Frenzy (17 page)

36

T
hey were in the living room of the West Side brownstone. The sun was about to set. It sent slanted lances of golden light through the tall windows, illuminating lazily swirling dust motes. Quinn had just finished telling Pearl about his conversation with Ida Tucker, when his cell phone buzzed. He dug the phone out of his pocket and saw the call was from Nancy Weaver.

Quinn walked into the dining room so neither Pearl nor Jody, who was directly upstairs in her bedroom above the living room, would overhear.

When he returned, the expression on his face made Pearl worry. It was probably a case call on his cell, and judging by his expression, it didn't figure to be good news.

“The bastard tried to get Weaver,” Quinn said. His jaw was set, his eyes were narrowed, and a vein in his temple pulsated. Just then, he looked more like a determined thug than a former NYPD captain. He scared Pearl when he looked that way. Lots of things might happen.

Pearl was sitting half sideways on the sofa, so her legs were resting on the cushions, as she listened to Quinn. She looked concerned but not surprised.

“I hope Nancy fed him pieces of himself,” she said.

“No,” Quinn said. “But almost.” He related what Weaver had told him about D.O.A.'s attempt on her life. The near miss with the purse gun she carried when she was out of uniform and went without her Glock.

“She might have nicked him,” Pearl said.

“Weaver searched personally. There was no blood. Renz is there now. Got CSU and a bunch of uniforms.”

“Bunch of press, too, I'd imagine,” Pearl said. “Where's this leave Weaver?”

“If I know her,” Quinn said, “she'll want to continue what she's been doing. She probably wants the killer to try again.”

“She's seen what he did to those other women,” Pearl said.

“She's seen worse.” Quinn doubted it, but it sounded good. And he knew Weaver wouldn't quit the case. If she was going to be bait, she'd be bait that bit.

But Quinn figured the killer might move on to another victim, somebody Quinn held dearer than Weaver.

“You better call Renz,” Pearl said. “Have him put some guardian angels on Jody.”

“And on you,” Quinn said.

“Don't be silly,” Pearl said. “I'm an ex-cop. He's more apt to go after you again, the way he did in Maine. You're unfinished business.”

“I'll know when he's going to do that,” Quinn said. “I know how he plays the game.”

Game!
This was exactly the kind of conversation that infuriated Pearl. “Okay, I wouldn't think of intruding on your macho idiocy. I'll save my worry for Weaver. She's unfinished business, too. Out there with her life on the line.”

“Weaver's an active cop. You can bet people are gonna be assigned to look after her. Ask me, I think you, Jody, and then Weaver need special protection.”

“Didn't ask you,” Pearl said. “And Jody's gonna resist.”

Pearl's daughter Jody—who was no less a daughter to Quinn—was an attorney with a small firm specializing in what she called social justice cases. Right now, she was defending two men and a woman who were under arrest for urinating in a public place to protest the lack of available public restrooms in New York City. According to Jody, the city was losing millions in tourist money because of the bad experiences tourists had when unable to find public restrooms. They talked about the situation in NYC when they went home to Anywhere, USA, where there were plenty of public toilets. Not to mention, Jody maintained, the considerable income the city could be collecting from pay toilets.

After talking with Renz, Quinn called Jody down and she sat next to Pearl on the sofa. Pearl laid her legs across Jody's lap and crossed her ankles. Jody didn't seem to mind. These two were close. Sometimes they ganged up on Quinn.

Quinn explained the situation to Jody, who said, predictably, “I want to help.”

“You're already helping thousands of tourists walking around town double time in desperation.”

“It's not a joke.”

“You're telling me,” Quinn said.

“I can take some time off the public urination case.”

“Are your clients in jail?”

“Yes. They resisted arrest.”

“You've got to think of their best interest, get them out at least until their court date.”

“They resisted arrest. One of them urinated on a cop.”

“Damn it, Jody!”

“He had no idea it was a cop. The guy was in plainclothes. So one of my clients . . .”

“Well?”

“The cop got wet, then he got mad, then he got wetter.”

Quinn waited.

“Then a fight broke out.” She looked mad enough to spit. “I've got witnesses say he just lost his composure. Went berserk.”

“The cop?”

“My client. He started swinging with both fists, kicking with both feet. Some kind of martial art that turned him into a fighting machine.”

“The urinater.”

“Turned out the cop was an undercover narc, working a big case, and my client got his name and photo in the
Post
next day.”

“Your client's name and photo?”

“No, the cop's.”

“Jody! . . .”

