Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) (10 page)

Follow his every move, go wherever he goes . . .

I sank slowly back down to my seat.
This
was the solution. My way in. Our path to finding out more about Detective Andrew Quinn!

And Lopez was going to
hate
me for this.

But it’s for his own good. It may even save his life. Who knows what kind of time bomb Quinn might be?

Max had said we couldn’t know more about the ramifications of Quinn’s (probable) demon situation without knowing more about the demon itself. There were tens of thousands of demons (maybe millions or billions, if you included all possible dimensions of existence). Some were common and easy to identify, while others were rare or still unknown. Some were relatively straightforward to expel and vanquish, while others had the power to destroy most of the tri-state area. We had dealt with a couple of the latter type by now, and it was a terrifying prospect.

Lopez would be so mad at me he might keel over in an apoplectic fit the next time we talked . . . but we
had
to learn all we could about Quinn, and this was the obvious way to do it.

“You know, Mike . . .” I said a little awkwardly. Natural revulsion usually prevented me from trying to sound friendly when I spoke to him. “I think I know exactly the team you should shadow.”

Accustomed to being dismissive of me (and of all women, guest performers, and people less famous than he was, I assumed), he brushed this aside. “No, Esther, I’m going to need to shadow someone really
experienced
and—”

“These are a couple of detectives working that big Gambello case that’s been in the news.”

“Gambello?” He frowned. “The pizza chain that’s turning away gay customers?”

“No, the Mafia crime family implicated in decades of murder, extortion, armed robbery, racketeering—”

“Oh,
that
Gambello. Right.” He looked at me with unaccustomed interest. “You know cops investigating the mob?”

“I do. And these are very gritty guys, very street,” I lied.

“Yeah?”

“Oh,
yeah.
” I nodded emphatically.

Actually, Lopez was a college-educated man with nice manners (when he wasn’t mad at me) who’d grown up in a stable, loving, and fairly religious family in Nyack, a pleasant suburb across the Hudson River. But he was a shrewd and experienced cop, though only thirty-one years old. As for Quinn . . . well, I suspected him of demonic influences, which ought to compensate for any lack of “grit” there.

“Plus,” I added enticingly, “they’ve got some problems with the Chinatown underworld now. So you might see some action.”

Okay, I embellished. So sue me.

“Yeah?” Nolan was
very
interested now. “Can you talk to these guys for me? Set something up?”

There was no way Quinn and Lopez would agree to this plan if I asked them. It had to come from a superior, and it would have to be presented as an order rather than a request.

Thinking quickly, I advised Nolan to go through channels, so there’d be official cover for the two cops if he got hurt during one of their wild and crazy shifts. He liked that a lot.

“You might even want to go through the Police Commissioner’s office.” I added ruthlessly, “One of these guys—Detective Connor Lopez—is getting a lot of heat right now. He’s being accused of driving a . . . a suspect to suicide.”

“Hey, that’s great!” Nolan looked around the table as he said, “This is terrific stuff. I should take some notes.” Not seeing what he wanted, he snapped his fingers in the air. “Someone get me a notebook!”

A production assistant jumped up to do his bidding.

As a company that filmed four successful TV shows here, which meant a lot of revenue for the city (including the tourism that crime shows inspired, though I found that strange), C&P had influence with local government. Despite the negative image of the NYPD that was promoted by
The Dirty Thirty
, as well as the ill feeling (or weary exasperation) this caused, C&P Productions also had influence with the police department. So I suspected the NYPD would cooperate with a formal request from C&P for a TV star to shadow a specific detective who, through no fault of his own, was getting some bad publicity these days.

I suggested to Nolan, “The company could present this request as your attempt to reframe the media story by showing your support for the hardworking detective accused of making some scumbag throw himself off a sixth floor balcony.”

Well, it wasn’t as if Uncle Six had been a nice man, after all. And the prospect of using his own celebrity this way appealed to Nolan.

“Oh, man, I can’t wait to meet these guys!” A notebook appeared under his nose. He grabbed it and, without looking at the young woman who’d handed it to him, said, “It’s about time.”

“Here, let me write down the cops’ names for you.” I took the notebook from him and picked up my pen, determined to make sure C&P asked for the right detectives when arranging this with the NYPD.

After I handed the notebook back to Nolan, he read the names aloud. Then asked inquisitively, “Connor Lopez?”

“Irish-American mother, Cuban father.”

Nolan snorted. “I hope his father did the cooking.”

I recalled that Lopez had mentioned his mom wasn’t the greatest cook.

