The Man Who Loved Women to Death (16 page)

My oldest friend was drowning. He was angry. He was broke. He was suicidal. Was he a serial killer, too? Was he roaming the city at night like a wild animal, picking out a victim, killing her and then writing about it? Writing
me?
Was he totally and completely insane? Or was I totally and completely wrong? Was there the slightest chance, the tiniest chance that Tuttle Cash
wasn’t
the answer man? What if I gave him over to Very and it turned out he was innocent? The publicity would finish him off for good. Is that how you repay a friend for saving your life? Ah, but what if he
was
the answer man? Then what? How far was I prepared to go to shield Tuttle Cash from the law? Where did my loyalty to him leave off? When did I tell Very about him?

Questions. So many questions. Here’s one:

If Tuttle Cash wasn’t the answer man, then who was?

That one I had no answer for. Actually, I had no answers for any of them. All I had were choices. Maybe in another life you won’t have to make choices. That same life where no one goes hungry and everyone laughs at your jokes. But in this particular life you have to. And that sucks sometimes. And I’d just like to go on record as saying so.

Tracy shifted in my lap, gurgled and said one of her words. She knew two of them. I’d like to tell you they were “Momma” and “Dadda,” but I’d be lying. Her first word was “yesss …” She picked that up from Marv Albert on the Knicks telecasts. Her second word was “cheeseboogers,” which was her current favorite, and which Merilee was convinced somehow originated with me. Lulu ambled in and sat at my feet and licked her toes. Tracy’s, not her own. This was her way of showing affection for her baby sister. Tracy giggled with delight. Someday, she would get smart and wonder why her feet smelled like dead fish. But for now it made both of them happy.

Vic appeared in the doorway, pawing at the floor with his size 15 EEE black brogan. “Sorry to interrupt your quality time, Hoag,” he said in his droning monotone. “Pam wondered if you’ll be joining us for dinner. She’s doing a chicken pot pie. I made the crust all by myself.”

“I don’t think so, Vic. Thank you.” He started lumbering away. I called him back. “Vic, what do you remember about Tuttle Cash?”

“Tuttle Cash …” Vic frowned, searching his memory. Sometimes it was remarkable. Sometimes it wasn’t there at all. Had to do with that plate in his head. “Superior peripheral vision and balance. Above average foot-speed. Decisive when he cut to the hole. Hard to bring down. Durable. Dominant player at the small-college level. Not an NFL talent. Not hungry enough. More of the rah-rah schoolboy-hero type. I guess that’s why the sports writers and the Hollywood people romanticized him the way they did. Take it from me, Hoag, there’s nothing romantic or heroic about professional football. It’s just a bunch of guys clobbering the snot out of each other for pay. Half of them would be in jail if they hadn’t found football.”

“Ever play against him?”

“No, I was in Nam by the time he came along.”

“What’s your opinion of him now?” I asked. Vic always had one of those.

He hesitated. “Friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“Go ahead. Please.”

“I saw too many people lose their lives over there to have patience with people like him who throw theirs away,” Vic replied softly. “He could be making sandwiches at a soup kitchen or coaching underprivileged kids. Instead, all he does is drink and chase puss and mooch a living off of his glory days.”

“Would he know you from anywhere?”

“Know me?”

“Would he recognize you?”

We were interrupted by the buzzer in the kitchen. Mario the doorman was calling up from the lobby. Vic went and answered it. Then he came back and said, “Inspector Feldman and Lieutenant Very are on their way up.”

I greeted them at the door, manila envelope in hand. They came inside and stood there in the marble-tiled entry hall, the Human Hemorrhoid shooting his cuffs and smoothing his snowy-white pompadour, shooting and smoothing, shooting and smoothing. “Goddamned reporters,” he muttered angrily. “I hate their fucking guts. I wish they’d get cancer and die. Every single one of ’em.”

Very wore an exceedingly retro porkpie hat and an exceedingly grim expression. The hat came off when I closed the door. The grim expression most definitely did not.

“She was a real nice-looking girl, dude,” he said tightly. “Red hair. Shapely ankles. Tattoo of a heart on her left one, just like you said. Name was Bridget Colleen Healey. Profession, legal secretary. She would have been twenty-four years old next month.”

“He sure knows his women,” I said. “I’ll give him that.”

