by Judith Gould
“The News and the Post are gonna have a field day,” the police commissioner growled, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth. His face kept brightening and darkening in the oncoming headlights. He was a big beefy black man with a bulldog face, and his dark blue suit had obviously been tailored when he’d been fifteen pounds lighter. “My sources at both papers called up to warn me about tomorrow’s headlines. Wanna hear what they’re gonna say?”
“Spare me the nightmares, Jack,” the mayor snapped bitterly before turning to stare out at the dark river. “I’ll find out soon enough.”
“I want this thing cleared up fast,” the P.C. told Koscina. He grabbed the cigar out of his mouth and emphasized each syllable with a stabbing gesture: “Like yes-ter-day.”
“We’re working on it,” Koscina said.
“Then work on it harder, goddammit! I want this case solved. ASAP.” The P.C. sat back again, popped the cigar once more into his mouth, and rolled it between his teeth.
Koscina stared at him. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, sir,” he said softly.
“Whoever said anything in this city’s easy?” the P.C. grumbled. “This is New York.”
“Yes, sir. But we’re not talking ordinary household homicide here. I don’t want to be an alarmist, but we could be talking about a psycho on the loose. We should be prepared for the worst.”
“You got proof?” the P.C. wanted to know.
“Not yet, sir. But by all indications, Vienna Farrow may not be the last scalping victim we’re going to see.”
“Heaven help us,” the mayor moaned. “You think we’ve got a repeat killer? Another Son of Sam?”
Koscina looked directly at him. “Maybe . . . and then again, Mr. Mayor, maybe not. All we can do right now is hope for the best.”
“A serial killer!” The mayor rolled his eyes and slumped back weakly. “That’s all we need. The Upper East Side is going to be up in arms, and every woman in this city is going to be afraid to walk outside.”
“Koscina,” the P.C. growled, “if you’re right, then we’ve got to find this bastard superfast. Before he kills anyone else. You know what to do. Set up a special squad office and borrow whoever you want from whatever precinct you like. If you get any flak from the commanders, have ‘em gimme a call. Just get this thing cleared up. No department politics are going to stand in the way of this investigation.”
“And for God’s sake,” the mayor added, “whatever you do, try to keep these psycho suspicions down to a need-to-know basis. If the media get hold of this, there’ll be panic in the streets.”
Chapter 24
Edwina was barely aware of the cab coasting to a stop in front of R.L.’s building. Her mind was elsewhere—still switching back and forth between the nightmare dinner and her office . . . or rather, she amended, what used to be her office. Not twenty minutes earlier, while R.L. had waited in the cab in front of 550 Seventh Avenue, she’d plopped herself down in front of a word processor, savagely tapped out her notice of resignation, and marched through the dim, empty corridors to Antonio’s office, where she’d slapped it down smack dab in the center of his massive glass slab of a desk, anchoring it there with one of his precious Coty awards.
Somehow, she’d thought the act of resigning and getting away from the crowd at the party would lessen her pain somewhat, but it seemed even worse now. More concentrated. Her insides were brewing with an explosive mixture of anger, hurt, aggression, disgust, rebellion, and humiliation.
Antonio couldn’t have taken me aside and told me in private? she thought furiously. Oh, no! I had to find out about it from Klas— and in front of everybody else!
She let R.L. lead her out of the cab and up the front steps of the town house. She barely registered where she was. Walking past him into his duplex apartment, she looked around without really seeing anything. What am I doing here? she wondered. All I want to do is crawl away to some safe cave where I can lick my wounds in private.
“I’ll get you a drink.” R.L. smiled wryly. “I think we could both use one.”
She stood there hugging herself as he strode silently across the carpet to a tray table with an assortment of decanters and glasses. Liquid gurgled and crystal chimed; then he came back and handed her a Baccarat glass. Silently she accepted it, staring down at the warm amber liquid as though wondering what to do with it.
He drank his down and looked at her.
She was still just standing there, wrapped in painful reality.
“Drink it,” he ordered softly, setting his down.
With both hands she lifted the glass obediently to her lips and drank it down in one swallow. That it was powerful VSOP brandy barely registered either—she didn’t even make a face. But there was no mistaking the liquid fire that flowed down her throat and radiated from deep inside her.
She looked up at him gratefully. R.L. seemed to be able to do just the right thing. As if he could reach into her mind and divine her needs.
He took the empty glass from her hand and set it down. “Feel any better?”
She nodded. “A little.”
His eyes held hers. They were so great and green and beautiful, she thought. So rich and warm. So penetrating that they seemed to burn through her.
As though hypnotized, she continued to hold his gaze, her breath catching in her throat as something inside her quickened.
“And now, you’ve got to forget what happened at that dinner. It is real no longer, at least not here. That happened outside these walls. Here, the only thing that truly exists is us and now. You and I—we hold the true reality of living.”
The very air seemed charged. For the first time she seemed aware of the fragrant potpourri mingling with the subtle scent of his cologne, the dim lighting that cast soft shadows across his face, the calm silence in which only the two of them existed.
Edwina was confused.
She could feel her anger recede, the hurt inside her dissipate to something dreamy and distant. He was right. This was the true reality.
