by R. G. Belsky
“That’s a subjective opinion.”
“It’s a fact.”
He smiled.
“So how goes your search for Loverboy? Not well, I imagine. That’s why you’re here.”
“We’ll find him,” I said.
“Do me a favor. If you ever do catch up with this gentleman, tell him I admire him. Tell him I respect his work. I don’t understand him—like I told you, grown-up women just don’t seem worth all that much work to me—but I’m still a great fan of his accomplishments. Will you make sure to pass that on to him, Miss Shannon?”
“Fuck you,” I said.
He smiled. “Sorry, but I’m not interested in that. Not with you anyway. I’m afraid you’re much too old. But I wish I’d known you a long time ago. Perhaps you have some baby pictures you could send me. It gets very lonely in here.”
By the time I got back to the city, it was late afternoon. I went over to the West Side Precinct to see if they’d come up with anything new in the investigation. Caruso wasn’t around. But Lieutenant Masters was.
I told him what I’d found out about David Gruber, Albert Slocum and Joey Russo.
“We just got the ballistics report back on the Kaffee woman,” he said. “The bullet that killed her matches the ones we found in the other three shootings. The same guy did all four.”
“What kind of gun?”
“A forty-four-caliber Bulldog revolver.”
“The same thing Loverboy used to use.”
He nodded. “It’s a powerful gun. A real cannon.”
“What about the original Loverboy killings?”
“A different forty-four.”
“So this is a copycat.”
“Maybe.”
“But . . .”
“Look, everything else is the same as the original Loverboy. And he’s not going to be stupid enough to carry around the gun all this time that he used to kill all those people. He threw it away twelve years ago, and now he’s got a new one. That makes sense. Right?”
“I guess so,” I said.
“You don’t seem convinced.”
“I still figure this one for a copycat.”
“Me, I’m putting my money on the single Loverboy theory.”
“Then who is he?”
“Well, Slocum is dead and Gruber’s in jail. So that leaves . . .”
“Joey Russo.”
“I just issued an arrest warrant for him. He’s our only suspect.”
“If he’s still alive.”
“Yeah, if he’s still alive.”
I called the story in to the Blade city desk, billing it as another Blade exclusive. That ought to make Victoria Crawford happy. I also threw in some of the stuff I found out about Russo from his mother. As I hung up the phone, I saw Mitch Caruso coming into the squad room.
He waved and walked over to me.
“Are you interested in dinner?” Caruso asked.
“You mean, like a date?” I said.
“Sure.” He smiled.
“This is really our first date,” I reminded him. “The first one didn’t count. It got called on account of murder.”
“No dead bodies this time,” he said.
“Always a good idea on a first date.”
So, as you can see, it turned out to be a pretty good day for me.
Another big exclusive.
A budding romance.
All in all, I felt pretty good.
I probably would have felt even better except for Joey Russo.
Chapter 32
“You don’t look like a cop,” I said.
“What’s a cop supposed to look like?” Caruso asked.
“Jack Webb.”
“That’s it?”
“Maybe Clint Eastwood.”
“So who do you think I look like?”
I studied his face for a minute.
“Jackson Browne,” I answered.
“The singer?”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t have a mustache.”
“Okay, a hairy Jackson Browne.”
He laughed.
“Well, I’ve got some good news for you,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I like Jackson Browne.”
“Me too.” I smiled.
The two of us were walking down Park Avenue South toward my apartment house. We’d eaten dinner at the Gramercy Tavern on East Twenty-First Street. The Gramercy Tavern is a celebrity hot spot; you have to wait six months to get a reservation. Mitch Caruso got us right in, though. I’m not sure how. I guess it has something to do with being a cop and carrying a gun and a badge. People tend to listen to what you have to say. Even maître d’s.
It had been a nice dinner.
The last time I’d been with him I’d poured my heart out about Loverboy, my drinking and a lot of the troubles in my life for the past decade or so. I figured now it was a good idea to lighten up a bit. Maybe it was finally time to have some fun. Maybe it was time to open up to someone. Maybe it was time to get laid again.
“So how did you wind up being a policeman?” I asked.
“Oh, I tried a bunch of other stuff first. I was in a rock band. I dabbled in acting. I waited on tables for a living. I even hitchhiked across the country to Los Angeles and got a few bit parts in some movies and TV shows. But when it came time to settle down, I decided to be a cop.”
“Why?”
“I guess I always liked playing cops and robbers when I was a kid.”
“And you were always one of the good guys?”
“I still am,” he said.
“Do you come from a police family?”
“Sort of.”
“Was your father a cop?”
“My uncle.”
“Is he still on the force?”
He smiled at the question. I wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, I guess you might say that.”
“He must be proud of you.”
