"Killing Critics" - читать интересную книгу автора (O’Connell Carol)CHAPTER 4The kitchen was Riker’s favorite room at Mallory and Butler, Ltd. It was a bright and airy space, a proper sit-down kitchen, where the best of conversations took place in the company of people he cared for, and the coffee was always first-rate. Riker slumped low in his chair and came to grips with the early morning. His daily routine had been so completely upset that he did not even have the continuity of his customary hangover. Mallory had taken the late shift on the roof, and yet she looked fresh and new. When did she ever sleep? She set a platter of croissants and cheeses on the table. There was also a side dish of jelly doughnuts as a special concession to himself. Charles stood at the counter, bending down to read a light display on the coffee machine. In the kitchen of Charles’s apartment across the hall, he still used a manual bean grinder, and brewed the coffee, drop by drop, into a carafe. Here he dealt with a computer which organized the grinding and brewing, set the richness of the flavor, and all but fetched the mugs from the cupboard after announcing that the coffee was ready. This room was the middle ground between Charles the lover of all things antique, and Mallory the machine. Now Riker noticed the recent addition of a microwave oven sitting on the counter in company with a small television set and a radio with a CD player. So Mallory was dragging Charles, appliance by appliance, into the twentieth century. “I would think Oren Watt was still the most likely suspect,” Charles was saying. “No one saw him there.” Mallory laid the silverware on the table. Sunlight slanted through the squares of the kitchen curtain and made a bright chessboard on the gleaming hardwood floor. The cleaning woman, Mrs. Ortega, owned the credit for the polished woodwork and all the odors of cleaning solvents that lingered for a day after her visits. Riker envied Charles the services of Mrs. Ortega. His own place had not had much of the dust disturbed in all the time he had lived there. Charles turned to Mallory as he was pouring coffee into generous mugs. “If you took more of an interest in the fine arts and attended a few gallery openings, you would know that no one has any idea what’s going on in the room. They stand in front of the artwork in little clusters and gossip. It’s not like anyone is watching the room or even looking at the art. Actually, Oren Watt could’ve done it.” “No, Charles, he couldn’t.” Riker noticed that her attitude in dealing with Charles was the same one she might use to housebreak a pet. Of course, she had no pet but Charles. Her voice was softer as she went on. “I watched him at the gallery installation for the television film. People stared at him everywhere he went. His face is a standout, and they all knew who he was, even though he’d cut off his hair and wore dark glasses. It was creepy. I don’t care how crowded the room was, or how preoccupied the guests were. Whoever was there and not dead would’ve noticed him.” “I’ll make a bet with you.” Charles carried the mugs to the table. “If I can prove that Oren Watt could’ve done it, you pay for lunch. Deal?” Riker grinned. “I didn’t think you were much of a betting man, Charles.” “It’s a science experiment with him.” Mallory sat down at the table and selected a golden croissant. “He can never win at poker, and he doesn’t know why. So he’ll keep doing experiments until he figures it out.” “What’s to figure out?” Riker reached for a doughnut and studied it with grave suspicion, wondering if he could eat it without a beer to wash it down. “You play poker with sharks, Charles. Doc Slope was born with a poker face. Rabbi Kaplan is a walking book of knowledge on human nature, and Duffy’s a goddamn lawyer. A genius IQ won’t save you in a game with that crew.” “Riker’s right,” said Mallory. “The game is tonight?” “Yes, in my apartment.” Charles sat down to breakfast with a bright smile. “Incidentally, I “You’re on.” “Oh, I have your research.” Charles placed a bundle of Xeroxes by Mallory’s coffee cup. “These are samples of Dean Starr’s reviews under his real name. He was not a brain trust. Just barely literate.” He set another bundle on top of this one. “And these are all the articles that appeared following Watt’s confession. The first fifteen stories are descriptions of an affair between Peter Ariel and Aubry Gilette.” Mallory scanned the first two sheets. She turned to Riker. “According to Markowitz’s notes, Quinn said there was no personal relationship between the artist and the dancer. That’s it? There was no follow-up on these articles?” “I did the follow-up,” said Riker. “Quinn was the spokesperson for the family. According to him, the parents had no idea she was having an affair until they read about it in the newspaper. I talked to all the people quoted by the reporters. I had the feeling they didn’t really know Aubry at all. That happens sometimes. Everybody wants to get their name in the papers.” “So all we’ve got on her relationship to the painter is what we read in the papers? Is that what you’re telling me?” “Quinn told us no one who really knew her could corroborate it.” She handed him one of the sheets. “It seems Andrew Bliss knew her, and Riker read the short interview where Bliss was quoted, and he knew he was reading it for the first time. “Damn.” He looked at the date of the article. It was a full month after the case had officially shut down, but Markowitz had still been working it. So this had gotten by them. She plucked the sheet from his hand. “Didn’t Aubry have any friends who could help you sort this out?” “Naw. She was a lonely kid. She didn’t have any friends at all.” Mallory pulled an old battered notebook from her pocket and opened it. Across the table, Riker recognized the scrawl that had been Markowitz’s handwriting. She flipped back the first three pages and put her finger to one note. “Aubry was twenty years old. She attended the same ballet school for six years.” “A couple of girls who took classes with her were interviewed. None of them ever saw her outside of class.” Mallory scanned two more pages. “What about this Madame Burnstien? It says Aubry took classes with her for the entire six years.” “We couldn’t get a statement from Burnstien. She’s old but she’s fast. The first time, she gave Markowitz three minutes. The second time he tried to talk to her, she gave him the slip. I think Quinn had something to do with that. All the family information came through him, and he was really tight with the personal stuff. Maybe the old lady was close to the family.” “I want to see this woman.” “Lots of luck, kid. Markowitz could charm snakes, and he couldn’t get anything out of her. So I figure “Deal.” Jack Coffey stood before the desk for a full minute before he was invited to sit down in the leather wing chair. Coffey stared at the window beyond Blakely’s head while waiting out the ritual of being ignored. This set his status in the world far below the level of the chief of detectives, a man with more important things to do, or such was the chief’s own personal mythology of himself. On his rare visits to the Special Crimes Section, Blakely carried his bulk like he owned all the real estate he walked upon. Coffey studied the man behind the desk, who filled a chair to overflowing, his body gone to soft flab, and skin the sallow color of sickness. The office had the smell of opulence, an odor that always made Coffey suspicious. The rugs were not the standard city expenditures on civil servants. The desk was miles too broad to have any efficient use. All over the walls were souvenirs and proofs of power. Blakely appeared in photographs with famous and important people. Every portrait represented the currency of a favor owed or a favor paid. Two years ago, Coffey had been invited to sit down in Markowitz’s office for a chat with an FBI agent. The agent had asked him if he thought the mob owed Blakely any favors. Coffey had said no to the agent, never