“Huh?” Feldman demanded, whipping off his topcoat. “What’s that?”

“Never mind.” I hung his coat in the closet. Very’s spy coat and hat as well.

“She lived alone,” the lieutenant continued. “We found her on the sofa. She was strangled. Don’t know with what.”

“His belt,” I said. “He used his belt.”

Feldman shot a look down at the envelope. Then up at me. He said nothing.

Very said, “She was recently laid off, according to the old lady across the hall. Who, by the way, saw bupkes and heard bupkes. Nice enough girl, she said. Quiet. Wasn’t seeing anyone special. Had been going with someone from her office, an older man, but that ended a few months back.”

Oh, yes, he knew his women. “Three question marks on her forehead?”

“He numbered her, all right,” Very replied. “Same orange lipstick.” He seemed uneasy all of a sudden.

“Something else, Lieutenant?”

He and Feldman exchanged a look.

“No, dude. Nothing else.”

“This makes twice he’s made contact in the East Thirties,” I observed.

“Yeah, we know that,” Feldman snapped impatiently.

“Is it significant?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” he replied.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we don’t know,” Very translated.

Feldman glared at him. Candor was clearly not appreciated. “So, what, that goddamned thing’s been sitting here since this morning?” he demanded, meaning the envelope.

“I’m afraid so. It was delivered to the wrong apartment by mistake.”

The inspector made a face, disgusted. “Well, our system’s in place now. This
won’t
happen again.”

“If you say so.”

Now he turned his glare on me. “You pushing my buttons or something?”

“No, when I push your buttons you’ll know it.” I held the envelope out to him. “Would you care to …?”

He put his hands up. “I don’t even want to touch it. Just lay it out somewhere so we can read.”

“Shall we try the living room?”

We tried the living room, which was in a state of Susy Hendrix darkness, thanks to Merilee’s blackout drapes. I felt my way to the table lamp in between the matching pair of Morris armchairs and flicked it on. It was a Dirk Van Erp of copper and mica made in 1910 and stamped with the windmill insignia on the bottom of the base. It bathed the room in a sepia glow. There was a mammoth old bungalow floor lamp in one corner over by the windows. I turned it on, too. Very took a seat in one of the armchairs, which are as comfortable as they are beautiful. Lulu came in and stretched out on the leather settee, curling her lip at the inspector. When she doesn’t like someone she just plain doesn’t like them. Something she got from me.

Feldman lingered in the doorway, gazing at those heavy drapes over the windows. “Dave Berkowitz used to live in the dark this way. Only, he used blankets.”

“Thank you for that comment, Inspector. Thank you very much.”

“I like this furniture, though. What is it, maple?”

“It’s oak.”

“Yeah, that’s a good tree, too.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Look, I apologize if I seem a little fried.”

“I really hadn’t noticed,” I said.

Lulu coughed.

He flicked his hooded black eyes at her, then back at me. “Only this should never, ever have been leaked to the press. By tomorrow morning every attractive single woman in this city who sets foot outside her door will do so in fear.”

“Not dissimilar from a day in general.”

“Not that they fucking care,” Feldman fumed. “Goddamned press. It’s just another headline for them. And now they expect us to wrap it all up in a nice happy bow by the evening news, and if we don’t then they’ll say we’re fucking up. And so will the mayor, because if he doesn’t he looks like he’s soft on crime and won’t get reelected. And so will the Manhattan DA, because if he doesn’t he looks like he’s soft on crime and won’t get reelected. And so will the public, because they watch too goddamned much television—they don’t
realize
how clever and careful these water walkers can be. They don’t
realize
how many man hours go into this type of investigation. We got no witnesses, no physical evidence—”

“Bridget’s apartment was clean?”

“Appears to be, dude,” Very affirmed. “We did find a couple of joints in an ashtray, whatever that’s worth.”

“It wasn’t my doing,” Feldman persisted. “I’m not the yutz who leaked it. I wanted you to know that.”

This surprised me a little. I couldn’t imagine why the man they called the Human Hemorrhoid cared about what I thought of him. “I know you’re not, Inspector.”

“You do?” He scowled at me now. “How?”

I tugged at my left ear. “There’s an old, old saying in ghosting circles. Goes all the way back to, well,
me
—If the police know, the public knows. Do sit down.”

