Mack Thomas ambled toward their desks.
“Looks like he ate the canary.”
“Well, I see you finally put that bum Sly right where he belongs,” Mack said. He removed the cigar from his mouth and looked pleased. “So the king of kung fu has got his ass in a sling this time.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Jim said. “We’re waiting on word from the ME.”
Thomas parked himself on the edge of Rick’s desk. “I’ve got some news. Your neighbor, the Thorne kid. Wuz that his name?”
Suddenly attentive, Rick kicked an empty desk chair in Thomas’s direction.
“Remember my Pakistani convenience-store clerk blown away in a holdup that is still unsolved?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, ballistics now informs me that the .38-caliber bullet that nailed him came from the same gun that wasted your neighbor.” He waved a yellow copy of the lab report.
Jim was on his feet and took it from Mack’s hand. “When didja get this?” he said accusingly, staring at the date.
“It came to my attention yesterday.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us right away?”
Mack extended his palm, stiff fingers vertical, as if to deflect the arrows of instant outrage. “I’ve been very busy with grieving relatives,” he said, “and it momentarily slipped my mind. But no problem. Time is of no essence. We’ve got nothing, no witnesses, no suspects, no leads, same as you have in your case—zero.”
“I want to see the file,” Rick said briskly. “Everything you’ve got.”
“Likewise,” Mack said. “We’ve got to catch this guy. He’s leaving too many dead bodies in our jurisdiction.”
“We do have a suspect,” Jim said. He turned to Rick. “What about our rapist?”
Rick dialed the rape squad.
“Just about to call you,” Simmons said. “I got the ticket from the wrecker service that towed his car. The time and the date are as he told us. The trooper confirms it. He remembers the guy, says he had a bad attitude. If it wasn’t for the old folks he had with him, he probably would have arrested him. He’s sorry now that he didn’t. Sorry, Rick. I know this guy is going to cop out to some of the rapes, but it looks like he’s not the man in your homicide.”
“Thanks, that’s okay, Dave. It was a good try. Appreciate it.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jim said bitterly.
“We’ve got nothing,” Rick said. “Except now we know it was no isolated incident. This guy is trigger-happy.”
Picking up his walkie Jim held it close to his ear. “Maybe we do have something,” he said. “Sounds like another convenience-store shooting just went down.”
The hospital emergency room was a beacon of light in a sleeping city of darkness. Rick and Jim burst through the automatic doors, men in a hurry. The wounded clerk was alive.
A passing patrolman had heard the shot, seen the man with the gun flee the store and drawn down on him. The robber had dropped his gun and surrendered.
It was a good catch, worthy of officer-of-the-month honors, Rick thought, but disappointing nonetheless. The robber’s gun was an automatic, .22-caliber, and his getaway car had been stolen in Atlanta, where he had escaped from police custody twenty-four hours earlier.
The clerk, a young black man robbed seven times in as many months, was fed up and tried to wrestle the gun away from the holdup man. He did not believe the weapon was real. It was. The clerk was lucky. The bullet had entered and exited his left thigh, inflicting a painful wound but no major damage.
They talked to him briefly in the ER. “It was small,” he said, wincing in pain, his face wet with tears and perspiration. “I thought for sure the damn thing was a toy. I’m probably in real trouble now. Company policy is never to resist a robbery. I hope I don’t lose my job over this.”
The detectives stopped at the nurse’s station to talk to the officer writing the report.
“Can you believe that?” Jim said. “The poor guy gets shot and has to worry about getting canned cuz he objected to getting robbed for the umpteenth time. They oughta give him a bonus for balls.”
“They’re worried about liability,” Rick said. “They’d rather give up the few bucks in the till than see somebody get hurt and file a claim.”
“Yeah,” Jim groused. “If the robber got injured, he probably woulda sued—and collected. I’m telling ya, Rick, I gotta bail outta this line of work.”
The nurse in charge returned to her station, and Rick flashed the boyish grin that was second nature. “How goes it, Aileen?”
