Mister X

38

New York, the present

Pearl had been first to arrive and was alone in the office. A soft summer rain had begun to fall. It changed the colorful street scene outside the first-floor window from realism to impressionism. The light in the office was made soft by the wavering rain running down the glass panes. It was a light you could almost reach out and feel.

"It's insane," Pearl's mother said over the phone.

Pearl squeezed her cell phone almost hard enough to break it. "I thought you'd want to know. You're always so interested in my personal life, and now I'm changing my address."

"To move in with the Yancy lizard. Not wise, Pearl."

"It's a decision of the heart, Mom. Like when you married Dad."

"Heart, shmart," her mother said. "Your father-and I still miss him dearly-and I were engaged for two years before we were married. Besides, it had all been arranged."

"Well, I'm not married to Yancy, and anyway, marriages aren't arranged anymore. At least not in this country. We've made progress in that regard."

"You have noticed the divorce rate, Pearl?"

"But the murder rate among spouses has fallen," Pearl lied.

"What does Captain Quinn think of this new living arrangement you propose?"

"I've told you, Mom, Quinn is no longer a police captain. And he doesn't know about it yet."

"I know in my mother's heart-as do you in the heart of a dear daughter-that Captain Quinn would not approve."

"So what?"

"So you are not heeding the opinion-which you know he has-of a man of the world who has sailed harsh seas and endured storms and developed a weather eye, and would tell you that over the horizon-"

"He doesn't even know Yancy."

"He knows many Yancys, dear. And their victims."

"You haven't met Yancy, either, Mom. How could you possibly know any of these terrible things about him?"

"I know those who know of him, Pearl. Word passes from mouth to ear, and the word is not good. Mrs. Kahn's cousin's son, himself not a young man with the highest prospects, has been in the Yancy lizard's presence many times in the places where such people congregate, and Mrs. Kahn's cousin's son, once a psychology student at New York University until a so-called misunderstanding about purloined university property brought about the end of his scholarly pursuits, has seen and heard and has some insight into the Yancy lizard's lies and deceptions and total lack of responsibility. He has seen the Yancy Lizard with women other than yourself, imbibing and laughing, and it would logically seem-"

"Mom, I'm not the only woman who goes into bars and imbibes and laughs."

"And you would not be the only woman to fall prey to a reptile of the night and-"

"Gotta go, Mom. Police business."

Pearl flipped the lid closed on the cell phone.

She could talk with her mother about personal matters only so long before snapping and saying things she'd regret. Pearl had learned not to let it reach that point. Not as often as before, anyway. And she hadn't exactly lied about police business. She was in the office where, as of late, police business was conducted.

She was sliding her cell phone into her pocket when it vibrated in her hand.

She smiled when she saw that the caller was Yancy.

"Still love me?" she asked with the phone to her ear.

"If you'll do certain things," Yancy said.

"You know I will."

"Then it's a match. Did you mention to your mother you were moving?"

"I did. She isn't happy about it. Isn't happy about you and me."

"She hasn't even met me," Yancy said in a puzzled voice.

"She thinks she knows you by reputation."

"Nobody knows anyone by reputation. Introduce us, honey. I'll win her over."

"You can't win over everyone you meet, Yancy."

"Sure I can. She probably just heard something negative about me from someone jealous 'cause I've got you. Believe me, I can clear up any misunderstanding and change her mind about me."

"She called you a reptile of the night," Pearl said.

"Well, that's nothing. Just a figure of speech. I can turn her around."

Pearl saw one of the passing impressionist figures out in the street veer in toward the doorway, lowering and folding an umbrella. A figure tall, rangy, yet hulking. Quinn arriving.

"I need to go now, Yancy. Crime needs attention."

"So do I, darling."

"Yancy…"

"Always willing to step aside for crime. Tonight?"

"Tonight."

Pearl slid the phone into her pocket just as Quinn was coming through the door. He nodded a good morning and shook water from his black umbrella before depositing it in an old metal milk container that had been pressed into service as an umbrella stand.

Pearl watched as he walked over and poured a mug of the coffee she'd brewed. He added powdered cream, stirred, sipped, made a face. It was all an act because she'd made the coffee. They both knew cops drank any kind of black sludge for coffee and it was all the same to them.

"Got those notes on our witness interviews from yesterday organized?" he asked, drifting over and settling in behind his desk.

Pearl went to her desk, got the folder of witness statements, and laid it on his desktop.

"I thought I might find Cindy Sellers and talk to her," Pearl said. "I still think she's a good bet to be our shadow woman."

Quinn laced his fingers behind his neck and leaned his head back into them, moving his elbows back and forth and stretching. "Sellers is good at denying things," he said.

"I'm good at seeing through fake denials."

"You are at that." Quinn looked closely at Pearl for the first time this morning. She was well put together today, dark slacks, light tan blazer, black hair brushed back to a knot at the base of her neck. He remembered how surprisingly long her hair would be when she loosed it from that knot. The way it would tumble to below her shoulders and close in an oval frame around her face, making her eyes look larger, softening her features.

"Quinn?"

She was still waiting for his response.

"Can't hurt," he said. "You might learn something while Sellers is lying to you. Go ahead and talk to her woman-to-woman."

"Woman to piranha," Pearl said.

Quinn figured she was waiting for him to ask which woman was the piranha, but he was too smart for that.

As she was going out the door, she glanced back and for just a second pursed her lips and arranged her features in what was unmistakably a kind of fish face. Knowing as she often did exactly what was in his mind.

Quinn pretended not to have noticed and started leafing through the material she'd placed on his desk.

He didn't look up until he heard the door close. Mumbled something that might have been, "Piranha…"