Doppelgangster

by Laura Resnick

  “My goodness! Do you realize, Esther, that we have learned something useful, after all, from interviewing the doppelgangster? Or, rather, you have. This ‘girl talk’ is most informative!”

  “But Buonarotti… Is he the doppelgangster-making type? Is he the subtle, inventive, devious sorcerer you’ve talked about?” I shook my head. “I just don’t see that.”

  “No. Whereas he is well-suited to be the accomplice whose role is to finish the work, so to speak. And evidently he asked his partner in crime to duplicate the widow,” Max said. “I suppose her violent death might contribute to the eruption of tribal warfare, considering that Lucky is so fond of her—”

  “Apparently Don Victor is also fond of her.” I shrugged. “And, who knows, perhaps Don Carmine Corvino is fond of her, too. She married two Corvinos, after all.”

  “So the mysterious partner might see a benefit in cooperating with Don Michael Buonarotti’s demand, which would explain why he complied. The widow’s murder might push the two families even further toward the war that our adversary is trying to bring about. Even though, for Don Michael, the duplication was inspired by personal motives.” Max thought it over and nodded. “A rejected and humiliated suitor, a violent man with a short temper and the capacity for brutal, opportunistic murder… Yes, if Don Michael is in league with the sorcerer, then the temptation would be irresistible to ask his colleague to duplicate the widow.”

  “Maybe you were right, Max.” My heart started pounding. “Maybe the solution is just around the corner. I mean, we’re saying…”

  “We’re saying,” Max said, “that we think Don Michael knows who’s creating the doppelgangsters.”

  “So how do we make a Mafia killer tell us what we want to know?”

  My phone rang, startling me. I pulled it out of my purse and looked at the LCD panel. “It’s Thack,” I said. It seemed as if I had been trying to talk to him since forever. “Probably calling to tell me the role on The Dirty Thirty that I wanted to audition for has already been filled by now.” I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

  “I meant to call you earlier, Esther, but it’s been another crazy day!” There was a lot of noise in the background.

  “Uh-huh.” I glanced at my watch and noticed it was past nine o’clock already.

  “A vodka tonic, please!”

  “What?”

  “I’m talking to the bartender,” Thack said. “It’s intermission at Long Day’s Journey Into Night on Long Island. My God, the things I do for my clients.”

  That explained the background noise. I knew that play. Everyone would be racing for the bar. And if Thack was there to watch a client’s performance, he couldn’t even leave early. He’d have to sit through the whole thing.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news,” Thack said.

  “I thought so,” I said with resignation.

  “But the good news,” he said gleefully, “outweighs the bad!”

  “There’s good news?” It was about time.

  “Absolutely! But bad news first. You didn’t get the part of the grad student on Dirty Thirty.”

  “No surprise there,” I muttered.

  “They liked your audition, but they just didn’t think you were right for the part.”

  “What?”

  “Hey, I said they liked your audition. So don’t obsess about the other half of what I said.”

  “But, Thack, I didn’t au—”

  “God, actors. You guys kill me. So insecure.”

  “But I—”

  “Hold on, Esther.” Evidently speaking to the bartender, he said, “Can I get ice and lime with that, please?” After a moment, he said to me, “Send help! I’m in a place where you have to ask for ice and lime with your vodka tonic.”

  “Thack, what are you—”

  “Where was I? Oh, right, so you didn’t get the part. But the Crime and Punishment casting director—oh, what’s his name? You know who I mean? The one who liked you last year but didn’t think you seemed like a killer? Anyhow—drumroll, please!—he wants you for a different guest role on Dirty Thirty.”

  I sat up straighter. “He does?”

  “Yes! It’s later in the season, an episode they haven’t finished casting yet. My notes are back at the office, so I don’t remember the exact shooting dates. I think it’s in July. Anyhow, Geraldo will call you next week with that information when the contract arrives.”

  “The contract? I’ve been hired?” I looked at Max with a big smile. “I’ve got the job?”

  “Yes! And it’s a bigger part than the grad student role was!”

  “Great!” I said, bouncing happily. A job! A real job! I wasn’t just a singing server anymore. I had a guest role lined up on a hit TV series! “What’s the part?”

  “You’re playing a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute.”

  I blinked. “I am?”

  “Yeah, they thought you were absolutely perfect for it!”

  “They did?”

  “I think it was the outfit.”

  “The outfit?”

  “Yeah, the guy says you wore a tight, low-cut black dress with a… oh, a little see-through jacket around your shoulders? Something like that.”

  “I what?“

  “And, as it turns out, it’s probably a good thing that when you called me yesterday to find out what time the audition was—”

  “I did?”

  “—you didn’t tell me what you were planning to wear.”

  “Oh, my God.” Cold horror washed through me.

  “Because I would’ve said it was the wrong outfit, since you were reading for the grad student role. But as it turns out things worked out great!” He chuckled. “Never give a good actor too much advice, that’s what I say. Trust their instincts.”

  “Thack! I… auditioned yesterday?”

  Max sat bolt upright. Our gazes met.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Thack said. “I just got my drink, and they’re already dimming the lights in the lobby for the next act! I’ve got to go back to my seat. I wonder if I can hide this glass in my pocket?”

