by Mark McNease
“So give me a name.”
Kyle thought about it a moment. Imogene was a relentless newshound and would put it together soon enough once she read the item in that day’s New York Times.
“Vincent Campagna,” he said. “He’s our overnight doorman. His brother was Victor.”
“The dead guy.”
“The victim,” Kyle reminded her. “Don’t forget that. And if you follow up on this, you can say nothing about where you got this information. You read it in the paper, you spoke to the police. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Fine,” Imogene said. “It’s nothing I can’t find out from other sources, but it expedites things.”
Kyle realized that Linda had been standing there saying nothing for ten minutes. He’d intended for the two women to have more of an introduction, but after spilling the beans to Imogene he decided it was best to leave.
“We’re heading to breakfast,” Kyle said. He wanted out of the office and food was always a good excuse.
“It was so nice to meet you,” Imogene said to Linda. They’d met at Kyle’s photography exhibit but had only spoken for a moment. Imogene was there covering it for Tokyo Pulse, a gift to Kyle he had neither asked for nor wanted.
“Likewise,” Linda said. She’d taken what measure she could of Kyle’s boss and would think it through later. She sensed she and Imogene would either be friends or, just as likely, not like each other beyond a certain civility. Imogene was New York City in a five-foot-one frame and Linda wasn’t sure she could take the woman for more than a few minutes.
As they were about to leave, Kyle said, “One thing, Imogene …”
“Yes?”
He spoke with all seriousness. “This one’s truly nasty.”
Imogene smiled. “I wasn’t planning on interviewing the killer, unless he’s in a jail cell.”
“I’m serious. He’s cold and cruel and not someone you should go anywhere near. If you happen to get any ideas about his identity, call the cops. He’s gotten away with a dozen murders and he won’t hesitate to make you one more.”
“I can handle myself,” she said.
“I imagine that’s what all the men he’s killed thought, too. Now goodbye. I’ll see you Monday. After ‘Gay Weekend.’”
“Get outta here! And take this wonderful Amazonian with you. So nice to meet you!”
“You’re repeating yourself,” Kyle said. “I’ll see you next week. And put Lenny-san’s fruit cup in the refrigerator before it ferments.”
Kyle waved a last time and led Linda back along the cubicles the way they’d come. As they walked down the stairs, he thought of the warning he’d given Imogene and how he and Detective Linda ought to heed it themselves. This killer was different. This killer was meticulous—he had to be to get away with it for so long. This killer did not make mistakes, or so the man thought. Everyone makes mistakes, and as Kyle and Linda exited back onto 38th Street, Kyle knew it was the mistakes he had to look for—very, very carefully.
CHAPTER Eight
Danny arrived at Margaret’s Passion ten minutes after leaving the apartment. It was one of the perks of working there—he had been able to walk to work and home for over a decade. And while he loved being so close to the restaurant he now called his, he had also been close to Margaret Bowman all this time, and that very long chapter in his life was coming to a close. Margaret, as strong and determined as she had been for eighty-two years, was about to move to Florida. Danny had known for several years this was inevitable but he’d kept putting it out of his mind, just as Margaret had kept putting off her decision to move. The time had finally come; the arrangements had been made, and now all that was left was to celebrate Margaret’s life and achievements and say goodbye. He did not know if he would see her again. He knew if he did, it would mean taking a trip to Florida—she was not coming back to New York City. Danny had never been to Florida and believed he would die having never enjoyed its stifling humidity, vast flatness, and throngs of the elderly. But for Margaret he would go. At her age, in her health, it meant a trip that wouldn’t be put off too long, either.
Margaret’s Passion had been in business for over thirty years. It started as a dream Margaret had when she worked for her parents’ small Italian restaurant in what was then Little Italy. It was still called that, but there was almost nothing Italian left about it. Chinatown had muscled in long ago, and the Italians had moved on, mostly out of Manhattan to the outer boroughs (as had just about everyone who wasn’t wealthy enough to live on the millionaire’s row the City had become). Now it was a figment of the tourist imagination. Margaret had been prescient, and also not interested in labeling her restaurant with a specific ethnicity. She and her husband Gerard, so young then, started their restaurant near Gramercy Park, and there it remained. They eventually bought the building the restaurant was in; it occupied the first floor, with three floors of tenants above it. The Bowmans themselves lived on the second floor, with a connecting staircase they’d installed (without city permits, but no one’s telling) that ran down into the kitchen of the restaurant. It was how they came up and down without leaving the building.
Margaret had been taking those stairs to visit her guests for three decades—and she meant it sincerely, knowing them by name, knowing their children’s birthdays and the major events in their lives; this was no “Next guest!” you hear now being shouted by drug store clerks who couldn’t care less if you were a guest or a corpse. Margaret loved and was beloved.
Time took its toll, and eventually Margaret stopped coming down to the restaurant. Then, as things came full circle, Danny made the trip up the stairs to see her. Her Danny, her adopted son. She and Gerard had no children. Then Gerard was struck and killed by a taxi not ten feet from the building. Danny never met Gerard Bowman, but he knew Margaret loved the man with whom she had done it all. He knew she loved him, too. She was Danny’s second mother, something he did not say out loud to his own mother in Astoria. But everybody knew how much they meant to each other, and how hard this was going to be.
