Switch

by William Bayer

  He ruffled the boy's hair and left the room. Aaron was waiting just outside. "Great performance in there. You took him to the shithouse, Frank."

  "Yeah, and I feel really good about it, too."

  "Take it easy. You had to. There wasn't any other way." When Janek came back in with Stanger, Gary was still shaking in his chair.

  "Look, Gary, we got to find this guy. It isn't enough to say she just stayed home. You have to think back and remember everything she ever said. If someone was following her, for instance, or if she got strange phone calls, heavy breathers or hang-ups in the night. If she was scared about something, or acted peculiar on a certain day, or was suddenly nervous for no reason you could see. You have to think back and tell Detective Stanger everything you know, and then afterwards, if you suddenly remember something, you have to call him and tell him that too. Understand?"

  Gary nodded. He said he'd do his best. Janek told Stanger to spend another hour with him, going over the past four weeks. Names. Dates. Habits. Hobbies. Doctor. Dentist. Veterinarian. If she really lived by the clock, took the same bus every day, walked her dog at the same time, then she would not have been difficult to stalk. Janek wanted her schedule, hour by hour, minute by minute if they could work it out. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Amanda Ireland. Gary Pierson would be Stanger's collaborator. Together they would write a book, the story of her life.

  Howell was waiting in the squad room. He had Prudencio Bitong and also Brenda's stash. A roll of soiled bills, sixteen hundred dollars, half a bag of medium-quality pot, and a glassine envelope of cocaine, maybe five hundred dollars' worth. And there was a key too, a safe deposit box key, and Howell was going over to the bank in the morning and get that box opened up. Maybe Mr. Bitong would find to his surprise that Brenda Thatcher had been holding back.

  Blackmail

  It seemed to Janek that they melted into each other when he arrived that evening at the loft. Caroline took him in her arms, they moved to her bed without a sound and there made love magically, he thought, as if they were made for each other and had known each other for months.

  As a lover she employed no tricks, no actressy little touches she had learned from someone else. She was merely herself without pretense or illusion, more than enough, he thought, far more than he had hoped. Her lean young body was taut with craving. Her breasts pressed firmly against his chest. Her back was beautiful and proud. Her mouth was hungry. She played her fingers upon his shoulder blades, then thrust them deep into his hair.

  He kissed her throat and then her eyes, ran his hands along her perspiring flanks and marveled at the sleekness of her legs. She used her toes to stroke his calves. He was awed by her shudders of desire.

  He felt she was a sorceress, that in her embraces he was bewitched. They glided, joined, pulled back, then joined again, their bodies beating out a sweet slow rhythm, a long, slow, intoxicating dance. No frantic whisperings. No "What do you like?" and "Does this turn you on?" No need to ask, because they knew. There was a faultless surety to their every move, a deep, instinctive knowledge that told them how to satisfy.

  Afterward, lying back, they looked at one another and broke into smiles.

  She served him a simple dinner—salad, steak, Italian cheesecake—and as they ate they regarded each other with delight. Talking casually, he became aware he knew practically nothing about her. Family background, education, the men she had known and loved—such things were normally necessary knowledge if he was to fathom another human being. But now they seemed meaningless in the face of the things he had discovered: her vision of the world imparted through her photographs, and the smell and taste of her body, carnal knowledge he now possessed. It was such a relief not to have to care about the other things, to rely upon his feelings, to leave his detective's processes behind. He wondered why he hadn't learned to do this before, separate his life from his work. Until now repairing old accordions and playing them had been his only escape. How wonderful to have found this passionate woman who made him forget the awful sully of his job.

  "Have you talked to Mrs. DiMona?"

  He looked up at her, a little startled to hear her speak. "Lou? Not yet. I was thinking about going over there Sunday," he said.

  "What are you going to tell her?"

  "Don't know. Haven't decided yet. I'm not going to tell her how Al met you and how he used to drop around. He told her he was working on an old case. That's what she wants to think."

