by Mark McNease
They waved goodbye to Sam Paddington as Kyle led them back out onto the front steps. As they descended, he said, “Something happened.”
“Yeah, he got killed!”
“No, I mean something happened either before he got to this Keller and Whitman store, or after he left.”
“Maybe something happened at the store.”
“Right,” Kyle said, a little too dismissively. “He goes into a fitting room and runs into the Pride Killer. I doubt that.”
“I’m just offering ideas, Kyle. Something to think about.”
“Good, really. We need ideas.”
“So are we going there? To the store?”
Kyle led Linda to the taxi line. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “We have dinner with Danny tonight. It’ll give us a chance to think this all through.”
“Can we afford to wait?” Linda was worried they could lose their momentum.
“If his pattern holds, his next victim will be Thursday or Friday night. That gives us tomorrow to kick this into high gear. I’ll find out when this Keller and Whitman store opens and we’ll be first in the door.”
They got into a taxi and headed south on Fifth Avenue. No sooner had they pulled away from the curb than the driver began chattering in a low voice. He was not talking to himself.
“You said it’s illegal,” Linda whispered in the back seat.
“So is jaywalking, and look around you.”
Kyle was right. New Yorkers all seemed to do as they please.
One in particular was about to do it again.
CHAPTER Eighteen
Just as Kyle and Linda were heading home for dinner at the apartment, D was walking into Pianissimo, a piano bar on 46th Street in the Theater District. Pianissimo had been around since the mid-1960s and remained a favorite haunt of locals in the know, as well as a steady flow of tourists looking for real New York flavor. More than a few big names in the cabaret scene had developed their chops standing on its small stage, singing standards and the occasional original song they hoped would become one.
D had never been here. He was careful not to meet his candidates in bars where he would be recognized. Described, okay, if it came to that, but not someone known by name or habit. He’d chosen this place because it was on the west side, in a busy area where two men meeting for a drink would blend in with fifty others. He’d also chosen it because he knew it would be quiet, even if someone was at the piano—no video screens here looping dance music clips, no loud pop blaring from suspended speakers—and because it was not a place men their age would stand out. Many of the gay bars in Manhattan catered to a younger crowd and it would be too easy for a bartender or server to remember “the two old guys” sitting at a corner table.
Still, he took his time approaching the bar, looking at his surroundings. He liked to arrive early so he would be in place and he could observe the candidate as he walked in. A lot could be learned from a gait, the way a man carries himself. More than once D had passed on one of them, his instinct telling him this was not a perfect choice and might make the kill difficult. He did not like difficult kills.
He was pleased, then, when he saw Scott walk through the door five minutes late. D had been sitting at a small table along the wall that faced the entrance. He had a glass of white wine in front of him, and when Scott came in looking around at the two dozen customers, D waved at him.
Not bad, he thought, not bad at all.
Scott Devlin was fifty-three years old and conscious of his appearance: he was thin, with just a hint of middle-aged paunch. He was middling height, five-nine if one were to guess. He had close-cropped brown hair liberally sprinkled with gray. He was dressed well, in new-looking jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt covered by a navy sport coat—a little warm for June, but it spoke of a man who wanted to make a good impression.
“Phillip?” he said, walking up to D.
D had accepted at the outset that the only time they would ever know his true name was when they would no longer be able to tell anyone. Sometimes he never did tell them and they died believing he was Phillip or David or Leo.
“Indeed it is,” D said. He stood and shook Scott’s hand. Firm, he thought, but not too. It was not the handshake of a man he would have trouble overpowering. “And you must be Scott.”
“Nice choice,” Scott said as he sat at the table. “I’ve never been here, but it’s famous.”
“A favorite of mine. I thought you might like it. There’s no reason not to, really, and it’s quiet enough to talk. That’s always a plus.”
“I like quiet, too,” said Scott. A waiter came over and took his drink order: Scotch and water. A mature man’s drink, thought D as he settled back into his chair.
“So tell me about yourself,” D said, knowing everything he was about to hear might be a lie.
“Well, I’m between jobs right now. I don’t consider myself unemployed, just in transition. It’s all in the attitude.”
“And what do you do? When you’re not in transition.”
“I’m a bookkeeper. I worked for the last eleven years at a large bakery in Long Island City that just closed down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It happens. At least I wasn’t the only one let go. We all were.”
“And where do you live?”
“I thought I mentioned that in my email.”
“You probably did,” D said. “My apologies.”
“No need,” said Scott, eyeing D and smiling. “A man as attractive as you must get quite a few responses.”
D feigned embarrassment, shrugging. “It’s not that at all. I just don’t remember as well as I used to.”
“You don’t look old enough to be forgetting things yet.”
“Call it early onset Chardonnay.”
Scott laughed just as his drink arrived. He thanked the waiter and took a sip. “I live in Washington Heights.”
“Quite a long subway ride.”
“I’m used to it. And what do you do, Phillip?”
D hesitated.
“Are you in transition, too?” Phillip asked, sensing D’s reluctance.
“No, not at all. I work with the dying.”
Phillip was surprised. “Hospice?”
