Текст книги "Slaughter"

Автор книги: John Lutz

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

28

Iowa, 1998

For the next several years, after his family’s destruction, Jordan stayed with the Millman family, who had a farm a mile west of the Krays’ house that had burned.

He went to school on the yellow bus as before, but the other kids tended not to talk to him. No one made fun of him; they simply didn’t seem to know quite what to make of him. A kid like Jordan, their classmate, an actual hero. Nobody knew how to approach or talk to him. A kid who in truth had been thought of as something of a dork had miraculously become “awesome.”

Jordan enjoyed his celebrity status—at least some of it. But after a while he became withdrawn and quiet. He would look around the bus sometimes at his schoolmates and wonder how something that had nothing directly to do with their lives could strike them as so great a tragedy that they seldom knew what to say to him. He thought it shouldn’t be such a problem. Even the nitwits they saw on TV news were always yammering about “getting on with” their lives.

The Millmans were a nice enough family. The father, Will, had died three years ago in an auto accident. His wife, only slightly injured, became “The Widow Julia.” Their son Bill, also injured, was a little younger than Jordan. He seemed to look up to Jordan, who, while older, was considerably smaller.

At times Bill would follow Jordan to the burned, partially collapsed hulk of what had been the Krays’ home. The burned smell was still strong, but Jordan was used to it and didn’t mind. He would stand at the edge of the ruin and point things out to Bill. Teacher-to-student mode: “See how the kitchen floor caved in first? That’s because the appliances were so heavy. And the fire almost melted part of the house’s main beam, running the length of the structure. That’s a steel I beam that held up the entire weight of the house,” Jordan told Bill, “but look how it’s bent. Like it’s squishy rubber instead of steel. See over there, where the electrical service was run in and mounted on that wall? That metal box hanging on the wall is full of circuit breakers.”

While Jordan talked, Bill listened carefully about electric current and circuit breakers. Then they covered the subject of smoke alarms. What kinds there were and how sometimes they worked but sometimes didn’t. Jordan explained about the sprinkler system, and how it was kept dry by air pressure unless one piece of metal melted faster than another, which completed a circuit and triggered an alarm and an indoor cloudburst.

Bill Millman thought that if someone walked in or listened to them, it would sound as if Jordan was trying to sell him the ruined house.

What Jordan never talked about was the short time he’d spent after entering the burning house. Before the propane explosion.

Jordan had learned a great deal observing the fire that morning, not the least of which was how a burned body looked. Kent, he thought.

Jordan only had to move a few feet to find what must be his mother’s body. Interesting how the blackened corpse might have worked when alive, the bone and muscle and tendon receiving instructions from the brain. Human bodies were simply large gadgets, Jordan realized. Parts working in conjunction with each other.

How fascinating.

Especially women’s parts.

The widow Julia liked to cook. Bill and Jordan liked to eat. Bill became tall and lean, an outfielder on the school baseball team. He was disciplined for using the janitor’s tools to peel a baseball like an onion, unwinding what was inside. He never told anyone that Jordan had ruined the baseball, curious about how and why it behaved as it did when it met the bat.

The two boys grew apart. Bill became immersed in baseball, and Jordan, more and move aloof, discovered reading. It was rumored that the Cincinnati Reds were going to send a scout to assess Bill’s talent. Bill shagged fly balls and spent extra hours in the batting cage, but the scout never showed up.

Toward the end of that season, a batted ball shattered Bill’s kneecap. He managed to adapt well to an artificial knee, but that was the end of baseball or any other active sport.

Bill did, however, learn to walk with the knee so well that unless you knew about the injury, you’d think it was just fine.

Then Bill got into the habit of spending time in the park, hitting fly balls to slightly younger, more nimble outfielders. Now and then Bill would even break into a run to field a ball that was thrown back in.

Not a long run, but it was amazing the way Bill could get around with the man-made knee.

Jordan sometimes watched from the shadows on summer nights when Bill would sit with the widow Julia in the porch glider. With every gentle rock the glider would squeal as if in ecstasy. Jordan mentioned a few times that it would be no trouble to oil the glider’s steel rockers. A couple of drops would do the trick. But Bill told him to leave them alone, he kind of liked the sound. He told Jordan it was more pleasant to listen to than the crickets. Jordan wondered if Bill had ever taken apart a cricket.

