by John Lutz
“What about the real me?” Jill asked, dreading the answer even though she wasn’t sure she believed any of this.
“The real you ceases to exist. You’re shot and killed, as they tried to do to me. I managed to break free and run. They kept shooting at me, but I escaped by climbing into an approaching car and urging the driver to get us away. I read in the paper a week later that a man I’m sure was the driver was found dead in Riverside Park from a drug overdose. I don’t think it was suicide or an accident.”
Jill’s mind was still wrestling with what she was hearing. “But why would they do this, substitute people for each other?”
“Money,” Madeline said simply.
“Of course. Money. Like everything else. But what do their clients want? What’s the reason for the substitutions?”
“I don’t know,” Madeline said. “But I know that what E-Bliss is doing must work. They choose their victims carefully from thousands of Internet applicants for relationships. These women must meet the qualifications and resemble whoever’s going to become them. If you’re a victim client and you’ve happened to make a friend who might care or suspect there’s something wrong, the new you simply moves away suddenly, as people often do in Manhattan, leaving a note or the last month’s rent so there’s no doubt the departure was voluntary. I’ve seen the other Madeline coming out of my apartment on West Seventy-second Street. She isn’t my exact double, but with the same hairdo, makeup, and my wardrobe and apartment, not to mention identification, charge cards, and passport, maybe even some minor cosmetic surgery, she became me.”
“My God!” Jill’s mind was working furiously, warning her again that this woman was crazy, that what she was saying was impossible.
Only it was possible, and Jill knew it. Loneliness made it possible. Jill remembered loneliness.
Madeline, knowing what Jill must be thinking, again showed her sad smile. “People who don’t know us well or long don’t look at us all that closely, Jill, and the new me even has my gestures and speech patterns down pat.”
“This other you,” Jill said, “why didn’t you confront her?”
The gleam of terror in Madeline’s eyes was answer enough for Jill.
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
Madeline shook her head. “I tried. They brushed me off as just another deranged street person. And there’s no way for me to prove I really am me. Sometimes I doubt it myself. This is larger than either of us knows, Jill. The police might be in on it.”
Jill was jolted by the thought. And again she thought Madeline might simply be paranoid, one of the poor and forever lost who roamed the Manhattan streets talking to everyone and no one, suspecting everything and everyone.
And yet…
“How could the police even know we talked?” Jill asked.
“They’ll know. Or at least there’s no guarantee they won’t. And you can’t take the chance, Jill. I’m sorry I did this to you, but I need your help. I was like you, living my life, and suddenly I’m mixed up with…I don’t know. Organized crime would be my guess. Or maybe anyone who can pay whatever E-Bliss.org charges for its special service. They might have infiltrated the police and they’ll learn what’s going on and see that any investigation stops. And that I’ll be killed. And now that I’ve talked to you, that you’ll be killed. How can we know whom to trust? If we confide in the wrong people, we’ll wind up like the rest of those women. What’s left of our mutilated bodies that can’t be identified will be put into a pauper’s grave or cremated by the city.”
“Left of our bodies? You mean the Torso Murders—”
“Being on the run, I didn’t watch or read the news regularly, but when I happened to learn about the Torso Murders, I knew there was probably a connection. That was what was going to be left of me after I ceased to exist as a person. And that’s the plan for you, Jill. I’m sure you’ve never been fingerprinted or submitted a DNA sample, and if you disappeared there’d be no one to miss you or even report your absence.”
Jill had to admit that Madeline was right about the fingerprints and DNA. And the family she didn’t have. There was no one who cared enough to make a spirited inquiry.
“You’re halfway to nothing already.” Madeline took a deep breath. “Do you believe any of this?”
Jill sat silently for almost a minute staring at the woman who might be mad. Who certainly appeared mad.
Only she wasn’t mad. And Jill knew it.
“I believe enough of it,” she finally said, remembering filling out her endlessly detailed and personal E-Bliss.org profile.
Do you take cream in your coffee?
What brands of cosmetics do you use?
Do you ever wear a hat or cap?
Would you drink from someone else’s water bottle without first wiping it?
Do you jaywalk?
Do you use an electric toothbrush?
Madeline stood up from the sofa. The look on her face suggested she might rush over to Jill and hug her.
But she didn’t.
“I’ll go now,” she said. “I know your mind must be whirling. You need time to think about all this. Let’s meet tomorrow, around noon, just inside the main library on Fifth and Forty-second. They don’t throw anyone out of a public library, and I can neaten myself up enough so they won’t think I’m a panhandler. We both need to think this over and then have a talk, try to come up with some kind of plan.”
“A plan…?”
“Some kind of plan,” Madeline repeated. Her eyes brimmed with tears, pleading. “Will you be there, Jill?”
Jill couldn’t look away from those eyes. They didn’t seem insane now. Desperate, but not insane.
“I promise I’ll think about it,” she said.
Madeline nodded.
“If you think about it, you’ll be there.”
24
So here Quinn was in a blazing forest, terrified animals streaking past him, ignoring him. Deer, bears, rabbits, a lion. What next? A unicorn?
