Читать книгу Night Kills - John Lutz - Страница 19

Pearl exhaled, inhaled, and said, “God, that was good!”

It was apparently what Milton Kahn wanted to hear. He turned back toward her on her perspiration-soaked mattress and nuzzled his head between her breasts. Kissed her precisely there, then kissed both nipples. Pearl wasn’t sure she was in love with this guy, but it wasn’t bad having him around.

Milt was, in a way, a gift from Pearl’s mother and her friend Mrs. Kahn at the Golden Sunset assisted-living apartments in Teaneck, a sort of arranged affair if not marriage. Mrs. Kahn was Milt’s aunt. Under duress, Pearl had agreed to meet the elderly women and Milt for lunch in Golden Sunset’s bleak dining room, and Pearl was surprised to find that she actually liked the guy. He was short, like she was, and good looking in a dark way, with a tiny imperial beard on the tip of his chin that tickled in the right places and made him look more like a magician or renowned psychiatrist than a struggling dermatologist.

Pearl discovered that he was a good conversationalist with a sense of humor, a funny guy for a dermatologist. After their second date, he’d removed some bumps from Pearl’s neck. She’d somehow found that very intimate. To Pearl’s mother’s delight, the spark had struck and now there was flame if not a raging inferno. Flame was better than nothing. It was cold out there.

Pearl sat up and used both hands to smooth back her hair so she wouldn’t look insane. She was aware of Milt watching her and smiling as she swiveled on the mattress. She felt his fingertips brush the curve of her right buttock.

“Got someplace to go?” he asked. He had a deep voice for a small man, husky. He wasn’t husky himself, but lean and muscular. Tan, with a lot of dark hair on his chest. Some hair—maybe too much—on his back.

“The shower,” Pearl said. “Gotta get outta here.”

“You live here,” Milt reminded her.

“But I don’t work here.”

He sighed. “Your job. Always your job.”

“You sound like a lot of cops’ wives.”

“Sexist thing to say.”

“And husbands,” Pearl amended. She stood up and padded barefoot across the bedroom toward the bathroom.

“You know you’re beautiful,” Milt said huskily behind her.

“Oh, sure.”

“And your job’s okay with me except for the danger.”

“Well, if I could be chief of police I would be.”

“This Torso Murders case you’re on, how do you know you won’t become one of the killer’s victims?”

She paused at the doorway and turned to face him. “That guy wants to stay as far away from me as possible, Milt.”

He was propped up on his elbows, grinning as he gave her an up-and-down glance. “Hard to believe.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s hard,” she said and continued her sleepy, sex-sated trek into the bathroom.

By the time she’d showered and dressed, her hair still glistening wet, he had toast, orange juice, and coffee waiting for her on the kitchen table. The toast was slightly burned, the way she liked it, and along with the freshly brewed coffee made the kitchen smell great. Milt was barefoot and bare chested, but he had his pants on and was actually wearing one of Pearl’s old aprons that she’d received as a gift from her mother. Pearl thought she’d thrown the thing away, but here it was in her kitchen on a man she’d just had sex with. Good sex. She’d never seen Quinn wearing an apron and couldn’t imagine it.

“Cops’ wives,” Pearl said. “They’re saints.”

“And cops’ husbands,” Milt added, as he sat across from her at the table.

Domesticity, Pearl thought. It can’t be beat. Until it beats you.

They were in Renz’s office at One Police Plaza. It didn’t look like a working cop’s office because it wasn’t. No clutter, no bulletin board with rosters and notices, no visible file cabinets. Harley Renz had risen way above all that and, like many before him, regarded the position of police commissioner as primarily political. Not surprising, as he’d gotten there more through politics than police work.

The office was carpeted in a deep maroon and had oak-paneled walls. Requisite trophy plaques, commendations, and photographs were arranged on the wall behind the desk. The desk itself was a vast slab of speckled dark granite. Whatever electronic equipment was in the room was concealed in a huge, many-doored oak hutch that almost perfectly matched the paneling. Two brown leather armchairs faced the desk. There was a small table with four chairs off to the side, for miniconferences, and what looked like an antique table with a cut-glass vase on it stuffed with colorful flowers.

Quinn guessed that fresh flowers were brought in every day. Harley Renz, bureaucratic climber, living the high life. Wanting to climb still higher. Quinn had heard that cockroaches did that, inexorably climbed upward in a building. He wondered what they did when they reached the roof.

Along with Quinn and his team, Helen the profiler was there. She was wearing a green blazer and gray slacks, with high heels that made her even taller than her six feet plus.

Pearl had on a lightweight navy blue business suit that made her features and hair appear darker. She looked vital and alive this morning, Quinn thought. Healthy and glowing in a way that was wholesome and beautiful. Health had a lot to do with sex appeal, Quinn was beginning to realize.

