? It obviously wasn’t her apartment, or she would have had a key.
And she’d knocked and gotten no response. She was almost certainly the only one in the apartment.
So what was she doing in there? Waiting for a friend who lived there? Burglarizing the place?
The friend was more likely. But maybe Lisa wasn’t waiting.
Pearl decided the apartment was probably only a brief stop for Lisa. She might be on the move again soon. Maybe with different clothes. Maybe with a new identity.
The logical thing was to go back outside and wait for Lisa to emerge. See where she went next.
Before leaving the building, Pearl made sure there was no rear exit. Then she went outside and walked back to the corner, where she could stand and not be noticed, and where she could see the concrete steps to the building Lisa had entered.
Lisa was in a box. If she came down the steps to the sidewalk and turned toward Pearl, all Pearl had to do was duck into a doorway or otherwise make herself invisible until Lisa passed, then resume tailing her. If she came down the steps and turned the other way, there was plenty of time for Pearl to catch up with her before she disappeared down the street. Limping Lisa didn’t cover ground fast.
Pearl put on her knockoff Gucci sunglasses, crossed her arms, leaned against a NO PARKING ON CORNER sign, and waited.
75
Quinn and Fedderman pushed through a heavy plate-glass revolving door and entered the lobby of the Belington. The bustling hum and rush of the city suddenly became quiet.
The lobby was not only hushed but surprisingly cool and vast. An array of ornate brass bars was affixed to the long registration desk in a way that suggested tellers’ windows in an obsessively secure bank. The marble floor was patterned with fine cracks. The ceiling was vaulted, with a graceful design of arched wooden beams. Artificial green vines tumbled from large terra-cotta pots next to groupings of deeply upholstered furniture. On a table in front of a fan-shaped mirror were chipped and yellowed plaster busts of Artemis and Apollo, gazing away from each other like the arrogant book-ends they were.
“Looks like an ancient Greek ruin that’s been spruced up,” Fedderman said.
Ignoring a bellhop and curious desk clerk, they made their way to the elevators.
Vitali and Mishkin had met Keller at LaGuardia and driven him to the hotel. They’d ensconced him there according to Quinn’s instructions and explained the rules. Mishkin had later dropped by the office and left a room key card for Quinn. He’d assured him that Keller was being cooperative, and everything was set up at the hotel. Quinn, being Quinn, wanted to make sure of that. He also had plenty of questions for Keller. Such as: How long had he been in New York? Had he actually flown in to LaGuardia, or taken a cab there so he could pretend? And had Lisa Bolt been telling the truth about him beating her? Lisa was a smooth liar.
“He’s in two-twenty-one,” Quinn said, leaning on the glowing up button as if it were a doorbell and he might speed things along inside.
Speed wasn’t a feature of the Belington. Quinn and Fedderman got tired of waiting for an elevator and took the carpeted stairs to the second floor.
The halls in the old building were wide and long, lined with pale blue doors with raised panels. Quinn and Fedderman went to 221 and knocked.
When there was no response, Quinn knocked louder, keeping an eye on the door’s glass peephole for any change of light.
Nothing.
Quinn pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and extracted his key card.
It worked on the first swipe, and they pushed the door open.
Quinn went in first, eyes darting left and right, taking in the neatly made bed with the closed suitcase on it, the hanging bag in the otherwise bare closet. Unlike the hall doors, the closet door was a cheap hollow-core panel that slid on tracks. The Belington’s rooms didn’t match the lobby’s grandeur. They were small and plain and modestly furnished.
Both men stood motionless and listened. There was no sound of a shower or bath running. Fedderman went to the bathroom door, knocked twice, and then eased the door open. He looked back over his shoulder and shook his head. The bathroom was unoccupied.
Like the rest of the room.
“Keller agreed to stay in his room until we contacted him,” Quinn said, annoyed by yet another missing participant in his plans.
“He probably stayed about twenty seconds,” Fedderman said. He opened and closed the dresser drawers, all of them empty. “Didn’t even bother to unpack.”
“So many people disappearing at one time or another, we oughta turn the case over to Missing Persons,” Quinn said.
He walked to the connecting door leading to the adjacent room and opened it to make sure it was unlocked. That room was to be occupied by whoever would be listening to Keller’s bugged room, and would provide a staging area for the police if and when Chrissie did show up to take out her rage on dear Dad. Quinn let his glance roam over the room, identical to Keller’s, and then closed the door, leaving it unlocked. He wandered over to the bed and checked the luggage tag. It said the suitcase belonged to Edward Archer. Quinn was getting used to this, people with at least two identities.
“Maybe he went out for something to eat,” Fedderman said.
“The agreement was for him to use room service.”
“Ever notice how our agreements never seem to work out?”
“Hard not to,” Quinn said.
“The people we meet in our business, crooks and killers and such, they’re dishonest.”
“Can’t count on them.”
“I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Edward Keller is a lying bastard.”
“I’m not surprised,” Quinn said. “But I am pissed off.”
Quinn returned to the suitcase on the bed and reached over to open it.
“Careful,” Fedderman said. “It might be a bomb.”
It wasn’t a bomb, but it was empty.
76
Pearl was getting tired of waiting.
The first fifteen minutes, nobody entered or exited the stone and pink granite building. Then a woman with what looked like a greyhound on a leash came down the concrete steps. Ten minutes later, a man in a blue Windbreaker and white golf cap exite
d and jogged down the steps, flipping away a cigarette and opening a dark umbrella as he descended. Pearl noticed for the first time that there was a fine mist. Her blouse was lightly spotted, and the back of its collar felt damp and tacky on her neck. She hunkered down and decided not to move to shelter unless it began raining harder.
Five minutes later an elderly lady pulling a two-wheeled folding grocery cart approached the apartment building. There were three brown paper sacks stuffed into the cart. She wrestled the contraption up the slippery wet steps and disappeared inside.
Pearl shot a look at her watch. Lisa Bolt had been in the apartment building for half an hour. It obviously wasn’t her apartment, but despite the business with the lock pick, maybe she was staying there. Or visiting someone who was staying there.
Like Chrissie Keller.
Pearl decided to go check. It seemed the thing to do, without an umbrella.
She encountered no one as she took the elevator to the third floor and made her way toward apartment 3-S.
When she was ten feet away, she noticed the door was open about an inch, as if someone had pulled it closed but not hard enough for the latch to engage.
Somebody leaving in a hurry?
It hadn’t been Lisa, Pearl was sure. There was no way she could have slipped past without being seen.
Except for the time I spent in the elevator.
Pearl hadn’t worn her blazer or shoulder holster, so she removed her Glock nine-millimeter from her purse and held the gun tight against her thigh. Then she pushed the door open, raising the gun at the same time, and went in fast, holding the Glock in front of her with both hands, hearing the door bounce off the wall behind her.
She crouched and swept the barrel of the gun this way and that.
But her dramatic entrance had played to no audience and brought no response. The apartment, what she could see of it, seemed unoccupied.
Only seemed, because there was someone else in here. She was sure of it. Be it gut feeling, stirred air, the additional fraction of a degree of body heat, subliminal sound…whatever, she knew she wasn’t alone.