John Lutz Bundle (138 page)

Cindy Sellers sat on a bench near the Seventy-second Street entrance to Central Park and had what for her was a crisis of conscience.

Certainly she’d promised Harley Renz she wouldn’t make public that the .25-Caliber Killer’s latest victim had been shot inside his hotel and then dragged outside, to where the body was discovered. It was made clear to her that the police had settled on that detail being known only to them and the killer, so they could sort out the inevitable false confessions that were sure to interfere with the investigation.

But from Cindy’s point of view, that curious fact was what gave the story its appeal. A question posed to her readers was always good for additional circulation. In this instance the question was simple and easy for her readers to understand: why was the body of this particular victim moved?

Only the killer knew the answer, and, as of now, the police were the only ones aware of the question.
So like a game,
Cindy thought,
and the police have an extra card in their hand.

Of course, if she revealed that card the NYPD wanted to keep close to its vest, she’d lose Renz’s trust. She had to smile. She and Renz didn’t
really
trust each other anyway. That was part of the game
they
played. Wolves on the prowl, both of them. And if she did include that inside-outside angle in her story, Renz would be angry, but he’d get over it. They were both forced to live with the fact that they were useful to each other.

Cindy was aware of the warm sun on her shoulders as she slumped forward and began tossing popcorn to the pigeons from a greasy bag she’d bought from a street vendor. The pigeons waddled cautiously toward the kernels at first, then rushed at them, nudging competitors out of the way.
Like people,
Cindy thought. Like newspaper readers elbowing each other aside to get to the next edition of
City Beat
before the rack was empty.

Fighting each other to be able to read
her
story.

If our situations were reversed, would Renz run the story with all the facts, including the one about how the body had been moved?

She knew the answer to that one.

Her fingers reached the bottom of the popcorn bag and found nothing but the grit of salt. She crumpled up the bag and tossed it to the pigeons. They began to peck at it and fight each other over it.

Cindy watched them.
Bird nature. Human nature. Maybe it’s why I really don’t like people.

She brushed her hands together to rid them of most of the salt on her fingers, and then fished her cell phone out of her purse.

Her decision had been made. Already her conscience no longer bothered her.

How could she have even considered not running the entire story? It was strange how sometimes she questioned herself, when she knew her job and her purpose. She had enough on Renz to sink him anytime, if she so chose. At least, he thought she did.

The idea of leverage is when you have it, use it.

No more self-doubts, she vowed, as she pecked out the number that was a direct line to her editor.
I’m a professional practicing my profession.
A gray and white pigeon standing off from the others and watching her seemed to be bobbing its head in approval.

Zoe lifted her head from Quinn’s bare chest and squinted at the clock by her bed. Almost nine o’clock. She had a ten o’clock appointment with a schizophrenic patient who was beginning to show distinct symptoms of paranoia.

Deciding to let Quinn sleep, she laid back the sheet that was covering her to the waist and gently lifted his arm, which lay heavily across her. As she moved the arm she could feel the strength in it, but it didn’t resist her, as if it knew even as Quinn slept that she was something to be protected rather than harmed.

While Quinn was gentle in bed, he was the most physically powerful man she’d ever slept with, and a man who knew violence. A far cry from the postgraduates and professional intellectual types Zoe was used to. She wondered if it was the sense of danger, of potential violence, that intrigued her. No, she didn’t wonder. She knew. She also knew she was safe with Quinn. The best of both worlds.

Smiling as a coconspirator with her own devilish self, she began sliding out of bed.

His big hand found her shoulder and closed on it, stopping her. Had he even been asleep?

“Gotta get up,” she said, removing his hand. “Appointment.”

“Some troubled soul like me?”

She laughed. “I don’t see you as troubled. Not really.”

“It troubles me that you’re leaving,” he said.

“That’s just the sort of thing I mean.” She managed to avoid his other hand that was snaking around her, and moved back out of reach. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “You might consider joining me.”

“Why? Are you coming apart?”

“For God’s sake, Quinn!”

“Old joke,” he said. He sat up in bed. “I’ll join you, but I can’t put you back together and make you any closer to perfect than you were. Are.”