“Good, now that you’re here. Have you come to take me away from all this? At last?”
“Not this time. My roommate won’t let me.”
“That’s right. I forgot. How is domestic bliss?”
“I’m not sure yet, I’ll let you know.”
“What else is on your mind?”
“These two guys.” He placed the likenesses of the two Colombians on the desk. “Did Dusty come in earlier with these?”
“Detective Dustin? Haven’t seen her tonight—or them. What are you looking for, a bullet wound?”
“No, one of them may have flash burns on his face.”
“Leave the copies, we’ll let you know if they show up.”
A teenage girl was weeping noisily in a wheelchair behind Rick. Her clothes were torn, there was a small cut on her forehead and her lower lip and knees were bloodied. “What happened to her?” Jim asked the nurse.
“Some sort of run-in with a car. Her boyfriend is over there having slivers of glass dug out of his feet. Must have been quite a date. Remind you of anything?” She smiled coyly at Rick.
“Hey, they weren’t all that bad,” he said. “Were they?”
The dark-haired young man she had indicated lay facedown on an examining table in a nearby cubicle, partially concealed by a privacy curtain. A doctor seemed to be working diligently on the bottoms of his feet. Officer Terry Lou Mitchell stood at the head of the table, eyes narrowed, her expression dubious. She was shooting questions at the patient and filling out a report.
Her face lit up when she saw Rick, and she stepped out from behind the curtain. Just then the automatic doors whispered open, and four people surged inside. They were a middle-aged couple, a youth about twenty, and a young girl who strongly resembled the bruised teenager in the wheelchair.
The girl in the wheelchair began to wail. “Mami, Mami!” She opened her arms as her mother and sister rushed to her. The father and the brother looked around, spitting curses in Spanish, saw the young man on the examining table and charged.
“Uh oh,” Jim said.
Officer Mitchell stopped them, waving them back as though directing traffic. “Your daughter’s okay. It’s not his fault. They both got hurt,” she said. “He is being treated right now. Let the doctor do his work.”
Reluctantly, the two men joined the women, still angrily muttering invectives over their shoulders.
“What the hell happened?” Rick asked Mitchell.
“Who knows?” She spoke quietly, out of the corner of her mouth. “They’re ticked that the kid kept their sixteen-year-old darling out way after curfew and she wound up getting hurt. They were out partying on the beach at Key Biscayne, a little beach blanket bingo. Doing a little drinking, I think, if that’s all they were doing. He claims he cut his feet up while chasing off some intruder. She says she got scared, ran after them and got bumped by a mystery car whose driver didn’t stop.
“She has no car description, no tag number.” She looked skeptical. “God only knows what really happened out there. They probably aren’t sure themselves and wouldn’t tell if they did. You know how kids are.”
“Yeah,” Rick said, “having been one myself.” He turned away, eager to go back to the station to read Mack’s file on the convenience-store murder. With any luck, it would help them find a killer who apparently never left a witness.
Nineteen
/> Alex now saw what the big attraction was. The place was not just a gym, it was a fucking fantasy factory. The dudes in the Nautilus room flexing and straining on gleaming metal machines were pumping up their imaginations as well as their bodies. He watched their eyes, riveted to the mirrors, staring at their own images. He felt certain they saw Rocky or Rambo instead. And the women, prancing about in their pricey exercise togs, stretching, bending, entranced by their own reflections, had to be envisioning themselves as Bob Fosse dancers. Oh yeah, he saw exactly what he had been missing, skimpy little leotards stretched taut across throbbing pudenda. Hints of pubic hair curling around those narrow little all-cotton crotches. That perspiration could be so provocative, depending on who wore it and where it dripped, had never occurred to him before.
