John Lutz Bundle (48 page)

Quinn.

Why am I thinking of Quinn? He’s still interested, and he knows I’m not. Over. It’s over.

The music was insistent and hypnotic.

“Want another?” Victoria asked.

Pearl looked down and noticed with some surprise that her glass was empty.

“No, thanks,” she said. “Early day tomorrow.”

She placed some bills on the bar and stepped away to leave.

“I thought maybe you’d learned something,” Victoria said. “You looked so thoughtful, like maybe you were detecting.”

“I wish it worked that way. Drink a beer, then detect. What you took for detecting was just my mind wandering.”

Cops are secretive about some things, right?

“See you.”

“Maybe,” Pearl said.

Victoria watched her leave. She kind of liked Pearl the cop, and felt sorry for her. There was something sad about her. Maybe because, with her job, she saw mostly the worst in people.

A man three stools down ordered a scotch rocks, and Victoria went to the back bar to pour it, noticing the gold lighter somebody had lost. It did look pretty expensive, like real gold, and even had some engraving. A fancy letter
N.

The subway system lay like arteries just beneath the city’s flesh.

A fanciful thought, but those weren’t uncommon for Marilyn.

Marilyn Nelson loved riding the subway. She relished the cool breeze of an approaching train, the piercing twin lights down the long dark tunnel, then the great rush of wind and the metallic creak and strain underlying the train’s roar. Car after car would flash past, the illuminated windows like personal instant tableaux that were here then gone. There was no sign of slackening speed. Surely the train was going to roar on beyond the station. But it didn’t. Instead it slowed smoothly but with surprising abruptness, like a living thing suddenly drained of energy, and came to a complete stop. A pause, and the doors would hiss open with an urgent whisper that seemed to spur on the people spilling out onto the platform or wedging their way into the cars.

She’d been in New York a little over four months, after spending most of her adult life in Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha was a nice enough city, she thought, but it had nothing like Times Square, the Village, or Central Park—or the subway, which to Marilyn was the very essence of her newly adopted city.

She emerged from underground at West Eighty-sixth Street near the park, as impressed as she always was by how quickly she’d made it here by subway from her apartment near Washington Square. It was late afternoon, Sunday, and as she entered the park the dwindling sunlight lancing between the buildings highlighted her long dark hair. A slim, attractive woman in a white blouse with large patch pockets, and jeans that were tight everywhere except for the bulging cargo pockets on each thigh, she drew the attention of almost every man she passed. The thick leather belt and fringed boots didn’t detract from her appeal, either. The belt and boots were black, and the belt had a large silver buckle that glittered like the matching studwork pattern on the boots.

The farther into the park she got, the quieter it became. Marilyn stepped off the asphalt trail onto soft earth that was easier on her feet, and began crossing the grassy area toward where the concert would be held.

Ross Bossomo was going to play here soon, along with his backup musicians. Marilyn had grown up listening to Bossomo’s hit records, then followed his career as he became less mainstream and more experimental. A free concert! She’d read about it in the
Village Voice.
Not much like this happened in Omaha. At least, not very often. But here, in New York, there seemed to be surprises every day. Serendipity, she told herself, smiling. Serendipity city.

She could see the raised platform that would be Bossomo’s stage. There was already sound equipment set up, even speakers mounted on the trunks of some of the surrounding trees. Straps and ropes held the speakers so there’d be no harm to the environment. This would be something, once the sun went down. Maybe people would hold up candles or cigarette lighter flames the way they used to all the time at concerts, even though New York was practically a total no-smoking zone.

She picked up her pace. Her hair swung in rhythm with her switching hips; fringe dangled as her long legs stretched her stride, and her buttocks rode against taut denim, emphasized by the blossoming cargo pockets. She was the only one wearing such jeans now, or anything resembling her sleeveless blouse with the oversized patch pockets and large brass buttons, but soon that would change. It was part of her job to change it. Part of her job to be seen in the Rough Country line.

The speakers began to hum. So did Marilyn, an old Ross Bossomo hit, “Love Goin’ to Pieces.”

