She glanced up and saw him. Her eyes widened.
"Will!" She wiped her hands on a dish towel and hugged him. "You're here! I can't believe it. You said you weren't coming!"
"Your little note changed my mind."
"I'm so glad!" She hugged him again. "This is great!"
As pleasant as the contact was, Will couldn't enjoy it right now.
He glanced left and right over the top of her head, searching the kitchen for the telephone. He spotted it next to the refrigerator—a wall phone.
How was he going to disconnect that?
Gently he pushed Lisl back to arm's length.
"Let me look at you," he said while his mind raced. A wall phone—it hadn't occurred to him. "You look great!"
Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She looked excited. And happy. So good to see her happy like this. But he had to do something about that phone. And now.
"You don't look so bad yourself," she said. She reached up and straightened his tie. "But I can tell you're not used to one of these."
"Can I use your phone?" he said.
Her brow furrowed. "I thought you didn't like phones."
"I never said that. I said I just don't have one." He reached over and lifted the receiver. "That's why I'd like to use yours."
"Actually it's Rafe's."
"Just a local call."
"I didn't mean that. Go right ahead. He won't mind."
She turned back to the oven. While Lisl inspected the progress of her canapes, Will pressed the heel of his free hand under the base of the wall phone and pushed up. It resisted so he leaned his body into it. If he could get it free he could—
Suddenly the base came loose and popped off the wall with a clatter. He glanced around and found Lisl staring at him.
"What on earth—?"
He smiled sheepishly. He didn't have to fake embarrassment—he wished he could have been a little more subtle about this.
"It's okay. I'm just not used to these things. Don't worry. I'll get it back on its plate."
He saw that the base was connected to the wall by a three-inch coil of jack wire. He quickly unplugged the wall end, then reset the base back onto the wall plate. He listened to the receiver. Dead.
"The line's busy," he told Lisl as he hung up the receiver. "Can I try again feiter?"
"Sure."'
"How many phones does he have?"
"Three. There's one out in the living room and one upstairs in the…" Her voice trailed off. "Did you meet Rafe yet?"
"No. I just got here."
"As soon as these are done I'll introduce you." Her smile was bright with anticipation. "I can't wait for you to meet him."
"Great. Uh, where's the men's room?"
"Right around the comer."
"Be right back."
Will ducked around the corner, spotted the stairs, and ran up to the second story. He glanced in an open door, a bedroom, all in white, the double bed littered with coats, and spotted the phone on a nightstand. Seconds later he was on his way back down to the first floor, light of step, light of heart. All three phones were disabled. Now he could relax a little and try to enjoy himself.
"There you are!" Lisl said, catching him in the hallway as he approached the kitchen. She had her arm crooked around the elbow of a slim young man. "Here's the person I've wanted you to meet for months now."
Lisl introduced Rafe Losmara. Black hair and mustache, fine features, piercing eyes. His open-collared white shirt and white slacks—the same white as Lisl's dress—emphasized his dark complexion. Will realized then that these two were a real couple. And they were letting everybody know.
As he shook Rafe's hand, Will experienced a powerful sensation of deja vu. The feeling had tickled him before when he had seen Rafe at long distance, but here, close up, it was almost overwhelming.
"Have we ever met before?" Will said.
Rafe smiled. It was dazzling, charming.
"No. I don't think so. Do I look familiar?"
"Very. I just can't place you."
"Maybe we've seen each other around campus."
"No. It's not that. I get the feeling it was years ago."
"I grew up in the Southwest. Ever been there?"
"No."
Rafe's smile broadened. "Perhaps it was in another life."
Will nodded slowly, searching his memory.
"Perhaps."
Another life…
Before coming to N.C., Will had spent over a year on New Providence and the surrounding islands; most of that time was lost to him. That had been another life of sorts. v
"Have you ever been to the Bahamas?" he asked Rafe.
"Not yet, but I'd like to."
