Footsteps of the Hawk

by Andrew Vachss

  Belinda was a few blocks away. On foot. And alone, far as the Prof could tell. Okay.

  I spotted her before she saw me. A medium–sized woman who looked shorter than she was because of her chunky build. Wearing a baggy pink sweatshirt over a pair of dark jeans, white running shoes on her feet, a white canvas purse on a sling over one shoulder. She walked with a beat cop's "I can handle it" strut, hands swinging loose and free at her sides, chestnut hair tied behind her with a white ribbon.

  I slipped out of the Plymouth, closed the door quietly, the cellular phone in my jacket pocket. Then I crossed the street to intersect her path. She saw me coming, waved a hand in greeting.

  I closed the gap between us, eyes only on Belinda, as if I didn't even consider the possibility she wouldn't be alone.

  "Hello, stranger," she said, flashing a smile.

  "We can walk it from here," I replied.

  A puzzled expression flitted over her face. Then she shrugged, holding out one hand. I took it—a soft, chubby hand, the pad of her palm a deep, meaty slab.

  We walked along in silence for a minute, not in a hurry. Couple of lovers coming home after a late–night downtown party, it might look like.

  The question was: who was looking? If the cellular phone in my pocket rang, I'd know we had company—maybe Max can't talk, but he can punch numbers on a keypad. And in this part of town, he was even more invisible than the Prof.

  "I tried—" she said.

  "Later," I told her, tugging just a slight bit on her hand. She came along, not resisting.

  The loft was on the third story of the building on Mott Street. I know Mama owned the whole building—that story about renting it as a crash pad for visitors was just her way of maintaining the façade. You ask Mama, she'd tell you she was poor, didn't know what the hell she was going to do in her old age. I used the key she lent me to open the downstairs door, made a sweeping gesture with my left hand to show Belinda she should go up the stairs ahead of me. She put a lot into the effort—hard not to admire those fine flesh–gears meshing. A woman who can't look good climbing a flight of stairs doesn't have a chance on level ground.

  At the second–floor landing, I made the same gesture…and watched the same way. The stairwells were lit with low–wattage bulbs in little wire cages—just enough to see by.

  On the third floor, we came to an orange steel door with some Chinese characters painted in black in a narrow band down the left side. I used the downstairs key to open the door, ushered her inside.

  "Good morning," a lyrical voice greeted us. Oriental, with a faint trace of a French accent. Immaculata was calmly seated in a straight chair of black lacquered wood standing between a matched set of end tables of the same material. She was dressed in her Suzie Wong outfit: red silk sheath with a Mandarin collar, slit all the way up to mid–thigh, dragon–claw fake fingernails in a matching shade, heavy stage makeup. If Belinda was like most Europeans, she'd never recognize Mac's face if she ever saw it again.

  "Good morning," I greeted her, bowing slightly.

  If Belinda was taken aback, she gave no sign, standing silently to one side.

  "Come with me," I told the lady cop, walking across the gleaming hardwood floor to a closed door. I opened that door, and Belinda followed me inside.

  "Have a seat," I told her, gesturing toward a black leather easy chair. She sat down. So did I, in a matching chair a few feet away Nobody ever really slept here. Mama had designed the negotiation suite herself—no one could gain status by claiming a certain piece of furniture—every piece had its twin.

  "The reason I—" she began.

  "Don't say anything yet," I stopped her. "Just listen, okay? Don't waste my time. This isn't about a date. I may not know who you are, but I know what you do. For a living, I mean. And I know this much too: you're a woman. A prideful woman. This was about a date, you would have stopped calling a long time ago."

  "It was, at first. Then I—"

  "Let me finish, tell you what the rules are down here. I don't do auditions for the police, understand? You want to talk, I got to know you're the only one I'm talking to."

  She made a face, tossed her canvas purse over to me, and crossed her arms into a good imitation of a push–up bra. I stood up, walked over to a flat table in the corner. The table was covered with black felt. A telescoping wand held a white quartz bulb. Mama's guests used it to examine jewelry—it would work just as well for this.

