by John Lutz
Pearl knew he was right. “Only thing is,” she said, “you’re messing with Homeland Security, when you illegally hack into airline passenger information.”
“Oh, I often get into—”
“Don’t tell me, Jerry.”
“I’ll come and go without leaving any kind of electronic footprint,” Lido said confidently.
“Jerry—”
“Sometimes I do it just for sport,” he said, grinning. “LaGuardia, Newark, and Kennedy. I compare what all the passengers paid for their seats. Pearl, it’s fun. God help me, it’s fun!”
Pearl said, “You want another drink?”
It was past 2 A.M. when, with Lido’s help, Pearl managed to get Quinn downstairs and into a cab. Within an hour, Quinn was in bed in the brownstone, and Pearl was curled next to him. Both slept deeply when they weren’t dreaming.
In the morning, Pearl awoke to hear Quinn on the phone. He was doing what Pearl had heard him doing before—talking Jerry Lido out of suicide.
Pearl rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow, assailed again by guilt over having exploited Lido’s vulnerability.
Later she felt the bed sag with Quinn’s weight, and his big hand was gentle on her shoulder.
“Lido gonna be all right?” she asked, muffled by the pillow.
“I think so.”
“I still don’t feel right about what we’re doing. I feel . . .”
“Guilty?”
“Yeah.”
“Still the good Catholic girl,” Quinn said.
“Sometimes, anyway,” Pearl said.
She rolled onto her back and looked up at him.
“You’ve been crying,” he said, and bent down and kissed the tip of her nose.
“There have to be rules, Quinn. Call them laws. Call them commandments. Call them whatever you want. But even in this screwed-up world, there have to be rules.”
“There are,” he said. “They bend.”
Later that morning, when everyone other than Weaver was in the Q and A office, Fedderman stood up behind his desk and cleared his throat.
Every eye suddenly turned to him.
Every instinct told him he’d made a mistake.
He decided again that he and Penny would keep their engagement secret until after the Skinner investigation. Fedderman was sure he wasn’t doing anything unethical, but why borrow trouble when there was so much of it already in the world?
He cleared his throat again and walked over and topped off his coffee.
Everyone else went back to what they were doing. Only Pearl looked at him strangely, sensing that he’d been about to say something.
Pearl would.
68
The police hadn’t believed that Tom Stopp was trying to help Tanya Moody the night he was arrested. That he’d heard a commotion, gone to his door to investigate, and seen her come flying half nude out of the unoccupied apartment across the hall. She was struggling in a desperate dance to put on her clothes as she ran, somehow managing.
What had prompted him was blind instinct. She was obviously in trouble, running hard from something, and in need of help. He called after her, trying to get her to stop and explain what was happening. She’d glanced back at him, obviously terrified, running from him!
No! She had it wrong! He couldn’t let her think of him that way. He couldn’t!
He ran after her faster to help her, to explain to her.
They wouldn’t believe him. Not at the scene in front of his apartment building, and not at the precinct house where he was read his rights and interrogated.
After a while in police custody, he could hardly believe himself. They paid no attention when he told them he’d tried to get Tanya Moody to stop, so he could convince her he wasn’t whoever or whatever had frightened her. So he could help her.
Later, when she’d regained her composure and good sense, she told them her story. Her concept of the truth. It was too late for Stopp then. There was enough circumstantial evidence against him to convict him ten times over.
The man who’d actually raped Tanya Moody was long gone. And Tom Stopp sat for the next several months listening to what he’d done, where he’d been, when in fact he’d been home in bed.
The more the prosecution, and the jury, heard his story, the less they believed it, and, strangely enough, that affected Stopp. He began to feel guilty. Maybe, when enough people didn’t believe something, it could somehow become untrue. Who you were could seem little-by-little unreal, until finally you were someone else. Some person the system had created.
In prison they’d laughed at him. There had been times when he’d thought he was one of the guards, complete with uniform and authority. Laughter sometimes tilted to violence. He’d been badly beaten by other inmates when he’d tried to hurry them back to their cells.
If Stopp had experienced this problem before, being another person, he couldn’t remember it. But that was the problem; that was how he became someone else sometimes, by not remembering who he really was or had been. The other person, waiting for an opportunity, would then take over. The one named Tom Stopp would recall what had happened, faintly through a veil, but not for very long. At least, from what other people said, that was the way it happened.
The prison doctor suggested mental illness, perhaps schizophrenia with multiple personalities. He was a general practitioner and recommended that a psychiatrist see Stopp. The prison authorities decided Stopp was simply putting on an act to better his circumstances and make his way back to the streets sooner.
Stopp saw no mental health professional. He simply remained convict 1437645. And one night when he decided he was a psychiatrist, it elicited more laughter than concern.
Now he was out of prison, wandering around unemployed, existing on welfare checks and whatever his brother and sister, living in California, sent him from time to time. Money he was going to pay back someday. Still. Even after his years in prison.
Stopp would find a way to pay his debts, even if it meant becoming a criminal, as they’d branded him all those years, and stealing the money. He owed that and more to his brother Marv the screenwriter, and his sister Terri the beautician. Tom Stopp was a man who paid his debts. Maybe someday his brother could write one of his TV movies about that. Stopp reflected that his life would make an excellent film.