Jordan took to playing solitaire by the light of a yellow bulb, while Bill and the widow Julia rocked. Occasionally Bill would get up and go inside to the kitchen to get a couple of Budweiser beers and bring them outside. He never brought a bottle out for Jordan.

Jordan got into the habit of ignoring the squeaking sound of the glider. But when the squeaking stopped, he would wait to watch Bill clomp across the porch, then with the slam of the screen door reappear a few minutes later with the two bottles of beer.

Then one warm night the squeaking stopped. The boots clomped across the dark porch, and there were lighter, trailing footfalls.

Then the night was quiet except for insect noises.

That night the screen door never slammed, and the glider didn’t resume its squealing.

Early the next morning, routine set in again. It was the weekend, and Jordan and Bill had turnips to harvest before the sun got high.

The widow Julia gave little indication that last night had been different for her and Bill. But occasionally their eyes would meet, then quickly look away. There were small, sly smiles.

When the turnip harvesting was done, Julia put biscuits in the oven, brewed a pot of coffee, and scrambled some eggs. Everyone behaved in precariously normal fashion. Jordan sat back in his spoked wooden chair and watched Julia move about the kitchen. She was barefoot and wearing a faded blue robe with its sash pulled tight around her narrow waist. Something about her feet with their painted red nails held his attention.

Jordan and Bill both watched as she bent low with her knees locked to check the biscuits she’d placed in the oven.

Bill shoved his chair back and stood up to help Julia. It didn’t look as if it hurt him to stand, but it was obvious he was slowed down.

He stretched and got some mugs and plates down from a cabinet, and Jordan observed how well he moved without his cane. Jordan didn’t know what artificial knees were made of—some kind of composite material, he imagined. The human knee was complicated. There must be lots of moving parts.

Jordan wondered how they worked.

29

New York, the present

The concrete saw roared and screamed simultaneously. Dan Snyder, who’d been a worker for SBL Property Management for fifteen years, knew how to use the earsplitting tool to section off concrete better than anyone at SBL. He kept a deceptively loose grip on the saw, using its weight to maintain stability, his arms to guide rather than apply pressure. Let the saw do most of the work.

He’d learned to ignore the noise.

Snyder knew some older workers at SBL whose hearing had been affected by the noises of destruction and construction. He did wear earplugs, though he didn’t think they’d make much difference. Already he was asking people to repeat themselves. He was particularly deaf at parties, or wherever a crowd gathered.

Letting people know your hearing was fading wasn’t the best way to stay employed by SBL Properties. Snyder was faking understanding more and more. Definitely there were safety issues, but dealing with them was better than unemployment.

Snyder was a big man who, when working, wore wifebeater shirts to show off his muscles, not because of an ego thing, but so he would continue to look physically competent well into his forties. Fifties, in his line of work, might be too much to expect.

He enjoyed working hard, creating change. Like here at the Taggart Building. It remained mostly offices, with retail at first-floor and lobby levels. The arched entrance had been redesigned and would be decorated with inlaid marble. Wide, shallow steps would ascend on a graceful curve, leading to the lobby entrance. What wouldn’t be darkly tinted glass in the entrance would be veined marble.

That was what Snyder was working on now, removing concrete that would be replaced by marble. The experts who would install the decorative marble were craftsmen of a different sort, using mallets and chisels. Their art was woven in with history. They cut stone with an eye to infinity.

SBL didn’t build or rehab structures that wouldn’t last. Most of the work Snyder had been doing for the past fifteen years was still around, and visible, if you knew where to look.

The Taggart Building was projected to be one of the tallest structures on Manhattan’s West Side. Right now it wasn’t all that impressive. It was stripped of most of its outer shell, and its extended skeletal presence was already taller than most buildings on the block. That basic framework would be strengthened and built upon, and within weeks a bold brick and stone structure would take form.

At present, the only thing taller in this part of town was the steel crane looming twenty feet above the Taggart Building’s thirty-fifth floor. That would soon change.

