Serial

52

The Skinner sat at a table in the atrium of the Citigroup Building, sipping an egg cream. There were no actual eggs in egg creams, which was one of the things the Skinner liked about them. They were tricky and misleading. Possibly most people who drank them, especially out-of-towners, assumed they’d consumed an egg. He smiled grimly. There were a lot of misconceptions about what people ate in this town.

He sipped and savored. Yes, egg creams were misleading. They symbolized the misleading and mislabeled world people were supposed to live in. But he’d learned long ago there were as many worlds as there were people. Anyone who was smart enough soon figured out it was possible to create and live in a world of your own, and it was just as valid as the one projected by so-called reality. It was the individual world of the spirit and the mind. It wasn’t mystical at all, but simply another chosen reality. Not buying into the common delusion; that’s what it was all about. The real rules, the ancient, few ones, were the only rules that mattered. The only actual reality, deeply buried in the human psyche, as it was in that of every living being.

He sucked on the plastic straw and it made a gurgling sound that signified the end of the egg cream.

Best to stop thinking bullshit, he decided. Not the place or time for hypothesizing. Concentrate on creating Quinn’s reality, keeping the wily cop in a world controlled by the Skinner. Different worlds for different folks. If his and Quinn’s worlds met only now and then, and tangentially, everything would work out fine.

He wondered if the lady cop he’d beaten was dead. And if she was alive, had she learned her lesson? Would she be able to go back to her job and be part of the game? Had Quinn lost one of his pieces?

The Skinner had beaten her with a tire thumper, a clublike instrument used by truckers to whap the tires of eighteen-wheelers to make sure they were inflated. He’d bought it in the shop of a highway gas station and restaurant frequented by truck drivers (a sure sign of good food) after noticing how much it resembled an old-fashioned wooden nightstick. It was even weighted at the end like a nightstick and had a leather strap to wind around your wrist so you wouldn’t drop it. A crude weapon, but effective. Ask the lady cop.

He gathered his napkin, cup, and crumpled straw wrapper from the table and stood up to leave. Maybe he’d stop in at the bookstore in the building and buy something to read. A thriller of some sort. Escape literature.

As he made his way toward a trash receptacle, he noticed two men seated facing each other at one of the tiny tables, their heads bowed. Their brows were furrowed and their gazes fixed, as they concentrated on a chess board between them.

Lost in a world of their own.

Quinn loomed watchfully, like a rough-hewn and wingless angel, over Nancy Weaver’s hospital bed. His shoulders drooped and his massive hands dangled useless at his sides. Right now he felt useless. Helpless. Before him was a problem for surgeons’ hands and scalpels, not cops’ hands and guns.

Weaver was unconscious but coming out of it. As Quinn watched, her bruised face contorted in pain and her body twitched in a reflex action to change position, which she couldn’t do because she was belted to the bed faceup so she couldn’t put a strain on her injured back. She moaned and tried to but couldn’t quite open her eyes.

Quinn examined her IV bottles, then adjusted a plastic valve slightly. He waited a few minutes and then stepped out into the hall and hailed a passing nurse.

“I think she’s regained consciousness,” he said.

The nurse, a portly, middle-aged woman with puffy cheeks and diamond-bright blue eyes, gave him a suspicious look. Her plastic name tag identified her as Rose. “The patient in two-oh-five?”

“Right. Officer Nancy Weaver.”

“Ah, the policewoman.” Rose shuffled several clipboards she was carrying, found the proper one, and gazed at it. “Hmm… you’re sure she’s regaining consciousness?”

“She asked if she could talk to me,” Quinn said. “Mumbled it, but she asked.”

“And who might you be?”

Quinn showed her his ID.

Rose looked him in the eye. “You’re positive she’s conscious? She’s receiving a sedative along with her glucose. We’re trying to hydrate her. She has several serious injuries.”

Quinn moved nearer to Rose. “I’ve got to confide in you, dear, that it’s vitally important that she and I speak. Lives do depend on it.”

Rose had heard that one. She shook her head no. “We’ll get Officer Weaver well on her way to survival, then you can question her and catch whoever did that terrible thing to her.”

Quinn laid a huge hand on her shoulder with a feather touch. “No, no, dear, you don’t understand. Her interest and mine, and I hope yours, are to make sure she’s not soon joined by another patient with similar, or perhaps even worse, injuries at the hands of the animal that beat poor Nancy. There is a time-urgent aspect to this matter.”