She caught him looking at her and he looked away. At the same time, he was sure she’d abruptly looked away from him.

Renz pulled a City Beat from somewhere below his desk and laid it on a granite corner. “Cindy Sellers is asking why the killer doesn’t conceal the entire body. Why leave the untraceable torsos where they’ll surely be found.”

“We’ve been wondering the same thing,” Quinn said.

Renz glanced over at Helen, who’d moved to stand in front of the office’s window. It was her time to speak. It occurred to Quinn that she liked to stand in front of windows, maybe so she appeared in silhouette.

“That would be why I’m here,” Helen said in her Lauren Bacall voice. She even looked a little like a young Bacall, only much taller and more athletic. “The killer’s actions suggest that the torsos are part of his ruling compulsion and megalomania. He has to brag about what he’s done. He must make sure that someone knows a murder’s been committed, and that he’s gotten away with it.”

“By someone you mean the police?” Fedderman asked, from where he sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair near the table with the floral arrangement.

“Definitely. But the public, too. The torsos are his public souvenirs that he’s sharing with them.”

“Generous,” Fedderman said.

Helen might have smiled. It was hard to know from her silhouette. “They’re also a way of taunting the police and terrorizing the city.”

Quinn was long familiar with the games serial killers played, and he wasn’t convinced. “Isn’t it possible the killer makes sure his victims’ remains are anonymous simply to hinder the investigation into their deaths?”

“Quinn’s right. I can buy into that part,” Pearl said, before Helen could answer. “And to taunt us.” She shook her head. “The rest, the souvenir business, I’m not so sure. Some serial killers like to keep souvenirs of their victims—a lock of hair, that sort of thing—but they don’t generally want to share them with the public or anyone else. They want to keep them where they can look at them from time to time, like all collectors.”

“True,” Helen said. “They like to relive their conquests. It gives them a feeling of power and importance.”

Quinn shifted in the soft leather chair nearest Renz’s flight deck–sized desk and crossed his arms. “None of this is for sure.”

“Agreed,” Helen said. “Like you, I don’t have much to work with.”

“We do know for sure he’s one sick puppy,” Fedderman said.

“The stakes, or whatever he uses to penetrate his victims,” Pearl said.

“After they’re dead,” Renz reminded them. He looked inquisitively at Helen. “Why after they’re dead?”

“As of now, I don’t know,” Helen said.

“A necrophiliac who can’t get it up,” Fedderman suggested.

Helen shrugged. “Good a guess as any.”

Some profiler, Quinn thought. An honest one. “Truth is, this guy’s got us operating pretty much in the dark.”

“We can deduce from that that he’s smart,” Helen said sarcastically.

“Now you’re cookin’,” Renz said.

The poised silhouette that was Helen seemed unmoved by his return sarcasm.

Quinn wanted to stop them before a volley of sarcasm got going that might lead to a real argument.

The phone beat him to it. He hadn’t even seen the phone; it was concealed in a sunken alcove on the far side of the desk. It had a soft, controlled ring that wasn’t a ring at all. It sounded more like a repetitive, soothing note of a violin about to begin a gentle melody.

As Renz lifted a dark plastic receiver that matched the desk, he looked annoyed that they should be disturbed. Almost immediately, his expression became serious. “Yes. Yes,” he said. He produced a notepad from the sunken alcove. “Christ!” he said, looking in turn at everyone in the office. He might have been identifying the caller, judging by the somber, dazed expression on his bloodhound features.

He switched the phone to his left hand so he could write on the notepad. He kept saying yes intermittently while scribbling with his pen. Finally, he thanked the caller and hung up.

He sat for a minute running his fingertips along the loose flesh of his sagging cheeks. It stretched the skin around his eyes downward and made him look even more like some upright breed of hound.

“We’ve got us another torso,” he said. “Found alongside a Dumpster on the Upper West Side.”

“Maybe a match for our arm,” Fedderman said.

Renz shook his head no. “This one’s too fresh. Killed within the last few days.”

Pearl, who’d been leaning back so only her chair’s back legs were on the floor, realized the import of Renz’s words. She sat forward so the chair’s front legs made a soft thump on the thick pile carpet.

“Victim number four,” she said.

Renz was staring down at the folded City Beat on his desk. “I guess I oughta call Cindy Sellers.” He looked at Quinn as if for help. “The woman’s become one big pain in the ass.”

Quinn shrugged. “You’re the one who made the deal with the devil.”

“I do it all the time,” Renz said. “Usually it works out okay.”

He shoved his notepad forward so Quinn could copy the information on his own.

“I need you to find this bastard, Quinn.”

Quinn didn’t think that required a reply and kept on silently writing.

They left Renz in his office to go to the West Side address where the torso had been found. Left him in the suddenly smaller room with his plaques and commendations and ego-inflating framed photographs.

Right now, it wasn’t a comfortable place for him.