“We’ve got to run,” Mark said. “We’re on last out and we’ve got to get some food in us.”
“And this was just getting good,” Jessica said.
Underwood stood, took out his wallet, pulled out a few bills, handed them to the barmaid. He put his wallet down on the bar. It fell open. Jessica glanced at his ID.
VANDEMARK E. UNDERWOOD.
He caught her looking, scooped up his wallet. But it was too late.
“Vandemark?” Jessica asked.
Underwood looked around quickly. He pocketed his billfold in a flash. “Name your price,” he said.
Jessica laughed. She watched Mark Underwood leave. He held the door for an older couple on his way out.
As she toyed with the ice cubes in her glass, she observed the ebb and flow of the pub. She watched cops stroll in, stroll out. She waved to Angelo Turco from the Third. Angelo had a beautiful tenor voice, sang at all the police benefit functions, many of the officers’ weddings. With a little training he could have been Philadelphia’s answer to Andrea Bocelli. He even opened a Phillies game once.
She saw Cass James, a secretary and all-around sister confessor from Central. Jessica could only imagine how many secrets Cass James held, and what kind of Christmas presents she must get. Jessica had never seen Cass actually pay for a drink.
Cops.
Her father was right. All her friends were on the force. So what was she supposed to do about it? Join the Y? Take a macramé class? Learn to ski?
She finished her drink and was just about to gather her things to leave when she sensed someone sitting down next to her, on the very next stool to her right. Seeing as there were three stools open on either side of her, it could only mean one thing. She felt herself tense up. But why? She knew why. She’d been out of the dating pool for so long, the mere thought of fielding an advance, fueled by a few scotches, scared the hell out of her, as much for what she might not do as for what she might. She’d gotten married for many reasons, and this was one of them. The bar scene, and all its attendant games, never appealed to her much. And now that she was thirty—and the possibility of divorce loomed on the horizon—it terrified her more than it ever had before.
The figure next to her lurked closer, closer. She could feel warm breath on her face. The nearness demanded her attention.
“Can I buy you a drink?” the shadow asked.
She looked over. Caramel eyes, dark wavy hair, a two-day scruff. He had broad shoulders, a small cleft in his chin, long eyelashes. He wore a tight black T-shirt and faded Levi’s. Just to make matters worse, he was wearing Acqua di Gio by Armani.
Shit.
Just her type.
“I was just about to leave,” she said. “Thanks anyway.”
“One drink. I promise.”
She almost laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because with guys like you it’s never one drink.”
He feigned heartbreak. It made him even cuter. “Guys like me?”
Now she did laugh. “Oh, and now you’re going to tell me I’ve never met anyone quite like you, right?”
He didn’t answer her right away. Instead, he looked from her eyes, down to her lips, back to her eyes.
Stop it.
“Oh, I’ll bet you’ve met a lot of guys like me,” he said with a sly grin. It was the kind of smile that said he was in complete control.
“Why do you say that?”
He sipped his drink, paused, played the moment out. “Well, for one thing, you’re a very beautiful woman.”
Here we go, Jessica thought. Bartender, get me a long-handled shovel. “And two?”
“Well, two should be obvious.”
“Not to me.”
“Two is that you are clearly out of my league.”
Ah, Jessica thought. The humility pitch. Self-deprecating, handsome, polite. Bedroom eyes. She was absolutely certain that this combo had gotten scads of women into the sack. “And yet you still came over and sat next to me.”
“Life is short,” he said with a shrug. He crossed his arms, flexing his muscular forearms. Not that Jessica was looking or anything. “When that guy left, I figured it was now or never. I figured that, if I didn’t at least try, I would never be able to live with myself.”
“How do you know he’s not my boyfriend?”
He shook his head. “Not your type.”
Cocky bastard. “And I’ll bet you know exactly what my type is, right?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Have a drink with me. I’ll explain it to you.”
Jessica cruised his shoulders, his broad chest. The gold crucifix on the chain around his neck winked in the bar lights.
Go home, Jess.
“Maybe some other time.”
“There is no time like now,” he said. The sincerity in his voice dripped. “Life is so unpredictable. Anything could happen.”
“For instance,” she said, wondering why she was prolonging this, deep in denial about the fact that she already knew why.
“Well, for instance, you could walk out of here and a stranger with far more nefarious intentions could do you terrible bodily harm.”
“I see.”
“Or you might step into the middle of an armed robbery in progress and be taken hostage.”
Jessica wanted to take out her Glock, lay it on the bar, and tell him she could probably deal with that scenario. Instead, she just said: “Uh-huh.”
“Or a bus might jump the curb, or a grand piano might fall from the sky, or you might—”
“—get buried under an avalanche of bullshit?”
He smiled. “Exactly.”
He was cute. She had to give him that. “Look, I’m really flattered, but I’m a married woman.”
He drained his drink, spread his hands in surrender. “He’s a very lucky man.”
Jessica smiled, dropped a twenty on the bar. “I’ll tell him.”
