John Lutz Bundle (72 page)

Something new. Something exciting.

Lauri didn’t get to the Upper East Side very often. She tried not to let it show that she thought Mangio’s was one of the neatest places she’d ever seen. She and Joe shared a tiny round table near a wall, away from the small dance floor. A band, guys in matching jackets and ties, not like The Defendants, were playing soft syncopated music that she guessed was rumba. Other than the dance floor, the place was carpeted in plush red, contrasting with the white tablecloths and glinting silverware. The long-stemmed glass from which Lauri was sipping a vodka martini, straight up, was fine crystal that glittered in the light of the single candle in the center of the table. She supposed this was what people called class.

She looked around at the women seated at tables or dancing and was glad she’d worn the dress Joe had bought for her. It had been a gift from an exclusive shop on Madison Avenue and was obviously expensive. Since her father was busy in the evenings he hadn’t seen her leave in the dress, which was a good thing, because it might have required an explanation. She really should have her own apartment. Her world was opening up like a flower warmed by the sun. If this thing with Joe continued to work well…

“You look happy,” he said, smiling across the table. “That makes me happy.”

“The only thing that would make me happier,” she said, “is if this—being someplace like this with you—would last forever.”

“No,” he said, “There’s something else. I know what would make us both infinitely happier.”

She reached across the table and lightly dragged her fingernails over the back of his hand. “Joe—”

“I’m going to teach you how to rumba.”

She couldn’t control the expression on her face. From the inside it felt like disappointment.

He laughed. “Oh, you thought I meant something else.”

“I think we both know what you meant,” she said, laughing along with him but still maybe showing her disappointment.

“Maybe you already know how to rumba.”

“No.”

“You will in five minutes. I have a foolproof teaching method.”

He stood up, holding her hand gently by her fingertips and guiding her up out of her chair and toward the dance floor. She found herself having some difficulty walking, which was strange since she’d had only one drink

They weaved their way through the tables and reached the parquet dance floor, which wasn’t crowded. His timing was right—the band was only halfway through the rumba number. Joe held Lauri close in dance position, her right arm bent up at the elbow, his left hand clasping her right. His right arm was around her waist, his fingers spread near the small of her back, pressing her into him.

“We’ll do a simple box step,” he said, his breath warm in her ear. “Follow my lead and you’ll pick up the rhythm and hip movement.”

He was right. She was soon dancing without worrying about getting her toes stepped on. Then he held her even closer so the rhythm flowed through his body into hers. The experience as a whole was making her light-headed.

“Looser in the hips and we’re there,” he whispered. “That’s good. Great! Great!”

She willed her body to relax as he held her more firmly. Now she had no choice; her body had to sway in precise syncopation with his. Fine with Lauri. She swung her hips freely, feeling his hand slip lower on her back to rest on the rise of her buttocks. She wanted so very much to please him.

“I might be slightly…”

“Slightly what?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You okay?”

“Oh
what
?”

“Kay,” he said, grinning.

“Oh. I’m that. I think.”

“Very good,” he said of her dancing. “Just relax. Trust me and follow my lead.”

That was his best advice. He loosened his grasp on her slightly (though not on her rear, so they remained pelvis to pelvis) and she let her body respond to the gentle guidance of his hands and the subtle shift of his body against hers. Her body became even looser, her movements more fluid. She could trust him and relax.

He smiled down at her. “Now you’re an expert just like me.”

She smiled back at him. (Was he going to get an erection? She would know if he did.)

The music stopped and he kissed her.

The Hungry U, The Defendants, Wormy, were all far away and in a different world.

“Trust me and follow my lead,” he whispered again in her ear.

In the back of the cab she surprised him. It had taken only a brief kiss, the slightest fondling. He didn’t think he’d slipped that much ketamine into her martini. Just enough to disorient her slightly, confuse her a little bit. He wanted her to enjoy and remember. Maybe he hadn’t even needed the stuff; he’d only resorted to it because time was important here. Maybe it hadn’t even kicked in yet. The stuff was actually made for veterinarians to give to cats. Pussy. There was an amusing thought.

Within a block away from Mangio’s she had her arms snaked around his neck and the warm wedge of her tongue probed his ear. He felt a tightening in his groin, and her hand was on him as they kissed.

“I don’t want to wait, Joe,” she whispered in his ear. “I can’t wait.”

“Your place?” he asked, toying with her, stringing this out to make sure, letting it build in her.

“Can’t. I don’t live alone. With my father. He’s not home now but he might walk in on us.”

He grinned, knowing she couldn’t see in the dimness of the cab. The desperation in her pleased him. She was disassociating somewhat, not too much. He’d gotten the dosage about right.

