John Lutz Bundle (150 page)

So far it had been exactly that.

Martin Hawk had never gotten beyond New York.

He raised his hand to get the waiter’s attention and ordered another espresso.

Dr. Beeker knew how to play the role. He looked like a high-priced psychiatrist this morning. He was wearing a brown suede sport jacket with a yellow and black tie, darker brown slacks, and brown loafers. His glasses were dangling from a cord around his neck, nestled against his chest next to a gold tie clasp. His damp, thinning hair seemed longer and was curled above his ears and at the nape of his neck, reminding Quinn of a nest of snakes.

When he entered and saw Quinn in his office anteroom his features tightened and his intense dark eyes darted to his receptionist, then back to Quinn.

“Detective Quinn insisted on waiting,” Beatrice, the middle-aged, attractive blond woman behind the desk, said in her defense.

Without smiling, Beeker nodded to her.

Quinn stood up from the black leather sofa that seemed to have grown to him. “We need to talk.”

“I have appointments soon,” Beeker said.

He strode into his office and left the door open. Quinn took it as an invitation and went in, noticing that the doctor had left in his wake a lemony scent of cologne or shaving lotion. He closed the door behind him.

Beeker was sitting behind his desk, doing the tent thing with his fingers.

Quinn remained standing. “I visited your Web site,” he said.

Beeker smiled slightly. He had a slow way of smiling that seemed to give his expression added meaning. “I’m sure you enjoyed it.”

“The photos of Zoe—”

“Aren’t bad, are they?” Beeker shifted his weight slightly in his chair so it tilted backward, but not so far that he had to remove his elbows from his desk. “Zoe’s a beautiful woman. But you knew that.”

“I’d like you to delete the photos of Zoe,” Quinn said.

“If Zoe makes that request, I’ll consider it.”

“I’m making the request for her.”

“I don’t accept that.” Beeker leaned forward again. “You might not like it, Detective, but Zoe enjoyed posing for those photos. She’s proud of her body and doesn’t mind revealing it. The shots I’m sure you’d find the most disturbing aren’t on the Internet. She enjoyed posing for those, too.”

“It was another time, another place,” Quinn said.

“But not another Zoe. She doesn’t necessarily fit your concept of her, Detective Quinn. You don’t really know her at all. I’m not sure I do. Like each of us, she’s many different people wrapped in the same skin.”

“I didn’t come here for psychobabble,” Quinn said, and moved closer to the desk.

Beeker didn’t react. “You don’t intimidate me, Detective Quinn.”

“I’m not interested in intimidating you. I’m simply telling you to delete the photos.”

“If Zoe calls me, I’ll do that. It’s a part of our former relationship that’s between the two of us.”

“If I don’t intimidate you, why are you agreeing to delete the photos?”

“I’ll delete them if Zoe requests it. Not you.”

“I’ll let you keep that distinction,” Quinn said.

“Our Zoe has sides to her you’ve never seen. As you have sides she’s unaware of. Wouldn’t you say that’s so, detective?”

“Not everyone goes around pretending to be what they aren’t,” Quinn said.

“You mean like a sexual deviant pretending to be a respectable Park Avenue psychiatrist? Overcompensating behavior used as a disguise? I’m not putting up any kind of defensive subterfuge, and neither is Zoe. The idea of either of us living secret lives is all in
your
mind. She posed for photographs often and willingly and knew what I was going to do with them. What we’ve done and photographed is all legal, Detective Quinn. You can check with the vice squad. Zoe and I were part of a club whose members share certain modes of impulse and behavior. It’s the other photographs that might worry you. The ones with the interesting props. They’re the real Zoe, too.”

Quinn was fighting to keep his temper, but at the same time was somewhat surprised. Beeker was taunting him now, daring him.

“The most outwardly respectable people are the most likely to have diametrically opposite components to their personalities, Detective. Surely you’ve noticed that. The reformers who consort with prostitutes, the Bible-thumpers who steal from the church, the gay-bashers who are latent homosexuals, the upright family men who are serial killers.” Beeker gave his slow smile again. “Then there is the healer of the mind, Zoe, who accepts and lives with her own various facets of self-identity. Her other sides, but not her secret sides.”