mentioning the rumors that said otherwise. He remembered Markowitz nodding his approval behind the agent’s back. It was best to keep the dirty stories in the family, and stories were all they ever were. But now Coffey looked at the photographs again, almost expecting to see Blakely frozen in a warm handshake with a Mafia don. He continued to wait while Blakely read his newspaper. From the opposite side of the desk, Coffey stared at the upside-down photograph of Mallory in a ball gown, dancing with a white-haired man. A cup of coffee sat at Blakely’s left hand and the aroma blended with a hint of rot. The patches of bad wood in the exposed floor near the baseboards might account for that, but he could not lose the idea that the decay originated with Blakely. The chief folded back the paper to frame the photograph. He held it up to Coffey. “You’ve seen it? This shot of Mallory and Gregor Gilette?” “Yes, sir. She went to the ball with Charles Butler, an old friend of Markowitz’s. Butler has some social connection to the Gilette family. It’s only natural that she should dance with the man. She probably danced with a lot of men.” “I thought I told you to pack her off to Boston.” “That was before the press conference.” “Nothing has changed, Jack. She goes.” “This can’t be the commissioner’s idea. He loved every minute of Mallory torching that fed in public.” “She’s going today. She can embarrass the feds in Boston, too. I know what you did at that press conference, Jack. You sicked her on that poor bastard, Cartland. And I know why you did it. And it worked for a while. Beale thinks she walks on water. But now it’s time for her to move on to another case. We’ll leave it to the feds to clean up the Starr murder.” “They’ll screw it up.” “And they’ll take the heat. This time you will do what I tell you to do.” “What’s the real reason for losing Mallory?” “I don’t need one, Jack. Insubordination is a bad mark on the record of a man who’s bucking for a captain’s rank.” “Who suggested it? The city attorney? Is he that worried about a lawsuit from the crazy artist? Heat from the Quinn family? Or maybe it’s Senator Berman. It wouldn’t look too good for the ex-commissioner if it turned out Markowitz could have proved Watt didn’t do it-if his hands hadn’t been tied.” “Jack, think about your pension, your job. Oh, and your promotion, which is all but in the bag as we speak. Then shut your mouth and get out of my office while you still have all of that in your future.” Andrew Bliss understood what it was to suffer for one’s art. As he leaned over the retaining wall, he felt dizzy. He pulled back and pondered the vitamin content of wine. He was weakening more each hour now, and his stomach was a churning knot of cramps. Lately, the avenue had been dominated by K-mart escapees. That tyranny must end, and he didn’t care how he brought it about. He had no time to ruminate on the morality of terrorism. He was on a mission. Ruthlessly, he would strike out at every passing offender. And he had been true to his cause, jump-starting his heart each morning with espresso and Russian cigarettes which were actually manufactured in New Jersey. The traffic-watch helicopter flew by. Andrew returned the cheery wave with a harsh critique of the traffic reporter’s tasteless, low-rent, polyester jumpsuit. The copter veered off sharply. And to every ragged panhandler, he screamed, “GET A JOB AND A CHARGE CARD!” After a time, Andrew’s bullhorn fell silent. Green-haired children from SoHo and tourists from Iowa were allowed to stroll the avenue unmolested. No sign of life could be detected around the canopy of raincoats, nor through the leaves of the browning potted foliage which Andrew had thoughtfully watered with wine. The Koozeman Gallery was quiet today. And the walls were bare. The gallery boy left them alone in the main room, where Starr had died. Charles scrutinized the floor, disappointed that there was not at least the drama of a chalk outline to mark the place where the dead man had fallen. “Where was Dean Starr standing when he was stabbed?” Mallory walked to the center of the right-hand wall and paced four feet straight out. “Here. Slope said he lived for at least a full minute. So he might have been able to walk a few feet in any direction, but this is where he fell.” “So he might have been standing closer to the wall.” Charles ran one finger along the painted surface behind her and smiled broadly. “I bet I can sneak up behind you and stab you.” “Yeah, right.” The sarcasm was well placed. Sneaking up behind people had always been her own special talent. How many times had she frightened him out of his skin, coming up behind him when he was convinced she was rooms away or even miles. Well, this would be fun. “Lunch, right? That’s the bet.” “It’s a bet, Charles. Go for it.” Charles left by a side door leading to a back room, saying, “I’ll be right back. Don’t move from that spot.” Three minutes later he opened a section of the wall behind her and said, “Mallory, you’re dead. Oh, and you owe me one lunch.” Mallory turned slowly, and he was somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t jumped. Had anyone ever taken her by surprise? She examined the section of wall. There was a beveled overlap at the edge of the wall, and a similar overlap lined the edges of the door. “It’s a perfect job. Nearly seamless.” When she opened the door wider, she saw the white curtain hanging over the opening. She looked up to the overhead track lights which illuminated the curtain, killing the dark hole of the small hallway beyond and maintaining the illusion of an unbroken wall, even when the door was slightly ajar. “Perfect.” Now she closed the door, and the wall became a single plane. She pushed lightly on the wall. The door opened. “Pressure lock. Just perfect.” “Like his shows. You never see anything but the art. Let’s say you had an interest in a particular artist, but his work wasn’t on display. Koozeman would position you with your back to this wall. A gallery boy would open the door, hand him a painting, and you’d think it had just materialized behind your back. He’s always been quite a showman. It’s the main reason I attend his openings- for the magic act.” Three gallery boys entered the room with buckets of whitewash, a ladder and brushes. One boy stood off to the side, unraveling the cord on a large industrial waxing machine. “Koozeman had the place freshly painted and waxed for the funeral,” said Mallory. “Why is he doing it again?” “Well, that’s pretty standard. You said there was artwork on the wall during the filming of the television movie. Now they’ll fill in the holes in the wall with plaster and paint again. Then the floors will be waxed.” “He always does that?” “Yes, always.” “Did you ever go to one of his shows at the old East Village location?” “Yes, a few times. Where shall we have lunch?” “Did he do this in the old days, too?” “The painting and waxing? Yes. Everyone does it. It’s standard.” “Thanks, Charles. Now I’ll tell you why Oren Watt couldn’t have used this door to kill Dean Starr. When Koozeman did his little trick on the patrons, he was the one who positioned them. No one behind the door would know who was on the other side unless Koozeman was doing a planned setup. So an accomplice would have to position the victim, and then signal Watt to come through the door and stab the man. According to Watt’s confession, he works alone and never plans that far ahead.” “All right. I’ll pay for lunch. Where shall we go?” She was distracted. He followed her gaze to the entrance of the gallery, where J. L. Quinn was standing. How long had he been there? “Mallory, isn’t this the second time he’s found you at Koozeman’s? It can’t be coincidence. He’s stalking you, isn’t he?” “Or maybe he has some connection to Koozeman. We’ll do lunch tomorrow, Charles.” “I was expecting the Gulag,” said Mallory, looking around at the appointments of the Tavern on the Green. She approved the cleaning job on the clear panes of glass looking