by J. A. Kerley
Folger said, “Refresh my memory. How much time did you spend with this guy over the years?”
I pretended to make calculations in my head. “Upwards of a hundred hours, Lieutenant. Enough to know how he thinks.”
Bullard snorted. “How Ridgecliff thinks? Christ. How long are we going to listen to this psychobubba bullshit?”
Folger said, “Get out, Detective Bullard.”
“Huh?”
“Out. Go work one of your other cases.”
Bullard reddened, started to argue. Folger held her finger up like a warning flare and Bullard slunk away, shooting me angry backward glances, like everything was my fault. Folger closed the door at Bullard’s back. She leaned against the green wall and crossed her arms, aiming the liquid browns at me.
“OK, Ryder, you own the floor. Give us your take.”
“Forget the bum disguise, he’d consider it demeaning. Plus it positions him in a social stratum often targeted by law enforcement. He’ll pick a social station above police work.”
When Cluff grunted disbelief, I said, “Who would you rather roust: a skid-row crackhead or a guy wearing an Armani suit?”
Cluff nodded grudgingly. “The suit might have a wise-ass lawyer to make my life miserable.”
“Ridgecliff knows that. And that dressing like money might buy him time to book.”
“Or push a knife in your heart,” Cluff noted.
Folger said, “So no blue-collar disguise either?”
“He’ll be a businessman type. It’s a broad category, but it’ll allow him to dress upscale. There’s another reason: Ridgecliff’s been forced to wear variations on pajamas and sweatsuits for fourteen years, institutional clothing. He wants to look good.”
“Ego again,” Waltz said. “I’m beginning to get it.”
For the first time since I’d landed at LaGuardia, I felt in control. Of my mind. Of my choices. Of my direction. Fear, guilt, sorrow, self-pity, all had somehow been pushed to the walls, and the electricity of the hunt danced alone on center floor.
“What color suit is he wearing right now?” Cluff asked, sarcasm thick in his voice. “Solid? Pinstripe?”
“How about double breasted?” Waltz said. “It worked for George Metesky.”
Cluff frowned. “Metesky? The Mad Bomber?”
“It was 1956. The Mad Bomber had been on the loose for over fifteen years. The NYPD, completely lost, asked psychiatrist James Brussel to profile the Bomber. Brussel suggested the perp’s approximate age, demeanor, origin …even predicted the Bomber would be wearing a double-breasted suit when he got nailed.”
Cluff held up his hands in protest. “You ain’t gonna tell me that really happened.”
“It didn’t. When Metesky was arrested at his home, he was wearing pajamas.”
Cluff said, “Ha!”
“It was before being taken to jail,” Waltz added, “that Metesky slipped into the double-breasted suit he always wore.”
Cluff looked at Waltz, then at me. He held up his hands again, but this time it was more like surrender.
Folger said, “Does your gut explain how Ridgecliff’s paying for this little vacation, Ryder? We’ve been keeping an eye on credit-card thefts, can’t tie anything to him. And I don’t recall any big bank robberies lately. It’s not like he can go to the ATM and take fifty grand from his account.”
“The money isn’t important, Lieutenant. He’ll have come up with it. Probably through a scam, a con game.”
“An insane guy can build a big con in a few days?”
I said, “You’re thinking of a man who’s crazy first, logical second. Ridgecliff’s in reverse. He’s logical, brilliant, a superb conversationalist and utterly charming. He knows people inside and out. Knows how to press their buttons.”
“The smart guy gets what he wants, then the demon pops out and starts killing?” Folger said.
I nodded. “I think it’s come to that.”
FOURTEEN
The tattooed man crouched beneath a stunted tree just east of FDR Drive. Behind him an orange-hued sunset turned the East River as bright as beaten copper. The man’s head was shaved, his shirtless torso and arms a nightmare of upended crosses, flaming pentacles, weeping eyeballs. Muscles like titanium cords rippled when he changed position or paced the concrete bordering the river before returning to his crouch.
