Frenzy (14 page)

“Looks that way,” Lido said. He drank some beer and then wiped his foamy upper lip with the back of a knuckle. “Will she be coming to New York?”

“I don't know.” Quinn finished his beer and placed the bottle precisely in the center of its round coaster. He had to admit he was curious about this “hot potootie.” “Talking about her dead daughters isn't something I look forward to.” He had discussed the grisly deaths of relatives too often in his life.

“Don't worry,” Lido said. “That's why you have me.”

“To worry?”

“To do things like this,” Lido said, and unfolded a sheet of paper and laid it in front of Quinn. “I worked up a sort of family tree.”

Quinn examined the neatly handwritten document

“What are they,” Quinn asked, “a family of traveling gypsies?”

“Maybe something like that,” Lido said, “but they don't do that much traveling.”

“They aren't really that much family. A lot of them aren't even blood relatives.”

“Maybe they're even closer than blood relatives,” Lido said.

“How could that be?”

“Need.”

Quinn thought back. “Maybe.”

“They tend to lie a lot. Play roles.” Lido grinned. “You want I should find out more about this family?”

“It would take a load off my mind,” Quinn said.

Wondering why Winston Castle had pretended Ida Tucker, his adoptive mother, was a stranger.

Also wondering how much of Lido's information was accurate. In various families, for various reasons, subterfuge was deeply ingrained. Sometimes it was for reasons long forgotten, and left behind like a curse.

28

T
he killer watched from deep shadow as Nancy Weaver emerged to ground level from her subway stop near her apartment. She looked right and left like a good girl and crossed the street. This part of the Village consisted mostly of walkup apartments slightly larger than shoeboxes. And Weaver's block featured old-fashioned streetlights that, scenic and period New York as they were, cast very little light.

They suited the killer's purpose.

He crossed the street farther down the block and was directly behind Weaver again. Keeping close to buildings and taking advantage of shadows, he observed her moving from pool of light to pool of light. One psychologically safer island, then another.

Not that she was afraid. Uneasy, maybe. Which wasn't the same thing. The killer had to grin as he watched Weaver making her way home. Unaware. Unafraid. She exuded confidence. Who did she think she was? Badass cop with a gun in her handbag.

There was a warm fog tonight in the Village, and few people were out walking in it. Those who were would probably have a difficult time identifying other walkers. Vehicle traffic had slacked off, too. Now and then a truck rumbled along the narrow streets. Or a cab, its tires hissing on the damp pavement, not slowing down for pedestrians. It seemed that all the cabs were occupied. A mist and a spritzle of rain could do that in New York. It was as if the cabs had pop-up passengers that were activated by a mere drop of rain.

Weaver was easy enough to follow without being seen. Her buxom narrow-waisted figure was simple to identify in the dim light, and the few men who passed her walking in the opposite direction usually reacted by glancing back at her.

The killer understood how she'd gotten her spotty reputation. A woman like that would always be thought about first in sexual terms. He wondered if she'd decided, since she was going to have such a reputation anyway, that she might as well do the deeds and enjoy life with the proceeds. Let the heads shake and the tongues wag. The killer could understand why a woman would think that way. He fancied he knew a lot about women.

This one, Weaver, for sure. She had quite a reputation in the NYPD and was easy enough to research. Once he'd seen her with Quinn, and coming and going at the offices of Q&A, he had plenty of information to build on.

He was glad she was in the game.

He walked on through light and shadow, his soft-soled shoes making only the slightest scrunching noises on the hard damp concrete. He thought it was time to prod Quinn again. Not by going after Pearl. Or Quinn's adopted (if she was) daughter Jody, or his daughter Lauri, in California (off the game board).

Nancy Weaver.

Yes, Weaver was the best choice, a woman who for years had been a part of Quinn's life.

They were closer to each other than they knew.

The killer understood that there was nothing of a personal or sexual nature between them, but their friendship, being a lasting one, would be the loss of something held dear. Weaver might be an informer for the idiot commissioner, Renz, but she was also protective of Quinn, and he of her.

How would Quinn feel if his faithful friend arrived contained in several boxes shipped to him on consecutive days?

How the killer wanted him to feel, that's how. And such shipments could certainly be arranged. They would, in fact, be great fun.

The killer had familiarized himself with Weaver's building. It was one of a row of narrow brick structures whose architecture suggested they were built in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. Its big, heavy street door opened to a small foyer. There was no elevator. Another heavy, paneled door led to a narrow stairwell. That door required a key.

