by John Lutz
Owww!
There was her world in an abrupt illuminated clarity so brilliant that it hurt.
Squinting and blinder than before she’d flipped the wall switch, she limped on toward the bathroom, hoping not to stub the toe a second time. That would be unbearable. If that happened again���
What?
She made it all the way into the shower and stood beneath the miracle of the water.
56
It was almost three o’clock when Pearl got to Roosevelt Hospital at Tenth Avenue and West Fifty-ninth Street. She joined Quinn and Fedderman in a nicely furnished waiting room handy to Critical Care. On the opposite side of the long room sat two large black men with their heads in their hands. One of them appeared to be silently sobbing.
Quinn was standing holding a paper cup of coffee. Fedderman had a cup, too, and was slouched almost horizontally in a gray upholstered chair with wooden arms. On a TV mounted to a metal arm above Fedderman, a guy in jeans and a black T-shirt was silently leaping around, holding himself and making faces as if he’d just been injured in the testicles. There were occasional close-ups of people in the audience laughing hysterically. The Comedy Channel. Oh, yeah. Pearl noticed that a damp heap of material on the floor appeared to be Fedderman’s suit coat. It had blood on it.
“You two look like you’ve had a hell of a night,” Pearl said.
Quinn said, “You call Addie?”
“Damn it! I forgot.”
He glanced at his watch. “Too late now. Let her sleep.”
Let her sleep all damned day, Pearl thought. She said, “So what’s the latest on this Lisa Bolt, private eye?”
“Condition critical but stabilized. Internal injuries, fractured skull. She’s in a coma.”
“Anything in her possessions that provides a way to contact family?”
“Nothing,” Fedderman said. “She was traveling light. If she has family, she probably didn’t want them getting mixed up in whatever it was she was doing.” He sounded down, so weary he might doze off any second. But more than that, Pearl thought. He sounded depressed.
“Doctors say how long the coma’s gonna last?” Pearl asked. Lisa Bolt’s coma, not yours.
Fedderman used the tips of his forefingers to massage the corners of his eyes. “Not only can’t they say, they’re not even sure she’ll ever regain consciousness.”
“But they know we need to talk to her if she does regain consciousness,” Quinn said to Pearl. “That’s why you’re here.”
“Let me guess.”
“That’s right. Feds and I are calling it a day-a night. Somebody’ll relieve you later this morning. Then if you want, take the morning off and catch up on your sleep. If Lisa Bolt does regain consciousness, call me immediately.”
“Any news?” a voice asked.
Addie Price walked into the waiting room. She was wearing tight jeans and a soft cotton blue sleeveless sweater with a neck so wide it had slipped down over a shoulder, making one of her bra straps visible. Her thick blond hair was mussed but looked styled rather than slept on.
No bed head for this cutesy, Pearl thought.
“How’d you know we were here?” Fedderman asked.
“Mishkin phoned and let me know. Probably Renz told him to. You get that coffee out of a machine?”
“Down the hall,” Quinn said, and motioned with his head. He looked over at Pearl. “Now you’ve got company. You can fill in Addie; then the two of you can sit watch in case Lisa Bolt comes around and talks. It’d be better if two people heard whatever it is she might say.”
Pearl glared at him. Fill in Addie and make her job of spying for Renz easier.
Fedderman raised himself in weary sections from his chair, scooping up his wrinkled mess of a suit coat as he stood.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Quinn said.
He and Fedderman trudged from the waiting room. Fedderman was too weary even to throw a parting verbal jab at Pearl.
Addie said, “Those two look like train wreck survivors.”
“No,” Pearl said, “not the survivors.”
“I’ll go get some coffee,” Addie said. “Then you can let me know what’s going on. You want some?”
“Why not? We have to stay awake. At least one of us does.”
While Addie was gone, a young nurse came in and picked up an empty glass coffeepot that Pearl hadn’t noticed on a table over in a corner by the two black guys who were still silently fretting. She smiled brightly at Pearl as she flounced out with the empty pot, leaving a full one behind on the burner. It was probably better coffee than what Addie was getting out of the machine.