She snuggled closer to him. “Might…”

“What?”

“Don’t know. Can’t remember. Don’t care. What’re you—”

Holding the slender nape of her neck, he kissed her hard on the lips, using a thumb to play with her earlobe. His other hand was beneath her hiked-up skirt, exploring her warm wetness. He felt her respond to his kiss with her lips, tongue, teeth.

“Jesus! I can’t wait!” she whispered hoarsely when he released her. “I don’t know…”

“What?”

“Just don’t know…Only had one drink.”

“You had three, darling. I was counting.”

“Three?”

She pressed her body hard into his.

He leaned forward, toward the Plexiglas divider that separated passengers from driver. “Take us through the park.”

The cabbie had been there before. He glanced quickly in his rearview mirror then veered right and made a U-turn.

Passing headlights of oncoming cars shuffled the light in the back of the cab and made her blink in mild confusion.

“It will be a slow drive,” he whispered

“Have you got something?” Lauri asked, clinging to him.

“Of course,” he said. “A condom.” He kissed her perspiring forehead, working the hand that was beneath her skirt, manipulating skillfully with his fingers. “You don’t have to worry, darling, I’m careful. You’ve never met anyone more careful.”

Sherman as usual read the
Times
over breakfast. He’d bought the paper from a vending machine at the corner, inserting his coins and thinking with a smile that the paper should be paying him. After all, he was giving them something to write about that was more interesting than their usual gray wire-service pap. He was selling papers. Every time the circulation of one of his victims stopped, the
Times
’s circulation increased.

The morning was so beautiful that he’d skipped his favorite diner in favor of a small restaurant with green plastic tables outside. Pedestrians walked nearby, just on the other side of the black wrought-iron railing separating the outer sidewalk from the dining area. Beyond them, traffic locked in the morning rush rumbled and lurched forward about ten feet at a time. But the cool morning breeze carried the vehicle exhaust away so it didn’t interfere with his appetite, and the sun sent warm rays angling in beneath the green canvas umbrella above Sherman’s table.

As he forked in his scrambled eggs and nibbled at his toast, Sherman read in the paper that Jeb, the brother he’d never seen, was a currency trader. Something like family pride crept into Sherman’s mind. So Jeb was smart, like his half-brother, and like Sherman made his money in the world of finance. Sherman had made his fortune in tech stocks, systematically getting out just before the bubble burst, and then compounding his wealth by selling some of the same stocks short, cashing in as they plummeted in value. Possibly Jeb had gotten rich during the same wild market volatility. Sherman thought—no, he knew—that heredity meant much more than most people suspected. Heredity was destiny, and impossible to escape.

A gust of summer breeze flipped the top newspaper page, and there was the now familiar photo of Mom climbing out of a taxi in front of the Meredith Hotel.

Sherman stopped chewing and stared at it for a long moment, into the dark eyes above the smiling lips. It seemed to him that the eyes were not smiling.

The photo also made him think of last night in the cab with Quinn’s daughter.
Quinn’s daughter!
Now Sherman was the one to smile. What would Quinn think if he knew? As he
would
someday know—Sherman would take care of that. As for Lauri, she’d remember last night, what she could of it, fondly. He was sure he hadn’t used enough ketamine for her to suspect she’d been drugged, so eager had she been to sleep with him even without a little chemical enhancement. And even if she did suspect, she’d probably forgive him for it. Little Lauri wasn’t nearly as innocent as she pretended. How could she be, bedding down with that tall, skinny junkie—the musician, so-called?

After finishing breakfast and paying his check, Sherman scraped his metal chair over concrete, away from the table, and stood up, careful not to bump his head on the umbrella. He felt full and satisfied, and sexually sated from last night, as he strolled toward his apartment. He was expecting a fax from a connection to a connection he had in Atlanta, an architect who a few years ago had found himself in a financial tangle Sherman helped him to escape. The man had later landed a plum job in City Planning and Development. He was not only in Sherman’s debt, he was a bureaucratic animal who knew the jungle. More specifically, the New York City archival records jungle.

The disentanglement of the man’s financial affairs were of questionable legality, and if revealed would at the least be embarrassing if not ruinous. Sherman expected cooperation.

He wasn’t disappointed. As he closed his apartment door behind him he glanced over at his fax machine and saw several messages in the arrival basket. He knew what they were—the 1947 blueprints of the Malzberg Plaza Hotel, which in 1964 was renovated and became the Meredith.

Faxed blueprints of the renovation plans were included.

He removed the pages from the fax machine to confirm what they were, and then laid them out on his desk to peruse later. He’d worked up a sweat walking back from the restaurant, so he decided that before anything else he’d take his second shower of the morning. Besides, he’d noticed earlier that he needed to touch up his blond hair.

