Chill of Night

63

“He wants more than ever to be caught,” Helen said.

She was standing near the photo of a discredited former police commissioner who’d displayed no such compulsion. But then, he hadn’t been a mass murderer. Something of a hero, in fact. Justice did have a way of catching up with the most wily.

They were in da Vinci’s office. It was too warm, and there was an unpleasant hint of stale sweat and desperation in the air, the kind of atmosphere Beam usually associated with interrogation rooms. Da Vinci was seated behind his desk. Beam and Nell were in the padded chairs angled toward the desk, Looper was standing near Helen, playing with the button on his shirt pocket that might have held a pack of cigarettes.

“You told us last week he was coming unraveled,” da Vinci said to Helen, “yet he managed to outsmart us and get to Knee High.”

“God rest his little soul,” Nell said sarcastically.

Da Vinci glared at her. “Not friggin’ funny, Nell.”

Nell nodded. Da Vinci was right, even though he was the boss.

“He’ll have to kill again soon,” Helen said. “He’s hooked on it. He’ll need it more and more often.”

Da Vinci wiped his face with an invisible rag and looked pained. “Coming undone, hooked on killing, feeling the pressure. You’ve been pretty much right all the way down the line, Helen, but that’s not the picture I’m getting of this guy. He kills only those he considers to be the bad guys, who for one reason or another beat the system, or helped someone beat it.”

“There’s an endless supply of those,” Beam pointed out.

“He can kill as often or seldom as he chooses,” Helen said. “And he no longer feels he’s simply meting out justice. Whether he knows it consciously or not, he kills to avenge imagined wrongs, but he also kills for pleasure.”

“Sexual pleasure,” Looper said. “Like all the rest of his kind.”

“Uh-huh,” Helen said. “It’s a turn on for him, and he’s reached the point where he has to admit it to himself.”

“What we need from you,” Beam told her, “is a good guess at who might be the next victim.”

Helen looked thoughtful, crossing her arms beneath her tiny, tall-woman’s breasts and staring at the floor. “The more unraveled our guy becomes, the more difficult it is to predict his next intended victim. Self-revelation can be an agonizing, ongoing event. He’s in the stage where his own perverted logic is seriously breaking down as he’s developing a different, undeniable concept of himself. One he doesn’t like. That’s why he might make a mistake.”

“Do you figure him to go after a high-profile victim?” Looper asked.

“Could be,” Helen said. “He thinks he has an adoring public to play to.”

“He does,” da Vinci said. “Read the editorial page in this morning’s Times. Fifty-six percent of their readers view the Justice Killer as a hero. Seventy percent want Adelaide Starr released.”

“Do they want more courts, better staffed, and with more judges?” Beam asked.

“Wasn’t in the poll.”

“What did they think of the NYPD?”

“Don’t ask.”

“It’s a thankless job,” Looper said.

Everyone stared at him.

“I wish I had a cigarette,” he said.

“Another thing that’s coming up empty,” da Vinci said, “is trying to trace that cop costume.”

“It’s only been four days,” Beam said. “We’ve covered most of the costume rental shops. Now we’re checking S amp;M suppliers.”

“Huh?”

“Sado-masochism,” Looper explained, still playing with his pocket.

“Cop uniforms are sometimes used in…sexual psychodramas,” Nell said.

Da Vinci stared at her. “How would you know this shit, Nell?”

“I read.”

“We all read,” Looper said.

Nell shot him a look. Thanks.

“The other possibility,” Helen said, “is that the uniform’s genuine, and the Justice Killer is a cop.”

“Just what every cop on the force dreads,” Beam said. He turned to Helen. “A bent cop? Does it fit your theory?”

“It could. Lots of frustration goes with the job.”

“Tell me about it,” Looper said.

“The revolving door of crime and courtroom,” da Vinci said. “Sometimes it makes me wanna kill somebody myself, but I can’t see a real cop doing this.”

“It isn’t likely,” Beam said, “but eventually we might have to focus on the possibility.”

“Hell to pay in the department,” da Vinci said.

“Other things might turn up in that kind of internal investigation, derail a lot of promising careers.”

“We’ve both seen it happen,” da Vinci said. He sat forward in his chair. “But we’re not to that stage yet, and we’re gonna nail this Justice Killer prick before we start pointing fingers at each other. When that kinda thing starts happening, nobody wins.”