Quinn had fallen asleep in the brown leather chair in his den while reading about the Torso Murders in the Post. It amazed him how so much could be written on something everyone knew so little about. The Cuban cigar he’d been smoking lay smoldering in an ashtray on the carpet beside his chair. That was the sort of thing Pearl often warned him about. He was going to start a fire, kill them both, kill everyone in the building. Pearl, who’d melted the shower curtain with her curling iron.
He smelled cigar smoke and almost woke up. But not quite. His dreams weren’t ready to release him. The smoke grew denser.
He was wearing only a plastic raincoat with a hood and, like the animals surrounding him, he was terrified of the advancing wall of flame. Even without the heat of the forest fire, he was sweltering in the plastic NYPD coat. The California heat was merciless.
California?
Where was Lauri? Was she safe from the fire? Was Wormy?
Pearl?
A phone was ringing. Or was it the urgent jangle of a fire engine? Gotta pull the damned car over to the side of the road.
Hold on! He wasn’t driving. He knew that because he couldn’t find a steering wheel.
He realized he’d fallen asleep. He struggled up out of the chair, wearily stumbled toward the phone. Snatched up the receiver and almost said, “Pearl?”
But he didn’t say it. The word hadn’t quite escaped.
Why did I think of Pearl? I was worried about Lauri. Even Wormy.
He smelled something burning and terror took a swipe at him. Then he noticed the smoldering cigar in the ashtray on the floor.
“Quinn?” a woman’s voice said on the phone. Not Pearl’s voice. “Quinn? It’s Linda.”
He suddenly wanted to see Linda. To hold her and feel her holding him.
“Linda,” he said stupidly, still tangled in the cobwebs of sleep. He dropped the receiver but caught it just before it could bang against the desk. “I dozed off in my chair,” he explained.
“You
’re working too hard.”
“Not hard enough, though.”
She was silent for a moment.
“I need to see you,” he said.
“That’s why I called. I need to see you.”
Jesus! Quinn thought. Where is this going? So fast. Like being caught in a strong current propelling me toward a sea I know is dangerous.
“Quinn?”
Sharks. Not fire—water. Wake all the way up, numb wit!
“Quinn?” Linda said again, concerned.
“The Lotus Diner in half an hour?”
“I’ll be there.”
He hung up the phone and stood staring mutely at it for several seconds. Then he went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. On his shirt, too. He decided he needed a fresh shirt. Realized he still had a bitter taste in his mouth from the cigar. Brushed his teeth. Went into the bedroom and changed his shirt. Back to the bathroom to comb his hair.
Before leaving the apartment, he picked up the cigar and ashtray and carried them into the kitchen. He ran water on the cigar and threw it away, then wiped the glass ashtray clean and set it on the sink counter.
He found an aerosol can of air freshener and sprayed it around the apartment, especially in the den, where he’d been smoking.
As he left the apartment, he wasn’t thinking about his dreams, about the Torso Murders, about dead women.
Only about Linda, alive.
At first Jill was awkward around Tony when they met for dinner. He seemed not to notice, and by the time they were seated at Scampi, a four-star restaurant near Sixth Avenue and Fifty-second Street, she was much more at ease. Tony was so attentive, so reassuring, so…nonthreatening that Jill’s conversation with Madeline receded in her mind and seemed more and more unreal.
Surely it was unreal, the delusional ranting of a mentally ill street woman. This was reality, sitting here with Tony in the soft light from the candle in the center of the white-clothed table, their half-eaten meals before them, the waiter bringing more wine.
Tony couldn’t—he simply couldn’t—be the kind of monster Madeline had painted. Surely if the story were true Jill would be able to see it in Tony. Not that he’d have horns and his eyes would glow red, but there’d be something. A person simply couldn’t be as Madeline had described and at the same time be like Tony.
Besides, Jill knew this man. They’d had several dates now and were moving toward sleeping together. While making it obvious that was what he expected, Tony hadn’t rushed her in any way while they continued to explore each other, making sure of what they wanted. Making sure of Jill, really. Tony seemed to know he wanted her, and for more than simple sex.
That was what had emerged from their time together, an intimacy that would be cemented by commitment when they were ready. A mutual trust. Their very private conversations had provided insights into each other’s souls.
“You seemed a little unsettled when you got here,” Tony said, as the waiter finished pouring the wine. His grin was beautiful and boyish. Toothpaste-commercial white, yet genuine as Tony himself. “Still worried about someone trespassing in your apartment?”
“Not anymore.” Jill smiled, wondering if she should tell him about Madeline. Mad Madeline.
Actually mad?
Better to say nothing. Tony, handsome and perfectly normal Tony, might think she, Jill, was the one with the overactive imagination. The paranoid tendencies.
Maybe I am the mad one.
But she knew she hadn’t imagined Madeline.
And somewhere deep in her mind she knew she couldn’t entirely dismiss Madeline’s mad tale.
Somewhere.
Far away.
The wine was relaxing her, making her feel warm inside. So warm and safe.
With Tony.
