by John Lutz
She fixed her wild stare on Jordan. “I know what you’re going to do, you bastard! It’s monstrous!”
How could she know? Guessing? She must be guessing.
“Isn’t it?” Jordan said.
“Monstrous!” she repeated.
He shot her twice just behind her left ear and she dropped straight down to her knees and sat with her legs folded back and her feet pointing in opposite directions. It was probably the way she had sat as a little girl.
Jordan glanced around, waiting for his breathing to level out. The strange thrashing, beating sound rose up around him. Like the earth was vibrating. He fought it back. Everything was under control. If he kept to his plan, things would turn out all right. He kept telling himself that. Repeating it. Believing it more each time.
Calm. That was what he could do better than anyone. Stay calm.
God, his breathing was loud!
He’d known he had to kill Jasmine. He’d had no choice. If two people held a secret it was no longer a secret. And if ever a secret called for solitary possession, it was the one he held so close. When he chose to loose it into the world, there would be storms that had nothing to do with weather, tectonic shifts that had nothing to do with earthquakes.
He slid the gun into his pocket and went into the bathroom, where he brushed and picked the snow-like goose down from his hair and clothes. Then he used a washcloth to wipe his fingerprints from the few places he’d touched.
He put on rubber gloves and went to the living room to get the backpack he’d brought with him. All the implements he’d need were in there, along with a tourist guide to New York
No one seemed to give Jordan a second look as he left the hotel and strode out into the sunshine, wearing Foster Grant sunglasses and carrying his backpack slung by a strap over his right shoulder. He had no remorse. Just as he’d had no recourse.
He’d done fine. He was sure of it. Believed it more with every step away from the carnage. Planned well enough, and executed with speed and conviction, there had been no doubt of the outcome. And when the unexpected had occurred, he’d done what was necessary.
He was safe now, and no doubt about it. Certainly safer than before. That was undeniable. Hell, it was mathematical.
Two people plus one secret equaled no secret.
Even if one of them, like Ethan Ellis, was bound tightly in the web of his past.
71
New York, the present
Pearl supposedly lay in the bed of the woman who’d only visited death. Supposedly because Quinn had invented that woman. The various plastic tubing and wires attached to her were mostly affixed by tape. The electrodes dotting her body sent no signals. At least, none that meant anything.
Nancy Weaver was in similar condition in the adjoining room. Leading to that room were folding doors that could be cast aside to allow full access and create one large room. The Gremlin would be stopped before he could pull a trigger. Probably he would be tackled and cuffed even before he could remove a gun from his belt or his ankle holster.
Probably, Quinn thought, the Gremlin would try to use a weapon with a silencer.
That was the polite thing to do, considering there was staff along with genuine patients in the recovery center. It was one of those medical facilities pretending to be hospitals yet at the same time managing a kind of homeyness that belied the truths of illness and death. There was a small library, a game room, a conversation room, and a dining room for those on the meals plan. There wasn’t much conversation about the occasional empty chair.
A lot of life, Quinn decided, was the art of pretending. That way lay a lesser madness, but a madness nonetheless.
Alone in her half of the adjoining rooms, Pearl glanced around, fixing objects in her mind—the various equipment rolled near the bed or mounted on the wall by the headboard, monitoring, softly beeping. The partitioned-off part of the double room where the other bed was concealed. There was a visitors’ easy chair. Another, smaller wooden chair, and a steel rack on wheels. Pearl glanced toward her wristwatch lying on the metal tray table next to her bed. There were also a green plastic pitcher and a matching cup on the tray. Pearl felt like taking a drink, then decided against it. She might disturb some of the tubing and wires that were only loosely fastened to her.
The idea was to trick the Gremlin into snatching Pearl; he would suspect Quinn of replacing the once dead, now living woman—only to find to his surprise and delight that he had instead what he really wanted the most. Given the not completely unexpected opportunity, he would take Pearl.