out on Central Park, and she ignored the gang of tulips just beyond the window in a riot of color, each bloom openmouthed and screaming at the sun. Quinn was reading the wine list. “Unless you have a preference, I’ll-” “Frog’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, 1990,” said Mallory. “That year isn’t on the wine list. They only have a few bottles left. You may have to pay more to get the waiter to look for it.” Quinn set down the menu. He seemed only vaguely disquieted by the fact that she might be accustomed to this place where one did not escape the table without a substantial outlay of cash. She sat back and watched him through half-closed eyes, wondering what other small cracks she might make in his composure. When he had ordered the wine and the lunch, he folded his arms and leaned toward her. “Well, what shall we discuss? Art?” “Marketing.” “Same thing.” “A lot of money flowed through Koozeman’s hands after Peter Ariel was killed. But most of it didn’t stay in his bank account or his investment portfolio.” And it never appeared on Koozeman’s tax returns, but Quinn didn’t need to know she’d found a back door to the IRS computers. “Part of the money would have gone to investors. Koozeman was small-time in those days, so we can assume there was substantial backing to promote Peter Ariel. I imagine you’ve seen Koozeman’s old gallery in the East Village.” She nodded, though she had never seen it except in cyberspace visions of paperwork, rent estimates, map locations and a floor plan. Now she thought she might make the trip to the East Village to check it out in the dimensions of real time and space. A plate of appetizers appeared on the table with the unobtrusive flash of a waiter’s sleeve. “There were no profits on Peter Ariel’s show,” she said. “Not on paper. But Ariel was dead less than three months, and suddenly Koozeman was paying ten times the rent for his new SoHo location. His investors paid for that, even when he had no buyers for the art?” “The investors “The primary market-you mentioned that before.” “That’s the initial sale. The secondary market is the resale of work. If you can generate a lot of hype, the demand for the art will exceed the supply. Then you go back to the buyers of the early work, and you broker resales for a share of the profit.” Salad plates appeared with the finesse of fine service, and disappeared to be replaced with main courses. Between the leafy vegetables and the red meat, she learned the fine points of faking success in the art world-the kickbacks to grant committees for impressive lines on a resumé, the trade of advertising money for guaranteed reviews, and even the publicist’s fees. “I can’t question Koozeman on the old case,” she said. “How do I find out who participated in the sales of Ariel’s work?” “You don’t.” Quinn caught the waiter’s attention and mimed the word “coffee.” “Even if you could approach Koozeman, he wouldn’t give you any names. That list would be the most closely guarded thing he possessed.” “Because he doesn’t want the police to bother his clientele?” “Because some of the people on that list are probably not paying any capital gains taxes or sales tax.” “He ran a tax scam?” Conversation stopped as coffee cups were filled. “I don’t know that he did anything illegal-I’m only speculating. You said there were no profits on paper from the last Ariel show. Let’s say most of Peter Ariel’s work was reported damaged on the night of the murder. In a tax audit, Koozeman would only have to produce the police report and letters from the initial buyers saying their money was returned to them because the work was damaged prior to delivery. But they might hold on to the work, and Koozeman might not actually return the money.” “So he voids the check transactions by claiming refunds in cash. Then the cash goes into a safety deposit box?” “ “Could he use the same racket to sell what’s left of Dean Starr’s work?” “I hardly think so. He actually did make a few sales the night Dean Starr was murdered. But the art is such a crock, the A list people wouldn’t touch it. The work was bought by ignorant gate crashers. For the second showing, he’ll probably sell directly to the amateurs.” “So the primary market is the A list.” “Right. That would be the money people. They’re not art lovers-only looking for investment ventures. Now if an artist dies with a lot of notoriety, that’s a windfall profit. The art is knowing when to unload the work before its value falls off.” “So the A list unloads on the suckers from the B list.” “And they may in turn sell to a C list, the ultimate morons who get stuck with worthless art. C list buyers are corporate collections and banks. They rarely notice they’ve been duped because the cost of the work is added to the asset value of the company. It’s a hidden loss, a worthless holding that won’t show up in an audit. And now you know all about art.” “But I don’t know anything about Aubry’s mother. Why aren’t there any photographs of Sabra?” She had expected some reaction to that, but his composure never faltered. “You can blame my father for that.” He leaned toward her. “My mother was every bit as beautiful as you are, Mallory. That’s why my father married her.” Over another cup of coffee and dessert, she learned that Quinn’s father had not been married long before he discovered what hell it was to live with a woman obsessed by mirrors. One night, when Sabra was only twelve, her father said to her, “It’s a pity about your beauty. If only you had been born ugly or even ordinary, you might have developed an intellect.” He was drunk when he said that, but he meant it. He was afraid for his daughter. Sabra had marched up the stairs and destroyed all the mirrors in her bedroom. Later, the Quinns began to notice the sabotage of family photographs all over the house. Eventually, she had destroyed every likeness of herself. She never wanted to see her own face again. “It may seem mad to you, but I thought it was rather brilliant. It gave Sabra great focus, and she did develop that intellect and more. She was a creative genius. So perhaps you can also blame my father for her talent.” “But eventually she did go insane.” “She went through a bad time of it when her child died.” “Her husband says she was crazy, certifiable. And she spent some time in an institution.” “Gregor said that? Well, perhaps by New York standards she was always mad. She never took money from the family. That was insane, wasn’t it? With no help at all she made a startling career. Her museum retrospectives traveled the world. But she probably did need professional help getting through the aftermath of the murder.” “Sabra was a strong woman. I have to wonder what pushed her over the top.” “Sabra adored Aubry.” “That’s not enough. We all lose people. And how is she living now? She doesn’t paint anymore. Hospitals are expensive. Gregor says she never used their health insurance plan, so her money had to dry up eventually. Wouldn’t she go to her husband or her family if she needed money to live on?” “I only wish she had.” Mallory knew he was lying, but she didn’t call him on it. “ She sipped her coffee, and stared out the window. “You know, when you ask a civilian the names of the artist and the dancer, they only remember Peter Ariel.” “Of course. The cliché romance of the starving artist who’s only discovered after his death.” “But if you ask a cop, they only remember Aubry’s name. That was your work, Quinn. You led the investigation back to Aubry every time, even though Peter Ariel was the most likely target.” “Oh, She watched Quinn and the young woman from the vantage point of a pile of garbage fresh from the restaurant’s kitchen, the spill of an overturned can. She didn’t notice the odor of fish heads mingling with the warm aroma of dog turds and the smell of fruit. Nor did she feel any curiosity about the young woman. This was simply all the spectacle offered to her at the moment, watching them together as they left the Central Park restaurant. The woman with the