But he knew his determination to pay what he owed was will rather than probability. Six months ago he’d been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Which wasn’t as bad as it sounded—but almost. Put simply, his heart couldn’t pump out as much blood as it took in. A minor surgical procedure had helped, but not enough. The doctors told him he might live for years, if he didn’t overexert himself, took medicine he couldn’t afford, and slipped a tiny nitroglycerin tablet beneath his tongue if and when his heart started to act up.
There wasn’t much danger of him overexerting himself, because in his circumstances, and with the lousy economy, he couldn’t find a job. His stress mostly came from regret. He didn’t blame the girl, Tanya. She’d been doped up and half mad with terror when he’d tried to catch up to her and been interrupted outside her cab by the cops. The bastard who’d actually raped her . . . well, Stopp could work up a hate for that guy, only he had no idea who he was.
So he kept his pills handy in his pocket and made it through his days. Time was misery and was killing him with exacting slowness. Years, the doctors had given him, if he was careful. Plodding along Canal Street, Stopp almost laughed, watching the vendors close the folding steel doors of their kiosks after selling tourists and phonies their knockoff brand merchandise. He was like one of those faux Rolex watches that looked good at a glance, but had a strict limit on how many ticks were in them before they quit running. He shook his head sadly. Reality was always in disguise.
Years . . .
Tom Stopp wasn’t so sure. Something bad was going to happen to him, and soon. He could feel it. Like that time in Sweden when he’d been fired from his job as watch re
pairman.
He went home to his crummy basement apartment, stretched out on his bed, and watched the roaches. Outside, the sun began losing its battle with the night. Dusk moved in like an occupying army. After a while the apartment got dark, and Stopp could no longer see the roaches.
He wished he had some booze. He couldn’t afford it, and he didn’t like to beg. He’d tried panhandling once and decided it was less soul-smearing to write his brother for another loan. He felt like jumping up out of bed and leaving the apartment, walking the dangerous city streets. No, not walking. Running hard enough to outrace his tortured self.
Yeah, he’d had a lot of luck the last time he’d impulsively run from an apartment.
There was nowhere for him to go, anyway. No one he had to see or who wanted to see him.
He reread yesterday’s newspaper, which he’d gotten out of a trash receptacle. Then he put the paper aside and lay quietly, outwardly calm, watching the shadows grow and listening to his heart.
Cannibalism.
Such rumors died hard.
The Skinner tossed his folded Post aside and sipped some more of his espresso. There was no doubt now that the rumors of cannibalism were started by Quinn, in an attempt to rattle him.
Quinn seemed to have rattled the women of New York even more. Before the cannibalism speculation, the Skinner could sense their uneasiness in dark or crowded places, in the subways or narrow streets, or chattering together as they strode in tandem along wide sidewalks. He walked among them and secretly enjoyed that rippling undercurrent of fear.
Now he saw in New York’s women a quieter, deeper fear. They were scared shitless, and all thanks to Quinn. The media of course, had cooperated, but surely even they didn’t truly make the leap from severed tongues to cannibalism. They pretended. That was fine with the Skinner. The whole world was pretense. Sometimes he thought he was the only real thing in it.
He glanced at his watch.
Tom Stopp was home sleeping, or perhaps in an alcoholic stupor. The Skinner had seen him negotiate the narrow steps to his pathetic apartment he shared with the roaches. Stopp wouldn’t reappear until late tomorrow morning. That was his routine. He was where he was supposed to be, a game piece in its place on the board. And a move was about to be made.
It was almost time to leave the restaurant and do something very real.
Something Quinn could read about in the papers.
69
Edmundsville, the present
Beth was carrying groceries in from the car when Westerley’s SUV, with its roof bar lights and sheriff’s markings, pulled in behind her. Her car was in the garage, where it was shaded, but the opened trunk, containing the groceries, was in the sun.
Westerley got out of the SUV and smiled at Beth as he came around the front of the vehicle.
“I’ll help you with those,” he said.
She kissed his cheek as he relieved her of a bulging plastic bag that contained a half-gallon jug of milk, as well as assorted canned goods.
After placing the bag on the kitchen table, he made another trip to the car and got the rest of the plastic bags from the trunk. Juggling another heavy load of groceries, he slammed the trunk lid shut and headed for the door to the house.
The swinging wooden garage doors he left open; there was no way to close them with his SUV parked behind the used Kia Beth had bought when her old Honda finally refused to run. Westerley had helped her trade in the Honda.
She’d finished with the first load of groceries, but there were more on the kitchen table, and the refrigerator door still hung open. Westerley stood at the table and handed boxes, cans, and frozen vegetable bags over to Beth to put away in the nearby cupboard and refrigerator.
“Eddie home?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“He’s in Iowa, taking summer classes at the university. Wants to make up some credits he lost when he had the flu last winter.”
“Good for him. Where’s Link?”
“Won’t be home for a couple of days. There’s a big numismatic convention in Kansas City.”
“How come I didn’t hear about it?”