Rose shook her head adamantly. “I can’t be responsible for-”

“But you will be, Rose. Responsible for another woman suffering as Officer Weaver now suffers. That is, if you don’t let her and I simply exchange a few words. Then she can rest all the better knowing she’s done her duty and we know who did this heinous thing to her. I beg you, Rose, to let her finish what she set out tonight to accomplish.”

Rose gave Quinn a long, hopeless sigh. He wasn’t sure if it meant surrender or exasperation. Rose was hard to read.

Quinn moved closer and lowered his voice even more. “Young as you are, my impression is you’ve been a nurse for some time. You must know your real responsibilities in gray areas such as this, dear. Vital gray areas. We all know there are rules that must in special times be circumvented to prevent tragedy.”

“You are so full of bullshit,” Rose said.

Quinn’s earnest smile was undaunted.

“You can be in the room with us,” Quinn said.

“You’re damned right I can,” Rose told him, and led the way.

As soon as they were in the room, Rose examined the IV bottles hooked up to the tube leading to Weaver’s arm.

Weaver’s eyes flickered open. “Quinn…?” she managed to groan from her bed.

He touched her lightly on the forehead. “Don’t try to talk, Nancy, unless I ask you something.”

“I’m in goddamned pain. The bastard hit me with something that looked like a nightstick.”

“Who was it, Nancy?”

“I was following Sanderson.”

“Jock Sanderson? Why?”

“I read Pearl’s notes from her interview with him. They didn’t look right. The guy got to her, gave her a load of crap instead of straight answers.”

Quinn had read the interview and didn’t see it that way. And not too many people got to Pearl. “You really think so?”

“Yeah. So I decided to tail Sanderson and see what there was to learn. I got the feeling he was tailing someone. Stalking her.”

“Her?”

“I’m guessing there,” Weaver admitted. She took a deep breath. “Damn, that hurts!”

“Sanderson did this to you?”

“Must have. I was tailing him one second, and the next he was pounding away on me with that club of his.”

“You saw his face?”

“No. It was dark and he was wearing a balaclava. I could just see his eyes and mouth.”

“So you couldn’t identify him for sure.”

“No. Guess not…”

Weaver’s voice was wavering. She was obviously getting weaker.

“We’re done here,” Rose said.

“No,” Weaver said. She tried to grasp Quinn’s arm but couldn’t move her own. “I scratched his face hard under the balaclava. I remember that for sure. I did damage. Then I smelled ammonia-”

“Ammonia…”

“That’s it,” Rose said, and reached for the valve on the IV tube.

“He cleaned under my fingernails,” Weaver said. “I could feel the scraping…”

Rose readjusted the plastic valve.

“He might be our Skinner,” Weaver said.

“Skinner?” Rose asked. “The animal who’s killing those women?”

Quinn nodded. “The very same.” He looked down at Weaver, whose eyes were closed again. “Nancy?”

Weaver’s breath evened out and her features relaxed.

“She’s resting,” Rose said, “as she should be. And if I ever find again that you’ve tampered with medical equipment in a patient’s room, I’ll sic the authorities on you like a pack of mad dogs. There’ll be no more asking me to break the law for you. And you a policeman yourself.”

“I-”

“Don’t bother to deny it, please. I’ve heard enough lies.” She sighed loudly again. It seemed to be her signature way of expressing herself. “Have you got a card, Quinn?”

He looked at her.

“A business card, man!” Another trailing sigh.

Quinn dug his wallet from his pocket and handed her one of his Q and A business cards.

Rose tucked it in a pocket of her nurse’s uniform. “When the patient comes around again and you can count on her actually making sense, I’ll straightaway give you a call.”

“Thanks, Rose. I’ll have someone standing guard on Weaver here at the hospital. If you notify him, it’ll be the same as notifying me.”

“I hope you catch the murdering psychopath,” Rose said.

“We will,” Quinn assured her. He moved toward the elevator, and Rose walked alongside him. At the elevator doors, they paused. Quinn smiled his surprisingly beatific smile and gave Rose’s elbow a gentle squeeze. “You did the right thing, dear.”

“I was told those very words once after extramarital sex. It was a lie then and it is now.”