Читать книгу Gladyss of the Hunt - Arthur Nersesian - Страница 10
ОглавлениеI told the Templeton clerk that the room was off limits until further notice and stepped out into the freezing air. I stood still for a minute and began taking deep, lucid breaths. Just as the Renunciate had taught me, it felt like water filling my lungs. I thought about the poor Jane Doe I’d spent the whole day watching, wondering how her entire life had somehow led her to that awful room that she wouldn’t leave alive. Continuing to breathe from my abdomen, I focused on the thought that my entire purpose was to find her killer. Then I looked across the street and saw a slim, handsome guy who was checking me out. As he stepped under a street light, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: Noel Holden, megastar, was just standing on the northwest corner of Forty-second and Ninth, grinning at me like an idiot.
I remembered O’Ryan shoving him that morning and smiled, slightly embarrassed. He started crossing the street toward me. As he approached, I wondered what the odds were of running into the same Hollywood hulk twice in one day.
“Forgive me if I was rude earlier. And please allow me to properly introduce myself. I’m Noel Holden.” He extended his hand.
“Gladyss Chronou,” I replied, although part of me wanted to ask him something—like if he’d really had sex with Britney Spears, as one gossip column had recently implied. We shook hands briefly and I pulled my coat tightly around me.
“So you’re dating that other cop?” he asked.
“No, but…”
“All I was suggesting is that we grab a quick coffee.”
If I hadn’t spent the whole day looking forward to a late night yoga class, I would’ve agreed. As a compromise, I said, “I’m walking back to my precinct. Instead of getting coffee, why don’t you walk with me and we can talk.”
“Sounds good,” he replied.
Aside from the novel sensation of being with a celebrity, it struck me as odd that Holden just happened to be lingering outside a murder scene. As Detective Farrell had reminded me, it was something that murderers have been known to do.
As we carefully walked the dark and icy streets to the precinct, he asked me a slew of questions: Where was I born . . . and raised . . . and educated. Did I have a boyfriend . . . a girlfriend? Had I ever dated another girl?
“Why don’t we talk about you for a while?” I finally interrupted.
“Sure,” he said, and without any further prompting gave a quick rundown of his film and TV work. He didn’t say anything about his high-profile romances that were eternally being gossiped about, but I was aware for the first time that juicy tidbits of his life had been slipped into my memory anyway, almost against my will, thanks to the media machine.
And I now had some insight into my neighbor’s skittish mind, and even an inkling about how Maggie could be deluded into thinking that just because she had learned intimate details of some celebrities’ lives, a sentimental osmosis had mysteriously occurred: She must’ve thought that they had come to know, and more specifically care, about her.
Finally Noel got to his current endeavor, a crime flick called Fashion Dogs. It was his twelfth starring film, he told me; it costarred Venezia Ramada and was directed by Crispin Marachino. He told me he was meeting the two of them shortly, then talked about his role in the new film.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, after listening to his summary of the plot. “You play a male fashion model who is also an undercover cop?”
“He’s only an amateur model,” Noel said earnestly.
“Oh, that sounds likely,” I said. Cops were notoriously unfashionable.
“Actually, Crispin has got me doing the catwalk for Anton Rocmarni during Fashion Week to publicize the movie.”
“Wow.”
“I just read in the newspaper that they finally convicted the Green River Killer after all these years,” he said out of the blue.
“Yeah, I read about that too.”
“He killed forty-eight hookers in the 80s and only just got caught ’cause of DNA testing.”
“I heard he pled to forty-nine murders. Did he get sentenced yet?”
“Yeah, it was a plea bargain, life imprisonment.” He sounded almost gleeful. “Forty-nine murdered girls and not even the death penalty.”
“That is unbelievable.” Sentencing in America did frequently seem arbitrary.
“The thing is: forty-nine murders and suddenly he just stops? I mean he hasn’t murdered anyone in nearly twenty years.” Noel said blithely. “God, he must have been attending Murderers Anonymous meetings to keep from making it a round fifty.”