He’d just planted both bare feet on the floor when the phone rang. Instead of standing up, he watched Zoe walk to pick up the receiver, liking the way her breasts swayed with each hurried step. She had, he decided, the body of a much younger woman.

A shower. Not a bad idea…

“It’s for you,” she said, holding out the receiver for him as if it were a gift she regretted having to present. “Larry Fedderman.”

“I gave him this number,” Quinn said. His cell phone had been cutting out last night, and he knew there’d be no way to charge it in Zoe’s apartment.

Zoe didn’t seem to mind that Fedderman knew where to call. In fact, she seemed pleased that Quinn had told someone about them. She handed him the phone and then sat nude on the bed, watching him, understanding from his face that what he was hearing wasn’t good.

“On my way,” was all he said before hanging up.

He looked over at her. “There’s been another Slicer murder. Our shower had better be a fast one.”

She nodded. His job again. His guiding star. “You go first. I’ll stay out of the way.”

He smiled at her. “I’m sorry about this. It seems when we sleep together in your bed, I’m destined to get a phone call about a murder.”

“That’s right. It’s just like last time…”

He’d only made a casual remark, but something changed in her eyes. He came to her, leaned down, and kissed the top of her head. He brushed his knuckles lightly across her cheek, studying her thoughtful expression.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Go take your shower.”

But he knew something had occurred to her, disturbed her, and he didn’t know what.

He didn’t have time now to find out, but later he’d find the time.

A small, terrified-looking woman in her early twenties sat perched on a wrought-iron bench just down the hall from Terri Gaddis’s apartment, where a stolid uniformed cop was standing guard. With her pinched features and pointed nose, she very much resembled a tiny, nervous bird. She’d obviously been crying, and barely glanced up at Quinn, Pearl, and Fedderman as they passed. There was fear in the glance, as well as sorrow. Quinn thought somebody should be looking after her.

The crime scene unit was already inside Terri Gaddis’s cramped apartment, doing their white-glove ballet. Sal Vitali and Harold Mishkin were talking to Nift, the obnoxious ME, in a hall that probably led to a small bedroom and bathroom. Mishkin looked ill.

Vitali nodded a hello and motioned with his head. “In the bathroom,” he said in his gravelly voice. Mishkin gave them a faint and sympathetic smile as they edged past, as if to warn them they weren’t going to like what they were about to see.

Mishkin was right.

A tech who’d been dusting the toilet tank and vanity for prints saw them and got out of their way, leaving the tiny bathroom so they had a clear view of what was dangling from a hook in the ceiling.

It was what Quinn had braced himself to see, but it was still worse than he’d imagined. The woman’s upside-down body was laid open from her pubis to the base of her neck. Her internal organs and entrails had been removed and were piled in the bathtub. Flies were beginning to feast.

Terri Gaddis had been an attractive woman. Her face, even with its horror-stricken expression, had somehow escaped being coated with blood and was in sharp contrast to the carnage.

Quinn looked up at the ceiling, almost as if to offer a prayer.

“Bicycle hook,” Pearl said. “The killer located a wooden joist on the other side of the drywall so it would support plenty of weight. You do that if you’ve got a bike to hang.”

Nift had halfway entered the tiny bathroom and was clucking his tongue. “She’s no bicycle, but you can tell she was the kinda woman who’d give you a helluva ride.” He leered at Pearl. “Hello, shweetheart.” It was a bad Bogart imitation.

“Hi, ashhole.”

“It’s like the other victims,” Nift said to Quinn, no longer Bogart and ignoring Pearl. “Same kind of knife was used. Looks like at pretty much the same angle. We’ll know more once we get her to the morgue and I put her back together.”

Why? Are you coming apart?

Quinn felt queasy as he recalled his joke with Zoe less than an hour ago.

“You can tell she had a pretty good rack on her,” Nift said.

It was like something a hunter would say about a slain deer, and it made Pearl suddenly furious. “How does a prick like you become a doctor?”

Nift grinned. “People I work on never complain, so why should you?”

“Because you’re a—”

“Pearl!”

Quinn’s hand was on her shoulder, holding her back, and she realized she’d been advancing on Nift.

