Slaughter

by John Lutz

  Snyder dutifully told her he’d be more careful than usual, and kissed her good-bye.

  In truth he wasn’t much for premonitions, but women did sometimes seem to have some mysterious source of information. On average, they found out things well before men did. It was as if they had their own secret Internet.

  In this crazy world, it was possible.

  Seated in a booth in their favorite diner, Quinn and Pearl were enjoying breakfast—eggs Benedict for her, over hard with hash for him—when Quinn’s cell phone chimed. He wrestled the phone out of his pants pocket and saw that the caller was Renz.

  “It’s Renz,” he mouthed to Pearl, just before accepting the call. Then, “Morning, Harley.”

  “You anywhere near a TV?” Renz asked.

  “We’re having breakfast at the White Flame over on Broadway.”

  “The place with the great blintzes?”

  “I thought that was something the German army did,” Quinn said. “But this place has got a TV behind the counter. It’s showing Martha Stewart reruns right now.”

  “Have them put it on New York One,” Renz said.

  Quinn glanced at his watch. Oh no! “Minnie Miner?”

  “ASAP,” Renz said. “You know the media types. They have to be fed if you want to keep them on your side. Newshounds like Minnie Miner need meat thrown to them now and then, so they can have a bone to gnaw on. Keeps them happy and quiet for a while.”

  As soon as he broke the connection with Renz, Quinn asked Ozzie the counterman if he minded tuning the TV to Minnie Miner ASAP.

  “This is part of your work?” Ozzie asked. He was an athletically built black man who strongly resembled the former Cardinals baseball shortstop genius, the real Ozzie Smith. His legal name was Ozzie Graves, but that wasn’t very glamorous, and when some gullible customer thought Ozzie behind the counter was the genuine Ozzie, who could play baseball and do backflips, all at the same time, Ozzie Graves simply rolled with it.

  “Why do you ask?” Quinn said.

  “We ain’t got a lot of Minnie Miner fans here,” Ozzie said.

  “Subject them to her for a little while,” Quinn said, “or I’ll tell everyone your real name.”

  Ozzie went “Ummm,” which he always did when he was thinking.

  “This about those murdered women and that Gremlin nutcase?” he asked.

  “We’re trying to find that out,” Quinn said.

  “Okay, then. Long as you let me autograph some baseballs. I can sign them Ossie Snith—keep it legal.”

  “Of course, as long as the photos are genuine.”

  “Today we’re going to interview a real serial killer,” Minnie Miner was saying on television. “He might be able to shed some light on this subject—if he wants to, of course. We don’t twist arms on this show—that’s how we get so many interesting guests and—hopefully—we learn something.” She glanced at the simple set. Two green easy chairs flanked a small table with a stack of half a dozen books on it. There was a low coffee table in front of the sofa. It could be reached by all the guests. The cordless phone was on the table between the chairs. There was a worn, trashy look to some of the set, though it all came across nicely on TV.

  The Minnie Miner ASAP news show was actually mostly a call-in radio show, but plenty of interesting guests had learned of it by first watching it on television. Minnie always had a phone number and e-mail address superimposed on the bottom of the screen. The Gremlin had at first vowed only to talk on the phone, but the lure of TV, of all those eyeballs trained on you, was for many almost irresistible.

  Not yet, the Gremlin told himself. When the time came, there would be plenty of cameras aimed at him.

  Almost, but not quite yet.

  Minnie was standing by the table when the phone made a weird swishing sound, like a sword or large knife splitting the air. She grinned—an attractive black woman with mischievous eyes, a great shape, and a big smile—and raised her forefinger to her pursed lips in a request for silence.

  And the audience was silent.

  The phone made the weird sound again. She looked at the audience, gave them an even bigger smile, and lifted the receiver with both anxious hands.

  Smiling yet wider, the phone pressed to her ear, she nodded over and over, as if trying to shake off her smile.

  This was great. This was wonderful! She mouthed the word “Gremlin” several times, her sparkling dark eyes scanning the audience, then spoke into the receiver, as obsequious and happy as if she’d gotten an interview with the Queen of England.

  She was talking to a killer.

  30

  Quinn, watching Minnie Miner ASAP, was amazed by the smattering of applause from the studio audience as Minnie introduced the killer, referring to him simply as “the Gremlin.” That’s what Minnie’s audience was trained to do, so it was automatic even though the applause sign didn’t light up.

  Minnie, wearing a mauve pants suit and with her hair slicked back, looked dignified and important. She was seated in her usual armchair she used when interviewing guests. In the matching armchair sat a black cardboard cutout of a man with an oval head and no features.

  “First of all,” Minnie said into her handheld microphone, “I’m glad you had the courage to call.”

  “Let’s not waste time talking about that.”

  “Do you object to me referring to you that way—the Gremlin?”

  “If you can hear a shrug on the phone, you just did,” the Gremlin said. His voice was male and strong, not what one might expect from a man described as resembling a destructive elf or leprechaun.

  “And why did you want to talk with me, personally, rather than another journalist?”

  “I’m interested in reaching your audience through you.”

  “And the reason for that?”

  “I don’t mind tales being told about me, as long as they’re based at least in part on the truth.”