Will shrugged and said, "I guess we'll just have to leave it as a mystery for now. But I'm glad to meet you. Lisl's told me a lot about you."
"All of it good, I hope," Rafe said. N
"All of it very good."
Rafe slipped his arm around Lisl's waist and hugged her against his side.
"She's told me a lot about you too. Why don't you stick around after this is over and we'll sit down and get to know each other. Right now I've got to make sure everyone is fed and watered." He gave Lisl a peck on the cheek. "See you later."
Will watched Rafe disappear into the crowded living room. He seemed engaging enough. But what was so familiar about him? It was unlikely he'd met Rafe before—probably just someone very much like him. The answer swam tantalizingly close beneath the surface of his subconscious. Will would have been more than willing to wait for it to reveal itself except that he sensed his subconscious might be warning him about Rafe.
He turned to Lisl.
"Well?" she said. "What do you think?"
Her eyes were so bright, her smile so fiercely proud, Will was powerless to feel anything but happiness for her.
"I don't exactly know him yet, but he seems very nice."
"Oh, he is. But he's very much his own man too. He has his own slant on everything."
"Is his slant much off beam from your slant?"
He thought he saw Lisl's eyes cloud over for a minute, but then they cleared. She laughed.
"Sometimes he surprises me. There's never a dull moment with Rafe. Never!"
Wondering how he should take that, Will followed Lisl back into the kitchen.
Will was working through the living room with his second tray of canapes. Lisl had tried to talk him out of helping but he'd insisted, telling her that he knew no one here and that this was a great way to meet her guests.
And it was.
Besides, he preferred to keep busy. He'd never been one for cocktail parties.
He had to admit though that he was enjoying himself this afternoon. He was nursing a Scotch on the rocks as he wove through the crowd with his tray of pigs in blankets. Everyone was friendly. A few had had a little too much to drink and were getting loud, but no one was out of line.
Then the phone rang.
Will froze and almost dropped the tray. Someone must have plugged it back in. He prayed for the ring to pause and
then go on in the stop-and-go pattern of a normal phone call. But it didn't. The ring went on and on, steadily, relentlessly.
And people noticed. One by one they fell silent under the pressure of that endless ring. The conversation noise level dropped quickly by half, then dwindled down to a single slurred voice. And soon even he fell silent. Leaving only the ringing, that damned, incessant, infernal ringing.
Will felt as if he'd been turned to stone. Movement to his left caught his eye and he saw Lisl step into the living room from the hallway.
That ringing! Lisl thought as she entered the room.
Good Lord, what was wrong with the phone? Why did it go on like that? Whatever it was it had brought the party to a screeching halt. The living room looked like a tableau—everyone silent, frozen in position, staring at the phone.
Something unsettling, unnatural about that ring. She had to stop it.
&nbs
p; Lisl crossed the room and lifted the receiver. An audible sigh whispered though the room as the ringing stopped. Silence, blessed silence. She put the receiver to her ear… and heard the voice.
A child's voice, a little boy's, sobbing, frightened. No… more than frightened—nearly incoherent with fear, crying for his father to come get him, that he didn't like it there, that he was afraid, that he wanted to come home.
"Hello!" she said into the receiver. "Hello! This isn't your father. Who are you?"
The child cried on.
"Tell me who your father is and I'll get hold of him."
The child continued to plead.
"Where are you? Tell me where you are and I'll get you help. I'll come get you myself. Just tell me where you are!"
But the child didn't seem to hear her. Lisl tried talking to him again but to no effect. Without pausing for breath he continued crying for his father, his voice slowly rising in volume to a wail. Suddenly he began .to scream out his fear.
"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease! Father, Father, Father—"
Lisl snatched the receiver away from her ear. So loud. She couldn't bear the sound of such naked fear in a child. She looked around. All the strained faces in the room were looking her way, staring at the phone, listening to that small voice. They could hear it too.
"—don't let him kill me! I don't want to die!"
