Darker Than Night

21

New York, 2004.

Quinn got the phone call from May late at night.

“Frank?”

Even though he was in bed and half-asleep, he recognized her voice immediately. Besides, she was the only one who called him by his first name.

He scooted back to lean into his wadded pillow and pressed the plastic receiver harder to his ear. “Something wrong, May?”

“Something I have to tell you. I’m sorry to call so late, but I couldn’t sleep thinking about it.”

“Is it about Lauri?”

“No. She’s fine.”

“We still don’t speak,” Quinn said.

“I know. I’m sorry about that, Frank.”

Are you? It was you who turned her against me. If you’d believed in me…

Quinn sighed, wondering what kind of trouble was coming his way. “So what else are you sorry about?” he asked.

“How you might take what I’m going to say.”

“I’m lying down.” Trying to make a joke of it.

“I’m going to be married.”

Quinn felt as if the ceiling had dropped on him, though he knew he shouldn’t care. May was no longer his wife and hadn’t been for years.

Still, they shared a history; they were part of each other.

Married! Jesus!

“Who’s the lucky man?” he forced himself to ask, loathing how trite and hollow it sounded.

“Elliott Franzine. He’s a cost accountant.”

Whatever that is. “A successful one?”

“Reasonably. He works hard.”

“Sounds like a settled, secure guy who keeps regular hours.” Not like a cop.

“He is. You know that’s what I always needed, security.”

“There’s really no such thing, May.”

“Then call it predictability. That’s what was missing in our marriage. It’s the uncertainty that eats away, Frank.”

She was right about that. He’d seen it with too many cops’ marriages. “Yeah, I can understand that, May. I wish you and…”

“Elliott.”

“…Elliott the best. I really do.”

“Frank—”

“Life moves on.”

“What about your life? How are things going for you? Some of the news about those New York murders is reaching us here on the other coast.”

“I’m back on the force, in a way. But you might call it a probationary situation. It’s kind of my last roll of the dice.”

“It’ll work out for you, Frank. I’ve got a feeling.”

Do you have a feeling I didn’t rape Anna Caruso?

But he didn’t put the question into words.

They talked for a while longer, about their daughter, the upcoming wedding, where May and Elliott were going on their honeymoon—Cancun. At least it was a place where Quinn and May had never been.

After hanging up, Quinn couldn’t come close to going back to sleep.

May Franzine…

Around midnight he gave up and climbed out of bed. He went into the kitchen and got down an unopened bottle of scotch from the back of a cabinet shelf.

May and Lauri Franzine…

What was he, disappearing?

It was raining the next morning, so Quinn went to meet Pearl and Fedderman at the Lotus Diner on Amsterdam.

It was a long, narrow place, with wooden booths along a wall of windows opposite the counter. A haze of cooking smoke hung just beneath the high, stamped tin ceiling. There were half a dozen customers eating breakfast alone, three at the counter, three in the booths. Two of the ones at the counter were having only coffee and reading the Post, probably about the Night Prowler. The scent of overfried bacon made Quinn a little queasy the moment he came through the door. The line of booths went beyond the counter and windows. He sat in one of the back booths and was trying without much success to get down coffee and a glazed doughnut while waiting for his detective team.

He’d used an umbrella and walked here from his apartment in order to clear his mind. It had worked to an extent, but his head still ached and his stomach objected to the half bottle of scotch he’d killed last night. His ankles felt cool every time somebody came or went, and the draft from the open door flowed over his pants cuffs that were still wet from his walk through the rain.

Pearl was the reason for the latest cool draft. She’d driven her unmarked here alone. Fedderman and a detective named Drucker had worked late yesterday evening questioning the Grahams’ neighbors who held jobs and weren’t available during weekdays. Fedderman and Drucker were going to reinterview neighbors in adjacent buildings today and would arrive soon in Fedderman’s plain Ford Victoria.

Quinn started to stand to make himself noticeable, but Pearl spotted him and walked toward the booth. She had on black slacks today, black boots that looked waterproof, and a black raincoat that was trimmed in green and came to her knees. She wasn’t carrying an umbrella.

She unbuttoned the coat, draped it over a brass hook on the opposite wall, and slid into the booth to sit across from him. He saw the alarm on her face. “You look like shit, Quinn.”

He knew he should take offense but didn’t; she was, after all, right. “Tough night.”

She made a face as she got a whiff of his breath. “And you smell like a still.”

“I did imbibe.”

He explained what had happened, telling her almost everything about May’s late-night phone call. Once he’d begun talking, he couldn’t stop; the words were inside him like winged things that had to get out, had to be heard and shared.

Her reaction surprised him. “Your sleeve’s unbuttoned. Your cuff got dunked in your coffee.”

Quinn looked down and saw the brown triangular stain on his dangling white shirt cuff. He tried to button the cuff with his left hand but couldn’t. His fingers were trembling in a way they hadn’t for months.

Pearl reached across the table and deftly fastened the button. “Is Feds bringing Drucker by here this morning?”

“That’s the plan,” Quinn said.

“Let’s change the plan. You don’t want anybody else to see you like this. I’ll drive you home.”

Quinn must have noticeably recoiled at the thought.

“On the other hand,” Pearl said, “there might be some booze left in that bottle. You’re going to my place and catch up on the sleep you should have had last night.”

“Pearl, I really don’t think I’m at that point.”

“You look like a goddamn wino, Quinn. C’mon.”

She stood up and reached for her coat.