Over the years, Snyder had developed a proprietary attitude toward New York. His city. It didn’t hurt, either, to trade remarks with passing women, unless Snyder’s wife, Claudia, somehow found out about it.

Claudia never actually snooped. At least, Snyder didn’t think so. He’d never caught her at it, and he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Yet she had a way of somehow knowing things.

Maybe that was the reason why she’d been so uneasy this morning. She’d had a premonition, she said, and she’d asked Snyder to be particularly careful today.

Snyder dutifully told her he’d be more careful than usual, and kissed her good-bye.

In truth he wasn’t much for premonitions, but women did sometimes seem to have some mysterious source of information. On average, they found out things well before men did. It was as if they had their own secret Internet.

In this crazy world, it was possible.

Seated in a booth in their favorite diner, Quinn and Pearl were enjoying breakfast—eggs Benedict for her, over hard with hash for him—when Quinn’s cell phone chimed. He wrestled the phone out of his pants pocket and saw that the caller was Renz.

“It’s Renz,” he mouthed to Pearl, just before accepting the call. Then, “Morning, Harley.”

“You anywhere near a TV?” Renz asked.

“We’re having breakfast at the White Flame over on Broadway.”

“The place with the great blintzes?”

“I thought that was something the German army did,” Quinn said. “But this place has got a TV behind the counter. It’s showing Martha Stewart reruns right now.”

“Have them put it on New York One,” Renz said.

Quinn glanced at his watch. Oh no! “Minnie Miner?”

“ASAP,” Renz said. “You know the media types. They have to be fed if you want to keep them on your side. Newshounds like Minnie Miner need meat thrown to them now and then, so they can have a bone to gnaw on. Keeps them happy and quiet for a while.”

As soon as he broke the connection with Renz, Quinn asked Ozzie the counterman if he minded tuning the TV to Minnie Miner ASAP.

“This is part of your work?” Ozzie asked. He was an athletically built black man who strongly resembled the former Cardinals baseball shortstop genius, the real Ozzie Smith. His legal name was Ozzie Graves, but that wasn’t very glamorous, and when some gullible customer thought Ozzie behind the counter was the genuine Ozzie, who could play baseball and do backflips, all at the same time, Ozzie Graves simply rolled with it.

“Why do you ask?” Quinn said.

“We ain’t got a lot of Minnie Miner fans here,” Ozzie said.

“Subject them to her for a little while,” Quinn said, “or I’ll tell everyone your real name.”

Ozzie went “Ummm,” which he always did when he was thinking.

“This about those murdered women and that Gremlin nutcase?” he asked.

“We’re trying to find that out,” Quinn said.

“Okay, then. Long as you let me autograph some baseballs. I can sign them Ossie Snith—keep it legal.”

“Of course, as long as the photos are genuine.”

“Today we’re going to interview a real serial killer,” Minnie Miner was saying on television. “He might be able to shed some light on this subject—if he wants to, of course. We don’t twist arms on this show—that’s how we get so many interesting guests and—hopefully—we learn something.” She glanced at the simple set. Two green easy chairs flanked a small table with a stack of half a dozen books on it. There was a low coffee table in front of the sofa. It could be reached by all the guests. The cordless phone was on the table between the chairs. There was a worn, trashy look to some of the set, though it all came across nicely on TV.

The Minnie Miner ASAP news show was actually mostly a call-in radio show, but plenty of interesting guests had learned of it by first watching it on television. Minnie always had a phone number and e-mail address superimposed on the bottom of the screen. The Gremlin had at first vowed only to talk on the phone, but the lure of TV, of all those eyeballs trained on you, was for many almost irresistible.

Not yet, the Gremlin told himself. When the time came, there would be plenty of cameras aimed at him.

Almost, but not quite yet.

Minnie was standing by the table when the phone made a weird swishing sound, like a sword or large knife splitting the air. She grinned—an attractive black woman with mischievous eyes, a great shape, and a big smile—and raised her forefinger to her pursed lips in a request for silence.

And the audience was silent.

The phone made the weird sound again. She looked at the audience, gave them an even bigger smile, and lifted the receiver with both anxious hands.

Smiling yet wider, the phone pressed to her ear, she nodded over and over, as if trying to shake off her smile.