I could’ve pointed out that the killer actually claimed he’d killed many more than fifty women. Instead I said, “I find it a little distressing that you find that so amusing.”
“Come on, this country is obsessed with crime. It’s entertainment. Law & Order and all those shows are huge. Isn’t that one of the reasons you became a cop?”
He had a point.
“Would you mind if I asked you some professional questions?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Like why were you having lunch at DiCarlo’s at nine this morning?”
“It was closer to ten, and I was hungry.”
“It looked like you were finishing a dinner.”
“You know, as a movie actor I can have all the sex, drugs, and rock & roll that I want, but I can’t eat a thing. I basically have to starve myself. But every so often I lose it and go on a binge.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. And this morning I totally lost it.”
“Something to share at your Overeaters Anonymous meeting.”
“No, all the food comes out of the same hole it goes in, usually within the hour.”
“Oh God, really?”
“If you repeat that, I’ll deny it.”
“What sets off your binges?” I asked.
“Guilt,” he said earnestly. “Profound guilt . . . but also they have great food there.”
“Guilt over what?”
“Only my priest will ever know that.”
“What were you doing across the street just now?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, a few minutes ago, when you saw me. What were you doing there?”
“I just withdrew some money from the ATM on the corner.”
“You don’t still have the receipt, do you?”
He pulled off a glove and started rummaging through the pockets of his overcoat. Although I was suspicious of him, I was also curious to see how far I could push him before he’d tell me to fuck off. To my surprise he produced the ATM receipt. It was for a two hundred dollar withdrawal, timed about a minute before we met.
“Where were you last night?” I asked, figuring that had to be when the murderer had completed his bloody sculpture.
“On an airplane over the Atlantic, coming back from a shoot in Barcelona.”
“What airline? And can you tell me the flight number?” I asked calmly.
“Wow!” he finally burst out laughing. “Am I really a suspect?”
“At this point everyone is,” I replied, doing my best Jack Webb.
He smiled, took out his cell phone, and read off all the travel information I asked for while I busily scribbled it all down.
“Now it’s my turn,” he said. “What crime were you investigating?”
“There was a murder in that hotel you saw me leaving.” I said, giving him the bare outline.
“I didn’t even know it was a hotel.”
A chirping sound indicated someone was trying to call him. Taking out his cell phone, he stepped toward the streetlight and told the caller exactly where he was. Now his face was brightly lit, I could see a faint scratch on his chin. It might have happened during his tussle with O’Ryan this morning—or maybe it had been inflicted by the victim? He chatted softly for a minute then flipped his phone closed.
“I know this sounds awful,” he said, “but Crispin and Venezia are right around the corner, and we’re supposed to go to the North Pole.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
When he pointed uptown, I realized he was referring to the North Pole.
“I thought you were talking about some new dance club.”
“It’s a good name for one. I’ll have to tell my club promoter friend.”
“Why are you going there?”
“Advance publicity shots for Fashion Dogs.”
“The North Pole?”
“Yeah, and then about half a dozen cities in Europe. I get back next Monday for a big pre-premiere party that the E.P. is throwing. Would you accompany me?”
“Aren’t you dating Venezia Ramada?”
“Not really.”
“I read you that two were a hot item.”
“She’ll be here in a moment,” he said. “You can ask her yourself. Bear in mind that most of my life is little more than a publicity stunt. But here’s a scoop”—he spoke very slowly as though to underscore that this was reality—“Movie star Noel Holden is asking you on a date.”
“How very Notting Hill.”
“Come on,” he pleaded. “You can keep trying to figure out if I killed that lady.”
“Who said the vic was a woman?”
“You got me!” he said, putting his wrists together as though I were going to cuff him, “And I’m glad you did, otherwise I never would’ve met you.”
Two beautiful teenage girls who’d just walked past us suddenly stopped, conferred, then raced back to Noel, asking for a photo with him. One of them had a cellphone with a camera built into it—the first I had seen.