Today was an event, the first time he had been out here. It would not be the last, he decided. Aside from a few flabby fannies hit hard by gravity, the specimens were incredible. All the limber bodies, the deep breathing, the muscle control, the protruding nipples. The girls who work the hardest at this, he thought, are the ones who need it the least. The instructors were something to see. Barry, wearing a knowing grin and tights that looked painted on, and the women, tan and beautiful, supple and well toned, running and dancing. Alex didn’t know which one was more of a turn-on, the little Latin girl who made up her face like she was about to step on stage at Vegas, squealing like a baby pig during her high kicks and hip tosses, or this one, Tawny Marie, apparently the chief instructor.
What a body! She looked as strong and sleek as a panther, and as agile, with the discipline of a marine drill instructor. Her voice was warm, throaty and full of vitality, urging everybody to push just a little harder. Sounds like a Lamaze class, he thought. Looking at her, he knew what he would like to push. Lithe and muscular, her long dark hair streaming, she looked like a wild Indian. She can attack my wagon train any time, he thought. He imagined what she would be like; all that strength, endurance and control. The possibility made him even more breathless than trying to keep up with her. Damn, he thought. He could find out where she lived. Pay her a little surprise visit. Take some private instruction or give some. He loved it. This had become more fascinating than his initial reason for coming out here, which was to see what the bitch was up to now.
He kept trying not to watch her; seeing her filled him with such fury that he lost his train of thought and messed up his footwork. It would not do to crash clumsily into anybody during the aerobics. Damn, he thought, Aerobics III. Survivors of this class deserve a purple heart. All this was supposed to be good for the cardiovascular system. He hoped the effort was worth it.
Before he emerged to join the class, he had watched Laurel and Dusty in the same room. So aware of each other, yet unaware of him. Careful to ignore each other, he thought, when they were really curious and hell and sisters under the skin. How stupid they both were, to be taken in by the same man.
It had been difficult, almost impossible, not to stare at them in the mirrored room. They were everywhere he looked. Hundreds of them, rows of those same insipid faces and pale hair. The rage they sparked had made him dizzy. Taking a deep breath, he had tried to think clearly and coolly as their images surrounded him, a hundred, a thousand mirror reflections.
Dusty and Laurel share one consolation, he thought. When together in the same room, each knows that the other is not with Rick at the moment. He smiled. It probably never occurs to them to wonder what other cow he is with at this very moment. That man would screw a snake if he could hold onto it.
Cops are not exactly famous for their monogamy, Alex thought. He wondered at the endless supply of women eager to lie down for a good-looking cop like Rick. Is it his penis or his gun that attracts them? Definitely not his brains. Maybe they’re simply fascinated by death and danger. That must be why lowly flatfoots on the beat have as many eager groupies as rock guitar layers who make big bucks, he concluded. They love it. Guns, the symbols of sex and death, do attract women.
He looked at Dusty, thinking she probably sleeps with her piece. This woman loves guns so much, he thought, maybe he could use one to show her a few tricks she might like. She was getting down and into it now, exhaling hard through her round pink circle of a mouth. The woman has got a great set of lungs, he thought. They seemed about to pop out of her leotard. He liked those damp spots, those circles of sweat, one growing at the small of her back, the other spreading between her breasts. The muscle definition in her calves and her shoulders might be called sexy by some men. He thought it a bit much. These women were rugged. He would love to see some two-bit street thief try to put the snatch on one of their purses. The punk could be in for a nasty shock.
Trying not to think about Laurel was impossible. Thoughts of her body filled him with instant outrage and anger. He wanted to rip her apart, to tear out the bloody organ that Rick loves in every woman and then watch her die. Sex, then death. He wanted to see the look on her face when she knew. Somehow he had to let her know he was there. He could not resist. Maybe a little love note. That would get her attention and stir up the pot a bit.
The class was winding down. Thank God, he thought. Tawny Marie must be trying to kill us all. He would return the favor some night when she least expected it. She was not even winded. What a woman. They should send her on a mission to rescue the hostages, he thought. She would bring them back, and pity the poor soul who got in her way.