This was great. This was wonderful! She mouthed the word “Gremlin” several times, her sparkling dark eyes scanning the audience, then spoke into the receiver, as obsequious and happy as if she’d gotten an interview with the Queen of England.

She was talking to a killer.

30

Quinn, watching Minnie Miner ASAP, was amazed by the smattering of applause from the studio audience as Minnie introduced the killer, referring to him simply as “the Gremlin.” That’s what Minnie’s audience was trained to do, so it was automatic even though the applause sign didn’t light up.

Minnie, wearing a mauve pants suit and with her hair slicked back, looked dignified and important. She was seated in her usual armchair she used when interviewing guests. In the matching armchair sat a black cardboard cutout of a man with an oval head and no features.

“First of all,” Minnie said into her handheld microphone, “I’m glad you had the courage to call.”

“Let’s not waste time talking about that.”

“Do you object to me referring to you that way—the Gremlin?”

“If you can hear a shrug on the phone, you just did,” the Gremlin said. His voice was male and strong, not what one might expect from a man described as resembling a destructive elf or leprechaun.

“And why did you want to talk with me, personally, rather than another journalist?”

“I’m interested in reaching your audience through you.”

“And the reason for that?”

“I don’t mind tales being told about me, as long as they’re based at least in part on the truth.”

“Do you think lies have been told?”

“You might call them selective editing. I call them lies.”

“Such as?” Minnie asked. She looked knowingly at the cardboard cutout, then at the audience. They were all going to get a glimpse into the hell that was the killer’s mind. This was journalism at its best.

“That I’m angry, violent, and vicious,” the Gremlin said, “and trying to get back at someone. Or that I’m on some kind of crusade. Or that I’m seriously mentally unbalanced.”

“Are you saying you’re none of those things?”

For several seconds there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Then what might have been a whimper. “I’m wondering how you get into the club they call the human race.”

Minnie looked wonderingly at her studio audience. “Is that what this is about? Are we going to hear about an unhappy childhood? Because that’s what all killers say.” Suddenly Minnie was angry. “Because if that’s it, we—that’s me and my audience and the huge audience out there—aren’t buying any of those bananas.”

“I’m not selling bananas. Or anything else. I’m just looking for the truth. For someone who won’t lie to me.”

“Well. You found her. The language spoken here is the liberating, sometimes uncomfortable truth.”

“It wasn’t my fault those people died.”

“Which people?”

“The women who rejected me. The men who betrayed me.”

“Did you even know those people?”

“I knew all of them, because they’re all the same.”

“Like the people in the fire, and in the elevator?”

“All the same.”

“But why did you kill them?”

“So I might better understand them.”

“Are you saying that’s why you killed all those people in the elevator—so you could better understand them?”

“Not the people. The elevator.” Another pause. “The people, too, though.”

Minnie locked gazes with the audience, made a face, shook her head. “That’s so . . . sick.”

“You shouldn’t say those things about me.”

“I promised I’d tell you the truth.”

“That didn’t mean anything.”

“It most certainly did.”

“How do you make your living?” Minnie asked. “Do you have a job?”

“Of course I do. Robbing from the rich and giving to myself. And I enjoy the agony and acquiescence my profession entails.”

“Robbing the dead. You must know how perverse that is. You need help.”

“You mean someone to hold their finger on the knots while I pull them tight?”

“I can give you some names and phone numbers,” Minnie said.

“I can’t trust you.”

“You can, you can.”

“Are you trying to keep me on the line long enough so the police can trace my call?”

“Of course not.”

“See?”

Quinn heard the click as the killer hung up, then watched Minnie do the same.

Ten minutes later, Renz called. “It was a drugstore throwaway phone,” he told Quinn. “The call originated someplace in midtown west of Broadway. Even if we could find the phone, or what’s left of it after it’s been stomped on, it wouldn’t help us.”

“We can’t be sure of that.”

“Sure we can,” Renz said. “I can tell stories two different ways, then later on I can take my pick. Fall back on the one that’s the best fit. No one remembers what other people say, anyway.”

“Cops do,” Quinn said.

“Not if they don’t remember they’ve forgotten something.”