  “Do you think lies have been told?”

  “You might call them selective editing. I call them lies.”

  “Such as?” Minnie asked. She looked knowingly at the cardboard cutout, then at the audience. They were all going to get a glimpse into the hell that was the killer’s mind. This was journalism at its best.

  “That I’m angry, violent, and vicious,” the Gremlin said, “and trying to get back at someone. Or that I’m on some kind of crusade. Or that I’m seriously mentally unbalanced.”

  “Are you saying you’re none of those things?”

  For several seconds there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Then what might have been a whimper. “I’m wondering how you get into the club they call the human race.”

  Minnie looked wonderingly at her studio audience. “Is that what this is about? Are we going to hear about an unhappy childhood? Because that’s what all killers say.” Suddenly Minnie was angry. “Because if that’s it, we—that’s me and my audience and the huge audience out there—aren’t buying any of those bananas.”

  “I’m not selling bananas. Or anything else. I’m just looking for the truth. For someone who won’t lie to me.”

  “Well. You found her. The language spoken here is the liberating, sometimes uncomfortable truth.”

  “It wasn’t my fault those people died.”

  “Which people?”

  “The women who rejected me. The men who betrayed me.”

  “Did you even know those people?”

  “I knew all of them, because they’re all the same.”

  “Like the people in the fire, and in the elevator?”

  “All the same.”

  “But why did you kill them?”

  “So I might better understand them.”

  “Are you saying that’s why you killed all those people in the elevator—so you could better understand them?”

  “Not the people. The elevator.” Another pause. “The people, too, though.”

  Minnie locked gazes with the audience, made a face, shook her head. “That’s so . . .
sick.”

  “You shouldn’t say those things about me.”

  “I promised I’d tell you the truth.”

  “That didn’t mean anything.”

  “It most certainly did.”

  “How do you make your living?” Minnie asked. “Do you have a job?”

  “Of course I do. Robbing from the rich and giving to myself. And I enjoy the agony and acquiescence my profession entails.”

  “Robbing the dead. You must know how perverse that is. You need help.”

  “You mean someone to hold their finger on the knots while I pull them tight?”

  “I can give you some names and phone numbers,” Minnie said.

  “I can’t trust you.”

  “You can, you can.”

  “Are you trying to keep me on the line long enough so the police can trace my call?”

  “Of course not.”

  “See?”

  Quinn heard the click as the killer hung up, then watched Minnie do the same.

  Ten minutes later, Renz called. “It was a drugstore throwaway phone,” he told Quinn. “The call originated someplace in midtown west of Broadway. Even if we could find the phone, or what’s left of it after it’s been stomped on, it wouldn’t help us.”

  “We can’t be sure of that.”

  “Sure we can,” Renz said. “I can tell stories two different ways, then later on I can take my pick. Fall back on the one that’s the best fit. No one remembers what other people say, anyway.”

  “Cops do,” Quinn said.

  “Not if they don’t remember they’ve forgotten something.”

  Quinn said, “I’ll grant you that. And they—we—also overlook things.”

  “Not us. Not cops.”

  “Even cops.”

  “But how would we know?”

  “We’d find out,” Quinn said. “Eventually.”

  31

  Betty Lincoln and Macy Adams looked like Broadway dancers. Both of them, from time to time, had come close. They were wearing tight designer jeans, pullover tops, and flat-soled, comfortable-looking shoes. Not shoes to dance in, but to give their feet a rest. Betty and Macy waited patiently for their shrimp salads and iced tea. Each woman was small, with a tight body, flat abdomen, large muscular buttocks and calves. Betty was blond and had a turned-up nose. Macy had dark hair and a Mediterranean profile. They moved with a kind of grace and power that drew the eye, even when they simply crossed the Liner Diner to the booths beyond the counter.

  Sitting toward the back of the diner suited them. There were windows there, and they didn’t have complete privacy, but it would do. Students from the nearby Theatre Arts Academy hung out at the Liner Diner, and neither Betty or Macy wanted to be seen. Especially Macy. Betty had made the second cattle call. Macy knew by the casting director’s piercing look that she wasn’t going to make it.

  They would find out officially after lunch.

  Two other dancers, and Darby Keen, hot new star out of the TV world, walked up and stood outside talking, near the front window of the diner. Betty and Macy sat still, unnoticed, while the other two dancers entered and found a booth near the entrance, to the side and out of sight and earshot.

  “At least we won’t have to listen to Keen brag about himself,” Macy said.

  Betty didn’t comment. She thought Darby Keen was a beautiful piece of work. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t dance. But what the hell, he was a draw. And more than once, when she was onstage with the other dancers, he’d given her a certain look.

  “What do you think of the playwright?” Macy asked.

  The writer of Other People’s Honey, Seth Mander, was still in his thirties, tall and blond, with sloe blue eyes that turned Betty on. Betty thought she and Seth would make a good pair. Even if he was part of the process that might deny her the job, she was still prepared to like him.

  Perhaps more than like him.

  “Betty?”

  “Seth is beyond cute.”

  “And talented,” Macy said. “Other People’s Honey is a seriously good play.”