His dark roots were showing.

Less then five minutes after showering and applying additional dye to his hair, Sherman was seated at his desk. He was dressed only in his robe and slippers, and was poring over the 1964 Meredith Hotel renovation blueprints. Already he’d formulated a plan. It only needed a bit more time, a little more research and attention to detail.

And, of course, some cooperation, but that would be easy enough to obtain. Even a pleasure.

Problem solved.

No riddle in the mail this time, Quinn. No note. No game. No rattle before the strike.

Only the surprise.

If it weren’t so early in the day, he’d pour a generous Jack Daniel’s and congratulate himself.

The surprise. The revelation.

When they would share the terrible knowledge.

Maybe, in the few last terrified seconds of her life, Mom would be proud of him.

Lauri hoped she’d pecked out the right phone number. She still felt woozy from last night. That would teach her not to drink too much. Or love too much. Three drinks. She remembered Joe telling her that had been her total. There was a lot of last night missing from her memory, but what she did remember she liked.

Joe…What a wonderful lover he was…wonderful everything!

Sitting on the edge of her bed, listening to Joe’s phone ring and ring on the other end of the connection, another dizzy spell made her sway slightly. Was this what it was to be lovesick?

Three more rings.

She was about to hang up when he answered the phone.

“It’s Lauri,” she said. “Remember me?”

“Forever. I was hoping you’d call.”

“How come you took so long to pick up?”

“I was in the shower. Slept late this morning. I was really tired. Can’t figure out why.”

She smiled. “Try harder and I bet you’ll remember.”

“You’re right. It must have something to do with why I was hoping it was you on the phone. You sleep okay?”

“Deeper than I ever slept in my life.”

“Any regrets?”

“God, no!” She sounded choked. She could see the taut material of her blouse over her breasts vibrating in time with her beating heart. “Now I’m sitting here thinking how much I miss you.”

“What a sweet thing to say!” His voice broke with sincerity.

She was glad to know she wasn’t the only one with a tight throat. “It’s only been nine hours and twenty-six minutes.”

“Way too long,” he said. He always seemed to know exactly what to say. Unlike…someone else.

“We can do something about that,” she told him.

He laughed softly. She saw in her mind’s eye the promise in his brown eyes, the curve of his soft upper lip. She had his face memorized and wanted the image never to fade away. “Problem is,” he said, “I have to take a flight out of town shortly on business. I’ll be gone for a few days.”

She swallowed her disappointment. Her alarm. Was he brushing her off? Lying? “I could go with you to the airport and see you off.”
Don’t sound like such a fawning fool!

“Too late for that. I’ve already got a car coming.” He was silent for a few beats while her heart plummeted. Then: “Lauri, I was thinking of something special for the evening of the day I get back.”

“It can’t be more special than our last evening together.”

He laughed again. “This would be a different kind of special. Dinner at one of the best restaurants I know, the Longitude Room in the Meredith Hotel. It’s not the Hungry U but I think you’ll like it.”

“Will I like afterward?”

“If I have anything to do with it.”

“You’ll have everything to do with it.”

“Not another cab ride,” he said. “You deserve better than that. I’ll reserve a room. We can wake up together and order room service the next morning.”

Her heart was on the rise now, soaring. She was determined to seem calm and sophisticated. “Sounds wonderful.”
That was good, not too eager. Very adult.

“I noticed you have a cell phone. Give me your number and I’ll call you when I’m back in the city.”

She did, in her newfound calm voice. Her emotions were still whirling, but not so fast. She had a handle on the situation now.

“Don’t mention this to anyone,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble for you while I’m out of town.”

“Trouble?”

“You might not have noticed, Lauri, but a certain someone is almost as hung up on you as I am.”

“Wormy? I can’t see him causing any real trouble. He’s not much more than an annoyance.”

“You might be surprised.”

“Now you sound like my—”

“Who?”

“Nobody. If you think it’s wise, I’ll keep quiet about us. I’m not the blabbermouth type anyway.”

“I know you’re not. I’ll call you soon as I get back, darling.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

They hung up without him saying he loved her. That was okay.
Darling
would do for now. Lauri wasn’t discouraged. She knew something about men. He’d get around to the L word. She’d see to that.

“He’ll make you wait,” Helen the profiler said. “He’s tantalizing you. Stringing out the suspense.”

“This isn’t a mystery novel,” Quinn said.

“He thinks it is. And he’s the main character.”

“Doesn’t the main character usually get the girl?” Fedderman said.

