Intermusings Page 10

  "Zolo?"

  He couldn't think, couldn't even begin to put it in gear enough to do this. Not now. Not so soon.

  "Take over for a while, Tony," he managed to grate. "I'm gonna check out some things. I'll see you back at the station."

  He turned and went out into the rain. The faces he passed, the photographers, the crowd, all were a blur. Too much all at once—he had to get away. As he was pulling away, he saw Tony standing in the doorway, staring after him and probably wondering just how the hell he was supposed to meet him at the station if the car was gone.

  "I think the key is the abortions," Tony told Grodin in his office. "All of the victims—even Tanya Jordan, the latest—had an abortion. What's more, they'd all been to the same doctor, Stuart Neff. When I couldn't find Zolo I went and talked to Neff myself."

  "And you haven't seen Zolo since he left you at the crime scene?"

  "I'm sure he's following up on Tanya Jordan's murder and —"

  "Christ on a stick, Saucier!" Grodin exploded. "Wise up and deal straight with me, son, or I'll have your badge so fucking fast. . ."

  "Chief, I —"

  "Did you know that Zolo spent last night with this Tanya Jordan?"

  How far was covering for your partner supposed to go? Loyalty and trust between two people, decided Tony, takes time. They'd only been partners for three weeks. How much did he really know about Zolotow?

  "Okay, so you knew. I can read it on your face. As of this moment, you're both off the case."

  "Chief!"

  "Where's Zolo?"

  "I honestly don't know."

  "Shit." Grodin pushed back from his desk and began to pace the room. "If we know he was with her last night, so do the news people. To top it off one of the guys in vice says Zolo also had a thing going with Vicki Marsh."

  "He's not the killer, Chief."

  "The coroner puts the time of death at between eight and nine this morning. Zolo didn't show up here until after nine." Grodin gripped the back of his chair. "I'm gonna' have to put out an all-points for him."

  "Fine, but leave me on the case, Chief. I know I can crack this from the abortion angle."

  "Did you get Neff's records? The next victim, or maybe even the killer, is probably among those he's performed abortions on."

  "Neff's office was broken into several months ago and his records were stolen—I'd say that's how the killer got his shopping list. Neff's making a list of all the women he's operated on whom he suspects to be prostitutes. He promised me that list tonight."

  "You follow up on that then, but let me tell you one thing." The chief leaned across the desk and stuck a finger in Tony's face. "If you hear from Zolotow, you tell him to get his ass in here pronto. I want some answers out of him and, goddammit, I want them now!"

  At Six o'clock the rain was still coming down. I'd nearly worn a rut in the natty carpet pacing before the apartment's single window. Tony'd arrive in three hours and my careful plans and expectations for dinner were fast washing away with the vile water running down the pane.

  We'd have to stay in. There was wine and cheese in the fridge. A loaf of French bread I'd picked up yesterday on the way over from the hotel.

  I knew that I should call him and cancel. Being alone in the apartment with him could only lead to one thing.

  Three hours.

  It seemed like an eternity.

  Everything was wrong—warped. The world, once black and white and solid patterns Martin could read, was now a shifting, unsteady pool of muck, sucking him down. Vicki. Tanya. Their faces kept flashing on the road ahead of him like some sort of psychic overlays. Their eyes were bright, accusing.

  Suddenly his off-kilter, cross-fucking wired brain, which he'd always considered his biggest asset, despite its drawbacks, was mocking him. He was no killer—was he? Was it possible, without being aware of it on a normal level, that he was somehow responsible for all this? If he could look into his memory holes would he find himself the killer? His hands trembled on the wheel, and he swerved to his right, just in time to avoid an approaching city bus.

  "Christ," he spat, "I've got to get off this fucking road." He had nowhere to go, no one to turn to for help. He had the crazy, tantalizing urge to go down town and find another woman. Any woman, it didn't matter. He could push the madness aside, lose himself in her flesh—not think at all.