The Butcher turned to see what so many male heads had swiveled to look at, and she took his breath away. He’d never seen that kind of motion in a woman. It was a shame he was being so choosy these days, or she’d be one of his for sure.

He had to have her. But he was extremely disciplined and didn’t always partake of what he
had
to have. He prided himself on that.

She’d changed direction and was striding up a gradual rise, her body leaning forward slightly to compensate for the grade, coming toward him where he stood along with several dozen people who’d arrived early for the concert. There was a faint smile on her face, lips pressed together, as if she might be humming.

He was probably the only one more interested in the concertgoers than the music. He’d barely heard of Ross Bossomo.

“Joe?”

He turned toward the slight, dark-haired woman he’d been talking with in an attempt to draw out her name.

He smiled at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to daydream.”

She glanced at the woman in the fringed boots and shook her head. “I know what kind of daydreaming you were doing.” She seemed miffed.

He beamed his charm at her. “You never told me your last name.”

The woman gave him a knowing smile and moved away. “I never told you my first. And I don’t think I’m going to.”

Screw you,
he thought.

He turned his attention back to the woman in the fringed boots. If he’d already been penalized for looking, he’d have another look.

Like many beautiful women, especially ones who dressed so distinctly and obviously relished being observed, she seemed used to being stared at. It didn’t offend her. It was, in fact, homage to her very being.

Some getup she’s wearing.

But she made the extreme, outdoorsy outfit work. With a body like that, rags would look good on her.

The sun’s glitter off the studded boots and oversize belt buckle drew his eye.

And held it.

He felt the way he had one time when, while playing high-stakes poker, he’d been dealt a straight flush. Such luck he couldn’t believe!

The large buckle was definitely in the form of a fancy letter
N.

A monogram. Her initial.

He calmed himself. A straight flush and then this? Nobody was
that
lucky. And the
N
might be for her first name, Nancy or Norma, or maybe it was simply the logo of the belt manufacturer.

He quickly regained his composure, his smile, his style, and approached the woman.

Four heavily tattooed men who looked like motorcycle types were standing nearby talking. One of them—a weightlifter, no doubt—had his shirt off and tied by the arms around his waist. His sculpted torso was marked with the crude, faded blue tattoos that suggested prison time. They all paused and looked at the Butcher and smiled slightly, as if they knew he had no chance with a woman like the one he was moving in on.

You don’t know me, assholes.

“Nadine? Is that you?”

She regarded him with appraising brown eyes. They had an intelligence in them that made him decide on caution. He knew exactly what she was seeing: a handsome man in his thirties, average height, regular features, neatly styled dark hair, blue eyes. He was well dressed (not like the tattooed geeks), and had a reassuring smile. Always he possessed a vision of himself, as if he were another self looking on.

“Sorry,” she said, “I’m not Nadine.”

He put on a crestfallen expression. Then his smile was back. “Well, I’m sorry, too. I haven’t seen Nadine in a long time, and you look a lot like her. Then I noticed your belt buckle, the big letter
N,
and I thought…”

“It’s for Nelson,” she said.

He laughed. “You don’t look like a Nelson.”

She met his laughter with her own. She laughed so easily and naturally, an innately friendly girl. A people person. They were so easy. “That’s because it’s my last name.”

“Ah! And your first?”

“Marilyn.”

“Nice name.” He feigned awkwardness, but for just a few seconds, letting it register on her.

“Who’s Nadine?” she asked.

“Someone I was very fond of a long time ago in another place.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

He took a step away, then turned back. “Maybe it was fate that I thought you were Nadine.”

“Fate?”

“You know. Destiny.”

“I’m not sure I believe in destiny.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Well, I believe you’re trying to pick me up.”

He put on the awkward act again, standing with his body square to hers, hands jammed in pants pockets. “I’m trying too hard, I guess. I apologize.”

“Accepted.”

“The pickup or the apology?”

The easy laugh again. “Maybe both.”

The speakers
yeeeowled!
as a sound technician adjusted them. People laughed, groaned, or cupped their hands over their ears.

The handsome man grinned at her. “That noise they heard was me expressing pleasure at your answer,” he said.
Don’t be too smooth yet. Not with this one.