She and Addie could discuss that.
Pearl thought it was time that the two of them discussed a number of things.
Addie settled with her coffee into a leather chair and curled her long legs beneath her. Pearl was glad to notice that she had rather large feet.
Pearl was sitting nearby in a corner of a sofa, feeling tired but edgy. Now and then a hushed bell tone would sound and someone-usually a doctor-would be summoned to one part of the hospital or another. The occasional nurse or custodian would pass nearby in the hall. The two despondent black men had conferred with a doctor in scrubs and then left. Pearl and Addie were pretty much alone.
Pearl was wondering how to broach the subject of Addie’s obvious flirting with Quinn when Addie spoke up.
“Congratulations again on your engagement,” Addie said. “Yancy Taggart must be an interesting man.”
“To be engaged to me, you mean?” Pearl asked.
Addie smiled. “Well, yes, that is what I mean. I don’t imagine that you give of yourself very easily, Pearl, or to just anyone.”
“Just anyone?”
“I didn’t mean that how it might have sounded, or how you might have interpreted it.” Addie sipped her coffee carefully, knowing by the almost untouchable cup that it was still almost too hot to drink. “I don’t imagine that you end a relationship easily.”
“No,” Pearl admitted, “I don’t.”
“There isn’t any reason for you to worry,” Addie said.
“Worry?”
“About Quinn. You’re worried that I might hurt him.”
Pearl held her hot cup with both hands and looked at Addie over the rim. “My, my, you are a psychologist.”
“It’s obvious that you’re still fond of Quinn. Not to the point that you won’t marry someone else, but he’s a good man and you know it and don’t want to cause him pain. Or for me to cause him pain.” Addie sipped, less cautiously. “The instant he learned you were engaged he became jealous, and on a certain level, you had second thoughts. That’s only natural, for both of you. Now you’re afraid I might be taking advantage of Quinn, amusing myself by getting him on the rebound.”
“I’ll admit to all of that,” Pearl said. “So what?”
“So I want us to be honest with each other.”
“That would start with you being honest with me,” Pearl said.
“Okay. I’m extremely ambitious, Pearl. Maybe more ambitious than anyone you ever met. I’m drawn to Quinn, but that isn’t going to stop me from using him to advance my career. I’m using him. I freely admit that to you and to no one else. I’m leading him on, but I don’t intend to let him get too close.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want him hurt badly when I drop him. He’ll feel despondent and betrayed, but not for long. He’ll realize I was just a conniving bitch. He’ll tell himself that his thinking I was doing anything other than stringing him along should be a lesson learned. He’ll be right. Within a few weeks after I’m gone, he won’t even give me much thought.”
“Meanwhile you’re going to continue teasing him. There was a term for women like you when I was growing up.”
“Prick teaser?”
“That’s it,” Pearl said.
“That’s what I am,” Addie said. “I use the elusive promise of sex to manipulate men.”
“But you never
come across.”
“There would go the elusive promise,” Addie said. “You’re a big girl. You understand manipulating men, using them as stepping-stones to get ahead in life. You’re not above that kind of thing yourself.”
“True enough, though I can’t say I’m always successful.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
“Thus our professions,” Pearl said.
“Quinn’s a big boy. He’ll understand just as you do, after he has a little while to think about it. I know you’re fond of him, and I’m telling you not to worry so much about him. He might get bumped when I drop him, but he won’t be bruised.”
“What about you?”
“Me? I don’t bruise easily.”
“I didn’t mean that. Women like you, it’s your inaccessibility that attracts. And once you deliver, that’s gone. So you’re afraid to deliver. You continue to tease because you’re insecure.”
Addie nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, on a certain level, that’s true. But we know it and are used to that particular rough road. Having the ability to tease our way through life is our compensation for our insecurity.”
“Hell of a realization.”
