by Mark McNease
There were sixteen responses to his ad. Eight of them he immediately deleted; four he pondered, scanning their photographs with his eyes to see if what initially caught his fancy lasted more then a few moments. It didn’t, so he deleted those as well. That left four more. One was African-American and quite handsome. He’d sent a photograph of himself in dress military uniform. D had no idea what branch of service it was, but clearly this man was a serious candidate. D minimized the photograph and moved to the next one. This gentleman—for someone clearly in his 50s ought to be called a gentleman—was also very handsome and well-groomed, salt-and-pepper buzz cut, no glasses, although D suspected he wore them, at least for reading. He was a keeper, so D saved his email and photo. The last two were younger, one Asian, one white. D did not consider himself a racist or especially biased (not to be confused with discerning, which he most certainly was), but Asians were never really his cup of tea. As attractive as the man was, in a suit and tie, no less, he didn’t fit the bill. D deleted him, leaving him with three choices.
Decisions, decisions. The fourth and final applicant was very good looking indeed. Dressed casually, “Kevin,” as he called himself, listed his age as 32 and his occupation as branch manager for one of the largest bank chains in the city. Kevin lived in Staten Island—a very long way to travel to meet someone from an online ad, but that could be advantageous for D. The further away from home his victim came, the farther afield the police would have to search (futilely, he might add). Kevin had a disarming smile, sparkling brown eyes, longish sandy hair and a button-down shirt, the sort a bank manager might wear on his off-time.
In the end D said goodbye to the military man. He was truly appealing, but also too great a risk. Someone who had served his country might be very quick in a struggle. D had to consider his own strength and age. He could not take a chance at losing the upper hand; and while he drugged his victims first, it was just enough to make them woozy. The kill was a disappointment if they were incapacitated. He’d learned that early on when he first started. An unconscious man was no more interesting than a dead one. No, he would have to pass on Mr. Military, musing on how lucky the man was without ever knowing it.
That left Kevin the bank manager and Scott the well-preserved 50-something. Scott gave no indication what he did for a living or where he lived. If D wanted to know more he would have to respond. Did he want to know more? He peered closely at Scott’s picture. Damn, he was a nice looking man. Not too tall, either. D didn’t like taller men.
Suddenly D found himself in a unique situation. He had always been able to narrow it down to one. On occasion that one proved to be a poor choice and he’d had to start over, but it had always been one at a time. Now he could not decide.
He took another bite of his muffin and felt his frustration rise—and his curiosity. What was going on with him? His first kill had been uninspiring, even uneventful. And now he could not make a decision! Was it because the two remaining candidates were so different—one older than D, one younger? One vague in his email, saying little about himself, the other an eager bank branch manager whose email, short at it was, seemed written to let D know he was “fully self-supporting” and mature for his age?
Damn, D thought, sliding his plate to the side. Damn, damn, damn. This was not like him. This was indecisive. This was … thrilling in its way. Maybe he needed to switch things up. Yes, maybe that was the lesson of Victor Someone. It wasn’t that he’d been away from it too long, wasting three years in a dreary German city, unable to speak the language well at first and tending to his pathetic mother out of a sense of obligation that had surprised him after all these years. It wasn’t that he’d lost his passion. It was simply that he needed some spice, some new twists. Meeting two men instead of one would certainly be that. He always met them first. In his initial meetings he said nothing of who he was or where he worked, the men’s clothing store he owned or where he lived. He was simply a well-heeled, well-mannered man from a city teeming with them, and they were unsuspecting prey.
He would do it! He would respond to each of them and set a time with Kevin for a casual coffee at the Arlington, perhaps meet Scott in a discreet bar. He hated chain coffee shops; nothing could be more banal than meeting in a Starbucks. But the Arlington served coffee and tea in their lobby. The landmark hotel had changed a great deal. The ghosts of celebrities from the 1930s and 40s had been chased away by tourists from Idaho and South Dakota. But the place still had atmosphere and the illusion of something once grand. It was one of his meeting places, but not the only one. He had to be careful; hotel clerks, servers and baristas had memories and could give descriptions. There were cameras absolutely everywhere, too. Most times D would meet them in a park—Bryant Park, or even the majestic Central Park—but not always. Sometimes a public meeting with witnesses added a touch of danger. He felt like being dangerous. He would not have the second one be as boring as the first.
He took a deep breath and felt an involuntary smile spread across his face. He placed his fingers over the laptop keyboard, then began thinking of his reply to each man. Wording was key. He would meet them each, one late morning and one in the afternoon. Jarrod would mind the store. He’d minded it for three years and done a very commendable job. It’s why D had hired him; he knew a quality man when he saw one. And now he was looking at two!
He began to type.
CHAPTER Five
Kyle was determined their visit with Detective Linda would be different this time. On her last trip they’d been consumed by their search for the killer Kieran Stipling—whose name and motive they didn’t know until they’d stopped his killing spree on a SoHo rooftop. There had been no time to see the city, no time to stroll or stop at one of the coffee shops on every other corner; no time to visit Grand Central terminal and gaze in awe at the ceiling with its constellations or marvel at the human river flowing in, out and around the magnificent train station every day. This time Kyle would show her the city he’d loved since moving here fresh out of college with his then-boyfriend David. He realized, as they walked west on 23rd Street, that it had been over thirty years since then. The city had changed. He had changed. The world itself was a very different place.
