Mister X

15

The first thing Quinn saw when he entered the Lotus Diner the next morning was Thel. She was in her usual acerbic mood, which was somehow reassuring.

After a breakfast of biscuits, a three-egg cheese omelet, bacon, and two cups of coffee, Quinn walked from the Lotus Diner to the office on West Seventy-ninth Street. Dr. Gregory, whom Quinn infrequently saw at the doctor's medical service over on Columbus, would hardly have approved of the meal, but he'd endorse the walk.

The morning hadn't yet heated up and was beautiful. Sun glinted off the buildings and made vivid the canvas canopies over entrances and outdoor restaurants. Produce and fresh-cut flowers in outside stands sweetened the air. The bustle and rumble of the city was background music for millions of dramas. The city in its entirety was a bold and brassy Broadway musical and didn't know it.

Even the exhaust fumes smelled good to Quinn. It was the kind of morning that promised hope, at least for a while, though he realized it could be a con, like the rest of the city. New York liked to trick people. Even astound them.

Pearl and Fedderman were already in the office. Pearl was hunched over her computer, dark eyes fixed on the monitor, her outstretched right hand deftly moving her mouse on its pad as if playing on a Ouija board. The low-tech Fedderman was slouched at his desk reading a newspaper. The trespass and assault at Mary Bakehouse's apartment was mentioned in the Post police blotter section, but it hadn't made the Times. Not that it would have meant anything to Fedderman, who was reading the Times anyway. He'd probably be too busy today to read any other newspaper.

Nor would it have meant much of anything to Quinn, who had other things on his mind.

"No phone messages," Pearl said, glancing over at him.

Quinn grunted and went over to the table where the occasionally gurgling brewer sat. He poured himself his third coffee of the morning.

"We thought maybe our missing client Chrissie might have called," Fedderman said.

Quinn wandered back to stand between their desks, sipping coffee that would never be as good as the stuff at the Lotus Diner.

"Feds and I have a bet," Pearl said. "He thinks we'll never see Chrissie Keller again. I think we will, and there'll be an explanation for her disappearance."

"What kind of explanation?" Quinn asked.

Pearl smiled. "Not necessarily one we'll believe."

"What if she can't contact us because the Carver's made sure it's impossible?"

Pearl had considered that and saw it as unlikely. But there was no ruling it out. "It's something to keep in mind," she said, "but I do lean the other way. From the beginning, Chrissie struck me as the disappearing type. Not playing straight with us from word one."

"Meanwhile," Quinn said, "she's still our client. We're spending her money, so we'll continue to work the case, no matter what Renz says."

They both looked at him.

Fedderman folded his paper closed and said, "Renz?" As if a rare and unpleasant ailment had been mentioned.

Quinn told them about yesterday evening's phone call.

When he was finished, Fedderman said, "Is that guy ever, for even one second, not a self-serving prick?"

Quinn shrugged. "He's a politician."

"Didn't I just say that?"

Pearl sat staring and smiling slightly at Quinn. She didn't have to ask whether they were going to continue on the case. Instead she said, "How are we going to work it?"

"I'm about to make a phone call," Quinn said. "And not to Harley Renz."

It hadn't taken him long to dig up Cindy Sellers's direct line at City Beat from when she'd badgered them on a previous case.

She answered on the second ring. Quinn guessed a muck-raking reporter had to stick close to the phone. Or possibly his call had been patched through to a mobile phone.

When Quinn had identified himself, Sellers's voice became wary. "Always a pleasure to hear from you, Captain."

"Not 'Captain' anymore," Quinn said. "I've opened up my own investigative agency."

"That's right, I heard." She waited a few beats. "Well, anything I can do to scratch somebody's back who's willing to scratch back…?"

"What I always liked about you was that it wasn't necessary to do a verbal dance getting to the point. You're honest in your own special way."

She laughed. "But I like dancing with you, Quinn. You tromp on my toes now and then, but what the hell."

"You like dancing with Harley Renz?"

"Oh, he's an amazingly deft dancer. But you know that."

There was a smile in her voice. She knew he wanted something, or he wouldn't have called.

"To the point," Quinn said, "I have some information that might interest you."

"So interest me."

"There you go-very direct."

"You be too, why don't you?"

Quinn almost smiled. Sometimes Sellers could be as much of a smart-ass as Pearl. "Remember the Carver murders?"

