Chill of Night

64

Looper figured he’d make one more call before lunch. Proper Woman was listed as a company that specialized in theatrical props and other supplies, and it was located in Tribeca, near a Greek restaurant that served great baklava, which to Looper was almost as satisfying as a cigarette after a meal.

The entrance to Proper Woman wasn’t impressive. Nor was the building itself, an old brick and stone five-story structure a block off Broadway. The inside of the building was warmer than outside. In fact, the damned thing was a kiln. Looper wiped sweat from his face with a wadded handkerchief.

He had to trudge up a narrow flight of stairs to a converted freight elevator, which he rode to the top floor.

What he saw when he stepped out of the elevator was a vast, sunlit array of…everything. And it was cooler here. There was a system of shafts and vents suspended from the ceiling. Looper gazed out over sets of furniture, a suit of armor, long rows of ornate chandeliers, cases of paste jewelry, racks of firearms, medieval weapons, a rowboat, an antique car, staircases leading nowhere, a section of white picket fence, and racks of clothing. Including various uniforms.

Looper had phoned ahead, but saw no one. Then a slim, gray-haired woman appeared from behind some artificial shrubbery and smiled, holding out her hand. “Detective Looper?”

Looper shook her hand, careful not to squeeze. She was in her seventies and obviously had once been beautiful. “I’m Laverne Blisner.”

“Let me guess,” Looper said, “you used to be an actress.”

The smile brightened. “Close enough. I was a dancer. Now I do this.” She waved an arm gracefully-like a dance movement. “My husband and I went into the theatrical supply business twenty years ago. Now I and my daughters own and manage the company. We furnish play productions with just about anything, and if we don’t have it, we find it.”

“I can’t imagine you not having it,” Looper said.

“Have you seen Fiddler on the Roof?”

“Several times,” Looper lied.

“Our roof.”

“Amazing.”

“You mentioned uniforms when you called.”

“Yes. New York Police uniforms.”

“What period?”

“Present, or at least recent.”

“Got ’em.”

“No surprise, Laverne.” Such an innately lovely woman, he found himself wondering what her daughters looked like.

Laverne danced-or so Looper thought-over to a rack of clothes that weren’t uniforms, but Southern belle dresses with lace-laden hoop skirts. “Let me explain that most of our clothing is used. Those in charge of dressing a major play have their designs, their costumes, tailor-made. We get them after the plays close. Then, of course, smaller productions come to us to rent in order to economize.” Laverne obviously enjoyed explaining things, and might do so in detail for a long time.

“If you’d show me the NYPD costumes.”

She smiled and led the way through more racks of clothing, past a genuine stuffed grizzly bear that gave Looper the creeps, then to more clothing, including a rack of blue uniforms. Looper saw what looked like nineteenth-century police uniforms, then later, nineteen-twenties stuff, with less defined shoulders and the standard eight-point caps that were still worn. Other time periods were covered. The uniforms seemed to be arranged in chronological order. The last two on the rack looked modern enough to pass.

Looper held them out separately from the other uniforms. “Have you rented either of these lately?”

“Not for months. Those are from an Off-Broadway production, Rug Rats.”

“Never heard of it,” Looper said honestly.

“Well, it didn’t last very long. But there was a bit part in it for a policeman who patrols a lovers’ lane.”

“A policeman? There are two uniforms.”

“Everyone but the critics and the public expected the play to have a longer run,” Laverne said. “And costumes have to be rotated so they can be cleaned, or the first several rows of the theater would notice. That distinctive dress you see in a play is actually at least two dresses.”

“I get your drift,” Looper said. He glanced around. “But lots of these clothes, you only have one of.”

“Oh, maybe some are rented out, or maybe we only received one costume because its mate was damaged. And it isn’t unusual for one or more of the actors to like an article of stage clothing and, after the play closes, keep it for personal use, or maybe as a souvenir. But if you’re looking for a recent police uniform rental, I can’t help you. I’m afraid cops aren’t in great demand on Broadway.”

“Except outside the theater, to control traffic when the shows let out.”

Laverne smiled. “I get your drift.”

They began walking idly back toward the freight elevator.

“We have all the decorations, patches, and badges to go with the uniforms,” Laverne said. “I’m sure we have a badge exactly like yours.”

“You’re starting to make me uneasy, Laverne.”

“I mention it because I’m assuming you suspect someone is impersonating a policeman and committing crimes.”

“It’s a theory,” Looper said.

“The Justice Killer?”

Looper only smiled.

“He’s the one on everybody’s mind,” Laverne said.

“Certainly our celebrity killer of the moment.”

“I don’t like what he’s doing. I don’t see him as a hero. And I think that Adelaide Starr bitch needs a good spanking.”

Looper’s smile turned to one of gratitude. “That’s pretty much the way we see him. And her.”

“I’m also letting you know it’s possible he could be passing for a real policeman, right down to the details and identification. That kind of merchandise is available in this city.”

Looper already knew that, but he said, “You’re not making me feel any better.”

“Well, that isn’t why you came here.”

She smiled at him and pushed the button that opened the elevator door.

Uptown, Bradley Aimes returned from a lunch with his accountant and jogged up the steps to the entrance to his apartment building. He was plenty worried. The IRS, those were people you didn’t mess with. Harv, his accountant, kept telling him not to fret so much about the audit, or he’d get sick. But Harv didn’t know that some of the receipts for business and travel expenses were copies of previous years’ receipts, with the dates artfully altered. Harv was a stickler and would have been shocked to know. But hell, everybody did that kind of thing. It was a guy on a golf course in New Jersey who’d first given Aimes the idea, said he’d been doing it for years. You just had to be careful to use receipts that were more than three years old.

Well, the IRS agent hadn’t figured that one out yet, and Aimes sure wasn’t going to clue old Harv in. Harv was the kind of guy who spilled his guts about everything. Some of the things he’d said about his wife…

Ah! There was something showing through the vertical slots in Aimes’s mailbox. Probably ads, or maybe something else from the Internal Revenue. Well, better check. Might be a check. Aimes had a fifty-dollar rebate check coming from when he’d bought some computer equipment last month.

He crossed the hexagonal-tiled lobby floor and fit his key in the brass mailbox with his name over it.

That’s when the headache struck.

An explosion of pain.

A dizzy sensation. Everything moving, moving.

What? Stroke or something…?

Too much strain because of the audit. Harv had warned him about worrying too much. He tried to take a step, but his foot moved through air. Odd. Harv had…

That’s the ceiling, stairs leading up and up and up. How’d I get on the floor?

The wind…It’s so cold…How’d I get in a boat?

I’m only five. I shouldn’t be alone in a boat.

In the dark.

Looper had finished his Greek salad and was about to bite into his baklava, when his mobile phone buzzed.

He’d removed his suit coat and had the phone out of its pocket, lying next to the condiments on the table where he could get to it, so he answered after only two buzzes.

“Looper,” he said simply, knowing from caller ID that it was Beam.

“It’s Beam, Loop. We’ve got another Justice killing.” He gave Looper a West Side address, while Looper used sticky fingers to grip a pencil and write on a napkin. “Victim’s name is Bradley Aimes.” He spelled it out for Looper.

“Isn’t that-”

“Yeah,” Beam said. “The asshole who killed Genelle Dixon.”

“Allegedly.” Looper licked his fingers.

“I’ll meet you there,” Beam said. “Nell’s on the way.”

Looper was already signaling for a take-out box for his baklava.