  I took a pair of thin white cotton gloves from a flat drawer inside the examining table and slipped them onto my hands. Then I emptied the purse onto the table and flicked on the observation lamp.

  First, a chrome cylinder of lipstick—Rose Dawn, it said on the bottom. I uncapped it, cranked the soft pink tube all the way out, shook it to see if it rattled. No.

  Next, a dark–brown leather folding wallet. Inside, an NYPD gold shield—a detective's badge. The photo ID confirmed it.

  A ring of keys—looked like car, apartment, couple of others…storage locker maybe? safe–deposit box?

  Some crumpled bills, less than a hundred total. Subway tokens. A pair of sparkling earrings for pierced ears—probably CZ—no way to tell without a jeweler's loupe.

  An orange pencil–stick of eyeliner.

  A blue steel .38. S&W four–incher. I popped the cylinder, turned it upside down to catch the cartridges as they spilled out, set them aside.

  A cellophane packet of tissues, half–empty.

  Three condoms in individual foil packs, lubricated.

  A brown plastic vial with a child–proof top—no label. I tapped the contents into my palm. No mistaking the telltale green–and–white capsules even without the name and dosage on each one—Prozac.

  "How many of these you take every day?" I asked her, holding up the vial so she could see what I was asking about.

  'Two," she replied in a flat voice. "One when I get up, one around noon. Okay?"

  I nodded. It was the right answer—a forty–milligram dose was the usual maintenance weight, and you shouldn't take that stuff before you go to sleep. Whatever was depressing her, she'd had it for a while. Had it deep.

  A picture postcard showing a sandy beach, palm trees, a smiling golden–skinned little girl waving at the camera, naked from the waist up. On the back, in a childish scrawl: "You should have come with us!" Signed: "Love, Gaby. From Baby Beach, Pattaya."

  A notebook with a white vinyl cover, complete with attached ballpoint pen. I leafed through it. Nothing but names and phone numbers—I didn't see mine. In the back of the notebook, a calendar. None of the dates were marked.

  I put everything back, tossing it in the way I'd found it. "It looks okay to me," I told her. "But what we're gonna do, just to be safe, I'm gonna put this in a box. Outside the room. Come on, I'll show you.

  She followed right behind as I went back into the main room, where Immaculata waited. The box is about the size of a thirty–gallon aquarium only it's made of steel. I opened the lid to show her that the walls were a couple of inches thick. The lid itself was padded too. I dropped her purse inside, closed the lid, and threw a toggle switch on the side of the box. A red LED glowed.

  "What's that mean?" Belinda asked.

  "It means that it's working. Even if you had a recorder inside the box, all it would pick up is interference noise, understand?"

  "Yeah!" She grinned. "Pretty slick. You do this kind of thing a lot?"

  "Enough," I told her. No point explaining why Mama had a use for such devices in her various businesses.

  I walked back into the room I was using, closed the door behind her.

  "Okay," I said. "That takes care of the purse. But there's one more thing…That's why Rosita is out there."

  "Rosita? The Chinese woman?"

  "Her mother was from Brazil. Dad from Macao," I said, embroidering the lie to give it some texture.

  "Oh. So what…?"

  "You go in the other room. With Rosita. And you take off your clothes. All of them. You leave the c
lothes there—she'll give you a robe to put on. Then, when you come back in here, I'll know you're the only person I'm talking to. See?"

  Belinda stood up, started walking over to me, hauling the pink sweatshirt over her head in one motion. Underneath she had on one of those workout bras, black jersey with X–straps across her back. She unzipped the jeans, tugged them down over her hips. Then she bent forward from the waist, untied each sneaker, pulled them off, stepped out of the jeans. Her panties were the same black jersey material as the bra, only their waistband was white.

  "This far enough?" she challenged.

  "No," I told her. "You sure you don't want—?"

