Lassiter adjusted the red Phillies cap and the cheap glasses he’d just picked up at a variety store. They had been sunglasses, but he’d punched out the lenses so that they looked like regular glasses. He parted his lips to look a bit stupid and further disguise his appearance, but he hoped he at least looked calm and not like the way he felt inside. He’d been walking around the Village for the past hour, the spinal needle and tube tucked into his pants. His body was vibrating, and he felt like he had a spike in his skull. He’d come so close with Trisha, and that’s all he could think about—how much it would have been like Natalie’s death, how it would have been even better. But then that man showed up—Barry, Harry, whatever the hell his name was. He’d ruined it.
The doorman stepped around Lassiter and returned to his station where a copy of Newsweek sat next to a take-out cup with a teabag tag hanging out the side.
“May I help you?” the doorman said.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Cardinalli.”
The doorman showed no expression, but Lassiter knew what he was thinking. It was almost ten on a Friday night. What’s a guy like you want with Mrs. Cardinalli at this hour?
“She’s expecting me,” Lassiter said.
The doorman reached for the intercom handset. “Your name?”
“Gene Lassiter.” He tried not to stumble when he said it. He had no choice but to use his real name. If he made one up, Adele would never let him in. Unfortunately he was going to have to come back and kill this man on his way out.
The doorman buzzed Adele’s apartment, staring at Lassiter as he waited for someone to pick up. Lassiter’s stomach clenched. He felt vulnerable standing there and started to have second thoughts.
This was bad, he thought. This wasn’t planned out. This is how you get caught. He considered just turning around and leaving.
“Hello, Mrs. Cardinalli?” the doorman said. “Mr. Lassiter is here to see you.” He kept staring.
Lassiter put on a pleasant smile, but his heart was slamming.
“Okay, I’ll send him up.” The doorman hung up. “You know where it is?” he said to Lassiter.
“The penthouse.” He had been here twice before, for a cocktail party and a dinner party. “Thanks.”
Lassiter walked through a set of green-tinted glass double doors and entered an expansive Italian modern lobby with veined white marble floors and black leather furniture. It was a new building on Gansevoort Street in the Meat Packing District. A very trendy address in a very trendy neighborhood. Much trendier than the Ravioli Queen. But Adele Cardinalli was oblivious to the nuances of the New York social pecking order. She had plenty of money and she spent it on whatever she wanted, and true to her blue-collar Bronx roots, she didn’t give a damn what anybody thought.
He stepped into a waiting elevator lined with multiple hammered copper panels. He kept his head down, the bill of the cap blocking his face from the security camera inside the elevator. He pressed the PH button, and the doors closed. He was sweating profusely and worried that it showed through his polo shirt. He tried to examine himself in the reflections of the panels, but his image was distorted and multiplied the way a fly see things.
The elevator came to a stop, but the doors didn’t open right away. He started to panic. He was trapped. He was going to be caught. Then he realized that he was being watched on the security camera, Adele checking to see if it was really him before she unlocked the elevator. He took off the glasses. After a few seconds the doors slid open.
“Gene Lassiter! What brings you here?” Adele stood in the doorway to her apartment. She wore a white floor-length caftan with gold trim on the cuffs and v-neck collar. Either cotton or a cotton blend, he decided. It would probably rip easily from the v-neck.
“I’m sorry for just showing up like this, Adele, but I was in the building at a party and I thought I’d just stop by and say hello.”
“A party! How nice? Who’s throwing it? Somebody I know?” She sounded annoyed that she hadn’t been invited. He was sure she kept tabs on everybody in the building or at least tried to. She did the same with the Orchid Club.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t exactly know who the host is. A friend of mine brought me. Said it was one of her sorority sisters from college, but I forget her name. I must be getting old.”
She laughed. “You? I don’t think so. I’m old.”
