by John Lutz
He checked himself in the mirror, drew a deep breath, and then left the restroom.
From this point on he would think of himself as a cop, act like a cop, walk like a cop—and if he must, he would talk like a cop.
Dred knew the tiny island would be teeming with undercover cops, as well as cops dressed much like him. Not to mention Quinn and his detectives.
The best thing would be not to go any farther onto the island. He would be at a disadvantage; he understood that. The more people he encountered, the worse for him. He wasn’t himself.
Or he was!
He couldn’t return to the restroom. There was a limit to how much time he could spend there without attracting attention.
He looked back at the ferry boat, tied up now at the dock. It probably wouldn’t return to shore without passengers, and not all of those passengers would be the ones who’d just arrived.
He edged sideways where he could see a sign that noted departure times. The next departure was in almost half an hour.
Could he make himself inconspicuous on the tiny, flat island, pretending to be a cop, for half an hour? What were those odds?
He didn’t like the answer to that question.
Dred figured the farther he stayed away from the statue, the better. He didn’t know if he had the nerve to approach her, anyway. Certainly he didn’t want to test himself.
He knew what his best chance would be, and it would take nerve. He would wait until the boat was about to finish boarding passengers, and then simply walk on board. His expression would have to be neutral, his stride loose. He would belong there. Simply one of many New York cops, leaving the island to return to the city.
He’d have a story—something he could make up about a scheduled court appearance—if he needed one. He always had a story.
And if he didn’t have a good enough story . . . ? Things could get ugly.
For the next seventeen minutes he stayed in the vicinity of the dock, moving around with feigned casualness, avoiding clusters of people.
Somehow, for seventeen minutes, it worked.
But a pair of uniformed cops had walked past him five minutes ago, nodded, and given him a funny look. He didn’t have a badge showing. Other cops might think he was undercover, but not quite. Undercover light. Did such a thing exist?
Semi-undercover?
Not hardly.
A cop on holiday?
If they believed that, it wouldn’t be for long.
It was time for a different tactic.
Dred walked directly toward the docked ferry boat, striding more purposefully as he got closer. As if he belonged here.
Damn it, I do belong here!
Believe!
When he reached the docked boat, he walked to the ramp, gave a casual salute to the captain—or whatever he was—in the wheelhouse (or what he thought of as the wheelhouse). Then he deftly ducked under the chain and strode across the ramp onto the boat.
The captain was busy talking on what looked like a cell phone. The call wasn’t about Dred, because he’d been talking when Dred came up the ramp. So no worry there.
Dred began to roam around, as if checking the boat for stowaways or anything else that was suspicious. The guy in the wheelhouse stared at him for a few seconds, then looked away. Some kind of big deal was happening on the island; that was all he knew. Dred was simply a New York cop doing his duty. Always on the lookout for terrorists. More power to him.
A blue and white NYPD Harbor Unit patrol boat appeared out of the mist with its bow pointed toward the dock, causing Dred to hold his breath.
But the boat swung north and continued past the dock, heading toward Ellis Island, leaving a long, curved wake and gentle waves that rocked the ferry.
Dred began to breathe again.
The watery growl of the patrol boat died in the distance.
The ferry boat captain remained concentrating on his phone conversation. He was trying to wrangle theater tickets for a play tonight. For a change, really good tickets. Third row center, orchestra. Normally the play would be sold out, but because of the serial killer wandering around the city, theater business was down. Tickets for great seats were plentiful.
It’s an ill wind . . . , the captain thought.
Though he was a weekend sailor and didn’t buy into that old saying, or very many others.
Still, orchestra-level Broadway play tickets . . .
Dred remained shocked by his strong reaction to the statue. He had to get farther away from her! And as soon as possible. He stayed near the boat’s stern, where he was least visible to the captain. He could see through tinted glass that there was someone else on board, a man with his back to Dred, seated and watching a big-screen TV. The screen showed a long shot of the Statue of Liberty. It zoomed in on the statue’s base, then on Carlie, her stance bold, the sea breeze whipping at her hair. She gesticulated as she spoke, and it struck the killer that she was a natural public speaker. There was a shot of a sizable crowd, applauding. Dred had no way of being sure what she was saying, but he had a pretty good idea.
There was a scuffing sound behind him. Soles on the deck.
He looked away from the TV, and there was a genuine NYPD cop, in full uniform, standing and grinning at him.
“You watching the little sweetie shooting off her mouth?” the cop asked.
“Yeah. She’s got some guts,” Dred said.
“What she’s saying though, it’s all bullshit.”
Dred wasn’t sure what to say to that. Here he was finding himself about to defend Carlie Clark, who wanted him dead.
The cop cocked his head at him, wearing a half amused look, and half something else that Dred didn’t like.
“You’re from the two-oh, ain’t you?” the cop asked.
“You think I can get a picture through this glass?” Dred asked, raising the camera and flicking out the blade.
The cop’s gaze automatically went to the tinted window.