Quinn looked again at his stained cuff and his unsteady hands. His head throbbed and his stomach was sour. He decided not to argue with Pearl. He trailed her meekly out of the diner.

As they were walking toward the car, she said, “I think you need a real breakfast instead of that jolt of caffeine and sugar you were working on.”

Pearl taking care of him. Maternal Pearl. Quinn couldn’t help wondering where this might lead.

“After you get something to eat, you sack out on my sofa and I’ll tell Fedderman and Drucker you’re not feeling well today.”

“Listen, Pearl…”

“Don’t thank me, Quinn. And don’t question what I say. It’d be best if you skipped working today and were sharp tomorrow, instead of being a booze zombie two consecutive days.”

Less than an hour later he sat with his sleeves rolled up at her tiny kitchen table, where she served him a cheese omelette and toast with a glass of orange juice, no coffee.

When he’d finished breakfast and was ensconced on Pearl’s sofa with his shoes off, she tinkered around in her bedroom a few minutes, then left. He opened a narrowed eye and caught her smiling at him as she went out the door.

It was a particular kind of smile that Quinn recognized, both affectionate and proprietary.

Lord, Lord, Lord…, he thought, and dropped into a sleep blacker than black.

Claire had just finished washing the bedroom windows when there was a knock on the door. That was odd, she thought. Someone had bypassed the intercom and somehow gained entrance to the lobby and elevators.

On the other hand, not so odd. Probably whoever was knocking had simply entered along with another visitor or one of the tenants. Or maybe for some reason the intercom wasn’t working today.

Claire’s lover, actor Jubal Day, had lost his role in Metabolism when it folded last week in Kansas City; he was back in New York with Claire. He’d decided to stay with her, even if it meant having to accept roles he didn’t want in off-off-Broadway theaters with folding chairs and leaky ceilings. Though she feigned disappointment about the Kansas City play, Claire was delighted. Handsome, lanky Jubal, with his tousled dark hair and piercing blue eyes, belonged with her. Belonged to her.

As she entered the living room, still holding the folded rag she’d been using on the bedroom windows, he was standing up from where he’d been dozing on the sofa. She grinned and waved him back down, since he looked too sleepy to be coherent anyway, and continued to the door.

When she opened it, she needed a few seconds to recognize the man standing in the hall. He was tall, blond, and muscular, wearing a black suit with a black pullover beneath the coat.

He smiled. “Lars Svenson,” he reminded her.

“I know. It took me a while.”

“I’m not always a furniture mover. I have another life.”

Claire grinned. “Everybody has several.”

“I thought in this one,” Svenson said with an easy confidence, “I’d come by and see if you wanted to share a little of it.”

“Uh, Mr. Svenson…”

He shook his head, widening his smile that was too obviously meant to charm. “Claire, it’s Lars. And I don’t mean any harm. It’s just that for some reason you stuck in my mind. I move furniture for a lot of people, and usually it’s just a job. But—”

He stopped talking abruptly and his expression changed. The smile was gone as if Claire had Windexed it off with the rag in her hand.

“Somebody looking for a job?” Jubal asked behind her.

Svenson recovered nicely and the smile was back. “Already did the job,” he said, his full attention now aimed at Jubal. “I just came by to make sure everything was to the lady’s satisfaction. We do that.”

“We?”

“Mr. Svenson was one of the movers who schlepped all our furniture up here,” Claire said.

“You shittin’ me?” Jubal asked Svenson, nudging Claire a few inches to the side. “You mean you actually get dressed up like a Midwesterner’s idea of a New Yorker and visit all your customers days later to make sure you put the sofa in the right place?”

“Mostly, we only do that with the pretty ones.” Svenson’s smile was the same, but something had changed in his pale eyes. “I know you’re not Claire’s husband; are you her brother?”

“Closer than her brother.”

Svenson’s unblinking gaze didn’t waver, but now he seemed amused rather than angry. “Like maybe her bodyguard?”

“Among other things,” Jubal said. Claire caught something in his voice; he was afraid, but he wasn’t backing off.

“Hopefully, bodyguarding isn’t necessary,” Svenson said.

“Hopefully.”

Svenson smiled again at Claire, then nodded. “If you decide you want anything rearranged, you know how to get in touch with me.” He backed away, then turned and sauntered to the elevator, not in any rush. Everything in his body language said he was in control and unconcerned.

Claire made a move to close the door, but Jubal reached out above her and held it open. They both watched until the elevator arrived.

“Thanks again for the business,” Svenson said to Claire, and gave a little wave as he stepped inside and the elevator door slid closed behind him.

“Guy’s some creep,” Jubal said as he shut the apartment door and latched it.

“He does have a nerve,” Claire agreed, “coming back like that.”

“And he doesn’t look at all Swedish. I doubt his name’s really Lars Svenson.”

“We can’t hold that against him,” Claire said jokingly. “Your own name’s been changed.”

“That’s common among actors, but not furniture movers.”

Jubal slumped down again on the sofa and used the remote to switch on cable news. The screen was split four ways to accommodate two men and two women in severe business garb arguing about the Supreme Court. It reminded Claire of a rerun of Hollywood Squares that had gotten out of hand.

She went into the kitchen and got a fresh bottle of Windex from beneath the sink to use on the spare bedroom’s windows.

Whether he was Swedish or not, she couldn’t get Lars Svenson out of her mind, which aggravated her because she knew that was exactly what he wanted.

Well, not exactly. He was, after all, a man.

Claire realized she wasn’t really attracted to Svenson. At least not in the usual way.

She was afraid of him.