She was right about that, Lassiter thought. She was in her late sixties, early seventies. But she looked good and not with the kind of phony-looking plastic surgery that so many women had. Adele just had good genes. She dyed her hair to keep it Mediterranean black, but she had a smooth olive complexion with hardly a wrinkle and just enough fat under her chin to keep from having a chicken neck. She also had green eyes, and the combination of dark hair and light eyes put her in the Natalie ballpark. On several previous occasions when he’d been desperate, he had considered doing her, but the thought of her relentless talking always stopped him. Natalie had been very soft-spoken and nothing like Adele. Still, he’d kept her in the back of his mind, like a spare tire in the trunk, just in case. Now after missing his chance with Trisha, it was time to use the spare.
He followed Adele into the apartment. Terra cotta tiles covered the floor of the large living room. The décor was tasteful but overwhelmingly Tuscan. Shades of umber, russet, and wheat brown gave the place a predictable earthiness. Oversized oil paintings depicted golden hillsides at sunset, churches, and Florentine streetscapes. A portrait of Adele, her late husband Carmine (the Ravioli King), and their two sons when they were teenagers hung over the marble mantelpiece. The boys were in their thirties now. Lassiter knew this because Adele never missed an opportunity to complain that her sons hadn’t made her a grandmother yet.
The plastic tube was slippery against his sweaty skin. He was itching to pull it out and get started, but there was no need to rush. She wasn’t going anywhere. Even though coming here was a spur-of-the-moment decision, he still had to do it right—enjoy it, savor it—because he had no idea when he’d get to Trisha.
“Do you want coffee?” Adele asked, walking ahead of him. “Or a drink? I have some excellent imported grappa. Not harsh. Have you ever had good grappa with a strong cup of espresso and those little tiny biscotti? There’s nothing like it, and hardly any calories. Let me fix you some.”
“No, no, nothing for me.” He stared at her back, sizing her up. She was about 5’ 4,” plump, and not athletic in the least. She wouldn’t put up a fight, but she wouldn’t be quiet—she never was. Fortunately this was the penthouse. No neighbors to hear the screams.
On his previous visits she had shown off her home. He recalled that it was a large three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath. It wouldn’t be hard to find a bedroom, though he’d prefer the master bedroom, close to her closets and drawers. He’d forgotten to stop by his house for scarves.
“So can I get you anything, Gene?” She spoke over her shoulder as she walked past the sliding glassing doors in the dining area. Keep moving, Adele. There were tall buildings in the neighborhood. People could look in. He remembered nosybody Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window.
When she had passed the glass doors, he called to her. “Adele?”
She turned around. “Yes? Did you change your mine about the grappa?”
His breathing slowed, conserving his energy for the kill. He stepped toward her, gauging her distance from the glass doors, wondering if it was really safe. She just stood there, grinning at him, as oblivious as a pigeon. This was going to be too easy. And he was going to be able to spend a lot of time with her.
“I think I’ll pass on the grappa,” he said. “But maybe some espresso. And those little biscotti.”
“Fantastic! So, tell me, Gene. Do you play poker?”
“What?” He was so focused on what he planned to do to her, the question made no sense.
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Through an open doorway, he saw a man and a woman sitting at a long country kitchen table, cards fanned out in their hands and short stacks of plastic chips in front of them.
“We’re playing Texas Hold’em, but we can switch to Seven Card Stud if you prefer.”
Her words didn’t compute. He stared at the poker players, a portly middle-aged Hispanic woman in a floral print housedress and a husky man with short-cropped steel-gray hair in a white dress shirt and black pants.
“This is Inez, my housekeeper, and Tony, my driver. We always play on Friday night.”
The woman waved with her fingers. The man smiled and nodded.
Lassiter kept staring at them. Adele wasn’t alone. Why the hell wasn’t she alone?
“Gene? Gene? Do you want to play?”
He considered his options, but he had none. She wasn’t alone. Those two people had seen him. So had the doorman. He couldn’t kill them all. He was stuck. There was nothing he could do. He had to get out of there.