“Adelaide Starr does,” Helen said.

Da Vinci clutched his throat as if he might be having trouble breathing. “Stay on the costume thing,” he said to Beam in a choked voice. “Make it a goddamned costume and not a real police uniform.”

“We’ve still got plenty of places to check,” Looper said.

Da Vinci nodded. “Yeah, I know. S amp;M suppliers.”

Nell said. “There’s another possibility.” She found herself actually feeling sorry for da Vinci, who’d staked his career on this investigation. He was looking at her like a dog that had just been whipped and then offered a treat.

“There is?”

“Theatrical suppliers,” Nell said.

Da Vinci had been expecting more. He slumped back in his chair, uncheered by Nell’s note of hope.

“That it?” Beam asked da Vinci, wanting to get to work.

“It,” da Vinci said. Under his breath, he muttered, “Theatrical suppliers…”

As they were filing out of his office, he added, “Break a leg.”

“Those the only cop costumes?” Nell asked.

The man behind the counter in Ruff Play, in the East Village, said, “The ones for women come with high-heeled boots.”

“Sure,” Nell said. “I used to wear six-inch heels when I was in uniform.”

“Now there’s something to contemplate.” He smiled at her. He’d said his name was “Erbal,” like in the garden.

“Spelled with an aitch?” Nell had asked.

“Exactly, but pronounced the old-fashioned way.”

He was in his thirties, about six feet tall but terribly thin. Even features, sharply defined cheekbones, dark chin stubble trying to be a goatee. Maybe good looking, if he filled out.

Nell pointed to the NYPD-like uniforms displayed on wooden hangers. “The swastika, that on all the shirts and caps?”

“We deal in fantasy here, Detective.”

“I can see that.” Nell let her gaze roam over the leather goods, vibrators, and shrink-wrapped dildos arranged on a pegboard behind the counter.

“If it means anything,” Herbal said, “you don’t look like a fascist to me.”

“Nevertheless,” Nell said, “I’m going to need the names of people who bought or rented cop costumes in the past few months.”

“You can understand, a place like this, we don’t like giving out our clientele’s names.”

“You can understand, a place like this, we can close it down in a wink.”

“My, you can be dominating.”

“Even arresting.”

“We don’t rent here, only sell. And to tell you the truth, Bad Cop has kind of gone out of style. Though you could certainly bring it off, if you’re interested in buying a uniform. I’d alter it so it was skin tight.”

“Thanks, but I see enough rough stuff in my work.”

“It can be more a mental thing.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Herbal excused himself and went behind a curtain that led to a space behind the pegboard. Nell tried to stop looking at some kind of electrified dildo that featured attached but independently movable rubber protrusions. The thing was seventy-five dollars. It must do something.

Herbal was back with a slip of paper, and a yellow stub of pencil that he tucked behind his ear as if he were playing a newspaperman in an old movie.

“Two sales of Bad Cop in the last three months,” he said. “Two customers, a man and a woman. Here are their names and addresses. As you can see, they live in the neighborhood.”

“Do you know them?”

“Not personally. I’ve seen the woman around. And the man comes in here now and then and buys something.”

“What kind of something?”

“Magazines, usually. Sometimes a book.” Herbal pointed to a rack of magazines and paperbacks.

“What’s the subject, usually?”

“Bondage and discipline, S amp;M, that sort of thing.”

“Male on female?”

“Yeah.”

“And the woman?”

“I don’t know her orientation. She bought the uniform, and that’s the only time I’ve seen her in here. Other’n that, just passed her on the street.” Herbal bit his lower lip. “Detective…”

Nell waited.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell them where you got their names, or how you found out they bought the uniforms.”

“I can try to keep that confidential, Herbal, depending on where the investigation leads.”

He grinned, greatly relieved. “If there’s anything you might need…” He made an encompassing gesture with his right arm.

“Maybe that electric dildo,” Nell said. “The foot-long one that looks like it’s grown warts. Is it waterproof?”

“Detective!”

Nell laughed, thanked Herbal for his cooperation, and headed for the door.

“Remember,” said Herbal’s voice behind her, “confidential.”

“If I have to name my source,” Nell said, “I’ll tell them I tortured it out of you.”

“Detective!”

Nell thought it was fun sometimes, being a cop in New York.