by John Lutz
The one on the right side of the Lincoln, who should have been doing the license check, kept coming, then passed briefly from view at the edge of the mirror.
Quinn felt a prickly sensation on the back of his neck. Something was wrong here.
Brightness slid to the side, out of the mirrors, and the radio car that had pulled Quinn over whooshed past him and continued down the street, its roof bar lights no longer flashing.
The passenger-side door of the Lincoln swung open, and the cop who’d approached on that side slid into the seat.
He wasn’t wearing a uniform. Instead he had on an unbuttoned light raincoat, though it wasn’t raining, and beneath it a suit and tie. A big man, in his late forties, overweight and with dark bags beneath his eyes. His jowls and the flesh beneath his chin sagged, making him look like nothing so much as a pensive bloodhound.
Quinn recognized him immediately, but the prickly sensation didn’t go away.
The man who’d slid out of the night and into his car was New York City Police Commissioner Harley Renz.
Renz smiled, not doing a thing for the bloodhound look, and glanced around. “Smells like hell in here.”
Quinn knew Renz was right. The cigar smoke odor had seeped into the upholstery and every cranny of the car. Even Quinn sometimes found it offensive, and he was used to it.
“You can get out as easy as you got in,” he said. He and Renz had always gotten along, but not in the friendliest manner, each knowing the other perhaps too well.
“You smoking one of those illegal Cuban cigars you like so much?”
“Venezuelan,” Quinn said.
“If you insist.” Renz settled back in his plush seat, still looking over at Quinn. “You got an extra?”
“No,” Quinn said. “You can finish this one.”
“It’ll finish you first.” Renz upped the amperage on his smile. His effort at charm. Still a bloodhound. His eyes had gotten droopier since Quinn had last seen him, slanting downward more at the outer corners as if weights were attached to the sagging flesh. He held his insincere smile as he stared at Quinn. “How’d you do?”
“Do?”
“At the poker game.”
“Won.”
“Ah. Really, all that means is you quit soon enough not to lose.”
“That why you stopped me? You riding in one of the traffic cars so you can collect graft from poker winners?”
“Seeing as I’ve become police commissioner, you should speak more respectfully to me.”
Quinn didn’t bother answering. He was wondering why Harley Renz would be interested enough in his poker night to follow him when he left the game.
“So what’s this about?” Quinn asked. “You want in?”
“I know some of those guys you’re playing cards with, Quinn. They cheat.”
“Your kind of game.”
“Even so…”
Quinn waited, tired of word games. He actually did have a sliver of respect for Renz, even though Renz represented authority and bureaucracy. Renz had at one time been a tough and effective homicide detective, and now and then it showed. And both men knew Renz was commissioner because of Quinn’s work on the Torso murders, for which Renz had skillfully garnered most of the credit. Quinn didn’t care about that. In fact, it had been part of the arrangement. The enthusiastically devious and ambitious Renz had used his newfound fame to become the most popular police commissioner in the city’s history. A media darling of monstrous proportions, his high standing in the polls translated into leverage he didn’t hesitate to use.
“I want to tell you a story,” Renz said.
“About speeding?”
Renz waved a hand dismissively. “You were going way too fast, but we can forget about that.”
Quinn pressed a button, and the window on his side of the Lincoln glided down. Sultry night air mingled with exhaust fumes tumbled into the car. He took a final pull on the cigar and tossed the glowing butt out into the street, watching it bounce and spark like a miniature fireworks display.
“Littering,” Renz said. “Illicit cigars, gambling, speeding, and now this. Jesus, Quinn! You’re a one-man crime wave.”
“It gives me something to do in retirement.” Quinn sighed and brushed cigar ash off his shirt. “It’s still hot out there.”
“Hotter than you know.”
Quinn left the window down to let in plenty of heat so maybe Renz would leave sooner and the car would air out. He leaned forward so he could reach the ignition key and killed the motor.
“This story of yours,” Quinn said. “Go ahead and tell it. And try not to be so cryptic.”
5
The car was uncomfortably hot within minutes. Quinn suffered gladly, knowing it would hasten Renz’s departure. He had a hunch what kind of story he was about to hear, and where it would lead. Quinn was uneasy about that last part, where it would lead.
“A month ago,” Renz began, “a hedge fund manager named George Manders was shot to death in a crowded SoHo club.”
“Never heard of him,” Quinn said. Maybe he could hurry Renz along.
“That’s okay, you’re not a suspect.” Renz made a face and wrinkled up his nose. It was probably a reaction to the cigar smoke smell in the car, somehow made stronger by the humid night air. Maybe Renz had a bloodhound nose as well as the looks of the breed. “At the time of the shooting,” Renz continued, “Manders was dancing with a woman he didn’t know. At least according to her. They’d just met ten minutes ago, and he’d asked her to dance. The dance floor was illuminated by those colored strobe lights that make everything look fast and herky-jerky, and the music was so loud nobody heard the shot from a small-caliber gun.”
“How small?” Quinn asked.
“Twenty-five caliber.”
It wasn’t an un common size bullet, but more rare than a. 22 caliber when it came to small handguns.