wire cart was not so old as she appeared. Just as money could keep age at bay for a while, the dearth of money could and did accelerate aging. The lack of a roof to keep off the elements could ravage the skin and prematurely wrinkle the spirit. There were gaps between the teeth she had left to her. Her hair was iron gray and unwashed since that time, months ago, when she had been herded into the women’s shelter, stripped and deloused as the matrons watched from the door of the gang shower. Now she spoke to the tea tin on the top of her cart, and nodding to it, she moved away with the cart in tow. Cart wheels squeaked, and aching feet with swollen ankles dragged across the gravel path. Her breathing was the wheeze of bad lungs as she strained to pull the cart which had grown heavier with each passing year on the streets of New York. Coffey sat back in his chair, holding the telephone receiver a short distance from his ear. Commissioner Beale had a high irritating phone voice, and he tended to yell like a boy in the days when telephones were tin cans and wires. “Yes, sir,” said Coffey. “I’ll pass your compliments along to Mallory before she leaves for Boston… Yes, sir, Boston. Chief Blakely’s pulling her off the case and sending her to…” Coffey held the phone farther from his ear. “Well, Blakely felt the case might go high-profile if Mallory… Yes, sir, the photograph of the ball… Oh, you’re putting me in a hard place, sir. Blakely gave me a direct order to send her to Boston, and I would never… Yes, sir. I’m glad you understand… Well, no, sir, I wouldn’t mind if you had a word with him, but I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my name out of it. He might get the idea I was going behind his back to keep Mallory on the case… Thank you, sir.” Coffey set down the phone. When he turned to his reflection in the glass wall of his office, he thought he recognized a Mallory smile on his face. The rabbi’s desk and chair were the heart of this sun-bright room filled with books and papers, warm wood, and white curtains that lifted with every breeze from the open window. Rabbi David Kaplan was a long, elegant figure in a dark suit. His graying beard was close-trimmed and did not conceal the leanness of his face. His eyes conveyed the tranquillity of a drowsing cat, and this Helen Markowitz had sent her foster child out among the Catholics to honor a covenant with Kathy’s birth mother, a woman Helen had never met. Kathy had never spoken about her first mother, and so Helen had to intuit the wishes of this woman who had taught her child to make the sign of the cross. It was the only stitch of evidence to link Kathy with a past. Protestants did not make such signs, so it was determined that Kathy must have begun life as a Catholic. Helen had honored that original intention-up to a point. The experiment had ended badly. The child was sent back to frustrate Rabbi Kaplan until her religious education was deemed complete. His greatest frustration had been the fact that she was his brightest student, and he could not separate the makings of a scholar from the greater talents of a thief and a gifted liar. When she was well into her teens, he had offered her a choice of which faith she would continue in. She had chosen Judaism on the grounds that Jews had no place called hell. If he had been marginally successful in keeping her from the flames of the Catholic hell, he had not brought her any nearer to God. She had been insulted by his efforts, believing that deities of every faith were no more than fairy tales for slow learners. But for some strange reason, the Christian devil was very real to her. She had met him somewhere out on the road in those first ten years of life, the years she shared with no one. Despite all the traps he set for her, all the lost leaders he had put out upon the air between them, he had learned very little of her origins. Through the years, he had continued with his gentle probes into her past, and she had fended them off with agility. And so their relationship had always been a bit like a badminton game. The rabbi set the black telephone receiver down in its cradle and looked across the desk to the child he loved as much as his own. “All right, Kathy. You have an appointment. Madame Burnstien will look at you.” “ “She must have assumed I was sending her a dancer. She hung up on me before I could correct that assumption. It’s just as well. My wife tells me Madame’s whole life is the ballet. If you’re not connected to that life, you don’t exist. The woman only accepted my call because Anna’s charity group donates scholarship money for the ballet school.” “Markowitz couldn’t get anywhere with her. What do you suppose he did wrong?” “Well, your father’s best weapon was charm. As I recall, the scum of the earth could be quite taken with him.” “So we know that doesn’t work on the old lady.” The rabbi only smiled at the idea that charm might be an option for Kathy Mallory. “Now, you will mind your manners with this woman. You “Yeah, right.” She was not at all impressed. “I have a photo of her at Aubry’s funeral. She must be pushing ninety by now, and she walks with a cane.” “My wife tells me Madame eats dancers for breakfast.” “I still think I can take her two falls out of three.” “And I understand she’s very good with her cane. I only saw it once-it’s formidable.” He stopped smiling and leaned toward her, all serious now. “When I say Madame Burnstien is tough, I’m not being facetious. She survived two years in a Nazi concentration camp. I don’t know what you could have in your own history that even comes close to that horror.” “Four years with the nuns at the academy.” “You’re so competitive.” “So what’s the best approach?” “The key to Madame Burnstien is respect. Try to earn it without bloodshed.” Mallory stood on the sidewalk staring up at the old brown building reported to be the finest ballet school in the country. It had been a factory once, and now eight stories of lofts had been converted into rehearsal halls and classrooms. Girls and young women hung off the fire escape, dangling limbs sheathed in bright-colored leg warmers. Some smoked forbidden cigarettes, others lifted their faces to the weak light of the sun, leaching what warmth there was so early in the spring. The rabbi’s wife, Anna Kaplan, had warned her that today there would be at least a hundred children underfoot. When Mallory passed through the front doors, she entered a wide room with high ceilings, where pandemonium ruled. Small breastless girls and a sprinkling of boys bore numbered cards hung around their necks with strings. Mothers hovered over them, clutching the leg warmers and costumes, harried and frazzled women consumed by the tensions of audition day. The front desk was besieged by shouters and elbowers. A man with a phone attached to one ear was holding four separate conversations. And above all of this, a loudspeaker called out numbers, and children were separated from their mothers, taking positions on one side of the room. Beyond this crush of tiny dancers stood a young woman close to Mallory’s age. They exchanged a look across the room. At first the other woman’s expression recognized Mallory as neither mother nor novice, but a fellow creature of the ballet. She smiled and shrugged to say, “Where can I find Madame Burnstien?” “Third floor. The stairs are quicker. The elevator takes forever.” The young woman pointed to a narrow staircase several feet away. She called a loud warning after Mallory. “If she’s not expecting you, she’ll nail your hide to the wall.” A hundred small faces turned in unison, eyes rounding. “I can handle it,” said Mallory. “I went to Catholic school.” Mallory took great pride in her enemies, and she was particularly proud of Sister Ursula. She climbed to the third floor and stopped at the wide-open door to a rehearsal hall. There were other students in the room, leaning against the walls and seated tailor-fashion on the floor, but all Mallory could see was the single dancer hurtling