“You don’t hang around with people who save their wheat pennies.”
“Link does love his coins.”
Beth finished with the groceries, swung the refrigerator door shut, and leaned against the table. The kitchen was warm and she was perspiring. Westerley thought she was beautiful when her face took on a moistness that glowed and lent her a kind of life force. He moved closer and kissed her forehead. It was cool despite the moistness of her flesh. He even liked the taste of her when she perspired.
She backed away from him, as if she were still tired from lugging the groceries and didn’t want one thing to lead to another. Not yet.
“Get any results back?” she asked. It had been two weeks since he’d sent the DNA samples in for analysis.
“Not yet,” Westerley said. “The folks at the lab don’t see it as top priority, Beth. I wish I had the clout to make them change their minds.”
She smiled. “You got plenty of clout with me.” She wiped the back of her wrist across her forehead. “Want something to drink?”
“Beer’d be fine. I’ll get it. You go on in the living room and sit down.”
“Fix me a glass of ice water, too.”
He nodded and watched her make her way out of the kitchen; then he opened the refrigerator. A cold can of Budweiser was hiding behind the new plastic jug of milk. He worked the can out over the top of the milk and pulled the opener, feeling the cold fizz of beer on a knuckle. Beth was moving around in the living room. He heard the window airconditioning unit kick on in there. He didn’t hear her move down the hall, but a while later the bedroom unit started to hum. Westerley smiled and used the icemaker to clunk some cubes into a water tumbler. He ran in some filtered water from the refrigerator and carried the can and glass into the living room.
Beth was seated on the sofa with her legs curled under her. The flimsy skirt she wore had worked its way up. The sight of her tanned knees and thighs made something tighten in him. He handed her the glass of water and sat down beside her. Beth took a sip of water and then tilted sideways against him, as if her end of the sofa had lifted. She rested her head on Westerley’s shoulder.
They sat silently for a while, sipping their respective drinks, enjoying each other’s presence, and feeling the living room cool down.
“You think it’s cool in the bedroom yet?” Westerley asked.
“Should be,” Beth said.
“Let’s do something about that,” Westerley said.
Beth stood up first, and held out her hand as if to lead him.
They lay together afterward, nude and perspiring on Beth’s bed, feeling the cool caresses of the window air conditioner breeze on their damp bare flesh. There was a slight variation in the unit’s soft humming, almost like a three-note tune being played over and over. They both found it restful rather than irritating. The bedspread and top sheet had found their way onto the floor, and the wrinkled sheet beneath them was damp and still smelled of sex.
Beth’s hand wandered over and lay lightly on Westerley’s thigh. “I wish things would never change,” she said.
They were both staring at the ceiling, maybe seeing the same pattern of cracks there.
“Except you want the results of those DNA tests,” Westerley said.
“No. I mean, yes, I do. But I wish things didn’t ever have to change from this minute. Ever.”
“It’d be nice,” Westerley said, “if the afterglow lasted forever.”
“Be no wars or crime.”
“Be no sheriffs.”
Beth laughed and moved her hand, squeezing him slightly where he didn’t want to be squeezed at all. “You are way too practical sometimes,” she said.
“Somebody has to be.” He turned to her, kissed her on the lips, and maneuvered to the side so he could sit on the edge of the mattress.
“You’re not leaving already, are you?”
/>
“Yeah. I’m afraid it’s not that perfect world yet, Beth. If I don’t leave and do my job, the county might elect somebody else.”
She grinned. “Never happen. You’re too good at your work to be replaced. I know that.”
She reached for him but he stood up. “Seriously, Beth, I better shower and go give out some speeding tickets.”
“Your deputy can do that.”
“Billy? He doesn’t like doing that to people. He’s missing a mean streak.”
“But you’re not?”
“No. I’m perverse.”
She got out of bed on the other side. “Not too perverse for me.” The sheet and spread were tangled up with a stack of folded clothes that had been on the floor near the wall.
Westerley padded barefoot into the bathroom and took a quick, cold shower.
When he returned to the bedroom, the bed was stripped and the stack of clothes was on top of the mattress pad. Beth was wearing a pair of Levi’s cutoffs and a blouse she hadn’t bothered to button. Something to cover her until he was gone, then she’d take her own shower and get dressed. She was holding a slip of white paper out for Westerley to see.
“Is that a thank-you note?” Westerley said, still rubbing his hair dry with the towel from the bathroom.
“It’s a restaurant receipt.”
He stopped rubbing with the towel. “And?”
“It’s from a restaurant in New York, dated two weeks ago. When Link was supposed to be in Houston.”
Westerley took the receipt from her and looked at it. Someone had paid cash for a thirty-six-dollar meal at a restaurant called Dannay’s on Tenth Street. He handed the receipt back to her.
“It was in the pocket of Link’s suit,” Beth said, motioning with her head toward the stack of clothes on the bed. There was a dark blue suit at the bottom of the stack. “I was gonna take it to the cleaners with the rest of those clothes and thought I should go through the pockets. Last time I took one of his suits to be cleaned, I left a ballpoint pen in one of the pockets and it made a stain.”