Renz said, “The way the light was flickering, and the sound of the shot being drowned out by all that noise that passes for music, nobody realized at first that Manders had been shot. When he went down, they thought maybe it was some kinda tricky dance step and he was gonna pop right back up. Then witnesses said they saw someone bend over him-they thought to talk to him, maybe make sure he was okay-and the guy reached in and removed something from Manders’s suit coat pocket and then shag-assed outta the club.”
“This is the same guy that shot him?” Quinn asked, wanting to keep the facts straight.
“Far as we know,” Renz said. “Nobody actually saw a gun. Hardly anyone even noticed there was something wrong. The music went on for another minute or so after Manders went down, and people kept dancing.”
“Can anyone identify this guy who ran from the club?”
Renz shook his head no. “It all happened too fast, under conditions where it’d take a while for people to react. Half of them were juiced up on one substance or another anyway. So we got no positive ID in the offing. And nobody knows what was removed from the victim’s pocket. His wallet, stuffed with cash, was intact, as was his Rolex watch and gold ring.”
“Wedding ring?”
“No. Manders was divorced five years ago. He was living alone, like you.”
“What kinda club was it?” Quinn asked, ignoring the barb.
“Straight clientele, upper to upper-upper class, looking for action.”
“So that’s what Manders was doing,” Quinn said “and he got a different kind of action than he was looking for.”
“Could be.”
“And maybe whoever bent over him wasn’t the shooter but really was somebody wanting to help him, and when he realized Manders was dead he ran out of there so he wouldn’t be involved.”
“So what was taken from the victim’s pocket?”
Quinn shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe the guy bending over him was feeling for a heartbeat. Coulda been a doctor stepping out on his wife and didn’t want any record that he was there.”
Renz had to grin. His canine teeth w
ere longer than most people’s, and tinged yellow. “That’s pretty good, the heartbeat thing with the philandering cardiologist. Why you’re such an ace detective. Trouble is, there’s more to my story.”
It began to rain, hard. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Quinn worked the buttons and raised all the windows, making it even warmer in the car. The windows blurred immediately, isolating Quinn and Renz from the outside world. There was a musty smell now to go with the stale tobacco scent. Nothing moved the sultry air.
Renz didn’t seem at all discomfited. “Last week an insurance executive, Alan Weeks, was shot to death in Central Park, in front of witnesses too far away to see the killer’s face. They did see the killer lean over the victim and remove something from his pocket before disappearing into the woods.”
“Not his wallet?”
“Nope,” Renz said. “Not his expensive pocket watch, either. The bullet that killed Weeks was fired from a twenty-five-caliber handgun, but not the same gun that killed Manders. Nothing about the murders seems to connect Weeks and Manders, other than bullets in the head. And possibly whatever was removed from their pockets.”
Quinn drummed his fingertips for a while on the steering wheel, making a sound something like the rain pattering on the car roof.
“Maybe coincidence,” he said, not believing it. He’d been conditioned not to believe it. Coincidence and detective work were incompatible.
Renz flashed another canine smile in the wavering light making its way through the rain-washed windows. “Like it was coincidental we bumped into each other tonight.”
Quinn stopped with the fingers. “Fate?”
Renz shook his head no. “Design.” The grin stayed. “Another homicide like the first two,” he said, “and we’ve definitely got ourselves a serial killer and all the media hype that goes with it. I need you and your team ready to go in the event that happens. Usual terms.”
For particularly difficult and sensitive cases, the clever and immensely ambitious Renz called on Quinn and his team of former NYPD detectives, Pearl Kasner and Larry Fedderman, to act as his personal investigators. Their work-for-hire status provided them use of NYPD resources, but they suffered few of the department’s hindrances.
Quinn knew this wasn’t only because Renz wanted serious crimes solved on his watch. Quinn understood the bureaucracy and still held a grudge against it from when it had turned on him. He didn’t have to be told that an important part of his job would be covering Renz’s ass.
“You could call it a standby basis,” Renz said, “but we both know it won’t be standby very long.”
“That’s what my gut tells me.”
“Your gut tell you to take the job?”
“Tells me not to touch it.”
“How about your head?”
“My head says run from it fast as I can.”
“But you’re going to call Pearl and Fedderman? Be ready to go after this sicko?”
“Yes,” Quinn said.
Renz stared at him for a while, studying him.
“Your heart must be telling you what to do,” he said. He grinned hugely, all incisors and canine teeth gleaming in the night’s reflected light. “How sweet.”
“Get out of the car.”
“Can’t,” Renz said. “You mighta noticed the radio car I was riding in has driven away, and now it’s raining. I need a lift home.”
“You shoulda thought ahead.”
“If I hadn’t been thinking ahead, Quinn, I wouldn’t be here talking with you. I want us to be ready for the media shit storm.”
“You still live over on East Fifty-first?”
“Same place,” Renz said. “Newly decorated, though.”
“It’s kinda far from here,” Quinn said.
“That’s why I asked a friend.”