"What do I do?" she said. "What do I—?"
Suddenly the voice cut off and the abrupt, deathly silence of the room struck her like a blow.
"Hello?" Lisl said into the receiver. "Hello? Are you still .there? Are you all right?"
No answer.
She jiggled the plunger on the base but the line remained dead. Not even a dial tone.
She wanted to cry. A frightened child needed help somewhere and she could do nothing. And without a dial tone, she couldn't even call the police.
As she jiggled the plunger again she spotted the mounting cord coiled on the carpet behind the table. A chill ran over her skin as she lifted the base of the phone. The jack notch at its rear was empty. The phone had been disconnected.
My God! How…?
Lisl turned slowly and stared at her guests. Their pale faces and strained expressions reflected exactly what she felt.
Where was Will?
She didn't see him. She remembered him standing in the center of the room holding a tray when she answered the phone. She remembered the wild look in his eyes as he listened to that insane ring. Like a cornered animal. Where was he now? She glanced down. A tray of cooling pigs in blankets lay on the coffee table.
She heard tires screech outside on the street. Through the picture window she saw Will's old Chevy roar away down the road.
TEN
Manhattan
Detective Sergeant Renny Augustino found a note on his desk that the chief wanted to see him right away. He didn't have anything better to do at the moment so he headed for Mooney's office.
"What is it, Lieu?" Renny said as he dropped into one of the chairs opposite Mooney's puke green desk. A tiny plaster Christmas tree—a product of Mrs. Mooney's ceramics class—sat atop one of the filing cabinets, its lights twinkling chaotically.
Midtown North's chief of detectives, Lieutenant James Mooney, a jowly, fiftyish bulldog, looked up from a paper he was holding in both hands. The fluorescent ceiling lights reflected off his balding scalp.
"Got a message from the PC, Augustino," he said in his whiny voice. "He wants you on his new task force to get that serial killer."
"You sure you got the right Augustino?"
Mooney smiled. He didn't do that often.
"Yeah. I'm sure. Because I checked to make sure myself."
Renny was shocked. The police commissioner wanted him!
"Well, ain't that a kick in the head."
"It's your chance, Renny. Handle yourself right with this one and you can get yourself back on track."
Renny looked at Mooney and saw that the chief genuinely wished him well. Suddenly his opinion of Mooney turned around. He hadn't liked the man much; he was competent but had struck
Renny as too concerned with paperwork. He didn't really inspire his detectives. His men had to be self-starters if they were going to be anything better than paper-shufflers. Fortunately there was a fair number of self-starters at Midtown North. But maybe he'd been too hard on Mooney. And maybe that was because he resented anyone with a detective lieutenant's badge, something Renny should have had long ago.
"Yeah," Renny said, rising and extending his hand. "Maybe I can. Thanks, Lieu."
Mooney shook his hand and passed him his papers.
"They want you down at Police Plaza at one sharp. Try not to be late."
Back in the squad room, the other detectives congratulated him as he passed through. Sam Lang, dressed in green corduroy wrinkles, was waiting at Renny's desk, a coffee cup in his left hand, his right thrust out in front of him.
"Some Christmas present, ay, partner?"
"What is this?" Renny said, shaking Sam's hand. "Am I the only guy in the joint who didn't know about it?"
"Maybe if you weren't late all the time you'd be au courant."
Renny glared at him. He hated when people threw in foreign expressions—unless they were in Italian. Then it was okay.
"I got one question, Sam. Why me?"
"Because you're tenacious."
Renny peered suspiciously at his partner over the tops of his reading glasses.
"'Tenacious'… 'au courant'… you been dipping into How to Increase Your Word Power again?"
"Let me put it another way," Sam said with mild annoyance. "You're a fucking bulldog when you get started on something."
"And how would the PC know that?"
"How else? The Danny Gordon case."
"Yeah. Sure. And where was he when I got busted back to second grade because of the Danny Gordon case?"