“Welcome to Chelsea,” Kyle said as they crossed Sixth Avenue. “Once a gay mecca, now more a blend of strollers and gays and yuppies—does anyone still say ‘yuppie’?”
Linda was taking it all in. Her memories of New York City were not the best: she’d stayed away from the city for many years, not wanting to taint the memory of her trip here as a child just months before her father was killed in Cincinnati; then, when she finally returned last year, she was pursuing a murderer not long after stepping off a train at Penn Station. Kyle’s photography exhibit opening at the Katherine Pride Gallery had been wonderful, but the next day she was gone again. She could not yet say what she thought of the city, not really.
“Why do they call it Chelsea?” she asked. The only other Chelsea she knew of was in London. She also knew it was the kind of information Kyle would have; he was a sponge for just this sort of trivia.
It was warm out, but not yet humid. Kyle hated the humidity that came with summers in Manhattan. It was the only season he didn’t like, and he knew come July he would have his annual impulse to move to Seattle or San Francisco, places he’d never been but that he imagined remained in the cool 70s all year round. He wouldn’t move, of course, but he would want to.
“Funny you should ask,” Kyle said. “It was originally an estate of a British major, who called it Chelsea in honor of Sir Thomas Moore’s estate in London. Land was added to it over the years and it became the Chelsea we’re walking in. Which, by the way, mysteriously expanded since I moved here.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Chelsea twenty years ago ran from 14th Street to 23rd. They extended it to 34th Street when the neighborhood gentrified so they could attract renters. Funny how that works. North of 34th it’s Hell’s Kitchen, which was called Clinton for awhile, bu
t now that there’s nothing the least bit seedy or dangerous about it everybody calls it Hell’s Kitchen again. It gives the residents someplace interesting to say they live.”
They were both wearing shorts today, a rarity for Kyle who preferred his legs covered in public, and he was thankful Linda would have perfect weather for her brief visit with them. She was leaving for Phoenix on Monday and he wanted her to have a good time, something to take her mind off the situation with her terminally ill mother-in-law.
“I’m sorry about Kirsten’s mother,” he said.
“Dot. That’s what everybody calls her, she’d tell you to call her that, too.”
“Dot.”
“I like that name. Dorothy’s nice, but there’s something unique about Dot. I don’t know any other Dots, do you?”
“I can’t say I do,” Kyle said.
“It’s hard. But Kirsten’s holding up through it. She has to. I can’t tell you how much it meant to her for Dot to make it one last time to New Jersey for our wedding. And how much it meant to me that you and Danny were there.”
They were nearing Eighth Avenue now and Linda noticed several couples holding hands. Men with men, and at least one young lesbian couple who seemed happy and in love as they stopped to look at puppies in a pet shop window. A sadness came over her as she thought of all the years she’d missed, all the years she had kept her truest self a secret. At the same time, she was thrilled to live in a changing world, a world in which she could walk down the street—at least some streets, in some cities—holding Kirsten’s hand without succumbing to the impulse to hide.
“Where are we going?” Linda asked. Kyle had told her he wanted to take a walk, but not where they were walking to. Danny had gone to his restaurant to meet with Chloe the day manager, and to plan for what would be both a celebration and the saddest event of his life: saying goodbye to old Margaret Bowman as she prepared to move to Florida. Danny was the party planner, as he had been for every party at Margaret’s Passion the last eleven years. Kyle had suggested Danny let someone else arrange this one, that it would be too difficult, but Danny would have none of it. It was his restaurant, purchased from Margaret, and she was his second mother. No, he’d said, this was something he had to do.
“I want you to meet Imogene,” Kyle said as they kept walking west. Once they reached Ninth Avenue they would turn right and head toward 38th Street. It was a good long walk, and he planned to stop for coffee and bagels as he always did, taking one of each for his boss, Imogene Landis. He wondered briefly if she, too, would be moving on soon. It was not a welcome thought and he waved it aside.
“Bugs?” Linda said, seeing Kyle wave his hand in the air.
“No, just something I don’t want to think about.”
Imogene Landis was a television reporter who’d slid very near the bottom of her profession until events gave her career a second wind. When Kyle started working as her assistant six years ago she’d been reduced to a position as the English language financial reporter for a show called Tokyo Pulse. The show was put out by Japan TV3, whose studios they were walking toward. The 3:00 a.m. Tokyo crowd got a good laugh out of Imogene; she knew nothing about financial reporting, and her attempts to include a few words in Japanese had them howling on their living rooms floors. Then, a year and a half ago, she’d covered the murders at Pride Lodge—the same murders that brought Kyle and Linda together, and the next thing she knew, she was a star. A minor star, to be sure, but bright enough for her bosses in Tokyo and the New York station manager, Leonard Baumstein (“Lenny-san”), to promote her to city reporter. Since then she’d been back in the thick of things, covering politics, art, even the occasional noteworthy homicide. She was a celebrity of sorts now, and she’d caught the eye of several TV stations across the country. Kyle believed it was only a matter of time before one of them made her an offer she would accept.