“I’m going to go tell them to organize this right away. I want to start the day after tomorrow. If Kathleen and Benoit come back before I do, tell them I’ll only be a few minutes.” Nolan rose to his feet and headed for the door. Right before he exited the room, he turned around and looked at me. “Thanks, Esther.”

You would think a thunderbolt had flown out of his mouth. Everyone in the room did a double take and stared at him in surprise. He didn’t notice.

After he disappeared through the doorway, they all turned to look at me.

I realized that Nolan thanking someone must be unprecedented around here.

“What did you
do
for him?” one of the minions asked.

I said wryly, “I have a feeling he was thanking me because he thinks I’m helping him do something dangerous.”

And, in fact, I supposed I was. Whether Quinn was evil or, as Max now suspected, something evil was hovering around him, Nolan’s intrusion probably wouldn’t be welcome.

I realized I might not have thought this through as well as I should have . . .

But it was too late to change course now. Persuading Nolan had been easy; talking him out of this would be close to impossible. It was all for his fans, after all. For quality, truth, and gritty reality.

And since he was appreciative enough to have thanked me (the staff still look amazed) . . . I thought it likely I could convince him to confer with me by phone about what he was learning, and to observe whatever details Max wanted him to report. I’d need to ask Max what Nolan should be looking for, then figure out how to phrase these suggestions when talking to the actor.

Pleased that I had a workable plan for what I feared was an urgent situation, I sat back in my chair and waited for people to return to the room so we could read the next scene.

I just regretted that Lopez would probably never forgive me for this.

“I
will never forgive you for this,” said Lopez. “Do you hear me?
Never.
”

I had been expecting this call since talking Nolan into my plan two days ago, but that didn’t mean I was ready for it. Nonetheless, I put on my game face and gave Max a reassuring look as I shook my head, indicating that the actor was not my caller.

We were alone at the bookstore, along with Nelli, who was dozing in her usual spot near the gas fire. Lucky was at the funeral home. Mr. Capuzzo’s send-off had gone smoothly and he was now safely buried; but after witnessing that frightening and bizarre reanimation, Nathan was still feeling tense and anxious. Joe Ning’s body had been released to Chen’s, where it now rested in a closed casket. The wake was scheduled for this evening—due to start soon, in fact. But Sam, Nathan’s eldest son, was at home today with two sick toddlers and an exhausted wife who’d caught their cold. So John and Lucky were pitching in to help Nathan deal with the event. Uncle Six’s status in Chinatown, both among respectable people and the not-so-respectable, made this a particularly important occasion for the mortuary.

I glanced out the storefront window, noting that it was a rotten evening for attending a visitation—or anything else. Heavy, wet, icy-cold globs of snow were falling, slippery slush covered the streets and sidewalks, and a bitter wind was making awnings flap and windows creak.

“Never,” Lopez repeated into the phone. “Do I make myself clear?”

Max had been pottering around the place, dusting, shelving, and reorganizing books, while I sat at the big old walnut table and studied my preliminary script for next week’s
D30
episode. I’d had my first costume fitting yesterday and would have to go back tomorrow for another one. The location shoots were going to be uncomfortable for me at this time of year; Jilly C-Note put her merchandise in the window, so to speak. But maybe there would be a medical team standing by to administer treatment for my hypothermia between takes.

“Lopez! I’m happy to hear your voice,” I lied.

Normally, I
would
be happy to hear it. But since he was obviously calling to chew me out, my comment was absurdly disingenuous. I realized this a moment after making it and wished I had come up with something better.

Max whispered to me, “Do we have confirmation that Mr. Nolan is in place?”

“Happy?” Lopez sputtered. “I don’t want you to be
happy.
I want you to suffer the way
I’m
suffering.”

I covered the receiver and said to Max, “Yes. I’d say we have definite confirmation.”

“This is
your
doing!” Lopez accused.

Max whispered, “Then this being in the nature of a personal phone call, I suspect, I shall recommence my tidying.” He disappeared around the corner of a bookcase, duster in hand. Not really out of earshot, but not hovering.

“Since I assume Nolan told you that,” I said to Lopez, “I’m not impressed with your deductive reasoning.”

“How could you do this to me?” he demanded in a wounded, betrayed tone. “Are you
that
angry at me?”

“I’m not angry at you,” I protested.

“Oh, really?” he said skeptically. “You didn’t do this to get back at me?”

“For what?” I asked in bemusement.

“For my reaction to your crazy cursed cookie crime.”