Marilyn thought it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her. And there was one thing they had in common already—they were both Ross Bossomo fans.

“I don’t know your name,” she said. The speakers screeched again, and she winced and repeated what she’d said.

“Joe. Joe Grant.”

“Grand?” The speakers again.

“Grant,” he said. “You know, like the Civil War general. Ulysses.”

“I know,” she said. “The one on the winning side.”

He glanced down. “By the way, I like your boots.”

She gave him a wide grin. “Good. What I’m wearing is clothing from Rough Country. They’re a Midwestern chain, except for a small trial store in Queens, and they’re going to enter the New York market in a major way. That’s why I’m here. I’m an interior designer specializing in retail space. I’m going to lay out their stores for them.”

“Talented woman.”

She waited, as if giving him a chance to tell her what line of work he was in, but he remained silent, raising his head and glancing at the trees. Dusk was just beginning to close in. Enough people had gathered to constitute a crowd. Their collective conversation and laughter was louder now. Half a dozen scruffy-looking young guys with musical instruments were filing up onto the stage. A warm-up band.

After a few seconds, Marilyn said, “There’s gonna to be a mob here soon. Do you want to see if we can get closer?”

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “Let’s get closer.”

In the course of his mission, it was essential that he control events, and he had events by the balls.

Things were going so smoothly that he tended more and more to take time in order to contemplate and enjoy. The Butcher sat in his leather recliner, his feet propped up, a Jack Daniel’s over rocks in his hand, and gazed out his high window at the lights of the city he felt was his. Or if it wasn’t his, it soon would be. Because the city was only beginning to experience the terror he’d inflict on it. The control he would exercise. Before he was finished, he’d own New York in a way no one searching for him would have imagined possible. In the world’s greatest city, he would be the world’s greatest nightmare.

It had been so simple to manipulate the police into bringing Quinn out of retirement. Then it was easy to see that his former partner in and out of bed, Pearl Kasner, would join him in the hunt. All it took was research and a modicum of personal involvement. People like Pearl and Quinn took personally the knowledge that a serial killer was operating in what they considered
their
city. It was born in them; they had to set things right.

The killer understood what compelled them, because he gloried in and was burdened by the same obsession. The only difference was in the definition of right. That was subjective. And that was where he and Quinn and his team clashed, which was precisely why they were perfect adversaries.

The Butcher hadn’t intended Pearl’s involvement at first, but when he was doing his research on Detective (then bank guard) Kasner, he discovered where she’d lived during the last case she’d worked with Quinn, and been pleasantly surprised to find the apartment now occupied by a rather pretty young brunette. Pretty enough, anyway, so that it would be a pleasure using her to send a message to Quinn and Kasner. They’d know the death of the apartment’s present occupant hadn’t been coincidental. Cops didn’t put much stock in coincidence.

Neither did killers who didn’t get caught.

The Butcher took a sip of Jack Daniel’s and smiled at his reflection in the dark window. There he was, outside himself, observing himself, a transparent figure in a reflective world between where he sat and the jeweled and glimmering nighttime cityscape beyond the glass. That was how the world was, really, layer after layer like coats of paint upon reality, and if you were smart enough you could move from one layer to the other. Live in more than one. He’d learned to do this at a young age because he’d had to in order to survive. Some lessons you never forgot. And if you never forgot them, you could put them to good use. You could control the game.

The last letter
N
had been a matter of expedience. The next one he would fully enjoy.

After the bland Ross Bossomo concert, he’d accompanied Marilyn Nelson home to her apartment, but he hadn’t gone in. He wasn’t ready yet. Didn’t have his equipment. Didn’t sense, as he always did, the proper time. Marilyn had told him she didn’t believe in destiny. She was a fool. He knew her destiny, even if she didn’t.

One thing for sure: meeting and moving toward the moment with Marilyn was instructive as well as pleasurable. He hadn’t considered monogrammed or initialed clothing and accessories, like Marilyn’s oversize belt buckle, as an aid to identifying prospective victims. Many women indulged in that simple exercise in ego. However it might work in the future, he thought it had been much more precise and productive than following strange women and scanning apartment mailboxes. That was how he’d found Florence Norton—and wasn’t Marilyn Nelson a brighter trinket?