through space in a powerful swirl of music, her body arching in the leap-call it flight- and at last touching to ground in tattered red satin shoes. She wore bright purple tights and leotard, and brilliant orange wool covered her legs from ankle to knee. A long braid of lustrous black hair floated on the air behind her as she stepped and turned before the mirrored wall. And now she began to twirl like a dervish, sweat glistening on her young body, spinning madly, wonderfully, and finally coming to rest before a white-haired woman with a wine-dark dress and a cane. This old woman only frowned, declining any comment with the slow shake of her head, and disappeared through a red door, slamming it behind her. The young dancer’s head bowed. Her body seemed to be losing strength, all confidence and power gone now. Mallory watched her for a moment, trying to understand her and failing. The ballerina should have known how wonderful she was, but apparently she did not. Markowitz would have understood. It had been his gift to sit across a desk from strangers, and then to steal inside of them, peek out through their eyes, walk in their flesh, go where they go, and then to know what their soft spots were. He had called it Mallory had none, and she knew it. She might be adept at crawling into the living skin of a killer, but never would she be able to go where the ballerina goes. Now she crossed the wide room, passing by the defeated dancer, to knock at the red door. After a full minute the door opened, but only a crack. “Yes?” said the old woman facing her. Madame Burnstien was small and slight, hardly threatening. Her white hair was captured in a bun, and every bit of skin was a crisscross of lines. The only hand visible through the crack of the door was a cluster of arthritic knots wrapped round the cane. “I’m Mallory. I have an appointment with you?” “You are Rabbi Kaplan’s young friend?” Mallory couldn’t immediately place the woman’s accent, but then Anna Kaplan had said that Madame Burnstien hailed from too many countries to call one of them home. In youth, she had danced for the whole earth. Mallory could not believe this crone had ever been young. “Rabbi Kaplan said you would see me.” “I said I would The door began to close. Mallory shot one running shoe into the space between the door and its frame. The old woman smiled wickedly and showed Mallory her cane, lifting it in the crack-width of the door to display the carved wolf’s head and its fangs. “Move your foot, my dear, or you’ll never dance again.” The cane was rising for a strike. “Madame Burnstien, you only The old eyes widened and gleamed. The smile disappeared and her brows rushed together in an angry scowl as the cane lowered slowly. There was exaggerated petulance in her cracking voice. “I like determination, child, but you waste my time. You are still too tall.” “Everybody’s a critic.” Mallory showed her the gold shield and ID. “I want to talk to you about Aubry Gilette.” “I have had many students. Aubry was a thousand dancers ago. What do you expect me to remember of one girl?” “Oh, I think you remember her better than most. Don’t make me show you the autopsy photo. You’re old. It’d probably kill you.” “Dream on, child.” The wicked smile was back, and the door was opening. Madame’s office was generous in size, and showed Charles Butler’s penchant for antiques. The light of the corner window washed over an ancient ornate desk piled high with large paperbound books, sheets of archaic penmanship and notes of music. All but one brocade chair was filled with costumes. Every bit of the far wall bore an autographed photo, or a drawing of a dancer in motion. The only respite from the dance was a small painting behind the desk, a still life of flowers. Mallory had attended Barnard College long enough to recognize a Monet. She knew this must be the real article, for she had already learned that the old woman was death on second-best. Her eye moved on to a larger canvas hanging on the next wall, and this she recognized as Sabra’s, even though there was no signature. “So Madame Burnstien, you knew Aubry’s mother well?” “Very good, my dear. That’s a portrait of Aubry.” There was someone dancing in the painting. Although the subject was abstracted, there was a figure there, ephemeral, shimmering, flying over a wide space. Action strokes gave it life, and the space surrounding it pulsed with color. Fuchsia juxtaposed with brilliant greens and vied for the foreground to create a depth of field that confounded all laws defining the flat planes of canvases. Flourishes and dabs of paint had the rhythm and the punctuation of music. Mallory turned away with the afterimage of a full ballet and even its score. “Do you know what happened to Sabra?” The old woman sat down and averted her eyes. “Has there been an accident?” One gnarled hand went to her breast. “Not that I know of. She disappeared years ago. Do you know where she went after she left the asylum?” “No.” This was the simple truth. There was no pause, no telling sign of a new furrow in the old woman’s face, or a nervous shift in her body. And there was no hint of a question or a surprise in her eyes. So she was close enough to the family to have known about Sabra’s asylum years. “You were at the funeral. I saw you in the old photographs. What was Sabra like that day? Was she already crazy?” The old woman shook her head. Frowning, she waved her hand as if to chase away the words. Mallory came closer and leaned down to meet Madame’s eyes. “Maybe I should have asked if you’d seen Sabra recently.” Madame Burnstien said nothing. But that was something. There was no convenient, polite lie to fill the gap. This woman might be capable of deception, but the outright lie was not Madame’s style. So Sabra was alive. She backed off now, to give the woman space. “All right, then tell me about Aubry and the artist she died with. Was Peter Ariel really her boyfriend? Or was there someone else?” “She had no lovers.” “She was a very attractive woman, and these days, twenty is old for a virgin.” “The world changed, the ballet did not. It’s a grueling, demanding profession. Aubry had great ambition. She had no time for friends or lovers. This is what she loved.” Madame Burnstien pointed to a large photograph of a dancer’s ruined feet, half-healed sores and open wounds, all the punishment of the cruel shoes. “When Aubry was not performing in her ballet company, she was here, taking classes. The classes never end, you know, not for your entire life span as a ballerina.” “She had some connection to that gallery she died in. There was something going on in her life. She could have been meeting her boyfriend in the hours after the lessons and performances.” “No, she couldn’t!” The cane beat the floor with a thud and left a round impression in the rug. There were many such impressions about the room. “You can’t know that, not for sure.” Mallory leaned back against the red door. “You weren’t with her every minute.” Her words were taunting, to lead the old woman into the fray. She had learned a great deal from the rabbi. “You were only her teacher. She could have had a hundred boyfriends.” And now the old woman sat up a little straighter, head lifting, rising to the bait. “Aubry could not have been carrying on an affair, not without my knowing. Dancing takes tremendous strength, great care with one’s health. I myself was overtrained. My arthritis began when I was only a little older than Aubry. A dancer needs rest above all things. Aubry retired as early as her evening performances would permit, and she was here Mallory folded her arms in the skeptic’s pose which the rabbi used when he thought she might be lying. Madame Burnstien rose from her chair. The pain of movement was concealed well, but not completely. There was evidence enough for Mallory to know the arthritis had taken over the entire body of this former prima ballerina. The old woman stood by the window, her back turned to Mallory when she spoke. “You saw all the children