“Oh! No,” I said. “You reacted pretty much the way I expected.”

“So you didn’t do this to punish me for that?” he asked suspiciously.

“No.” I decided to take the offensive. “My God, is that really what you think of me? That I’m that petty?”

It didn’t work. “Then why the hell
did
you do this?”

“I thought it might help you with your PR problem to have, you know, an Emmy-nominated TV star showing public support by using you as his role model,” I lied.

“Right,” said Lopez. “You thought it would be
good
for me right now to be identified as the inspiration for Nolan’s portrayal of a drunken cop who steals money from drug dealers, beats up suspects, and extorts sex from hookers.”

“So you do watch the show!” I said brightly.

“Show me another explanation, Esther,” he said tersely. “I’m not buying that one.”

“But the department must have liked the idea,” I said, “or else Nolan wouldn’t be shadowing you now.”

“They like the idea of using me right now to play nice with C&P,” he said grumpily. “The details don’t seem to matter much to them.”

“Then you shouldn’t let the details bother you, either.”

“Don’t
even . . .
”
He took a breath. “Esther, you know what this guy is like. How could you inflict him on me?”

“I didn’t inflict—”

“Oh, yes, you did. Why?”

Okay, I did. So I tried another explanation. “I thought you’d like to do something nice for me, after the way you treated me on the phone the other day.”

“But you just said you’re not mad at me about that,” he protested.

“Well, you were . . . not pleasant,” I said. “And you should make it up to me.”

“So you
are
mad.” His voice had the tone of a man reconciling himself to a woman’s irrationality.

“Oh . . . maybe.”

Not really, but I realized that it would be better to let him think so than to start suspecting that I’d inflicted the actor on him in order to spy on Detective Quinn. Luckily for me, Nolan’s self-absorption made him such an unlikely infiltrator that the truth hadn’t yet occurred to Lopez. I’d like to keep it that way for as long as I could, given the way Lopez had drawn a line in the sand about Quinn when we talked about him a few days ago.

“I had no idea you could be so vindictive,” he said in amazement.

I shrugged. “A woman scorned.”

“Okay, look, if I . . . Jesus, if I
apologize
for our conversation the other day—”

“You don’t
sound
sorry.”

“—will you get rid of him?”

“I’ve already cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I doubt I can influence him now that he’s having a great time getting all
street
with a notorious real-life cop like you.”

“I’m only notorious if you’re Alan Goldman or one of his dimwitted media patsies,” Lopez said stonily.

“Of which there seem to be many today,” I noted, having taken a long look at local news online this morning.

Lopez’s parents, with whom I’d had one memorably disastrous encounter, were bound to see this coverage. They were a devoted family, and I suspected they’d be upset (his father) and infuriated (his mother) by Goldman’s insinuations about their son. There had been tension between Lopez and his family in recent weeks (there had been tension between Lopez and
everyone
lately, mostly because of me), but I thought this mess would make them forget their vexation with him.

“How are you parents taking this?” I asked.

“I doubt they know, thank God,” he said.

“How could they miss it?”

I assumed that headlines like “Did OCCB Detective’s Harassment Drive Businessman To Suicide?” were bound to get their attention.

“They’re on a cruise in the Galapagos Islands.”

“Seriously?” I said. “Well, that’s reassuringly far away.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I encouraged it.”

I knew he loved his parents, but they could be a bit overpowering. And since his two older brothers didn’t live in the greater New York area anymore, Connor—his father’s little
perrito
(puppy)—was the one who had to deal with them the most.

“Going there has been a dream of theirs for years,” he added. “My father loves all those wildlife programs and nature documentaries on TV. And my mom loves the ocean.”

“When do they get back?”

“Next week.”

“Well, maybe this Goldman thing will have blown over by then,” I said, though I didn’t believe it for a moment. Goldman seemed like he was just getting started.

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Lopez muttered. “Look, Esther, this is
not
a good time to pull this Nolan thing on me.”

I doubted there would ever be a good time to be shadowed by the actor, but considering the professional pressure on Lopez right now, combined with the stressful effects of the (suspected) demonic presence, I wasn’t surprised that he sounded like he was all out of patience. However, his life was more important to me than his mood, so I hardened my heart. We
had
to learn more about Quinn.

I said, “You should have thought of that before you were so mean to me the other day.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Buck up,” I said. “Be a man if it kills you.” I regretted those words as soon as they were out of my mouth; they seemed to invite bad luck. But I interrupted his outraged reaction to point out, “We start filming the new episode on Monday. Nolan has a bigger role in this one than he’s had since his character got shot.”

