Frenzy (30 page)

66

A
fter the dinner rush, only about half the tables in the Far Castle were occupied, and some of their occupants were already enjoying dessert. Nancy Weaver, aka Eileen, had reached the end of her shift. She said good night to another waitress and to the cashier, then left the Far Castle, and walked toward her subway stop.

Fedderman fell in behind her, half a block back. When she reached home and was tucked away, radio cars would do frequent drive-bys, and two NYPD undercover cops would alternate keeping watch on Weaver's building. Once Fedderman delivered her to her apartment, he could rest knowing she was safe. And so could she.

Not that Weaver was particularly frightened now, as she crossed the street and continued on her way. She didn't look back, but she knew Fedderman was there. Even if he wasn't, Weaver herself knew how to ward off or capture an attacker, and on dark streets she walked with her right hand in her purse, resting on her nine-millimeter Glock handgun.

Between Weaver herself and her guardian angels, she might be the safest woman in New York.

Though that wasn't exactly the plan.

 

 

On dark stretches, like the one they were approaching, Fedderman, too, walked with his hand resting on his gun. He was vigilant but unworried. D.O.A. was heavily into torture, and for that he needed solitude. His victim's were tortured, raped, and killed in their apartments, usually in their beds. What better place for lovers and murderers to suffer their private agonies?

It was in her apartment when Weaver was at her most vulnerable.

If she was vulnerable at all.

Fedderman slowed his pace. He could make out the dark, shadowed form of Weaver up ahead, hear the staccato clacking of her high heels on the sidewalk. Fedderman keyed on that repetitious clacking. As long as there was no change in its rhythm or volume, everything up ahead was all right.

He found himself thinking about Penny. When they'd met earlier for lunch they'd again renewed their determination to make their marriage work. What it took, Fedderman had decided, was his understanding and concern. Penny had to be reassured that he empathized with her feeling that their lives were always on edge. His was a dangerous profession, and they had to work together on living with grim possibilities. Plans for the future were always tentative. That didn't mean they shouldn't enjoy the present.

Or that they shouldn't plan.

Fedderman tripped and almost fell as he snagged a heel stepping off a curb. That had been close to being a turned ankle. Not something he could afford.

He gazed ahead. There was Weaver, half a block up, slightly farther away than Fedderman liked. She was striding out in those high heels, the way women do if they wear them frequently. It occurred to Fedderman that high heels lengthening women's strides might be why they were sometimes harder to tail than men. Also, it seemed that women wearing high heels were always going someplace in a hurry. Maybe they—

Pain exploded behind his right ear.

He was on the ground, the heel of his right hand burning from where he scraped the skin while breaking his fall.

He was still trying to figure out what happened when something glanced painfully off his right ear and struck his shoulder.

He decided to lie still and think,
think
. . .

He'd been struck in the head long ago by his brother, accidentally, when they were trying to make shore after fishing in darkness that was falling over the lake. His brother had been alive then, and strong; it had been before the cancer. The shadows of the trees leaning out from the bank were lengthening. Overhead, stars were becoming visible. His brother was sitting in front of him in the canoe, straining his muscles and dipping deep with his paddle, when it broke from the water and Fedderman was leaning forward with his own paddle . . .

Darkness gathered over the lake.

67

W
eaver awoke in a totally dark place, and it took her only a few seconds to realize she was tightly bound. Her back ached. That was because she was laid out on something hard. On her knees, breasts, and stomach, and the side of her face. Her elbows were pulled back and painfully bound to each other or to something immovable. Her thighs were spread and her legs bent at the knee. Her ankles were tied to something that felt as if it was several feet across. A rope or collar was fastened around her neck and attached to the hard surface she was on, so that she could only barely raise her head.

She attempted to moan. Something, a knotted rag, was stuffed into her mouth, muffling the sound. There was a strong odor of gasoline, and of something else . . .

It came to her like lightning, how she had come to be here. She knew who had her, and she knew why.

Maybe she didn't really want to know.

Bright fluorescent lights blinked, buzzed, and then glared steadily.

He walked to where she could see him, an average-sized man in his thirties, well muscled, expensively coiffed brown hair, shockingly kind, even pitying eyes. He did seem to pity her. As if everything was out of his hands now, and it didn't look good for her, poor baby.

She realized she wasn't at all shocked or surprised that both she and D.O.A. were nude, except that he was wearing skin-tight white rubber gloves. Like a surgeon's gloves.

He smiled, gently removed the rag from her mouth, and said, “Hello, Eileen. Or would you prefer Nancy?”

She chose to say nothing, and took a limited glance around her. They were in what seemed like a spacious garage of some kind. Maybe a basement. The ceiling was unfinished, and there was an exposed jungle of ductwork and wiring above. She saw what must be the killer's car, a dusty gray BMW sedan, parked about twenty feet away near a closed overhead door and a sloppily tuck-pointed brick wall.

His smile widened and became ugly. “Officer Weaver?” Gently, as if trying to waken her from pleasant dreams without shocking her delicate system.

She kept her silence.

“We're alone. If you scream, no one will hear. You might try to scream louder, but it won't be loud. Won't even
be,
except for the two of us. Still, I'll have to tighten your choke collar.”

He came closer, and fear washed over her like a cold wave.

Terror choked off any sound she might have made. Weaver raised her head, craning her neck. She saw that she was positioned on some kind of crude wooden workbench, wrists and ankles tied to something fastened to the slab of splintered wood top, or to its legs.

“I suppose you're wondering about what happened to your friend Fedderman,” the killer said.

She
was
wondering. She couldn't help it. She broke her silence. “Where is he?”

“Feds is fine. Or will be if he wakes up. My guess is he's got a fifty-fifty chance.”