  She lifted the bra past her breasts, pulled it over her head in one flowing motion, and dropped it on the floor. Then she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of the panties, pulled them all the way down. She stepped out of them with one foot, used the other to hold the puddle of black and flicked it away with a half–kicking motion. Her body was thick, muscular, breasts rounded but not meeting in the middle, stomach slightly washboarded. Her thighs looked as hard as marble. She stood without a trace of self–consciousness, eyes on mine.

  "You want the socks too?" she asked, a sarcastic smile on her face.

  "Yeah."

  She stood easily on one foot, pulled off one white sock. Did the same with the other. Then she held her hands high over her head, turned slowly one full rotation. A port–wine stain showed on her right hip, a dark mole under her left shoulder blade. Her buttocks were wide and deep, with a sharply cut definition just where they met her upper thighs. It was the first thing Clarence had noticed about her…the last good thing.

  "Seen enough?" she asked.

  "It's not about seeing," I told her: I took the white cotton gloves off, put them aside. Then I sprinkled some baby powder over my right hand and pulled on a latex surgeon's glove. I slapped a tube of K–Y jelly on the tabletop, looked over at her, waiting. Bright circles of red broke out on her cheeks. "You—" she started to say.

  "I'm not playing," I said quietly. "Someone's gonna check. You want me or you want Rosita?"

  She spun on her heel and padded out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  I was halfway through my third cigarette when the door opened again. Belinda entered, wearing a jade silk kimono. Immaculata was right behind her, nodding to me that it was all clear.

  "Sorry about that," I said to Belinda as she sat down, pulling the kimono closed around her breasts with one hand. "I had to be sure."

  "You're a very cautious man, Mr. Burke," she said, tossing her head to throw some of her chestnut hair out of her eyes.

  "But not a disrespectful one," I replied, warning her. "Now, tell me what you want."

  "Could I have one of your cigarettes first?"

  I stepped over to where she was seated, handed her the pack. She shook one loose, put it in her mouth. I snapped a wooden match alive, held it down to her. She dragged deeply, holding the kimono closed tightly in front of her. I could feel her eyes, checking where I was looking—not where she'd guessed. Didn't know if she'd recognize where I was looking—if you haven't looked there yourself, you wouldn't recognize it—the middle distance.

  I put a small milk–glass ashtray on the arm of her chair, went back to where I'd been sitting.

  She puffed on the cigarette like she expected more out of it than she was getting, eyes slitting slightly from the smoke. I watched those eyes—watched for that nobody's–home flatness. I didn't see it.

  "There's a man," she said slowly "An innocent man. He's in prison—for a crime he didn't commit. I want to get him out. I want to set him free."

  "Hire a lawyer," I told her, uninterested.

  "He has a lawyer. A good one. Raymond Fortunato. Maybe you know him…?"

  "I've heard of him," I said, not giving anything away Fortunato was a mob lawyer, specializing in disappearing witnesses and juiced juries…not the guy you'd want if you needed a strong appellate brief. He cost too. Cost big.

  "It was a one–witness ID. Not the victim…a woman who lived in the same building. She said she saw him going out of the apartment."

  "After he did what?"

  "He didn't do anything. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

  "Spare me the violins, all right? You want to play it cute, that's okay. But tell me what happened to the victim."

  "She was murdered."

  "Ah."

  "Not just murdered," Belinda said, leaning forward, forgetting about keeping the kimono closed. Or maybe not. "She was splattered. All over the walls."

  "Shotgunned?"

  "A razor. A straight razor."

  "The woman on University Place. About a year and a half, two years ago?"

  "Yes. You read about it in the papers?"

  "Sure," I replied—it was close enough to the truth.

  "She'd been raped. First. Then the killer…cut her up."

  "And they made a homicide against this guy with nothing more than somebody seeing him coming out of her apartment?" I asked, letting an organ stop of sarcastic disbelief creep into my voice.

  "There was more…I guess. His…fingerprints. But he said he knew the woman—he'd been inside the place before. A few weeks before. When he picked her up. In a bar. Right around the corner.

  "And…?"

  "And there was a…'signature.' At least that's what they called it."