“All my client did was—”

“Jody!” Pearl said. “Accept that you're going to have protection—if the NYPD is still talking to you. It's obvious that your client needs you.”

“Clients, plural. I'm representing PRR.”

“I thought they found homes for stray cats.”

“No, this one's Public Restroom Relief.”

Quinn walked to the window looking out on West 75th Street. An NYPD radio car was parked at the curb, directly in front of the brownstone. Quinn turned and looked at the two main women in his life, along with his daughter Lauri, who lived in California.

Quinn felt a sudden chill. Did D.O.A. know about Lauri?

He carried his cell phone outside, exchanged nods with the uniform behind the cruiser's steering wheel, then walked half a block down and pecked out Lauri's phone number in California. He talked to her, then to her mother and his former wife, May. They both took him seriously and said they'd take precautions. Quinn then called an old friend in the LAPD, who said the budget was small and the city needed more police, but he'd do what he could.

And that was all Quinn could do, what he could.

He went back into the brownstone. Pearl knew whom he'd been talking to and didn't ask him anything about the call. Though they were on the sofa, where and how he'd left them, both women were now drinking diet Coke out of cans.

He knew they'd be reasonably safe, but that there couldn't always be a cop on duty simply to stand guard. Sal and Harold would do most of the guarding. Which would take them off the rest of the case.

Was that part of the killer's strategy? The real reason for the attack on Nancy Weaver? A diversion?

Not likely, considering the risk, and the fact that he'd almost been shot. The killer had tried to torture and kill a cop. He must have known what that entailed. Was this another stratagem? If Weaver wasn't safe, was Pearl any safer?

“I'm going to see Weaver, maybe Renz,” Quinn said.

Pearl said, “I'll stay here with Jody.”

Quinn thought that was a good idea.

37

T
he killer had walked, then ran, away from Nancy Weaver's apartment building. He hadn't wasted any time leaving, his back muscles bunched as he waited for another shot to be fired. For all he knew, he'd been hit by the first shot and didn't feel it yet. He knew bullet wounds could be like that. Bullets could be numbing, their effect not realized until whomever had been shot examined himself or herself later.

But if he could run—and he could—he probably hadn't been shot.

He was reasonably sure he hadn't been seen, though he did think he heard a few doors opening and closing behind him.

Out on the street now, back in the mist, he felt safe. A close call. A prospective victim with more resources than he'd imagined. He realized his mistake, thinking of Weaver as vulnerable because she was a woman, making light of the fact that she was also, and primarily, a well-trained, tough cop.

His heartbeat had slowed, and he was no longer breathing hard.

As he strode along Eighth Avenue, he unobtrusively passed his hand here and there over his body, probing for injuries. He knew he was lucky to have avoided a bullet. Luck was something he appreciated, but not something he could depend on. Not like fate. Luck could be fickle; fate was a long-term friend.

He tried to look on the bright side. He hadn't achieved his objective entirely, but surely he'd rattled not only Weaver but the rest of his pursuers. He did feel a certain satisfaction in that.

In fact, as he walked, with every step regaining his ego and perspective, he felt a great deal of satisfaction. The near miss with Weaver would surely be on TV news, in tomorrow's papers, above the fold. People would be impressed.

He'd wanted to question Weaver before letting her die, not just for his pleasure, but to find out if Q&A and the NYPD knew what Jeanine Carson had told him. Not that he suspected Carson might have lied to him. He was an expert in administering agony and using it to extract the truth. With every painful fiber of her body, for every extra second of life she could buy, with any currency she could think of, she'd told him the truth.

Still, he'd wanted confirmation that the narratives matched.

It would have been wise to hear the truth from Weaver, whispered through lips distorted by pain. The pure truth.

He glanced at his wristwatch. The daily television news/entertainment show
Minnie Miner ASAP
would soon be on New York One. It was a program he enjoyed, especially when Minnie or her guests were talking about him. She had contacts throughout government and the law in New York City, and knew things sometimes minutes after they happened. (Her detractors said sometimes before.) Maybe she'd have something to say about the daring attempt on Weaver's life. About him.

When the killer was safely home in his apartment, he leaned with his back against the closed door and took in the warm and slightly mildewed scent of the place. It made him feel much better, safer, like the cozy and well-concealed nest of an animal. But this nest had cream-colored walls on which classic art was carefully arranged, from chromolithographs to charcoal sketches; candle-glow Vermeers to sun-dappled Rembrandts; sunflowers by Van Gogh to trees by Klimt.

Near a low tan leather sofa in an alcove was a silver art deco nude woman on a pedestal, stretching languidly with both arms raised high, fingertips lightly touching, as is she were about to dive from a high place into deep water. There was a similar pedestal, unused, near the opposite end of the sofa.