Quinn said, “I’ll grant you that. And they—we—also overlook things.”

“Not us. Not cops.”

“Even cops.”

“But how would we know?”

“We’d find out,” Quinn said. “Eventually.”

31

Betty Lincoln and Macy Adams looked like Broadway dancers. Both of them, from time to time, had come close. They were wearing tight designer jeans, pullover tops, and flat-soled, comfortable-looking shoes. Not shoes to dance in, but to give their feet a rest. Betty and Macy waited patiently for their shrimp salads and iced tea. Each woman was small, with a tight body, flat abdomen, large muscular buttocks and calves. Betty was blond and had a turned-up nose. Macy had dark hair and a Mediterranean profile. They moved with a kind of grace and power that drew the eye, even when they simply crossed the Liner Diner to the booths beyond the counter.

Sitting toward the back of the diner suited them. There were windows there, and they didn’t have complete privacy, but it would do. Students from the nearby Theatre Arts Academy hung out at the Liner Diner, and neither Betty or Macy wanted to be seen. Especially Macy. Betty had made the second cattle call. Macy knew by the casting director’s piercing look that she wasn’t going to make it.

They would find out officially after lunch.

Two other dancers, and Darby Keen, hot new star out of the TV world, walked up and stood outside talking, near the front window of the diner. Betty and Macy sat still, unnoticed, while the other two dancers entered and found a booth near the entrance, to the side and out of sight and earshot.

“At least we won’t have to listen to Keen brag about himself,” Macy said.

Betty didn’t comment. She thought Darby Keen was a beautiful piece of work. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t dance. But what the hell, he was a draw. And more than once, when she was onstage with the other dancers, he’d given her a certain look.

“What do you think of the playwright?” Macy asked.

The writer of Other People’s Honey, Seth Mander, was still in his thirties, tall and blond, with sloe blue eyes that turned Betty on. Betty thought she and Seth would make a good pair. Even if he was part of the process that might deny her the job, she was still prepared to like him.

Perhaps more than like him.

“Betty?”

“Seth is beyond cute.”

“And talented,” Macy said. “Other People’s Honey is a seriously good play.”

“With lousy choreography.”

“You noticed?”

“It’ll sprain or break a few ankles,” Betty said.

Both women laughed.

Then Macy felt suddenly glum. She’d be glad to risk a sprain, if only her luck would change and she could be a member of the cast that was shaping up for Other People’s Honey. Nobody really knew where hit musicals came from—they either did or didn’t have the magic. It looked, sounded, felt like Other People’s Honey was going to be a hit.

But Macy knew it wasn’t going to happen for her. Not this time, and maybe never. Enough rejection taught you how to recognize it when it was still on the way. She could see it in the posture and faces of the ones who were judging hopefuls for Other People’s Honey. The money gods who held fate in their hands. Macy, in her heart, was already defeated. All that was needed was for it to be made official.

Macy wanted to know, wanted the suspense to end. Or was not knowing a kind of masochistic pleasure? After all, if you didn’t know you were a failure, it wasn’t yet an established fact in the minds of others.

And in your own mind.

The verdict would be suspended for another hour or more, after the tryouts for voice. Macy didn’t worry about that. She didn’t even pretend to be able to sing. She was a dancer, and not just a chorus line dancer. She knew she was unique, and could carry a show.

Yet something in her doubted, and it seemed impossible to change that.

She knew what she needed. A new love. And luck with a new luster. The first would be easier than the last. She could fall in love—or something like love—easier than she should.

There was a flurry of activity up near the front of the diner. The background traffic noise was louder, then softer. Someone had entered. Others had stood up.

Darby Keen, sleek and muscular in jeans and a T-shirt (he certainly looked like he could dance), entered the diner. And right behind him, Seth Mander, his straight blond hair mussed by the breeze and dangling over one eye. He was wearing dress slacks, loosened tie, and scuffed moccasins. Betty stared at him, transfixed.

Hands were shaken, backs were slapped. The dancers in the front booth were standing up. Everyone was standing. Some were congratulating themselves.

“They’ve seen us,” Macy said.

Betty forced herself to raise her head and look.

My God! They’re coming back here!