Night kills

44

She was a snap to follow. Fedderman stayed back about half a block behind the new Madeline, sometimes crossing to the other side of the street in case she might glance behind her. But she never did. It seemed not to have entered her mind that she might be followed. Either that or she was damned good at looking unsuspecting. Fedderman had seen it both ways. He thought she was simply unaware.

It had been twenty minutes since Fedderman had seen Pearl reverse direction and get off the new Madeline's tail, just after Quinn's phone call to her after Fedderman had talked to him. Fedderman didn't think Pearl had spotted him, either. That pleased him. He'd thought Florida might have spoiled him, that he might be out of practice at being invisible, but tailing, once learned, you didn't forget. It was like riding a bicycle but not like hitting a golf ball.

Fedderman was getting uncomfortably warm in the hot sticky air that followed the rain. Feeling the dampness under his arms, he took off his suit coat and slung it over his shoulder. It wasn't that he had to work hard to keep up with the woman in the white raincoat. She walked slowly, and she liked to window shop. Every now and then she'd enter one of the shops, but usually she didn't stay long. Fickle, Fedderman thought.

She turned the corner at West Eighty-fifth and walked a while, then went up the concrete steps of one of a row of three six-story brownstones that were in disrepair. The middle building looked vacant and had scaffolding along its front, but there was no sign of anyone working. The new Madeline entered through the oversized, green-enameled wood door of the third building.

Fedderman thought the way she'd taken the steps, kind of bounding up them, suggested she was a young woman, or in damned good condition.

He waited five minutes, then crossed the street, sidestepped around pigeon shit, and entered the building. He found himself in a small vestibule with yellow-stained green tile walls and a painted gray concrete floor. The place was stifling and smelled strongly of bleach overpowered by the acrid scent of urine. There were bits of tinfoil on the floor. They looked like Hershey's Kisses wrappers.

Fedderman glanced around and saw no sign of an elevator. The building was a walk-up. A TV was playing loudly in one of the units, tuned to the financial channel. He heard a man's voice proclaim that the bulls were in charge.

That'll be the day.

He stepped over to the row of six mailboxes that were painted the same yellowed green as the wall. The slot above one of the end boxes had a card in it on which M. Scott, 6A was printed in pencil. Top floor. Good thing the new Madeline is in shape. Fedderman was glad there was no reason why he should have to ascend the stairs and verify that indeed unit 6A was up there. It was too hot to climb the steep wooden steps. And a bad idea anyway to clomp up them and maybe alert the new Madeline that she might have been followed.

Fedderman pushed open the heavy wood street door and left the building, glad to get away from the heat and the stench of urine.

He walked half a block before he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Quinn.

They had the new Madeline's address. Progress.

Ten minutes after leaving Fedderman to take her place tailing the new Madeline, Pearl realized she was being followed. It was only an uneasy feeling on the edge of her consciousness, but one a longtime cop didn't ignore.

She began stealing glances behind her and caught just a glimpse of a figure quickly moving away on the periphery of her vision. After another block, she pretended to turn slightly and excuse herself for bumping into a man with a briefcase and saw the same sudden movement. This time whoever it was had ducked into a Duane Reade drugstore. A big one that Pearl knew had a downstairs, so it wouldn't do to enter it and try to find whoever was tailing her. There might be fifty customers inside. She and her tail would simply be playing cat and mouse up and down the aisles.

She told herself not to get excited. Her shadower might simply be some guy who liked short women with black hair and big boobs. Easy enough to understand. But she was curious.

One way to find out.

She decided first to put him at ease and end any of his suspicions that he might have been spotted. Without once more checking to see if he was there, she abruptly went down the concrete steps to a subway stop. She joined a crowd of people hurrying toward the turnstiles. The air was unnaturally still and heavy, as if an underground thunderstorm were due. Maybe someday New York would have one. As an escalator carried her even deeper belowground, she could hear the mournful, echoing notes of someone playing a harmonica not very well.

Not bothering to look up or down the platform, she waited about five minutes, then boarded a train.

She emerged aboveground from another stop four blocks from Jill's-and Jewel's-apartment building and strolled toward it. The sun was bright on the tinted windows of traffic headed past her at a crawl going the opposite direction, painting reflections of the street and sidewalk. When a large truck hissed its air brakes and slowly passed, she angled her stride slightly, moving toward the curb, so the reflection in its big side window gave her a brief but panoramic view of the block behind her.

She glimpsed the reflection she thought she might.

You're still there.

If some guy was following her simply because he liked her looks and was working up the nerve to approach her, he was going to a lot of trouble.

Not that I'm not worth it.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Great!

Quinn, maybe.

Pearl unobtrusively pulled the buzzing phone from her pocket and saw the number of Golden Sunset. She didn't want to talk to her mother now. She slid the phone back in her pocket.

It continued to vibrate. Pause. Vibrate.

After eight or ten steps she knew the phone was going to drive her nuts. She was sure her mother would let it vibrate ninety times before giving up and breaking the connection. Pearl could set the phone to kick over to voice mail, but she knew her mother would simply call back, maybe ninety times.

Not breaking stride, she removed the phone from her pocket again and flipped it open.

"Hello, Mom."

"Pearl?"

"Who else would it be? You just called me."

"Really? I thought I'd dialed the number of my friend Mrs. Kahn." Pearl knew this was a lie. Her mother pressed on: "Where were you, on the commode? Never mind. But speaking of Mrs. Kahn, how is your relationship going with her nephew Milton? I should say Doctor Milton Kahn. A girl could do worse-and here I know I get personal but why shouldn't I with my only daughter-than marry a successful dermatologist. And judging by my conversations with Mrs. Kahn, the aunt, Milton, the nephew, is successful in ways monetary as well as professional. She said he spent his early years in practice doing charitable work-which bespeaks a good heart, though we both know he has that-but now has a thriving practice with patients who pay. Has marriage so much as come up in a conversational manner? I think enough time has passed since your first meeting together that it would at the very least have been at some time a topic of casual conversation."

"Do I get a turn to talk?" Pearl asked.

"That's what I've been asking you to do, dear. Tell me about the status of your relationship with Doctor Milton Kahn. Since it was I who, you might say, arranged-along with Mrs. Kahn, the aunt, of course-that you two lovebirds meet, I feel I have some right to ask the question. That is, about the status of your relationship in regards to matrimony."

"I think Milt's a nice guy. That's where we're at."

"You've said that before."

"Well, it's still true. Mom, I'm-"

"I'm inquiring about the relationship not so much on a platonic plane. Where has it progressed to on-and here I attempt delicacy-more of a physical plane? In a successful relationship the line between the platonic and the physical isn't so noticeable as time and love work their-"

"Mom, I'm working."

"Exactly my point, dear. Is that necessary? I mean, this pertains to my still unanswered question, wouldn't you agree?"

"No." Pearl thought shock therapy might work. "I'm being followed by a man with a gun."

"Would it be likely in the slightest that the wife of Doctor Milton Kahn, renowned dermatologist, would even in this crazy world be followed by a man with a gun?"

"No," Pearl had to admit. "But I'm not anyone's wife, and I'm working, and you must understand that I don't have time to talk."

"People are judged by the time they take to-"

Pearl broke the connection and switched off the phone.

Still without a glance behind her, Pearl briskly took the steps of the apartment building's entrance and pushed through the front door. There was no one in the outer lobby, no one in sight through the windowed door to the inner lobby that would show anyone about to exit the building.

She counted to five slowly, then spun on her heel and burst back out through the door and down the two concrete steps onto the sidewalk.

And came face-to-face with Ed Greeve.