downstairs? Out of the hundred, perhaps one will make it, perhaps not. And all the children who are Mallory moved behind her, coming upon her so quietly that the old woman started at her first words. “According to the newspapers, Aubry and the artist had an affair. An art critic named Andrew Bliss said-” “A pack of lies.” “People who knew them both were quoted-” “All lies!” “Or maybe you’re lying to me now.” But she knew that Madame Burnstien was not. When the old woman spoke next there was no confrontation, no defense, only the simple facts of Aubry’s time on earth. “She only danced. She never really lived. And then she died.” “More blackmail, Mallory?” Edward Slope made two notations on a chart and set it down on the table by the gutted male cadaver and former taxpayer. “What do you want now, the pink slip on my car?” He pulled off his gloves and slapped them down on the body which had done nothing to offend him. She held her ground. No emotion whatsoever, and that never failed to disturb him. He suspected this was her method of getting a rise out of him, forcing him to fill the emotional void from his own store of frustration. “Just a few questions,” she said. “Did Markowitz ever ask you how much time it would take to cut up the two bodies?” How in hell did she know that? He turned away from her as he pulled off the bloody surgical gown. “Yes, he did ask. But I was angry with him. I told him to buy a leg of beef and figure it out for himself.” “That’s just what he did.” She pulled a yellow napkin out of her pocket. “It took him a long time to cut through that leg. That gave him a lot of trouble with the time frame of the murder. It looks like there had to be more than one person working on the bodies. I think that was another reason he wouldn’t close out the case, another thing that wouldn’t fit.” He took the napkin from her hand and read the log of cutting meat and bone. “Poor bastard. I could have helped him with that. But you were right, we weren’t speaking then.” He handed the napkin back to her. “The killer worked the limbs at the joint. Easier that way, though I couldn’t tell you how much time was saved.” “Can you think of anything else that might help?” “I suppose you could say the joint cuts were an oddity, and I should have told him that, too. In most dismemberment cases, the fool takes the leg off at the bottom of the torso, not the hip joint-cuts through the bone when he doesn’t have to. The bones at the joints weren’t cut, but I did report the damage from the axe. He might have misread that. And I suppose I misled him with that leg of beef.” “So would the joint cuts indicate some knowledge of anatomy? Like art school anatomy?” “It might.” “Oren Watt never went to art school.” Slope thought she delivered that line with entirely too much smugness. He could fix that. “It might also indicate that the killer had simply carved his share of Thanksgiving turkeys. Nobody cuts the bone of the drumstick. But Helen always served a roast for Thanksgiving, didn’t she? So I can understand how that one got by you. But you’re so stubborn. I have to worry about what else you might be missing. You just can’t admit that Oren Watt could’ve-” “One more question,” she said. “Why did you back up Quinn? You told him Aubry was the most likely target.” “Yes, I did. I also told him I thought Oren Watt was the most likely suspect. I still believe that little bastard did it. Why must you go back into that case again?” “Why did you support the idea that the girl was the real target?” “Because she was the only one to suffer. The other one was hacked up postmortem. I know you read the report. You could probably recite it by heart. But it’s only a collection of data to you, isn’t it? Try to imagine it. She was crawling when the attacker followed her along the length of the floor, inflicting blow after blow. That was something that bothered Markowitz a lot. The girl was the victim of unmistakable savage rage.” “It’s a pity you and Markowitz weren’t on speaking terms after the autopsy. Markowitz questioned Watt on Aubry. Watt didn’t know her at all, not the first thing about her.” “So he didn’t know her. So? Perhaps he hated “You still don’t get it, do you? It was the brain that Markowitz used to rule out Watt’s confession.” “You don’t know that.” He knew she was running a bluff. Sometimes she forgot he had been playing poker for decades before she was ever born. “You’re only guessing.” “Yeah, but I’m real good at that. Call it a gift. And I know my old man’s style. You weren’t talking to Markowitz. You were angry with him. You never talked about the case again. It would have been a bad subject after what he asked you to do. Now suppose Peter Ariel was the primary target. What then? If Markowitz was alive, standing here right now, would you have anything else to tell him? Would you change anything?” In a way, Slope felt that Markowitz “No, Kathy, I wouldn’t change a thing.” “ “ She was angry now, and that was good too. Her anger was his only method of ferreting out her humanity in what limited range of emotion she possessed. She returned his broad smile with an icy glare. She advanced on him, gathering size as she closed in on his person, one hand rising to within striking distance of his face. After she had gone, and the door was closing behind her on its slow hydraulic, he muttered, “Perverse little monster.” For she had touched his face so gently and kissed his cheek. She had left him disoriented, flailing for understanding in her disturbing wake, and she had done that to a purpose. He knew it-for he truly believed it was her mission in life to confuse him. The photographer set up the tripod on the sidewalk, facing the plaza of Gregor Gilette’s new building. Workmen were pulling down the last section of the wooden wall to reveal the graceful stone arch. This gateway to the plaza mimicked the shape of the building’s lower windows. When the photographer was done, the workmen would replace the wooden panels, and they would remain in place until the plaza sculpture was installed for the dedication ceremony. Emma Sue Hollaran stood by the pile of wood sections, her face red and pinched, railing at the workmen, who only shrugged their shoulders and said they had their orders. Emma Sue, mover and shaker of the Public Works Committee, turned ungainly and charged on the young photographer, who took her for an infuriated bull, cleverly disguised as a smaller, dumber animal. “I never authorized any of this!” she yelled. The photographer screwed a filter onto a lens and bent over the camera, making adjustments that didn’t need to be made, hoping that she would simply go away. Stupid idea. Looking down at the camera, he could also see her legs, sturdy little fireplugs rooted firmly to the pavement. “Young man, I’m talking to you.” Gilette waved the photographer back, and now the architect stepped forward to loom over her. Gilette smiled as he looked into the angry slits of her eyes, with an intensity that forced her to step back a pace. “The photographer takes his orders from me.” She had been planning to say something to him. What was it? She could only stare. He was so close. She couldn’t think. Emma Sue had always been protected from her own mirror by a doting father who had insisted that she was truly beautiful. She was protected also by her father’s land and money, never suffering the plight of the homely girl at the school dance. Considered by every farmer in the county to be a good catch, landwise and moneywise, she was sought after by every landowner who had a son of marriageable age. She had always danced every dance and happily trod on the feet of the handsome, wild boys who feared their matchmaking fathers. And money had protected her from her own dull-wittedness, with a generous endowment to an Ivy League college. Money could do anything. With money enough, black could become white and a bleating barnyard animal could become a peer of the art community in the art center of the world. And yet, with all her protective armor, she was