by John Lutz
“Jesus, I’m glad I called.”
“Me, too, Quinn.”
Quinn’s mind flashed an image of Fedderman, balding, gangly, paunchy, able to make the most expensive suit look as if it had just been stripped off a wino. Not tempting widow bait, Fedderman.
I should talk.
“You and Pearl still on the outs?” Fedderman asked, as if reading Quinn’s mind over the phone.
“Yeah. Pearl’s got her own place, and she’s still working that bank guard job at Sixth National.”
“Job for guys in their eighties,” Fedderman said. “Banks don’t get robbed anymore in ways a guard might prevent. Usually it’s done by computer. Robber might never even see the inside of the place.”
“Technology.”
“Who the hell understands it, Quinn?”
“Everybody under thirty.”
“Not us,” Fedderman said.
Quinn took a cautious sip of his coffee. It was still almost hot enough to singe his tongue. Mr. Coffee needed some adjustment.
“You want me to fly up there?” Fedderman asked. “I can close down the condo, put my convertible in storage.”
“You drive a convertible?”
“Uh-huh. Lot of guys around here do. Reliving their youth. Place down here sells new cars made in emerging nations at reasonable prices ’cause of the low labor costs. I got a red Sockoto Senior Special. Front seat swivels and kinda lifts you so you can get out easy.”
That was disturbing to Quinn. “You’re in your fifties, Feds. You don’t need that kinda crap.”
“Nice, though. Makes things easier. You’re still a young man, Quinn, comparatively. You got it made with early retirement, but you’ll find out how it is.”
Early retirement, Quinn thought. A false accusation of child molestation, then a bullet in the leg. Some way to retire.
“Not that you haven’t earned it,” Fedderman said, reading Quinn’s mind again. “You want me to fly up there?”
“Not yet. Renz is waiting for confirmation and for the media wolves to start howling in unison. Then he’ll give us the go-ahead.”
“Confirmation?”
“Officially there’s no serial killer yet. Not enough definitive evidence to link the murders.”
“From what you told me, he’s out there.”
“Renz still has hope there won’t be another victim. Busy building his fool’s paradise. You know how he is.”
“So we sit back and wait for the next victim?”
“Not much else we can do,” Quinn said.
“I guess not. And I’d like to be with Renz on this one, thinking there might not be a next victim, but I know better.”
“We all do.”
Quinn added some milk to his coffee and tested it. Cool enough now to be bearable. Coffee could be a trial to drink, but he liked to use the coffeemaker now and then just to fill the kitchen with the warm scent of fresh grounds.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me what Renz is paying this time?” he asked.
“Screw the money,” Fedderman said. “You know what I mean?”
“Sure. It’s the game.”
“I know Pearl feels the same way. That’s why I always figured you two’d stay together.”
“Fire and ice,” Quinn said. “Sometimes it makes lots of smoke but not much in the way of flames.”
“Long as there’s embers,” Fedderman said.
Quinn wondered if, in Pearl’s heart, there were even embers.
Fedderman was quiet for a while; then he said, “Can you feel him out there, Quinn?”
He couldn’t help it; there was a note of hope in his voice. Fedderman knew Quinn was notorious for splicing into the thought processes of the mad and dangerous men who killed over and over. Quinn understood them from their work, from the pain they caused and the pain they left behind. He could read their handiwork the way a hunter reads a spoor, and then set off in the right direction.
“Quinn?”
The voice on the phone was faint, as if Florida were drifting away from the rest of the continent.
“He’s out there,” Quinn said.
After hanging up the phone he sat and drank some more coffee. It was making him hungry.
8
Pearl sat on the park bench with her cell phone in her hand, wondering if she’d done the right thing. It wasn’t the bank; she knew they’d take her back when the NYPD and Quinn cut her loose. It was Quinn himself. She was certainly over him, but did he know it? Would he act accordingly?
Had Pearl made a mistake? Should she phone Quinn and back out of her agreement to become a cop again, just for a while?
Questions. Too many of them. When they reached a certain critical number, Pearl usually decided to ignore them and charge blindly ahead.
This time was no exception. She slipped her cell phone back into her purse and settled back on the bench. It was on the edge of the park, facing the street, so there was lots of pedestrian traffic.
A compact, dark-haired woman with a kind of vibrancy even when sitting still, Pearl was drawing male stares. She ignored them.
Right now she didn’t feel beautiful, and the hot sun beating down on her didn’t help to improve her mood. A bead of perspiration trickled erratically down her back beneath her shirt and into the waistband of her jeans. She admitted to herself that she felt like crap. Usually she felt better after making up her mind, when there was no turning back. Not this time. She hoped it wasn’t an omen.
She felt suddenly as if she were suffocating in the heat; she breathed in some exhaust fumes, and didn’t feel much better. But the next few deep breaths moved her away from the edge of panic. Manhattan air-whatever its quality, she could live on the stuff. Millions of other people did.
A squirrel with a gnarly tail that looked as if it might have been run over by a tire ventured close to the bench, where someone had scattered some peanut shells. It began to gnaw at one of the larger fragments of shell, then hunched its tightly sprung body and was very still.
