Twist

by John Lutz

  “Good God!” Jody said. “Brilliant idea or not, does this really have a chance to work, with people like us in charge?”

  “I can see why you’re an attorney,” Helen said. “You know exactly what questions to ask.”

  “I want you to meet an impressive young woman,” Minnie Miner said, after the lead-in to Minnie Miner ASAP. “She’s been on this show before, but this time it’s different. Because of the—I must say attractive—way she looks, there’s something special about her you might have already realized. Because of the ‘type’ of woman she is, she’s very much a potential victim of the Lady Liberty Killer.”

  The killer, who had been dozing with the help of two fingers of Jack Daniel’s, opened his eyes and sat forward in his antique wing chair.

  Minnie Miner was so right. He was impressed, even though he’d been stalking Carlie and was already aware of her new look.

  This seemed strange, though. Personal. There was Carlie Clark on his TV, seated in the armchair angled to face Minnie’s. The camera was crazy about Carlie. The long curtain of hair (the new do), the defiant tilt of her head, her finely chiseled jaw. The slightly irrational glint in her eyes. She showed so well! And she was up to something.

  “If you haven’t already, meet Carlie Clark,” Minnie said. “This young woman has volunteered to do something incredibly brave.”

  The killer was actually grinning. What kind of move was this? He had to admit he was taken completely by surprise by this television news gambit. That was the kind of thing he enjoyed, in certain measure. His opponents thought they might be outwitting him, when in fact they were keeping him entertained.

  Minnie had on her pasted smile that meant a lot was going on behind her eyes.

  “Tell us,” Minnie Miner said. “What exactly is your mission, Carlie?”

  “I want to demonstrate to the women of New York that there’s no reason to live looking over their shoulders. In a city the size of New York, the odds of a maniacal, mentally ill killer choosing you as a victim are miniscule.”

  Dred smiled again. Miniscule . . . He was thoroughly enjoying this—except for that mentally ill remark.

  “And there’s another reason,” Carlie said. “We’re a free people, and we don’t bend to anyone trying to scare us into behaving the way he or she chooses rather than the way we choose. If we start altering where we go, when we go, who we see, what we do, for this sick creature, we’ve lost. We’ve surrendered. . . .” She leaned forward and visibly tightened her grip on her chair arms. “And I don’t intend to surrender.”

  The killer raised his glass in a toast.

  “What I plan to do,” Carlie said, “is visit various New York landmarks. Minnie, who is herself not the surrendering type, has been so kind as to agree to cover me while I demonstrate that it’s relatively safe to go anywhere in New York City.”

  “Anywhere is a big word,” Minnie said, shaking her head in admiration.

  So’s relatively, the killer thought.

  Minnie still looked awestruck. “So we’ll be able to see you in Central Park, at Grand Central Terminal, MoMA, a Broadway play . . . places like that?”

  “Exactly,” Carlie said.

  “But you will have police protection.”

  “Some,” Carlie said. “Some of the time. But we—and the killer—know the police can’t protect anyone every minute. It’s too big a job. It’s impossible.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Minnie said. “There’s still plenty of danger. Have you paused to consider that you might actually be taunting the killer?”

  “If that’s what it takes to move about freely in my city, in my country, then so be it.”

  The studio audience applauded mightily. Minnie Miner joined them, applauding with her arms raised, egging them on.

  The killer himself felt like standing and applauding, but he was about one drink beyond actually doing so.

  “For starters,” Carlie said, “I’m going to go to the main library, outside, and visit the two lions at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street. Their names happen to be Patience and Fortitude, two qualities we should keep in mind these days.”

  “Patience and Fortitude,” Minnie said. “I think I knew that. And when will that appearance with the famous lions be?”

  “Tomorrow. Then my next stop, the next day, I’ll be speaking to your viewers from the Statue of Liberty.”

  Deep in the killer’s mind, something turned.

  “After that, the Empire State Building.”

  The killer doubted that.