She slid off her stool, walked to the door, using all the determination in her arsenal not to turn around and look. Her undercover training paid off sometimes. But that didn’t mean she didn’t work her walk for all it was worth.
She pushed open the heavy front door. The city was a blast furnace. She walked out of Finnigan’s, around the corner, down Third Street, keys in hand. The temperature hadn’t dropped more than a degree or two in the last few hours. Her blouse stuck to her back like a damp washcloth.
By the time she reached her car she heard the footsteps behind her and knew who it was. She turned. She was right. His swagger was as brash as his routine.
Nefarious stranger, indeed.
She stood, her back to her car, waiting for the next clever line, the next macho come-on designed to knock down her walls.
Instead, he did not say a word. Before she knew it he had her pinned against the car, his tongue in her mouth. His body was hard; his hands strong. She dropped her purse, her keys, her defenses. She kissed him back as he lifted her into the air. She wrapped her legs around his lean hips. He made her weak. He took her will.
She let him.
It was one of the reasons she married him in the first place.
31
THE SUPER LET him in just before midnight. The apartment was stifling and oppressive and quiet. The walls still held the echoes of their passion.
Byrne had driven Center City looking for Victoria, visiting all the places he thought she might be, all the places she might not, coming up empty. On the other hand, he didn’t really expect to find her sitting in some bar, totally unaware of the time, a graveyard of empties in front of her. It was unlike Victoria not to call him if she couldn’t make their appointment.
The apartment was just as he had left it earlier that morning: their breakfast dishes still in the sink, the bedclothes still in the shape of their bodies.
Although he felt like a prowler, Byrne stepped into the bedroom, opened the top drawer in Victoria’s dresser. The brochure of her life stared back: a small box o
f earrings, a clear plastic envelope with ticket stubs of touring Broadway shows, a selection of drugstore reading glasses in a variety of frames. There was also an assortment of greeting cards. He took one out of the envelope. It was a birthday card of the sentimental stripe, this one with a glossy fall harvest scene at dusk on the cover. Was Victoria’s birthday in autumn? Byrne wondered. There was so much he didn’t know about her. He opened the card to find a long message scrawled on the left-hand side, a long message written in Swedish. A few bits of glitter fell to the floor.
He slipped the card back into the envelope, glanced at the postmark. BROOKLYN, NY. Did Victoria have family in New York? He felt like a stranger. He had shared her bed, and felt like an onlooker into her life.
He opened her lingerie drawer. The scent of lavender sachet floated up, filling him with both dread and desire. The drawer was full of what looked like very expensive-looking camisoles and slips and hosiery. He knew that Victoria was very sensitive about her outward appearance, despite the tough-girl posturing. Beneath her clothes, though, it seemed she spared no expense to make herself feel beautiful.
He closed the drawer, feeling a little ashamed. He really did not know what he was looking for. Perhaps he wanted to see another segment of her life, a piece of the riddle that might immediately explain why she had not come to meet him. Perhaps he was waiting for a flash of prescience, a vision that might point him in the right direction. But there was none. There was no violent memory in the folds of these fabrics.
Besides, even if he were able to mine this area, it would not explain the Snow White figurine. He knew where that had come from. In his heart he knew what had happened to her.
Another drawer, this one filled with socks and sweatshirts and T-shirts. No clues there. He closed all the drawers, gave a hurried glance through her nightstands.
Nothing.
He left a note on Victoria’s dining room table, then drove home, wrestling with the idea of calling in a missing-person report. But what would he say? A woman in her thirties didn’t show up for a date? No one had seen her in four or five hours?
When he arrived in South Philly, he found a parking spot about a block from his apartment. The walk seemed endless. He stopped, tried calling Victoria’s number again. He got her voice mail. He didn’t leave a message. He struggled up the stairs, feeling every moment of his age, each facet of his fear. He’d grab a few hours’ sleep and then start looking for Victoria again.
He fell into bed at just after two. Within minutes he was asleep, and the nightmares began.
32
THE WOMAN WAS tied to the bed, facedown. She was naked, her skin streaked with shallow scarlet welts from the whipping. The light from the camera highlighted the smooth planes of her back, the sweat-slicked curves of her hips.
The man entered from the bathroom. He was not imposing in a physical sense, but rather carried about him a cinematic villainy. He wore a leather mask. His eyes were dark and menacing behind the slits; his hands held an electric prod.
As the camera rolled, he stepped forward slowly, fully erect. At the foot of the bed he hesitated, the hammer of a heart between strikes.
Then took her again.
33
THE PASSAGE HOUSE was a safe haven and shelter on Lombard Street. It provided counsel and protection to teenaged runaways; since its founding nearly a decade earlier, more than two thousand girls had passed through its doors.
The storefront building was whitewashed and clean, recently painted. The insides of the windows were webbed with ivy and flowering clematis and other climbing plants, woven through white wooden latticework. Byrne imagined that the purpose of the greenery was twofold. To mask the street—where all the temptations and dangers lurk—and to indicate to the girls who were considering just passing by that inside there was life.
