When he drove back to the Chinese restaurant, Provenza was already standing out on the corner, reading the Post.
“How’d it go?” Corvino asked as his partner climbed into the shotgun seat.
“Better than I figured. She said it’ll be no sweat to run the search. She’s going to hang around after her shift tonight and crank it out. I can pick it up tomorrow.”
“That’s excellent!”
“Yeah, all it’s costing me is a dinner date,” said Provenza.
“Is that so bad?”
“Nah, I guess not. I haven’t been out in a while. She’s a nice-looking woman. We’ve been out before … I guess it’ll be okay.”
Corvino grinned as he pulled out into the traffic. It was time to get back to work—follow up the alibis of some of the warehouse employees, then back to the precinct to see if any reports had come through that might be of interest.
He hoped the time would go by quickly.
The waiter seated him at a table with a view of the front door and he ordered a Scotch and soda with a twist of lime. He rarely drank hard liquor, but after getting that report this afternoon about the remains found in the steam tunnel, he needed something strong. It was not just the details of the discovery that bothered Michael; it was what it implied.
He was taken out of his grim thoughts by the sight of Lya entering through the ornate double doors of the restaurant. The maître d’ directed her to Michael’s table, and he studied her as she approached. She wore a camel-hair skirt, a champagne-colored blouse, and a brown velvet blazer. Simple but elegant, that was Lya’s style.
“I hope I’m not late,” she said as she took her seat. “I lost track of time.”
“No, I’m early, but you’re right on time. Amaretto on the rocks?”
Lya smiled. “You know me so well already. Yes.”
Signaling for the waiter and giving him Lya’s cocktail order, Michael was of two minds. He was elated to see her, to be with her, but the events of the day lay heavy in his thoughts. Knowing that the crime report printout would be available tomorrow, he could not stop thinking about what Carter might find in it. The discovery of the body in the steam corridor also haunted his thoughts.
“Michael, is there anything wrong?”
“What? Oh, no … I was just thinking about some of the things that we’ll be doing.” He told her about arranging to get the computer printout for Carter, and that Provenza might be joining them, and then quickly changed the subject by picking up his menu. The waiter took his cue and appeared with pad and pencil.
Lya spoke offhandedly about her day, and Michael listened attentively. It would be better to simply enjoy the meal and their time together. There would be plenty of time for more serious talk.
They feasted on an assortment of beef kheema and lamb dishes with a vegetable pakora, nan, and chutney. He had always enjoyed the highly spiced Indian foods, and he was pleased to see that Lya ate them with an almost equal gusto. He was definitely falling for her, and wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Many years had passed since he had felt this much in love with a woman, and he felt a slight awkwardness about how to conduct the relationship from this point on. He wanted to simply tell her how he felt, but his mind was weighed down with other cares. Lya obviously liked him and was attracted to him, but how could he be certain that her intensity and depth of feeling were equal to his?
You can’t be sure at this point, he told himself. But why did things like this have to be so damned difficult? All that bullshit in the songs was nice, but it wasn’t very much like the real world, was it?
Over coffee, Lya again asked him if something was wrong.
“Why do you ask?” he responded lightly, and tried to smile.
“Because you’re not yourself tonight, Michael. There’s something in your expression—you’re concerned about something.”
“Well, it’s just something that happened today, something that I think is part of this overall pattern that Lane’s looking for.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“It’s pretty rugged. You sure you want to hear about it right after eating?”
Lya sipped her coffee and feigned a stem expression. “I’m a big girl. No chauvinism, please.”
“All right. Our precinct got a call this afternoon from the New York Steam Company. They reported finding a body in one of their access tunnels. So we went to check it out.”
“A body? Whose? Where?”
“No way of telling who. There wasn’t much left but the bones. It was down near the Village, in the Bowery,” said Michael.
“Oh, no …” said Lya. “Just like the sewer inspector?” He shook his head. “No, not exactly. They found traces of nitric and hydrochloric acid on the remains. Parts of it were stripped pretty clean. The first skeleton had been chewed on; this guy looked like the flesh had been digested off.”
“Digested? What does that mean?”
“I have no idea—I’m just telling you what he told us down at the morgue. They also found a trail of something stuck to the floor of the tunnel. It was dried out and looked like egg albumen, but it shone like a snail’s track on the sidewalk, you know what I mean? The lab’s analyzing it and they should have a report tomorrow.”
“Do they have any idea who the body was?”
“Not really. The Steam Company says that they’re always having trouble down in the Bowery with bums and derelicts, though. They go down into the tunnels when it’s cold so that they have a warm place to sleep for the night.”
“And that’s who they figure it was?”
“They’ve got nothing else to go on. This one will definitely go down as unsolved.”
“It’s obvious that it has something to do with our project, isn’t it?” Lya’s expression had changed in a few moments from one of cheery playfulness to a grim determination.
“You bet it is,” said Michael. “But there’s one thing that’s bothering me more than anything.”
“What’s that?” asked Lya, reaching out and taking his hand in hers.