“I get it, already,” Quinn said. “We’re all two people.”

“No, no, no. We’re all many people. We simply have to accept and integrate our various selves. I help people to do that.” Beeker stood up behind his desk. “But if someone does have a
secret
self, Detective Quinn, you might do well to look for it as the opposite of their public self.” He walked out from behind the desk. “A zealous cop crusader, for instance, might also be a serial killer. Hasn’t that happened in our fair city?”

It had. And Quinn had been fooled by it too long and people had died. Beeker must know that.

“You seem to have researched me,” Quinn said.

“Somewhat. I’m interested in whoever’s interested in Zoe. As you are. Why pretend otherwise?”

“I do believe you’re practicing your dark art on me, Doctor.”

“I specialize in dialectical behavior therapy, Detective Quinn. It requires the cooperation of the patient. I don’t believe you’re capable of that.”

Quinn knew it was time to go. He hadn’t come here to physically assault Beeker, but things were moving in that direction.

He moved toward the door. “Delete the photos, Dr. Beeker.”

“Have Zoe call me.”

“You’re a stubborn one.”

“Notice I’m not the type,” Beeker said.

The slow smile was forming as Quinn turned away.

Quinn was perspiring when he left Beeker’s office. He knew he’d lost a round, and he didn’t like it.

He didn’t like it that there were more, and more explicit, photographs of Zoe. He didn’t like what Dr. Beeker had told him, which was, in effect, the same thing Helen Iman had told him about contradictory behavior.

If they were right about reformers, Bible-thumpers, and gay-bashers, were they right about serial killers?

And weren’t serial killers supposed to be
his
area of expertise?

Renz had Quinn, Pearl, Fedderman, and Helen the profiler in his office. The door was locked, and Renz had left word not to be disturbed unless it was urgent.

When everyone was more or less settled, Renz sat down behind his waxed and uncluttered desk. “I have an idea,” he said.

Quinn was seated in one of the chairs facing the desk. He could think of several things to say to Renz’s statement, but he chose the relatively safe, “And you want to try it out on us.”

“Exactly,” Renz said. “I will say before I go into it that Helen approves.”

“I think it might work,” Helen said.

“Helen thinks, and I think,” Renz said to Quinn, “that the killer sees you, even
wants
you, as his opponent. The bond that sometimes forms between serial killers and the lead detectives who pursue them is strong here. We think we can take advantage of it. We want to place a letter from you to the killer in the newspapers—
City Beat
first, of course—in which you taunt the killer. I think we know how he’ll react.” Renz glanced at Helen, as if they’d rehearsed this and she’d missed her cue.

“We think he’ll challenge you,” Helen said. “And in some manner give himself away.”

“And if he doesn’t give anything away?” Pearl asked.

“Then it’s up to Quinn whether to accept the challenge.”

“If the killer’s smart,” Quinn said, “he’ll simply ignore the letter.”

“He’s smart and mentally ill,” Helen said.

“When do you want this letter?” Quinn asked.

Renz leaned over his desk, a folded slip of paper extended in his right hand. “With Helen’s help, I’ve already written it.”

Quinn accepted the paper and looked at it.

“It’s not so much a taunt,” Quinn said, “as an offer of a deal.”

“Believe me,” Helen said, “he’ll consider it a taunt, and he’ll respond as he must. There’s always the chance that unforeseen circumstances might interfere with this plan, but the psychology of it is sound.”

“And if he doesn’t respond,” Renz said, “we’ve lost nothing. Those are the kind of odds I like.”

“You’re not the one taunting a maniac with a gun,” Pearl said.

Quinn gave her a look that was obviously meant as a caution signal, but Pearl saw green lights where others saw red.

“The letter doesn’t mention the Slicer,” Quinn said.

“We’re trying to appeal only to the hunter side of the killer,” Helen said. “The sportsman with a code. That’s the part of him that will respond to the letter.”

“It isn’t in our contract with the city that we fight duels,” Pearl said.

