John Lutz Bundle (90 page)

Madeline Scott didn’t sit down. Jill didn’t make the offer.

The two women had drifted farther into the living room and stood facing each other, keeping their distance. The odor coming off Madeline seemed to have dissipated, or maybe Jill was simply getting used to it. Some of the wildness had left Madeline’s eyes, leaving Jill at least reassured that the woman wasn’t going to abruptly attack her.

“I only want to talk while you listen,” Madeline said with surprising calm.

Jill swallowed. “All right. So talk.”

Get whatever you have to say over with, and then get out. Get out.

“Not so long ago I was in your position,” Madeline began. “I was from out of town, with no real family, and not very long in New York. Things hadn’t gone as well as I thought they would when I moved here from Illinois.”

Jill began to feel somewhat relieved. Madeline had obviously rehearsed this, or at least given it a lot of thought. This was going to be a sob story, ending, she was sure, in an appeal for money. Okay, maybe she could buy her way out of this. Out of this dread she hated to admit to herself.

“I was working dead-end, impersonal jobs,” Madeline continued, “where they’d hardly miss me if I didn’t show up. I had no real friends to speak of. Dates? Yeah, a few. But you know how that goes. The men I let pick me up wanted the usual and then out. All the acquaintanceship you might want is out there, but not friends, not people who’ll remember you even the next day. So I did what a lot of lonely people in New York do after they’ve wasted time dating enough losers. I contacted a reputable matchmaking service.”

Jill’s mind had been distracted, still trying to figure a way out of this awkward situation, a way to cut it short. What would it cost her? Suddenly she began paying close attention.

“It was the same online matchmaking service you used,” Madeline said. “E-Bliss.org.”

Jill moved to a chair and sat down. Madeline went to the sofa and sat on the very edge of one of the end cushions.

“Everything I just told you about,” Madeline said, “E-Bliss learned about on my personality profile form. That and more.”

“There’s nothing wrong with E-Bliss,” Jill said, wondering as she spoke why she was defending the online dating service.

But she knew why: she wanted desperately for the matchmaking service to be legitimate. So much of her intimate and vulnerable self was invested in it now.

Madeline smiled sadly, as if knowing what Jill was thinking. “I believe they’re mostly a legitimate matchmaking service,” she said, “but they operate another service within that one. It requires women without close family, new to the city, and still mostly without close friends or connections. I fit the profile, and so do you.”

Jill took a deep breath and tried to organize her thoughts. “What does this service within a service do?”

“It searches through all the profiles, probably with some kind of computer software, and settles on the right applicant. Then the company sends someone to gain your trust and learn all about you. Everything from your Social Security and charge account numbers to your favorite candy. Meanwhile, someone else is learning about you, watching you, spending time in your apartment when you’re not there, wearing your clothes, even being glimpsed around the building as you. Practicing to be you. And then…she becomes you.”

Whoa!

“You said, ‘becomes me’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it says.”

Madeline stared at her silently.

“Why me in particular?” Jill asked, astounded. And afraid again, but not exactly in the same way. There was something creepy about this that was working its way into her marrow. Something some part of her mind knew that the rest of it hadn’t yet caught up with. “I mean, there are plenty of women like you described living in New York. This is the most anonymous city in the world.”

“Why you?” Madeline said thoughtfully, obviously considering. “I don’t know for sure. But I followed the man you know as Tony Lake from the offices of E-Bliss to you. Only I knew him as Dwayne King. I’ve given this a lot of thought. In fact, it’s all I’ve thought about for weeks. My guess is you resemble someone who wants to disappear, and who’s paid E-Bliss so she can take your place.”

“What about the real me?” Jill asked, dreading the answer even though she wasn’t sure she believed any of this.

“The real you ceases to exist. You’re shot and killed, as they tried to do to me. I managed to break free and run. They kept shooting at me, but I escaped by climbing into an approaching car and urging the driver to get us away. I read in the paper a week later that a man I’m sure was the driver was found dead in Riverside Park from a drug overdose. I don’t think it was suicide or an accident.”