“I’ll get the espresso started,” Adele said. “We’ll deal you in as soon as we finish this hand. Okay?”
“Uh… I don’t want to disrupt your game. I’m really terrible at cards. I mean really terrible. I’m not much fun to play with.”
“So just have coffee.”
“No, really. You go back to your game. I just wanted to say hello. I’ll show myself out.” He backed toward the door.
“Don’t be silly. Stay a while.”
“You know, my friend is probably waiting for me downstairs. I just wanted to pop in and say hi.”
She followed him, gesturing with her hands. “Tell her to come on up. Don’t leave her down there. What’s wrong with you?”
“Well, it’s not that simple. You see, she’s more than just a friend. Or at least I’m hoping she will be after tonight. If you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I see.”
“We’d lost touch after college and recently found each other online. She went through a divorce last year, and we’re getting re-acquainted.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” she said with a knowing grin. “So what the hell are you doing here? Go to her. Hurry up before she gets mad and leaves.”
“I don’t think she would do that.”
Adele reached out and pinched his cheek. He forced himself not to wince, but her touch seared his face. He didn’t like being touched.
“You are such a nice boy,” she said. “So thoughtful to come up and say hello when you have a hot date on the line. You are the nicest person I know, Gene.”
If you only knew, Adele.
“I’m gonna go so you can get back to your game.” He backed out the door and went the elevator. He looked for a down button, but there was just a metal keyhole. The fear of being trapped flooded his chest. He thought about the man at the kitchen table, thinking he could be trouble. He imagined the maid quietly calling 911. Maybe they’d figured out the real reason he’d come here. He had to get out right now.
He pressed the raised keyhole, thinking maybe it doubled as a button, but it didn’t budge.
“Hang on,” Adele said from the doorway. “I can call the elevator from here.” She fiddled with something on the wall in the foyer. “It’ll be here in a second.”
He could feel the sweat dripping down his back. The eyeglasses and baseball cap were in his back pockets. He would put them on in the elevator because that’s how the doorman had seen him. But the maid and the driver had seen him without glasses. Of course they had seen him from a distance. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to identify him. He was spiraling, jumping ahead as if he’d done something wrong, thinking up alibis.
The elevator doors opened, startling him, worried that the doorman would be in there. Or the cops. But it was empty. Just his distorted reflections in the copper panels.
He got in and pressed the Lobby button.
“Bye,” Adele said with a wave. “See you soon.” She was smiling like a proud mother.
“So long” were the only words he could squeeze out.
The elevator doors closed. His heart was pounding so hard he feared someone else might hear it. Sweat beaded his forehead. He had to get out of there. He jabbed the Lobby button again and looked up at the lighted numbers over the door. Why was this elevator so damned slow? He had to get going, he had find a bleeder, and he had to do it soon. He stabbed the button again.
Come on, he thought. Come on!
Finally he felt the elevator descend.
Lassiter sat at the bar near the tiny bandstand, nursing his second vodka tonic, wishing he could do something to stop the thrumming. It wasn’t the band—a three-piece jazz trio: organ, guitar, and drums. They were medium loud but mellow and nothing compared to the chaos in his head—flying demons screaming through fiery skies. He didn’t know what to do. Stay here and get drunk? Go home and do nothing? Roam the streets looking for a bleeder? As much as he tried to smother his urges, the fuse was already lit. It wasn’t a matter of choice. He had to kill.
He tried to concentrate on the band. The organ player, a skinny young black man, kept his eyes squeezed shut, a blissful expression on his face as his fingers galloped up and down his double keyboards. The guitar player, a white kid with a fringe of dirty blond hair that covered his eyebrows, strummed pretty chords with machine-like precision, his expression serious to the point of being dour. The drummer, an older black man with a trim gray goatee, wore a sly smile as he worked the high hat and snare, challenging the two younger musicians with complicated fills.