What all of this art had in common was that it was part of a display of skillfully produced copies. Quality stuff—just not the real stuff.

The real art, the great art, was elsewhere, much of it in Mexico, and some in Europe. Locked away safe and tight even if it happened by chance to be discovered.

Feeling
much
better, the killer started to take off his dark raincoat and paused.

There was a hole—large enough to fit his little finger through—in the coat's waterproofed material. He stared at it, knowing it was a bullet hole. It was actually in the coat's right hand pocket. His hand darted inside the pocket and found the bulk of the semi-automatic he carried. He felt the coat's material beneath and beside the gun. No pain. No apparent injury. He explored with his fingers the bottom of the pocket, the inner seam. No bullet.

But it wasn't.

When he removed his gun to make his search easier, he felt and then saw the small caliber bullet lodged in the checked wooden handgrip. If it had continued its course, it would have struck him in the hip. Would probably be lodged in bone the way it was stuck in the gun's grip.

The bullet wasn't so deformed that a ballistics test wouldn't have revealed it was fired from Weaver's gun.

Proof positive that he'd been the man in her apartment.

Enough evidence to hold him while they connected him to other crimes. He knew how it worked. Like dominoes. That was why he'd vowed never to be taken alive. He would die true to himself, in his own fashion, in his own time.

He didn't feel so much like watching the news now. Instead he went into the European-style kitchen and poured three fingers of scotch into a crystal tumbler. Added a cascade of cubes from the stainless steel refrigerator's growling ice maker.

Holding his drink level, he returned to the living room and stood among the almost real works of the real greats, knowing with a glow of pride that this was only a shadow and reminder of what was his and his alone. Like a woman's drawer of paste jewelry that emulated what she had that was genuine and valuable.

But like a dog with a rag, his mind kept returning to his recent close call. And to Quinn.

He sat on the sofa and tried not to conclude that he was shaken, running afraid now, and making mistakes.

He knew that Quinn feasted on those kinds of mistakes.

38

Q
uinn was seated in a plush chair facing Renz's desk. Renz was slouched in his chair behind the desk, in full and glorious uniform. He was dressed to attend the funeral of a cop who'd been killed earlier that week in a drug-arrest shoot-out on Broadway near Times Square.

The office was stuffy and smelled as if someone had recently snuffed out a cigar. Quinn wondered if someone had.

“The trouble is,” Renz said, “we can't control how the media will interpret the killer's try for Weaver.”

“That won't matter if they don't find out about it. Nobody actually saw D.O.A. in Weaver's building, and the bullet hole in the door can be patched before anyone takes a close look at it and figures out what it is.”

“That's already been done,” Renz said. “We're lucky.” He held up both hands, palms out. “No, I'll start over. We're lucky—but only in a way, for God's sake—for all the fuss in the media about Wallace.”

Wallace was the young cop who'd been shot and killed on Broadway.

“I know what you mean, Harley. I'm not going to quote you.”

“The Wallace shooting is a tragedy. A gallant officer leaves behind him a wife and two young children.”

“I'm not going to quote you,” Quinn repeated, wishing Renz would stop talking like a distraught TV anchorman.

“Yeah,” Renz said. He shook his head. “Poor bastard. And the truth is, he
was
a good cop.”

“It's better the media's singing his praises and squawking about the dangers of Times Square than concentrating on D.O.A.”

“You said it, not me,” Renz said. “It's a cruel friggin' world.”

“How's Weaver holding up?”

“The lady has balls.” Renz patted his breast pocket, as if absently reaching for a cigarette. Or a cigar. “We didn't make too big a fuss after the attempt on her life. Just a couple of radio cars. The CSU van. Far as we know, the press isn't in on the deal, doesn't even know it happened.”

“It should seem that way to the killer,” Quinn said, “as if nothing newsworthy has happened.”

“And that'll drive him nuts. At least according to you and Helen.” Renz did his reaching thing again, this time only brushing a fingertip over his breast pocket. “You really think D.O.A. is starting to crumble?”

“He's showing signs,” Quinn said. “He might even be carrying a bullet.”

“The hospitals would tip us to that one.”

“Not if he knows an agreeable doctor. Or if it's a minor wound and he can treat it himself. A twenty-two slug doesn't hit like a broadaxe. But it made it through the door and we didn't find it, so maybe it's inside the killer.” Quinn stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles.

Renz held up two crossed fingers.