Jeremy Ridgecliff hunkered on a walkway above the street, studying though compact binoculars. He had followed the man for two hours, analyzing motions, gestures, facial expressions, studying the tattoos. He had watched the man wince when a Catholic church’s bells tolled the hour. Heard him curse a street preacher passing out tracts. Seen him spit on the walls of a temple.
An hour ago the man had ended up here, either crouched in tense thought or performing machine-like repetitions of push-ups and sit-ups, veins pulsing across his engorged arms and shoulders.
A tourist boat on the river sounded a whistle. The man craned his head to the boat, bared his teeth, then returned to a dark place inside his head. Jeremy made a decision. He crossed west over FDR Drive and hailed a cab.
Near Times Square, he found a glittery novelty and electronics shop selling plastic Statues of Liberty, postcards, tee-shirts, and cheap, hi-tech gadgets. He scanned the display cases and found what he needed, hoping 130 lumens – whatever they were – would do the trick.
“Excuse me,” he asked the clerk, “but would you also have a piece of strong thread? Perhaps two feet?”
The clerk sold him a pocket sewing kit for a buck, black and white threads, a needle. Jeremy thought a moment, then added a cheap fountain pen to his purchases. Outside the store, Jeremy tested the thread between his hands, judged it strong enough.
The man was still there when Jeremy returned. FDR Drive was behind a concrete retaining wall, drivers thundering through the tight corridor. The sole light was from a flickering streetlamp a hundred feet away.
Jeremy crept through the shadow and leaned against a tree a dozen feet from the crouching man. He turned his head away, toward the river.
“That’s interesting.”
The man’s head snapped to Jeremy. “What the fuck did you say?”
Jeremy kept his face averted. “I was listening to your thoughts,” he said quietly. “I thought they were interesting.”
The man uncoiled from his crouch like an angry rattlesnake, eyes narrowed, muscles rippling with every move. He lifted his clenched fist, preparing to drive Jeremy to the concrete. “Fuck your dirty lies,” the man said.
Jeremy turned to face the man and began speaking.
“Ari oha denda see …a mani a satano bayt manio …” White light blazed from Jeremy’s mouth. He spoke in a language from beyond Time. His teeth were translucent with inner fire, his tongue a squirming eel. His voice was the echo of a hell-bound train through a valley of ice.
“ …ronda nul beljus empet …larati doma castara …”
The light from Jeremy’s mouth illuminated the man’s wordless terror. He dropped to his knees and lowered his head as if awaiting the guillotine.
“Aro tomani memow …synthicus wala pemb …”
Jeremy held his forearm low. Light from his mouth spotlighted a meaningless symbol scrawled below the crook of his elbow, a halfmoon impaled on a spear. The man glanced at the drawing, spasmed as if seized by epilepsy, covered his eyes with his hands.
“W-What do you want?”
“I serve an entity,” Jeremy intoned as he stood. “The entity directed me to you.”
Jeremy fought to contain a smile. He could have used the word spirit or demon or being, but the word entity was magic. Half of these fuckers thought they were Swiss-cheesed with entities.
“The entity’s name …” the man whispered, “is it …Asmodeus?”
Jeremy recalled Asmodeus as one of Lucifer’s demonic Kings of Hell, mentioned in Paradise Lost. His observations had been dead-on, he’d found a religious lunatic, a man toxic with broken saints and disgraced angels. A danger
ous and disconnected man.
Perfect.
While the man cowered on the pavement, Jeremy turned away, pulled the slender thread hanging from the side of his mouth. The multi-LED key-chain light – smaller than a wine cork but guaranteed to be 130 Lumens! Brightest You Can Buy! – slid from behind his tongue. He snapped it off and slipped it in his pocket. The idiot thing was about to gag him.
“Stand ye and act natural,” he intoned. “Spies are about.”
The man stood with reluctance, his corded muscles twitching. He kept his head canted away, as if a glance at Jeremy would be instant death. Jeremy lowered his voice. Tapped the symbol on his arm.
“Asmodeus sent me to show you his private name and convey his love.” Dramatic pause. “He also sends a task.”
“A task?” The man dared to look into Jeremy’s eyes, unable to believe his good fortune. “Asmodeus sends a task for …me?”