Jill’s mind was still wrestling with what she was hearing. “But why would they do this, substitute people for each other?”

“Money,” Madeline said simply.

“Of course. Money. Like everything else. But what do their clients want? What’s the reason for the substitutions?”

“I don’t know,” Madeline said. “But I know that what E-Bliss is doing must work. They choose their victims carefully from thousands of Internet applicants for relationships. These women must meet the qualifications and resemble whoever’s going to become them. If you’re a victim client and you’ve happened to make a friend who might care or suspect there’s something wrong, the new you simply moves away suddenly, as people often do in Manhattan, leaving a note or the last month’s rent so there’s no doubt the departure was voluntary. I’ve seen the other Madeline coming out of my apartment on West Seventy-second Street. She isn’t my exact double, but with the same hairdo, makeup, and my wardrobe and apartment, not to mention identification, charge cards, and passport, maybe even some minor cosmetic surgery, she
became
me.”

“My God!” Jill’s mind was working furiously, warning her again that this woman was crazy, that what she was saying was impossible.

Only it
was
possible, and Jill knew it. Loneliness made it possible. Jill remembered loneliness.

Madeline, knowing what Jill must be thinking, again showed her sad smile. “People who don’t know us well or long don’t look at us all that closely, Jill, and the new me even has my gestures and speech patterns down pat.”

“This other you,” Jill said, “why didn’t you confront her?”

The gleam of terror in Madeline’s eyes was answer enough for Jill.

“Why don’t you go to the police?”

Madeline shook her head. “I tried. They brushed me off as just another deranged street person. And there’s no way for me to prove I really
am
me. Sometimes I doubt it myself. This is larger than either of us knows, Jill. The police might be in on it.”

Jill was jolted by the thought. And again she thought Madeline might simply be paranoid, one of the poor and forever lost who roamed the Manhattan streets talking to everyone and no one, suspecting everything and everyone.

And yet…

“How could the police even know we talked?” Jill asked.

“They’ll know. Or at least there’s no guarantee they won’t. And you can’t take the chance, Jill. I’m sorry I did this to you, but I need your help. I was like you, living my life, and suddenly I’m mixed up with…I don’t know. Organized crime would be my guess. Or maybe anyone who can pay whatever E-Bliss.org charges for its special service. They might have infiltrated the police and they’ll learn what’s going on and see that any investigation stops. And that I’ll be killed. And now that I’ve talked to you, that you’ll be killed. How can we know whom to trust? If we confide in the wrong people, we’ll wind up like the rest of those women. What’s left of our mutilated bodies that can’t be identified will be put into a pauper’s grave or cremated by the city.”

“Left of our bodies? You mean the Torso Murders—”

“Being on the run, I didn’t watch or read the news regularly, but when I happened to learn about the Torso Murders, I knew there was probably a connection. That was what was going to be left of me after I ceased to exist as a person. And that’s the plan for you, Jill. I’m sure you’ve never been fingerprinted or submitted a DNA sample, and if you disappeared there’d be no one to miss you or even report your absence.”

Jill had to admit that Madeline was right about the fingerprints and DNA. And the family she didn’t have. There was no one who cared enough to make a spirited inquiry.

“You’re halfway to nothing already.” Madeline took a deep breath. “Do you believe any of this?”

Jill sat silently for almost a minute staring at the woman who might be mad. Who certainly appeared mad.

Only she wasn’t mad. And Jill knew it.

“I believe enough of it,” she finally said, remembering filling out her endlessly detailed and personal E-Bliss.org profile.

Do you take cream in your coffee?

What brands of cosmetics do you use?

Do you ever wear a hat or cap?

Would you drink from someone else’s water bottle without first wiping it?

Do you jaywalk?

Do you use an electric toothbrush?

Madeline stood up from the sofa. The look on her face suggested she might rush over to Jill and hug her.

But she didn’t.