There was the slightest of sounds; then a shadow passed nearby, and the squirrel shot away from Pearl and into some trees.
Pearl looked upward and saw the hawk. Its speed, the way it wheeled on the wind and soared higher, took her breath away.
“Falcon!” she heard someone nearby say.
Pearl squinted as the ascending bird crossed the brilliance of the sun.
Like a lot of other New Yorkers, she’d read in the papers about how people would sit and watch peregrine falcons that nested high on skyscrapers as if they were mountain crags. Residents of the buildings sometimes wanted the falcons killed or captured because of the mess they made defecating on and around the entrances. And hailing a cab in front of the buildings could be dangerous for the doormen and their cleaning bills. Sometimes canvas sheets were mounted several stories high on the buildings as makeshift awnings to shield the sidewalk below, but these were only temporary measures.
Pearl had read that there were over a dozen known families of falcons in New York City. Also that they fed on smaller birds such as sparrows and pigeons. So maybe this falcon was only curious and the squirrel had nothing to fear. But then, squirrels must have something to fear always, as did most animals that were the natural prey of carnivores.
Several passersby had also seen the swooping falcon and were standing and peering skyward, shielding their eyes with their hands as if holding salutes. A man accompanied by a boy about ten stopped to see what people were looking at. The man pointed, grinning, while the boy stood with his head tilted back and his mouth open.
The falcon veered, spread its wings wide to brake to a near halt in midair, and found its perch out of sight high on a building.
“That was something,” a voice said next to Pearl.
A fortyish man in a gray business suit had sat down next to her on the bench. He had a brown paper bag in one hand, almost certainly his lunch, and an unopened plastic water bottle in the other. His hairline had receded, and he’d dealt with it by affecting a tou
sled, forward-combed hairdo that made him look as if he’d just tumbled out of bed. On the hand holding the bottle was a wedding ring. He grinned at Pearl in a way not at all like a married man.
“Something,” she agreed pleasantly, and got up and walked away without looking back.
The man said nothing behind her.
There were plenty of men in the city, but Pearl was particular. Maybe too particular.
For the time being she contented herself with living alone and infrequently going to select dating bars, looking, but not for anything serious.
Still, if the right guy happened along…
Pearl smiled at her own naivete. Right guy, wrong guy, like lyrics in a musical. It was all so much more complicated than that. She supposed that was why musicals were popular.
She found a comfortable stride and began in earnest the walk to her subway stop. In motion she drew even more admiring glances, but she ignored them.
There was a slight rushing sound on the edge of her consciousness, and a shadow flitted like a spirit alongside her on the sidewalk, then was gone.
Pearl ignored that, too. She walked on, determined through her apprehension, refusing to be intimidated by her doubts.
Lavern Neeson lay as if asleep and listened to the apartment door open and close. The sounds were distinct, a faint grating noise as key meshed in lock, then the soft sigh of the door sweep crossing carpet, another sigh as the door closed, and the click of the latch. Last came the rattle of the chain lock as her husband Hobbs fastened it, locking them in together. Lavern shivered beneath the thin sheet.
Hobbs clattered about in the bathroom for a few minutes. She heard the seemingly endless trickle as he relieved himself, the flush of the toilet, the pinging and rush of water in the building’s old pipes. He seemed steady in his movements; he wasn’t drunk tonight. He wasn’t drunk as often as she liked to think. Alcohol would at least provide some excuse for what he did, and for her allowing it.
Not that she had any choice. Her options had been taken from her one by one over the seven years of their marriage.
No, alcohol wasn’t the problem.
Something she’d done? Had kept doing? There must be some solid reason for the guilt that weighed her down. Guilt needed at least some soil in which to grow.
My fault.
That wasn’t what she concluded whenever she carefully analyzed her dilemma, but it was always what she felt, and that was what made her powerless. She couldn’t let this continue, yet she couldn’t stop it. Every time it happened she was more helpless to prevent it. Hobbs used to discuss the problem with her, seeming to listen very carefully to what she was saying, but she knew now it had been a ruse while he manipulated her, neutralized her defenses one after another.
What’s wrong with us?
She’d asked the question more than once. Kept asking it. Now Hobbs no longer even pretended to listen politely or care and consider.
Lavern knew now that he didn’t have the answer. Or maybe he was as fearful of the answer as she was. Perhaps he feared merely the question.
Where is this taking us?
The bedroom light winked on, blinding her at first, so she clenched her eyes tightly closed and pressed her face into the pillow. She kept her eyes shut and didn’t move.
Hobbs knew she was awake. He knew all her evasive tricks.
“Lavern?”
She sighed, opened her eyes, and sat up blinking in the light. She was an attractive woman with honey-blond hair and blue eyes. Her slender figure was shapely but without much of a bust. (Years ago she’d considered breast implants, and was glad now she hadn’t gotten them. They’d be another vulnerability.) Her features were a bit too long to be beautiful, her lips full and not quite meeting because of a slight overbite Hobbs used to tell her was sexy. Her pink nightgown slid down one shoulder, almost exposing one breast that truly was the size of a teacup.
