Mister X

76

Pearl was getting tired of waiting.

The first fifteen minutes, nobody entered or exited the stone and pink granite building. Then a woman with what looked like a greyhound on a leash came down the concrete steps. Ten minutes later, a man in a blue Windbreaker and white golf cap exited and jogged down the steps, flipping away a cigarette and opening a dark umbrella as he descended. Pearl noticed for the first time that there was a fine mist. Her blouse was lightly spotted, and the back of its collar felt damp and tacky on her neck. She hunkered down and decided not to move to shelter unless it began raining harder.

Five minutes later an elderly lady pulling a two-wheeled folding grocery cart approached the apartment building. There were three brown paper sacks stuffed into the cart. She wrestled the contraption up the slippery wet steps and disappeared inside.

Pearl shot a look at her watch. Lisa Bolt had been in the apartment building for half an hour. It obviously wasn't her apartment, but despite the business with the lock pick, maybe she was staying there. Or visiting someone who was staying there.

Like Chrissie Keller.

Pearl decided to go check. It seemed the thing to do, without an umbrella.

She encountered no one as she took the elevator to the third floor and made her way toward apartment 3-S.

When she was ten feet away, she noticed the door was open about an inch, as if someone had pulled it closed but not hard enough for the latch to engage.

Somebody leaving in a hurry?

It hadn't been Lisa, Pearl was sure. There was no way she could have slipped past without being seen.

Except for the time I spent in the elevator.

Pearl hadn't worn her blazer or shoulder holster, so she removed her Glock nine-millimeter from her purse and held the gun tight against her thigh. Then she pushed the door open, raising the gun at the same time, and went in fast, holding the Glock in front of her with both hands, hearing the door bounce off the wall behind her.

She crouched and swept the barrel of the gun this way and that.

But her dramatic entrance had played to no audience and brought no response. The apartment, what she could see of it, seemed unoccupied.

Only seemed, because there was someone else in here. She was sure of it. Be it gut feeling, stirred air, the additional fraction of a degree of body heat, subliminal sound…whatever, she knew she wasn't alone.

Her throat was dry, and it was an effort to swallow as she decided to explore.

There was nowhere to hide in the living room. The furnishings were shabby, and there was dust on the matching tables at each end of the long green sofa. On a windowsill was a lineup of small potted plants, all of them wilted. An empty Diet Pepsi can lay on its side on one of the tables, and a copy of Oprah's magazine lay open on the floor as if it had been tossed there. Somebody was a lousy housekeeper.

Still holding the gun at the ready, Pearl held her breath and negotiated the hall. It took her only a moment to glance in the tiny bathroom and assure herself that it was clear.

On to what must be the apartment's only bedroom.

It also appeared unoccupied.

There was an odd burnt scent in the air, as if someone had been smoking here recently. Or cooking.

The bed was made but somewhat sloppily, and was too low for someone to hide under.

The closet. If she really wasn't alone, he, she, it, would probably be in the closet. Hiding behind the clothes draped on hangers. Waiting.

Pearl steeled herself and yanked open the closet door.

No clothes at all. There were only a few wire hangers inside, an old coupon for pizza on the floor, nothing on the wooden shelf above. The faint scent of mothballs wafted from the closet.

Pearl shut the closet door, turned around, and saw the foot.

It was barely visible on the floor on the other side of the bed, as if someone had fallen out of bed and was lying there.

The foot was bare and had toes with chipped red enamel on the nails. There was a callus or blister on the side of the big toe.

Pearl eased over until she was against the wall and peered at the narrow space between wall and bed.

Lisa Bolt was crammed into that space, her left foot beyond the bed, her right leg jammed sideways with the knee crooked. She was wearing her jeans, but that was all.

Pearl squeezed in to where she could reach Lisa. She called her name several times to see if she was conscious.

"Okay, okay," Lisa mumbled, though there was no movement and she didn't open her eyes.

Pearl reached Lisa's perspiring arms and began pulling on them. They kept slipping out of her grasp.

"Try, will you?" Pearl said, after one of her fingernails had been bent back. The finger continued to throb.