Helen had assured Quinn that the killer couldn’t resist at least trying for the remarkable if fictitious life-after-death patient, but even more he couldn’t resist choosing Pearl as his next victim.
Moving her head slightly on the hard pillow so she could see her watch’s face, Pearl noted that it was almost ten o’clock. It was Quinn’s bet that the killer would pay his visit sometime during the night, when the center was on a looser schedule and there weren’t so many doctors and patients in the halls.
Pearl knew that Bill Casey, a uniformed cop who was an old friend of Quinn’s, would be getting up from his chair out in the hall by the door to her room. He would walk down to the elevators but veer into one of the small, semiprivate waiting areas—called conversation nooks—where there was coffee along with some vending machines.
Pearl was right. Carrying a half-eaten candy bar, Casey strolled to the conversation nook. He glanced around and moved a small sofa slightly, so if he sat on it he’d have a clear view down the hall. From there he could see the doors to Pearl’s and the adjoining room. Fedderman was in the opposite direction on the same floor, seated in an area similar to Casey’s. Harold was down in the lobby, watching the building entrance and elevators. Sal was wearing a white robe and might have been mistaken for a patient, idly walking around as if he couldn’t sleep.
Quinn saw Casey drift past, peeling the wrapper off a candy bar, and guessed he would have a gruff bedside manner. Soon enough, that shouldn’t matter.
They were all in touch with each other via two-ways that would work in hospitals, rehab centers, and other places with radiology and imaging equipment.
Quinn said, “Me,” and entered Pearl’s room from the adjacent one.
“Me, too,” Pearl said.
He walked over and kissed her gently on the forehead, as if she were a real patient.
“Everything a go?” she asked.
He smiled. “We just need another player.”
“Weaver all set next door?”
“She’s always set,” Quinn said.
“She’s gotten the crap kicked out of her more than once when it could have been me instead.”
“She’s an adrenaline addict.”
“So are we, Quinn.”
He didn’t argue with her.
“So is he,” she added.
Quinn knew who she meant.
He bent over and kissed her cool forehead again. “Get some sleep,” he said, then went into the adjacent room.
The idea was that, faced with a choice between the two women, the one the Gremlin really wanted would seem all the more genuine. If Helen was right, and unless everything she’d learned about human behavior was wrong, the killer would pass on the supposedly back-from-the-dead woman and go for Pearl.
He’d be pressed for time, and would have to make his choice quickly if he were to take a hostage and escape from the building before his presence was known and staff and police would close in.
That was when things would start happening fast.
Pearl thought, Let the games begin.
She closed her eyes, but not all the way.
72
St. Louis, the present
It was mid-afternoon when Marta Jones, a maid at the Adam Park hotel in St. Louis, opened the door to room 333 and saw a white feather drift out. She knew immediately that it was from a pillow, and it might signify that the room was a mess. It always surprised Marta how d
estructive some of the guests were, especially if there was liquor involved. The Adam Park wasn’t cheap, and Marta thought it was people with more money than they needed who caused most of the trouble and made most of the mess.
She hoped this wouldn’t be too bad as she rolled her linen cart back a few inches so she could make the turn, then pushed it past the opened door and backed into the room.
My God! The place looked as if there’d been a snowstorm inside. More goose down. So much white and red.
Red?
The snow was spotted with red here and there, and smeared with red. As if it were real snow and someone had taken swipes at it with a paint rag.
Then Marta saw a young blond woman lying on the floor, with blood on her shoulder and chest and one side of her face. There was something awkward and not quite right about the way she was lying in the goose down. She was on her back, legs and arms akimbo. Almost as if trying to make a snow angel. Marta was momentarily paralyzed. Arms and legs didn’t bend quite that way. She moved two steps closer.
Stopped and stood still again. Peered without moving forward. She didn’t want to get closer to the blond woman, yet she wanted to see her better. She leaned forward and focused.
