Gladyss of the Hunt (10 page)

When we stepped out in front of the firm's large, circular receptionist desk, Bernie flashed his badge. I belatedly took out mine as well. He asked for Ahmed Dhaka and we were redirected down to the sixth floor. During the elevator drop Bernie said, “When I show my shield, don't show yours.”

“Why not?”

“Cause it makes us look like the fucking Bobbsey Twins.”

The elevator door opened into a smaller reception area. Bernie asked for Mr. Dhaka.

“Who shall I say is asking for him?”

“Bernie Farrell,” he said, without announcing he was a cop. He wanted to catch the guy off-guard.

As the receptionist buzzed Mr. Dhaka and repeated the name, I could see Bernie discreetly put his hand inside his jacket, checking his gun. A few minutes later a dark-skinned, heavy-set guy in a loose suit appeared in the doorway.

“Detective Farrell,” Bernie introduced, discreetly flashing his shield.

“Bloody hell,” Dhaka said with a clear accent, “You're not with Homeland Security, are you?”

“No, why?”

“I'm just tired of being suspected of being a terrorist.”

“Nothing like that,” I reassured him.

“We can sit over here, he said, nodding toward a group of chairs in the corner of the reception area.”

As he turned, I saw that the right sleeve of his jacket was sewn up, just below the shoulder. His arm was missing.

“With this new Patriot Act, I'm utterly terrified of being deported. Immigrants are totally unprotected now.”

“Your credit card was just used in a murder that we're investigating,” Bernie said.

Mr. Dhaka hunched tightly in his chair and lowered his voice nervously. “You're kidding.”

“Can we talk about a purchase you made at Penn Video?”

“What? I mean . . .” he glanced nervously at the receptionist, who was busily typing into her word processor. “I never broke any laws in my life.”

Bernie asked him where he was on the night that Nelly Linquist was murdered.

“At home in Jackson Heights, with my wife and two little girls.”

“Mr. Dhaka,” the receptionist said getting off the phone, “Hector Beck is waiting for you.”

“Oh my God, my team supervisor is urgently expecting a progress report. All I'll need is ten minutes with him.”

“You know the Starbucks across the street?” Bernie asked.

“On Forty-third?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“How about we meet there in fifteen minutes?”

“That would be bloody great!”

As we took the elevator back down, Bernie muttered something about being glad to be out of there.

“Why?”

“Sometimes interrogating someone successfully is as simple as finding a place where they feel comfortable,” he replied. But I sensed it was more than that.

As we approached the coffee shop, I watched a group of men in Teamster jackets assembling a small platform on the traffic island across from the MTV window, while another group of contractors on the east side of Forty-third Street were dismantling a makeshift stage that featured the logo of the ABC morning show. The neighborhood that once epitomized crime and scum had been taken over and transformed into the glamorous showcase of corporate America.

No sooner had we reached the front of the line when Ahmed Dhaka came in the door. Bernie asked him if he would like a coffee.

He shook his head—“Stains my teeth”—and joined us at a table that had just opened up.

“According to our records,” Bernie replied, staring at him, “Last week you paid twenty dollars for a tape at a video outlet near Penn Station.”

I didn't correct him, but it was actually a DVD. The guy was clearly embarrassed, and unable to look up. Personally I did not think pornography necessarily led to violent behavior. If a man was able to release his tension, I was inclined to believe that it usually made him more manageable.

“Why didn't you call the card in as missing?”

Ahmed silently took his wallet out of his pocket and flipped through his credit cards. “Which one is it?”

“Your Bank of America VISA card.”

To our surprise, Dhaka held up the card.

“Oh wait, “he said, nodding. “I remember now. The clerk
couldn't slide it through his machine for some reason, and he had trouble reading the numbers, so I read it out to him.”

“There you go,” Bernie said to me. “Our boy was there.”

Dhaka shrugged.

“You don't remember anyone standing nearby,” I asked. “Maybe even writing it down?” After all, who could memorize a sixteen-digit number, along with an expiration date and a three-digit security code, all being spoken quickly aloud?

“I'm sorry, I honestly don't remember,” he said. “And I don't want to be rude, but if I don't get back to work soon, Beck's going to notice my absence.”

We both thanked him for his time and watched him cross the busy street, back to the giant wavy fish tank he worked in.

“I know this sounds disgusting,” Bernie said with a grin, “but while I was talking to Mr. Dhaka, I had this awful image of the guy masturbating with his one remaining hand.”

“Hey, physically challenged people get horny too,” I replied.

“Physically challenged—that's what I love about you kids today, you're all so fair and sensitive.”

I zoned him out as we walked down the north side of Forty-second, past the New Victory Theater and the American Airlines Theater across from Madame Tussauds and Ripley's Believe It or Not, then crossed at the newly established crosswalk between the two Avenues.

When we got back to the car I thought we'd head back to the precinct, but Bernie suddenly turned on Thirty-fourth and parked on the corner of Eighth, across from the New Yorker Hotel. Looking up, I realized we were idling in front of a porn arcade.

“This is where Dhaka had his credit card number taken. Come on. Maybe we can catch our boy in the act.”

I couldn't help wondering if he was doing this just to toy with me. Half the establishment was crowded and the other half was empty. This was the amusing result of Giuliani's crusade to clean up Times Square. Current laws stated that only forty percent of any video store could be devoted to porn. To take advantage of this sticky loophole, sixty percent of these shops now stocked a cheap archive of dumb Kung Fu flicks or Bollywood musicals—films none of their customers wanted.

