by John Lutz
“I suppose it’s something to keep in mind.”
“On the other hand, Renz might simply have assigned her to me because she’s-”
“A fuckup.”
“Well, she might seem so to him, but she really isn’t that. She has…maybe too much character.”
“Ah. You like her.”
“Sure. You can’t help but like her. But lots of people liked Hitler before he became Hitler.”
“Hitler, huh?” Michelle leaned back in her chair and sipped wine, regarding him over the crystal rim.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Figuring the odds.”
“Like always,” Quinn said. He didn’t have to ask her about the object of her figuring.
He finished his wine, then stood up to clear the table.
It was past nine when Quinn got back to his apartment and found his phone ringing.
He shut the door behind him, crossed the living room in three long strides, and scooped up the receiver.
“It’s Harley,” Renz said after Quinn’s hello. So now they were on a first-name basis. “I got some info for you, Quinn.” Almost first-name basis.
“Will I like it?”
“Doesn’t matter. Info’s info. And does it matter what you like?”
“I hope that’s a rhetorical question.”
“Or what you hope? Anyway, I talked to my source in the lab. Marks on the gun that was in Martin Elzner’s dead hand were definitely made by a sound suppressor attached to the barrel. They’re consistent with a Metzger eight hundred model, a rare sort of one-size-fits-all for semiautomatic handguns.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither did I, but then neither of us is a silencer expert. Turns out it’s a cheap unit made in China and marketed mostly mail order. Not a lot of them are sold. They advertise in magazines for gun nuts and guys who see themselves as soldiers of fortune and other kinds of armed romantic figures.”
“What with the big market in used guns and gun gear, it could be difficult to trace even though it’s not a popular item.”
“Yep, it mighta changed hands ten times at gun shows, or was sold from car trunks.” Renz seemed almost happy about the odds. That Harley! “On the other hand, we can try. I’ll keep you informed.”
Quinn thanked Renz and hung up, thinking it was hard enough to find a particular gun in this wide world, much less a silencer.
But if searching for it helped to silence Renz even a little bit, the Metzger 800 was still doing its job.
Pearl had a late supper alone in her apartment, a Weight Watchers chicken dinner washed down with scotch and water. My own worst enemy.
She rinsed out the empy glass and replaced it in the cabinet, and dumped what was left of the dinner into the trash. Dishes done.
Sometimes she wondered what her life would be like if Vern Shults had lived. They’d been very much in love when they were twenty, or Pearl had thought so. What was left of her family had ostracized her for becoming engaged to a devout Catholic. How devout even Pearl hadn’t guessed. Vern had announced to her one night after sex that he was breaking their engagement; he’d decided to study for the priest-hood.
A week later, he’d been found dead in his bathtub, drowned after apparently falling and striking his head. Leaving Pearl as alone as a woman could be alone.
God moving in His mysterious circles. Pearl trapped in the celestial geometry.
Where she remained trapped.
She watched TV for a while, then didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, so she got the glass back down from the cabinet.
Marcy Graham couldn’t sleep, knowing the anonymous gift of a box of Godiva chocolates was only about ten feet away in one of her dresser drawers, not fifteen feet away from her sleeping husband. She remembered how unreasonable he’d been about the leather jacket from Tambien’s, the problems it had caused.
Even if the chocolates were from Ron, he might not admit it. Or for some reason she couldn’t understand, he might not even remember leaving them for her.
Marcy waited until her nerve built, then quietly climbed out of bed and opened her dresser drawer. Moving silently, she removed the box of chocolates and carried it into the kitchen.
She couldn’t resist opening the box and sampling one of the chocolates.
Delicious! Light caramel with a cream center.
She ate another before closing the box and sliding it into the trash can beneath the sink. Then she tore off a paper towel and placed it over the box so it wouldn’t be visible to Ron if by chance he decided to throw away something.
When she returned to the bedroom, she carefully slipped back into bed and lay awake awhile, listening to Ron’s deep, even breathing.
She was sure he was still asleep.
She felt safe now.
16
He didn’t anger easily. He was beyond that.
He’d thought.
He paced silently. This was an insult, a rejection. A thoughtless, callous act. Who wouldn’t anger at the sting? Sting at the slap?
There was no reason to fear making too much noise as he paced. The steady, reverberating buzzing covered the slight sound of his soft-soled shoes on the tiles.
The buzzing, in fact, seemed to be growing louder and was getting under his skin. Where’s it coming from? What’s its source? He’d checked outside, but there was nothing in sight that might be making such a relentless sound. And inside the building no one seemed to be cleaning their carpets or running an appliance without cessation.
The buzzing continued. It was almost as if he were trapped in the confines of a small space and being observed by some gigantic, predatory winged insect that threatened him, that could almost reach him with its painful and paralyzing venom, that would never give up because it knew that eventually it would reach him.
Black…black…
The sound became even louder and more piercing, a buzzing that tripped the frequencies of his body and caused a terrifying vibration in every cell. A buzzing like death and dying. The buzzing of ending and becoming. Of the swarming insects of decay and the whirring of buzzards’ wings, of bees and wasps in the damp and dark of the underground. Beelzebub…
He knew if he didn’t do something it would make him scream. And if he screamed…
With trembling fingers, he groped in his pocket for the Ziploc plastic bag that contained a folded cloth.
