Don't Look Now (6 page)

Matt Heller was a pro. A voyeur’s voyeur. In his six years as a civil engineer he had helped design huge multimillion-dollar municipal projects with less attention to detail than a single Andie Heller outfit. But he wanted more. It was time.

He wanted …
what
?

When he rounded the corner and saw his wife standing in the lobby of the Terrace Room Restaurant, wearing a blond wig, he knew.

For Matt, of course, the fantasy began the moment he saw his wife in the lobby.

For Andrea, this first time she walked the edge of her
own
fantasies, it began midway through dinner.

Their waiter, an Italian-looking kid about twenty-five, couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Andie. Lots of extra butter for their table. Lots of extra rolls. Gallons of water. Much repartee. Matt could see that the attention was not lost on his wife. Andie seemed to arch her back a little more often when the waiter was around.

Matt waited for him to leave. ‘Are you flirting to turn me on?’ he asked.

‘What do
you
think?’ Andie raised her wine-glass to her lips.

‘I’m not sure. I’ve never had a blond wife before.’

‘Do you really like it?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Matt whispered. ‘Of
course
I like it. I’m just a little …’

‘Shocked?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Me too.’ Andie laughed and threw her head back, knowing that every man in the restaurant wanted to take her to bed; every woman wanted to be like her.

While Andie looked around the room, Matt considered his wife. She looked like a different woman. A total stranger. He could have her, even in the car if he wanted to, and he wouldn’t be cheating on Andrea.

No guilt!

‘You know, I’d
die
if we ran into someone we know,’ she said.

Matt spoke quickly. No negative thoughts, please. ‘So, what possessed you to do this?’

‘I thought you’d like it.’

‘Oh, I do.’

‘And besides, I know I’ve been a real bitch lately.’

‘Nah,’ Matt said, hoping she wasn’t losing the mood.

She slid around the booth, closer to him. ‘And I wanted to make it up to you.’

‘It’s working, believe me.’

The waiter returned and poured the rest of their wine into their glasses. Andie leaned forward in front of him, her breasts shifting noticeably beneath her blouse.

‘Will there be anything else?’ the waiter asked, trying not to gawk.

‘No,’ Andie said. She stared at her husband, slowly uncrossing her legs and slipping her hands under the table. ‘That will be all.’

The kid placed the check on the table, smiled, and took his leave.

‘You’re a real piece of work, Della Croce,’ Matt said, moving closer to her.

‘Want me to flirt some more?’

‘Well, let’s see. Are you going home with me?’

‘
Always
.’ She drained her glass, set it on the table. ‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun while we’re out.’ It was her third glass of wine and Matt knew that that was prime Andie buzz-level for sex. She ran her finger up and down his leg. ‘Let’s go play,’ she said.

‘Andrea
Heller
. Now who’s the naughty one?’ He felt himself start to harden. Something was definitely happening here.

‘Me.’

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Oh,’ she began, running her hand over his thickening erection, ‘let’s go someplace where nobody knows us.’ She squeezed him. ‘I’ve got this idea.’ She stuck her tongue in his ear. ‘Tell me what you think.’

He sat at the bar, scanned the room. Forty or fifty people. Mostly men. Mostly business types.

They had driven to a hotel bar they had never gone to, just to avoid any possible run-ins with anybody they knew. Between their two jobs, their circle ran rather wide, and Andie Heller in a blond wig on the opposite side of a bar from her husband would warrant some pretty good tap-dancing to explain.

Matt’s erection had reached furious proportions before he even made it inside the bar, so he had ducked into the men’s room first and hidden out in a stall until it was manageable. All that Andie had said – that is, the new Andie, as Matt was beginning to think of her – was to go in, sit at the bar and she’d be there in ten minutes or so. That was it. Matt had no idea what she was up to, but he was absolutely delirious with the possibilities. How far would she take this?

Was she going to pick someone up?

Would she actually
do
that?

And if she did, how would he really feel? He had no idea, but the very notion filled him with an intoxicating mix of arousal, jealousy and a physical euphoria.