And saw that there was some space between the bloody neck and the head. She realized with a lurch of her stomach that the woman had been beheaded. And her limbs had been detached and lain or propped so they were close to where they’d be if only they weren’t severed. One arm was slightly longer than the other. It was a man’s arm, with an expensive-looking gold expansion-band wristwatch. Marta looked closer and saw that the watch was a Timex.
And there was the rest of the dead man, lying near the sofa, his limbs severed and carefully propped or laid near where they’d been removed. Marta didn’t know him but thought she recognized him. He’d made a pest of himself with some of the hotel guests.
Marta had been numb, but now she was slightly dizzy. And more than slightly nauseated. Fearing she might vomit, she hurried into the bathroom.
From the bathtub a pair of infinitely sad blue eyes stared up at her. Dead eyes. The nude dead woman in the white porcelain tub was almost as white as the tub itself. Water had been run on her until most of her blood and other body fluids had been washed down the drain.
Her body was taut and shapely and looked young, but her face looked prematurely old.
In a way, it had been old.
Marta bumped her hip painfully on her linen cart as she ran from room 333, down from the steps leading from the catwalk, then the shallow wooden steps leading toward the levee.
She screamed as she ran, waved her arms, pointed back toward the hotel. One of her shoes flew off and she felt cool mud squish between her toes. At first people thought she might simply be enjoying herself, joking, a vacationing refugee from some boring job, suddenly set free and screaming with relief.
But it didn’t sound like relief.
“Mortandad! Policia!”
Someone said, “I think she wants the police.”
The federal park ranger for that stretch of waterfront had been observing this from the beginning. His name was John Randall, but most of the river people who knew him called him Rocket.
Rocket saw now that the woman had a maid’s uniform on, and she was definitely headed for the river. She was limping now, dragging one leg. Soon she’d be close enough to the brown rushing water that he wouldn’t be able to catch up and save her, if she was one of those who needed saving. A swimmer didn’t have to get very far out in the river before the deceptively powerful current would take charge. Some people who went in here had been found dead as far south as New Orleans.
The decision was made for Rocket when he suddenly recognized the woman. Marta! One of the maids at the Adam Park.
Marta seemed unhinged, and definitely was headed for the river. He didn’t know if that was on purpose or if she simply didn’t realize how soon she’d be getting wet. The way she was waving her arms and yelling, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to slow down.
He began to run. He was a big man, a year out of Florida State, where he’d gone on a football scholarship as a wide receiver. It was no mystery why he was called Rocket.
He almost caught up with Marta, calling her name, reaching out for her and barely missing.
She seemed to run harder.
He tackled her, but as gently as possible, and they both were down on the edge of the water. What felt like gravel was only a few inches beneath them. Rocket thought it might have cut up his right knee.
The water lapped coldly at Marta, and she stopped struggling and began to tremble. Rocket held her close, saying over and over that she should take it easy, take it easy.
Marta calmed down somewhat and stared up at him. It gave him a jolt, how horrified she looked.
“Policia!” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling at her to keep her calm. “Show me. If we need to, we’ll call the locals.” He held his grin. “What happened, Marta? you see a mouse?”
“Policia! . . .”
73
St. Louis, the present
St . Louis, Quinn decided, was a hotter place to live than New York. Most of the people in and around the Adam Park hotel had on casual clothes, jeans, shorts, pullover shirts, moccasins, sandals, or jogging shoes. Cross the street, stroll down to the river bank, and you were near the Mississippi. The wide, lazy river that held its secrets.
Even before it soared over the riverfront, the famously beautiful and utterly useless Arch had its fans. People who might as well have had TOURIST stamped all over them were lined up to enter the nearest leg. New York Police Commissioner Harley Renz, in his gray Joseph Abboud suit, white shirt, and polished black wingtip shoes, didn’t seem to belong anywhere near this bunch.
