by John Lutz
She was holding the shotgun low now, its barrels at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground.
Her mistake. Coulter’s only chance.
He’d barely started to bring the Glock to bear on Cathy Lee when the shotgun came up astoundingly fast and she fired.
He was on his back in the mud. The pain in his chest made him gasp. His heart started banging irregularly, like an engine running crazy on empty just before it quits.
Everything went spinning, and then everything went dark.
They say the last thing that goes when someone’s dying is his hearing. Coulter heard distinctly the sucking sound of a boot sole in the mud, very near his head. Joe Ray’s voice from high above:
“Both barrels. You surely made a mess here, Cathy Lee.”
“My bad,” Cathy Lee said.
Joe Ray, Juan, and Cathy Lee studied on it for a while, then decided not to bury Coulter nearby. He was, after all, the most wanted man in America. If the police traced him to the area, they’d eventually find the body. On the other hand, the meth guys and Cathy Lee sure couldn’t say they’d killed him and try to claim any kind of reward. The farther away Joe Ray, Juan, and Cathy Lee stayed from the law, the better for them.
They decided to drive Coulter off some distance and dump his body, make it look like he was shot on the side of the road. Could be the law would think he was hitchhiking and some mean bastard drilled him for sport. That’s if he was found before some gator dragged him off.
The Ford truck was another matter. You could tell that under all that dust and caked mud it was a cherry. They could have it painted another color. Joe Ray knew where he could get a “ghost truck” VIN from a similar-F-150 that was wrecked and in a salvage yard, and have the truck retitled. The truck wouldn’t be legal, but it would be close.
Coulter they wanted no part of, but the truck was worth the risk.
57
The first thing in the morning, Victor drove the Chrysler over to a parking garage off Broadway. From there he walked the crowded, sunlit sidewalks to the offices of E-Bliss.org.
Now and then someone gave him a second glance. He needed a shave. He’d slept with his clothes on, on Gloria’s sofa, and his usually razor-creased suit pants were wrinkled. The matching coat, which he’d draped over a chair back, was still neatly pressed. The effect was that the pants looked even baggier. That and the black stubble on his face made him look like a homeless person who’d rolled a rich banker after first getting him to remove his coat. This wasn’t at all like Victor, not to care about his appearance.
Palmer Stone glanced up from the E-Bliss applications he was studying when Victor gave a perfunctory knock and walked into his office. Stone was working at his desk with his suit coat on, as was his custom, and was impeccably groomed. Always when someone walked into his office he looked like a captain of commerce interrupted in an important task involving world affairs. This morning, he was quite a contrast to Victor.
Stone laid down the printout he’d been holding. It was rife with information about a lonely, middle-aged widow in Queens.
“Victor! What on earth happened to you?”
“I tried to get in touch with Gloria yesterday afternoon and evening,” Victor said, driving to the point, “and I couldn’t. I spent the night in her apartment. She never came home.”
Stone appeared alarmed at first, then thoughtful. “It isn’t the first time, Victor.”
“It is without me knowing where she was. We always knew—know—where the other one is. We’ve got this extra sense like we pick up each other’s radio waves, and Palmer, she’s not broadcasting.”
“Victor, it’s a little premature to think she’s…gone.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling, Palmer.”
Stone swiveled to the side and leaned back in his chair, facing the window but obviously not looking outside. Victor and Gloria. He knew both of them well, but there were some aspects of their relationship that still puzzled him, made him wonder. But then, he never had a sister.
“You know Gloria,” he said. “She’s probably off on some adventure.”
“She would’ve stayed in touch. When I called her cell number, her phone was turned off.”
“Maybe she simply didn’t want to be disturbed.”
Victor started to pace, raking his fingers through his hair with each step. “I told you, Palmer, Gloria and I are on what you might say is the same wavelength. I’ve really got a hunch something’s happened to her.”
“Could be you’re being an alarmist.”
Stone didn’t like what he was seeing here. More indication of instability in Victor. Gloria hadn’t seemed upset when Stone had talked to her about her brother. On the other hand, she hadn’t seemed surprised. There seemed no reason for Victor’s consternation. He did know his sister was a lesbian with an active sex life, so why couldn’t he accept the fact that she might right now be sleeping late in some ladylove’s warm bed?
Victor clenched and unclenched his fists. “Listen, Palmer—”
But Stone raised a manicured forefinger for quiet as his phone rang. He snatched up the receiver.
Gloria, he hoped.
Victor paced and watched while the caller did most of the talking. Stone’s mature, handsome features grew more and more set and pale.
Something was obviously very wrong.
Victor stopped pacing and collapsed on the black leather sofa facing the desk.
Stone hung up the phone and swiveled his chair to look directly at him with an expression of fatherly concern.
“Gloria was struck by a cab yesterday near Columbus Circle,” he said. “They tried to get in touch with someone, but couldn’t.”
“She doesn’t have a landline phone,” Victor said.
Stone nodded gravely. “The people at the hospital finally figured out how to look in her cell phone log. The last call she’d made was to here.”
Victor sat up straight. “Hospital?”