“Well, actually, I don’t think he understands me very well. We’re from different generations. He’s very old school—a real by-the-book police traditionalist. Me, I think the police have to keep up with the times. Relate better to the communities, to young people, to minorities. Some of the things we’ve been doing for a long time don’t work so well anymore. So maybe it’s time to make some changes.”
“And you’re going to be the one to do that?”
“I’m going to try. I’m going to college at night. Taking courses in criminal justice, urban affairs, even a bit of philosophy. I don’t want to be a homicide detective all my life.”
“Wow!” I told him. “An ambitious cop.”
“Everybody’s ambitious, Lucy.”
“Not me.”
“Sure you are.”
“I used to be,” I said. “A long time ago.”
We were standing at a light at Eighteenth Street, where I lived. As the light turned green, we started to cross the street. He put his arm around me to guide me past a double-parked car. He didn’t take it away. I slipped mine around his waist. It felt comfortable.
“How about you?” he asked. “How did you become Lucy Shannon, newspaper reporter?”
“Did you ever see a movie called Deadline U.S.A.?” I said.
He shook his head.
“It stars Humphrey Bogart as the managing editor of a New York newspaper that’s about to go out of business. On its last day of publication, a young guy comes to the paper looking for a job. Bogart tells him: ‘Kid, let me tell you something about the newspaper business. It may not be the oldest profession in the world. But it’s the best.’”
I sighed. “I loved that movie.”
“Do you still feel that way about newspapers?”
“I guess it’s sort of like a love affair. The first few weeks or months together are really magical. I mean, you love everything about the person, warts and all. But then time goes by and you get married and after a while the magic wears off. Finally, one day you look over across the room at your husband�
��and it’s like he’s a stranger. You don’t know why in hell you’re even together. That’s sort of the way I feel about the newspaper business.”
“Gee, it sounds depressing.”
“It is. Most of the time. But every once in a while . . .”
I let my voice trail off.
“What?”
“Well, even in a bad marriage, there are these moments. You look at the other person lying next to you in bed, and suddenly it all comes back. It doesn’t last very long, maybe only for an instant. But you remember how you once felt about them. What you used to have together. And you wonder if there’s any way to ever get that feeling back again.”
“Does that happen to you often?”
“Oh, now and then,” I said.
We were at my apartment house now. We stood at the front door.
“I guess this is the turning point of the date,” I said.
“Huh?”
“This is when I either say good night to you or ask if you want to come in for some coffee.”
“Coffee,” he said.
“Yeah. Only you and I both know coffee is not what we’re talking about here. That’s just a code for how the date went. If the date bombed, you make some sort of excuse—you have to get up early or you don’t like coffee or something—but you promise to call me again soon. If the date was a success, you come in with me.”
“For coffee?”
“Whatever.”
There was a long silence. But not an uncomfortable one. Nothing seemed uncomfortable between us.
“So do you want to come up for some coffee?” I asked.
He smiled. “I love coffee.”
“Me too,” I said.
Then we went upstairs.
Chapter 33
My apartment is what you’d call functional.
There’s one bedroom, a big living room with an alcove that I turned into a study, and an eat-in kitchen.
There are no beautiful prints on the wall. No expensive rugs on the floor. The furniture is nothing special—most of it comes from department stores, the rest from garage sales or friends who moved out of town. I’ve got lots of books and stacks of newspapers around the place, because I do a lot of reading.
I don’t figure to ever wind up on the pages of Good Housekeeping.
But it’s comfortable and it’s cheap, at least by New York City standards.
I made Mitch Caruso and myself some coffee in the kitchen—all that talk about it had made me want a cup—while he watched the eleven o’clock news on TV in the living room.
Anyway, that’s what he said he wanted to do.
But when I came out with the coffee, there was no sign of him. It wasn’t that big an apartment. I didn’t think even I could have lost a man that quickly. So where was he?
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I said.
There was no answer.
I looked around the living room. Then I started to walk down the hall toward the bedroom. Just as I did, I saw him coming out of there. My bedroom, that is.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was looking for the bathroom.”
He seemed a bit flustered.
“Over there,” I said, pointing to the other end of the hall.
I went back in the living room, sat down on the couch and waited for him to come back.
When he did, he seemed different. More distant than earlier in the evening. He sat down in an EZ Boy chair across from me, even though there was plenty of room left on the couch. Not a good sign.
“You got any more theories about Loverboy?” he asked.
“You want to talk about Loverboy?” I asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
“I kind of thought we might want to forget about that for a while and concentrate on other stuff.”
“It’s kind of hard to forget about. But sure, we can talk about something else, if you want.”
“Whatever.”
He drank some of his coffee.
“You still don’t think it’s the same guy, huh?” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
I gave him my “killers just don’t stop for twelve years” theory.