What’s happening to me?
She flushed as he stepped closer, and she tilted her head back to keep looking up at him, unable to break the spellbinding hold his eyes had upon her. Suddenly she was aware of nothing but his tallness, the breadth of his shoulders, the lustrous sheen of his skin. Was she imagining it, or was he growing more handsome as she studied him?
He lifted a hand to her cheek and she gasped as tender fingertips grazed her skin and trailed ever so gently along the ridge of a cheekbone. His mere touch seemed to ignite something electric within her.
And still they stared at each other.
She could feel her legs going weak. His caress on her face left a trail of live sparks. Amazing, that mere fingertips could cause such a reaction!
He was watching her response closely.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, and it was as if she felt the warm breath of the words instead of having heard the words themselves. Now his fingers traced lazily across her lips. “Do you know how often I dreamed of this? Of me and you?”
Her eyes widened.
Then he slowly bent his head and touched his lips to hers.
It was like an electric jolt. Her entire body trembled.
Now she shut her eyes, and his nipping kisses deepened. As she parted her lips, she could feel his powerful hands, one in the bare center of her back and one at her clothed buttocks, pressing her tightly against him. Chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis.
After a moment she felt his lips leave hers, and she opened her eyes. He was still looking down at her, smiling, and she returned his smile with one of her own.
His fingers strummed lightly down her bare spine, then stroked and explored her lower back and buttocks through the silk of her party dress.
“Eds,” he whispered.
Her spellbound gaze turned questioning.
“Where have you been all these years? How did I live without you?”
“It wasn’t you, it—”
“Ssssh!” he interrupted, and touched a finger to her lips. “Don’t say anything.”
Then he bowed over her face once more, cupped her buttocks with his hands, and pressed her even closer. This time his kisses were urgent and devouring, and she kissed him back just as urgently, tasting his warm lips, hard white teeth, and soft tongue. She could feel her heaving breasts squeezed flat against his chest, could feel the unmistakable contours of his straining sex, hard and ready, captured by his trousers, pressing into her belly. She responded by gripping him fiercely by the arms, digging her fingers deep into his biceps.
Her head reeled. It was a kiss that paralyzed, which seemed to go on forever. And all the while, his gentle, probing fingers undressed her. Slowly he removed her shocking-pink cummerbund; by feel, he unzipped the back of her chartreuse bodice so that it split and fell away like a rustling cocoon; leisurely he stroked the slim flared skirt down over her hips and thighs until it slid away on its own, the silk whispering its way down to her ankles.
Ah, the sudden chill of cool air upon her nakedness! The exquisite torture of such deliberate restraint! The building tension of passion growing . . . forever growing and mounting within her. It was unbearable, this leisurely foreplay!
She gasped at his touch now, shuddering as his fingers moved slowly across her flawless naked flesh. And still the kiss continued, still they breathed air from deep within each other, still they tasted each other’s hunger and gave to each other’s need.
“Oh, God!” she whispered when at last he pulled away slowly; and when he started to undress himself, she whispered, “No!” Her voice was husky and sure. “Let me!”
He stood absolutely still while her hands moved tentatively up to his collar, her fingers light as feathers as she loosened his bow tie and removed the studs from his shirt from the top down. Forcing herself to be just as teasingly deliberate with him as he had been with her, she reached inside his open shirt and deliciously smoothed her palms along his whorly-haired chest, massaging his nipples with her fingers before her hands wafted away, gliding slowly down toward his belly.
Now it was his turn to shudder and tremble; she could hear him suck in his breath as she loosened his cummerbund. And all the while, she kept staring up into his eyes, those warm green eyes, hypnotizing him just as he’d hypnotized her.
She was startled by a revelation: I’m getting moist! Watching him endure this sweet agony is making me succumb!
It was she who instigated the next kiss. Reaching up with one hand, she drew his head down to hers, while with the other she loosened his trousers by feel.
His body jerked as her warm fingers brushed against his penis. Engorged and ready, it strained against his briefs, throbbing with a life of its own.
Edwina fought the urge to free it. Slowly she told herself, slowly . . . How his manhood strained! Yes, trapped, it was all the sweeter. God, this could go on forever!
Lightly she caressed his scrotum through the briefs, squeezed ever so lightly, then brushed her fingers languidly down his thigh. His eyes shut; she could hear him gasp, his breathing growing rapid.
She let his trousers fall.
Suddenly neither of them could restrain this urgency any longer. In one smooth movement he stepped out of his trousers, lifted her off her feet, and gathered her up in his arms. She clung to his neck as he carried her effortlessly up the carpeted stairs to his bedroom. She snuggled close, leaning her cheek against the warmth of his chest, listening to the quickening beats of his heart. She felt as though she was floating dreamily, that the balustrade was falling away below her as she ascended with him. How hushed these rooms. What sanctuary this was! He pushed the door open with a bare foot.
How big this room; how mysteriously dim and shadowy.
Ever so gently he deposited her faceup on the soft bed on a spread of textured golden silk. She lay there watching while he lay down beside her. Then his lips peppered her with light kisses. Forehead. Lips. Ears. Throat. Breasts. Every touch of his mouth was exquisite, every sensation torturously deliberate.