Over coffee at the Lotus Diner, Quinn and Linda made easy small talk. The evening was warm, but it was cool in the diner and unusually quiet.
It hadn’t taken long before Quinn felt totally comfortable talking with Linda, and she seemed comfortable talking with him. Strangely, the coffee cups between them helped. They were similar to other containers of liquid from the hell they’d both visited, reminders of who they’d been, and who they were. The present, where the liquid containers had handles, was infinitely better than the past, and getting better.
Quinn hadn’t taken a sip of his coffee in a long time. He sat toying with the warm cup, enjoying the scent of the coffee and the heat on his fingertips. “It was a good idea, meeting here tonight.”
“I think so,” Linda said. She was wearing a dark blouse, pale Levi’s that she had the figure for, no jewelry except for four or five thin silver loop bracelets that jangled together ever so faintly whenever she lifted her right arm to sip coffee.
There were only a few other people in the diner, and no one was paying them the slightest attention. Outside the streaked window next to their booth, traffic on Amsterdam had slacked off and there weren’t so many pedestrians—the city as relaxed as it ever got. Across the street, a woman waving a folded newspaper lured a cab to the curb. She opened its rear door and climbed in. The white of the newspaper showed behind the cab’s reflecting windows as it drove away.
“My place is within easy walking distance of here,” Quinn said.
Linda smiled. “Seeing that woman hail a cab make you think of that?”
Quinn looked into her eyes, not smiling. “You made me think of that.”
Linda felt a stirring she hadn’t experienced in years. She knew they could both feel their relationship shifting toward the tipping point and wondered if Quinn was as nervous about it as she was. Nervous and a little bit afraid. He couldn’t be as afraid. He’d been the one who’d nudged things in a new and faster direction. Linda’s heart wouldn’t slow down.
Her smile faded and she raised a hand to run her fingertips lightly along the contours of his face, like a blind woman assessing someone’s true self.
“I’ll get the check,” she said.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Quinn told her.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
She thought that from this point on it wouldn’t matter much which of them paid.
25
“Pearl’s pissed off,” Ed Greeve said to his boss. “Has been ever since we made sure she knew about Linda Chavesky.”
“That’s a good way for her to be,” Nobbler said from behind his desk. He scratched his fleshy neck. “Walking around pissed off and with her mind not on her work.”
Harsh morning light streamed in through the office window, making the brightly illuminated half of Nobbler’s face look red and raw, as if he’d shaved way too close and planed the skin.
“Think we might be able to flip her?” Greeve asked. “Get her to let us know what Quinn’s up to?”
Nobbler thought for a few seconds and shook his head. “Not that one.”
“A woman scorned,” Greeve reminded Nobbler.
Nobbler smiled. “Remember, she’s the one who dumped Quinn.”
“I will say she’s trying to get over him. Got herself a replacement. Guy named Milton Kahn, who’s been humping her heavy.”
“Well, well…” Nobbler drummed the plump fingertips of his right hand on the desk and looked off into the brilliant light, maybe calling up the image of Pearl and whoever this Milton Kahn was.
“Pearl’s probably a sexual dynamo,” Greeve said.
“The type,” Nobbler agreed. “Lucky Milton Kahn.”
He sat back in his chair, made a tent with his fingers, and tapped their soft tips lightly together.
“Pearl’s got this mother in a retirement home,” Greeve said. “Way I got it, she and another old broad there set up Pearl with this Kahn guy, and the chemistry was there. Matchmaker moms. Always a pain in the ass.”
“You never had a wife.”
“Other peoples’,” Greeve said.
“Hardly counts.”
“Counts where it counts, depending on who’s counting.”
Nobbler didn’t want to get into that kind of conversation with Greeve. The guy was a mystery anyway, even without going all Zenlike. “This Kahn character, is he a player?”
Greeve knew what Nobbler meant. Might Milton Kahn develop into a problem? “Naw, what he is is a dermatologist.”
“It gets better and better,” Nobbler said.
“I’ll tell you something else I think,” Greeve said. “My feeling is they might be humping like crazy, but they’re not in love.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“I can just tell. It’s not the real thing.”
Nobbler gave him an incredulous look. “Christ on a stick! What are you, a romance columnist?”
“I’m somebody who knows people.”
“He’s humping her,” Nobbler said. “That’s good enough for me.” He tapped his fingertips together faster and faster, as if to demonstrate.
Greeve might have shaken his head in disapproval as he left the office, or it might have been Nobbler’s imagination.
Jill had never been in the main library. After climbing stone steps to the entrance, she found herself in a vast atrium of richly veined cream-colored marble with tall columns. The floor was also marble. A wide stairway led to upper floors. There was a mezzanine with a railing high above. A girl about ten was leaning over the railing looking down at her. She smiled at Jill, then ducked back out of sight. People walked past, their footsteps and voices echoing in the vastness.
Jill found a spot out of the flow of foot traffic and looked around.
There was no sign of Madeline. Or the woman who called herself Madeline. As far as Jill knew, the woman might be someone other than she said she was, someone so mentally deranged she might be imagining a different identity as well as the bizarre story she’d told.