pinned like an insect and hadn’t a grasshopper’s wit to get loose. She could only stare at Gilette. He was so much more than just a man. There was something else in play here. He knocked the wind out of her by merely looking into her eyes and showing her something she couldn’t buy. There was sex going on here, on the sidewalk in the daylight, in public view, and it was indecent and raw and-she could only stare. Ugly and lonely and witless, she turned and walked away with slow agonizing steps, size nine shoes clattering on the sidewalk, lost now in the sounds of Manhattan traffic. People had begun to drift through the arch and into the plaza. A policeman asked Gilette if he wanted them cleared out. Some of them sat on the benches in the open light, some took the shade under the ash trees that formed the plaza walls, and two children dipped their hands in the water of the fountain. Gilette shook his head. “No. Let them be.” He looked into the photographer’s lens to see the fountain through the camera’s eyes, bringing it into sharp focus. A young Spanish sculptor had won an international competition with this design to match Gilette’s own skill for making marble flow like water. The lines of the fountain carried the eye along with a fluid grace that defeated its own hard substance, echoing the lines of the building’s facade, and stone called out to stone across the plaza. Reflections of the water played over the faces of two boys, and the camera’s shutter clicked. An old man flung one brittle arm across the back of a bench, which curved to fit the contour of his body. He lifted his face to the light and smiled peacefully, and a shutter clicked. A young woman in a yellow dress stood in the lush green shadows of the young stand of trees, starting as a flock of birds settled in the branches overhead. A derelict hesitated at the arch and turned to the place where Gilette stood. The man’s face, with five days’ dust and beard, was washed new with dazzling light, and a shutter clicked. The television crew was unloading equipment from the large trucks. All about him was the hustle of people passing to and fro, laying cables and checking sound equipment and cameras, a babble of orders and questions. Oren Watt stood at the outer edge of the fray, with the sun on his face. Perhaps that was why she just seemed to appear there. One moment the sidewalk across the street had been empty, and now she stood there, smiling at him. He remembered her from the Koozeman shoot. She was the one who had removed the tapes on the gallery where Dean Starr had died. The young woman had smiled at him then, too, though not exactly a smile, more like bared teeth. Now she pulled a black wallet out of her blazer and opened it to display a badge. The sun hit the metal and shot his eyes with gold. A truck lumbered between them, and when it had passed by, she was gone. “I thought you were the technical advisor, Oren.” He spun around to see her standing behind him. She was looking down at a clipboard. “Did you tell them they were shooting in the wrong place?” “What do you want from me?” “I once asked a nun that same question, same words. You know what she said? ‘I want your soul.’ ” And now she was walking away from him, making a check mark on her clipboard as she left him. “Well this is wonderful,” said Charles, as he stood at the desk in Mallory’s office and pored through the contents of the brown bag. He held up a brand of mustard he had never seen before. And a full complement of foreign beers filled out the bottom of the sack. “Sorry about lunch,” said Mallory. She was sitting at one of the three computer terminals which dominated the room. “Have you given any thought to how Quinn knew you’d be at the gallery today? Perhaps you don’t know much about his habits. New York is overcrowded with galleries. What are the odds he was just passing by? He’s stalking you. He’s not dangerous of course, but still.” “He’s tied to my money motive for the old murders. Maybe he’s worried that I’m making connections he wouldn’t like.” “You’re wrong, Mallory. Quinn’s presence kills your money motive.” “Like hell it does. Having Quinn view the bodies fits very nicely with money. He’s an important critic. It all fits.” “No, Mallory, the fact that Quinn was called in is an oddity. It doesn’t fit at all. He couldn’t have been called there for publicity value. The murderer would have called in a hack critic for that.” “A review from Quinn is gold.” “Well, no it isn’t, not for a bad artist. There was a time when a critic could launch a career. But not anymore. Today, the artist is promoted with media hype and a gimmick, not a critique. To have Quinn see the murder as artwork, well, that would only be important to a really talented artist. That description doesn’t fit Peter Ariel, Dean Starr or Oren Watt. It only makes sense as revenge against Quinn. You may have to accept his idea that Aubry was the primary target. The only other reasonable theory is a random act of insane violence.” “I’m swimming in people who made money on those deaths. I’m right about this.” “Why are you so stubborn about the money motive?” “I need it for the Dean Starr murder. Without it I’ve got nothing. If it’s a random act of violence, then the killer disappears into the crowd, and there’s no trail.” She wasn’t with him anymore, she was so intent on her computer screen. “What are you doing?” “I’m breaking into an artist’s network through an internet server.” She looked up at him and smiled. He must have found her smile disquieting, because now he was leaving her, softly closing the door behind him, not wanting to witness any breaking and entry. She had taken quite an interest in the artnets over the past few days. Once into the system, she proceeded immediately to the forum under the heading of Bliss’s Last Column. She passed over the familiar two-day-old comments of artists and interested parties, and happened on a conversation taking place in real time. Two of the players were opting out to a private room. She went into the data base and plucked the passwords to diddle the cyberspace lock so she could follow after them. Invisible to the screens of the others, she stole up on the more intimate conversation printing out before her eyes and learned that Andrew Bliss had spent two years in a seminary, studying for the priesthood. Robin Duffy sat at the card table in the den of Charles’s apartment. His beer rested on a coaster, and his pile of change lay in the center of the green gaming surface. An overhead light exaggerated Duffy’s jowls and gave him the look of a bulldog. He was pouring out his troubles to Rabbi David Kaplan. Though Duffy was a devout Catholic, this man would always be his rabbi. “I got another offer on Markowitz’s house today, Rabbi. Why won’t the brat sell it? I hate to see it empty every day. It doesn’t make any sense.” “It’s Kathy’s home.” The rabbi’s face was composed in a serene smile. His elbows were propped on the table as he scrutinized his cards. “That old house is all she has left of her days with Helen and Louis.” “Naw, I don’t think that’s it. She hardly ever goes there, and she never stays the night. It should have a nice family in it, some kids-life.” “My parents died before I turned twenty,” said Charles, looking down at his own cards. “It took me almost another twenty years to sell their apartment.” “Well, I know seventeen-room condos don’t move all that fast,” said Edward Slope, “but twenty years?” “It was home. I didn’t always live there, even when my parents were alive. I spent most of my life at schools. But it was home.” “Kathy should have a real home,” said Duffy. “Gimme two cards. She should have a husband and kids, lots of kids.” Edward Slope put down his cards and looked to some distant point in the room. “I’m trying to picture a world with a lot of little baby felons who look like Kathy.” The largest pile of change was in front of Edward Slope. The rabbi’s pile and Robin Duffy’s were smaller but respectable. As always, the obvious loser in this