In for the Kill

55

"I often think of all that precious time lost between mother and son," Myrna said to Quinn, "and my own boy Sherman out there somewhere hunted and frightened."

Myrna had more of a southern accent today. It wasn't so much on the edges, and it still dripped pure molasses. She'd been trying to hide it before, Pearl thought, trying to make herself seem as educated as her sons.

She was seated in a wooden chair at the small desk in her room at the Meredith, her body shifted sideways, one elbow on the desk. Her posture caused one of her shoulders to rise sexily so she looked like a femme fatale in an old movie. She was wearing a midnight blue silk robe that made her hair and eyes look darker. Her hair was brushed out so that it appeared longer, a hint of bangs on her broad, unlined forehead. The scent of soap hung in the air, as if she'd just shampooed and dried her hair.

Quinn had left Fedderman to do more legwork at the Cirillo murder scene and brought Pearl with him to the Meredith, thinking the woman's touch might come in handy in convincing Myrna Kraft to act as bait for her son Sherman. Not that they'd use the word bait.

"Did your dear son ever try to contact you during all those lost years?" Quinn asked. Dear. Pearl saw that Quinn was wearing his compassionate attitude, the one that evoked confidences and confessions, as if he were a priest with the power to heal. While it struck a phony note with Pearl, it might score with Myrna.

"Why, I'd have no way of knowing," Myrna said. "But, yes, something in my heart tells me he tried. Yes, he must have tried. Whatever awful things happened to Sherman during that time in the swamp, they must surely have put him in deep shock, as they would any normal nine-year-old boy. I read it was months before he even uttered a word."

"I read that word was Mother," Pearl said.

There was no change of expression in the hard, handsome planes of Myrna's face, but something primal moved behind those dark eyes.

"I never read or heard that," she said, "but it wouldn't surprise me that a lost boy's first words would be of the mother he loved."

"It's because you love him that we came to you," Quinn said. "And because he must love you."

Pearl tried not to look at him as he doled out his unctuous Irish charm. Why didn't these people see through such bullshit? But Pearl knew they seldom did.

Seldom, but sometimes. When Quinn encountered someone not so unlike himself.

"He must indeed," Myrna said, "and in a sense I suspect I failed him. All I can say is I did it for Jeb. I was forced to make a mother's terrible choice. I believed so fiercely that at least one of my sons must be saved, and I lived my new life according to that belief. Tell you true, in those days and beyond, there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for that boy. It was like he was both my sons become one."

"Do you still feel that way about Jeb?"

"I'd have to swear I do."

"And now God's given you a chance to help your other son," Quinn said. He walked over and sat perched on the desk, so Myrna had to look up at him, into his sincere gaze. "I shouldn't tell you this, and certainly I'm not referring to myself or Officer Kasner, but you're correct in your fear that some nervous trigger finger might twitch and take Sherman's life. The police are human, after all, and this killer has taunted them. Most of us act as professionals, but as in every profession, there are those who have their own agenda."

"I do understand," Myrna said. She hadn't blinked in the force of Quinn's charm attack.

Quinn persisted. "Hard as it might be for you to believe, you and Jeb aren't the only ones who want to see Sherman taken into custody unharmed. He's a sick man-to you a boy still-and he desperately needs the proper treatment."

Myrna gnawed on her lower lip for at least a minute. Then she sat back in her chair, stared down at her lap, then back up at Quinn. "Explain exactly what you'd expect of me."

"Of course. We want you simply to remain in your room here as if you were an ordinary guest at the hotel. You won't see us, but we'll be there and we'll have you under our protection at all times." His smile was incongruously beatific on such a rough looking man. "We'll be your guardian angels."

"My angels haven't always been on duty in the past, Detective Quinn."

"We're more professional and closer to the ground," Quinn said. "I promise you'll be safe."

"Oh, I'm not so worried about myself. No woman fears her true son. But you must know how smart Sherman is. Won't he be suspicious of such a plan, especially if I stay here holed up in my room?"

"If he knows where you are and loves you enough," Quinn said, "he'll try to reach out for you."

"Or if he hates me enough," Myrna said. "That's what you really think." For a second it seemed she might actually cry. "Oh, how you must see me…"

Quinn gently patted her shoulder. "I don't think, dear, that your own true son would hate you after all these years. And you won't be strictly confined to this room or even this hotel. You should go out, just as anyone might who's visiting New York. Shop, sightsee, walk about, take a cab. You'll be safe out there. Your angels, invisible to you or anyone else who might be looking, will be with you every step."

"You mentioned shopping," Myrna said. "Will I have a shopping allowance?"

That brought Quinn up short, and he almost stood up from where he was perched on the desk. What kind of woman is this? What kind of wheels turn in her mind? Her own son might be stalking her to kill her, and she has her sights set on sales and merchandise.

"She should do a lot of shopping if her movements are going to appear normal," Pearl said, pitching in. To Myrna: "You're a woman in New York. Even under the circumstances, it would make sense that you'd shop."