Dred stabbed him in the heart, three times, hard.
The cop dropped without making a sound. He bled a lot at first, and then the bleeding slowed. Nearby was a container of some sort with canvas lashed over it for a lid. Dred raised an edge of the taut canvas and found the container full of yellow life preservers.
No help there.
But there was a narrow space behind the container, right now in shadow. Something shoved back there might not be noticed.
Dred quickly jammed the cop’s body into the shadowed space.
After standing up straight and glancing around, he stooped low again and removed the cop’s badge, then picked up the cop’s eight-point cap where it had dropped on the deck. For good measure, he removed some of the life preservers from beneath the canvas and laid them over the body to help conceal it. A few more to cover some blood.
Then he pinned the badge on his NYPD wind shirt and replaced his knock-off billed cap with the dead cop’s genuine NYPD cap. It had some small bloodstains on it, but they were dark like the cap, so no problem.
He wandered farther astern, glancing at his watch. The ferry would board soon.
In an odd way, things were looking up.
56
Dred Gant was feeling safe again, in a bar near Columbus Circle, on the substantial and densely populated island of Manhattan.
Much of the talk was about the rain, though there hadn’t been much. It was mostly a mist, actually. There was talk of a brief but genuine rain in Lower Manhattan, where it was said that a few large drops had fallen but sizzled and disappeared when they struck the street or sidewalk. For all anyone knew, it wouldn’t rain again for another month. Or, for some of us, a lifetime.
A group of twenty some things was about to leave the bar. They were milling around, making noise, and he wished they’d shut up. He was still steadying his nerves after yesterday’s close call.
She had almost gotten him killed.
He had to admit he was unnerved by what had happened. He stared at his fingers encircli
ng his glass. They trembled slightly.
He’d thought she was dead in every way. That she couldn’t have this kind of effect on him. Yet there was that tremor, signifying vulnerability.
“Coming with us, Gigi?”
The killer looked up from his beer.
“Gigi!” called the voice again.
Gi . . . gi . . .
Phonetically, double what the killer wanted. Very good. His world was still spinning as it should.
“I’ll stay here a while,” a woman’s voice said. “Then I got important things to do.”
The half dozen or so twentysomethings made their way out the door. A few of them grinned and waved to . . . Gigi. One of the men threw her a kiss.
Dred knew fate when it stood directly in front of him and shook him by the lapels.
He found the woman who had important things to do reflected in the back bar mirror. The G woman. She was at one of the round tables, alone now.
His stomach clenched with fear and hate and something like lust. Without openly staring, he sized her up.
She was almost blond—certainly close enough—and her features were perfect. Blue eyes, broad cheekbones, and the sharply defined jaw line of youth. Her hair, which showed some dark roots, was worn in an unflattering cut. If she brushed it back from her forehead it would be okay.
It would do, anyway.
He swiveled slightly on his bar stool to get a better perspective.
You’ve had too much to drink, a warning voice said. Be careful. It was a voice he’d come to regard with respect.
Gigi was dressed like the ones who had just left. Young executive types, probably from one of the office buildings in the area, on their way home after a day on the job. Close friends, apparently. Probably fellow employees. She was wearing a light gray skirt and a blue blouse with shoulder pads. The skirt’s matching blazer was draped over the back of her chair.
The soft look of her skin, her face so smooth and unlined, made her appear younger than the others.
Might she be more naïve?
Dred dismounted his stool and, drink in hand, walked toward her table. His stride was steady and straight. He thought so, anyway.
He could see her assessing him as he approached, and he read in her expression her curiosity as it tugged against her better judgment.
It’s so easy to know what women are thinking.
“Mind if my friends and I join you?” he asked. He watched as she responded to his smile the way women usually did. He was doing okay.
“I see only you,” she said. Composed. Almost disdainful. Her problem was, he knew she was putting on an act.
“There is only me. I thought that if you didn’t mind me and my friends, you surely wouldn’t mind just me.”
She cocked her head and grinned at him, looking at him as if he might be crazy, but maybe it was good crazy. Just the thing to cheer her up. Maybe even . . . well, who knew?
He seized the opportunity of her indecision and sat down next to her. There were two empty glasses near her. It took her a few seconds to focus on him. She might even be a little drunk.
I’ll play, said her expression.
“You and your friends could buy me a drink,” she said.
“That’s what we had in mind.”
Dred motioned, and one of several white-aproned women behind the bar worked the pass-through and came over for their order.
“The same for the lady,” he said. “I’ll nurse this beer.”
The server gave him a look, knowing what he was up to. Dred couldn’t care less.
Gigi ordered another Grey Goose and water on the rocks.
More letter G’s. So many signs. Fate sending messages.
“Nothing for your friends?” Gigi asked, as the server walked away.
“They’re teetotalers.”
“Not like us.” She finished what little was left of her previous drink. Mostly diluted booze and oval remnants of ice.
She placed her new glass on its coaster, which was puddled from overuse. Neither of them said anything, and he let the silence gain substance and weight. He knew if he made her speak first, something good might come out.