  “Thack—”

  “Anyhow, congratulations, Esther! And Geraldo will call you next week after we get the contract.” He hung up.

  I sat there staring at the phone in my hand. I felt like icy ants were running all over me.

  “Esther?” Max touched my hand. “Esther. Tell me what happened.”

  “Max…” I heard my voice break with fear. “Max, I’ve been duplicated! The killer’s after me now!”

  22

  “Your double was wearing the same outfit that you wore the night we met Johnny Be Good in the church crypt?” Max said.

  “That’s what it sounds like, from Thack’s secondhand description.” It was the dress I had worn in doomed anticipation of a hot date with Lopez that night.

  “That was three days ago,” Max said. “If your double was created then, where has it been all this time?”

  “Well, yesterday, while I was looking for Vino Vincenzo in Brooklyn, it was going to my audition,” I said, feeling bitter. “Other than that, I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t created until yesterday,” Max mused. “Perhaps that why it hasn’t crossed your path yet.”

  “That… imposter managed to get my agent on the phone when I couldn’t,” I fumed. “And why on earth did it go to my audition in that dress?”

  “The physical form of the doppelgangsters seems to be fixed at the moment of their creation,” Max said. “It’s part of their temporary nature. They’re created be convincing, but not to last long, after all.”

  “And what kind of audition did my doppelgangster give that made them think I’m ‘absolutely perfect’ for the role of a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute?” I wondered.

  “So for some reason, although your double evidently didn’t start living your life until yesterday, its creation is derived from your life two days earlier. The day when you were wearing that outfit and first trying to
contact your agent about that audition.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “I’ve got the range. I can certainly play the role. But what did my doppelgangster do that made them look at me and see ‘junkie prostitute’? That’s all I’m wondering.”

  “Unless your doppelgangster did start living your life sooner, and yet somehow has not encountered you. Is that at all likely, though?”

  “I think I’m right for the role of a smart, fully clothed graduate student,” I said. “So what happened? Did the doppelgangster screw up the line reading?”

  “Esther, if we could focus on the problem at hand?” Max prodded.

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  “Overall, I suspect it’s a very good thing you didn’t go home last night.”

  “Oh, my God!” I gasped. “You think that thing was in my apartment last night? Maybe even sleeping in my bed?“

  “If it was indeed carrying on your normal existence to the best of its abilities, then I think that is entirely possible.”

  I shuddered in revulsion. “That’s just… wrong.”

  “You can’t go home,” he said decisively. “You can’t go to any of the places that comprise your normal life. The risk of encountering your perfect double is too great!”

  “Max, right now, this is the place that comprises my normal life. I’ve been here constantly lately. When I’m not in church, that is.”

  “Good heavens! You’re right! And the impulses that draw you here may well draw your doppelgangster here at any moment, too! I must find a way to keep it out!”

  “I have an idea,” I said suddenly.

  “Yes?”

  “Lopez wants to put me in protective custody. I’ll call him and tell him I’m ready to agree. I’ll tell him to send a squad car to my apartment to pick me up. They’ll take my double away and put it someplace where I won’t bump into it!”

  “What if your doppelgangster won’t go with them?”

  “Lopez may tell them to take me anyhow. He thinks I’m crazy or under the influence, right?” I nodded. “It’s worth a try.” I opened my cell phone and called Lopez.

  A split second after I heard his phone ringing, a phone in the bookstore started ringing.

  It wasn’t the usual heavy ring of the shop’s old-fashioned phone that was sitting nearby. Max and I looked at each other, puzzled, as the ringing continued.

  It seemed to be coming from one of the larger piles of debris on the floor. Max rose, crossed over to it, and stooped down to examine the feathery rubbish from which the ringing seemed to be emanating. He started brushing his hand through feathers, bird bones, and clumps of dirt. A few moments later, he grabbed something, then held up a ringing cell phone.

  I thought I recognized it. “Answer it.”

  He did. “Hello?”

  I heard his voice clearly on my own phone.

  “That’s Lopez’s phone.” I closed my cell phone and set it aside. “His usual one.” I had called it without thinking, accustomed to reaching him at that number. “The phone he said last night that he couldn’t find.”

  “Pardon?”

  I explained. Then I said, “If it was buried in that pile of doppelgangster leftovers, it must have been…”

  “On the doppelgangster when I beheaded it,” Max said.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why didn’t it disintegrate the way the gun did?”

  Max turned it over and over in his hands, frowning. “Because this… this is Detective Lopez’s cell phone. I mean to say, this is a real object that belongs to the real man.”

  “How did the doppelgangster get a hold of it?”

  “It could have been…” Max suddenly gave a sharp, jerky start and his eyes widened. “When did Detective Lopez lose his phone?”

  “Yesterday.” When I broke his prepaid cell phone, he said it was the second phone he had run through that day.

  “When yesterday? Did he say precisely?”