They went to mats on the floor, just in time, Alex decided. When he tried, he could see them both, flat on their backs, legs apart—their favorite position, the stupid twats, grinding and bouncing their hips up and down. Dusty’s face was flushed from exertion and concentration. Laurel’s was pink but peaceful, as if in a coffin.
Maybe a little note would do the trick, set events in motion.
He wanted to scare the hell out of her before she died.
Twenty
Scrawled in red ballpoint pen on the back of a membership form, the note had been slipped into her canvas Jane Fonda gym bag. Laurel kept her driver’s license and car keys in the same pocket.
I AM GOING TO KILL YOU, BITCH.
The large letters at the bottom leaped out at her first. The writer had pressed so hard that the pen tore the paper.
I hope you are reading this in front of your locker. The one with the picture of you and the asshole taped inside.
Her eyes rose to the photo on the open door beside her. She and Rick at the beach on the fourth of July, playing and laughing as he dragged her toward the surf.
This time you’re not going to fuck anybody. I am going to fuck you. Beating the shit out of you will be just the start. When they lay you out at the morgue even the doctors will wonder who could do this to another human being. Imagine what it will be like on that cold slab at the morgue with your eyes bulged out, bruises all over your tits and blood coming out of your pussy. I am looking forward to it so much that I had trouble keeping it in my pants when I saw your bouncing little ass in class today. Soon.
The signature was a single initial: A.
She spun around to see if anyone was watching. No one, except Dusty, emerging from the shower room, looking relaxed, wrapped in a towel, her hair wet. She looked startled at Laurel’s intent expression, then smiled. Laurel whirled and rushed out as Dusty stared after her.
She pounded the gas pedal, roared into the driveway, scattering gravel, and burst through the front door. Her entrance sent Chuckles, the usually imperturbable Siamese, slinking to safety under a chair. Laurel’s hand trembled a she showed the note to Rick.
“Damn,” he said sleepily. “Who the hell…?”
“You’re the detective,” she said, pacing the floor quietly in her Reeboks and gnawing a thumbnail. She looked frightened. “First Rob, now this.”
“What’s going on over there? Are there other complaints?”
She shrugged and shook her head.
“Damn,” he said again, rubbed his eyes and r
eached for a pair of Levi’s. “Let’s go find out.” He drove. She sat quietly, her body tense, her lips pressed tightly together.
“This happens to good-looking women all the time,” he said to comfort her. “But,” he grumbled, “I don’t like it happening to you. Some smart ass is gonna get burned when I catch up with him.”
They met Dusty, just leaving the fitness center, gym bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair, still wet, was combed straight back. She looked strong and beautiful in a white Police Olympics T-shirt and shorts. “Rick! Are you finally going to exercise those bones? This I have got to see.”
“What did you make of this?” He gestured with the note in his hand.
She looked puzzled, and he turned to Laurel.
“You showed it to Dusty?”
“No, I didn’t.” Her voice was low, as she shook her head. She had discerned a trace of impatience in his voice. “I didn’t show it to anybody.”
Dusty scanned it and rolled her eyes. “Where did you find this, on your car?”
“No,” Laurel said coldly. “In my gym bag.”
“Hummph,” Dusty said thoughtfully, and reread it. She studied Laurel, her expression hard to read. “Any skirmishes lately with the man at the front desk or the guys in the parking lot? Did you shoot down somebody who made a pass? Another member, an instructor?”
There was nothing, Laurel said.
“You hear any other complaints from the women here?” Rick asked.
Dusty shook her head. So did Mark Hamilton, manager of the club. A short, stocky man who looked anything but fit, he sat behind a big desk in the center of his narrow, all-white, Danish modern office. He chewed his lower lip and screwed his face into a scowl as he perused the note. “There’s been nothing like this,” he said. “And we’ve got no new staff on payroll.” He got to his feet and squeezed by his visitors, patting his protruding belly as he excused himself. “This place keeps me too busy to get any exercise myself,” he said sheepishly, and called in Tawny Marie.
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