“Well, it might be my imagination, but it seems to me that everything is happening pretty fast, that these things, these weird things, are starting to happen much more frequently.”
“But what does that mean, if it’s true?”
“Maybe we’ve opened some kind of Pandora’s box,” said Michael almost in a whisper.
“I think we’d better check things more thoroughly,” she said. “The more information we can give to Dr. Carter the better. Let him draw his own conclusions.”
He smiled grimly. “I have a feeling his conclusions will be inescapable.”
She said nothing for a few moments, just staring at him with those sultry, heavy-lidded eyes. She could hypnotize him if she wanted to, he thought.
“Michael, will you come home with me?” she asked out of nowhere.
He felt his pulse jump as she spoke, but he tried to remain cool. “I thought you would never ask.”
CHAPTER 28
MARSDEN
When she made love with Michael that evening, it was far better than the first time.
He was such a considerate, unselfish lover, yet he took his own pleasure with confidence, carrying her along to places she had only fantasized about. She could tell that he loved giving to her, being the architect of her pleasure, and then letting it consume her. His kisses and his touch were strong yet also soft, leaving her powerless as he lifted her to the edge of a climax and then let her slowly slide back from it, tantalizing her, teasing her, then coming on in a rush and taking her right to edge again. Then she would take the lead, playing with him, caressing and kissing every part of him, guiding him toward his own orgasm, and then stopping just short of it, intensifying the pleasure and the anticipation.
Slowly they carried each other higher. When he finally entered her, she was throbbing and burning at the mere thought of what he was doing, of what she was doing. They created a rhythm of pleasure and became lost in its natural syncop
ations, spiraling upward together to a sparkling crescendo.
Afterward as they let the starlight wash over them in the loft bed, Michael stared upward into the night. He chuckled lightly to himself as if enjoying some private joke.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. I was wondering if you thought I talked too much when we’re in bed, that’s all.” He smiled as he looked into her eyes.
“Of course not. I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
“That’s good. Sometimes I just can’t help myself … and you know what else?”
“What’s that? I have a feeling I’m being set up for something.” Lya laughed.
“Oh, you are, most definitely.” He cleared his throat and looked directly into her eyes. “Lya, I love you. Very much … I know that I do.”
At his unexpected words, her pulse jumped and her throat tightened. She pulled him close and kissed the point where his neck joined his shoulder. “Oh, Michael, I know what you’re feeling … I know that I love you, too. I love you.”
“But it’s scary, isn’t it? You’re feeling that too, aren’t you?”
She nodded as she sank into his embrace. “Yes, but I don’t care. Nothing comes for free, you know. Everything has its price.”
“I’ll pay—gladly. You’re so beautiful to me.”
“And you to me,” she said, kissing him, teasing him with her tongue. Suddenly a dark thought skittered through her mind like a gust of night wind. The fear of what they and Lane Carter might be tampering with invaded her sense of wellbeing, and she tensed.
“What’s the matter?” asked Michael, sensing the abrupt change in her.
“Oh, it’s not you. I’m sorry, I just had a crazy thought. It came out of left field … about the underground, about what we might be playing with down there. My fears are getting stronger, Michael. All that stuff of Carter’s—how much of it can we believe?”
“I’m not sure there’s much choice about believing it. The evidence is gathering. Either we deal with it or we don’t, but no matter what we do, it isn’t going to go away. So we’re going to do something about it.”
She sighed, trying to focus on his cool voice of reason, trying to banish the wild thoughts that had invaded the pleasure and the peacefulness of their love. “You’re right, I know. I’m just worried, Michael. I guess that’s my nature—to worry.”
“And it’s mine to be the eternal optimist, always looking on the bright side, right?” He smiled.
“I just hope we get through all this … together and safe.”
“Hey, we can do whatever we really want to do. I believe that,” he said. He was serious now.
“I do, too,” she said after a pause. “Since I met you.”
After breakfast in the early morning, they planned their day and night. Lya would finish her appointments with the various city departments and Michael would pick up the computer printout of bizarre and unexplained incidents. He promised to stop by for her after work so that they could go down to Lane Carter’s apartment together.
Immediately after he left, she felt such a rush of warmth and affection for him that she almost ran down the hall after him. It was an impulsive urge to pull him back to her and never let him go, to keep him safe and warm and close, and forget about the world.
She fought off the emotional notion, still feeling pleased that it had been there. She was in love with Michael, and she welcomed the admission. She needed him and he needed her. Together, as he had said, maybe they could get through anything.
If only there wasn’t any of this business with the subways, with the underground. She wished that she hadn’t started any of it. But then maybe Michael would not have come into her life. Sometimes it was all so crazy, so confusing.
Lya wished that she could make all the craziness, the weirdness, just go away. Another silly, emotional thought. When she cleared her mind and faced what was coming, she recognized that, before she and Michael would have any true peace, they would have to face the dark forces that were gathering around them.
They were coming; she could sense them like a growing storm in summer, and there was no escaping whatever they might bring.