“Maybe he had no choice,” Caruso said. “Maybe he’s been in jail. Or in a mental hospital.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“But you don’t buy it.”
“Like I told you before, my guess is we’re dealing with a copycat. A very clever copycat. But somebody totally new.”
He nodded. “So how do we find this copycat?”
He probably thought I didn’t have any answers for that. But he was wrong.
“Doesn’t it seem more than just a little strange to you that a movie on the case is being shot at the same time as the new killings occur?” I said.
He stared at me. “You think there’s a connection between the movie and the murders?”
“I think at the very least the movie spurred the killer to start up. And it could be even more sinister than that.”
“Such as?”
“What if someone with the movie company is doing these murders?”
“Who?”
“Michael Anson, for instance.”
“The director?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I checked her out. She’s got big-time money troubles. She’s in deep shit with loan sharks and the mob. She desperately needs this movie to be a big hit. Everything’s riding on it for her.”
“Okay, so she’s got a few debts. That doesn’t make her a murderer.”
“Everybody’s talking about this movie now because of the murders. You couldn’t buy better publicity.”
“Are you saying . . . ?”
“I’m just saying you should check Anson out. Her and her Amazon bodyguard. Especially the bodyguard. Now, there’s someone that definitely looks like a killer to me.”
I sipped on my coffee.
“Anybody else?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thomas Ferraro.”
“The police commissioner?”
“That’s right.”
“What about him?”
“Where is he in all this? He’s not holding press conferences. He’s not answering questions. He’s not going on TV. He’s never even shown up at any of the crime scenes.”
“Maybe he’s busy with other things.”
“Loverboy is the biggest story in years. What could be more important than Loverboy? Besides, it’s his story. Twelve years ago, Ferraro was the lead detective investigating this case. Now he’s avoiding it like the plague. Why?”
“There’s lots of reasons he might—”
“I think he’s hiding something.”
Caruso shook his head in amazement.
“Let me get this straight, Lucy. You think that the police commissioner of New York City is somehow involved in these murders?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I thought he was acting strangely. I just want to know why. You can’t ignore the fact that he was very involved in the first string of murders. . . .”
“So were you.”
“Okay, I was. But there’s a difference.”
“What?”
“I know I’m not the murderer.”
Caruso smiled at me now. A funny smile. Not ha-ha funny. More like he was laughing at a private joke that I wasn’t in on.
“Do you remember how I told you before that I had an uncle who was a cop?” he said.
“Sure.”
“Do you know his name?”
I shook my head no.
“Thomas J. Ferraro,” he said.
Gulp.
“The police commissioner?” I asked softly.
“There’s only one Thomas J. Ferraro on the force that I know of.”
“And you’re Commissioner Ferraro’s nephew?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So . . . so I guess you’d probably know if there was—was anything funny going on about h
im and Loverboy,” I stammered.
“I think so.”
“Well, it was just a theory,” I said.
There was an uncomfortable silence. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I didn’t want to talk about Thomas J. Ferraro anymore. I didn’t want to talk about Loverboy. I wanted Mitch Caruso to kiss me, hold me and go to bed with me. It had been a long time.
He stood up.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“Already?”
“It’s getting late.”
“It’s not that late.”
“I’ve got a meeting first thing in the morning.”
I walked him to the door.
“I had a nice time,” I said.
“Me too.”
He leaned down and gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek.
Then he was gone.
Damn! Something had gone very wrong with the evening. But I wasn’t sure what. I wanted to know why. I wanted Mitch Caruso to come back. I wanted a drink. Yeah, that was what I needed. A drink. Just one vodka martini. Or maybe two. That’d sure make me feel better.
I shook my head and—in a second or two—the feeling went away.
I walked down the hall into the bedroom. The closet door was open. I was pretty sure I’d shut it the last time I’d been there. I pulled out one of the drawers in my dresser. A few of the things inside were out of place.
Somebody had been going through my stuff.
But why?
Was Mitch Caruso really a sneak thief who’d been trying to rob me? Of course not. He was a policeman, not a robber.
Was he some sort of pervert who just liked going through women’s clothes?
Or was there something else going on here that I didn’t know about?
Chapter 34
Norm Malloy told me someone was waiting for me when I got to work in the morning.
“See that guy standing in front of your desk?” Malloy said in between answering phone calls.
I nodded.
“His name is Elmer Lutz.”
“So?”
“He says he’s Loverboy.”
I was—to put it mildly—a tad skeptical. Elmer Lutz was a short, pudgy man of about sixty. There was almost no hair on his head. He spoke with a stutter and in a high, squeaky voice. He didn’t look like Loverboy to me. Actually, he looked more like Elmer Fudd than an Elmer Lutz.
I walked over, introduced myself to him and listened politely to what he had to say. Then I went back to Malloy at the city desk.