There were three soft, evenly spaced knocks on his door, more like a signal than a request to enter. Renz said, “Showtime.” He stood up and buttoned his uniform jacket. Smoothed the material with both hands. “These two dead sisters, or cousins, or whatever the hell they are. This family from Ohio. How do you read all that?”

“Not sure,” Quinn said.

“Maybe they're not family at all. Maybe it's all bullshit. Like some kind of cult thing. You know, like the Manson Family.”

“It seems that way sometimes.”

Quinn got up out of his chair so he could leave the office with Renz. “According to Helen, that they're not all related by blood makes them all the needier and tighter with each other.”

“Hmph. Helen. You believe that psychobabble malarkey?”

“Sometimes,” Quinn said. “I'll see that you're kept up on it.”

Renz held the door open for him.

“Bagpipes,” Renz said. “I've heard them so many times at funerals. I can't listen to them and not think of death.”

“They strike a sad note.”

“Can I drop you someplace in the limo?”

“Wouldn't seem right,” Quinn said.

“Guess not,” Renz agreed. He shook his head. “Lord Jesus, I hate bagpipes!”

Larry Fedderman stood where the killer had stood and observed Weaver leave her apartment building. Fedderman was a tall man, skinny but with a potbelly. One of those guys who look like he'd be in good shape if he hadn't swallowed a basketball. His wife Penny had bought the blue Armani suit he wore, but it still seemed not to fit him. One shoulder was higher than the other, and his right shirt cuff extended unbuttoned like a white surrender flag. If he happened to be carrying a cup, Fedderman might become the only panhandler in an Armani suit to collect a handout.

A black traffic-control car pulled to the curb in front of the apartment building. It didn't sound its horn. Two men sat in it. Both looked as if they were wearing eight-point NYPD caps.

They must have called upstairs with a cell phone, because a minute or so after the car had parked, Weaver, wearing her own eight-point cap, emerged from the building in full uniform.

She looked right and left. Her gaze seemed to hesitate on Fedderman and then moved on.

Fedderman observed that, in uniform, even wearing dark sunglasses—maybe especially with the glasses—Weaver was an attractive woman. He'd been around her enough to have no doubt the uniformed cop was Weaver. How she was built, curvy and sturdy, born to make different kinds of trouble.

Few of her neighbors who hadn't realized she was a cop would recognize her with the uniform and glasses.

The right rear door of the traffic control car opened and she slid smoothly inside. The whole thing hadn't taken half a minute.

Fedderman knew where they were going—to that kid Wallace's funeral. Okay, there was probably no place where Weaver would be safer, surrounded by grieving cops.

This gave Fedderman the opportunity he needed.

He decided to let himself into Weaver's apartment. He had the briefcase containing the equipment Quinn had given him.

Fedderman was pretty good at bugging apartments, so he'd only be inside Weaver's for about ten minutes. Besides, he was a cop and had a right to be there. Sort of. It could be argued.

Weaver, being Weaver, was too stubborn to move out of her apartment. She would continue with her life, perhaps even adding to her dubious reputation. Fedderman had heard so many stories about her that some of them had to be true. No doubt her conversations would be interesting, even if the killer didn't try for her again.

The thing was, there might be phone conversations with the killer, if he did what a lot of these sickos did. They liked to call their once and future victims to let them know they were still on the hook. There might be conversations with Minnie Miner,
when
she called. Or with the NYPD, if Weaver called someone there.

For this to work, of course, Weaver would have to be unaware that her apartment was wired. (Not
wired,
actually. Fedderman had been given a wireless setup by Jerry Lido.)

Fedderman was in the apartment less than a minute when he detected a problem. The most unlikely, and therefore best, place to plant a bug was where someone suspicious was least likely to look. He chose a plastic wall plate with a lamp plugged into one of its sockets. The plate itself conducted sound well, and the free socket was still live. It was where it wouldn't be used unless Weaver chose to plug in a vacuum cleaner or some such thing. The bug would be interfered with then, but it would regain its effectiveness as soon as the vacuum or any other device was unplugged or turned off.

The plan presented only one problem to Fedderman. The plug already contained a listening device behind its plate.

Fedderman knew where to look for any additional bugs.

It didn't take him long to determine that the entire apartment was already bugged. It wasn't as sophisticated a system as the one Fedderman had brought, but it was effective.

Who would have—could have—done such a thing?

A few names immediately leaped to mind.
Renz! Minnie Miner!

Fedderman decided to let Quinn wrestle with those questions. But before he left the apartment, he did a simple splice into the listening system.

That kind of amused Fedderman. New technology partnering with the old.

Now it was a party line.