  "If they were talking signature, there had to be more than one."

  "That's just it! They didn't have more than one. Just that woman. They didn't have any more until…"

  "What was the signature?" I interrupted, trying to get her focused.

  "A piece of ribbon," she said. "Red ribbon. Nothing special. The kind you could buy in any dime store."

  "And the killer left this with the woman? On her body? What?"

  "He left it…inside of her."

  "And they found some of this ribbon when they tossed this guy's place?"

  "Yes! But it's a common type—you can get it anywhere. It doesn't mean anything by itself."

  "Sounds shaky to me. What happened, the jury didn't buy his story?"

  "He didn't get to tell his story. He didn't have Fortunato then, he had a Legal Aid. He had priors."

  "But not for sex cases?" I asked her.

  "No."

  "What then?"

  "Assaults, like. He was…crazy, once. He was 730'ed out years ago. They said he tried to push a woman onto the subway tracks."

  Every working cop knows about 730 exams. The court can force any defendant into a psych evaluation, not to see if he's crazy—that wouldn't be any big deal—but to see if he's competent to stand trial. "If he was found unfit, they couldn't use that later," I said.

  "I know," she answered. "That was only that one time. But there were a couple of other times too. And then he was found guilty. On other things. Before he went into the hospital. But he's been okay for years. Years! There was a perjury rap too…something about a corporation he was in charge of…I don't know too much about it."

  "So what makes you so sure he was bum–beefed on the homicide? He don't sound like any prize package to me."

  "Since he's been away…there's been other murders…two others. But he was never charged with them…how could he be?"

  "Two more murders?"

  "Two more murders. Two women. Both raped. And, listen, both with the same signature. So how could—?"

  "Copycat crimes," I interrupted.

  "Burke, the signature, it never made the papers."

  "A red ribbon…"

  "Inside them," she said, watching me steadily, hands on her knees.

  "So why don't you…"

  "I can't," she said flatly. "I can't do anything. The other murders, they're in an open file. You ask the detectives who caught it, they'll tell you it's still working. They've got two homicides. Linked, you understand? You know the way the Department does it—three all–the–same crimes, it's a Pattern Case. Three big crimes, then the papers give the gu
y a name…like the Silver Gun Rapist or the Subway Stalker or some other bullshit thing. And then the fucking brass calls a press conference and appoints a task force, just so the public thinks we're serious all of a sudden."

  She was good at it, mixing truth in with the lies, making you swallow the whole pie if you wanted a taste. "When did these others happen?" I asked.

  "Why?"

  "Just tell me."

  "The first one was right after he was arrested. Maybe two, three weeks later. The next one was a few months later. Before he came to trial."

  "So why didn't the Legal Aid—"

  "They didn't know, I'm telling you! By the time I found this out, he was already sentenced."

  "So tell Fortunato. He can subpoena—"

  "Burke, I did. I did that. And you know what he found when he looked in the file? Nothing! Not a thing. The whole business? About the red ribbons? It was gone. Wiped out. Far as NYPD's concerned, it was different guys, understand?"

  "No. I don't fucking understand. Why go to all this? I know how the Man works…They pop some chump for one burglary, they throw every damn Unsolved they got on the books at him, right? He pleads to the whole mess, they go light on the sentence, everybody's happy. But they can't do that here—the crimes happened after he was inside, right? No way he got bail on a rape–murder."

  "That's right. He didn't make bail. And I don't know why they're doing it—I just know that they are. And I know George didn't do it."

  "George?"

  "George Piersall. That's his name. I know…a lot about him now."

  "Because…"

  "Because I've been visiting him," she said, tilting her chin up defiantly. "At the prison. In New Jersey. I told him—"

  "Hold up a minute. If the crime took place here, how come he's locked down in Jersey?"

  "For assault," she said, her head cocked, listening to my breathing, checking if it changed. " Sex assault, all right? It was across the river, just the other side of the Tunnel. At a truck stop. The…victim was a hooker. She said George took her to a motel. That's where it…happened."