Hobbs loomed over her, all six feet of him; he was almost forty now but was still burly and hard from playing college football until he’d blown out his right knee. Still had the buzz cut that made his angular features seem as cruel as a Roman emperor’s. That harshness of countenance was made even more extreme by the coldness in his eyes that were almost exactly the same shade of blue as his wife’s. But while Lavern’s eyes were soft and resigned, Hobbs’s eyes were as hard and reflecting as diamonds.
Lavern hadn’t known Hobbs in college, though she’d been aware of him. They’d met on First Avenue six years later when sharing a cab out of necessity during a downpour; they were two people unfortunate enough to be going the same way-though of course they’d both thought it lucky at the time. They had so much in common-or so she’d been led to believe-and at first the sex had been undeniably great.
The relationship had worked for a while. Long enough for them to marry with romantic feigned impetuousness, helped along by a night of hard drinking during a weekend in Las Vegas.
It was after the marriage that they came to know each other better. That was when the real Hobbs emerged. Or possibly he’d been there all along and Lavern had loved him too much to notice the signs.
He’d removed his shirt, but hadn’t taken off his pants. She noticed the empty belt loops and knew he’d removed his leather belt. There it was in his right hand, dangling and doubled and portending pain.
What have I done now?
His voice was level, but still carried a quiet menace. “The towels, Lavern.”
Her mind danced frantically. She had no idea what he was talking about. “What towels?”
“In the bathroom. I take a piss, wash my hands, and the goddamned towels are filthy. You didn’t even hang them up straight. Damned things were bunched under the towel rack so they’d stay damp. That’s how disease spreads, Lavern.”
She was bewildered. He actually seemed serious.
“I’ll go see,” she said, and slid sideways to get out of bed.
The belt caught her in the ribs, but she didn’t cry out. She knew better than to make noise. The neighbors mustn’t be disturbed. The neighbors mustn’t know.
She grunted with pain and bent low enough that her elbows rested on her knees.
“Stand up, Lavern. Take your medicine.”
She knew then it wasn’t really the towels that bothered Hobbs. It was his sickness, the thing inside his heart that made him hurt with a nameless rage that from time to time would be directed at her.
As she fought her agony and straightened her body, he surprised her by not using the belt. He used the flat of his hand instead, slapping her left cheek hard enough to spin her head so it felt as if it might snap from her spine. She tasted blood and saw a tiny red splatter on the dresser mirror all the way across the bedroom.
He gripped her by one arm and jerked her upright so she was standing straight again, as if teeing her up for another blow.
Violence came as easy to him as laughter. One of his friends had reminded Lavern that Hobbs had barely escaped being kicked out of college for almost killing another student with his fists in an argument over a movie. She vaguely remembered the incident, the talk on campus. He would have been expelled, only that was before he hurt his knee, and he could still bowl people over at football. Assault charges had been dropped, and the matter had been classified as an incident of boys being boys, when it should have been a clear warning.
Not that any of this was relevant to Lavern’s present circumstances. She knew she wouldn’t have heeded any warning. Not at that age. Not even when she was older. Just Hobbs being Hobbs, she had decided, along with the faculty. Like almost everyone else, she had excused him his youthful misbehavior. He was fun to watch on the football field. There was even talk of a possible pro contract. Lavern had wondered from time to time if there might be some way to meet him.
Then had come the knee injury, and soon thereafter she’d heard that he’d left school.
The mature Hobbs shoved her back into the bed and wrestled her almost inert body around so she lay on her back.<
br />
Then he was on her, straddling her, his weight mashing her slight form into the mattress. His breath hissed in the quiet bedroom.
He began to beat her, not as hard as he could, but methodically, slapping, slapping, slapping. She let herself go limp and closed her eyes to the onslaught, closed her mind.
Finally he stopped.
He’s going to kill me someday. He’s going to kill somebody.
She felt his weight shift and heard the rasp of his zipper being undone.
At least the beating was over.
He’s going to kill somebody.
9
Joseph Galin was conscious, but he wasn’t thinking or seeing clearly. It had become a world without time or meaning. He had no memory of how he’d gotten where he was, sitting slouched and apparently in a car.
His car?
He couldn’t move, and though there was no pain, there was an advancing numbness. It had begun with his feet, then his hands. Now he had no feeling at all in any of his extremities. He might as well have been floating like a balloon.
Galin could see out the windshield to the wide expanse of the car’s hood, where a bird of some kind was walking around, pecking, maybe damaging the paint. And it was night out. Evening. Dark and getting darker. Way past dusk.
Then darkness fell completely, as if he were in a sealed room and someone had pulled down a shade. Odd. Strange also that he wasn’t afraid. More curious. What the hell was happening?
Am I drunk?
He’d been on benders before and figured this wasn’t one of them.
Some kind of stroke?
If I could only remember who I am…
He could smell leather and something that reminded him of dirty coins…pennies.
A penny for my thoughts…
He might have smiled.
The darkness was heavy on him, keeping him from opening his eyes now. Not that it made any difference. He heard himself let out a long breath. Heard the bird pecking on the car hood, still working even though it was so dark. He heard a car passing way out in the street, beyond the mouth of the alley.