Lassiter liked jazz, but tonight the music barely penetrated his consciousness. He scanned the crowded room. It was a relatively small place—about fifteen tables plus seats at the bar—three steps down from the sidewalk on Bleecker Street in the West Village. The cover was cheap, $5 with a two-drink minimum. He had no idea why he’d come here except that he’d been here twice before and both times noticed a more mature crowd despite its proximity to NYU. College kids for the most part didn’t care for jazz, and he had no interest in coeds.
His glass was three-quarters empty, and he wasn’t sure if he should drink any more. He needed to stay sharp. But this crowd wasn’t very promising. Couples at just about every table. Four geeks had pushed two tables together and were riveted to the music, their heads bouncing like bobble-head dolls. He had a feeling they were fellow musicians and friends of the band.
He scanned the faces at the bar. Nearly every seat was taken—all men except for a dizzy-looking blonde. None of them seemed to be listening to the band. These were serious drinkers, probably regulars.
He rattled the ice slivers in his glass and wished he could quiet the racket in his head, wondering what he should do. Go someplace else? Go home? He couldn’t decide.
The bartender came over, a man in his fifties with dark slicked-back hair and a thick neck. He pointed at Lassiter’s glass. “Another one?”
Lassiter was about to say no when he noticed someone new coming in. A woman, and she appeared to be by herself. Late thirties, maybe 40. Dark hair in a retro flip.
“Yeah,” he said to the bartender. “I’ll have another one.”
“Gin and tonic?”
“Vodka.”
“You got it, pal.” The bartender started fixing Lassiter a fresh drink.
He watched the woman as she found a place at the bar in the far corner diagonal from where he was sitting. Her eyes were on the band. She had a sharp nose and light eyes. Not gorgeous but pretty in her own way. Deep cleavage in a tight-fitting black v-neck. He could see the ridges of her breast bone.
“Here you go, pal.” The bartender put a new drink on a paper napkin.
Lassiter laid a twenty on the bar, which the bartender scooped up and took to the cash register. He stirred his drink with a slim plastic straw. His eyes
were on the woman. He took a sip and leaned back, trying her on for size. He studied her for several minutes, mentally calling to her, hoping to get her attention.
She had ordered something green that came in a martini glass, and she scanned the room as she sipped. When her gaze came to him, she saw that he was already looking at her and she didn’t look away. She stared right back with mischievous wolf eyes.
Lassiter smiled. He picked up his drink and walked around the bar. There was an empty seat next to her.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Mind if I sit here?”
She shrugged. “Be my guest.” She drank him in with her light-blue eyes.
“So you like jazz?” he said.
Her name was Robin, and she lived on the third floor of a cheaply renovated walk-up on Rivington Street in the East Village. The fluorescent lighting in the hallway was harsh, the wooden stairs creaked, and the banister wobbled in his hand as he followed her up to her apartment. He’d had four drinks but didn’t feel drunk. The electricity in his veins was high-voltage anticipation. The needle and tube tucked into his pants felt radioactive.
He stared at the back of Robin’s head as she climbed the steps. He considered her dark hair and light eyes a gift. Not exactly like Natalie’s but close enough.
She rounded the landing on the third floor and flashed a loopy smile. “Almost there,” she said. She’d had more than a few Appletinis.
He watched as she pawed through her bag, an orange and pink woven thing. He noticed that she had a pair of grinning skulls the size of lemons tattooed to her calves. She found her key and got it into the keyhole on the first try, which surprised him. He was glad she was tipsy. Easier to handle.
She pushed the door open and flipped a light switch, illuminating a small foyer. The thick coat of polyurethane on the varnished plywood floor picked up the light.
He stepped inside, wedging between the open door and a pressboard dresser that took up most of the space in the foyer. The place smelled like overripe bananas. At the bar Robin had told him she was an actress. Not a very successful one from the look of her apartment.
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