  Right, he thought, shaking his head to clear it. Then she ends up dead too, and you go to jail. Brilliant, Zolo. The pride of the fucking force, that's you.

  He pulled into the parking lot of a seedy, deserted-looking bar and got out. He knew he shouldn't be there, driving a city vehicle, on-duty, but he had to do something. His mind was on a crazy rampage through his memories, memories of more women than he could count, more nights than he could remember. Something had to click, some barely remembered fact that would straighten the whole fucking mess out for him, give him the clue he needed to put his own mind to rest.

  He entered the bar, ordered a shot of straight bourbon over ice and a beer. The place was empty except for the bartender and a Mexican with a mop.

  Think, Zolo, think!

  His options, and there seemed damned few of them, spun through his mind in an unending, circular procession. He could go back to the station house. That was the most logical thing, but somehow he couldn't face it. He knew they were probably already looking for him. Plenty of people had known about him and Tanya, other girls, even the manager of the seedy hotel. Hell, he'd seen that guy enough times to be on his Christmas card list. There would be questions, maybe even a suspension. At the very least, he would be off the case, and he needed this one, needed it worse than anything he'd ever needed in his long life.

  Of course he wasn't the killer. He didn't own a nail gun. He'd never so much as slapped a woman in his life. God, he loved women! All women! But with these gaps in his memory, how was he to prove his innocence?

  He was on his third beer and as many shots when the door opened. He looked up quickly—had they found him so soon? So easily?

  It was Tony. He was alone, and the expression on his face was grim—not friendly, but not threatening, either. Cards were on the table; how would the kid deal? God knew Martin hadn't dealt straight with him.

  "Hi, Zolo." Tony took the stool next to him, but not looking at him, looking down at his clenched hands on the bar, knuckles white. "You're off the case."

  "I figured as much."

  "Grodin wants you to come in. They know about you and the hooker . . . I didn't tell them, but they know."

  "Yeah, I kind of figured that, too." Martin answered carefully, wondering where this was leading.

  "You should have trusted me, Zolo. You should have fucking trusted me."

  "You turning me in?" There. Out in the open, cards on the table.

  "No."

  "How'd you find me?"

  The frown on the kid's face said it'd been a pretty sure bet that he'd find Zolo in one of the seedy bars just off prostitute lane. You're getting damned predictable in your old age, Zolo.

  "I don't think you did it," Tony said in lieu of an answer, "and I need your help."

  Martin stared at the younger detective for a long moment, feeling relieved, and very small. "You found something?"

  "Maybe." Slight hesitation.

  "We were right on the abortion angle, weren't we?"

  "I talked to the doctor," Tony said, "strange old coot by the name of Stuart Neff. He's putting together a list of all the other ladies of the evening he's seen over the past year or so. He's supposed to have it for me tonight. Think you could pick it up?"

  "I'm off the case, remember?" Zolo watched his partner carefully. "Grodin will have your ass if he finds out. And where the hell are you going to be? Hot date?"

  "Maybe." But Tony's blush gave him away.

  Martin frowned. "You be careful, Tony. La belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall."

  "What?"

  "John Keats:

  I saw pale kings, and pr
inces too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

  Who cry'd—'La belle Dame sans merci

  Hath thee in thrall!'"

  "Poetry? You're too weird, Zolo."

  "Yeah, just be careful like I told you. Meanwhile, I'll get the list. Maybe some names will be familiar. You got an address for this Neff? A number?"

  Tony handed over a sheet of paper without a word. There was no hesitation evident on his features now, but Martin had to wonder: did his partner have any doubts? Was there a slight suspicion that he might be handing Neff's address over to the very killer Neff could help identify? There was no other explanation: the kid was learning to use his instincts. Martin was beginning to develop a grudging and very deep respect for this rookie detective . . . maybe he'd work out after all.

  "Use my car," Tony told him. "They'll be looking for yours." They exchanged car keys.

  "Thanks, Tony. I owe you one. Where can I find you if something breaks?"