“Something like that.”
D sipped his wine. He’d only had half a glass and intended to keep it that way.
“Listen,” D said, “I was wondering if we could have a proper conversation over dinner tomorrow night.”
“So I passed the test,” Scott said. “I’m impressed … that you’re impressed! I’d love to have dinner, but I have plans tomorrow.”
D was not happy with the information. He didn’t want to have to start over, look for another candidate in such a hurry. Hurrying invites miscalculations.
“But I’m free tonight.”
Free tonight, D thought. That changes things without really changing them. It’s not the schedule I had, the plans I’d made, but it will do.
“Unless you’re not, of course, and I would completely understand. There’s always next week.”
“No, no,” D said, “next week is a week too long. I was only planning to finish up some work at home tonight. But if you’ll indulge me an hour or so we can just stop there. I have magazines and books you can read, or watch the evening news if you like. I’ll wrap things up and we can have a lovely dinner this evening. It just might be the dinner of a lifetime.”
Scott was obviously pleased. He smiled and waved at the waiter, about to order another drink.
“Hold off on that,” D said. “Let’s have a second drink at my townhouse. I have Scotch that’s been sealed and waiting for you for seventy-five years.”
“Seventy-five-year-old Scotch? You really shouldn’t.”
“Please, that’s what it’s for. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion, and something tells me that occasion has arrived.”
D let his leg slide against Scott’s under the table. Scott pressed back and a moment later D felt Scott�
��s hand resting on his knee. How easy they are, he thought. How easy.
The waiter came over, expecting to fill another drink order. Instead, D said to him, “Check please,” as he took out his wallet. Scott reached for his and D said, “This one’s on me. Now think of where you’d like to have dinner and we’ll decide in the taxi.”
Scott couldn’t believe his good fortune. Meeting Phillip had relieved him for an evening of his worries. No thoughts of being in “transition,” no thoughts of dipping into his savings for months as he looked for another job, no thoughts of yet another night alone as so very many of his nights had been. He was feeling especially lucky as they stepped outside and Phillip raised a hand to flag a cab. Soon he would be sipping on Scotch that had waited seventy-five years for him to taste it! It was going to be an evening to remember.
CHAPTER Nineteen
It had been a long day for Danny, filled with more emotion than he was used to or would like. Nostalgia wasn’t a weakness of his, but he’d spent the afternoon immersed in it: nostalgia for the years he’d been at Margaret’s Passion, with Margaret. Nostalgia for a time in his life he knew was passing quickly into memory. Nostalgia, even, for the years he knew he could never get back. Time, Danny had learned, was a non-renewable resource, and the older we get, the less of it we have. Unlike anything else in our lives we cannot replace it. It left him with a sense of self-pity, and that was something he disliked in anyone, especially himself.
He was relieved to be at home, back in the apartment with their cats Smelly and Leonard, back with Kyle and their friend Linda. As he prepared the beet and goat cheese salad he reminded himself there were always people with something to truly be sad about. Linda’s wife Kirsten was in Phoenix awaiting her arrival while she tended her mother in the final stage of her life. They’d both liked Dot when they met her at the women’s wedding. She’d seemed robust enough at the time, but Danny knew cancer could come fast and furious, zero-to-sixty in a matter of months, and that’s what had happened to Dot. According to Linda she wasn’t expected to live out the month of July and Danny had already spoken to Kyle about going to the funeral if they were invited.
“I love scallops,” Linda said. She was standing in the kitchen doorway watching Danny and Kyle prepare dinner.
“The trick is to not overcook them,” Kyle said. Frying the scallops was his task and he watched them carefully in the pan, making sure they didn’t turn to rubber.
The dinner consisted of scallops, sautéed spinach, baked potato and the salad. It was a rare treat for the men to have dinner at home with a guest. They ate at home often enough, but seldom with anyone else in attendance. It gave Kyle a chance to take out the small folding table they used for company and set it for three. Normally, he and Danny ate sitting on the couch in front of the television, or sometimes on bed trays while they watched something they’d recorded. Smelly and Leonard, too, were delighted to have a visitor. The activity interested them and they kept walking in and out of the kitchen, waiting for something to happen. Smelly was hoping for a scrap of some kind, which she would not get. Leonard, meanwhile, kept marking Linda’s ankles with his teeth, sliding them against her as he walked back and forth.
Fifteen minutes later they were all seated at the table. Kyle placed it by the window overlooking Lexington Avenue. It wasn’t all that scenic—the view was out over the avenue, and across the street they could see Baruch College. Street sounds drifted up, the occasional car horn, a shout now and then. Kyle hoped they could make it through dinner without the shrill interruption of a siren.
“So how’s the party planning going?” Kyle asked Danny, referring to Margaret’s going-away celebration.
“It’s going fine,” Danny said. “I’m just glad it’s not a surprise. You can’t keep something like this a surprise. Speaking of which …”
Kyle waited a moment for Danny to finish. When he didn’t, Kyle said, “Yes? Speaking of surprises?”
“She gave us the building.”
Kyle didn’t understand. “What do you mean, ‘gave us’ the building?”