As he approached the front doors, Byrne knew it might be a mistake to identify himself as a police officer—this was anything but an official visit—but if he came in like a civilian, asking questions, he could be someone’s father, boyfriend, dirty uncle. At a place like the Passage House, he could be the problem.
Out front, a woman was washing the windows. Her name was Shakti Reynolds. Victoria had mentioned her many times, always in glowing terms. Shakti Reynolds was one of the founders of the center. She had devoted her life to the cause after losing a daughter to street violence years earlier. Byrne badged her, hoping the move would not come back to haunt him.
“What can I do for you, Detective?”
“I’m looking for Victoria Lindstrom.”
“She’s not here, I’m afraid.”
“Was she supposed to be in today?”
Shakti nodded. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman of about forty-five, with close-cropped gray hair. Her toffee skin was smooth and wan. Byrne noticed the patches of scalp showing through the woman’s hair and wondered if she had recently gone through chemotherapy. He was once again reminded that the city was made up of people who fought their own dragons each day, and it wasn’t always about him.
“Yes, she’s usually here by now,” Shakti said.
“She hasn’t called?”
“No.”
“Are you at all concerned about that?”
At this, Byrne saw the woman’s jawline tighten slightly, as if she thought he was challenging her personal commitment to her employees. In a moment she relaxed. “No, Detective. Victoria is very dedicated to the center, but she is also a woman. And a single woman at that. We’re fairly loose here.”
Byrne continued, relieved he hadn’t insulted or alienated her. “Has anyone been asking for her lately?”
“Well, she’s quite popular with the girls. They see her more as an older sister than an adult.”
“I mean someone from outside the group.”
She dropped her squeegee into the bucket, thought for a few moments. “Well, now that you mention it a guy stopped by the other day asking for her.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to see her, but she was on a sandwich run.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. Just that she wasn’t in. He asked a few more questions. Nosy-type questions. I called Mitch over and the guy took one look at him and left.”
Shakti gestured to a man sitting at a table inside, playing solitaire. Man was a relative term. Mountain was more accurate. Mitch went about 350.
“What did this guy look like?”
“White, average height. Snaky looking, I thought. Didn’t like him from the get-go.”
If anyone’s antennae were tuned to snaky men, it was Shakti Reynolds, Byrne thought. “If Victoria stops by, or this guy comes back, please give me a call.” He handed her a card. “My cell phone number is on the back. That’s the best way to get hold of me in the next few days.”
“Sure,” she said. She slipped the card into the pocket of her worn flannel shirt. “Can I ask you something?”
“Please.”
“Should I be worried about Tori?”
Absolutely, Byrne thought. About as worried as a person could or should be for another. He looked into the woman’s shrewd eyes, wanted to tell her no, but she was probably as attuned to street bullshit as he was. Probably more so. Instead of crafting a story for her, he simply said: “I don’t know.”
She held up the card. “I’ll call if I hear anything.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“And if there’s anything I can do on this end, please let me know.”
“I will,” Byrne said. “Thanks again.”
Byrne turned to walk to his car. Across the street from the shelter a pair of teenaged girls watched and waited and paced and smoked, perhaps summoning the courage to cross the street. Byrne slipped into his car thinking that, like a lot of journeys in life, the last few feet were the hardest.
34
SETH GOLDMAN AWOKE in a sweat. He looked at his hands. Clean. He sprang to his feet, naked and disoriented, h
is heart pounding in his chest. He looked around. He experienced that enervating feeling where you have no idea where you are—not which city, not which country, not which planet.
One thing was certain.
This ain’t the Park Hyatt. The wallpaper was peeling in long, brittle scabs. There were deep brown water stains on the ceiling.
He found his watch. It was after ten.
Fuck.
The call sheet. He found it and discovered he had less than an hour to be on set. He also discovered that he had the thick binder containing the director’s copy of the script. Of all the tasks a director’s assistant had—and these ran the gamut from secretary, to psychologist, to caterer, to chauffeur, to drug runner—the most important was as guardian of the shooting script. There were no duplicates of this version of the script, and outside the egos of the leading man and lady, it was the most fragile and delicate item in the entire rarefied world of the production.
If the script was here, and Ian was not, Seth Goldman was fucked.
He picked up his cell phone—
She had green eyes.
She had cried.
She had wanted to stop.
—and called the production office, made his excuses. Ian was in a rage. Erin Halliwell was out sick. Plus, the public relations person from the Thirtieth Street station had not gotten back to them on the final arrangements for the shoot. The set piece of The Palace was going to be filmed in the huge train station at Thirtieth and Market streets in less than seventy-two hours. It was a sequence three months in the planning, by far the most expensive shot in the entire film. Three hundred extras, an elaborate track, a number of in-camera special effects. Erin had been on point for the negotiations and now it was up to Seth to finalize the details, on top of everything else he had to do.
He looked around. The room was trashed.
When had they left?
As he gathered his clothes, he straightened up the room, bagging everything that needed to be thrown out in the plastic bag from the wastebasket in the motel room’s small bathroom, knowing that he was going to miss something. He would take the trash with him, as always.
Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands Page 53