“It’s a realization that comes to most women, in one form or another. If we too freely lend ourselves, we might not maintain our value.”
“We’re not Swiss francs,” Pearl said.
“Aren’t we?”
“Let’s not think about the answer to that,” Pearl said.
“However Quinn views us-me-I can promise you he won’t be badly hurt when our relationship ends.”
“When it isn’t consummated,” Pearl said.
“I can promise you that, too.”
“Insofar as anyone can promise such a thing.”
“Insofar,” Addie agreed. She took a long sip of coffee and smiled. “I’m glad we had this talk, Pearl. It clears things up between us.”
“Yes,” Pearl said.
“You’re an honest woman and I’m not.”
“Just so we’ve got that straight,” Pearl said.
57
They were in the office at ten the next morning, Quinn, Pearl, Fedderman, and Erin Keller. Addie was still at the hospital, where she’d volunteered to wait for a plainclothes detective and a uniform who’d been assigned to guard Lisa Bolt. Lisa hadn’t yet regained consciousness. Vitali and Mishkin were in the field, working the Lilly Branston case.
The air conditioner, already under assault by what was fast becoming a record heat wave, was making an underlying hammering sound as it hummed away. Indoors, condensation had appeared as a thin trail of rusty water trickling down the wall beneath the ancient unit. Nobody mentioned either the hammering sound or the stain on the wall. They didn’t want to jinx the thing.
“That’s her, all right,” Erin said, looking at the photo on Lisa Bolt’s Ohio driver’s license. “Same woman as in the photograph you showed me earlier.”
Quinn didn’t doubt that it was, but he wanted Erin’s official corroboration. He was building his case. Sooner or later, this mess was going be in court. He hoped.
“Are you sure you’ve never seen this woman before?” he asked Erin.
“She’s a total stranger.”
“And Chrissie never even mentioned her name?”
“Never.”
“If you do remember anything-”
“I know,” Erin interrupted. “I’ll call you right away.”
She left, probably to seek someplace cooler.
The door opened, and Addie came in. She was wearing the same clothes as last night. Except for what might be the slightest sign of bags beneath her eyes, she looked fresh and wide awake. Pearl knew that she, on the other hand, looked a premature sixty years old.
Everyone said hello or nodded good morning to Addie, and she smiled and returned their greetings. “Bolt is still out of it,” she said, “but the doctors sound more optimistic.”
She assured Quinn that Lisa was safely under guard, and then wandered over toward the coffee machine. She shot a sideways glance at Pearl with a slight smile. Co-conspirators, after baring their souls and ambitions last night. Members of the new sisterhood.
Pearl thought, Screw that.
When Addie had her coffee, she came back and sat on the edge of Fedderman’s desk. Though her coffee mug had her initials on it, she still hadn’t gotten a desk of her own. She didn’t seem to mind. Not having a permanent workstation gave her the opportunity to flit around as she pleased.
“There’s something I’ve been turning over in my mind,” she said.
Quinn said, “Turn it toward us.”
“When Lisa Bolt does come around and start to talk,” Addie said, “I wouldn’t expect too much. Whatever her reason for impersonating Chrissie Keller, she might not know it’s an impersonation.”
“Say what?” Fedderman said. He was seated behind his desk but had rolled his chair to the side so he had a three-quarter view of Addie.
Addie crossed her long legs. Always with the legs, thought Pearl, watching Fedderman’s involuntary gaze shift to the roundness of Addie’s derriere on his desk.
Got ‘em comin’ an’ goin’, girl.
“We all know about the amazing synchronism of twins,” Addie said. “How sometimes they think or act almost as one person. If Lisa Bolt’s impersonation of Chrissie is some kind of mental aberration, she might actually consider herself to be Chrissie-or the dead twin’s counterpart.”
“A third twin,” Fedderman said.
“Mathematically impossible, but it captures the idea. We might have something like triplets on our hands.”
“That sounds insane,” Pearl said.