But here he was, after a hurried flight from LaGuardia, following a lead on a New York killer. Might he gain national fame? He smiled. This was why he kept a suitcase packed.
Renz made his way toward the hotel entrance and air-conditioning. Quinn followed. “Some mess,” Renz said, mopping his face with a white handkerchief.
Quinn didn’t bother voicing his agreement. Though the identification of all the Adam Park victims was missing, doubtless removed by the killer, it was assumed that all three of them had been killed by the Gremlin. No one else was murdering people and then turning them into puppet pieces without strings. Not at the moment, anyway.
Quinn peered into the bathroom, where a female victim was sprawled in the tub. He stepped closer and saw that she’d been eviscerated, her internal organs stacked neatly beside her. Most of the blood had been washed from the tub and the pale dismembered corpse.
“There isn’t any question about these victims being the work of the Gremlin,” Quinn said. “I wonder if he knew we baited our trap at Faith Recovery Center, and that would occupy us while he committed his murders and mutilations here, in another city.”
“Maybe,” Renz said. “This doesn’t seem at all unplanned.”
Quinn looked around at the carnage and wondered what was wrong with the human race. With the Gremlin. He doubted if the killer himself could tell the real reasons for his murder spree.
“Sick, clever bastard,” he said under his breath.
Renz stared at him. “You really think he’s that smart? That he can move us around like chess pieces and commit murders without eventually being caught?”
Quinn said, “Exactly like chess pieces.”
“Well, we’re chess pieces that fight back,” Renz said. “Soon as we get some blood and fingerprints here, we’re gonna run them through the national databases.”
“I think we better concentrate on what’s happening with Pearl and Weaver,” Quinn said. He couldn’t help it. He still wasn’t comfortable with all the electronics taking over police work.
“I made sure there was plenty of protection at Faith Recovery,” Renz said.
Quinn thought, Plenty of chess pieces, mostly pawns.
The techs arrived
with their white gloves and medical equipment. Five minutes later the ME, a Dr. Nicholson, who looked amazingly like Nift, showed up, with his black leather case and cheerful, crude tactics.
He got to work immediately.
Renz appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Something odd about the toilet bowl,” he said.
Quinn went over to the hall bathroom. Behind him, Nicholson continued tending to his work, seemingly uninterested in the bathroom and untouched by the gore. Seemingly. Quinn stopped his thoughts from going where rumor might rule.
He stood in the bathroom, staring at the conventional-looking white toilet bowl. Quinn hadn’t heard it flush, and was glad Renz had thought to lower the seat.
When Quinn moved to flush the toilet, he couldn’t find the handle. He examined the toilet more closely and encountered only its smooth white surface. No handle. He held his breath and carefully lifted the seat of the modern, streamlined commode.
It had flushed on its own. Must have been automatically and silently.
“Very impressive,” Renz said.
Quinn waved a hand close to the top of the commode’s tank. Two recessed rows of LED lights illuminated the smooth tank top. His fingers almost touched the tank, and silently the water in it swirled and disappeared.
“Very, very impressive,” Renz said. “Can you do that with folding chairs?”
Quinn cocked his head to one side. A faint sound. He lifted the commode lid and a tiny whirlpool swirled steadily at the bottom of the bowl.
“It doesn’t work right,” Renz said. “Doesn’t turn itself off.”
Quinn smiled thinly, getting a mental image of two hardcase cops standing and discussing a futuristic porcelain commode in a hotel bathroom. Maybe they should be working for the Department of Sanitation. Maybe they should be plumbers. “We better not touch this thing,” Quinn said. “My guess is that our Gremlin became intrigued by it. He had to take it apart and see how it worked, and how it didn’t.” Quinn let his eyes range over the gleaming fixtures and blue ceramic tile. “He cleaned the place pretty thoroughly, wiped it down. But things didn’t go exactly as planned. That threw him. He couldn’t be sure about where he might have left his own fingerprints.”