“I’ll go now,” she said. “I know your mind must be whirling. You need time to think about all this. Let’s meet tomorrow, around noon, just inside the main library on Fifth and Forty-second. They don’t throw anyone out of a public library, and I can neaten myself up enough so they won’t think I’m a panhandler. We both need to think this over and then have a talk, try to come up with some kind of plan.”

“A plan…?”

“Some kind of plan,” Madeline repeated. Her eyes brimmed with tears, pleading. “Will you be there, Jill?”

Jill couldn’t look away from those eyes. They didn’t seem insane now. Desperate, but not insane.

“I promise I’ll think about it,” she said.

Madeline nodded.

“If you think about it, you’ll be there.”

So here Quinn was in a blazing forest, terrified animals streaking past him, ignoring him. Deer, bears, rabbits, a lion.
What next? A unicorn?

Quinn had fallen asleep in the brown leather chair in his den while reading about the Torso Murders in the
Post.
It amazed him how so much could be written on something everyone knew so little about. The Cuban cigar he’d been smoking lay smoldering in an ashtray on the carpet beside his chair. That was the sort of thing Pearl often warned him about. He was going to start a fire, kill them both, kill everyone in the building. Pearl, who’d melted the shower curtain with her curling iron.

He smelled cigar smoke and almost woke up. But not quite. His dreams weren’t ready to release him. The smoke grew denser.

He was wearing only a plastic raincoat with a hood and, like the animals surrounding him, he was terrified of the advancing wall of flame. Even without the heat of the forest fire, he was sweltering in the plastic NYPD coat. The California heat was merciless.

California?

Where was Lauri? Was she safe from the fire? Was Wormy?

Pearl?

A phone was ringing. Or was it the urgent jangle of a fire engine?
Gotta pull the damned car over to the side of the road.

Hold on! He wasn’t driving. He knew that because he couldn’t find a steering wheel.

He realized he’d fallen asleep. He struggled up out of the chair, wearily stumbled toward the phone. Snatched up the receiver and almost said, “Pearl?”

But he didn’t say it. The word hadn’t quite escaped.

Why did I think of Pearl? I was worried about Lauri. Even Wormy.

He smelled something burning and terror took a swipe at him. Then he noticed the smoldering cigar in the ashtray on the floor.

“Quinn?” a woman’s voice said on the phone. Not Pearl’s voice. “Quinn? It’s Linda.”

He suddenly wanted to see Linda. To hold her and feel her holding him.

“Linda,” he said stupidly, still tangled in the cobwebs of sleep. He dropped the receiver but caught it just before it could bang against the desk. “I dozed off in my chair,” he explained.

“You’re working too hard.”

“Not hard enough, though.”

She was silent for a moment.

“I need to see you,” he said.

“That’s why I called. I need to see
you
.”

Jesus!
Quinn thought.
Where is this going? So fast. Like being caught in a strong current propelling me toward a sea I know is dangerous.

“Quinn?”

Sharks. Not fire—water. Wake all the way up, numb wit!

“Quinn?” Linda said again, concerned.

“The Lotus Diner in half an hour?”

“I’ll be there.”

He hung up the phone and stood staring mutely at it for several seconds. Then he went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. On his shirt, too. He decided he needed a fresh shirt. Realized he still had a bitter taste in his mouth from the cigar. Brushed his teeth. Went into the bedroom and changed his shirt. Back to the bathroom to comb his hair.

Before leaving the apartment, he picked up the cigar and ashtray and carried them into the kitchen. He ran water on the cigar and threw it away, then wiped the glass ashtray clean and set it on the sink counter.

He found an aerosol can of air freshener and sprayed it around the apartment, especially in the den, where he’d been smoking.

As he left the apartment, he wasn’t thinking about his dreams, about the Torso Murders, about dead women.

Only about Linda, alive.