It had fallen on Danny to arrange the going away party for Margaret. The planning had gone on for several months now. Danny worked closely with Chloe, the new day manager. That had been Danny’s job until he bought the restaurant with Kyle and Kyle’s mother. (If it had been Kyle’s mother’s money he would be much happier, but Sally Callahan insisted on being part of the package.) Danny had been planning the restaurant’s events for a long time. Several private parties a year were held there, by the types of people who arrived in motorcades and were sometimes preceded by security details. Among the most star-studded events he’d organized was Margaret Bowman’s eighty-first birthday a little over a year ago. He wondered if it had been some kind of signal for Margaret, telling her the time to leave was getting near; or a dress rehearsal for what he was planning now. So many big-name politicians, entertainment figures and philanthropists had shown up that Danny had made the decision to hold a separate, private birthday party with the staff and a few true intimates, including himself. He had worked the main party but had not taken up one of the highly valued sixty seats the restaurant was limited to. Margaret wasn’t happy about it, either, but she knew they could not risk excluding someone whose name was on a Broadway marquee or a ballot in the next election. She wanted them all to keep coming there when she was gone, so she had acquiesced; in the end she had a much better time with just her staff, Danny, Kyle, and a half dozen people who could say they truly knew her.
This event was different. It was the last Margaret would attend, and it was her going away celebration. Danny had even wondered if they should have it somewhere else with twice the seating capacity. But that would be wrong and everyone there would know it. This was a party to say goodbye to Margaret, and it could only be held in her restaurant. Memories could not be packed up and transported to another location.
Chloe was waiting for him when he got there. The restaurant didn’t open until 11:30 a.m. (only lunch and dinner were ser
ved at Margaret’s Passion), but there was always a lot of preparation, and Chloe had proved to be as meticulous in her job as Danny had been when it was his. She had been with the restaurant for five years, working as a lunch server, bar back, you-name-it. Chloe was Danny’s right hand, and he was glad to offer her his job when he became the owner. No one else had even been considered.
“You really should have taken some days off,” Chloe said when Danny arrived. He knew she’d already been there for at least an hour, doing Chloe things, which often extended to jobs well below her pay grade. Nothing was beneath Chloe, and that’s one of the things Danny liked about her.
Chloe was tall and thin and sometimes mistaken for a man. She had very short hair and a flat chest she was neither proud nor ashamed of. Her mother was in a nursing home with early-onset Alzheimer’s (Chloe was only thirty-six). That was all Danny knew of her personal life. He didn’t even know if she was straight, gay, bi, trans, or none of the above. She was a phenomenal asset to the restaurant, a good person who loved the old woman who lived upstairs almost as much as Danny did, and that was all he wanted to know.
“I can’t take time off right now, Chloe,” Danny said. “Too much to do.”
“But your detective friend is here, that seems important.”
Danny thought of telling her that Linda was really Kyle’s friend. He considered her his friend, too, but not in the best-friends-forever category. He also sometimes felt like a third wheel when they were together, and he was content letting Kyle take Linda around the City. Besides, he had a party to plan—the saddest, least-wanted party he would ever throw, and it was time to get down to business.
“Come,” Danny said, sitting at a table and waving Chloe over. “We have names to cross out.”
As with Margaret’s birthday party, this one involved starting with a list almost twice the size of its final draft, then eliminating names after painstakingly discussing who should not be on it, and whom they could afford to offend. Luckily, the new mayor was scheduled to be out of town (Margaret didn’t much care for the man’s politics). The previous mayor, on the other hand, would have to be accommodated.
Danny sighed. Dealing with egos was part of his job and it had only gotten harder since he was now the owner. Favors were expected, and although Margaret had always maintained a strict egalitarian approach to seating (reservations were a must, and could not be bought at the expense of a customer who already had a table), but some people still wanted the best table, with the highest visibility, which was never by the window. Common people could see through the glass and that was not the audience these people played for. They played for each other.
“What about Irene?” Chloe asked, scanning the list. “She won the Tony last year, best lead in a musical.”
“That was last year,” Danny said. “She didn’t win this year.”
He crossed her name off the list and the work began. By the time they opened the doors for lunch a third of the names would be crossed out. Another third would have to go after discussing each one—the pros and cons, their relative importance in Margaret’s orbit, and any damage they might do if they knew they’d been excluded. The first draft of the invitation list was highly confidential, a top secret document that had never fallen into the wrong hands and never would.
“Let’s keep going,” Danny said. He had to get invitations out by the end of the week for a party just a month away. He knew he should have started sooner, but he’d put it off. Saying goodbye to Margaret, then watching her go, was something he would prefer to put off forever, so he steeled himself, took a deep breath, and moved on to the next name.