“Oh, it is,” Addie said. “We also have a mother fixation here, demonstrated by the removal of the victims’ nipples. The carved letter X, as if the victim is being negated out of existence and perhaps even memory. Not only that, if we have personality transfer, Lisa might do anything to maintain her delusion. If she thinks she really is the late Tiffany Keller’s sibling, she might attempt to kill her mother, the one person who knows she’s neither twin.”
“Beyond insane,” Pearl said. She didn’t like it when investigations started straying into the occult. This world alone was hard enough to figure out.
“Maybe not,” Quinn said. “Most of us here in this room have seen stranger things.”
Pearl looked at Addie. “You must have done a lot of thinking in that waiting room.”
“I’m sure we both did,” Addie said.
“It’s not a hypothesis we should work on yet,” Quinn said. “It all depends on what Lisa Bolt has to say when she gains consciousness.”
“If,” Fedderman said.
The door swung open again, letting out more cool air to be devoured by the hot morning. Letting in Vitali and Mishkin. Both of them looked awake enough after their hard night. Mishkin nodded. His brown suit was pressed. His white shirt looked fresh and was neatly tucked into beltless pants held up by suspenders over his surprisingly flat stomach. Even his brushy mustache looked trimmer than usual.
Sal appeared rumpled but presentable. He winked at Fedderman. “Who’d have guessed you could outrun a gazelle?”
“State runner-up as a high school miler,” Fedderman said.
“Long time ago, high school,” Mishkin said.
“It comes back now and then,” Fedderman said. “I even get the occasional pimple and want to do Mary Lou Minowski in the backseat.”
“You knew Mary Lou too?” Sal said.
“Enough of this testosterone talk,” Pearl said. “It’s wearing.”
Vitali walked over to where Quinn was seated and laid something that looked like a flattened lipstick on Quinn’s desk.
“This is what?” Quinn asked.
“A flash drive, or memory stick,” Vitali said. “The killer took Branston’s notebook computer with him, but he overlooked this. It was down behind the cushion on the victim’s desk chair.”
“You plug it into a USB port on a c
omputer,” Pearl said, “and you can copy files to it. It’s like a disk drive only smaller and without moving parts. Some of them have tons of memory.”
Quinn brightened. “You mean Lilly Branston might have been backing up her computer with this thing?”
“Probably not automatically,” Pearl said. “Flash drives are used more for storage than for systematic backup.”
“An actual clue,” Quinn said.
“The killer’s first mistake,” Fedderman said.
“Maybe,” Addie said.
“Gimme,” Pearl said.
Pearl worked at her desk with the flash drive until almost three o’clock, not even taking time for a proper lunch. She’d used a plastic fork to eat a takeout salad while exploring the world of Lilly Branston’s deceptively tiny memory stick.
At first she’d been disappointed. Much of the little device’s capacity was unused. What was there were mostly condo and co-op units listed with the Willman Group, sometimes entire residential buildings. The Willman Group’s website was set up so a prospective buyer could take a virtual tour of the property, showing even the views out the windows. Pearl thought that if she was in the market for a million-dollar-plus apartment, she’d be in heaven-if she had a million dollars plus.
This wasn’t heaven. She was a detective and would probably never see a million dollars that wasn’t stolen.
Her spirits lifted when she opened a file titled “C and C.” She soon learned the letters stood for Coffee and Conversation, and it was a matchmaking site for professionals and people with arcane interests, seeking companionship with people of the same ilk.
Not unusual in New York, where minutes moved faster than sixty seconds, and people didn’t have time for the usual rituals of cultivating friends and lovers. The city had figured a faster way that suited its occupants.
C and C had a feature that distressed Pearl but must have had great appeal to its clients. Joiners posted their personal profile (photo optional) and ways to contact them-usually their e-mail addresses. There was no way for anyone else, including C and C itself, to track who had contacted whom. Clients made person-to-person contact without involving the company, which apparently made its money from advertising. Privacy was assured.