Everything had gone so well he decided he’d enjoy her for a while before the time was right to end their affair.

To end Marilyn.

Quinn and his team were in their office a few blocks from the precinct house. The window air conditioner was humming and rattling away, not doing a bad job of cooling the place because it was still morning and the sun was low. The aroma of roasted beans from the Mr. Coffee brewer Pearl had bought wafted in the air. Now and then, just outside the door, they could hear another door closing and soles shuffling on concrete, people coming and going at Nothing but the Tooth, the dental clinic that occupied the other half of the building.

“So the owner and both employees at Nuts and Bolts didn’t recognize the other victims,” Quinn said. “And of course we only have two victims we know frequented the place and bought those kinky cell phones.”

Pearl was sure his tone was accusatory.

He was sitting behind his desk, leaning dangerously far back in his chair. Pearl and Fedderman were pacing, each with a mug filled with coffee. The mugs were from a home decorating store on Second Avenue and had their individual initials on them so nobody would mix them up. When Pearl had handed Fedderman his, he commented that initialed mugs seemed like something the killer might send them. Pearl had said maybe that was so, and seemed thoughtful.

Fedderman thought she might be contemplating nudging Quinn’s chair the rest of the way over.

“It was never my idea that the place was the one and only hunting ground for the killer,” she told Quinn. Why was Quinn like this, critical of what they both knew was basic, solid police work? Maybe he was jealous that he hadn’t thought about further checking out the pickup lounge.

“On the other hand,” Fedderman said, “the killer might have picked up
all
his victims in Nuts and Bolts, and the owner and employees don’t remember.”

“Somebody would have recalled the other victims,” Quinn said, “or remembered the same man with at least some of the women. Most likely two of the victims simply happened to work in the same neighborhood and frequented the same lounge sometimes after work or in the evening.”

“On the third hand,” Fedderman said, “the killer might never have set foot in the place.”

“Still, it’s a connection,” Quinn said, giving in and allowing for the possibility.

“And remember both victims bought cell phone vibrators,” Pearl said.

“They sold a lot of those to women who haven’t been murdered,” Fedderman reminded her.

“My gut tells me it means something,” Pearl said. She sipped her coffee from her initialed mug, thinking Mr. Coffee had done a pretty good job. “Could be the killer lives in the neighborhood and goes into the lounge often.”

“Kind of a leap in logic,” Quinn said, “but if you want to go to Nuts and Bolts from time to time to check it out, that’s not a bad idea.”

“It’s a pickup place,” Fedderman said. “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe you’ll need somebody to pick you up,” Pearl said.

Fedderman tried not to smile. Quinn thought it was a good thing he controlled himself. His two detectives were bitching at each other the way they had in the old days. He didn’t mind, as long as it didn’t get out of hand. Agitation wasn’t all bad. It required an active mind of the sort that was valuable in a murder investigation. It could create the pearl in the oyster, even a necklace of evidence pearls.

“How strong’s this gut feeling of yours about the cell phone vibrators?” he asked Pearl, artfully veering away from the subject of pickups in singles’ lounges.

“Not very strong, I admit. I guess it’s more hope than anything else.”

Quinn looked over at Fedderman. “What’s your gut tell you, Feds?”

“Tells me I’m hungry.” Fedderman put down his mug on the desk nearest to Quinn’s and glared at Pearl. “And it tells me not to drink any more of this coffee.”

The Butcher slept late, having worked much of the night at his computer. He’d then spent most of the morning at the Rough Country store in Queens. So busy had he been that he hadn’t had time to check the news on the Internet or read any of the morning papers.

Now he slouched in his leather recliner and read again the piece in the
Times
. The Florence Norton murder had been dropped from the front page but had never left the news entirely.

He greatly enjoyed the inside feature story on the Butcher murders. It provided brief biographies of the victims and time frames of their deaths, but concentrated mainly on Florence Norton. Perhaps in everyone’s death there were fifteen minutes of fame. The features section, or obituary page, as curtain call.