CHAPTER Nine
The Arlington Hotel was a New York City landmark. First built in 1927, the hotel immediately became the preferred place to stay for anyone whose name was recognized by fans, voters, or readers of newspapers in wide circulation. It was also the place for those who aspired to be known, regardless of the slim odds. Hemingway had stayed here, as had the Governor of New York and, on several occasions, presidents of the United States.
New York City was unrecognizable now from what it had been in the Arlington’s heyday. Times Square had become sanitized, and the New York Times, for which the Square was named, has moved several blocks over. The Gray Lady, as it had been called for a century, was not gray anymore and the building that housed the paper has been converted into high priced condominiums. Most of Manhattan, it seemed, has been transformed into a playground for the rich and famous. That was fine with D; he fancied himself among them, even though he wasn’t that wealthy and planned to never be famous for what he was best at. He was content for his select clientele to know him as the proprietor of a men’s clothing store that catered to the crème de la crème. They would never know he was much more well known—albeit in a completely anonymous way—as the Pride Killer. The police thought he was dead, or that he’d vanished or simply given up his one true passion. At least that’s what they had thought until Tuesday morning, when his first victim in three years was found floating past the United Nations.
D had never stayed at the Arlington. There was no reason for someone who lived in New York City to stay there, let alone someone who owned a townhouse within a long walk’s distance from the hotel. It was true he’d met a few clients in the hotel’s restaurant, mostly older men who thought a $2,000 suit was on the low end. He’d shied away from the nouveau riche, the rappers and the winners of television singing competitions. He wanted to keep his profile low; he was known for being discerning and discreet, and many of the newly wealthy were anything but.
He was sitting in the lobby of the Arlington enjoying a decaf cappuccino. He normally did not drink coffee, preferring a small variety of teas, but he would treat himself to something decaffeinated on special occasions, and this morning was one of them: he was waiting to meet one of two (count them, two!) prospective candidates for his next killing. And the candidate was late. D chalked it up to youth. Kevin (if that was his real name) was barely thirty and today was his day off. D checked his watch: ten minutes past eleven. Kevin was supposed to be there promptly on the hour. D realized, of course, that Kevin might not show up at all—it happened. But he would give the young man another ten minutes, then leave. He had his second interview that afternoon. He’d scheduled the killing for Thursday evening. It was possible that Kevin would not be free that night, which would factor into his decision. He was on a timetable. Fortunately, he had two very different men to choose from and there was a high probability one of them would be available. D was an expert at enticement. He would listen carefully as he chatted with each of the men, and if there was anything in what they said—a new movie out they wanted to see, or a favorite artist in a musical genre—he would be sure to let them know he was interested in that very thing. What a coincidence! He has a signed album of Patsy Cline’s at home, or he’d gotten his hands on a pre-release DVD of the movie that was opening that very night. These were the perks of being a man who catered to men of the highest order. He would demure—it’s nothing, really—and at the very least invite them over to his home that evening. They would ask for the address and he would insist on meeting for a drink first. He never gave his address to his victims. They might tell someone where they were going, or leave a note on the apartment desk they would never see again. Aside from his store manager Jarrod, the only people who knew where he lived did not survive to tell anyone.
D was getting impatient now. He glanced at his watch: 11:17 a.m. Three more minutes and he would have to leave. He was disappointed and was just about to write off Kevin as a fake or a no-show when a young man entered the lobby, harried and moving as if he was late for something, which he was.
“Leo?” he said, walking up to D.
D included his dead uncle’s name among his aliases. He changed them up in the event someone overheard them talking. One day he was Leo, the next he might be Edward.
“That would be me,” D said, standing and extending his hand. He’d told Kevin where he
would be sitting but had not included a photograph of himself. He did not want any pictures floating around. Untraceable email accounts were one thing, photographs quite another. Instead he played shy with them, insisting he had no recent photos but guaranteeing them they would not be displeased, which they never were. He was in shape, average height, with graying brown hair he kept cut every week. He had bright blue eyes and a disarming smile (disarming them was of high importance). And when he smiled, whether for a client at the store or a candidate for his basement, he always made sure to include his eyes. A smile that does not extend to the eyes was a smile to be distrusted.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Kevin said. “There was a sick passenger on the subway and we were in the station forever.”
“Don’t worry,” D said. “These things happen. Please, have a seat.”
Kevin sat down across from D. It was a small low table with two chairs, not for dining but for enjoying a beverage and conversation.
D looked at the man, quite pleased. Kevin was young, shorter than D would have liked, but with an open face and well-groomed. He struck D as neither noticeably masculine nor feminine, a balance he found in many men.
“Coffee?” D said. Kevin nodded and D waved at the waiter who served people in the lobby. There weren’t many places like the Arlington left where gentlemen could sit and talk in a relaxing atmosphere.
“Staten Island is a long commute,” said D. “It must take up a good part of your day going back and forth.”
“I’m used to it,” Kevin said. “I’ve never really wanted to live in Manhattan. It’s too …”
“Hectic.”
“Yeah, hectic. I get enough of the city’s energy just working at the bank. What was it you said you do?”
“Real estate. If you ever decide to move into the city, I’m your man.”
Kevin gave his coffee order to the waiter, then took a moment for a good look at D.