Fear City

by F. Paul Wilson

  Another set of double doors admitted them to a chilled, white-tiled room lined with drawers stacked three high. Jack noticed a drain in the center of the concrete floor.

  “Okay, no dillydallying,” Clarkson said, leading the way. “We don’t have a whole lot of time. She’s in row twelve, middle drawer.”

  He stopped before a row, grabbed the handle on the middle drawer and pulled. Wheels squeaked as the drawer rolled out, revealing another black body bag. The head bulge was near the front of the drawer.

  “Ready?” Clarkson said as he grasped the zipper pull.

  Speech was impossible with his tongue stuck to the top of his mouth, so Jack simply nodded.

  “Just remember what I said about being cool.”

  Jack clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms as the zipper slid down. Clarkson pushed back the sides, revealing what was left of a woman’s face.

  Jack found his voice but could barely hear himself. “Christ!”

  Her eyes, her nose, and most of her facial skin, including her lips, had been burned and disfigured with acid, leaving her unrecognizable. But her hair … her matted hair was Cristin’s color, and her ears were like Cristin’s, but Jack couldn’t be sure. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to her ears?

  “More,” he croaked. “Zip it down.”

  Clarkson complied, revealing a stitched-up Y incision running from her collarbone, above her breasts, joining at the sternum, and running straight down to her pelvis. Her skin seemed to be punctured everywhere. Especially her knees. He took only a quick glance at her ragged wrist stumps.

  “The ME posted her first thing this morning,” Clarkson said.

  Even distorted by death and water immersion and multiple punctures, Jack knew those breasts. He knew that black patch of neatly trimmed pubic hair. He felt a sob building in his chest, working its way to his throat.

  “Turn her over,” he managed to say around it.

  “You okay?”

  Jack made a frantic turning motion with his hand.

  Clarkson said, “You’re gonna have to help me.”

  Jack didn’t want to touch her. He wanted to remember what she felt like when warm and alive. Not like this. But he forced himself.

  Her flesh was hard and cold as they gently rolled her onto her side. Jack lifted the back of her hair to reveal the rectangle of raw flesh where the skin had been removed.

  No question … exactly the size of her ama-gi.

  Finally the sob escaped. Just one.

  “Be cool. Be cool.”

  Jack could only nod.

  How could this lifeless lump be Cristin, the woman he’d pleasured and who’d pleasured him every Sunday for two years? Cristin with the easy smile, the giggly laugh, the potty mouth.

  “I’m guessing she had a pretty distinctive tattoo there because whoever did this took facial recognition and fingerprints off the table as far as identifying her, and so they took that as well. The other guy wanted to see her neck too.”

  Jack’s head snapped up. “Wait. You brought another guy here? What other guy?”

  “Oh, I didn’t bring him. He came officially. Some foreigner, I think. Said one of his secretaries was missing, was worried this might be her. After looking he said he’d never seen her before, but he was lying.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he asked for a look at the back of her neck too. I caught his reaction when he saw that missing skin. He knew her. Just like you know her.”

  “What kind of foreigner?”

  “He was from the British embassy or something, I think. Sounded a little like that first James Bond guy.”

  “Sean Connery?”

  “That’s the one. Same accent, only more so.”

  “A Scot?”

  “If you say so. Called me ‘laddie.’”

  Jack looked down at Cristin again. None of those stab wounds on her back.

  “Seen enough?” Clarkson said.

  Jack was about to say yes when he noticed something on her right buttock. It looked like letters had been scratched into the skin there.

  “What’s this?”

  “The ME says it was done with a fingernail. He thinks she scratched it there while she was being tortured. But he can’t say for sure since we don’t have her fingers.”

  Jack leaned closer. The letters were difficult to identify in her pale, dead flesh, but he could swear they formed the word DAMATO.

  “Does that say…?”

  “Yeah. Same as the senator, only without the little thingamajig.”

  “Apostrophe.”

  “Yeah. The cops were very interested in that.”

  Senator Alfonse D’Amato was in the papers enough so that even Jack, despite his aversion to political news, knew who he was. Especially after the all-night filibuster he’d conducted last fall. Earned lots of ink with that.

  “They can’t really think…”

  “The ME says she worked hard to scratch that into her skin. Must mean something. Help me flip her back. We’ve been here too long already.”

  Jack helped return her to her original position and was again taken by the number of wounds on her front side. Bile rose as he realized she must have suffered the tortures of the damned before she died.

  “What … what did they use on her?”

  “That’s one of the things the cops are holding back. The ME thinks the killer tied her to a post somewhere and tortured her by using her for target practice. Those cuts are from arrows.”

  Arrows? Jack flashed back to a house on the Outer Banks where a couple of guys threatened to kill Tony if Jack didn’t drive a truck north for them. One of them brought out a bow and arrows and was readying to put a shaft through Tony’s heart when Jack agreed.

  Reggie …

  Everything went dark for a few seconds. When his vision cleared he took one last look at that ruined face, then zipped the bag closed to the top.

  “How…” His throat felt thick. “How did she finally die?”

  “Arrow through the heart.”