If you were a homicidal psychopath with your own sick reality.

Quinn settled back down and gave Myrna the old sweet smile. "Of course you'll be given money to shop. At taxpayer expense. That's only fair, because in the end you're doing this for the taxpayer as well as for Sherman, for other people as well as yourself."

"Something else I want's a gun," Myrna said.

"We'll be protecting you, dear."

"Oh, it isn't for self-protection. It's to protect Sherman."

"But you'd use it if you had to in order to protect yourself," Pearl said.

Myrna gave her a cold glance that made Pearl wish she hadn't spoken. She and Myrna understood each other too well for comfort. Monster slayer and monster-was there that much difference once the battle was joined and blood was spilled?

"I'll see that you have a small handgun to keep beneath your pillow," Quinn said.

"I spent my girlhood and much of my womanhood in or near the swamp, Detective Quinn. I'd be most comfortable with a shotgun, as I owned one as a youngster."

"A shotgun…"

Myrna smiled at him in a way that seemed to hypnotize him. "If you think this whole thing is a bad idea-"

"No, no, dear. You can have a shotgun. I'll bring one next time I see you."

"Thank you so much. I'll feel a lot safer for Sherman and for me."

"I don't think it will come to gunfire," Quinn said. "You have my solemn word I'll do everything possible to see that no harm comes to you or to your boy."

"If I do agree, what's the next step?"

"We'll see that your presence in the city is leaked to the media, to make sure Sherman knows you're here. The danger to you would begin late tonight or tomorrow morning, with broadcast news and the appearance of the newspapers."

"The danger to Sherman, you mean."

"To both of you," Quinn said. "We know we're asking a lot of you."

"However much it is, I do agree. I'll do as you suggest."

Quinn smiled widely and patted her shoulder again, this time slightly harder and more reassuringly. "That's the best thing, honestly."

"We're very good at what we do," Pearl said, "and we'll see that you stay safe."

"My uppermost thought is safety," Myrna said, "but Lord knows, not for myself."

Lauri knew she was going to sleep with Joe Hooker. She wasn't sure exactly when she'd decided, and it hadn't been sudden. And she knew it was the result of his subtle but persistent plan of seduction. In small but intimate ways he was moving their still young relationship in that direction; in the quiet way he regarded her, the amusing double entendres, the casual but suggestive touching of her arm, her shoulder, her neck. In a way, that was what fascinated her, watching an older, experienced seducer work, being the object of his efforts and moved inch by inch by him. She knew it was happening, it was deliberate, yet she let herself be moved, she wanted it, even knowing it was like drifting farther and farther into a strong current that would inevitably claim her completely. This guy wasn't Wormy, who was usually so wrapped up in his music he didn't seem to know she was around unless he wanted sex.

Sex, music, sex, with little time left over for companionship and tenderness.

It didn't have to be that way. That was what all of Joe's actions, all of his thoughtfulness and smiles, and his slight but unrelenting pressure, were telling her. It didn't have to be the way it was with Wormy.

Not that she wasn't still fond of Wormy. But she was an adult and could have a relationship with more than one man. (Was Wormy really a man?) Wormy was takeout food, cheap weed, and wine, and frantic trysts in his dump of an apartment he shared with two other members of the band who weren't away often enough. Joe promised dinner at nice restaurants, leisurely walks in the park, Broadway plays, and…what was inevitable. Joe was a Mercedes. Wormy was…transportation.

Lauri feigned a headache and upset stomach after work and didn't go with Wormy and the others to a club in the Village. Instead she walked around the corner from the Hungry U, where a cab was waiting, and inside the cab was Joe Hooker.

When she climbed in the back of the cab he pecked her on the cheek and briefly touched her arm.

"Hungry?" he asked.

She laughed. "I just got off work at a restaurant."

He grinned in the darkness. "I know; I had to ask. If you're not hungry, you must be thirsty. I know a little piano cabaret where we can have some drinks and talk about my favorite subject."

Lauri didn't have to ask what his favorite subject was. Should she tell him she might be carded?

"They know me there," he said, as if he read her thoughts. Then he added, "So we can get a good table. Besides, I already gave the cabbie the address."

She was wearing jeans and a white blouse with a small floral design. She'd changed from her food-server shoes to heels, though. "Am I dressed okay for it?"

"Beautiful women are always dressed for wherever they are."

She laughed, trying to keep her tone low and sexy. Adult. "You know something, Joe Hooker? You're dangerous."

He glanced over at her as if caught off guard, then smiled. "Spice of life, danger."

"Live fast, die young," she said, not knowing what else to say and finding herself temporarily tongue-tied.

He appeared alarmed. "Good Lord, Lauri, I hope you don't think I'm dangerous that way."

Why did I have to tell him that? Hurt him? Why am I acting like such a fool?

She snuggled closer to him in the rocking, jouncing back of the cab as it took a potholed corner. "There's dangerous, and then there's nice dangerous," she said, looking up at him. "You're nice dangerous."

He kissed her lightly on the lips.

They held hands.