Mister X

14

He'd dropped silently from the iron fire escape into the courtyard and made his way through the narrow passageway on the side of the building to the street. No one had seen him, he was sure. And even if someone had noticed him, they'd never be able to recognize him. He was away clean. Things hadn't worked out as he'd planned, but he was safe.

He hadn't wanted to hurt her. Not at this point. He'd only wanted to learn more about her.

Her name was Mary. Mary Bakehouse. He knew that much from riffling through the contents of her desk. He knew where she banked, how much she owed, where she left her laundry, that she had family in godforsaken South Dakota. He'd seen photographs of her and her country relatives, the Bakehouse clan, and a close-up of lovely Mary wearing a white blouse buttoned to her throat and grinning with every tooth. Desk drawers could be so revealing.

He'd been about to switch on her computer and learn even more about her when he heard her out in the hall, fumbling for her door key.

He'd barely had time to sweep everything back into the drawers and push them shut, then conceal himself before she'd entered.

She'd diligently searched the rest of the apartment before returning to the living room, where he'd decided to reveal himself.

He'd known she'd be frightened but not so exquisitely. She was his, and she knew it immediately. The knowledge had stopped her throat and silenced her with its terrible truth.

That was why he'd taken his time. He wasn't going to harm her, but she didn't know that. He was in control. He could manage an orderly exit. She wouldn't have much of a description to give to the police. Probably not enough to pick him out of a lineup and certainly not enough to make a positive identification. He'd be well away and in the clear.

Dressed in clothes from his respectable wardrobe and clean shaven, his artificial dentures removed, he was reasonably confident he could pass her in the street or sit opposite her on the subway, and she might suspect he was the same man but she couldn't be sure.

From now on, uncertainty would be her constant companion. Even in her dreams she would doubt.

Thoughts. She would be the victim of her thoughts, just as he was of his. Thoughts couldn't hurt anyone, but she wouldn't know that. Not in her heart. Not for sure.

Walking swiftly toward the corner where he could hail a cab, he smiled. Mary Bakehouse might never be sure of anything else in her life.

That he could do such a thing to her, and so easily, the special power that he had, gave him a partial erection. He bent slightly forward as he walked so no one would notice. And if they did, so what?

The power and control…

His erection persisted. Mary would find the mess in her desk drawers and know he'd examined their contents, but that was okay. He wanted her to know. Ultimately, that would work for him.

She'd probably report their encounter to the authorities, but she'd soon find out they really couldn't do anything about it, and they certainly couldn't guarantee it wouldn't happen again.

That would make her feel even more powerless.

Within a few minutes he was seated comfortably in the back of a cab, the incident with Mary Bakehouse fading behind him.

Thoughts were all they'd dealt with tonight, not blood. Later might come the blood. He knew that. He could deny it. He could fight it. But he couldn't be sure of the outcome.

Maybe he'd pay Mary Bakehouse another visit, and maybe he wouldn't. She knew that he might, and that made the night a triumph.

He hadn't set out to hurt her, and he hadn't. Still, in a way, their encounter had been a success for him. Ask Mary Bakehouse, and if she could bring herself to be honest, she'd admit that.

Whether she lived or died depended entirely upon his whim. He remembered her complete loss of control, the warm urine escaping her body. They both recognized at that moment her fetid, trickling surrender.

She belonged to him. She understood that in the very depths of her soul, in the dark recesses of her brain where the demons played.

That was enough for now.

It wouldn't look like much in the morning Times or Post, if it even made the papers. And it wouldn't be mentioned on TV news. After all, there was no tape. There'd been no chance for some techie geek with a phone camera to be standing nearby creating a video stream.

Mary had been treated well by the police and the hospital staff. At the hospital she'd been given a thorough examination, and what they referred to as a rape kit had been used on her to confirm that she hadn't been penetrated.

After the ordeal at the hospital she had given a carefully detailed and recorded statement. Through it all she could sense a genuine concern, but also a workaday disinterest. Hers wasn't the first story like this they'd heard. No one had actually told her that, but it showed.

The incident would be merely another apartment break-in in New York. The intruder had been surprised by the occupant and frightened away. Nothing had been taken. No one had been seriously hurt. Mary's encounter with a man who might have killed her would be barely worth a mention in the media. In the grand and sweeping maelstrom of the city, it wasn't at all important.

Except to Mary.

Quinn sat up late at the desk in his den and let his thoughts roam. A cigar in a glass ashtray was playing up a thread of smoke that dissipated before it reached the ceiling. A half-drunk cup of coffee sat on a round cork coaster. The cup was Spode and a survivor of his time with his former wife, May, who was married now to a real estate attorney in California. Their daughter Lauri was in California, too, but in a different part of the state. Quinn figured May and Lauri seldom, if ever, saw each other, but he couldn't be sure. Lauri had ditched her musician boyfriend Wormy, and as far as Quinn knew was concentrating on her studies at Muir College in the northern part of the state. When last he heard Lauri was studying journalism.

He drew on the cigar, exhaled, and concentrated less on his personal life and more on the case. On the desk was a yellow legal pad, as yet unmarked. Quinn picked up a ballpoint pen and began to make notes as he went over the case in his mind. Sometimes seeing things in some kind of order, in print, made them clearer.

Tiffany Keller had years ago been the last victim of the Carver.

Her twin, Chrissie, won the Triple Monkey whatever slot-machine jackpot and found herself suddenly moderately wealthy. She decided to use the money to find her sister's killer. Or, more accurately, to avenge her sister's death.

The NYPD had demonstrated no interest in reopening the case.

Chrissie, after pretending to be Tiffany's ghost to get Quinn's attention, had finally admitted who she was and hired Quinn and Associates to find the Carver.

After paying a handsome retainer, Chrissie had then disappeared.

Chrissie had deleted any and all photographs of Tiffany from news items in the folder she'd left with Quinn.

Photographs on the Internet revealed that Chrissie and Tiffany looked nothing alike.

Renz had phoned and tried to warn Quinn off the case.

Quinn jotted on the legal pad that Chrissie was not to be trusted. There was no need to write a reminder about Renz.

Quinn placed his cigar back in the ashtray and leaned back in his desk chair to look over what he'd written on the legal pad.

None of it aided him in any kind of understanding.

Too early, he assured himself. But that didn't alleviate the uneasy feeling deep in his stomach.

He placed the legal pad in the shallow center drawer of the desk, then slid the drawer closed. His cigar was smoked down to a nub, so he took a final pull on it, then snuffed it out in the ashtray. A sample sip of his coffee revealed it to be too cool to drink.

He was weary, but not tired in a way conducive to sleep. Maybe he should walk over to the Lotus Diner, drink a hot chocolate, and trade insults with Thel, if she was working late.

Better, he decided, to lock up the apartment and call it a night. That way he could sleep on what he'd written on his legal pad. Maybe something would occur to him in his dreams, and he'd remember it tomorrow morning and everything would make sense.

Then he remembered that nothing ever entirely made sense and went to bed.