"Who cares? What matters is the commish has your name on his list of heavy hitters."
"Would've been nice if he'd asked me if I wanted the job first."
"You mean you don't?"
"I don't know, Sam."
"You're kidding, aren't you? This could get your career back in gear, Renny. I mean, you know they're gonna have to bump you up to lieutenant when the task force catches this guy. How bad can that be?"
"Could be awful. The whole thing could turn out to be another nightmare."
Just like the Danny Gordon case.
Another serial killer on the loose. Zodiac had spawned a bunch of imitators since the summer of '90. The mayor and the police commissioner had been making a big deal out of forming this new hotshot task force to hunt down this latest loon who had frightened most of the city''s good-looking women—as well as those who mistakenly thought themselves good-looking—from the streets.
But what if they failed? What if Renny got himself wrapped up in this case and they never found the killer?
He couldn't go through something like that again. Not being able to resolve the Gordon case had torn him apart. Even now, five years later, not a day went by that he didn't think about that kid—or his killer.
"You're not going to turn them down, are you?" Sam said after a big slurp of coffee.
Renny managed a smile.
"'Course not. Just 'cause I'm crazy doesn't mean I'm stupid."
"Good. You had me going there for a while."
Potts walked up then, a glossy sheet of paper in his hand.
"Fax for you, Sarge."
Sam laughed. "Probably the mayor."
"No," said Potts. "From Southern Bell. Something about—"
Renny was suddenly tense.
"Give me that."
He grabbed the sheet and scanned through it.
Another one of those calls. And in the same town as the last time—Pendleton, North Carolina. That bulletin he'd put out five years ago—to watch for reports of a certain kind of prank call: a strange ring, a child screaming for help. Someone at Southe
rn Bell must have put it in the computer.
Bless you, whoever you are.
"This is it! Son of a bitch, this is him! It's Ryan! He's in North Carolina—Pendleton, North Carolina."
"Who's in Pendleton?" Potts said. "And where's that?"
"I don't know," Renny said as he slipped into his suit coat. "But I'm going to learn a lot about the place real quick."
"You're not heading for the library now, are you?" Sam said.
"Yeah. I'm going to find a book or two on Pendleton to read on the plane. Not going to waste a minute this time."
Sam's face went slack. He dismissed Potts with a wave of his hand. His voice became a tense whisper.
"Plane? What do you mean, plane?"
"Going down there. Have to practice man drawl. Noath KehLAHnah—that sound like I'm from the South?"
"Yeah. South Bronx. Look, buddy boy, are you out of your fucking mind? You ain't goin' nowhere."
Renny had difficulty meeting Sam's troubled eyes.
"I've got to go, Sam. You know that."
"I don't know no such thing! What the hell have we just been talking about? You could get a lieutenant's badge out of that task force."
"That just became a sucker bet," Renny said. He straightened the papers on his desk into two neat piles in no particular order and pushed his chair into the knee hole. "Because I feel the flu coming on and it's going to be a bad case. As a matter of fact, I'm feeling feverish already."
Sam's face broke into a sickly grin.
"You're putting me on, aren't you. That's it, isn't it? Another one of your put-ons."
"Look at this face," Renny said, knowing he must look pretty damn grim. "Is this the face of someone who's kidding?"
"Jesus, Renny! The PC just asked for you personally. You can't walk out now!"
"The Danny Gordon case takes precedence, Sam. You know that." He could feel the heat rising in him. "I've been after this fucker for five years and I'm no closer now than when I started. Christ, you know what this thing has cost me! Now I get my first solid lead in God knows how long and you think I'm going to file it for later? No way, Sam! No fucking way/"
And that was enough of that. Renny was out of there and into the cold, late-morning grayness before Sam could try to lay any more common sense on him. He hurried down the subway steps and hopped the near-empty F train that was just pulling in. Thoughts of Danny Gordon hovered around him and hounded him all the way to Queens.
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