The Craving (17 page)

“I’m waiting for you,” he said.

In addition to the weird way he spoke, he had an accent, maybe German, but it didn’t really sound German. It sounded like a mix of German and something else.

“Well, I got up here as fast as I could,” Geri said.

She waited for him to say something, maybe invite her into the living room area of the huge loft, which was the size of an entire floor of the building—he had all this money from a beer business that wasn’t even a business anymore? Hm—but he didn’t say anything, just stared at her with his very dark eyes. That was another weird thing about him—his eyes and the way he stared at her. She didn’t know if he did that to everybody or if he was just trying to be a wise guy, to make her feel uncomfortable. Geri was usually good at reading people, could figure out an MO, but Michael Hartman was a total mystery to her.

“So,” Geri said, “can we sit down for a few minutes? I know it’s early in the morning, but something just came up that I really need to talk to you about.”

“You’ve found Olivia,” Michael said.

“No,” Geri said. “Actually I’m not really working on that case, but that’s actually part of the reason I’m here. Can we sit down?”

That’s the way, tell
him
what to do. Take back control.

But Michael just stood there.

“Or,” Geri said, “if you prefer to go down to the station and talk, we can do it that way.”

“It’s not your case,” Michael said.

“Yeah,” Geri said. “So?”

“You won’t take me to the precinct to talk. You can’t take me to the precinct; that’s why you’re here.”

So much for getting back in control.

“Look, if you don’t want to talk to me, you don’t have to,” Geri said. “But this might be my case soon, and I guarantee if I have to come back here again I won’t be nearly as pleasant.”

Geri was trying to regain the upper hand, the way she would with a usual person she questioned on a case, but Michael wasn’t a usual person—that was becoming very clear. Nothing seemed to faze this guy. Actually Geri’s threat had the opposite effect, as she was the one who felt threatened. He wasn’t doing anything to make her feel in danger; there was just something about him that exuded a general feeling of menace. Maybe it was the way his dark eyes were fixed on her and his expression was entirely blank, and she had no idea what he was thinking, or what he might do next. Just in case, Geri was aware of her Glock 26, her off-duty piece, tucked in a holster right above her waist. She knew, if she had to, she could have it in her hand and fire it in less than two seconds. She’d always been a quick draw, the fastest draw in her year at the academy.

“Come,” Michael said, and he walked toward the living room area, leaving her behind near the elevators.

Geri hated that she felt so intimidated; she was the cop,
she
was
the one who was supposed to do the intimidating. She took a deep breath, getting a grip, then went into the living room area, where Michael was already seated where he’d sat the other time she’d been here—on a chair across from the couch. It was a wooden chair; it looked like an antique, and it was several inches higher than the level of the couch where Geri sat. Had he planned it this way so he could be above her, looking downward? Yeah, probably.

“Your son with his mother?” Geri asked, looking toward a Power Ranger Black Wolf action figure on the coffee table. She’d met his young boy during his last visit.

“You don’t have children,” Michael said.

“Excuse me?” The statement was so unusual that Geri was caught a little off guard.

“Having a child is the most beautiful thing in the world,” Michael said. “There is nothing more rewarding than looking into your son’s eyes, noticing his resemblance to yourself, knowing he’s yours, that you created him.”

“Yes, I agree,” Geri said, deciding that Michael was probably mentally ill or at least had a major personality disorder, and she had to stop letting him get to her.

“Yet you chose not to have a child,” he said. “You wanted to be alone, without beauty.”

Geri had no idea how he seemed to know details of her personal life.

“Thanks for your insight,” Geri said, “but I’m not here to talk about me; I’m here to talk about a woman who was killed in Michigan last week. Do you know Diane Coles?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

She waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

She asked, “How did you two meet?”

“Olivia was my lover.”

“So you met through Olivia.”

Michael didn’t answer.

“Did you talk to Diane after Olivia disappeared?”

“No,” Michael said.

Geri was frustrated that she still couldn’t read Michael; she had no idea if he was lying or telling the truth.

“Were you and Diane friendly?”

“She was a friend of my lover.”

“I know, you said that, but were you friends?”

Long stare, then finally, “No.”

“So did you see Diane frequently?”

“Diane was the lover of a man in my pack.”

“I’m sorry. Your pack?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I’m wrong about this, but you don’t seem very surprised to hear about Diane’s death.”

“Death never surprises me.” Michael was deadpan.

“Really?” Geri wondered,
Is this guy for real?

“I’m sorry, maybe I’m just having trouble reading you,” Geri said, “but you don’t seem very upset about any of this actually. I told you the girlfriend of one of your friends was killed, and you don’t seem to care very much one way or another.”

For a long time, maybe ten seconds, Michael didn’t answer. Again, Geri was aware of the menace he was emitting, and she was trying her hardest not to let it affect her.

Finally he said, “I don’t feel sadness.”

“Never?” Geri tried to stare at him, give him a taste of what it felt like, but she felt silly and it didn’t seem to be having any effect on him
anyway. Then she said, “You don’t even feel sad when somebody dies, somebody close to you?”

“The woman wasn’t close to me.”

“But ‘the woman’ was close to your friend. Don’t you feel bad about that?”

“Only the weak feel bad about death.”

“I know some strong people who feel pretty bad when somebody dies.”

“Death is natural.”

“Diane didn’t die of natural causes.” She didn’t want to mention that Diane had been shot, hoping that he’d let this fact slip himself if he was involved.

