Wolf's Trap (The Nick Lupo Series Book 1)

by W. D. Gagliani

  “Yeah, I know Dievers has beautiful lips,” Martin was saying to the mirror, “and I really like when her lipstick is so dark and wet, and almost purple. But I don’t think she’s interested in me at all, I’m just another weirdo. I know she’s not that old! Yeah, and I know she’d probably love to take my thing in her mouth and get lipstick all over it, but I’m just not gonna ask her, okay? I don’t care how much you beg me, I’m not gonna ask. You come out of that mirror and ask her yourself you want it that bad!”

  Nurse Dievers had put a hand to her mouth in shock and bewilderment, and now she looked at her fingers and saw the streak of mauve on her skin. That was it, no more lipstick while on duty! And this would have to be another Martin-in-the-mirror report, and she would ask Berthold for a new assignment again.

  In the shower room, the nineteen-year-old Martin was caressing himself to orgasm, looking straight into his own image in the mirror and grunting with animal satisfaction.

  Was there any way to change this boy’s behavior? she wondered, slowly backing out of the steaming room.

  She didn’t see the smiling Martin turn his head toward the sound of the door clicking softly closed.

  Now he smiled at the memory. He never knew how she felt as she spied on him that night, but she had stopped wearing lipstick and, three weeks later, she had left her job for good. Martin had merely filled in the gaps in his knowledge and formed a fully rounded memory of the event. He enjoyed reliving that half hour from her point of view, but he did feel regret that he was never able to determine whether she would have placed her lips on him if given the opportunity

  Martin unzipped the makeup case—

  (his mother’s makeup Case; the Case)

  —and rummaged through the canisters, knowing that he would recognize the one he needed now as soon as he saw it.

  It was a shade called Berry Mauve, and it came in a white container. He separated it from the other white canisters and set the Case aside, then he uncapped it and slowly, tantalizingly twisted the bottom.

  He felt a delicious shiver stir his genitals as the rounded tip came into view. A tiny purple phallus growing in length until his trembling hand conveyed it to his lips and he began to draw, as carefully as he had learned (no, had been taught), filling in his lips until he pursed and—for a second—saw Nurse Dievers in the mirror. Then it was just Martin again, or Martin-in-the-mirror.

  He inhaled deeply, enjoying the chemical cosmetic smell of the lipstick under his nostrils. Slowly, he wiped a finger across his upper lip and smeared the mauve coloring onto his cheek. With a shudder, Martin climaxed. He had not touched himself further. As always, there was no need.

  Nurse Dievers had missed out on this action, but she would live on in Martin’s memory. And in his memory she always came back for more.

  Martin sat on his bed and felt the need wash from his body. And the itch in his hands had stopped, for now. If the pattern held up, he would not feel the itch for another day or so. In the meantime, he could concentrate on other matters.

  Without bothering to shower or dress, or wipe his lips, he turned to the Office Depot desk in the corner of the room. He took Volume Six from the pile and opened it flat, starting to read the smooth, right-leaning cursive.

  Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, and he blinked them away. He always cried when reading Caroline’s words.

  Sweet Caroline.

  He hummed a few bars of the song, then dabbed at his eyes again and turned to the text, the part he hated most. This was his sister’s very first mention of the bastard, and already she was smitten. Every time Martin read the passages, he felt the anger rising through his veins like boiling acid. Now he smashed his fist down on the desk and felt the rickety furniture wobble.

  He opened the vinyl-covered diary again and lowered his nose to the yellowing pages, inhaling deeply, imagining that he could smell her scent, and picking up the smell of his lipstick as well, and in his fantasy this was her lipstick and he was with her, and they were doing what his father had taught him to do, except that now she was doing it—the way it was meant to be, said the voice in his head, the crazy Martin-voice he so hated—and she was good at it because their father had taught her, too, and she knew no better than to try harder to keep the blows at bay.