What made me finally relent and agree to see him again was the strange, admittedly remote notion that I might actually be talking to another in a growing group of celebrity killers. He had been in the area of the murder today; he might have had the opportunity, depending on how his flight details checked out, the time of death, and so on; and he seemed to have a fetishistic knowledge of serial murders.
It wasn’t always that easy to verify a suspect’s alibi; prints and DNA were much more reliable. Somehow I needed to get a sample of Noel’s gorgeous hair and his fingerprints, or until we caught this guy I’d keep wondering if the matinee idol was our man.
“It’s going to be a blast,” he said, referring to the “pre-premiere” party he’d just invited me to.
“Okay, but I have to be in bed by eleven—alone.”
“In that case I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Fine.”
A bright red Lincoln Town Sedan pulled up at the corner of Thirty-sixth and Ninth and started honking. We walked over to it. A smaller, uglier version of Noel was sitting in the back seat. Crispin Marachino.
“And there they are,” Noel said. “Can we drop you off somewhere?”
“I’m already there,” I said, pointing down the block. Abruptly a shaggy blond creature stuck her large bright head out the car window. Just as Noel had said, it was the shameless heiress Venezia Ramada.
“So where exactly do you live?” he asked, “Can I pick you up for the party?”
Instead of giving him my address, I said I’d meet him on the southwest corner of 16th Street and Sixth Avenue.
“You’ll be picked up in one of these silly cars,” he said pointing to the Lincoln.
“Who’s the dominatrix?” asked the unattractive director from the back seat.
“This is Police Detective Gladyss. She’s coming as my date to Miriam’s party,” Noel said.
“You’re a stunner,” Crispin shot back. “Want to be in my next film?”
“No, but I have a neighbor . . .”
“Where’d you get that get-up?” Venezia interrupted.
“I wear it for work.”
“Shit, you’re a real cop?”
“Have you ever had to draw your gun?” Crispin asked earnestly.
“No, but I sketched a knife once,” I trotted out the old joke. He looked at me severely, so I gave him a smaller lie. “I just got assigned to homicide and I’m working on my first murder case.”
“Who was murdered?” he asked.
“A hooker.”
“She was murdered last night at a hotel on Forty-second,” Noel pitched in. “Just a few blocks from here.”
Crispin’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly. “Oh my God! I was just reading about two blonde hookers who were strangled around here over the past month.”
“Where’d you read that?” It reminded me of my fear that the fake detective had in fact been a reporter.
“I forget which paper.”
“ I’ll see you next week at Miriam’s party,” Noel said, trying to wrap things up.
“Wait, you’re taking her to Miriam’s investors party?” Venezia asked in a little girl voice.
“Unless you’re still dating him?” I spoke up, since he’d said I could ask.
“Tell her it’s only for appearances,” Noel shot back to Venezia.
“I’m carrying his baby,” the heiress instantly responded.
Crispin focused an expensive-looking camera on me and quickly snapped a flurry of photos. Noel finally got in the back of the car, said he was looking forward to our date next week, and the whole loony crew sailed away.
I had walked about ten steps when I saw Eddie O’Ryan standing in front of Midtown South, dressed in street clothes, staring at me.
“Did I mention that any man named Noel has got to be a fag?”
“Did you just see me with him?” I asked, happy that someone had witnessed it.
“I was waiting to tell you that I’m sorry,” he said. I saw that he was holding a wilted rose.
“You should apologize to him.”
“Actually I was talking about the whole New Year’s Eve fiasco.” It was the first time he had brought it up, but it was a month too late.
“I just don’t know why you never called me back.”
“Because I felt like an idiot, and I figured a little break wasn’t so bad. I was trying to be cautious.”
“Well, we still have time,” I replied. He was a little awkward, it was true, and every cop I had ever gotten to know seemed to have serious intimacy issues—but O’Ryan was still hot compared to most of them.
“You’re not really going on a date with him, are you?” he said, absently handing me the rose.
“Actually, I have reason to suspect he might be the murderer,” I explained, as he walked with me toward the precinct.
“Give me a break,” O’Ryan said, pausing at the door.
“CSI got prints and hair follicles from the first two crime scenes. I’ll just collect some samples and run them. Make sure he wasn’t there.”