“A task set for you in the timeless eons of the Before. A task awaiting you alone.” They love their frigging tasks, Jeremy thought, his heart beating with glee. They’d wait their whole lives for some damn task, die for it. You just had to wind them up and point them.
“What does my Dark Lord bid me do?” the man said, tears of joy shining in his eyes.
Jeremy reached into his pocket. “Here is a special phone. When the time comes, the task will be revealed. Never use this phone, never lose this phone. It is your link.”
The man took the pre-paid phone with hands cupped and head bowed. “On the hallowed name of Asmodeus, I promise.”
Jeremy placed five Krugerrands beside the phone. “Gold. To buy what you may need for your task. The coins must not be seen by anyone. Do you have a hiding place?”
Hard fingers curled tight around the phone and coins. The man tapped his lower abdomen.
Jeremy nodded. “Kneel and be sanctified.”
The man dropped to his knees. Jeremy tapped his finger six times on the man’s sweaty, tattooed shoulder while chanting more nonsense. The man trembled as if on the verge of orgasm.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
Jeremy turned and walked away, waiting until out of sight to grimace and wipe his finger on his pants. He crossed several streets and hailed a cab. Though he had much to do, he decided to take the remainder of the evening off and have a good time. Play a little.
The night was young and the city so alive.
FIFTEEN
Charged, alert, feeling like a cop, I went back to my hotel and again read my brother’s files into the night. No sweating, no weeping, no internalized histrionics: Just a laser-tight focus on the job at hand. Initially worried my perception had been wrong about the files and points of view, I found I’d been completely correct …
“I was sitting on the grass, disconsolate. The woman kept shooting glances my way, wanting to take away my pain …
“Jeremy watched her learn the lesson of the knife …”
Two separate personae. The first was a manchild lost somewhere between twelve and twenty-six, casting himself as a pitiful piece of bait to trap hapless and kindhearted women. The second Jeremy was cold, colorless, almost an objective observer, seemingly emblemized by the knife.
And the second entity was in ascendance.
I fell into bed at two in the morning, awakening at six. I went outside and wandered, drinking coffee and watching trucks re-supply the city. When I got to the cop shop, Waltz had just entered and was filling a coffee cup.
“Let’s suck in some caffeine and see what Folger’s troupe unearthed during the night.”
“Cluff and Bullard were here all night?”
“I think she lets them sleep until five, when she gets up. But they’ll have read any reports generated last night.”
I followed Waltz across the room. Bullard was drinking coffee at the small table in the conference room. My brother’s face stared at me from a whiteboard, along with the faces of Vangie, Dora Anderson and Angela Bernal. The timeline on the board was mainly dots instead of solid lines, meaning nearly everything was speculation.
“Anything new come up on Ridgecliff?” Waltz asked. “Possible sightings?”
“Yeah, even after Ryder’s gut instinct, here’s what we got …” Bullard tapped his thumb and forefinger together, the big zero. Waltz nodded and turned away. Bullard pssst’ed me and when I looked his way he brought the thumb-finger O to his crotch, Eat me. The boy was back.
I shook my head and hustled after Waltz’s back. He said, “Let’s go see what’s been dug up on Vic Two. Detective Cluff had a line on her this morning, backtracked her to her previous digs, was getting the skinny from there. We’ve still got to check her past.”
Cluff was at his desk, blue shirt hanging on his skinny frame, weapon in a shoulder harness, sleeves rolled up. He was leaning back in his chair, teeth bared, scrawling on a wide expanse of white paper that ran off his desk to a roll of paper on the floor. I studied the scribbles, lines and arrows across the paper, dense on the left side, thinning out toward the right. The feeder roll on the floor was at least eight inches in diameter, a helluva lot of paper.
“Mind if I ask what’s with the paper roll, Detective?”
Cluff grunted. “My own system. My brother-in-law owns a butcher shop on Long Island. He gets me butcher paper by the roll. I start on the left, writing all the crap I gather, every name, date, place, time. Everything. I cross off the stuff that doesn’t seem relevant, circle repeated stuff, or crap that just seems right. I keep moving the more-solid info to the right. Repeat. By the time I work my way across a couple dozen feet …”
“Salient patterns emerge from the clutter?” I said.