"Sure. Serial killer, five or six years ago. One of the few in this city that you didn't catch. In fact, didn't that killer-"

"He was never caught," Quinn interrupted. "But it turns out that was only round one. The case has been reopened, and we think he can be caught now."

"New evidence?"

"We can't say."

"What made the NYPD reopen the investigation?"

"It didn't. We did."

"We?"

"Quinn and Associates Investigations."

Sellers was quiet for a moment. "And the NYPD doesn't like you meddling."

"That's it."

"Renz told you to fold your tent."

"Uh-huh. He doesn't want the department and its illustrious police commissioner to be embarrassed by dredging up an old case the police were unable to solve. He's afraid of the negative publicity, so he's pressuring us to halt our investigation."

Cindy Sellers laughed. "No point in that if the information's already out in the media, based on information from anonymous sources, of course."

"That's the game," Quinn said.

Sellers said, "I'll play. But there has to be a quid pro quo."

"You'll be first in the media to know everything," Quinn said. "Starting now."

"And I'll be in on the finale? If there is one."

"There'll be one," Quinn said, "and you'll be there."

Again one of Cindy's silences. There weren't many; she tended to think on the run, asking questions along the way.

"Somebody must have hired you," she said at last.

"The killer's last victim had a sister. A twin."

"A twin! And the surviving twin is your client?"

"Uh-huh."

"Wonderful! The surviving twin wants vengeance. It's almost poetic. It's as if the murderer killed only half of his victim, and now the other half-"

"However you want to play it," Quinn said.

"We have an arrangement, Quinn. Tell me more."

And he did. Not everything, of course, but just enough.

After hanging up, he absently wiped his hand on his pants leg, as if Sellers had salivated over the phone.

Fedderman was grinning at him. "Renz is gonna be so mad he might catch fire."

"Give me a can of gas," Pearl said, rather absently.

She was gazing at Quinn in a way he recognized, thoughtfully and slightly disturbed, as if she'd again discovered a new facet of his deviousness.

"This will work out," he assured her.

Now there was something cautionary in her look, warning him that he'd done something possibly unwise as well as distasteful. Her "If you lie down with dogs…" look.

"I can put up with fleas," he said.

She nodded and turned back to her computer. She'd known exactly what he'd been thinking. Incredible.

Maybe her mouse pad was a Ouija board.

"My, my, my," Pearl said, reading over additional information about Geraldine Knott, the young woman who'd survived an attack eight years ago in Detroit by an assailant very much like the Carver.

She remained seated at her computer. Quinn and Fedderman were standing behind her, looking over her shoulder at the monitor. They were all reading the old news item from the archives of a Detroit newspaper. It was accompanied by another blurred black-and-white photo. In this one Geraldine Knott was standing and leaning sideways, as if hoping the camera's aim would miss her, holding both hands covering her face.

This account of the attack was more detailed. It described how her masked assailant had gotten her on the ground and straddled her, kneeling on her upper arms to pin her to the parking garage's concrete floor. He'd then shown her a knife and explained to her what he intended to do with it. As the news item quoted the tearful intended victim: "…slice off my nipples, do some creative carving on me, then carve me a big smile under my chin." Fortunately for Geraldine Knott, her attacker had been frightened away.

"He mentioned carving twice," Quinn noted.

"Could be early Carver," Pearl said. "Or maybe some sicko imitating him."

"Except this woman was attacked before anybody'd ever heard of the Carver," Fedderman pointed out.

"Maybe this guy had heard of him and was imitating him even before he became famous," Quinn suggested.

Pearl said, "The odds on that are about the same as Fedderman wearing both socks right side out."

"Did I do that again?" Fedderman asked automatically, glancing down at his ankles and tugging up his pants legs.

"Sure seems like this could be our guy," Pearl said. "The way he showed the knife and told her what he was about to do, getting his jollies by scaring the hell out of her. Or maybe our sicko saw this news account when it was fresh in a Detroit paper and it stuck in his mind."

"I'd bet on Feds's socks," Quinn said.

"Then you think this was early Carver?" Pearl asked.

"I don't know."

Fedderman unconsciously glanced down at his feet again. "So what are we gonna do with this information?"

"Put it in the hopper," Quinn said, "along with everything else we know or think we know."

"And then?" Fedderman asked.

"Wait and see if someday it makes sense."