  "You could go along with that."

  "I could. Though I hate to lie."

  "You could maybe smooth it out a little. Sort of turn it another way."

  He understood what Caroline meant: Tell Lou that Al had been looking into something, but it hadn't meant anything, he'd just been puttering around.

  "Trouble is I don't know what he told her. When she talked to me she seemed convinced. An idea like that, that he was onto something, had found something dreadful, unbearable—it gives her an explanation and she wants to hold on to that. It's unacceptable to her that she lived with him all those years and then on Sunday he shot himself and didn't even leave a note. It means she didn't mean anything to him, that he didn't care enough to explain. That's pretty hard to take, but if there was this old case, you see..."

  "Sure. She could pin it on that."

  "And be absolved."

  "Absolution—God!"

  "Yes, absolution. Cops are into absolution. And redemption too. And crime and punishment."

  "For themselves, right? The punishment. Not for the criminals."

  "You understand," he said. "Yes. For themselves."

  She shook her head, almost furiously it seemed to him, as if she were trying to clear that thought away. He mustn't forget, he reminded himself, that she was the daughter of a cop. She knew all the strange torments that rotted out cops' minds.

  "What about you?" he asked. "What did you do today?"

  "Thought about you," she said, "and about what you said to me on my machine."

  He had forgotten about that. So much had happened in the afternoon. "Was it okay? Didn't embarrass you?"

  "No." She looked at him. "I loved it." She grinned.

  As he helped her with the dishes she told him about her afternoon. She'd gone to Yankee Stadium, sat in the bleachers, then prowled the aisles taking photographs.

  "You weren't shooting the players."

  "I've already shot a lot of them. Today I was after the fans. The wild ones, you know, all curled with tension, ready to pounce out of their seats when they think they've seen a bad call and a favorite player getting robbed."

  "Aggression."

  She nodded. "Coming home I had a new idea for a book. The title would be Janek's World. I figured it all out. I'd follow you around for months, maybe a year, shooting the world you deal with and your reactions to it—the sordid side of the city through your eyes."

  "That," he said, scrubbing her sauté pan, "would not be a very pretty book."

  He was tempted then to tell her about Switched Heads, how the girls had been used, the awful merciless maniacal mind that had used them, but he hesitated because he didn't want to taint their relationship with the sordid passions of that tale. Anyway, he knew he couldn't tell it coherently. He hadn't sorted it out well enough himself. Perhaps when he knew more it would be all right to tell her; she would want to hear it because she would care about the things which anguished him, and he would want to tell it because speaking the words would help him to understand it better himself. Not now. He would wait and, hopefully, would have the full story for her soon. Hopefully because if he had the full story he would be done with it, which would mean, of course, that he was onto something else, another case as ugly or even uglier.

  They listened to some Coltrane and necked on the bed, then they made love again, and afterward, their bodies slick, they lay back upon the pillows to rest. And then—he didn't know why—he felt swept by a wave of gloom.

  "Hey, Caroline." He didn't dare look into h
er face. "Why me? This old detective with the pouches under his eyes? Wouldn't you do better with a younger guy, your age or thereabouts? One of those glossy types with thick black hair and a tan, dark glasses, driving a Porsche, in a thousand-dollar leather windbreaker with a gold watch flashing at his cuff. You know what I mean. Jesus—why am I asking that?"

  "Janek, Janek..." She placed her hand on his chest, just above his heart, and he could feel it thumping inside, beating against her palm. She ran her fingers through his gray chest hair matted by the mixture of their sweat. "Janek...Janek..." She spoke his name as if she loved its sound.

  He looked down at her. Her head was resting against him, her cheek against his stomach, and she was looking up at him, her hand still above his heart, her eyes large and serious.

  "Why? Why me? Of all the guys—why me?" He had tried to pose the question first with humor, but now he could hear a strain of self-pity that made him feel ashamed.