“You should clear it with command first.”
“How do you know I haven’t already?” I was tired of his authority crap.
He walked away without another word, so I went inside. There I vouchered the key to the hotel room, and the desk sergeant had me fill out an overtime form. Then I changed and headed to the last yoga class of the day.
I had first taken yoga in college and immediately got hooked. Though the practice was thousands of years old, and had been developed by holy men who could never have imagined my crazed existence on the other side of the world, it was perfectly designed to help with the stresses of modern life.
The studio I frequented now was a cozy little hole-in-the-wall place directly across the street from my house, which specialized in an ancient variety of yoga called Kundalini. I had chosen it because of its convenience, but I was a little skeptical about it at first. The guy who ran the place was more like a mystic—a strange, hairy, barefoot creature who looked like he’d escaped from the pages of a Maurice Sendak book. The first time I stepped into his tiny studio, I asked him what Kundalini meant.
“There is an immense reservoir of energy that lies dormant inside each of us,” he said intensely. “Most people die without ever even knowing about it. We teach you techniques—exercise, breathing, mantras—to unleash and direct that untapped power.”
“What kind of power?”
“The Kundalini is a snake of psychic energy that is coiled at the base of your spine, in your Abadabado. When awakened it soars up your body and into your crown chakra.”
“So you become like a superman?”
“It’s psychic power.”
“What do you mean by psychic?” To me the word evoked fortune tellers and con men.
“I can introduce you to people who will gladly testify that after following our practice they’ve developed enhanced powers in everything from clairvoyance to telekinesis.”
“But if I do your yoga, will I work up a good sweat?”
“Absolutely. And our first class is free.”
“As long as it keeps me fit,” I thought. And after the first, strenuous class, I got a discount for ten more sessions.
To the usual yoga poses and moves my new teacher added a whole regimen of stomach rolls, breathing moves, and strange sways that were intended to awaken my sleeping serpent. During the class, he also gave lengthy instructions on how to direct my consciousness. Since he frequently spoke in broken Sanskrit, I never knew exactly what he was talking about, but as long as I was staying fit I didn’t mind.
The guy had some crazy-ass name I could never hope to pronounce, though it sounded like Oogabooga. Under a lot of long, twisted hair, he was actually a handsome guy in his late thirties who, I discovered, had one day given up his law practice and his family and devoted himself entirely to eating wilted celery stalks and teaching yoga. Since he truly seemed to have renounced all worldly belongings for the sake of inner peace, I simply thought of him as the Renunciate.
Over the following months, as others joined and left his classes, the Renunciate started focusing on me.
“I feel it,” he finally said to me one day.
“Feel what?”
“Your cynicism, radiating like heat. If you chose to leave it at home just once and give us a chance, the Kundalini will be there waiting for you.”
“Thanks, but I really just need the workout.”
“Kundalini is arguably an evolutionary step for peoplekind. Using mental focus you can gradually learn to unleash the limitless powers of your chakras.”
I asked him if he could explain this alleged power again. I never really got a straight answer before.
“You will become a better person in every sense of the word; More courageous, more attuned. You will have access to things that elude most people.”
“What things?”
“You’ll see people more clearly than they can see themselves.”
But it was my neighbor Maggie who really sold it. One day soon afterward, she saw me carrying my sexy rolled-up mat to the little studio across the street and got excited. She said an old friend from acting school had studied Kundalini out in LA and it had really given her the edge in her career.
“What kind of edge?”
She speed-dialed a number on her cell and handed it to me. Like a living infomercial, her friend Jeanine told me how her life had been transformed since she started practicing. Her thoughts were clearer, her perception crisper.
“But it was more than that,” she said. “It’s as though I’m able to will things to happen.”
Now she was getting work consistently. She’d been in a pilot for a sitcom called Resplendent, which she was just waiting to get picked up. She knew what casting directors wanted without them even having to ask.
“The real strength of Kundalini is in detecting hidden things,” she said.
“I work with criminals who are habitual liars,” I explained. “Do you think it could help me there?”