As usual, if anyone astutely read between the lines it was obvious that the police were mystified. They simply had nothing to grab hold of that might lead them to the killer.

The Butcher
.

It was so apropos. Every time he read the sobriquet the media had chosen for him, he had to smile. In fact, almost everything he’d read or heard in the media pleased him. Everything was falling into place. The re-formation of Quinn’s detective team especially gave him satisfaction. The NYPD without Quinn and company were easy opponents, but the three detectives specifically assigned to hunt him down were top-notch and had a track record. They would at least make the game interesting.

He let his right arm drop and laid the folded paper on the floor, then adjusted the chair at a lower angle and rested the back of his head against the soft leather headrest. Though he didn’t require much sleep, it wasn’t unusual for him to nap during the daytime in the recliner. It was because he often worked most of the night.

He glanced at his watch. Not even three o’clock. There was plenty of time before he had to shower and dress for this evening. He settled deeper into the chair, closed his eyes, and thought about Marilyn Nelson. His right hand, the one that had held the folded paper, moved to his crotch.

Pearl’s phone was ringing when she entered her apartment that evening, and she made the mistake of picking it up without looking at caller ID.

“Pearl, it’s your mother. You’re finally home. I’ve been calling and calling.”

Pearl’s mood darkened, as it did whenever her mother called from where she lived in the Golden Sunset assisted living apartments in Teaneck.

“Sorry, Mom. Busy working.” She stretched the phone cord so she could move halfway across the room and start the window air conditioner. It would soon cool down the apartment and chase away the musty smell that often permeated the place.

Her mother said something she didn’t understand, so she moved away from the humming air conditioner. “Say again, Mom.”

“The Butcher murders. Why haven’t you caught the animal yet?”

“He’s smart, Mom, like the papers and TV say.”

“Still, you have Captain Quinn.”

“He’s not exactly a captain anymore.” It rankled Pearl, the way her mother was a sucker for phony Irish charm and remained so fond of Quinn. She could still hear her mother’s confidential whisper after meeting Quinn the first time:
“He’s the one. A keeper. A real mensch, that one.”

“But the television news—”

“Not a permanent captain, anyway,” Pearl interrupted. “He’s more a civilian temporarily out of retirement.”

“Like yourself, dear?”

“Not unlike.”

“I never approved of you in that dangerous occupation.”

Or any other.
“I know, Mom.”

“So why haven’t you phoned your apartment from time to time to check your messages? You’d have learned your mother was calling from nursing home hell.”

“It’s not a nursing home, Mom. It’s assisted living.”

“I need assistance to breathe?”

“Not for that, thank God.”
Not yet.
Pearl lay awake sweating in bed sometimes, thinking of even more oppressive days to come. “For other things.”

“Oh? Such as?”

Pearl remembered the time her mother had warmed up a can of chili by placing it in a pot of water on the stove—neglecting to open the can—and heating it until it exploded, sending boiling water and chili all over her kitchen. Pearl remembered because it was she who’d had to clean up the mess. “I’m thinking about the chili on the ceiling, Mom.”

“You mean the cans they don’t make like they used to.”

“If you say so.”

“No, it’s not what I say. It’s whether they’re making paper-thin cans these days, and they are.”

Pearl moved over a few feet so she’d be in the flow of cool air from the window unit. “You might be right, Mom.”
Just let me get off the phone!

“Your mother’s always right, dear.” Violent coughing. Dramatic pause.

Pearl played along. “Mom?” She was surprised to hear real concern in her voice.

“I’m right about this, too, dear. It’s something mothers can feel. God willing, you’ll know someday.”

Pearl worked her feet out of her shoes and wriggled her toes. “We still talking about the chili?”

“My reference was to Mrs. Kahn’s nephew, Milton.”

Huh?

Pearl knew Mrs. Kahn, a seventy-six-year-old woman with a walker with tennis balls on it, was in the assisted living unit next to her mother’s. “I don’t think I know him, Mom.”

“But you should, Pearl, which is why I called.”

“Nine times,” Pearl said, “according to the message count on my answering machine.”

“The machine you should have remotely checked to see if you had any messages at all.”