  "You're such a cop, you big lunk. So smart about everybody else, so smart and sharp and wise. But you don't know anything about yourself, do you? Or women either. You can figure them at a distance, but you lose sight when they get too close."

  "Maybe."

  "Sure. And now you're feeling sorry for yourself. You just can't believe it, right? This gorgeous doll—I mean what the hell could she ever see in you? You—Jesus! Mr. Middle-age himself. Mr. The-World-Has-Passed-Me-By. She's a broad, right? And everyone knows what broads are interested in. Beefy jocks in sports cars. Muscles, money, clothes and fun. Let's not forget fun, Janek. I mean that's what it's really all about. And, of course, you're just no fun at all. I mean you're so clumsy in the sack. Can't hack it. Make love like an aging ape."

  He was laughing then, and she started laughing, too. During her tirade she'd reached up once and lightly pinched his cheek. Now she straightened out, lowered herself, went down on him, stroking him with her fingers and teasing him with her mouth. And when he was hard she jumped up laughing, grasped up her Leica, switched on some lights, pointed them toward the bed and started taking photographs of him as he lay watching, hands clasped behind his head, his body naked and sprawled out.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Getting the evidence."

  "Going to blackmail me?"

  "Sure. With proof that the old, beaten-up cop can still get it up, gets it up real good, in fact. Because that would ruin you, wouldn't it? I mean, your image of yourself, so sad and world-weary and, just to make the caricature complete, impotent besides."

  She took another shot, then set down her camera and sat beside him and took his hand. Then she flung herself against him, grasped him, held him tightly, and at that moment he felt as though no one had ever loved him as much.

  Intersection

  Janek was waiting for the beat. Sooner or later it would come, he knew—the beat that would establish the tempo of the investigation, tell him how long it would last and how hard the work would be. There were wonderful cases, quick cases where the information streamed in and a detective could become heady on the rush. Switched Heads (officially the case was Ireland/ Beard) was not showing signs of being one of those.

  The phone rang on Saturday morning. Janek glanced at his watch—nine A.M. Sal answered. "It's Aaron," he said. Janek punched his button and picked up. He had the feeling Aaron wasn't coming in and was calling now with an excuse.

  "You know those address books, Frank?"

  "The girls' address books?"

  "Yeah. Took them home last night. Got a match."

  "Great! Where the hell are you, anyway?" He could hear a strange sound in the background, a blend of music and verbal commands.

  "I'm at the point of intersection, Frank. We may be onto something here."

  Sal was gazing at his face, excited, alert. Three and a half days and nothing but theories. Maybe the case was finally going to jell.

  "Going to tell me about it?"

  "Give me a chance, for Christ's sake. I'm surrounded by distractions. This is a very peculiar place."

  He'd found the same number in both women's address books, but listed under different names. Under "Hazel Carter" in Amanda's book; under "X" in Brenda Beard's.

  "X? What the hell is X?"

  "I got excited about that myself. You know—like 'Mr. X' or 'extra' or 'extraordinary' or something, except it's none of those things. It's 'X' for 'exercise.' Hazel Carter is the name of this woman who runs a place where girls go to stay in shape. That's where I am now. I think you ought to join me. This is a very distinguished situation here. Lots of attractive broads, everyone suited up, faint tang of sweat in the air but nothing offensive. Better leave Sal behind. He could get excited, his being so young and all."

  Janek drove up alone. The gym was near Second Avenue on Eighty-sixth, a short walk from Amanda's place. There was an Indian restaurant at street level, and huge white-brick apartment houses on either side. Doormen in red tailcoats. Matching buildings named "Versailles" and "Fontainebleau." Marble and grandeur in the lobbies, low-ceilinged apartments upstairs. Pretentious and high-rent, Janek thought. Studios that cost a grand a month.

  The small commercial building which housed the Hazel Carter Fitness Salon was squeezed between these monoliths. It looked like a situation where the landlord had tried to hold up the developers, the developers had said "Screw" and erected their towers on either side. Now the tenants could gaze at one another across twenty-five feet of chasm, and the air rights to the little building were worthless, the plot too small to justify a tower.