They reached Ninth Avenue and turned, walking north. Most of New York City was a grid, something Kyle appreciated. It was both easy to find your way here, and harder to get lost. He’d walked this way a thousand times and wondered if he would keep walking this way if there was no Imogene waiting. He supposed he would, as a matter of habit, at least for awhile.
“I haven’t wanted to bring this up …” he said
Linda knew he was talking about the news he’d read that morning.
“There’s nothing you can do, Kyle. Maybe it’s not who you think it is, this Pride Killer. Maybe your doorman’s brother drowned in the river. People drink too much, sometimes they stumble.”
“No, this wasn’t an accident. It’s him. I know it is.”
“So leave it to the police.”
“You are the police!”
“Retired, Kyle. And I was on the New Hope force, a long way and a world of difference from New York City. I have a bad feeling about this one, I think we should stay out of it.”
“And wait to read about two more? He kills in threes. No, this time he struck close to home. This time it’s personal. I want to talk to Vinnie.”
“Your doorman?”
“Yes, when the time’s right.” Kyle didn’t know when Vincent Campagna would return to work but when he did, Kyle wanted to have a very delicate conversation with him.
“Well,” said Linda, “if this is the Pride Killer and he claims his victims every Pride weekend –”
“Minus the last two.”
“Minus the last two … I’d say time isn’t something we have much of.”
She was right. Kyle sighed, knowing he ought to stay out of it, but what if this killer got away with it again? He’d done his dirty work for years before stopping, and now that he was back he would probably do it for years again. Something had to be done, but not this moment. For now Kyle was taking them to meet his beloved, infuriating, demanding boss, and that was where his mind should be.
“Cecil’s is just up ahead,” Kyle said. Cecil’s was the bagel shop where he always bought coffee and a breakfast treat of some kind for himself and Imogene. He was comforted that Cecil’s had been around as long as it had—at least as long as Kyle had worked for Imogene. Some things needed to stay the same, he thought, even if it’s just a bagel shop. Otherwise the impermanence of life would be too much to bear.
“I could use another cup of coffee,” Linda said.
They walked on, approaching the back of the Port Authority bus terminal. Some parts of New York City were breathtaking, and other parts were permanently ugly. But this is New York City, all of it, and Kyle wanted Linda to see as much of it as she could in the next four days. He put the thought of killers and floating bodies out of his mind for now. It was a glorious day at one of the most festive times of year, at least for the hundreds of thousands who would flood Fifth Avenue for the parade Sunday, and he wanted no rain, no sadness, no death. This morning he would have none of them.
CHAPTER Six
Keller and Whitman was not the most well known men’s clothing store in Manhattan, but it was certainly considered among the best. D’s uncle, Leo Whitman, had eschewed growth, turning his nose up at the bigger stores and having disdain for chain operations. He was interested in quality, not quantity, and he had educated D slowly and steadily in the ways of the discerning man. You succeeded very well, Uncle, D thought as he entered the store that bore his name. Not only are my customers discerning, but I’m quite the connoisseur myself. Take Kevin, for instance …
He was in especially good spirits this morning. The letdown of his first kill had eased and he attributed it to being out of practice. His time in Berlin had numbed his senses, like eating too much bad food for too long, then suddenly tasting something exquisite. His palate had not been ready for it, but it would be the next time. He was back in form.
“Good morning, Mr. K,” Jarrod said when he saw D come through the front door.
Jarrod Sperling was a good man and an even better store manager. His efficiency and way with customers, each of whom he made to feel as if they were the only truly valua
ble customer in the world, were what had saved him from becoming D’s third victim nearly seven years ago. Had it not been for these qualities D spotted in him when they met for a drink, Jarrod would be a forgotten headline now. But he’d impressed D with his manners and his knowledge of the garment business, and instead of killing him D hired him to help with the store. In very quick order Jarrod proved himself capable of keeping things going on his own, and he’d run the business very well when D was in Berlin. For that D must find a way to thank him. Perhaps a ridiculously large Christmas bonus.
“Good morning, Jarrod. I trust you’re well.”
“Very, Mr. K. And I have good news.”
I have even better news, D thought, but I’ll never be able to tell you.
“What might that be?”
“You know Michael Marzen …”
“I know of Michael Marzen, yes. He’s on the cover of everything these days.”
Michael Marzen was a software billionaire who had decided to gift most of his fortune to charity. Charities, of course, had lined up for a piece of the action, and Marzen had been giving interviews on the virtues of philanthropy.
“Well,” said Jarrod, in a deliberately self-effacing way, bowing his head just so as if to say he was a humble man, with humble tidings, “He wants a new wardrobe, and he wants it from Keller and Whitman.”
This was indeed good news. A man of Marzen’s means could provide the store with enough income to show a profit for the year. Keller and Whitman always showed a profit, but this would be exceptional.
“Good man,” D said.
Jarrod blushed and smiled, not quite a puppy who’d been patted on the head, but almost.