At first Jill was awkward around Tony when they met for dinner. He seemed not to notice, and by the time they were seated at Scampi, a four-star restaurant near Sixth Avenue and Fifty-second Street, she was much more at ease. Tony was so attentive, so reassuring, so…nonthreatening that Jill’s conversation with Madeline receded in her mind and seemed more and more unreal.

Surely it
was
unreal, the delusional ranting of a mentally ill street woman.
This
was reality, sitting here with Tony in the soft light from the candle in the center of the white-clothed table, their half-eaten meals before them, the waiter bringing more wine.

Tony couldn’t—he simply
couldn’t
—be the kind of monster Madeline had painted. Surely if the story were true Jill would be able to see it in Tony. Not that he’d have horns and his eyes would glow red, but there’d be
something
. A person simply couldn’t be as Madeline had described and at the same time be like Tony.

Besides, Jill knew this man. They’d had several dates now and were moving toward sleeping together. While making it obvious that was what he expected, Tony hadn’t rushed her in any way while they continued to explore each other, making sure of what they wanted. Making sure of Jill, really. Tony seemed to know he wanted her, and for more than simple sex.

That was what had emerged from their time together, an intimacy that would be cemented by commitment when they were ready. A mutual trust. Their very private conversations had provided insights into each other’s souls.

“You seemed a little unsettled when you got here,” Tony said, as the waiter finished pouring the wine. His grin was beautiful and boyish. Toothpaste-commercial white, yet genuine as Tony himself. “Still worried about someone trespassing in your apartment?”

“Not anymore.” Jill smiled, wondering if she should tell him about Madeline. Mad Madeline.

Actually mad?

Better to say nothing. Tony, handsome and perfectly normal Tony, might think
she
, Jill, was the one with the overactive imagination. The paranoid tendencies.

Maybe I am the mad one.

But she knew she hadn’t imagined Madeline.

And somewhere deep in her mind she knew she couldn’t entirely dismiss Madeline’s mad tale.

Somewhere.

Far away.

The wine was relaxing her, making her feel warm inside. So warm and safe.

With Tony.

Over coffee at the Lotus Diner, Quinn and Linda made easy small talk. The evening was warm, but it was cool in the diner and unusually quiet.

It hadn’t taken long before Quinn felt totally comfortable talking with Linda, and she seemed comfortable talking with him. Strangely, the coffee cups between them helped. They were similar to other containers of liquid from the hell they’d both visited, reminders of who they’d been, and who they were. The present, where the liquid containers had handles, was infinitely better than the past, and getting better.

Quinn hadn’t taken a sip of his coffee in a long time. He sat toying with the warm cup, enjoying the scent of the coffee and the heat on his fingertips. “It was a good idea, meeting here tonight.”

“I think so,” Linda said. She was wearing a dark blouse, pale Levi’s that she had the figure for, no jewelry except for four or five thin silver loop bracelets that jangled together ever so faintly whenever she lifted her right arm to sip coffee.

There were only a few other people in the diner, and no one was paying them the slightest attention. Outside the streaked window next to their booth, traffic on Amsterdam had slacked off and there weren’t so many pedestrians—the city as relaxed as it ever got. Across the street, a woman waving a folded newspaper lured a cab to the curb. She opened its rear door and climbed in. The white of the newspaper showed behind the cab’s reflecting windows as it drove away.

“My place is within easy walking distance of here,” Quinn said.

Linda smiled. “Seeing that woman hail a cab make you think of that?”

Quinn looked into her eyes, not smiling. “You made me think of that.”

Linda felt a stirring she hadn’t experienced in years. She knew they could both feel their relationship shifting toward the tipping point and wondered if Quinn was as nervous about it as she was. Nervous and a little bit afraid. He couldn’t be as afraid. He’d been the one who’d nudged things in a new and faster direction. Linda’s heart wouldn’t slow down.

Her smile faded and she raised a hand to run her fingertips lightly along the contours of his face, like a blind woman assessing someone’s true self.

“I’ll get the check,” she said.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Quinn told her.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

She thought that from this point on it wouldn’t matter much which of them paid.