  A quick end after what had probably seemed an eternity of agony.

  Why would anyone torture and kill Cristin like that? Had someone made a pass and she turned him down? What? What? What?

  Reggie … if indeed it was Reggie … why? He was a sociopath and a killer—he’d been ready to sink a truck full of little girls in the water off Staten Island—but was he this sick? He was connected to the Arab slave brokers. Was this connected to them?

  “What kind of sick fuck does this?”

  Sliding the drawer closed with a bang, Clarkson said, “The ME thinks it was some sort of interrogation because the only part of her body left completely undamaged was her mouth. That says whoever did this wanted her able to talk.”

  “The acid?”

  “Done postmortem. Same with the hand amputations.”

  Thank God for small favors.

  “Whoever it was must have learned what he wanted then.”

  What could Cristin know that would lead someone to do this to her?

  “I guess so. Just what he did to her knees alone would have been enough to make anyone talk.”

  Jack had noticed how they’d seemed especially chewed up.

  “What did he do?”

  “Looked like he kept shooting arrows into them, on either side of the patella, twisting them around, then ripping them out and shooting again.”

  Jack shuddered as he tried to imagine what it would feel like to have just one arrow in his knee joint.

  “Come on,” Clarkson said, heading toward the doors. “People will be getting back from lunch soon. You’ve gotta be gone.”

  “What about … rape?” Jack said as he followed.

  “You really want to know?”

  “No, but I need to.”

  “Front and back, if you know what I mean.”

  Jack knew.

  The darkness was expanding again.

  Clarkson waited for him in the locker roo
m while he changed back into his own clothes. In a daze, Jack followed him to the elevators and soon he was back in the Bellevue lobby. He walked outside and headed up First Avenue. At the first phone booth he found he dropped a few coins and convinced the operator to connect him to the Astoria precinct. He didn’t know the number.

  “I know the name of the Ditmars Dahlia,” he said when they put him through to homicide. “She’s Cristin Ott. O-t-t. She’s from Tabernacle, New Jersey.”

  Then he hung up. He didn’t want Cristin in that drawer any longer than she had to be. He’d never met her parents but they deserved to know she was dead. They didn’t deserve the details. He hoped someone spared them those.

  Cold, numb, he flagged a taxi and took it back uptown. Half-formed questions swirled through his head as the cab cruised up First Avenue, passing the UN along the way. Celebrations … Rebecca Olesen … a guy with a Sean Connery accent … arrows …

  Reggie? How on Earth could he connect to Cristin? But if by some stretch it had been Reggie, then Arabs too? What could the Arabs possibly have against poor Cristin? What could they think she knew?

  Finally his apartment. Home. No message from Ernie on the machine. He took a beer from the fridge and brought it to the round oak table he’d refinished when he first moved in. He didn’t open the bottle. Instead he sat and sobbed.

  4

  Hadya was walking home from the bakery along Virginia Avenue when she spotted the old green car again. She was standing on the corner of Mallory—she lived three houses in on the other side—when it passed. Again, Kadir was in the front passenger seat next to the same stranger. But this time they were headed south on Mallory and Kadir wasn’t talking. He kept looking over his shoulder, almost as if he was worried about being followed.

  Then she noticed the large canisters in the backseat. Was he looking at them? Why would he be concerned about them?

  Unless they contained something dangerous.

  Oh, no. Oh, Kadir, please don’t be planning something crazy.

  She began to hurry along the sidewalk, trying to keep the car in sight, to see where it was going. It didn’t turn off but remained on Mallory until it was lost from sight.

  Hadya balled her fists in frustration. If only she could follow. But she didn’t have a car—didn’t even know anyone who had one except Uncle Ferran, and he’d never lend it to her. She didn’t have a driver’s license.

  But she would find a way to follow her brother. And if she discovered that he was cooking up terror, she would find a way to stop him.

  5

  Jack had taken a shower—he’d felt a need to wash off the morgue—and was about to head out to Julio’s when the phone rang. He grabbed it before the answering machine could pick up.

  “Ernie?”

  “Yeah,” said the nasal voice. “Hey, how’d you know it was me?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  Truth was, nobody ever called him. Except maybe Cristin back when—oh, jeez, Cristin. Cristin would never call anybody again.

  “It took some doing, but I tracked that plate for you.”

  “W-what?”

  “Something wrong with the connection? You’re voice sounds funny.”

  He cleared his throat. “Sorry. What’ve you got?”

  “It’s registered to Celebrations.”

  “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was afraid of that. An East Thirty-ninth Street address?”

  “You got it. What were you looking for instead?”

  “Someplace in Westchester.”

  “Sorry. Manhattan only. I didn’t know you was into that sorta thing.”

  “What sorta thing?”

  “Call girls.”

  Jack nearly dropped the receiver. “What? Did I hear you right? Did you just say call girls?”

  “Told you it was a bad connection. Yeah. Escorts, whatever. High-end stuff.”

  Jack eased himself into the nearest chair. Cristin … a call girl?

  “No way.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I’m … I’m shocked.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “How am I supposed to know something like that?”