Even though the G-rated side of the place was unpopulated, I pushed into the smutty side of the store to show Bernie I wasn't timid. Apparently self-conscious in the presence of a female, many of the men discreetly vanished. Images of fucking and sucking were plastered on every box cover. The video tapes and DVDs were shelved by category: Anal, Oral, Group, Gangbang, Asians, Toys, and so on, but when I examined the dirty pictures on the wrapping, I realized how useless some of these divisions were. Asian women were clearly thinking outside the box, brazenly performing lesbian acts. Gangbangers could be seen multitasking, performing both oral and anal sex. Others used a wide array of plastic toys. Most the films seemed to be big sexual free for alls, though their titles, like
Pussy Lickers #43
and
Assgaper's Holiday
, indicated the intended themes.

“Cut it out,” Bernie said softly as I began to slip misplaced boxes into their correct sections.

“We're checking on a credit card theft from last week,” Bernie said inaccurately, showing his shield to the clerk. I knew he'd be pissed if I corrected him. “The victim was a one-armed Indian.”

“Yeah, I remember him. I wasn't able to get a phone connection, so I took the number down and called it in later.”

“Do you remember anyone standing nearby when he made his purchase?”

“No, and I was careful not to say it out loud.”

Bernie nodded and took a step toward the door. I said, “So you wrote the guy's number down?”

“Yeah, he's been in a bunch of times, so he knows me. He pre-signed it and took the receipt.”

“So our suspect might've waited around and then, after you were able to call it in, taken the number out of the trash when you weren't looking.” I pointed to the can sitting right before me.

“What are you saying?”

“She's asking if you have a video camera focused on your cash register,” Bernie asked, looking up for a lens.

“No we don't,” he replied, then added, “Long as she's not suggesting it was my fault.”

“Relax,” I replied as we turned to leave.

“Hold on,” Bernie suddenly stopped. “That's
exactly
what she's saying—and she's right, asshole!”

“Hey, don't call me—”

“You're a fucking moron who helped one guy get ripped off and assisted in the murder of a young girl,” he yelled, compelling everyone to look over. “And the next time one of these pudpullers trust you with their credit card info, you should reward their patronage by tearing up the information before throwing it out.”

I wanted to tell him that his outburst was counterproductive, but I knew he'd start yelling at me, so we returned in silence to the car and drove the few blocks back to the precinct.

“What were you doing with those porn boxes?” he asked.

My OCD had gotten the better of me. “Oh . . . I was just wondering if any of our vics had done any films.” It was the only bullshit answer I could think of, and I didn't want to admit to my mild disorder.

As we pulled into the precinct's restricted parking area, Bernie spotted Annie getting into another car.

“Where are you going?” Bernie asked.

She said she had just located Nelly Linquist's apartment, in Bushwick, and she was going to look for information there that might enable us to contact her family.

“Gladyss will go with you.”

As I was getting into her car, Bernie added, “I need to know if the killer is putting bracelets on these girls, or if it's their own stuff. Check out her jewelry box and see if she has any bracelets like the one she was wearing.”

We drove down Broadway, over to Delancey, and then took the Williamsburg Bridge until we were driving under the Elevated J/M train trestle. We pulled up outside a rundown tenement off Myrtle Avenue. Annie got the super to give us access to Linquist's place. We found a tiny stash of pot, various pills, and a small bag that looked like heroin. She had a lot more drug paraphernalia—roach clips, bongs, syringes. I pushed through a drawer of cheap jewelry that looked like it had been picked up in endless thrift shops. It was an eclectic collection and gave us no clue as to whether the bracelet she was wearing was actually hers. Despite a thorough search, we couldn't find an address book, journal, or letters. The only items we found regarding her home life were a dozen or so sad old snapshots of her as a kid, smiling or playing with other kids, in what looked like a trailer park.

As we were pulling up the mattress and looking to see if she had anything taped under her drawers, Bernie called to ask if the bracelet was hers. I told him it could be, there was no way to know for sure. And we hadn't found anything that would enable us to contact her family.

“All right, get back over here. There's still a lot to do.”

I hung up and told Annie that Bernie wanted us back, but she only searched harder without making eye contact. I sensed that over the years Annie had burnt out her tear glands on cases like this. All I could see was a faint gloss in her eyes. After a while longer, Annie finally gave up. And that was it. Now that Nelly's life was over, there seemed scant evidence that she had ever even existed.

“I don't care as much about the older ones or the high-priced girls, but the kids are just runaways,” Annie said on the drive back over the bridge. “And we're their last chance to return their bodies to someone who might've loved them. After us, it's usually Potter's Field.”

Back at the precinct, Bernie had us divvy up a comprehensive list of all Manhattan escort services. Stationed next to a phone, each of us worked our way down our part of the list. Speaking to the madam, or the manager, we explained that a serial murderer was on the loose. If any new johns asked for a tall, blonde-haired gal, we needed to be notified immediately, while the john was still waiting. Grateful that we weren't going after them, the purveyors of women were usually pleased to oblige.

“Bring some kind of sexy outfit with you on Monday,” Bernie said to me as I was leaving for the weekend.

“Is that a joke?”

“That's why we got you, remember? Just keep the outfit in your locker, so if the killer calls you can throw it on.”

As I was walking out of the building, looking forward to a seven o'clock yoga class, I heard, “So how's your big case coming?”

O'Ryan had just finished his shift as well. I told him we'd had no breakthroughs and asked how he was coping without me.