“Let’s keep it professional,” Quinn said. Then, to Nift: “Is everything there?”
If only you
could
put her back together.

The cocky little ME seemed surprised by the question. Then he understood. “Yeah, I looked and made sure. And the organs have to be cut away from the peritoneum differently from the way it was done here if they’re gonna be reusable. Nobody’s doing this so they can get healthy organs to sell on the black market.” He glanced at Pearl. “Shame. The killer’s missing a bet, and he could maybe save somebody’s life whenever he killed someone.”

The stench in the stifling little room was beginning to get to Quinn. The stench and Nift.

He led the way, and they returned to where Sal and Mishkin were standing, watching the techs go over the living room.

“They won’t find anything we can use,” Mishkin said. “The guy works clean.” He had so much mentholated cream all over his mustache he looked as if he had a bad cold.

Vitali noticed Quinn looking at his partner and said, “Harold does what works for him, just like the rest of us, even if he does smell like a walking meth lab.”

“He smells better than the corpse,” Quinn said.

“That’s absolutely the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me,” Mishkin told him. He had a deadpan, dry delivery. Quinn made a mental note that the innocuous-looking little guy might occasionally sting.

“Let’s go out in the hall,” Quinn suggested, in deference to Mishkin’s weak stomach.

They dodged the techs and left the apartment, then moved down the hall so they were out of earshot of the cop posted at the door and the distraught young woman on the bench.

“Her name’s Martha Swann,” Vitali said. “She’s the one found the body. When the victim, Terri Gaddis, didn’t show up for work at one of those Office Tech stores and didn’t answer her phone, they sent Martha here to see if Terri was all right.”

“Terri wasn’t,” Mishkin said.

“You wanna talk to Martha?” Vitali asked. “That’s the only reason we were still keeping her around.”

“You got her full statement?” Quinn asked.

“Sure.”

Quinn nodded to Pearl, who went down the hall and sat next to the woman, calming her and telling her she could leave, that a squad car would drive her back to work, or to where she lived, if she preferred.

“Poor kid won’t forget this,” Mishkin said.

“Her friend Terri already has,” Vitali said. There was venom in his voice.

“Lighten up, Sal,” Mishkin told him.

Partners for a long time,
Quinn thought. He was glad they were on the Slicer end of the investigation and under his command. “Nift said all the organs are there,” he said. “You guys check that on the other victims?”

“We did,” Vitali growled. “Nobody’s out there selling livers or kidneys. That’d make it too easy, give us a motive.”

“Hunting,” Mishkin said. “The bastard likes to stalk and kill, then field dress his game.” He swallowed and absently moved his right hand across his stomach.

Pearl was back. Quinn looked down the hall and saw that Martha Swann was gone.

“She decided to go back in to work,” Pearl said.

“Gutsy young lady,” Fedderman said.

“Or one who needs the money,” Vitali said.

There was a flurry of activity down the hall. Terri Gaddis was in a body bag on a gurney, being maneuvered out of her apartment. Also on the gurney was a black plastic bag twist-tied at the top. Quinn knew what was in it and thought it looked too much like a trash bag. Another defilement of a beautiful young woman.

“We told them they could take her after you had your look,” Vitali said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Quinn said he didn’t.

As the remains of Terri Gaddis were wheeled past them, Nift, following the gurney, glanced over at the detectives.

“My examination told me there were times the lady looked a lot better on her back,” he said, flashing his practiced leer at Pearl.

As the death procession was trying to fit itself into the elevator, Pearl said, “I wonder what makes Nift such an asshole.”

“He makes those nasty cracks in an effort to stay sane,” Mishkin said. “It isn’t working.”

“How’s the other end of the investigation going?” Vitali asked.

Quinn filled him in.

“I thought we were gonna hold back that Becker was shot inside his hotel, then moved outside,” Vitali said. “It’s in all the papers.”

“We tried,” Quinn said. “The information leaked, and a reporter we had on our side double-crossed Renz.”

“Cindy Sellers,” Mishkin said. “Only a snake would trust somebody like her.”

“Uh-huh,” Pearl said.

“We can still use her,” Quinn said. “Sometimes it works in our favor that she has no scruples.”