Begrudgingly, and after much flailing around, Lisa cooperated enough so that she was turned and on her knees. Pearl gripped her around the waist and got her standing upright, and Lisa collapsed onto the bed.

Pearl eased her around until Lisa was lying lengthwise with her head on the pillow. That was when she saw the pattern of cigarette burns on Lisa's breasts and recognized the scorched smell she'd noticed in the bedroom. It hadn't been from something cooking. Not exactly.

Someone had tortured Lisa by holding a lit cigarette to her bare flesh.

The realization in the hot bedroom with the smell of burned flesh made Pearl's stomach turn, and for a moment she thought she might vomit. When she swallowed, she tasted bitterness at the back of her throat.

"Who did this to you?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," Lisa said, and started to sob.

Pearl almost slapped her, and then thought better of it. "There's no time for this sorry bullshit now," she said. "Tell me what went on here. Tell me now, Lisa."

Lisa struggled to control herself and went from sobbing to gasping to ragged breathing. She was calming down.

"Get a grip," Pearl said.

"Yeah…I'm okay now."

She might have thought she was about to be slapped, and that had done the trick.

"What are you doing here?" Pearl asked.

"I thought Chrissie might be here. This was a place where we met once, but she's moved. Must have been scared."

"Scared of us? The police?"

"Yeah. You, of course. Scared of her father, too. She must have seen in the news that he was in town."

"Was it Keller who did that to you? With the cigarette?"

"Yeah. He left a while ago."

The man in the blue Windbreaker, with the umbrella. Flicking his cigarette away as he went down the steps.

"Damn it!" Pearl said.

"You screw up?"

"Royally."

"Welcome to the club," Lisa said. "I knew Chrissie would be here or in another apartment where she's been staying. She wasn't here." Her gaze roamed around the room, and her eyes widened slightly, as if fear had set in again. "Keller was suddenly behind me. The bastard had been hiding. I couldn't put up any kind of resistance." She sounded ashamed.

"You were surprised," Pearl said. "And you probably should still have been in your hospital bed to begin with. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"He tied me up, took off my blouse, and started in on me with the cigarettes. He jammed a pillow over my face whenever I tried to scream. Punched me around, too. I think he broke something in me. I heard it crack. He demanded to know where Chrissie was. Said he'd kill me if I didn't tell him, and that he'd find me and kill me if I lied to him."

Lisa started to shiver, maybe going into shock. Pearl laid the other half of the old bedspread over her to warm her up. The shivering got worse.

"It's okay," Pearl said. "He's gone."

"Of course he's gone. I gave him what he wanted, the address of the apartment where he could find Chrissie." Lisa pointed feebly toward the door. "He left to find Chrissie. I told you he wanted her. I told you."

"You told us," Pearl said, feeling for her cell phone in her purse. She punched out 911 to get an ambulance in a hurry for Lisa.

"Now tell me the address you gave Keller," she said, when EMS had an ambulance on the way.

Lisa lay with her eyes closed, as if reading from the insides of the lids, and told her.

Pearl called Quinn, filled him in on the situation, and relayed the West Side address. Then she called Vitali and clued him in, along with Mishkin. They were Midtown in their unmarked car. She asked Vitali to have a radio car sent to where she was with Lisa as soon as possible, and another to the address where Chrissie was supposed to be staying.

"They're on the way," Vitali said. "The uniforms will make sure Lisa gets back in the hospital. Maybe she'll stay there a while this time."

"She will," Pearl said. "She's got broken bones this time. Cigarette burns in bad places." Over the phone she heard the unmarked's siren kick in, parting the traffic in front of Vitali and Mishkin.

"What are you figuring on doing, Pearl?"

"Soon as the uniforms get here, I'm leaving for where you and Mishkin are going-Chrissie's apartment. We need to get there before Keller."

"You wouldn't realize it over the phone, but right now Harold has our car doing ninety on Broadway. We only slow down when we have to get up on the sidewalk."

"He'll kill her," Lisa said in a pain-weary voice behind Pearl. "That bastard, her father's gonna kill her."

Pearl said, "A couple of cops doing ninety think otherwise."