  “You are an amazingly courageous woman,” Minnie Miner said. “I know the gender is wrong, but it’s still true. Kid, you got some real brass balls on you!”

  Minnie stood up. Signaling that the interview was over and a computerized commercial break was coming at them as certain as death.

  Carlie also stood. They embraced.

  After about ten seconds, they stepped back from each other and grinned at the camera. A slow panning shot showed the studio audience—about fifty people—giving Carlie a standing ovation. Tears glistened in more than a few eyes.

  Patience and Fortitude.

  The killer loved it.

  A commercial that wasn’t at all credible, about a generous, humane bank, came on, and his hand darted to the remote and switched off the TV.

  It seemed a sacrilege, to showcase greed and capitalism so soon after a display of genuine heart and courage.

  54

  The next morning broke bright and cloudless, though already quite warm. Shadows were still long and sharply angled.

  Carlie’s tousled blond hair and flawless flesh showed brilliant in the sunshine. She was on the steps of the main library at Fifth Avenue. A brace of fierce-looking lion statues, Patience and Fortitude, guarded the library entrance. At Minnie Miner’s suggestion, Carlie had chosen to stand near the concrete lion Fortitude.

  Five blocks away, the killer sat in a diner over a breakfast of bagel and coffee and observed all of this on a TV mounted high behind the counter. The killer’s was one of several booths positioned where the TV was visible. He was familiar with the diner and had made sure such a booth was available before entering. He really didn’t want to have to return to his apartment and watch Carlie Clark on television there. That wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know.

  One of the things he wanted to observe was how other people reacted to what she was doing. The other booths that gave visual access to the TV were occupied, one by two men in business suits, worrying over cups of coffee. Another booth contained three young women and a young man with his head shaved. They had substantial breakfasts in front of them and talked as if they were employees at the same place and often met here before work. The other booths contained single diners; an elderly overweight woman, a black man in a suit and tie, a middle-aged Jewish man wearing a yarmulke, an attractive young woman in a running outfit, built like a dancer.

  A fair cross-section, the killer thought.

  As he watched the TV, quite a crowd gathered on the library steps. More than a few people recognized Carlie and waved and cheered her on. Minnie Miner was yammering away in a microphone, but no one seemed to be paying much attention. The sound on the TV was muted to almost complete silence.

  When the camera stayed on Carlie and she was obviously getting ready to speak, one of the white-clad countermen, who looked Middle Eastern and had the accent, veered in his hurried chores and turned up the volume on the muted TV. He then moved down the counter and stood where he could watch and hear, while he absently moved a wadded towel in aimless circles on the stainless steel surface.

  In her brief talk on courage and the freedom of women to pursue happiness without fear, Carlie pointed out the lion Fortitude, using it as a model for all New York women. She mentioned the noble Patience, in repose across the wide entrance steps. Fortitude and patience made an unbeatable combination, according to Carlie, and most New York women possessed both. No one seemed to notice that neither of the lions
was female.

  When Carlie mentioned Fortitude again in her speech, the businessmen in the diner were silent, perhaps mulling over a major deal. Most of the others cheered or at least reacted positively. The dancer raised her coffee cup in a toast. They were getting into it, all right, though one of the girls and the man with the shaved head seemed to regard what Carlie was doing as a joke.

  The killer felt a ripple of annoyance.

  A few of those in every crowd.

  A string of commercials came on, a talking turtle, an aging movie star urging people to buy gold, an insurance company showing people with the wrong kind of insurance (not theirs) clanking about in cumbersome medieval suits of armor. The killer remembered the gold. Maybe something he should look into.

  The camera panned the crowd on the library steps. No one seemed to have left.

  In tight for a two shot:

  “Inspiring words,” Minnie said, moving close to Carlie so they would both appear in the shot.

  Carlie thanked her appropriately. She seemed surprised now that so many people had come to see her, and slightly ill at ease. All very genuine. It went down well with the crowd.