  Aroused again, he decided to deprive himself, reluctantly closing the book and refiling it in order. Even though he knew well enough what came next in the two-dozen journals, and the details his sister would divulge, it was still this volume—Caroline’s first innocent mention of Dominic Lupo—that drove him to the red-framed rages his doctors had been unable to comprehend. He hadn’t allowed them to comprehend. Hadn’t wanted them to.

  With a snort, Martin returned to the bureau and shakily refreshed his lipstick, making sure it was layered on heavily—like a common whore, his father would say, and then bending over to retrieve the duffel bag from near the bed. He reached in and took out the .44, caressing its cold metal with infinite tenderness.

  Then, while staring at himself in the mirror, he slowly inserted the muzzle between his painted lips and did what his father had taught him to do. Martin watched the lipstick smear onto the gunmetal blue and felt himself rock hard and ready to burst once again. The flat heads of the cartridges blunt in the cylinder, visible in their tiny vaginas, peeked at him like clitoral protrusions.

  He ignored the tears that ran down the bloated face in the mirror and sparkled on the glossy painted lips. That was Martin-in-the-mirror, and what happened to him had nothing at all to do with what happened to Martin.

  He wondered just how much pressure it would take as his index finger caressed the trigger.

  Afterward, he threw up until he thought his guts might well dislodge and spew out in great gouts of blood. But, as always, they didn’t.

  Lupo

  Sitting in Ben’s cluttered dining room, Lupo felt a little homesick. It reminded him of his parents’ house—the religious painting on one wall, the crucifix on another. A flickering candle in front of the brownish portrait of a great-uncle lost in the last war. “Lost somewhere on the Russian Front,” Ben would often say. “Most people don’t even know how many Italians got killed there, coverin’ Jerry’s ass. They were betrayed and cut off so Hitler’s bastards could live to fight another day, may the assholes rot in Nazi hell.”

  Marie, Ben’s wife of nearly thirty years, would shush him then, pointing at the youngest of the children, whose ears extended like antennae around grown-up conversations so that he could echo their words at school the next day.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben would say with a gesture of dismissal. “He’s gonna learn it anyway, he might as well learn it from his old man.”

  This was ritual, as were the several glasses of potent red wine that preceded dinner. As always at the Sabatini dinner table, Lupo was starting out half in the bag. He’d had a full glass since walking in the door an hour ago, and as much as he had knocked back, his glass still seemed to be topped off. It was like some secret of invisibility—someone filled the glass without Lupo ever seeing it happen. He was beginning to see double by the time Marie smoothed out the tablecloth, rearranged the settings they had brushed aside, and began serving the men and the three youngest Sabatini children.

  Given Lupo’s mood that evening, seeing double was—somewhat desirable.

  They had spent the afternoon running theories on the gun shop case, all while further tests were conducted by the ballistics lab and by the ME. Everything was being tested, it seemed, and nothing was going anywhere. Vic had failed to call as promised, so they planned a visit to his set early in the morning. Lupo really looked forward to that, he pondered as he sipped the wine. He marveled at how the ruby liquid looked like blood in the right light, and how it lapped at the rim of the glass—filled again by some unseen presence. He shrugged and drank some more, letting the sweet liquid caress his palate.

  “You gotta come over, Nick,” Ben had said. “Marie’s been givin’ me hell about not inviting you ov
er. I keep tellin’ her it’s you don’t wanna come, but she don’t believe me. And me, I got to protect your reputation, Nick, ’cause why would you keep turnin’ us down?”

  Lupo had smiled and nodded. “I’d like to see Marie and the kids again,” he said. But inside he felt caged, tethered, leashed to the cases that were piling up on his desk—taking his attention away from Corinne, where it belonged. The moon was nearly full, and the call of the woods formed a powerful urge into an obsession. He wanted to drive north and shed his humanity shed his anger in the cold woods and satiate his hunger for raw flesh. He wanted all this, but it would be another day before he could take the time off. He had called his landlord at her reservation office and left a message saying he would likely be using the cabin this weekend, and now he wanted nothing more than to be there.