The killer's plan was to close the distance between him and Weaver as soon as she'd entered the foyer, but before the street door had closed behind her. He would press all the way inside quickly, perhaps as she was keying the stairwell door, and have a gun digging into the side of her neck before she realized what was happening. He would slide the gun lower, raking her back with it so that it was at waist level. That way he could shield it from view with his body, in case they encountered anyone coming down the stairs. The gun would stay there tight to her body while they slowly climbed the stairs, and Weaver unlocked her door and they entered her apartment.

With the door closed behind them, he would strike her head hard with the heavy butt of the gun, enough to daze her if not knock her completely unconscious. It was a tactic he'd practiced long and diligently, and he knew exactly where and how hard to hit. Weaver would be down and dazed before she knew what happened.

Then the fun would begin.

It was all choreographed in the killer's mind, every move, every reaction, every counter move. Like a simple dance that, if the dominant partner led quickly and forcefully, would always end the same way, with a woman stunned and helpless before the killer.

If she happened to remain semiconscious, Weaver would still be vaguely wondering what was going on.

She was a cop. So what? A cop knew what a nine-millimeter bullet would do to her if she disobeyed. Weaver would have her choice of obedience, or having bloody chunks of her bone, muscle, and internal organs blasted all over her apartment wall.

 

 

Weaver slowed and was fishing around in her purse for her key to the stairs. She came to a complete stop at the three concrete steps leading up to the small stoop and door to her apartment building.

Then she found the elusive key, withdrew it from her purse, and placed her right foot on the first step.

The killer's heart began to race, not from fear but from anticipation. The scenario he'd mapped out was firm in his mind. Weaver had no choice but to follow the script.

When she was on the stoop, with her back toward him, she reached forward to open the door to the foyer.

That was when the killer tensed to move.

Then froze in position, leaning forward but luckily still in shadow.

A figure had approached from the opposite direction, tall, darkly dressed. With a cap the killer recognized even through the mist.

This was a uniformed cop.

As the killer watched, the cop entered the pool of light from the electrified nineteenth-century gas street lamp near Weaver's building. He was in his thirties, broad shouldered and with the paraphernalia of his trade dangling from his thick black leather belt. Including a holstered gun.

Weaver had turned and was coming back down the steps to the sidewalk. She and the cop came together in a tight embrace, then kissed each other on the mouth. The cop bent her slightly backward and she lifted one leg like the star of an old movie, as if her calf was a lever that released some of the pressure of her passion. The big cop probably saw it at the lower edge of his vision and was proud that he was responsible.

Finally they came apart, each stepping back, holding each other's hands, gazing into each other's eyes, and grinning stupidly.

They finally broke physical contact with each other and entered the apartment building together.

The killer moved farther back into the shadows and watched a light come on in the window that he was pretty sure would be Weaver's. As if to confirm the fact for him, Weaver appeared at the window. Then the cop loomed behind her, cupping her ample breasts in his hands as she reached for a cord and closed the drapes.

The two lovers remained somewhat visible, but only as moving shadows on the drapes, distorted by folds of fabric. The killer leaned his back against the unyielding support of a brick wall and continued watching the window.

Shadows merged, separated.

Merged. Separated.

The light went out.

 

 

Half an hour passed.

The bedroom light came back on, but the uniformed cop didn't leave.

It disturbed the killer, the way fate had intervened in the form of another cop and saved Weaver's life. He couldn't help but suspect that it might be an omen. Or a reminder. Fate was on his side, but he mustn't count on it too heavily. He must continue to plan carefully, to be bold yet detail-minded.

The formless shadows were back, wavering and dancing behind the closed drapes, sometimes pulling apart, sometimes merging. The killer knew Weaver's reputation, her sliding scale of ethics, and there she was enjoying her base instincts, saved by her crassness and immorality.

Rewarded for her bad behavior.

It hardly seemed fair.

The light behind the drapes went out again. The killer stood in the mist, looking up at Weaver's blank window for a long time.

Angry, determined, patient.

And, he had to admit, lonely.

The dark window stared back at him like a disinterested eye. He could only imagine what was going on behind it. He tried not to think about it. He and the cop wanted the woman for entirely different reasons.

Or did they? Both of them wanted, in their own ways, to totally possess her, if only temporarily.