  “With lousy choreography.”

  “You noticed?”

  “It’ll sprain or break a few ankles,” Betty said.

  Both women laughed.

  Then Macy felt suddenly glum. She’d be glad to risk a sprain, if only her luck would change and she could be a member of the cast that was shaping up for Other People’s Honey. Nobody really knew where hit musicals came from—they either did or didn’t have the magic. It looked, sounded, felt like Other People’s Honey was going to be a hit.

  But Macy knew it wasn’t going to happen for her. Not this time, and maybe never. Enough rejection taught you how to recognize it when it was still on the way. She could see it in the posture and faces of the ones who were judging hopefuls for Other People’s Honey. The money gods who held fate in their hands. Macy, in her heart, was already defeated. All that was needed was for it to be made official.

  Macy wanted to know, wanted the suspense to end. Or was not knowing a kind of masochistic pleasure? After all, if you didn’t know you were a failure, it wasn’t yet an established fact in the minds of others.

  And in your own mind.

  The verdict would be suspended for another hour or more, after the tryouts for voice. Macy didn’t worry about that. She didn’t even pretend to be able to sing. She was a dancer, and not just a chorus line dancer. She knew she was unique, and could carry a show.

  Yet something in her doubted, and it seemed impossible to change that.

  She knew what she needed. A new love. And luck with a new luster. The first would be easier than the last. She could fall in love—or something like love—easier than she should.

  There was a flurry of activity up near the front of the diner. The background traffic noise was louder, then softer. Someone had entered. Others had stood up.

  Darby Keen, sleek and muscular in jeans and a T-shirt (he certainly looked like he could dance), entered the diner. And right behind him, Seth Mander, his straight blond hair mussed by the breeze and dangling over one eye. He was wearing dress slacks, loosened tie, and scuffed moccasins. Betty stared at him, transfixed.

  Hands were shaken, backs were slapped. The dancers in the front booth were standing up. Everyone was standing. Some were congratulating themselves.

  “They’ve seen us,” Macy said.

  Betty forced herself to raise her head and look.

  My God! They’re coming back here!

  32

  Little Louie, as his fellow workers called Louis Farrato, was working the jackhammer today, breaking up already cracked concrete in front of the Taggart Building, the area that was to become the driveway of a portico. Louie, who was a few inches over six feet tall and built like an NFL linebacker, handled the jackhammer like a toy. He was following a yellow chalk line, where a concrete saw would neaten and emphasize the driveway, where it was projected it would encircle a fountain.

  It took skill to use a jackhammer, alternating heavy and light touches, and it was a tool that had to be guided carefully. That was why Louie so diligently followed the curved yellow chalk line.

  Louie had paused in his work with the other hard hats as the women they’d heard were Broadway dancers crossed the street and entered the Liner Diner. On a scale of one through ten, they were all tens, on the basis of their bodies alone. The little blond one they called Betty was particularly appealing to Louie. For whatever reason, he preferred small women. His wife, Madge, was only a little over five feet tall.

  Not that she wasn’t a fireball. More of one than the blond dancer, actually.

  Thinking of Madge, Louie smiled.

  Which was why he almost missed seeing the guy in the battered yellow hard hat.

  At first Louie thought he was looking at a kid roaming through the debris of the building. Then he saw that the guy had the bearing if not the stature of a man. He had on faded jeans and a tan shirt with a tie and was carrying a clipboard.

  Louie looked around,
and didn’t see Jack Feldman, the job foreman, or anybody else. Then he realized everyone was on lunch break. He hadn’t worn his wristwatch today because he didn’t want it subjected to the jackhammer vibrations.

  He leaned the jackhammer at an easy angle against a pile of debris. Then he pulled a handkerchief stuffed in a back pocket and used it to wipe sweat from his face and the back of his neck.

  Louie put on his own hard hat, with the company logo on it, and made his way toward the little guy.

  He could see, as he drew closer, that the man was smaller and older than he’d seemed from across the jumble of debris, and the steel stacked near where the crane was systematically lifting it to be eased into position. Those involved in this delicate operation worked while the others were at lunch or otherwise off-site. Everything was done with extreme care. People had died working with high steel. People Louie had known. But he figured the pay warranted the risk, so here he was.

  The crane, affixed to the twentieth floor, was preparing to lift a steel beam that looked small from this angle, up to where it would straighten its long, jointed arm and steel would be fixed to steel with rivets. The welders would follow close behind, making all but permanent what the riveters had done. And another piece of an empire’s giant toy would be fitted in place.

  Some of the other workers were coming back to work now, after leaving the Liner Diner. The Broadway-star types were hanging around in front of the diner, the women casually bending and doing light exercises, well aware they were being watched.

  The little guy in the hard hat looked over at Louie, looked back at his clipboard, and made a check mark. Then back at Louie. He smiled and said, “Safety.”

  Louie noticed a line of faded black letters on the scuffed and dented yellow hard hat. So the twerp was here in some official capacity.

  “I think we’re up to code here,” Louie said, though he had no idea. This guy, in washed-out jeans and a tan shirt with a tie, looked like management to him. A dress shirt and tie and a clipboard could add up to trouble.