“You don't know him. Don't call him Feds. He's Detective Fedderman to you.”

He didn't answer her. Instead he moved closer, and yanked the collar so hard that it dug into her throat and she could feel and hear cartilage crack as she made a feeble squeaking noise.

He moved down along the bench, and she was terrified to see that he had an erection. Apparently there were objects laid out on the bench, between her spread thighs. He picked them up and displayed them to her one by one. A roll of duct tape, a large knife with a very sharp point, a pack of cigarettes, a book of matches, something that looked like a wood-handled ice pick, a dark corked bottle containing barely visible liquid.

“Chloroform,” he explained to her about the bottle. “That's what I used to get you into the trunk of my car, after I walked you to it. You could hardly walk a straight line. Anybody watching would have assumed you were drunk. I acted a little drunk, myself. Not that it mattered. I'm good at this. I mean, I could have been a great actor. But I could tell no one was watching. I sense it when I'm playing to an audience, however small. No member of any audience can find you and help you.”

He leaned in and she felt him touching her. Involuntarily, her body vibrated. His hands closed on the backs of her bare thighs and they immediately cramped, causing her body to slam over and over on the hard bench.

She finally stopped trembling and lay still, but the cramps didn't go away completely. She was afraid to move any part of herself out of fear that they might return.

Calmly, he looked over whatever items were on the workbench, as if debating with himself over which object to choose.

He picked up the knife again, holding it out where she couldn't help but look at it. The fluorescent light above the workbench cast a wavering reflection in the bright steel.

“We both know I'm good at this,” he said. “And if someone is good at it, someone else is going to talk. You're going to tell me everything. You won't leave out a thing.” Again the smile. “Am I right?”

She knew that he was and tried to nod. It wasn't like in books or movies. A skilled torturer could get a stone to spill secrets.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't realize the collar was too tight for you to nod.” He touched her with the knife point and the vibrations throughout her body began again. Her bare thighs threatened another bout of major cramping.

“We're going to have fun,” he said. “One of us, anyway.”

She felt the knife blade moving feather-light across her navel. “I love an outy,” he said. He withdrew the knife and came closer to her. “Do you want to tell me what I want to know? Or should we get right to the fun part?”

He loosened the collar slightly.

“Officer Weaver?”

“What do you want to know?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

“About the other woman, of course.”

“Eileen?”

He slapped the back of her head. Hard. She heard herself whimper. Felt the anger. The rage. The terror.

And the helplessness.

He calmly struck a match, stared briefly at its flame, then lit a cigarette and tucked it in the corner of his mouth.

“
Bellezza,
” he said.

She clenched her eyes shut. Felt the skillful touch of his bare hands on the backs of her thighs. The leg cramps were returning.

 

 

She made it through the knife and three cigarettes before she told him: “It's in the Far Castle garden, incorporated into the fancy concrete birdbath.”

“Incorporated?”

“Inside it.”

He leaned back, giving that some thought.

“That fat clown who owns the restaurant has it?” He sounded dubious.

“His family,” Weaver said. “They think they own it.”

“What are their plans for it? To donate it to a museum?”

“They want to sell it,” Weaver said. “Or they wouldn't be keeping it hidden from people like you.”

“I know that birdbath,” he said. “It looks like ordinary garden statuary to me. It looks nothing like what we're discussing.”

“Isn't that the idea?” Weaver croaked.

He walked away from her, holding the knife low in his right hand, hefting it over and over so it bounced lightly against the cupped backs of his fingers. A lit cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. The smell of the burning tobacco, along with the constant pain, nauseated Weaver.

The killer suddenly wheeled to face her, as if having made a decision.

“I'm going to give you something I never gave the others,” he said. “A chance.”

She said nothing, trying not to vomit.

“In exchange for that, I want a guarantee.”

“How can I give you a guarantee?” she asked, swallowing the bitterness at the back of her throat.

“We're going to play a game,” he said. “I'm going to tie you tight and gag you, and put you in the trunk of my car. Then I'm going to drive it to a place where it can remained parked and unnoticed for days. If you've told me the truth about chipping away concrete and finding
Bellezza,
you'll win, I'll reveal to the police where you are. If I discover you lied to me, you'll stay in the car's trunk and die a slow and painful death.” He touched the bloody tip of the knife to her nose. “Do we have an arrangement?”

Anything was better than nothing. “Yes.”

He laid Weaver on her side in the trunk, her wrists bound behind her, her ankles bound together. A large rectangle of duct tape was slapped across her face and he worked it tightly with his thumbs so there was a good seal. She was breathing through her nose. He used the point of the knife to make a small incision in the tape so she could also breath through her mouth if she had to. At least for a while. What she couldn't do was make a noise louder than a soft moan. She wouldn't be heard outside the tightly sealed and locked trunk.

Before closing the trunk, he gazed down at her. He seemed calm and vaguely amused, as if they were discussing something other than her agonizing death.

“If you told me the truth,” he said, looking her in the eye, “you'll see the light again. If not, it's darkness the rest of the way. Understood?”

She managed to nod.

“You're lucky I like playing games,” he said.

He closed the trunk lid, and she was in darkness.

 

 

This was exactly the sort of game the killer loved to play. He and Nancy both knew he wouldn't keep his word and return after he'd secured
Bellezza.
But in her mind was a stubborn element of doubt. It
had
to be there. As the final minutes of her life ticked away, she would cling harder to his words. He'd promised to return and free her. Hadn't he?

If he'd said so,
mightn't
he?

Not the slightest sound made its way into the dark and locked trunk. Not the slightest glimmer of light. With each passing second her terror and hope increased in proportion to each other, and eventually it would be impossible for them to coexist.