There was nothing temporary about death.

That dark knowledge didn't make the killer any less lonely. The ache was still there, living and squirming in the pit of his stomach.

How could certain women do this to him? Even the doomed ones?

Especially the doomed ones.

He knew the cop might not leave until dawn. Maybe he and Weaver would even go someplace together and have breakfast. Bending toward each other over second cups of coffee. Sharing their conversation after sharing their passion.

The killer wondered what they'd say to each other. What secrets would they trade like cards that might be played later?

Annoying complications, the police.

Eventually he walked a few blocks to a corner and hailed a cab.

The driver spoke a language he didn't understand.

PART THREE

29

Q
uinn had called for an appointment.

He sat in a comfortable wing chair in the director's office at the Kadner Gallery on Fifth Avenue. It was a small gallery that also acted as a brokerage, directing art sellers to Sotheby's and Christie's, as well as to smaller, specialty auctions or private sales. Occasionally the gallery featured an exhibit by a hopeful artist, and even had discovered a few who became famous.

Relatively famous.

Someone who had worked with Jeanine Carson had made the appointment for Quinn with the Kadner Gallery director, a large-headed, narrow-shouldered man in a well-cut blue suit. His name was Burton Doyle. He'd lost most of his graying hair up top, and compensated by wearing it long on the sides, where it curled wildly over his ears and at the nape of his neck.

When Quinn was settled in the wing chair, Doyle sat down behind a wide desk that had what Quinn thought were Queen Anne legs. Papers were piled on the desk, including a tented bright Christie's catalog. A cup of tea or coffee sat steaming on a folded paper napkin serving as a saucer. Three wire baskets laden with papers were stacked vertically and crookedly. They were labeled
IN, OUT,
and
LIMBO
. Next to them was a ceramic mug stuffed with pens and pencils. It was the desk of a busy man.

“
Bellezza,
” he said, smiling at Quinn. “I suppose you want to know where it is.”

“If it is,” Quinn said.

Doyle seemed to assess Quinn, as if he might have some value in the art market, then smiled. “Oh, it exists, all right,” he said. “Or at least it's thought to exist. No one with a true appreciation of art or beauty could destroy it, and no one with even a hint of its monetary worth would consider devaluing it in any way.”

“Even if it were stolen and unsalable on the open market?”

“Especially then.”

“I can understand,” Quinn said, “why some people would find great satisfaction in simply owning it, looking at it from time to time by themselves.”

Or owning in a different way, like our killer, who might own and cherish the memories of beauty's violent end at his hands. Not for nothing did the French describe orgasms as “the little death.”

“Fanatical collectors,” Doyle said. “The art world is full of them. Always has been.”

Quinn thought it likely that the killer he sought was one of those fanatical collectors, hoarding precious recollections of dead women instead of art.

Or might he collect both?

It seemed likely.

Serial killers often had a horrible or confused relationships with their mothers, or sometimes their sisters. A woman of true beauty, of marble perfection, might provoke extreme possessiveness. Or murder.

Doyle leaned back at a dangerous angle, causing his desk chair to squeal the way Quinn's chair did at Q&A. “If you really understand such people,” Doyle said, “and you think
Bellezza
is in the hands of some obsessive connoisseur who probably won't so much as hint that he or she has the bust, why are you wasting your time trying to find it?”

“I'm not sure the kind of collector we're talking about has the bust.”

A gray, arched eyebrow raised. “Oh? Why not?”

“There isn't a story,” Quinn said.

“Story?”

“About what happened to
Bellezza.
People who are willing and able to sit on valuable stolen merchandise usually provide some sort of explanation as to what happened to it—a fire, maybe. Or destruction by vandals. Or another art thief or a gang steals it to resell. Or they don't know its value and destroy it. Or it's in somebody's attic, or was painted over and made into a lawn ornament.”

“I understand. It's easier if you have an explanation, even if it isn't terribly plausible.”

“But they're
all
plausible? Given the context.”

Doyle absently ran his manicured thumb back and forth over a sharp pencil point. “All those things are possible,” he admitted.

“At least on
Antiques Roadshow.
” Quinn crossed one leg over the other and cupped his knee with laced fingers. “My guess is that the bust doesn't exist, or that whoever has it doesn't realize its value.”

“Then what do you want?”

“To know more about it.”