  Well, he would have traded that pleasure for one crack at whoever had killed Corinne. Even if it cost his badge. He hoped it would, so he wouldn’t be bound by the ever more constraining rules that seemed to hog-tie his every move.

  Marie set a huge ceramic bowl of ravioli in the middle of the table, and even Lupo—whose taste ran to rare red meat—had to admit the vapor was tantalizing. This was delicate ravioli, only about an inch and a half square, unlike the monstrous-size version available in most restaurants. Not only homemade, but infinitely better tasting.

  Fortunately, he had talked the Sabatinis out of laying out their best silver for the meal. The pain would have driven him from their home. They had substituted a bland stainless-steel pattern, not at all sure they understood his quirks but letting him have them and giving in graciously.

  Lupo swallowed deep red wine and surveyed the elaborately set table and the spread-out food. This was too much. Too much like home. Maybe he would call his parents one of these days, see if his father would still refuse to talk to him. The food was a concrete reminder that he was letting his heritage slip away, and he felt a vague shame reddening his face. Maybe the wine was to blame, he thought, but there was definitely something else there. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t seen his parents in years. Lupo watched Marie, Ben’s wife, and saw his mother reflected. Marie was a plump, handsome woman whose chestnut hair was just now beginning to gray. And gracefully enough, too, as Ben used to say while rubbing his bald spot wistfully.

  Marie

  Having Nick over for a meal was wonderful! They were so preoccupied, so serious. She wanted nothing more than to please them, and her children, with the comfort food they all loved.

  She had done her best as a cop’s wife, learning to live with the hours and the waiting and the uncertainty. Fortunately, the city was far from violent (if one didn’t count occasional gang executions and drive-by shootings), and cops had always for the most part felt safe walking their beats. It was a deceptive safety perhaps, but better than the outright danger of the Chicago streets from which she had come. So she thought nothing of the call when it came, taking it as she cleared away the remains of the first course. She had a platter of delicately stuffed Cornish hens waiting in the kitchen, and two bowls of mixed vegetables, but she let the men talk and laugh as she picked up the extension near the refrigerator.

  “Good evening, madam.” The voice was even, smooth, confident, and charming. “I’m sorry to bother you in the middle of your meal.”

  A polite police caller! Marie wondered at the possibility this was a joke. But no, it sounded like Detective Bialek.

  “It’s okay,” she said as she hovered over her next course, ready to serve it as soon as this interruption could be handled. “You need Ben, right? I’ll get him.”

  “No, dear lady. Actually I need to speak with Detective Lupo. Do you think you could ask him to take this call?”

  Marie frowned. Bialek had never been so polite. So…mockingly urbane. That was it, she was picking up a hint of humor in the voice. It made her uncomfortable. Usually these calls meant Ben would leave for the rest of the night to help locate spent brass on some street corner, or speak to countless defiant witnesses regarding the body as often as not spread like a limp rag on a bloody sidewalk. This call sounded different.

  “Yeah, I’ll get Nick for you,” she said into the phone.

  “Certainly, Mrs. Sabatini.”

  Something cold seemed to trickle down her back. “Just a second, okay?”

  She pushed the swinging door aside and caught the tail end of some off-color joke. She frowned at the three children, two boys and a girl, who were nodding and giggling even as their father repeated the punch line, exaggerating it for effect.

  “Nick.”

  He turned. “What is it, Marie?”

  Apparently, Ben felt it too. He waved the children’s laughter down and stared at Nick for a second, then at his wife.

  “Telephone. It’s for…you.”

  Lupo

  When she handed Lupo the receiver, its cord stretched through the door from the kitchen extension, Lupo wondered for a split second if her hand could be trembling. Plus, something in her voice tripped an inner alarm.

  “Detective Lupo here,” he barked into the phone. Chances were this was just somebody calling to tell him there was a new report to consider. Or maybe a new murder?

  “Well, well.”

  The voice was quiet, almost hushed, but Lupo heard it perfectly. And he knew that his mysterious foe had tracked him down. He knew it as surely as if the man had identified himself. But the voice said nothing, choosing instead to wait.