“Would you believe,” she said, “that I got fired today?”
Ho-ho! “That’s terrible.”
He felt his facial muscles work into the expression he’d selected. So concerned!
Half drunk and recently fired. Something easy has been delivered to me. She’s almost literally flopping around with a broken wing.
Gigi gave an elaborate shrug, but looked for a second as if she might cry. Such conflict.
“It happens,” she said. “Like catching a cold. Sometimes you catch unemployment. I tell myself that, anyway.”
“What kind of job was it?”
“Human resources.”
“Sounds like something that provides hospitals with body parts.”
“They used to call us personnel managers.”
“You were a personnel manager?”
“Not exactly that. I didn’t have the seniority. But I worked in HR for Homestead Properties.”
“I’ve heard of them,” he lied.
“Prob’ly seen their ads.” She moved to pick up her glass and lifted what was left of her previous drink instead. When she saw that it contained mostly melting ice, she simply gave it a circular motion so the one-time cubes swirled around. Condensation from the glass dribbled down her arm. “Is it getting hot in here?” she asked.
“It must be you.” He winked. “I’m surprised everything around you doesn’t melt.”
She ignored the compliment. “This is the unluckiest day of my life.”
He laughed. “I should be hurt.”
“No, no, no . . .” she said. “I didn’t mean that. I meant . . . at work.”
“Maybe we can change your luck.”
The server dropped by and took Gigi’s almost empty glass and moved her fresh drink over so it was in front of her.
That brought a smile.
“He never showed,” Pearl said. “The bastard had us all figured out and never set foot on the island.”
“We can’t say that for sure,” Quinn said. He was at his desk at Q&A. Pearl was pacing, not so much pissed off as frustrated. It was still warm in the office, and he watched a bead of perspiration run down her tanned forearm. She idly slapped at it as if it were a tiny insect.
Fedderman, the only other Q&A detective working late into the evening, came over from where he’d tricked Mr. Coffee into making tea. He sipped from his initialized mug. “Maybe the security cameras picked up something.”
“They haven’t revealed it yet,” Quinn said. “Jerry Lido is still going over them with the Harbor Unit and island security.” Lido was Q&A’s high-tech expert. If there was something suspicious on the tapes, he’d spot it. And he’d know how to get the most out of it.
“I doubt they’ll find anything useful,” Pearl said. “Let’s face it—Helen was wrong about this one. There was no irresistible magnetism rooted in the killer’s youth that drew him toward Lady Liberty.” She stopped pacing, perched on the edge of her desk, and crossed her arms. “I never had high hopes for this from the beginning.”
“There was never a guarantee,” Quinn said.
“Not a lot of those in life,” Fedderman added. “In fact, none.”
For the next twenty minutes thunder rolled like cannon fire across the heated city, but no rain fell.
57
The killer watched Gigi Beardsley (which turned out to be her name) open her big blue eyes, and then open them wider.
He studied her face as it dawned on her: I’ve never drunk so much that I passed out.
But then, I was never fired before.
Still . . .
He put something in my drink!
She struggled to reassert sanity and logic.
This . . . problem is more serious than losing a job. Way more serious.
Slowly, realization began to enter her mind, along with fear.
Then it came with a rush. The pieces tumbled into place, and in order. There’s no way out of my predicament. Her soul was in her eyes. He watched her closely. This was one of his favorite moments.
But she hadn’t surrendered to her fate. Not quite yet.
Brad had moved out of sight, but she still sensed his presence.
Gigi experimentally tried to move her right arm, which was raised over her head, and couldn’t. Of course, it wasn’t exactly raised, because she was lying flat on her back in her bed. Her left arm was stretched to its limit and bound with gray tape to the brass headboard, like her right. Her legs were spread wide, and she knew her ankles would be similarly bound even before she tried to move her legs and confirmed that she couldn’t.
She was as nude as she’d been when he’d carried her into the bedroom.
She did remember that. Also, before that a walk, holding hands. A subway ride?
Maybe.
Maybe to all of it.
She couldn’t recall even being placed on the bed.
How the hell did they even get in here? But she knew the answer to that. She’d mentioned to him that, even though she’d been fired, she still had a master key for apartments like this, for the lockbox that real estate companies used so any employee could show any listed, unoccupied property. She’d forgotten to turn the key in, and no one at Homestead had asked her for it.
The killer saw this as another nudge by destiny. Gigi would be his second victim with access to someone else’s apartment; obviously this was fated to happen. Not that Manhattan wasn’t rich with people occupying other people’s apartments, usually subletting or borrowing. New Yorkers tended to travel or move often, and why should the most expensive commodity in the city, space, be allowed to sit vacant?
Gigi recalled an acute sense of trespass and betrayal when letting him, and herself, into this listed unit. Neither of them belonged here, even though she’d figured the company owed her something more than paltry severance pay and a good-bye. The use of this apartment might lessen the debt.