“He’s gotten the girl too many times already,” Renz said. He was seated behind his desk, chewing on a dead cigar, maybe trying to get across to them that he obeyed regulations and never smoked when he was in his office, which was a crock. He carefully propped the cigar in a thick glass ashtray converted to a paper-clip container, as if the cigar were burning and he didn’t want it to go out. “This is the morning of the fifth day for our Myrna-as-bait operation. Pretty soon I’ll have to reassign some people so they can chase down criminals who aren’t shadows.”

“Smooth move,” Pearl said. “It’ll go over great in the media if Mom gets snuffed.”

Quinn threw a glance her way. They’d all been thinking the same thing, but she had to say it.

“I don’t intend to let that happen,” Renz said, looking hard at Pearl, “and I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.”

Pearl said nothing.

“I’ll take your silence as an apology,” Renz said, after about a minute and a half of nothing but traffic sounds from outside.

Good as you’re going to get,
Quinn thought. He glanced over warningly at Fedderman, who looked about to swallow his tongue. Fedderman seemed to find nothing in life so funny as Pearl being Pearl.

Renz pressed on. “I came up with an idea. Thought I’d run it past you.”

Helen the profiler, who’d been leaning with a bony hand on the window frame, straightened up her lanky body and paid closer attention.

“Let’s hear it,” Quinn said, shifting in his chair and trying to sound enthusiastic. He reminded himself that Renz was a good cop when he wasn’t trying to think too hard. His shrewdness seemed to be confined to his political maneuvering.

“We need to get this psycho off the dime,” Renz said. “Get him to bust a move. I think Helen would agree that psychologically he needs some kind of jolt.”

“Sort of maybe,” Helen said cautiously. She crossed her long arms, an impressive show of muscle and tendon.

“He’s feeling the increasing pressure, you said,” Renz told her. “Especially now with Mom in town.”

“True,” Helen said.

“So it might not take much to prompt him into action.”

“True.”

Quinn was thinking that so far he hadn’t heard an idea, hoping Pearl wouldn’t point that out. He glanced over at her and she favored him with a razor-thin smile.
Mind reader.

“I think we need to use the media again,” Renz said. “Just a short piece about Myrna still being in town, along with a photograph. It could be taken in an interrogation room, or maybe even in this office, and we say she’s given a deposition, quote her as pleading with her wayward son to give himself up.”

“Nothing new so far,” Quinn said, getting impatient and also figuring he might beat Pearl to the punch. He could almost hear Pearl ticking.

“You’ll be standing over Myrna,” Renz said to Quinn. “Maybe with your hand on her shoulder, and you and she could be looking into each other’s eyes. Drive our sicko killer wild.”

“Hint at a romantic attachment?” Pearl asked.

Renz nodded. “You got it. Hint broadly.”

Fedderman rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his white shirt cuff just beginning to come unbuttoned. “Myrna’s still a good-looking woman,” he said. “It’d be easy to believe an attachment.”

“Maybe you should be it,” Pearl said.

Fedderman looked aghast. “I’m hardly in her league.”

“Such modesty, when it’s convenient. Other times you’re Brad Pitt.”

“It’s Quinn he hates,” Helen said. “Quinn is his great nemesis, maybe even the lost father figure who deserted him. Our killer simultaneously hates and respects Quinn.”

Many do,
Pearl thought.

“So he’s all the more likely to respond,” Renz said.

“It’s possible he’ll respond with an oedipal rage,” Helen said, “vented at his mother rather than Quinn. When it comes to people he loves, hates, and fears, all at the same time, Mom’s at the top of the list. It’s Mom he’s repetitiously killing.”

“Isn’t this all getting way too complicated?” Pearl asked.

“Maybe not,” Fedderman said. “We’re dealing with a complicated psycho.”

“It’ll all seem simple when the cuffs are clicked on him,” Renz said. He stuck the dead cigar back in his mouth.

“Or a bullet brings him down,” Fedderman added.

“I di’n’ hear ’at,” Renz said around the cigar.

Quinn wasn’t sure he liked this at all. Still, if it might work…

He glanced over at Helen, who was idly rocking back and forth simply by flexing her long muscles, looking more like a decathlon champion than a psychologist. He knew her background. She wasn’t just Helen Iman, NYPD. She was Dr. Iman, Psy.D. The expert in the room.

She caught him looking at her, misreading him. Maybe.

“Have you ever secretly thought of sleeping with Myrna Kraft?” she asked him.

“If I were a spider.”

Pearl was silent.

There was a mood in the office no one quite understood.

Renz removed the dead cigar from his mouth. “So whaddya think?” he asked the room in general.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Helen said. “But be ready for whatever you wake up.”