  “Yes?” Lupo snarled into the silence. “What is it?”

  “You know, it’s a cozy little gathering there at the Sabatini homestead. Touching, really. You seem to have so little by way of family life, Nick.”

  “Who are you?” Lupo didn’t expect an answer, but he had to begin stalling. He gestured to Ben—trace the call, use your cell to call in!—who stood up quickly and knocked over his chair. The children caught the serious intensity and jumped up nervously, but Marie whispered soothing words, quieting them down. Her eyes followed her husband out of the room.

  The voice spoke in Lupo’s ear. “Why, I thought you’d know me by now. I’m somewhat miffed at your selective memory, Nick.”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “This one’s for you, Nick. How’s that?”

  “That wasn’t in the paper,” he growled. Helpless stalling.

  “That’s right. So I must be a real-live suspect, right?”

  “Why did you kill her?” Lupo felt his hand tremble, so he switched the phone to his left. “What was the point? What did you prove, you—”

  “I killed her as a warm-up, Detective Lupo. A milk run. An opening act, if you will. Now there’s been an act two. But you, you’re the main event. I just want to lead up to you and you can be the climax. That should suit you.”

  Lupo let that sink in for another stalling beat. “Why?”

  “Don’t let your Cornish hens get cold, Nick. I don’t feel like ending the game just yet. Keep in mind, though, that I will get around to you. Eventually.”

  As soon as he heard the click, Lupo was up and at the door and passing through into the living room.

  Ben was babbling into his cell phone. Then he slammed it into the couch and looked at Lupo, shrugging. “Not fucking long enough. And they’re pretty sure it was a goddamn cell.”

  Lupo nodded. He’d thought so. There had been a metallic echo in the quietly mischievous voice.

  “I think there may be another body. For us to find, I mean. He said Corinne was the opening act, and now there’s been an act two. Call it in, have patrols check mall bathrooms.”

  Ben nodded and dialed.

  Damn this savage asshole to hell. Now he was playing his games in the open. Who the hell did he think he was, calling Ben’s house like that? Scaring his family.

  Of course, that was the point. He had succeeded, if Marie’s expression meant anything.

  Lupo returned the phone to the kitchen.

  “Don’t let your Cornish hens get cold, Nick.”


  Lupo heard the words in his mind just as his eyes swept across the counter and he saw Marie’s platter of hens. The second course.

  “Damn it,” he shouted, and then he was at the back door, his Glock in hand. “He was calling from here, goddamnit!”

  Martin

  He tiptoed to the back of the driveway. The house was a typical Milwaukee bungalow, with the kitchen in the rear, the dining room in the center, and the living room up front. He was lucky this wasn’t gravel or his little game might have been more dangerous, and maybe not worth playing.

  Ever since he had seen Tim Robbins employ this same maneuver in The Player, Martin had planned the day he too could so coolly rattle a victim while watching. He liked to watch. The cellular phone still had some blood marring its sleek black lines, but he had managed to wipe most of it off, and now it rested easily in his hand. The wife was a wise one, that he could sense right away. The way she read his voice. It was uncanny. And Ben had seemed less like an old man and more like a cop as he went from room to room with the phone in his hand, working on a trace that could never be. The children were easily scared, and Martin carefully filed away their faces. Just in case, he thought, even though he had no quarrel with them. Still, one never knew when pawns might become necessary.

  But Lupo. Lupo was cold on the phone, maybe not quite catching on at first. But making up for it fast. Martin said his words, his watch up near his eyes so he could see the second hand sweeping across the face.

  Why pretend?

  Well, because it’s fun.

  Because he wanted very badly to drive Lupo to something unthinkable. Might the cop take advantage of his condition here and now? Martin doubted it, but half wished he would. The weight of the Smith & Wesson in its holster gave off strength, power. The silver loads were a hedge, really, in case all that folklore bullshit was correct. But he trusted his sister, his lovely sister, and in her own words she’d described what the cop could become. She had also mentioned that at least one myth, the deadly quality of silver, was true.