“Faith is always rewarded,” she replied simply. “What have you got to lose?”
It still sounded flaky to me, but I figured that since I was paying for the classes anyway, what would it hurt if for once I left the cynicism at home?
After my next yoga class, I waited until all left and asked the Renunciate what exactly I had to do to release my Kundalini.
“Focus on breathing and meditation.”
Before my next class, though, I had an encounter with Maggie that undermined my faith in anything she and her loopy actress friend might recommend. She invited me over for some tea, and inevitably we wound up talking about the latest man in her life. When all the tea turned into pee, she ran off to the toilet. Alone at her dining table, I saw a half-written letter sitting off to the side. Glancing at it, I saw it was addressed to the film actor Viggo Mortensen, who’d recently starred in Lord of the Rings. Of course I had to read it.
Dear Viggo,
Like you, I too am a thespian, so this isn’t so much a fan letter as an epistolary salute from one colleague to another. When I first saw you in Indian Runner and later GI Jane, I felt an immediate connection . . .”
Under it I discovered more letters, addressed to other box office stars, including Noel Holden.
By the time Maggie returned, I had put the letters back in place, but her slightly paranoid mind immediately grasped that I had read them.
“I kind of have a correspondence with Viggo,” she said slowly and softly, “as well as several other actors I’ve met along the way.”
“Do any of them ever write you back?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But when everyone else forgets them, then they’ll write me back.”
After watching the crime scene all day, I let loose in class that night. I was trying to remain open to the mystical possibilities of Kundalini, but I was definitely getting a workout. Rolling my abs like a belly dancer I breathed deeply and audibly, sounding like an old vacuum cleaner. I went home bathed in sweat, showered, and prepared myself some dinner, tricolored bow ties in light pesto sauce, with a green salad. While I ate it, I watched a copumentary show called Case File, which I preferred to the usual TV cop shows because they covered actual cases.
Three deep low moans and one female gasp came through the wall Maggie’s apartment shared with mine.
When I heard her door open a while later, I couldn’t resist looking through my peephole at her latest lover. Some hottie I didn’t recognize. It was a good sign—reality was slowly weaning her away from her Hollywood fantasy lovers. Ten minutes passed, during which I could envision Maggie washing, dressing, and reapplying makeup—then came her knock at my door.
“So how’d your . . . date go?” I asked, pretending not to have heard a thing. It was like she was getting laid enough for the both of us.
“I hope I wasn’t . . . dating too loud.” Her face had a post-coital glow.
“Not at all.”
“That was Ricky.”
I remembered the name. He was a chiseled actor she’d met on the catering circuit, an itinerant bartender. According to Maggie, he wanted to have a relationship with her, but she’d politely told him this went against two of her cardinal rules: She didn’t date men who were younger than her, and she definitely didn’t date actors—unless they were stars. Fortunately, she found a loophole in her rules: she skipped the dating and just started having sex with him.
“How was your day?” she asked, grabbing my salad fork and picking just the red bow ties off the side of my plate.
“Want some?” I tried to sound sarcastic.
“No, I’m off food for good. Change the subject quick.” She kept downing my pasta.
“I guarded a murder scene today.”
“Re-e-e-ally?”
The last time I had guarded something it was a public school gym that doubled as a polling station.
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but the victim had her head lopped off, and her limbs were all taped together.”
“Oh God!” Maggie finally put down the fork.
“And guess who I almost ticketed!”
“Conan O’Brien?”
“Noel Holden.”
She froze in disbelief.
“And he was so sexy!”
“Please tell me it was for public urination!” She swore she once saw Richard Gere pee in public.
“Smoking inside DiCarlo’s.”
She asked me a zillion questions: What was he wearing? How tall was he? How much did he weigh? How did he smell?
“Was he with Venezia?”
“Later. She and Crispin Marachino picked him up.”
After five minutes of frantic chitchat, Maggie suddenly checked her watch. She had to see her favorite rope-a-dope reality show—A Most Singular Man. I wished her good night and she was gone.