“Again,”
Lopez said. “Why is that character always staggering in front of bullets?”

“So he’ll be working long hours—and he’s a recovering heart patient who’s obsessive about protecting his health.”

“You don’t say.”

“Plus, the guy spends, like, two hours exercising every day.”

“I know. He’s told us. Over and
over
, he’s told us.” He added with a touch of desperation, “I can’t believe this is only his first day with us. It seem so much longer.”

“So from Monday onward, he won’t have time for you,” I said soothingly. “Probably never again.”

“Don’t try to be consoling,” Lopez said irritably. “It’s your fault we’re stuck with him in the first place.”

“You’ve just got to get through a few days of this, and then it’ll be over.”

“Why do I have to get through a few days of this? Why?
Why?
”

“You’re sounding perilously close to a tantrum.”

“You should have just let your damn cursed cookie kill me,” he said bitterly. “It’s wrong to make me suffer like this.”

“Where is Nolan now?” I asked. “Not with you, I assume.”

No matter how aggravating the guy was, Lopez wouldn’t talk about him this way if he were standing right there.

“He’s with Andy,” said Lopez. “I won the coin toss.”

This was good news. Nolan would be more focused on Quinn this way. And I was more comfortable with distance between Lopez and his partner.

“And where are you?” I asked.

“Police garage.” He sounded morose. “Returning another goddamn car.”

That
got my attention. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“I have no idea. The police radio stopped working, so I brought it back to the garage. But they looked at the thing, and it’s working just fine now. So I guess I’m taking the same car back out.” He made an exasperated sound. “
God
, I’m tired of this.”

“How’s your computer?” I asked cautiously.

“That’s where I’m heading next. Back to the office to stand guard over the IT guy—at gunpoint, if need be—until he finishes fixing it. I’ve
had
it with all this crap. Can’t the department provide me with one single piece of equipment that
works?
”

I wondered if it was relevant that the radio had started working again after being removed from Quinn’s presence. I wanted to get off the phone to tell Max about this.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve really got your hands full—”

“Thanks in no small part to
you,
” Lopez said. “You and I really need to talk, Esther. And not by phone.”

“We’ll do that. Real soon. I’ve got to go now. Bye.”

I ended the call while he was in the middle of saying something else. It sounded cranky, so I figured it was just as well I didn’t hear the whole sentence.

“Max?” I called.

“Is there news?” he asked as he came trotting toward me from the rear of the store.

I brushed a cobweb off his woolly sweater as I recounted the relevant portions of the conversation.

“Hmm. My instinct is that the renewed functionality of the police radio is deliberate,” Max said as he sat down at the table with me. “I doubt it represents a limitation of the demon’s power. Consider, for example, the car that broke down on the Bowery, where Detective Lopez waited in the cold for help for some time.”

I saw Max’s point. “Quinn wasn’t present, yet the car remained dead.”

“I hypothesize that the radio today has resumed functioning because the demonic entity intended it to do so.”

“Why? That makes it seem like a . . . a
prank.
”
I always thought of demons as more serious than that. More menacing.

“Oh, many demons are prone to pranks,” said Max. “Especially demons that attach to humans, as we suspect is the case here. But the pranks are never harmless, though the word itself has a lighthearted connotation.”

“This one seems harmless,” I said. “Pointless, but not harmful.”

“We should consider the intent. Demons are clever, manipulative, and usually very malevolent. And they typically function with intent.”

“What could be the intent of sending Lopez on a wasted trip to the police garage?”

“The most obvious one would be to increase his stress and frustration.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Well, yes, it accomplished that.”

“You indicated the other day that these events are taking a toll on his equilibrium, I believe?”

“You bet,” I said. “The stress of cars breaking down, phones going dead, his computer not working, his communications being unreliable . . . It’s really wearing on his nerves after several weeks of this kind of thing happening over and over.”

“Stress, tension, irritability, frustration, anger . . . demonic entities feed off these negative emotions in the way that you or I derive strength and sustenance from food or a stimulating beverage,” said Max.

“Not only those particular negative emotions, of course. They also feed off fear, sorrow, depression, hate, despair . . .” He continued, “But, particularly in the modern world where people are so reliant on mechanical and electronic devices, numerous species of demons find it conveniently easy to stimulate negative emotions by interfering with such things. Even a patient, contented individual will start reacting with predictably negative emotions to the sort of incidents that Detective Lopez has been experiencing.”