After a few minutes, Andie walked into the bar and sat three empty stools to Matt’s left. She crossed her legs and ordered a White Russian, another first.

Before long, one of the business types stepped between them. Dark hair, medium build, gray suit, thirtyish. Matt heard the man say something about buying her a drink. Andie said something about having one on the way. They chatted for a bit, but Matt could only pick up bits and pieces over the music. Ten minutes later the guy left.

Matt found that his heart had been racing the whole time, and for the first time in his life he was beginning to wonder if he was cut out for the actual fulfilment of his fantasies.

Andie looked over at him and smiled. Matt was just about to slide over and suggest they leave, when another of the business types slipped between them. Taller, much better dressed, much better looking. He paid for Andie’s drink and said something that made her laugh.

Somehow, for Matt Heller, that wasn’t part of the fantasy.

PARIS STARED AT
the bottle. Manfred stared at him. He had walked the dog twice, smoked a pack and a half of Marlboro Lights, eaten an entire package of turkey hot-dogs without benefit or comfort of mustard and drunk a six-pack of Diet Pepsi. Everything but clean the tiny apartment. What was left? He looked at his watch. Eleven-o-five.

Let’s see, there was news, more food, another cigarette, another walk.
Fuck it
.

He grabbed the pint of Windsor, as he had a dozen times already, then put it back. He patted the sofa twice and Manfred leapt to his side. ‘Are we going for another walk, Manny?’ The word put a motor in the terrier’s abbreviated tail. ‘You’re gonna be the best-conditioned mutt in Cleveland.’

Paris clicked the remote, turning on Channel 5. Hank Theodore, the never-aging cyborg who anchored the six and eleven o’clock news, was chatting with a citizen in Collinwood who was carrying a picket sign. Paris shook his head. All he ever heard was people bitching all week about the drug problems in their neighborhood and how nobody gives a shit, but come Saturday night when some dealer with a 9-mm pistol in his hand gets capped on somebody’s front lawn, you can bet they’ll be on the streets Sunday carrying signs about how the cops are killing their children. Paris reached for the remote.

Before he could change the channel the words cut across the screen in eye-popping red, superimposed over the silhouette of a man brandishing a butcher knife. Then came a huge black question mark. ‘Serial Killer?’ Paris’s heart sank. He turned up the volume.

‘
… have a serial killer on our hands? Well, our very own Triple F-Fact Finder Five has been sniffing out the details. TV Five’s Paul Coaklin has more. Paul?
’

The camera cut to a medium shot of the Red Valley Inn. The reporter stood in front of room 127 and began to speak as the camera zoomed slowly in.

‘
Hank, she was twenty-three years old, single, active in the community, a woman who, according to friends, didn’t date much, due to her extraordinarily high standards. A graduate of Cleveland State University, a career woman just trying to make it in the big city
.

‘
So how did Karen Schallert end up here, in a cheap motel, savagely murdered by someone who, in all likelihood, was someone she trusted. Someone to whom she had reached out in love or friendship. Someone who
—’

Paris shut it off. He couldn’t handle the soap opera bullshit. Next they’d have his boss, Captain Elliott, commenting on how it was too early to tell if there was a connection between the three murders and yes, it was safe for women to go out of their houses and yes, the investigation was continuing and yak, yak, yak.

When Paris stood up, Manfred dove off the couch and all but slid to the door on the wood flooring. ‘All walked out, Manny,’ Paris said. ‘Going to hit the showers.’

Manfred, banking on the outside chance of an after-shower jog, staked his place by the door.

* * *

Taking a shower at the Candace Apartments, a twenty-suite Gothic nightmare at the corner of East Eighty-fifth and Carnegie, was a science. Early in the cleansing experience, when the water was hottest, it was also rusty as hell. As the water got clearer it also got cooler, so there was this window of opportunity no more than two or three minutes long when the water was warm enough and clear enough to take a shower.

When Paris stepped in, the water was still pretty hot. He soaped himself quickly, feeling better by the second. Better about not stopping at the Caprice after his tour. Better about not touching the Windsor. Better about Missy.