  “Remember what this young woman says,” Minnie exhorted the crowd. “She’s standing up for all New York women. The toughest, most self-sufficient women in the world!”

  More cheering.

  Carlie mumbled her thanks into the microphone Minnie had thrust at her to make her even more ill at ease. The trick was not to be too slick. This was selling well. Ordinary women could identify with Carlie.

  “Remember!” Minnie yelled at the dispersing crowd. “The first part of our show will be broadcast tomorrow from Liberty Island, home of Lady Liberty—the real Lady Liberty.”

  This last remark seemed to have been directed at the killer personally, especially if you considered the sort of obscene jab Minnie made with the microphone.

  Since the show was doing a special and shooting live all day, he thought that maybe later this morning he’d phone in to Minnie Miner ASAP, let Minnie and the other women of New York know what he thought about this latest Quinn stratagem.

  Then he changed his mind.

  There was always tomorrow.

  Tomorrow would be too special to miss.

  After tomorrow, he and Minnie could have quite a different conversation.

  55

  The next morning was not so clear and sunny.

  Perhaps the heat wave and drought would be broken. The sky was low and leaden, and a light mist threatened to morph into a steady drizzle. Of course, New Yorkers, and some of the tourists, had seen this kind of morning before during the past month, and knew how rapidly it could turn into a sauna with no measurable rainfall.

  By this time, they’d come to regard Mother Nature as a trickster. Allegorical maternal love wasn’t in fashion.

  The killer, wearing jeans, joggers, and a light tan water-repellent jacket, boarded the ferry to Liberty Island. He could barely make out some of the larger islands. The Statue of Liberty itself he couldn’t see in the mist.

  A surprisingly cool breeze danced over the water in gentle gusts, and there was a slight chop as the ferry, about half full of tourists, chugged away from its dock and out to where the sea was greenish gray except for successive lines of low white caps.

  Without seeming to notice, Dred Gant scanned and classified the other passengers. A few of them could be undercover cops. In fact, it was almost certain that they were.

  He knew he was being led into a trap, and Carlie Clark was the bait. The thing was, he couldn’t resist. There were, he had learned, different kinds of addictions.

  One of his was a certain kind of woman. Another was besting an arch enemy.

  Farther out on the bay, it was cooler and the water was choppier. Feeling slightly nauseated from the boat’s motion, Dred stood leaning back on the rail and looking around. There were two uniformed cops on board, standing and talking near the wheelhouse.

  As the ferry neared the dock, the killer heard a low tone, like an expensive auto horn, and the rhythmic slapping of water against the hull was broken. While slower, the slapping sound gained in volume. The ferry was tossed about, but gently.

  Dred looked over and saw a blue and white NYPD Harbor Unit patrol boat glide past. It wasn’t nearly as large as the ferry, but it was much faster and more maneuverable.

  God help us if they ever arm them with torpedoes, the killer thought. He was fervently anti-war, and had marched in more than one political protest.

  The nimble blue and white patrol boat passed the larger and less bumptious ferry and disappeared in the gray mist. It was already tied at the dock when the ferry arrived.

  With the other passengers, the killer gravitated toward where a ramp led to the dock. They hadn’t yet gotten the signal to leave the boat. Even tied at the dock, the ferry still rose and fell slowly with the lapping waves. The human stomach wasn’t made for this. Dred’s nausea had lessened, but it would be a relief to be on stable land.

  After a few minutes, a signal he didn’t see or hear was given, and eager passengers surged toward the dock, land creatures that had experienced too much of the sea.

  “We have a rare treat today,” a guide’s amplified voice said. Dred couldn’t see him, or very many other people, so gray and thick was the mist. About half the passengers had opened umbrellas, though rain wasn’t actually falling.

  The speaker continued: “A television show some of you locals might have seen, Minnie Miner ASAP, is interviewing a young woman who is in open defiance of the serial killer unfortunately named after our great lady—the so-called Lady Liberty Killer.” A few people groaned their objections, but others applauded as if they’d already heard of Carlie Clark and what she was doing. New Yorkers needed encouraging news these days, and Carlie was supplying it.