“It would be more like a hunt,” Helen said. “That’s the point.”

“And hunting is in your contract,” Renz said, “however it might be phrased. Hunting is what we do.”

“We?” Pearl asked.

“I’ll do it,” Quinn said, before Renz could answer Pearl. He smiled at Renz. “It’s true that we have nothing to lose if the killer doesn’t respond.”

“We knew you’d want to do it,” Helen said.

Pearl gave her a dark look. Helen seemed unimpressed.

Renz took the letter back from Quinn. “I’ll fax this to Cindy Sellers at
City Beat,”
he said. “Give them a shot at a special edition. The other papers won’t be far behind.”

“They’ll all be behind the Internet and cable news,” Fedderman said. They all knew how newspaper offices, as well as the NYPD, sprang leaks.

Renz shrugged. “That’s the plight of print journalism. Sellers will have to understand it.”

“I hope the killer doesn’t respond,” Pearl said, as they were standing up to leave the office.

Renz began to fume. His jowls actually shook.

Quinn raised a hand before Renz could speak. “Let’s all keep this running smoothly,” he said, looking at everyone but Renz.

“Helen knows the mind of the killer,” Renz said, as they were filing out.

“It will work,” Helen added.

Quinn turned to look at her. “Do you guarantee it?”

“No,” Helen said. “There are no guarantees in what we do. This is more like an extended warranty.”

“My new idea for some fresh material,” Mitzi said. “Two serial killers, married to each other.”

Mitzi and Jackie Jameson had run through their routines and were killing time sitting and sipping cold drinks in what passed for Say What?’s green room. It was a twelve-foot-square windowless room with a few old easy chairs and recliners, some gray steel folding chairs, mirrors and more mirrors, and an old refrigerator. Nothing in it was green. The two comics faced each other in opposite threadbare easy chairs. Jackie was drinking a Coke in intermittent gulps. Mitzie, one Levied leg thrown over a chair arm, sipped bottled water.

“It could be funny, Mitz,” Jackie said. “But keeping a marriage like that together could be murder.”

“In sickness and in health,” Mitzi said.

Jackie grimaced.

“See what I mean?” Mitzi said. “Possibilities. Grim, so probably funny. And I could recycle some of the old husband-and-wife jokes in a new context and they’d seem fresh.”

“I dunno, though,” Jackie said. “Considering what’s going on out there these days, will people think you oughta be joking about serial killers?”

“I’m not sure. Whaddya think?”

“Yeah, it might go over okay. Take it from a guy who’s got no taste.”

“That’s why I sought your advice.”

“If you do decide to go in that direction, maybe you oughta learn some more about serial killers, give your material more edge.”

“Talk to a few serial killers?”

“Might be easier to talk to a guy named Quinn,” Jackie said. “He’s—

“I know who he is,” Mitzi said. “I read the papers every day for material. Oh, that Middle East.”

“So give him a call. He might help you out.”

“In his spare time,” Mitzi said.

Jackie grinned at her. “You scared to call him?”

“He’s a scary guy.”

“He’d be awed to hear from a celebrity like you.”

“I could tell him I’m Whoopi Goldberg.”

Jackie dug his cell phone from one of his pockets and tossed it over so it landed on what there was of Mitzi’s lap, the way she was sprawled in the chair.

“So call him,” he said, and threw back his head to drain the rest of his Coke. He bent a kink in the empty can and tossed it into a plastic-lined trash receptacle.

“You into throwing things?” Mitzi asked.

“It’s a kind of therapy. Helps me to let loose. Go ahead and call him.”

“Anybody ever tell you, Jackie, you’re kinda pushy?”

“You got nothing to lose, Mitz. He might surprise you. Serial killers might be a barrel of laughs.”

“They’ve got other uses for barrels,” Mitzi said. She flipped up the lid on the phone. “Whaddya think, nine-one-one or information?”

“I dunno,” Jackie said. “They’re both a bundle of giggles, but nine-one-one tends to take things more seriously.” Looking at her, he thought,
that law against two comics, what a shame.