CHAPTER 29
CORVINO
Provenza’s friend, Lynda Green from Central Records, had come through like Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes. Provenza had a thick sheaf of folded printout pages tucked away out of sight in his bottom desk drawer.
“How many incidents?” asked Corvino, sitting at the desk in the bull pen, drinking coffee.
Provenza shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe it. I had her take it back thirty years, and I had her include everything —cases solved and unsolved, unverified reports, even the ‘nut calls’ that aren’t routinely followed up. We’ve got more than three thousand right here.”
“Even over thirty years, that’s a hell of a lot. And if you figure that even half are just nuts and amount to nothing, that still leaves you with plenty stuff just like what we’ve both seen.” Corvino sipped his coffee. It was still too hot; he liked it when it was starting to cool. “Did you try to take a look at any of it? Read it?”
Provenza shrugged. “I glanced over it. Lots of strange shit. Best thing is to hand it over to your professor friend and let him see if there’s any sense to it.”
“Yeah. I was thinking that we could drop it off at NYU on our way to the warehouse offices. What do we have this morning, interrogations?”
Provenza pulled his note pad out of his rumpled corduroy jacket. “Let’s see … yeah, we got five employees that might have had an inside track. My money’s on one of these names.”
“Okay, let’s get moving. Don’t forget the printout.” Provenza grinned. “You kidding? If I get caught with this thing, it’s our ass.”
Corvino smiled. “To say nothing of Lynda Green’s, right?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said John. “Hers looks pretty good to me!”
It was late afternoon by the time they finished interrogating the warehouse employees. Corvino had had a difficult time keeping his mind on his work, thinking ahead to seeing Lya again and to the meeting with Dr. Carter that night. When they had dropped off the computer report for Lane Carter, Michael had wanted to stay there in the cramped little office and get into the analysis of the computer data. He didn’t care about the warehouse murder or any of the simpleminded men they were about to roll over the grill. He kept thinking about how petty and mundane it all seemed compared to whatever it was he was on the verge of uncovering. He felt as if he had been viewing the world through dark glasses all his life, and suddenly they were gone and he was discovering that the world was far more complex and intriguing than he had ever imagined.
The motives of men like Joe Spinetti and Harold Tyson, two of the prime suspects in the warehouse case, didn’t interest him. In the greater scheme of things, it did not matter whether or not they were pinned for the crime. The world in all its complexity would continue to chum and change. He smiled to himself. Such metaphysical thoughts for a cop!
He wondered if Provenza was having similar feelings. His partner was usually such a pragmatic guy; he knew John must he having a difficult time grasping the bizarre, almost occult nature of their private investigations. And he was sure that Provenza would think Lane Carter was something bordering on a crazy, eccentric old fool. He just hoped that John would realize there was method to Carter’s madness, and that the scholar of ancient religions was a coolly rational man, despite his affected, diabolic manner.
They pulled into the precinct around 3:30, checked in the car, and went upstairs. Provenza found a memo on his desk.
“Hey, what’s this?” He waved the paper at Corvino. “Got a call from Lynda Green over in Records. Christ, she can’t wait to get a piece of me.”
“Did you ask her out?”
“Not exactly, but I told her I’d be in touch, maybe we could catch a flick or a show sometime. You know, one of those indefinite kinds of things.”
“You going to call her?”
John lit a cigarette. “I don’t know. She’s got my home number. I can’t figure her calling here just to bullshit.” Corvino looked at his partner and saw that he was being serious. “You think she’s got something else?”
“Maybe, or maybe she got caught and she wants to tell me that the Commissioner will be calling me very soon.”
“Listen, if the Commissioner calk, I’m right there with you, partner. If we have to, we’ll tell him the whole story. That’s the way I feel about it. They can’t stop us now.” Provenza exhaled a stream of smoke, smiled, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Glad to hear you talking like that, partner. I think I’ll give her a call.”
He dialed the number, and Corvino sat down to roll a blank report into his typewriter. Pulling his notebook from his vest pocket, he started to transcribe the particulars of the day’s interrogations. He recommended that only two of the suspects be investigated further. Trying to formulate his conclusions before writing them down, he found that he was distracted because he was listening to his partner’s phone conversation.
“… when did this come in?” Provenza was asking her. “Do you know what precinct took the call? … Guy’s name is Thompson, right… . Okay, I’ll check into it. Yeah, thanks a lot, Lynda. Look, I’ll give you a call one night when I get some time, okay? Yeah, that’ll be nice. See you then.” Corvino looked at him as he paused after hanging up the receiver. “Well, what’s going down?”
“She says she got another report to file this morning, and since it sounded like the kind of thing we’re looking for, she thought maybe I’d want to add it to the list. Good lady, she is.”
“She might not be so much a good cop as she is interested in you, my friend. Trying to score points any way she can.”
“Well, maybe she is, but listen to this one. A guy who works for the Health Department, name of Clifford Thompson, he’s a rat exterminator …”
“Yeah, go on.”
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