He entered her without hurry, guiding himself in slowly and gently. But once he was inside her, she could no longer contain herself. Digging her fingers into his back, she clamped her legs fiercely around his naked buttocks and drew him even deeper.
His thrusts began slowly and built momentum. For her, each lunge was a delicious melody, a journey to yet another level of ecstasy. Making love was a reaffirmation. A resurrection. She could almost feel a part of her dying while another part of her was being reborn.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she moaned softly. Her smooth creamy skin, whipcord taut across her curves and glistening with a moist sheen, and his bulkier, well-defined male musculature had merged into one.
“Oh, yes!” she moaned. “Oh, take me! R.L, take me! Take me!”
And at her pleas, his movements instantly became more urgent; earnest; battering.
Her face puckered in delirious concentration, as though in unbearable pain, but deep within her eyes a rapturous fire glowed.
It was then that the orgasms began. They rolled over her like relentless waves of surf, crashing and receding, crashing and receding—
This was death. This was life. This was the end of one and the beginning of the other. The present and the future and the stars and the moon all rolled into one.
She wanted it to go on forever. Forever . . .
And then she felt him tense. His back arched and he let out a deep, anguished bellow as he was swallowed up in shuddering spasms of his own. She clamped him ferociously to her as he bucked one last time, and clutching each other as though for dear life, together they screamed in ecstasy and tumbled out of orbit, out of space, out of the very bounds of reality and time itself.
Afterward, for long minutes, they lay together, spent and still joined, their breathing coming in raw, ragged gasps.
She shook her head wonderingly as she came out of it. He was cradling her in his arms and she had to twist around to look at him. Her eyes glowed in the dimness. “I think I’ve just come back from another planet! Were we always this good?”
He raised himself on one elbow and brushed aside a tangle of her glorious hair. “Don’t you remember?” he asked softly, his breaths still quick and raw.
“It’s been so long, R.L.!” She tightened her mouth as if she was biting back tears. Then she looked away quickly and added in a whisper: “So goddamn, goddamn long!”
“Only fourteen years,” he said lightly.
“No.” Shaking her head, she turned her head slowly back to face him. “I meant something else.” Her eyes held his. “I haven’t slept with a man in . . . years.”
He stared at her.
Still holding his gaze, she reached out and held his face, framing it tenderly with her fingers. She regarded him lovingly and whispered solemnly: “Thank you.”
In reply, he rolled atop her again and pressed his face into her neck. “But,” he murmured gently, glancing up at her while nuzzling her throat with his lips, “the night is still young, and so are we. We have barely begun.”
As if to add emphasis to his words, inside her she could feel him grow erect once again.
If loving wouldn’t make the hurt go away, she reflected fleetingly, she didn’t know what would.
Chapter 25
Sharon Mudford Koscina wore blue jeans, one of Fred’s plaid flannel shirts, and leg warmers. Her feet were bare. Her hair was long and auburn, secured with tortoiseshell barrettes. She disliked jewelry, but wore a gold Cartier bracelet her husband had given her on her last birthday, and she was spread out on the sofa in their living room, her feet tucked under her.
On any other woman, the pose would have been seductive, but Sharon Mudford Koscina was no ordinary woman. She was, her husband often thought, to other women what Paul Bunyan was to wood choppers—a towering, bigger-than-life Valkyrie who stood a good two heads taller than even the tallest woman in any given room. Squarish of body, sharp-featured, and with
a lot of jaw, she had a flat chest, no buttocks to speak of, and sturdy tree-trunk legs.
Besides being Mrs. Fred Koscina, wife of a cop, she was also Sharon Mudford, M.D., respected psychiatrist, who practiced professionally under her maiden name.
The big lumpy detective with the bulbous nose and the towering horsey woman were both rather sexless specimens, but their relationship had a certain magic. Even after all these years, the variety of sex they enjoyed would have made most teenagers blush.
“Unh-unh, let’s back up there,” Sharon said with intense softness. In the background, Billie Holiday softly “wished on the moon.” The room was dim, lit solely by flickering votive candles in little glass containers. “The killer, whoever he is, isn’t evil, Fred. You’ve got to banish that word from your vocabulary. You see, good and bad really have nothing to do with this.”
He shook his head. “You shrinks never cease to amaze me. He’s a monster. He’s got to be. Who else would do the thing he’s done?”
She traced a finger around the rim of her beer can, took a hearty swig, and looked at him levelly. “Psychiatrists don’t make value judgments—you know that. Differentiating between good and evil, that’s for the churches and individuals to decide.”
Despite their differences, he eyed her fondly. Her shrink talk could drive him up the wall, but there was no one he would rather talk to. Perhaps other people saw her as a flat-chested, six-foot-two giant of a woman with gangly legs and a basketball-player torso, but love is blind. He thought her the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world.
“Then you don’t think he’s a monster?”
Sharon frowned down at her beer can. “Professionally? No.” She shook her head. “He’s not a monster, and he’s not evil. He’s not ‘bad’ either, not in any textbook sense.”