At first Anna Caruso was pleased to be living her long-sought dream, wandering Juilliard’s Lincoln Center campus, the library, and Alice Tully Hall, where she knew someday she would give a concert or at least play in the Juilliard orchestra or symphony. It could happen. The Meredith Willson Residence center towered over the campus, but Anna’s partial scholarship didn’t include residency. She rode the subway each day to Juilliard, usually lugging her viola in its scuffed black case so she could practice at home, as well as in one of the school’s many practice rooms.
She’d taken up the viola seriously about six months after the rape. The instrument suited her. It was slightly larger than a violin, tuned a fifth lower, and produced a more sonorous, melancholy tone. While playing it did nothing to cheer her, it was somehow soothing.
Her bliss at attending Juilliard lasted only a few days. Anna was soon disappointed in the way things were going, her progress with her lessons, her relationship with her instructors, but most of all she was disappointed with herself. Discouraged. She was told that was normal. Suddenly she was among musicians of equal or superior talent. It was natural that she should be overwhelmed at first. And, of course, there was Quinn, in her mind and in her music now. Her hatred for Quinn.
As soon as she entered the apartment and saw her mother, she knew something was very wrong. Linda Caruso was slumped on a chair by the phone and obviously had been crying. Her eyes were red and she clutched a wadded Kleenex in her clawlike right hand with its overlong red nails.
“Mom?” Anna went to her, and her mother immediately began sobbing.
&
nbsp; When she gained control of herself, she looked with pain in her eyes at Anna. “Your father died a few hours ago. A heart attack.”
Anna felt the news like a physical blow to her stomach, and her body assumed the same hunched attitude as her mother’s. At the same time, recalling all the things her mother had said about her father, all the old arguments, she wondered how her mother could be so upset. She staggered backward and sat on the sofa.
“But he didn’t have a bad heart!”
“He did,” her mother said. “We just didn’t know it. According to Melba, he didn’t even know it.”
Melba was Anna’s cousin, a chatty fool Anna couldn’t stand. “Was it…I mean, did he go to the hospital?”
“No, it was sudden. Melba said he didn’t suffer. At least there’s that.” Her mother ground the wadded tissue into her eyes, as if trying to injure herself and started crying again. Her loud, rolling sobs filled the apartment, transforming it. The very walls seemed to weep.
“Jesus Christ!” Anna said.
“Don’t curse, Anna. At a time like this…”
“All right,” Anna said absently. “Will there be a funeral?”
“Of course. He’ll be laid out at a mortuary near where he lived. Melba didn’t know exactly when or where the funeral will be.”
Anna’s father, Raoul, had left her mother only months after the rape, and in a way Anna blamed herself for their divorce. Her father had moved into a home on the edge of Queens, near the auto repair shop where he kept the books. Anna had heard the place was a chop shop, where stolen cars were taken and dismantled to be sold for parts, but she’d never believed it.
She visited her father less and less frequently in his sad and solitary home, and they’d gone out for breakfast or lunch and struggled for words, but Anna had never quite stopped loving him. His loss was an unexpected force taking root in her, entangling and weighing down her heart.
Unconsciously she crossed herself, surprised by the automatic gesture. How odd, she thought. Religion wasn’t where she’d found any solace. Her music was her religion. Her music that might not be good enough. She felt, just then, like playing the viola.
Her mother stopped sobbing. “Anna, are you okay?”
“No,” Anna said.
Marcy Graham had noticed that morning when she poured the half-and-half for Ron’s coffee that it was thinner than usual and barely cool.
She opened the refrigerator and laid a hand on jars and shelves as if checking for fever. Not as cold as they should be. When she checked the cubes in the icemaker, she found they’d melted into a solid mass. She wrestled the white plastic container out, chipped away with a table knife, and dumped the ice into the sink.
“Fridge fucked up?” Ron asked.
“Looks that way. I’ll call the repairman.”
“Nothing should be wrong with it. It’s under warranty. Don’t let anybody tell you it isn’t.”
“I won’t. Don’t worry.”
“Think it’s safe to use this cream?”
“I wouldn’t,” Marcy said. She stood back and looked at the refrigerator, less than a year old. Then she opened the door and memorized the phone number on the sticker affixed to its inside edge and went to the phone.
Which is how she found herself here in her kitchen, home early from work to meet the repairman.
He was Jerry, according to the name tag above his pocket, a grungy guy in a gray uniform. But he was young and rather handsome, and he kept his shirt tucked in. A pattern of dark moles marred his left cheek just below his eye and he needed a shave, but still he would clean up just fine. Not what Marcy had expected.
She hoped he wasn’t so young he didn’t know what he was doing. He had the refrigerator pulled out from the wall and had spent the last half hour working behind it. A stiff black cover lined with fluffy blue insulation leaned against the sink cabinets, and whenever Marcy went to the kitchen to see how Jerry was doing, she saw only his lower legs, his brown work boots she hoped wouldn’t leave scuff marks, and an assortment of tools on the tile floor.