Quinn started the car’s big engine. Before pulling away from the curb, he drew a cigar from an inside pocket and fired it up with the Lincoln’s lighter. If Renz was riding with him, he was going to suffer. If the smoke didn’t get to Renz, it would only be because he was a cigar smoker himself and knew good tobacco when he smelled it.
“I thought you said you were smoking your last one,” Renz said.
“This is the last one,” Quinn said.
Renz stared ahead quietly, obviously pissed off. Made Quinn smile.
He would have offered Renz a cigar if they weren’t Cuban.
6
Quinn figured it wasn’t midnight yet, so Pearl might still be awake.
She wasn’t a night owl in the sense that she liked to roam around the city after dark. It was simply that Pearl couldn’t sleep. She was probably pacing the stifling confines of her apartment, counting the steps. Or maybe bouncing off the walls. She’d always been like that, even when living with Quinn. He’d wake up at 3:00 A.M. and find her in the living room, eating potato chips and watching television news or an old movie. She was partial to the old Busby Berkeley musicals, where every time a dancer takes an initial step a thousand other dancers appear.
He was right about her being awake. She picked up halfway through the second ring.
“Watching an old movie?” Quinn asked.
“Quinn. What are you doing, spying on me with a telescope?”
“I would if I could see you from here.”
“Babes on Broadway,” she said.
“I’d spy on them, too.”
“That’s the movie I’m watching, Babes on Broadway. ”
“Mickey Rooney?”
“Not here.”
“Don’t wanna talk to him anyway,” Quinn said. “Wanna talk to you.”
“Talk.”
“You should be in bed sleeping.”
“Like you should. You didn’t call me about sleeping.”
“Being in bed, though…”
“Have a good reason for being on the line, Quinn, or I’m hanging up so I can watch the dancing.”
He told her about Renz’s visit and job offer.
“I’m still working at Sixth National,” she said when he was finished. “They need me.”
“Pearl, Sixth National Bank hasn’t been held up since nineteen twenty-seven.”
“Overdue.”
“You can get a leave of absence.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s our arrangement. It’s just…”
“What?”
“You start these things, these murder cases, and they take over your life. You understand. I know you do. It’s a strain on mind and body, Quinn. It becomes a goddamned obsession.”
“There are good obsessions, Pearl.”
“Are there? I can’t think of any.”
“All right,” Quinn said, tired of arguing with her. “We’re slaves to ourselves all the way to the grave.”
“Slaves to something,” Pearl said.
“You in?” Quinn asked.
She didn’t answer right away. He could hear lively dance music in the background.
“Pearl?”
“I’m in,” she said.
Slaves to something.
After the conversation with Pearl, Quinn decided not to call Fedderman until morning. Retirees went to bed early, didn’t they?
Quinn decided they did and went to bed himself.
He had trouble falling asleep. Maybe Pearl was right about obsessions. The hunt wasn’t only in his mind, though. It was in every cell of his being. It seemed a kind of destiny that he and whoever was on a killing spree should share a common struggle.
There was little doubt in Quinn’s mind that there was a serial killer out there in the city, playing out the drama he’d chosen for himself, making Quinn a part of it. Quinn would be the part the killer would regret. Old juices were starting to flow again. The hunt was in body and blood.
“Locked in,” Quinn actually muttered, and finally fell asleep.
7
In the morning, Quinn put Mr. Coffee to work so he could have his caffeine fix before walking over to the Lotus Diner for breakfast. He showered and s
haved, then dressed and combed his hair. He noticed he needed a haircut but figured it could wait.
Feeling much more awake after a restless night, he carried the wireless phone into the kitchen and sat at the table with his coffee off to the side within easy reach. Nine thirty. Fedderman should be awake by now. Maybe he was even on the links, or out on the wide ocean casting for marlin. Or he might be sitting in some diner swapping lies with other retired cops. Stories that sounded like lies to anyone listening, anyway.
Fedderman answered his phone on the second ring and was no problem. No Pearl-like discourses out of Feds, the voice of pure practicality.
“So we got a new hobby,” Fedderman said over the phone, when Quinn was done relating what Renz had said. That was one way police described a long-lasting serial killer investigation. “One that should keep us busy for a while. It gives me a reason for living so I don’t ride a bullet outta here.”
Quinn sampled his coffee. Yeow! Still too hot to drink. “Things that bad, Feds?”
“Naw, things are just things. Living alone at my age, not gainfully employed, stretching my pension money with coupons and early-bird specials. It’s okay for some people, but not for me.”
“There are plenty of people who lead active lives after retirement,” Quinn said, but he knew exactly what Fedderman meant, how he felt. Quinn had the same feeling sometimes, woke up with it lying heavily enough on his body that it felt like one of those lead bibs dentists lay over your chest to protect against X-ray damage. It made it hard to breathe.
“I tried golf,” Fedderman said, “tried fishing. Golf just makes you mad, fishing disappointed.”
“Rich widows down there,” Quinn reminded him.
“Widows looking for rich husbands,” Fedderman said, “not for bloodstained ex-cops. They get a sniff of my past and don’t want much to do with me.”