Doyle raised his gaze so he was looking up at a point somewhere above Quinn's right shoulder. The expression on his face changed to one of... what? Reverence?

“It's said that the bust was sculpted from marble by the hand of Michelangelo himself in the early sixteenth century,” Doyle said. “It was commissioned by the church. As you probably know, the subject and model for the sculpture was a woman who was of questionable moral fiber, especially for those days. Still, she was a favorite of many high in the priesthood.”

“How high?”

“Think big, Detective Quinn.”

“Ah.”

“The bust had its place in the nave of the great cathedral, but a new pope didn't like its connotations, or its political implications, so he had it removed. Some said it was battered to dust and scattered in the hills.”

“But you don't think so.”

“I don't know. It seems to have turned up in the hands of a wealthy merchant in Venice around sixteen hundred. A man who dealt mostly in spices, but was also a collector.”

“What about Bellezza? The flesh-and-blood one?”

“Congratulations,” Doyle said. “Most people forget to ask that. She disappeared at the same time the bust was removed from the cathedral.”

“What did Michelangelo have to say about all this?”

“Nothing, as far as we know.”

“And the wealthy Italian Merchant?”

“After his death, his premises were searched and, supposedly,
Bellezza
wasn't found.”

“Untimely death?”

Doyle shrugged.

“What did the church do?”

“It provided solace. As it is now, it was then in the business of saving souls, not solving crimes. In the nineteenth century,
Bellezza
turned up in the collection of an Egyptian art aficionado who died a violent death. Though no one I know of actually claims to have seen it. It is said that the man's brother claimed the bust, and took it with him to Morocco. A wealthy Moroccan bought it for an unknown price, and the sale was contested. The French government declared it theirs, as the French were wont to do, and it was shipped to Paris and installed in the Louvre.”

“Then it's real. There's a record of it being in the Louvre.”

Doyle smiled. “Yes and no. The records of the Louvre became more than slightly altered during and immediately after the Second World War and German occupation.” Doyle made a face as if there was a bad taste on his tongue. “Shortly after the occupation of Paris, the Nazis confiscated much of the city's great art. Among the pieces they . . . stole, was
Bellezza.
”

“Or so it's said.”

Doyle again shrugged his almost nonexistent padded shoulders. “Lots of people tell lots of lies about things that are beautiful. The truth is, we don't know what happened to
Bellezza.
Rumor had it the bust became part of Hermann Goering's personal collection, but that seems not to be true. There's no record of it ever reaching Berlin. But that was true of a lot of art. It doesn't mean
Bellezza
didn't get there. For that matter, maybe Goering
did
obtain it. If so, who knows what happened to it. Goering was a madman.”

Doyle took a sip of coffee or tea. Both eyebrows raised. “I've been remiss. Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee?”

“Thanks, no,” Quinn said.

Doyle blew on the cup, as if the tea were scalding. “And now you are attempting to find our missing beauty.” He sipped cautiously. Didn't say ouch. “Forgive me if I'm cynical, but I have reason. You aren't the first to search for
Bellezza.
For a while it was the great daydream accomplishment of hundreds of art students. That's all changed now.” Another sip. “I'll be glad to talk to you anytime. To help you any way I can. But I can't pretend I don't think your quest is hopeless. You might as well have dropped in to ask for help in finding the Holy Grail. The possibilities are about the same. Virtually nonexistent. Everyone has conceded that
Bellezza
isn't going to be found.”

“Not everyone,” Quinn said. He stood up, stretched, and thanked Doyle for his time.

Doyle didn't stand up immediately. He still had his enigmatic smile pasted to his face. Kept it while he stood and offered his hand. “Good luck, Detective Quinn.”

“Do you think the bust was ever real?” Quinn asked. “Existed at one time? Still exists somewhere, somehow?”

“I thought I made that unclear,” Doyle said.

“What if I talk to other people in the art world?” Quinn asked.

“That's where I got my information.” Doyle shifted his weight, deepening the soft squeaking of his swivel chair. “If you don't mind my asking, why are you so interested in finding
Bellezza?
”

“I'm not,” Quinn said. “I'm interested in finding a serial killer.”

“The dead women at the Fairchild Hotel,” Doyle said. “What do they have to do with a sixteenth-century bust?”

Quinn moved to the door. “Maybe
Bellezza
can tell me.”

“If she does,” Doyle said, “I want to introduce you to Mona Lisa.”