“She’s at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt, in critical condition. Her skull’s been fractured and her hip and left leg are broken.”
“Jesus! But at least she’s alive.”
“The cab hit her when she stepped off the curb. That’s what witnesses said. An accident.”
“What the hell was she doing—”
“Who knows, Victor? Gloria’s her own woman.” That’s for damned sure. Stone swiveled his chair toward the window again. He tilted back. “You’d better drive over there and see her, Victor. See if she’s conscious, talking. Maybe she’s under the influence of sedatives. You understand what I mean?”
But when Stone swiveled around for an answer to his question, Victor was gone.
Stone combed through both the Times and the Post, but neither of the papers made mention of Gloria’s accident. That didn’t surprise Stone, but it relieved him. News was news. Gloria wasn’t remotely famous, which meant the media would probably ignore the story tomorrow morning, too. That meant her name wouldn’t be in the papers or mentioned on television or radio. Stone much preferred it that way. Less of a threat to the business.
A little after one o’clock, Stone’s phone rang as he was rifling through a middle file cabinet drawer. Without standing up, he rolled his chair over to the desk and picked up.
Victor, calling from the hospital.
“She looks terrible, Palmer,” Victor said plaintively. “Her head’s all bandaged and her face is so swollen you wouldn’t know it was her.”
“Is she conscious?” Stone asked.
Drugged up? Talking?
“There’s no way to be sure if she knows what’s going on around her.”
“What do you mean, Victor?”
“She’s in a coma, Palmer. The doctors say they don’t know how long it will last, or even”—Victor’s voice broke—“if she’ll ever come out of it.”
Stone was surprised to find his own throat tightening. The three of them had been together in one scam or another for a lot of years. He did feel for Victor. And fo
r Gloria. Emotions were doing that more and more lately, catching Palmer by surprise.
“Is there anything I can do, Victor?”
“I don’t think so, Palmer. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”
“I’m sorry, Victor. I really am.”
“I know that, Palmer.”
After hanging up the phone, Stone sat back and assessed the situation. Gloria was obviously out of commission. Judging by what Victor had said, she wasn’t about to say anything that might attract suspicion as to what she…did for a living. And someone being struck and seriously injured by a vehicle was a common occurrence in New York. There was nothing about Gloria’s accident that would attract undue attention.
Stone sighed and smiled.
Any danger to the company had been narrowly averted.
The question now was, how would what happened to Gloria affect Victor? Stone had been suffering doubts about him before Gloria’s accident. Gloria had gone a long way toward assuaging those doubts, but not all the way.
Now this.
Palmer wondered, could Victor still do his job?
58
Jill watched Tony’s eyes follow Jewel as she wove her way through a maze of red-clothed tables toward the restroom. He wasn’t the only one watching. Half the men in the restaurant at least sneaked a glance at Jewel. She was quite the temptress when she wasn’t dressed like a cop.
She wasn’t dressed like one now, in her tight black dress with the low neckline, her three-inch heels. Jill knew that Jewel wanted to look like anything but a cop.
They were in Dominick’s Italiano, a new gourmet restaurant on the West Side. Tony had raved about the extensive wine list in order to talk Jill into going there with him, and naturally Jewel had invited herself along. Jill, of course, hadn’t resisted and had given Tony the evil eye when he had begun to voice his objections.
“Did you ever think,” Tony now asked Jill, as he still watched Jewel, “that she’s a little too friendly with you?”
Jill saw Jewel veer left and disappear into a hallway, walking none too steadily, as if maybe she’d had too much wine with her dinner. But then, Jewel—or Pearl—was a pretty good actress.
“What do you mean?” Jill asked. “Too friendly?” He was giving her a crooked little smile.
Then she realized what Tony meant. “Jesus, Tony! Jewel and me? Are you kidding?”
The crooked smile turned sad, as if gravity had suddenly claimed it. “Not Jewel and you. Just Jewel. I mean, the way she looks at you sometimes.”
“Get off it, Tony. Jewel’s no lesbian.”
He shrugged.
Jill started to take a sip of her coffee, then changed her mind and sipped from the half-full wineglass the waiter had left. “Tony, neither one of us is in romantic love with the other.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“You know what I mean. Jewel and me in some kind of sexual relationship. It’s absurd.”
“Not absurd at all.”
“Well, I think so.”
“It happens,” he said.
“Of course it does. That’s the way the world works. I’m not homophobic or passing any kind of moral judgment.”
Tony reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I know you’re not, hon. I know you better than that. But do me a favor, will you, and just pay closer attention. I mean, the way she hangs around you all the time doesn’t seem to me like the usual platonic relationship.”
Jill felt her face flush with embarrassment and anger.
Tony had gone too far. He seemed to know it. He sat back abruptly in his chair, which was on rollers, and the force carried him a few feet from the table. When he tried a smile it didn’t quite work. He rolled back to the table. Most of the dishes had been cleared and they were waiting for dessert, some kind of chocolate-iced cream puffs the Post food editor had raved about.