But instead he said, “Animals don’t mourn the dead.”

“Why does it matter what animals do?” Geri asked. “And by the way, that’s not true. If a dog loses a friend, the dog mourns. Monkeys mourn.”

“Mourning is weakness,” Michael said.

Geri was frustrated that she’d lost control of her questioning again, that they were talking about freaking monkeys. She asked, “Where were you the night Olivia Becker disappeared?”

“You’re asking this question, yet this isn’t your case,” Michael said.

“Please just answer the question.”

“Questions only waste time. You should be direct. You don’t have questions; you want knowledge. You’re asking me if I killed my lover, Olivia, or if I killed Ramon’s lover. I didn’t kill these people. Now you have the knowledge you came for and you can leave.”

Hating that she was flustered, Geri asked, “Is Ramon the guy in your pack?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

“Okay then, well, if you don’t mind another of my silly questions, can anybody besides your father vouch that you didn’t take a trip to Michigan last week?”

“My pack knows where I was.”

“Who else is in your pack of friends besides Ramon?”

“There is Charlie.”

“What about your playground buddy, Simon Burns?”

Michael didn’t answer. Geri was getting tired of mind games.

Then Michael said, “Yes, Simon is in my pack. But Ramon and Charlie know I was here. You must go now.”

Even though she was about ready to leave anyway, she didn’t like being told what to do.

“Do these guys in your pack, Charlie and Ramon, have last names?” she asked.

“I don’t know their surnames,” he said.

“Wait, these are your friends and you don’t know their last names?”

“Names don’t concern me,” he said.

“Yeah, well, they concern me,” Geri said. “How about their phone numbers?”

Without bothering to mention where he was going, Michael walked away to another part of the loft. He returned a few minutes later with his phone and gave Geri Charlie and Ramon’s numbers.

“I have given you what you want; now leave,” he said.

Smiling, thinking,
Well, this is one day I’ll never forget
, she went to the elevator. When she got on, Michael stood watching her until the doors closed. Geri pressed the button for the ground level, but, like before, the elevator didn’t budge for a long time, and then, without any button lit up, it moved on its own. Maybe there was something wrong with the buttons that they didn’t light up, but Geri had a
feeling that Michael was controlling the elevator with some remote switch. But just because the guy was weird as hell and a control freak didn’t mean he had anything to do with any murders. Still, Geri felt something off about him, and she was eager to check up with his friends Charlie and Ramon. It was interesting that Michael had seemed uncomfortable at the mention of Simon Burns. Was there some kind of rift there? That was another thing to look into.

It was ten to ten and Geri needed to be all the way uptown at Manhattan North ASAP or she’d catch more hell from Dan. She figured a cab would be faster than the subway, but maybe this wasn’t her day because in midtown she hit bumper-to-bumper traffic—thank you very much, marathon.

S
imon rushed into the bathroom off the hallway and tried to lock the door but couldn’t. His hands had already partially transformed into claws and he couldn’t push the lock on the handle. The pain in his joints and bones was practically unbearable, and though he was trying to scream, he was making a loud growling sound.

“Simon? What the hell is going on in there? Simon?”

Alison opened the door to the bathroom, but only an inch or two, before Simon used his weight to slam it shut.

“Simon, what’s
wrong
with you?”

“I’m okay,” he said, or tried to say. He could
think
the words but couldn’t speak them.

Alison was still pushing against the door, saying, “Simon, open up, Simon,” and then he had an idea. He bent over—it was weird, his back felt extremely flexible and agile—and used his tongue—which had become thicker, longer, and much stronger—to push the lock
shut. The whole thing was ridiculous, of course, because how could a flimsy little lock restrain him?

“What is wrong with you, Simon? Why are you acting this way?”

Simon could tell that Alison was extremely angry but also on the verge of tears. He wished there were something he could do to reassure her, but trying to talk to her only seemed to be making things worse.

Then he looked at the mirror. His first thought—it wasn’t a mirror, it was a TV screen. He wasn’t looking at himself—it was an actor, playing a role. But this delusion didn’t last for long. He raised his right arm slightly, and sure enough the thing in the mirror moved its arm as well. Still unconvinced—or deep in denial—he flared his nostrils, and the dark, practically black wolflike nostrils of the beast in the mirror flared. Then he tried to touch his face, but he did it awkwardly, with too much force, and he hit himself so hard he stumbled back against the door.

This got another “Simon?!”

He recovered and looked at the mirror again. He’d cut his face with his claws.
Claws?
He flexed his hands but didn’t have total control of them. It almost felt like he was wearing two catcher’s mitts. The T-shirt he’d been wearing was stretched to its extreme, about to rip, like something out of his old Incredible Hulk comics.

Oh God, how was this possible? Then it finally set in that this was his life now, his new reality. This half-man, half-animal thing was the new him.

The door was still shaking. He could smell Alison’s scent, which turned him on, but he also wanted her in another way. He wanted to dig his fangs into her, to taste her. She smelled so good, she would have to be the ultimate meal.

Craving her uncontrollably, he rammed against the door, practically breaking the hinges. Suddenly the bathroom felt like a cage, and
he had to escape, be free. He charged the door again, when a voice inside shouted,
No!
He didn’t really want to hurt his wife. The other Simon Burns was still inside him somewhere, but this voice was faint, muted, and overwhelmed.