“As in ownership, Kyle. She signed the building over to us.”
“That’s amazing!” Linda said.
“In good ways and bad,” said Danny.
“I still don’t understand.”
“It’s pretty self-explanatory, Kyle. She gave us the deed to the building. Well, to me, but that’s the same thing.”
Kyle was stunned. They owned their apartment free and clear, but an entire building? What would they do with something like that?
Danny continued: “She said she doesn’t need the money, she has that from the restaurant purchase. She can’t take the building with her—her words—and she just … I don’t know … gave us the building. Not sold us, not loaned us. Gave us.”
“Oh my God,” said Kyle. “What are we going to do with it?”
Danny looked at him. “We’re going to become landlords, that’s what. We’re going to keep the restaurant open, and decide what to do with the building twenty years from now.”
“Jesus.” Kyle’s mind was racing. He’d been worried Imogene might take a job in another city and leave him. He didn’t want to work for someone else, didn’t want to work in an office at all if it came to that. He’d wondered a hundred times what he would do if he lost his job. His photography was a pastime, not a profession. He was weary of being an assistant in his 50s. And now this—a landlord, a restaurateur. Maybe this was the path he was meant to take.
“This is a lot to think about,” Kyle said.
“A lot,” Danny replied. “But not right now. It was a long day. I’ve got a party to finish planning, a building to own, whatever that entails. So damn much. And I want a new suit, for Margaret’s going-away.”
“You’ve got plenty of suits,” Kyle said.
“No. I want something new, something really expensive. Margaret deserves the absolute best, and I’ll give that to her.”
“You have a tuxedo.”
“I don’t want a tuxedo. I want Armani, or Versace, something stunning.”
The subject of a new suit made Kyle remember the places he and Linda had been that day, the people they’d talked to. “I’m not sure where to start tomorrow,” he said to Linda.
“I thought we were going to Keller and Whitman. That seems to be a vanishing point for Victor Campagna.”
“What’s Keller and Whitman?” Danny asked.
“It’s a high-end men’s clothing store,” Kyle said. “I’m sure they sell some very fine suits. Would you like to go with us?”
“I can’t. I’ve got an appointment in the morning with a florist for centerpieces. Then I have to help Chloe get out invitations. We should have mailed them a week ago. I think I was putting it off, you know, avoiding the whole thing.”
“Well,” said Kyle, “if we see any suits I think you’d like I’ll take some pictures and email them to you.” Then, thinking of the surprise Danny had dropped on them at dinner, he said, “A landlord. What the hell? We’ll be like Fred and Ethel Mertz without a Lucy and Ricky. Maybe Linda and Kirsten would want to move in. I heard Linda does a mean Babalu.”
“No, thank you,” Linda said. “I like my little house in the woods, and Kirsten’s gotten to like it quite a bit, too. Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.”
“The parade Sunday might change your mind,” said Danny. “It’s not like anything you’ve seen before. The biggest party New York City throws every year.”
“I won’t change my mind, but thank you. I like New York City as a great place to visit. Let’s keep it that way. I’m good for one big parade a year, in someone else’s hometown.”
Someone else’s hometown. It made Kyle think about bodies in the river, the Pride Killer’s return. New York City was the killer’s hometown, too. He would have to put aside thoughts of owning a building, being a landlord and running Margaret’s Passion. Somewhere out there was another man about to be lured to his death unless they moved quickly. H
e planned to be out of the apartment with Linda first thing in the morning, getting breakfast somewhere as they headed east to be first through the door at Keller and Whitman. He hoped whoever worked there would remember the young man who came in Monday looking for a suit, assuming he’d made it that far.
CHAPTER Twenty
D didn’t like changes to his plans, least of all sudden ones. But what had really changed except the timing? He was careful to always be prepared. There was nothing he was going to do tomorrow night that he couldn’t do tonight. And besides, it was too late, unless he wanted to call the whole thing off, and that was out of the question.
He let Scott babble on about looking for a new job, keeping his chin up, refusing to surrender to all the naysaying about the job market and older workers. He smiled and pretended to listen, nodding when he detected a pause, meanwhile having a conversation with himself in the privacy of his mind. Doubt had begun to seep in, and that was entirely new. He wondered if the time had come to stop, to make this his last Pride weekend killing spree and remain forever uncaught. He could become a legend—or more of one than he already was. He could become the most famous serial killer of them all … the one that got away. He had to consider it. He’d made the foolish mistake of choosing Victor Someone from among his customers. Then he’d hailed a taxi in front of Pianissimo’s, instead of walking Scott a block or two to keep from being seen outside the bar. What other mistakes might he make if he kept this up? He knew they weren’t deliberate. He was not one of those sad sociopaths who wanted to be caught, to find themselves the subject of tabloid television segments, interviewed from death row. He assumed it was because he’d been out of the game for three years, but was it really a game he wanted to see to its conclusion?
He was deciding to have one last go of it and retire when he glanced out the window at a street sign. 78th Street, three blocks from his home. Better to get out now in case the police somehow found this taxi driver and the man remembered them.