  “Well, I know you know Abe, and from our transactions I figure you’ve got at least one foot in the Life.”

  Jack guessed Ernie was naturally oblique about his business, and it took a second to translate. By “transactions” he obviously meant Jack’s purchase of phony IDs, and by “the Life” he meant the wrong side of the law.

  “And so you’re saying people in the Life tend to know other people in the Life?”

  “Or have transactions with them.”

  “You’ve had transactions with Celebrations?”

  “I’ve had referrals.”

  “So this ‘escort’ thing isn’t just rumor.”

  “Nope. Word is Becky treats her girls right, that’s why she has the best.”

  Rebecca Olesen … somehow Jack didn’t see her as a Becky, but …

  “Thanks, Ernie. I’ll stop by with something tomorrow.”

  “Any time, Jack. Any time.”

  Jack hung up and sat there, unable to move from the chair.

  Cristin … a prostitute? How had he missed that? How could he be so clueless?

  He straightened in the chair. Had Abe known?

  6

  “This is where you must park the truck,” Nidal Ayyad said.

  He had driven Kadir across the Hudson in his Ford Taurus and taken him to the World Trade Center. He entered the basement parking garage of Tower One—the north tower—and wound his way down to the B2 level where he found a space and nosed into it.

  “Why here?” Kadir said, looking at the blank concrete wall facing them.

  “I have reviewed diagrams and they show that this is the southeast corner of the north tower, where it is closest to the south tower.” He pointed through the windshield. “When the explosion blows out this wall and the girders behind it, the tower will tilt toward the weakened point. All it takes is the slightest tilt, no more than a few degrees, to exert enormous leverage on the already damaged beams. They will crumple further, increasing the tilt. Each tower is more than a quarter of a mile high. With a damaged base, the tilt will pass the point of no return at somewhere between three and five degrees. And then the tower can do nothing else but fall. And because the damage occurred at this spot, it will fall to the southeast, directly into its sister tower, bringing her down too.”

  Kadir suppressed the giggle that bubbled into his throat as he pictured the event: one colossal domino tipping, toppling into another, the two going down in a stupendous, roaring blast of smoke and flame and flying debris. A deafening, mind-numbing disaster.

  He had dreamed of this for years. Now it would come true.

  “You are sure of this?”

  Ayyad had a degree in engineering—but in chemical engineering. How well did he know structural engineering?

  “With Allah’s guidance, it will happen. We are fashioning a very powerful bomb. The concrete floor of each level of the garage is eleven inches thick. The bomb will blow out levels above and below, but most of its force will be directed against that wall. This tower will fall, I am sure of it. The only thing I cannot predict with the utmost surety is whether it will make enough of a direct hit on the south tower to bring that down too. A little variation this way, a little variation that way in angle of fall and it may only damage it.”

  Even so. To bring down one tower and damage the other … Kadir could be satisfied with that.

  Ayyad put the car into reverse.

  “Remember this spot. Anywhere near the center of this wall. If there’s no empty spot, park behind the cars. If anybody notices and complains, no matter. There will not be enough time for anyone to move it.”

  Kadir doubted he could forget if he tried.

  7

  Abe’s eyebrows rose almost to where his hairline would have been had it not receded to the t
op of his head. “I should know about call girls and escorts?”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no.”

  “That’s a no, a nein, a nyet.”

  “And you never heard of Celebrations before I mentioned it?”

  “No, nein, nyet. Why do you think I would keep it from you?”

  “To spare my feelings?”

  “Spare, shmare. If you didn’t know already, you were going to find out sooner or later. For me, sooner is better. I would have told you.”

  Jack had no choice but to believe him because Abe had never steered him wrong.

  “Why didn’t I see it?”

  “You were too close maybe?”

  “Maybe. But you were right when you questioned why she’d never invited me to one of her ‘events.’ Now I have the answer: There weren’t any. Why didn’t I suspect?”

  He remembered the day he’d followed her from FIT to her apartment, and hung outside all day until he watched her get into a limo with a well-heeled, middle-aged couple. A couple.

  Abe said, “Maybe love really is blind.”

  “Wasn’t love.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Like. Very heavy like.” He pounded a fist on the counter. “Now I see why she kept our lives so separate—easier to maintain the lies.”

  “So now to someone else she’s lying.”

  The words struck Jack like a low blow. A lump swelled in his throat.

  “Aw, Abe. She won’t be lying to anyone. Ever.”

  Abe stared at him for a long moment. “The Ditmars Dahlia?”

  Jack could only nod.

  Abe came around the counter and put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. That must have been terrible for you.”

  It took everything Jack had to keep from losing it and bawling like a baby. Anger saved him. Anger at himself. He’d returned from the morgue a ball of grief around a core of rage. But the rage had no target until he’d heard the truth about Celebrations. It leaped at Cristin for lying to him, because he found anger easier. He’d always been more comfortable with anger than grief.

  And that anger had numbed the pain of her death … but for only so long.

  “You would have loved her, Abe,” he said when his throat unlocked. “So full of life, enjoying every moment and yet planning for the future. I want to find whoever did this, Abe.”