Jewel arrived at the same time as the cream puffs. She looked neater than when she’d left the table. Her hair had been combed and her freshened makeup made her features even more vivid. She sat down with some difficulty in the tight dress and replaced her napkin in her lap. “Some restroom,” she said. “You oughta see how clean and modern it is. Everything automatic.” She smiled at Jill. “You should’ve come with me.”
Tony and Jill exchanged glances. Jewel gave no indication that she’d noticed. She smiled at the waiter and asked for two of the miniature cream puffs from the pyramidal display on a tray.
No one spoke until the waiter was finished serving dessert and had poured the coffee and departed.
“You okay, Tony?” Jewel asked. “You seem kind of…I don’t know, out of sorts.”
He frowned. “‘Out of sorts.’ What’s that mean?”
“On the edge of being grouchy,” Jill cut in, tempering her words with a smile.
Tony sighed. “I guess I am on edge. I’m sorry. Somebody at work I like a lot had an accident and he’s badly injured.”
“That’s too bad,” Jill said, wondering why Tony hadn’t mentioned this to her earlier.
“Hospitalized?” Jewel asked.
“Yeah. Poor guy was hit by a car.”
“Damned shame,” Jewel said.
“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?” Jill asked.
“I sure hope so. He’s one of those guys everybody likes.”
“Things like that always happen to the wrong people,” Jewel said.
Tony might not have heard her. He was twisting his red cloth napkin, staring hard at it.
But Jewel knew he had heard.
“These cream puffs are delicious,” Jill said. She swallowed a bite and licked chocolate icing from her finger.
“They sure are, hon,” Tony said, though he hadn’t yet taken a bite of his. He came out of his distraction for a few seconds to glare at Jewel.
Jill finished her second cream puff. “Mmmm! These are sinful.”
“Dangerous,” Jewel agreed, thinking things couldn’t go on much longer as they were. Tony was one of the sharper knives in the drawer. He was getting suspicious and might make some kind of move.
She made a mental note to get on the Internet, check and see how many double murders occurred every year in New York City.
A lot, she bet.
59
Both of them knew the other was awake.
Quinn lay beside Linda in his bed, listening to the nearness of her breathing. He knew the breathing of complete relaxation from the breathing of sleep. So did she, he was sure.
He watched the morning sun brighten the rectangular outline around the tightly closed blinds, then send lances of light to lie in narrow rhomboids on the rug and the sheets near the foot of the bed. Faint traffic sounds were building up outside, in another world. Jackhammers, the urban equivalent of woodpeckers, clattered away in the far, far distance.
“What are you thinking?” Linda asked. Her words seemed to linger with effort in the still room.
“Honestly?”
“Sure. What else? Even if it’s something as prosaic as wishing you didn’t have to get up and relieve the pressure on your bladder.”
“You talk a lot like a doctor,” Quinn said.
“Act like one, too, I’m sure.” The sheets rustled and a bedspring poinged as she shifted position beside him. “Is that a turnoff?”
“Turn-on.”
“Really?” She sounded genuinely amazed.
“Men pay money to have women dress up as nurses and have sex with them,” Quinn said. “So why not doctors?”
“Some of the men probably are doctors.”
“You know what I mean.” He tried to give her bottom a gentle slap, but she wasn’t where he’d thought.
“Doctors like Nift,” she said.
“Nift’s got a wife.”
Linda made a slight huffing sound. “Like that stops men from paying prostitutes.”
Quinn looked over at her. “You know something about Nift?”
“More than I’d like.”
&
nbsp; “Most anyone who knows him would say that.”
“He isn’t normal, the way he moons over female corpses.”
“I guess it is out of the ordinary.” Quinn sat up in bed and worked himself sideways, feeling the cool hardwood floor on the bare soles of his feet where the carpet ended. “I thought he might only do that at crime scenes. He acts the same way at the morgue?”
“He’s almost always good for an insensitive remark or two.”
“Could be he’s just like the rest of us, trying to stay sane.”
“Or it could be he’s just got a nasty mind and can’t help expressing himself.”
“What about during the actual autopsies?”
“To be honest, he’s very professional then. Despite what I say about the guy, he’s a skilled physician. But if we have an attractive dead female not yet on the table, he can’t seem to control himself. Other than that, he’s all business.”
“Other than that.”
“When he’s not ratting somebody out.”
“That’s business, too,” Quinn said. He stood up.
“Where you going?”
“What I’m thinking right now is—”
“Never mind,” Linda said.
Victor watched the nurse outside Gloria’s critical care unit trade whispers with a doctor so they wouldn’t be overheard. With a backward glance at Victor, the nurse scurried away down the hall. The doctor, a tall, blond, shambling man in baggy green scrubs, headed in the general direction of where Victor sat in the furnished alcove that served as one of the hospital’s waiting areas. He was one of those very tall men with a perpetual forward lean, as if he’d adapted to low ceilings.
In the waiting area, there were a sofa, a couple of matching black herringbone wing chairs, and a wall-mounted TV playing a rerun of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Regis was blue on blue on blue in this one. Victor thought, who wants to be monochromatic?
Victor had assumed the doctor was going to walk past; he seemed preoccupied. Then he appeared to snap back to reality and made a sudden turn toward Victor, holding out his hand.