“Any ideas as to why Becker’s body was moved?” Vitali asked.

“None. Do you?”

“No tengo ni noción.”

The reply in Spanish was surprising, coming from the most Italian-looking man Quinn had ever seen.

The diversified city.
He loved it.

“Anything in particular you want us to do now?” Vitali asked.

“Stay on the case,” Quinn said. “And be careful.”

“Have a good one,” Pearl said, as the Vitali-Mishkin part of the team started toward the elevator.

Vitali gave a little wave.
“Ciao.”

“Happy hunting,” Fedderman said.

“Shalom,”
Mishkin said over his shoulder.

Au revoir,
Quinn thought.

Jerry Dunn chewed absently on a gin-soaked olive. He was nervous, but didn’t know why. The man from Quest and Quarry had called and asked to meet him here, in Gillman’s Bar on West Forty-second Street. It was about business, he’d said. Maybe that was why Dunn was nervous; he knew the business of Quest and Quarry, had in fact been part of it.

He swallowed what was left of the olive and wondered if he should mention the newspaper piece he’d read about the guy who’d been shot in the Antonian Hotel and then dragged outside. The latest victim of the .25-Caliber Killer. It had to have something to do with Quest and Quarry, but it might be a sensitive subject,

Here came the guy now, medium height, compact, clean cut, and thoughtful looking in a way that made him seem like a youthful college professor who hadn’t yet burned out. But there was a grace and muscularity about him that attracted attention and suggested a lot of strength beneath that tailored blue suit. He gave his handsome smile and extended his hand to Jerry, who shook it and noticed how dry and strong it was.

Jerry had been drinking a Beefeater martini. The man from Quest and Quarry sat down opposite him in the wooden booth near the window and ordered a scotch rocks and a fresh drink for Jerry.

“I wanted to congratulate you on the fine hunt you conducted,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Joseph Galin was a formidable quarry.”

The drinks arrived, and both men were silent until the barmaid had left.

“I’m offering you another hunt,” the college professor (as Jerry thought of him) said. “Same terms.”

Jerry thought about it and sipped his fresh martini. “If I keep doing this I might wind up being a rich man.”

“But that’s not why you’re going to say yes.”

Jerry smiled. “We both know that.”

“Do we have an agreement?”

Jerry nodded.

“This hunt will be slightly different,” said the man from Quest and Quarry.

When he was finished explaining that difference, he said, “Your quarry will be a man named Thomas Rhodes.”

After leaving Gillman’s Bar, Martin Hawk took a cab to the block of Thomas Rhodes’s West Side brownstone and got out at the corner. He put on the plain blue baseball cap he’d had in his suit coat pocket and adjusted the bill at a slight angle. Everyone in a baseball cap looked like everyone else in a baseball cap. He walked down the street and, without being noticed left a small, tightly wrapped package in the brownstone’s mailbox.

He was smiling as he strode casually away. The package contained a small .25-caliber revolver. He knew that Rhodes would understand what it was for, and he knew how he’d react. Rhodes should never have discharged his weapon inside his opponent’s hotel. It had been carefully explained to him that both hunters’ hotels were safety zones. He’d broken the rules and the code of honor, and that was unforgivable, as well as dangerous.

Rhodes wouldn’t contact the police, but he might try to leave town with his life preserved, made silent by fear. Or he might feel that he had no choice but to take up the challenge.

Either way, Hawk had faith in Jerry Dunn. Also either way, Quest and Quarry would neutralize a former client who was a potential problem. This kind of pairing was Martin Hawk’s way of sweeping up after himself.

He glanced at his watch. It was still early enough to see a woman who very much interested him. A special woman.

The special ones were getting closer together, he knew, and it was beginning to worry him. But there was no way to deny the need or the urgency. He really had no choice. And this woman…she was unique, like all of them, and the same, like all of them.

In the end, alike.

Simple puzzles. All of them.

He’d know how to deal with her, how to figure her out. He’d observe her and learn her thought processes and habits, and then take advantage of them. It was all in knowing when to move in. It was much like hunting.

It
was
hunting.

He stepped off the curb into the oil-stained street and hailed another cab.