  This time there was hesitation, but it was obvious that it was due to embarrassment, not lack of trust. Martin couldn't help but smile. "It's the same building where they found Vicki Marsh," Tony said finally. "Room 3-C."

  There followed a moment of nervous silence between them in which Tony studied the stains on the bar and Martin searched for something else to say. He'd warned the kid to be careful. He didn't want to see Tony make the same mistakes he'd made, the endless string of nights with women whose primary concern was getting paid up front. But what could he do if Tony was determined to go? Martin had been there himself.

  Finally, Tony cleared his throat and rose from his bar stool. "I need to go."

  "Thanks, Tony."

  "Yeah. The key to my apartment's there with my car keys. Why don't you swing by and get yourself cleaned up. You smell like a brewery."

  And then he was gone, slipping out into the rain and a damp fog that swirled and eddied around the closing bar door. Martin had a sudden premonition then, a spark of cross-wired neurons that screamed for him to go after the kid.

  "Get you another drink?" asked the bartender, interrupting the sudden intuition. As fast as it had formed, the anxiety was gone, slipping into the bourbon and beer stupor clouding his brain.

  "No," Martin answered, getting up from the stool. "I think I've had enough."

  Tony came early, bearing flowers and wine, a nervous smile, and eyes that searched out every corner of the cheap apartment before they tentatively met mine.

  "I've been thinking about you all afternoon," he stammered awkwardly.

  "Good," I whispered, taking the flowers and setting them aside. Vile, sweet smelling things, roses or peonies or some such—I'd never bothered to learn the difference. I much preferred the smells he was carrying on himself: the rain and weather veiled with cheap aftershave and pensive apprehension; the scent of flesh and blood and bone and sweat that hung in every molecule of air we shared; life and sustenance. To my heightened senses, it transcended smell and taste, became an existential element my starving soul sipped like fine wine. I slid in close to him, pressing hunger-hardened nipples through the thin veneer of my silk blouse to touch the chilled cloak of rain water clinging to his jacket. I kissed him, tasting the rain on his face, the saliva on his tongue.

  "Where would you like to go for dinner?" he asked when I finished that kiss. His face was flushed, the question an obvious cover up for the sheer shock of the passion of that one kiss, that brief introduction to the night that lay before us.

  "I thought we'd eat in."

  "But I wanted to take you out." And I could see that what he wanted was to show me off, to be seen with me on his arm. The envious stares. The guarded whispers and curses as men wondered what he had that they didn't, what it was about him that attracted a woman like me. The contemptuous glares of lesser women as they mouthed words like slut, bitch, and whore.

  "It's the rain," I explained. "I hate it."

  "That's silly. It's just rain. It's just water."

  "To you maybe."

  He glanced at the window, at the rain falling on the far side of the glass. Then he scowled and studied me very carefully, as if he thought I was attempting some obscure joke. "I don't understand. Why does it scare you?"

  "Old memories. Bad memories. One day maybe I'll tell you about them, but now just hold me."

  "You're trembling," he said as his arms wrapped around me.

  "I'm starving."

  "Then we should eat."

  "No. It's you I'm hungry for, Tony."

  He lowered his head and I kissed him hard, biting his lip so that it bled. He cried out at the sudden pain, but I wrapped my arms about his head, gripped his damp hair, and held on as he tried to pull back. I sucked and the blood from his lip ran salty sweet down my throat, a trail of fire marking its passage. His hands found my breasts through the blouse, cupped and stroked, tugged at my knotted nipples. He was fumbling with the buttons when I reached down and ripped it open, near climbing his body as I brought them up to his mouth. As he sucked, I felt his legs tremble.

  "Bedroom," I whispered in his ear.

  But he was already pulling my skirt up around my waist, surprised and delighted in finding that I wore no panties. His hand discovered how wet I was. How hot. A finger probed, caressed, set me to moaning in his ear.

  "Take me to the bedroom. The floor . . . too hard."