  “No, but uh… Let’s see.” I could tell from Max’s fierce frown of concentration that this was important. “Here, give me that.” I took the phone from him, opened it, and looked at the readout of outgoing calls. “When he called me here late yesterday afternoon to say he was in Brooklyn to investigate Danny’s death, I’m pretty sure he was calling me from this phone.” I vaguely remembered seeing his name on my phone’s LCD panel before I answered the call. “Yes, here it is. This was the phone he used.”

  I continued scrolling through the screen of outgoing calls that Lopez had made yesterday. “He called two other numbers during the next hour.” I didn’t recognize them, but they were presumably work-related, since he would still have been at the scene of the murder. “And here’s his call to the bookstore, when he hung up right after you answered. That’s the last call made from this phone.” I added, “When he called me later, while we were confronting his doppelgangster, he was using another phone by then. A spare.”

  Max’s chest started rising and falling rapidly. He took the phone back from me and stared intently at it. “He used this phone to call me. He was consumed with a desire to come here and confront us. Then he lost this phone…”

  “And this phone was on his doppelgangster when it came here to confront us,” I said.

  “God’s teeth!” Max said. “So that’s how it’s being done.”

  “How it’s… Max!” I grabbed his arm. “This means something? You know what’s going on now?”

  “This is very creative,” he said, clearly impressed. “I’ve been reading about doppelgangerism for days without coming across any suggestion whatsoever of such a thing! We are dealing with a most innovative and resourceful individual!” He shook his head, “You know, it’s really quite a shame that he uses his talents for Evil.”

  “He, who, Max?”

  “Whoever imbued this phone with mystical energy to create a perfect double of the detective—a duplicate of the man at the very moment that this object was taken from him.”

  “I don’t under… Imbued this ph… Wait. You’re saying that’s how it’s done?”

  Max nodded slowly, thinking aloud. “He acquires a token from the victim. Something he associates with him—or her. Something the victim possessed at the moment of existence which is re-created within the perfect double.”

  “He acquires?” I said. “You mean he steals, right? Because Lopez didn’t give someone his phone. He just couldn’t find it.”

  “Yes. Stealing the tokens seems most likely.”

  “Stealing… Oh, my God, that’s why that dress!” I said. “I left my black wrap—the little see-through jacket that went with my dress—at the church the evening that we met Johnny’s doppelgangster. I forgot it when we left. So I went back to the sit-down early the next night to get it. But it wasn’t in the crypt, and it wasn’t in the lost-and-found box…”

  “It was stolen!” Max looked excited.

  “The Widow Giacalona was there when I was asking for it. She said that a number of things had been stolen at church lately! She blamed young thugs and goombata… but then I got duplicated.”

  “We must find out what was taken from the widow,” he said, heading for the back of the shop.

  “I think I know!” I followed him as I recalled Elena’s appearance that afternoon at St. Monica’s. “Her necklace! That big cross. This afternoon at the church was the first time I’ve seen her without it.”

  Max paused at the door to the cellar. “And now her doppelgangster is wearing it. Excellent! I think I know what to do.”

  He went down the stairs, moving swiftly. I followed him.

  Elena’s perfect double looked up when we entered the laboratory. “Is this your entire plan?” she said in exasperation. “To keep me tied up in a basement? Don’t you think—”

  “Did Don Michael take your cross?” Max demanded.

  “What?”

  “I beg your pardon.” Max said. “I know this is a distasteful subject, but I gather he tried to force himself on you last night?” />
  “He’s a pig,” she said with disgust.

  “He manhandled you? Was rough with you?”

  “Yes. When I resisted him, he got angry.”

  “You struggled?”

  She nodded. “And he pulled my hair, shoved me around, tried to unzip my dress.”

  “He is a pig,” I said. And Lucky would kill him when he found out about this.

  “And your necklace?” Max said. “Your cross?”

  “It came off while I fought him.” She scowled, looking furious. “He picked it up and wouldn’t give it back. It was my mother’s. It’s a sacred symbol! And that stronzo wouldn’t give it back to me.”

  “So you kicked him down the stairs.”

  “Yes,” she said with dark satisfaction.

  “And what do you remember after that?” Max asked.

  She looked confused. “After that?”

  “After you kicked him down the stairs, and he went away,” Max said. “What happened next?”

  “Next? Next, next…” She looked puzzled as she thought about it.

  “Tell me the very next thing you can remember after that moment.”

  Elena seemed bewildered. “Next I… I came home today and found you in my apartment.”

  “Yes,” Max said. “That is indeed what happened next. To you.”

  He reached around her neck, grasped the silver chain that hung there, and snapped the clasp.

  “Max,” I said as he removed the necklace from her throat. The ornate cross glinted in the lamplight as it swung in his hand. “What are you doing?”

  Elena’s eyeballs rolled back in their sockets. Her head fell backward. Her whole body quivered. There was a small explosion, and a tower of feathers, bird bones, pebbles, and clumps of dirt collapsed all over the chair where, only a moment ago, the doppelgangster had been tied up.

  “The token used to create the doppelgangster is the only part of the creature that’s real,” Max explained. “Remove it, and the illusion disintegrates.”

  “Is there any more of that sherry?” I couldn’t stand sherry, but I had felt the distinct need for a soothing beverage, and sherry was all that Max had. “Pour me another glass.”