  Dred walked farther on shore, until he heard a repetitive clinking and slapping sound. He realized he was standing next to a thick metal pole, near the top of which an American flag whipped in the breeze off the water. The flag was flapping like a loose sail, causing ropes and pulleys to clink against the metal pole.

  Then, though the sky remained gray, the mist momentarily cleared, and directly ahead of him she loomed.

  The sudden sight of her weakened Dred’s knees and paralyzed him where he stood. She was facing away from him as if he were unworthy of her attention, rising over three hundred feet, her torch raised high.

  She seemed to dwarf everything.

  He hadn’t expected to be so strongly affected. No one could have. He heard people around him express their awe.

  The Lady Liberty Killer was helpless. He couldn’t move one step closer to her. He couldn’t!

  His plan had been to stab Carlie Clark to death as she stood talking and taunting, live (so to speak) on television. Then, in the resultant tumult, he would slip away. He was wearing dark pants and, beneath his buttoned shirt, an NYPD pullover nylon jacket. His NYPD billed cap was rolled up and tucked in a pocket. He’d obtained the items weeks ago, paying cash, knowing that someday he’d have a use for them. They were knockoffs, sold all over Times Square, and were impossible to trace.

  After the attack, he would become one of many cops, running this way and that, futilely trying to find the killer. Despite the daunting nature of his plan, Dred couldn’t help but find some humor in it. The old Keystone Cops. He could picture them rushing here, there, and everywhere in panic, and all because of what he had done. It would be a challenge not to smile.

  Getting through security had been no problem. He’d had no bags or packages to check and leave in a locker. The innocent-looking camera he’d been allowed to carry onto the island was altered so part of its metal framework could be detached and used as a sharply pointed knife.

  It had been a daring but thoughtful plan of action that would work by virtue of its audacity. He had faith in it. Faith in the odds. Faith in fate.

  But Dred’s awe and paralysis, complete and unexpected, changed all that. He
should never have come here. He had underestimated her. The effect she would have on him, his plan, his fate.

  The odds.

  What he had to do now was get away—and fast.

  If he could make himself move at all, he must speed up his escape. He wouldn’t be evading only the police; he’d be escaping her.

  Forcing himself to walk, he stumbled toward a nearby complex of buildings where a restroom might be found.

  One foot in front of the other. That was what it took.

  “You okay?” a voice asked.

  He stood straighter, made his stride looser. “I’m fine.”

  He sensed that whoever had asked about him was still watching.

  Inside the nearest building, where souvenirs were sold, he found a men’s restroom, went into a stall, and sat slumped on the commode with his head in his hands.

  This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. He wasn’t going to kill Carlie Clark now. Not today. He wouldn’t have the opportunity, and wouldn’t be able to seize it if he did have it.

  Another time, another time . . .

  The towering statue, which he’d read was smaller than many people imagined, didn’t look at all small to him. It stood facing the sea as if it owned all water everywhere and was raising an arm in triumph. The immensity, the audacity of the thing, forced out all other thoughts.

  Escape. That was all that occupied the killer’s mind now.

  Escape.

  Dred removed his outer shirt to reveal his official-looking NYPD pullover wind shirt. It was so dark a blue it was virtually black. The same color as his NYPD billed cap. The pullover was three-quarter length, which changed or disguised his build. The cap? Almost everyone looked like everyone else in a baseball cap.

  He used a dime to loosen a screw on the left side of the camera, and levered out a five-inch pointed blade. The camera itself would serve as the makeshift knife’s handle.

  He now had all he needed—cursory NYPD identification clothing, his courage and guile, and a knife.

  He folded the stiletto-like blade back to rest at the bottom edge of the camera and slid the removed screw into his pocket. It would take seconds to turn camera to knife, and the best thing was that if he happened to be asked about the camera, it still functioned as exactly that—a digital camera. He would snap the questioner’s picture and show the image to him or her.