  Aaron was waiting at the head of the stairs. Janek could hear band music as he mounted. Aaron was leering and nodding his head to the rhythm. There was a WOMEN ONLY sign posted on the door.

  "This is not your typical unisex gym, Frank. But seeing as how we're NYPD they're making an exception and letting us in."

  He held the door. Janek walked into the reception space. Maybe Aaron had been right about leaving Sal behind. That "faint tang of sweat" reminded him of Caroline, clean, sweet and potent, heady stuff so early in the day.

  The girl behind the desk was red-haired, freckled and very young. She wore a tailored ivory warm-up with a black T-shirt showing underneath.

  Aaron made the introductions. The receptionist's name was Cynthia Tuttle.

  "I told Miss Carter you were coming over," she said. "She's still in class."

  "No big deal," Aaron said. "You keep records of all the women who work out?"

  "Sure. We operate by appointment. We don't take people off the street. Miss Carter's classes are in great demand. We train some of the top models in New York." She mentioned a few names, Candy something, Cheryl this and Bunny that. The names didn't mean anything to Janek, but he nodded anyway. The place couldn't be all that exclusive, he thought, if they took a hooker like Brenda Beard.

  Aaron guided him toward the exercise room. They stopped a few feet from the open door. The room was large, the width of the building. Light poured in through the windows facing Eighty-sixth. White walls glittered. Mirrors and a ballet bar were built in along the back. Music blared from a stereo as a dozen girls dressed in leotards moved in perfect cadence to the commands of their instructress, who wore white bloomers and a sleeveless black T-shirt with the words "Hazel Carter" emblazoned across the chest.

  Watching these women bend and sway, perform jumping jacks, then reach and stretch, Janek found himself transfixed.

  Young bodies straining for perfection in a huge, white, dazzling light-filled room—he didn't want to turn away. He could see this was a tough class. One would have to be young and limber to keep up. And the girls were working. Their leotards were soaked. An hour of this three times a week and their conditioning would be superb.

  Aaron was chatting up Miss Tuttle. "You have to be a model to get in?"

  "If you're willing to work, then Miss Carter is pleased to have you. She doesn't care who you are so long as you don't slack off. Everyone's treated the same. Model, socialite or secretary. Everyone wears the sam
e uniform, too—we supply everything except shoes."

  The music stopped. The class started breaking up. Some of the girls flung themselves down on mats. Hazel Carter strode out. She walked proudly, a lean, handsome, perspiring woman about forty-five years old with short-cut graying hair.

  Cynthia introduced them.

  "Just how can I help you, Lieutenant?"

  Aaron pulled out his victim photographs, not the crime-scene shots but stills found in the apartments of the murdered girls. He showed Amanda first.

  "That's Mandy Ireland," Cynthia said. She gulped. "At least I think."

  Hazel Carter struck her hand against her throat. "That poor dear who was killed. Oh my God!"

  "She came here regularly?"

  "At least once a week." Cynthia was already flipping the pages of her appointment book. "Terrible. Such a ghastly thing. And only a few blocks away." Hazel shook her head. "Friday afternoons," said Cynthia. "She had a standing appointment for our class at four P.M. Let's see, she goes back to April, March, February, but not January. I think she started this past winter, but I can check last year's book and make sure."

  "Do you remember her?" Janek asked.

  Hazel Carter nodded. "To me there are only two kinds, serious and frivolous. I tell the frivolous ones not to bother to come back. Mandy was serious. She didn't just go through the motions. She wasn't in a holding pattern trying to keep her figure trim. She was willing to reach deep into herself for that extra effort. That's what I look for and that's what I expect. I'm a demanding task mistress, Lieutenant. I ask a lot, everything a girl has. Anything less is not satisfactory, and when I'm dissatisfied I make my feelings clear."