Feldman sat in the armchair next to Very, gingerly, as if he were afraid there was a whoopee cushion hidden in it.

I spread the cover letter and the pages of Chapter Three out on the coffee table with tweezers. “How long had Bridget been dead?”

Very glanced inquiringly over at Feldman, who gave him a slight nod.

“A couple of days at least,” the lieutenant replied.

“If he killed Laurie on Friday night,” I suggested, “then he must have killed Bridget Saturday morning. Afternoon at the latest. Then gone straight to the typewriter. Hmm … I guess that means you’re right, Inspector.”

“What about?” Feldman glowered down his long nose at me. I was doing the mambo in the middle of his investigation. He clearly didn’t like this.

“He’s developing a taste for it.”

“You can put that one in the bank,” he sniffed. “FDIC insured.”

They leaned over the coffee table and began to read, the letter first. I sat down next to Lulu.

“Okay, this I don’t like.” Feldman stabbed at the air over the letter with his finger. “‘I can really hear his voice. It’s almost like HE controls ME.’ This is not good. Sounds like classic delusional ravings.”

“Or classic writer ravings,” I said.

“Explain,” he commanded.

“You can hear that kind of bullshit just about any evening around the dining table at Yaddo. Usually accompanied by the line ‘More Beaujolais, anyone?’ It’s writer babble, Inspector.”

Feldman dismissed this with a wave of his hand and moved on to Chapter Three. Very considered it a moment longer, jaw clenching and unclenching, before he, too, resumed reading.

When he was done Feldman let out a thoughtful sigh and sat back with his elbows up on the arms of the chair, hands pressed flat together, fingers forming a steeple to rest his chin on.

Very, he went right into attack mode. “We’ll hit the health club right away, Inspector. Check the membership rolls, the guest list … also this bar, this El Rio Grande. See if anyone there—”

“He’s playing with us again, Lieutenant,” the inspector broke in, his voice turning sonorous. “The bastard’s playing games with us. He wants us to think singles killer, now, as opposed to subway stalker. And we have to play along. Because we have no choice. Because that’s how it’s done. And he knows that. You bet he knows that.” He sat there in chilly silence a moment. “Okay, fine. We park some female officers around town at likely pick-up spots—the coffee bars, dance clubs, museums. We establish a presence. And we go with our hotline. It’s time to include the public so that they feel like they’re part of the process. And why not? Nearly two out of three serials are arrested because of information that comes in from eyewitnesses. That’s how they got Bundy. That’s what we do. We tell them what we know about the answer man.”

“Which is what?” I ask.

“That he is a white male in, say, his late twenties or thirties,” Feldman replied. “Average height and build, good-looking, a promising novelist, possibly new to the city—”

“That could refer to a hundred thousand guys,” I pointed out. “Except for the good-looking part.”

“Dig, Inspector, he might also be a promising screenwriter,” Very said. “I mean, if you figure in the New School angle.”

“Now you’ve got a hundred thousand more,” I said. “Minus the promising part.”

“And I wouldn’t be so sure about how average his build is,” Very said. “He’s strong enough to overpower these women without a struggle.”

“Okay, okay, Lieutenant,” Feldman snarled impatiently. “We’ll say that he’s physically fit, all right?” He paused, shot his cuffs, smoothed his white pompadour. I wondered if he was even aware he was doing it. “Bastard keeps coming back to this ‘Be whoever they want you to be’ thing. That suggests chameleon to me. And when I think chameleon I think—”

“Actor,” Very said eagerly.

“Not bad, Lieutenant,” he reflected, as if Very had been the one who raised it. “Ties in with the familiar-face angle. I like that. I like that a lot.” He glanced sharply at the lieutenant. “You’d better get this chapter to the shrinks right away.”

Very promptly began gathering it up, using the tweezers.

“Tell them we have to have some kind of personality profile by morning. I don’t care how preliminary it is. We have to feed the press something new tomorrow. Show the public we’re making progress.”

“Even if you’re not?” I asked.

Feldman treated me to an icy glare. “Based on my experience, you’re our weak link.”

“How kind of you to point that out.”

“A task force requires team players. There’s no room on my team for wise guys or glory grabbers or—”

“Did you ever coach high school football, Inspector?”

“You’re pushing my buttons, mister!”