He knew that there was a good chance that Elliott would call him in the morning and give him the job of organizing the task-force to catch this psycho. His solve rate was one of the highest in the department and it had been two years since there had been any real movement in his career.

Was he up for it? He knew it would mean less time off, less time with Melissa. Less time at the bars, too, he thought with a curious mixture of emotions. It would also mean that the media would be in his face until it was over. Unless he was going undercover, something he had not done in years.

He thought about Karen Schallert and what a shame it was. She was so pretty. So
fresh
. He thought about her body, the contrast of the black-lace camisole against her fair skin, the curve of her hips as she lay, naked and violated, on the carpeting. He closed his eyes and saw Karen Schallert’s beguiling face before him. But it wasn’t the face so mechanically rendered on her driver’s license or even the twisted death mask in the police photographs that would haunt his desk by morning. Paris instead imagined a more impassioned Karen Schallert: expressive and very alive, moving, smiling, laughing and—

Sweating.

Beneath him.

You wanted to fuck her too
.

‘PHARAOH KNOWS.’

The blond woman rolled over, on to her stomach, and bit her lower lip. Like a child. ‘Pharaoh
doesn’t
know,’ she said, pouting.

I ran the feather along her spine, over her hips, around to the side, up along her torso. Her skin was porcelain white, smooth and supple. She had a few imperfections, a blemish or two on her back, but overall her skin was soft and fragrant. One of the current-rage perfumes. When I met her at the bar the scent had been a little weaker. She had put on more for me, and I appreciated it.

I reached her breasts, which were ample and pressed tightly against the sheet, and drew the feather up and over on to her back. The blonde shivered. ‘Pharaoh will show you.’ I climbed on top of her and reached toward the headboard, turning up the volume on the stereo. It was a Bill Evans recording.
For Lovers
.

I grabbed a condom.

‘Pharaoh has something he knows you’re going to like.’ I reached down between her legs and touched her. She was very wet, very warm. ‘Pharaoh wants to please you.’ When I inserted my fingers she let out a little gasp, as if she had not been touched in quite some time. She tried to turn over and face me, but I gently resisted her.

‘You have something for me?’ she said.

I raised my fingers to my lips and tasted her. ‘
Oh
, yes.’ I slipped the condom on and flattened myself against her back for a moment. We locked fingers and I drew her hands toward the headboard. I nibbled on her ear.

‘Fuck me,’ she whispered.

‘No.’

‘
Fuck
me.’

‘No.’

She writhed beneath me. ‘Please. Fuck me
now
.’

‘I said, no.’ I ran a fingernail down the center of her back, raising a thin welt. The blonde shuddered with delight. She liked a little pain, it seemed. But how much? When would she bid me to stop?

‘Let me turn over,’ she said. ‘I want to watch you fuck me.’

‘In time.’ I pulled the handcuffs from beneath the left pillow as I gently spread her thighs.

In my periphery I saw the door to the closet open slightly.

I brought the handcuffs around to the right and began to run them up and down the slicked planes of her back, her shoulder blades, the tops of her arms, all the while toying with her, probing her, drawing her deeper into the game.

I gave her an inch, then took it back. She emitted a sigh.

The closet door opened a little more.

‘And what do you want, little kitty?’

‘You,’ she said softly.

‘You want me?’ I leaned over and kissed the back of her neck, tugging lightly at a wisp of baby-fine hair.

‘Mmmmm …’

‘Why do you want me?’

‘Because you’re so big.’

I teased her as she said the word, moving my whole body forward.

‘I knew when we were dancing,’ she said. ‘I could feel you. I
knew
.’

‘And you want all of me?’ I let slide another inch or so.

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t handle all of me.’

‘Try me.’

Another inch, then back.

The blonde moaned. I got the cuff over to her right wrist as I thrust myself halfway inside her, moving her body up toward the headboard, up where I could secure the shackle to the post. The blonde screamed once and tried to get up on all fours, trying to buck me deeper. She was strong. When we eased back down to the bed, the handcuffs swung into her face and fell between the headboard and the wall. I reached for them but, in that instant, the blonde made the game. She began to fight me off.

‘What the hell are you
doing
?’ she screamed, struggling to turn over.