  He didn't seem to hear. His mouth trailed down my stomach, past the skirt. I responded to his mouth, pressing back with unbridled urgency. "Tony," I moaned, "I want you to fuck me. God, I want you to fuck me all night long . . . but take me to the goddamn bedroom first!" I pulled him back then, spun him away and half across the room.

  The look on his face said he was shocked at how strong I was. I knew where the strength was coming from. I could hear it growling in my back-brain. I could smell it in the musky odor rising from my body. I knew then what I'd known all along but had been unwilling to admit. I couldn't control it.

  Tony wiped at his mouth. "Sorry, I —"

  I tugged the skirt down, pulled my ruined blouse across my flushed breasts. "Maybe you should go."

  "What?"

  "Just go, Tony."

  "But I . . . we . . . I mean, Jesus, Kat, look at me. I'm trembling. I want you so bad I —"

  My kiss cut off the rest of his sentence. There was still some blood on his lip. He swept me off my feet and carried me into the bedroom. On the bed he removed my clothing; then, standing over me, he discarded his own. God but he was beautiful!

  As we slipped between the sheets, his hands and mouth working their subtle magic, immortal memories awoke. The beast extended its claws and crawled from the shadows of my mind with a deep-throated growl that reverberated like thunder in my skull. The claws slipped through grey matter like it was hot butter, seating themselves deep, hooking unmercifully in the control centers of my brain.

  I was no longer in charge of the evening.

  Martin admired his partner's neat, orderly apartment. Nothing in his own life was neat. His place always looked like it had been recently burgled. Clothing, books, and paper strewn about madly; everything left wherever he'd last used it. Tony's apartment, while small, was tastefully furnished and shone with an almost spartan cleanliness. Another step closer to knowing the man, Martin thought.

  Stripping off his clothes, he turned the water in the shower up as hot as he could stand, then one more notch, and stepped in, gritting his teeth. Somehow he felt the need for cleansing, as if he could wash away the past few days and watch them swirl down the drain with the grime.

  He was soon showered, toweled, and dressed again, drinking a beer he'd found in Tony's refrigerator. Heineken. It figured: no Schlitz or PBR here. Wouldn't fit the motif.

  Neff answered after the third ring, a crotchety, absent- minded cackle of a voice. An instant image of the man flashed into Martin's mind, a bent, grey-haired old codger with a constant frown chiseled among the lines of his face.

  "Yes, Detective, I have the l
ist. Very distressing, all of this murder and violence. Very distressing indeed. Such nice young ladies, I mean, all things considered. Such a shame."

  "Yeah," Martin replied, "distressing . . . no doubt. Then I can come and pick this list up in, say, an hour?"

  "So late? Well, if you must, I suppose you must. Can't have any more of my patients killed, now can I? Such a year. Court cases, murder . . ."

  "Court cases?" Martin felt an itch in the back of his mind, a memory that wouldn't quite surface. "What court cases?"

  "Very disturbing, quite a mess, in all the papers," the old man went on. "The man was obviously crazy, out of his mind, I'm sure. Blaming me for his son's indiscretion—asking me to break my oath."

  "What are you talking about?" Martin asked, trying to remain patient, the memory he sought still just out of reach.

  "He got a young woman pregnant—the son, I mean. When she declined his offer of marriage, the boy killed himself. Quite a mess that, jumped from a building if my memory is clear. The father wanted to find his grandchild, but it was too late, of course. He took me to court to try and find out who the mother would have been, but of course I didn't tell him. Couldn't do it, ethics and all."

  Martin had heard enough. The facts were clicking back into focus. He remembered the case, all right. He'd watched it on the news, or the tail end of it. He had a quick flash of a tall, stocky man with a dull, unimaginative face and an expression of stern, righteous anger carved on stone-like features. "I'll be there as quickly as I can for your list," Martin said, already rising to head for the door.

  "I'll see you then, detective," the doctor was saying, but Martin didn't hear this last. He'd already hung up the phone and headed for the door. The wheels were turning, and he only needed a couple more pieces to fit it all together. For the first time in days, he felt like himself again.