Читать книгу Night Kills - John Lutz - Страница 11

The present

Cindy Sellers sat alone at a corner table in P.J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street. Around her were muted voices, the occasional clink of flatware on china, and laughter from the adjoining bar. The mingled scents of spices hung in the air.

The restaurant part of the venerable tavern was dim, with dark wood paneling, and there was something about the young woman seated in isolation before her bowl of stew and a Guinness that discouraged any of the rogues and business types at the bar or some of the other tables from approaching her. She was reasonably attractive, with inquisitive large brown eyes, short brown hair, and a trim figure, but there was an intensity about her that sometimes drove people away. She was very good at going after those people, overcoming their reluctance, and getting them to talk about matters they wouldn’t have dreamed of telling anyone else.

It was still too early for the dinner crowd, and the place was quiet enough for her to think, which was why she’d come here. Before her on the table were her notes on what she’d chosen to call the Torso Murders, as well as a revised draft of what would be her story.

And a hell of a story it was. The time was near when she’d no longer feel obligated to keep it all off the record, as she’d promised Renz.

In fact, maybe the time was here.

Cindy took a sip of Guinness and allowed that the public had a right to know if a sadistic killer was in its midst and might kill again. It was, in fact, her professional obligation to inform the people, as long as it would sell papers and advance her journalism career. But Renz was police commissioner now, not just another workaday cop with rank, and he was riding a political high. Of course, he didn’t know that he wasn’t her only source, and that she was aware he’d called in retired homicide captain Frank Quinn, along with his detective team, that pushy bitch Pearl and the hapless but occasionally shrewd Fedderman, to work the case. There were people in the NYPD hierarchy who didn’t like the prospect of semioutsiders covering themselves and Renz with glory so Renz could advance to an even higher office. These dissatisfied cops were people Cindy Sellers could and did use.

Certainly Renz wouldn’t like it if the quasi-official presence of Quinn and his team was revealed too soon. On the other hand, he knew they’d be media subjects sooner or later—that was even the idea. They were, after all, part of Renz’s team—working for him in particular as well as for the city. And Renz wouldn’t be shocked by the fact that the NYPD had more than one leak.

Still, he was the commissioner. Cindy understood and respected power. She would give it its due, up to a point.

She took a long pull of Guinness and fished her cell phone from her purse on the chair beside her. Renz’s direct number was on her speed dial.

No answer.

She tried his cell phone.

Apparently it was turned off.

Cindy dialed the general number of the Puzzle Palace, her term for One Police Plaza, and was politely put on ignore. She sighed and drummed her fingers. Waiting patiently for anything wasn’t in Cindy’s nature.

Hell with him, she thought, cutting the connection. She’d tried to give him a heads-up before releasing the story every other media outlet in the city probably knew about anyway but couldn’t confirm. The clock was ticking and she’d done what she could.

Cindy had been here before and knew how it worked. When City Beat hit the newsstands and vending machines tomorrow morning, the hounds would be loosed. Renz as well as the killer would have to play the fox. Quinn and his detectives would occupy the area between hounds and foxes, perilous ground.

Keyed up as she was with anticipation, Cindy wasn’t hungry. She took another long sip of Guinness and pushed aside her barely touched bowl of stew. Placing her half-rim reading glasses low on the bridge of her nose, she arranged the draft of her story—which was jotted down in her own custom shorthand that only she could read—before her on the table. Then she flicked down the menu on her cell phone and pressed the button that dialed her editor at City Beat.

“Are you sitting down?” she asked when he picked up.

Without waiting for an answer, she told him what she had and began reading aloud into the phone, but not so loud that anyone in the restaurant might overhear.

Just as she’d thought, he loved it.

By the time she flipped down the lid of her phone, Cindy’s appetite had magically returned. She pulled the still-warm bowl of stew back close to her from across the table and ordered another Guinness.

He’d sawn the broomstick in half. Now he finished sharpening one end and began the sanding. He enjoyed this part. He would use increasingly more finely grained sandpaper as he shaped the end into a gradually tapered fine point.

For almost an hour he sanded, idly watching television as he worked. An old spaghetti Western starring Clint Eastwood was playing. The TV was on mute, so he could only read Eastwood’s taut dialogue in closed caption at the bottom of the screen. That was okay. He’d seen the movie half a dozen times and could practically fill in the dialogue himself. The rhythmic sound of the sandpaper on wood was soothing as he felt the tapering broomstick take shape in his hands.

Finally, when his hands and forearms began to ache from the effort, he set the broomstick and sandpaper aside. He ran a finger along the shaft of the broomstick, all the way to its point. The wood was smooth now and would require only about an hour’s more sanding with the finely grained paper. Then he would go over it with tack cloth, and later he’d apply a good oil and rub it in well. Not too much oil. He wanted the sharpened broomstick smooth, but not too smooth. Feeling the resistance, that was part of it.

It wasn’t supposed to excite him; that hadn’t been part of the plan. But it did. There was no denying it. And it made him wonder, did they have to be dead?

His throat was tight. He swallowed.

Amazing, he thought, the things you discovered about yourself. It was his job that kept opening doors in his mind. He was so good at what he did, sometimes it scared him.

Eastwood chewed on his stubby cigar and squinted at him from the TV screen.

Eastwood, or at least the characters he usually played in his movies, wouldn’t approve of him. But when the actor was younger, he might well have been handed altogether different kinds of scripts and would now be seen in an altogether different light. The man was an actor; his public image and probably his personal image had been shaped by the scripts he was given, written by someone he might never have met. In a way, we were all in the movies, whether we knew it or not.

He smiled at Eastwood, then went over to an antique rolltop desk and removed a drawer. Reaching into the cavity left by the missing drawer, he worked a wooden lever that opened a secret compartment in the side of the desk. From the compartment he withdrew a gray metal lockbox with the key in it. He turned the key, opened the lid, and reached in and got out a small Colt semiautomatic, holding the gun by its checked handle. It fired hollow-point twenty-two-caliber bullets and made little more noise than a loud slap. Not a powerful weapon, but the hollow points would penetrate a human being and break into pieces that would rip and tumble through bone and tissue and cause a great deal of localized damage. One careful shot to the heart was enough to bring someone down. If the wound itself wasn’t sufficient to kill, the person would lie there in shock. And while the person lay stunned and disbelieving, almost certainly dying, two shots to the head would be enough to make sure. That’s what the little Colt was—sure. He had a fondness for the gun.

He glanced at the silent TV screen. Eastwood was on a horse now, raising a lot of dust while galloping hell for leather over terrain that looked like Arizona but was probably in Italy.

What must that be like, flying across a purpling plain on a white and brown speckled horse? It must really impress the ladies. The ones in Rome and Milan, anyway.

He’d heard or read somewhere that Eastwood bought his cigars in a shop in Beverly Hills and cut them in half for his movie scenes. So much in life was an act.

Ignoring the TV, he removed a cleaning kit and some gun oil from the metal lockbox, along with a soft white cotton cloth.

He was about to clean and oil the gun when his cell phone, on top of the rolltop desk, played the first few bars of “Get Me to the Church on Time.”

He glanced at the Caller ID before answering the phone. “I was hoping you’d call,” he said, smiling.

A pause.

“Yes,” he said, still smiling. “Of course. Of course. Yes. Yes. You know I do. Yes.”

He put down the gun and wandered the room as he talked, as if motion would lend import to his words. Whoever was on the other end of the connection was receiving his full attention.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll see you there. You can’t know how much I’m looking forward to it.” He idly picked up the broomstick and observed its sharpened point as he listened to the caller.

“See you there,” he said again. “Love you.”