“Shit shakes out.”
“Of course.”
Waltz walked up as Cluff rolled his chair back and threw his pencil down on the expanse of paper. “We just dead-ended on Bernal’s history.”
Waltz frowned. “Worked over at NYC Medical, right? Transcriptionist?”
“For five years she’s been a model citizen, paying her bills and taxes and holding down as many as three jobs. Before that she’s missing a little something. Like citizenship.” Cluff put his hands to his temples, rubbed them in circles. “It’s just gonna be a fucking slog for no goddamn reason. I’ll spend the rest of the day with people terrified I’m going to send them back to Guatemala or wherever.”
Waltz nodded toward his office, went in that direction, I turned to follow, stopped, turned back.
“Buena suerte in your endeavors, Detective Cluff.”
He spun the chair to me, his eyes crinkled in anger. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Good luck tracking the lady’s history. I hope you catch a break.”
Cluff turned away. I saw a line of pinpoint boils on the back of his neck. I made it a couple steps toward Shelly’s office when Cluff called from behind me.
“Hey, Bubba …”
I turned. He was studying me over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Bullard said he caught that big-ass knot on his head when a truck smacked him with its side mirror. But you laid that egg on his thick skull, right?”
I shrugged. Cluff turned back to the work on his desk.
“Thanks for your good wishes, Detective Ryder. Have a productive day yourself.”
I caught up with Waltz by the door. He saw my face, said, “You look confused, Detective.”
“I think Cluff was just nice to me. I didn’t know whether to smile or duck.”
“Cluff’s OK. I forget you don’t know his story. He busted a meth lab two years back. Damn thing exploded while he was cuffing the perps, fire, chemical fumes, a bad mix. He damaged his lungs. He could get a medical disability, but being a cop is all he cares about.”
I looked toward Cluff’s cubicle. Nothing of a personal nature in his surroundings. No photos of wife, kids, dog, car. No goofy mugs or paperweights received as gifts. No drawings by the grandkids taped to the walls. Not even the photo with the fish. I’d
seen the syndrome before. “He’d be dead three months after he retired,” I said. “The department’s all he cares about.”
Waltz nodded. “A guy who can only pull three-quarter weight’s a liability to a lot of people, no unit wanted him. Still, no one wanted to point him to the door.”
“So Cluff was assigned to Folger by the brass?” I said. “No choice in the matter?”
“Nope. Folger requested Cluff.”
I gave him a huh? look.
“Cluff’s life is the NYPD, and Folger’s making sure he’s keeping that life. Not in some backwater precinct in an outer borough, but in Manhattan, right here in the high-profile center of the action with the rest of us. Cluff’s not dead weight, he’s a pro who’s just slow by a couple steps. Folger stepped to the plate and saved him.”
I heard a bray of voice and saw Folger on the far side of the room setting a desk jockey into action.
“So there’s more to her than it looks at first?”
Waltz studied Folger with a mix of perplexity and admiration. “That lady keeps a lot hidden, I think.”
Folger jumped back into her office, banged the door shut. I said, “What you got on for the day, Shelly?”
“My sister’s birthday is tonight and she’s decided I’m giving her some fancy-ass pot she saw in Macy’s cooking department.”
I held up my tattered paper bag of case materials.
“Macy’s have briefcases?”
“They have about everything. Ever been there?”
“Years ago I came to New York with a girlfriend. She spent an entire afternoon in Macy’s. I spent mine in the Museum of Modern Art.”
“Contrasting ideologies?” Waltz said, slipping on his jacket.
“She liked upper Park, I liked Chinatown. She liked Le Benardin, I preferred Curry in a Hurry. We went home on separate planes.”
Ten minutes later, Waltz pulled into a No Parking zone on 34th. We made plans to meet in a half hour, Waltz bird-dogging his sister’s birthday gift. I went looking for briefcases. I preferred the four-hundred-dollar model made of brown leather as soft as cream cheese, but had to be satisfied with an inexpensive fabric job.