Finally, only about an hour before Ron was due home from work, Jerry scooted backward, out from behind the refrigerator, and reached for the insulated panel. It took him only a few minutes to reattach it.
He stood up, came around to the front of the refrigerator, and opened the door so he could work the thermostat. Immediately the motor hummed. He stuck his hand between a milk carton and orange juice bottle, then turned to Marcy and smiled. “Better’n new.”
“You sure?” Marcy asked.
“Why? You wanna make a bet it’ll stop cooling?”
Marcy grinned. “No. I wasn’t questioning your work.”
“This was an easy one,” Jerry said. “There’s a belt attached to the motor that turns a fan blade, so a blower moves cold air and evens out the temperature in the refrigerator. Those belts usually last at least five years before they break.”
“My luck,” Marcy said.
“Oh, this one didn’t break, I’m sure of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it’d broke, I’d have found it laying there. It’s missing.”
“Underneath the refrigerator, maybe?”
“Nope. I looked everywhere for it.”
Missing? Marcy frowned. “How could it not be somewhere in the kitchen?”
The repairman smiled and shrugged, then leaned down and began tossing wrenches and screwdrivers and things Marcy didn’t recognize back into his metal toolbox. “It ain’t up to me to figure ’em out. I just fix ’em. You mind if I use your phone?”
Marcy told him she didn’t, and listened as he called his office to report he was finished and leaving for his next job.
After she’d signed at the bottom of a pink sheet of paper on a clipboard, he told her she should take care and left.
Alone in the apartment, she felt suddenly afraid. It was one thing for her anonymous benefactor to leave gifts, but why would he sabotage the refrigerator? Was that what really happened?
Would Ron have done such a thing? Had he even had the opportunity?
Unexpected presents were one thing. They were eccentric, weird, even, but flattering and not at all scary. Though they sure as hell made you wonder. She stared at the blank white bulk of the humming refrigerator. This was different. This was eerie.
She went to the left sink cabinet and opened it, then reached in through the hinged lid of the plastic trash can and felt beneath the loosely folded paper towel on top. Then she felt deeper beneath the paper towel.
Nothing. At least, not what she expected to feel despite her icy hunch.
She removed the plastic lid and looked to be sure.
The box of chocolates she’d thrown away last night was gone.
Pearl sat at her kitchen table and sipped from a bottle of water. She’d just finished a late-night snack of leftover pizza, which had been warmed and zapped of all form and structure in the microwave. It had become a kind of edible Dali painting-surreal, like her world.
She could feel the beginnings of trouble, a gentle, hypnotic draw that could deceive and suck her into a maelstrom if she’d let it. If she fell for it.
As she sometimes did.
She found herself thinking about Quinn too often. He’d seemed at first so much older that an affair with him wasn’t an option. She wasn’t one of those helpless, hopeless women looking for a substitute father.
But he actually wasn’t that old. Besides, she had a birthday coming up.
It was the weathered look to his features that made him appear older, as if he’d spent a hard life in the outdoors and the sun had leathered and seamed his features. A difficult life, especially lately, buffeted by storms within and without. With a face that suggested character and toughness even if masculine beauty had passed with the years and hard knocks. She could imagine him slouched in the saddle on a weary horse, overlooking a windswept plain. Big white horse, since he was the hero of her imagination.
Bastard bel
ongs in a cigarette commercial, not in the NYPD.
She finished her water and smiled at her own recklessness. She didn’t always have to be her own worst enemy. Sometimes she was like a kid who couldn’t help reaching out and touching a flame.
She leaned back and looked at the stained and cracked kitchen walls that had once been some weird yellow color. She knew what she should do now. She should paint. Everything she needed to brighten up the place-brushes, rollers, scraper, drop cloths, masking tape, five gallons of colonial white paint-was waiting in the hall closet. And she had the blessing of the landlord. One thing about a dump like this, she could do what she wanted here, short of setting it on fire. Yes, she should paint.
Pearl knew she could spend the next few hours at least getting started on the job, maybe finish a couple of walls, and still have time to get a good night’s sleep before meeting Quinn and Fedderman tomorrow morning.
She also knew she wouldn’t paint. She had the Elzner case for an excuse.
She couldn’t put out of her mind what Quinn had said about the Elzners not necessarily being the first victims, but maybe simply the latest, of a serial killer who did couples. It seemed to Pearl that Quinn was working on insufficient knowledge to make such a statement. On the other hand, this wasn’t an ordinary man or an ordinary cop. He’d been right a lot of times in his long career.
Couples. Why would anyone want to murder couples? Resentment? Because they were happy couples and he was single and unhappy? Not likely. How many single, unhappy people were out there wandering around and not killing anyone? In New York alone?
Me. I’m a suspect.
So’s Quinn.
Depressing thought.
Okay, enough. Time to give up and go to bed.
She stood up from the table and placed her empty glass in the sink, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She secured the apartment all the way, chain lock and dead bolt, and turned out the lights, so there was only the illumination from outside that filtered through the flimsy drapes. On her way to the bedroom she gave the hall closet containing the paint and supplies a wide berth and didn’t glance in its direction.