first hour of the game was Charles Butler, who had gambled wildly at the start, and now nursed a rather small pile of quarters and dimes. For the next round, the rabbi held the deck, and five cards were dealt to each player, four cards facedown and the last card showing. The high card, an ace, fell to Charles Butler. “Don’t pick up your cards,” said a voice behind his chair, Mallory’s voice. The other players looked up in unison. “Trust me, Charles,” said Mallory. “Just let the cards lie there facedown. Now ante up.” He put his quarter alongside the other three quarters in the pile at the center of the table, not knowing what his hand held, only trusting Mallory. As he looked around at his friends, he saw three suspicious faces focussed on her. All of these people had known her since she was a child. And now his trust in her increased. “If you want to play, pull up a chair and do it properly,” said Edward Slope. “I don’t need a chair in the game to beat lightweights like you.” There were raises of quarters around the table, and she nodded to Charles when it was his turn. “See that raise and raise him another quarter.” They went through this ritual until the pot at the center of the table had grown considerably. Charles had only three quarters and a small assortment of dimes and nickels left to bet with. According to the rules of long standing, when he lost his change, he was out of the game. His faith in Mallory was flagging. Logic dictated that he could be cleaned out by the player with the largest store of change, and that was Edward. “Too rich,” said the rabbi, as he folded his cards. “I’m out.” It was Robin Duffy’s play. “Give me a minute,” he said, rearranging his cards to make it seem like he had at least two pair. Now he looked to Charles’s hand with only the single ace showing. The graduate of Harvard Law School continued his deliberations over the twenty-five-cent bet. “I’ve got a question for you, Doctor,” said Mallory, with such exaggerated formality, Charles had to wonder what they were feuding about now. It was always something. “How long can a person live on liquids but no solid food?” “Depends on the liquids,” said Edward. “Not long if all you’ve got is water, maybe ten, twelve days. Some people have fasted for months on fruit juices, and vitamin supplements.” “Suppose the liquid is wine?” “You can kiss that idiot goodbye. He’ll be severely weakened after a few days with no food, and probably hallucinating. He might last a few days more before dehydration kills him. Alcohol is a diuretic.” Robin Duffy put in his quarter and met the last raise. Edward Slope pitched his coins to the center of the table, and raised the bet with a dime. “Ante up, Charles, and raise him a quarter.” “But shouldn’t I at least have a look at my cards? I “Bad idea, Charles, just let them lie there.” He did as she told him. Then Robin Duffy folded his cards, eyes fixed on Charles’s ace. Mallory stood by Edward Slope’s chair now. “Let’s say the fast has been going on for three days, and he has a bottle of water. What would you add to the diet if you only wanted to keep him conscious and functioning?” “Oh, crackers or bread would be the simplest things for the body to break down and utilize quickly.” Edward pitched his quarter into the pile, and raised by only a nickel this time. “Meet that and raise him a quarter, Charles.” “If I raise him another twenty-five cents, I’ll be down to fifteen cents.” “Do it.” Charles laid his last quarter down in a raise. And Edward Slope folded his hand. The doctor looked up at Mallory, and something passed between them, part anger, part admiration. Charles looked from Edward to Mallory. “You knew he was going to fold.” “Yes, Charles.” “But how could you possibly know?” “Dr. Slope is a gentleman of the old school.” Mallory spoke to Charles, but fixed her eyes on the doctor. “That’s what Markowitz called him. The old man always did this to him early in the game, but only when the game was at our house. Markowitz would bet his whole stash and win the pot every damn time.” Charles knew something was going by him but not what. “Mallory, I don’t see the-” “Charles, you’re his host, and the night is young. He wouldn’t let you lose everything and then just sit out the rest of the game. Of course, when Markowitz did this to him, the old man always looked at his cards. But you can’t do that. You couldn’t run a bluff if I put a gun to your head-not with that face.” And now Charles’s face was a signboard advertising all his frustration and incredulity. “But you’ve put me in the position of taking unfair advantage of Edward.” Three men looked to the ceiling, but held the line at not laughing out loud. “That’s right,” said Mallory. “Now you’ve got it. Try not to lose that pile, okay?” Edward Slope pointed to Charles’s cards. “Okay, let’s see ‘em. What were you holding?” Mallory quickly reached across the table and grabbed the deck of cards. She swept up Charles’s five cards and mingled them into the deck with the waterfall shuffle of a seasoned gambler. Edward Slope looked down at the hand which held his beer bottle in a death grip. “I know you only did that to drive us nuts.” Robin Duffy leaned toward the doctor. “And you always said the kid had no sense of humor.” Mallory settled behind the rabbi’s chair. “I’ve got a religious question.” Edward dealt the next hand. “Rabbi, if you want to keep my friendship and esteem, you’ll tell her to get lost.” The rabbi was staring sadly at the deck of cards in the doctor’s tight fist, the deck which contained the insoluble mystery of Charles’s winning hand. “Edward’s right. You do a thing like that, and then you ask for my help?” “You’re my rabbi, you have to help.” “All right, you got me twice in one night. What is your question?” “I need to know what you have to do to get kicked out of a Catholic seminary.” “Kathy, as I recall, Helen gave you four years of a very expensive Catholic school education. Go and ask Father Brenner. He’s semiretired now, but I believe he’s filling in the vacation schedule at St. Jude’s this week.” “Father Brenner and I aren’t exactly on friendly terms. Maybe “It’s been what, maybe ten years now? He’s not one to hold a grudge. It’s not as if you broke that nun’s leg.” After Mallory left the room, the other players fixed on the face of the rabbi in dead silence. He cast his sweet smile on each player in turn, which was easy because he was holding the best cards of the evening. But he never said another word about Kathy Mallory and the nun, not even when they withheld his sandwiches and beer for a time. He would not talk. Gregor Gilette stood in front of the church, hatless in the drizzle. He began as a pilgrim, climbing the steps vast and gray, leading up to the church doors. He had come here to find his wife. This was Sabra’s church, not his. As a small boy he had once wandered into a Catholic church, where he was dazzled by the spectacle of flaming candles and stained-glass windows lit with images of heaven and hell. He had stared at the tortured figure on the cross beyond the altar and then looked up and up to the high ceiling with its carved, curving beams. Sky high it was. As a child, he’d had the sense of a magical place. It had frightened him, and filled him with awe. Gregor had come at the right time in his life. He was only twelve then. The following year he would not believe in anything magical, under pain of ridicule by peers. Then, the boy had put this feeling away with the comic books and the toys, and had forgotten where he left it. Now the man remembered. He had come back for it. Unshaven, unbeliever in this holiest of places, he was looking here for Sabra, though she was probably miles away and worlds, sitting somewhere cradling her own mind like a child upon her lap. It was magic, it seemed, that sent her over, so he lit a candle now to bring her back. But how far and from exactly where? She had begun to leave him on the day Aubry died, growing farther and farther away, killing him as she left him, going away from him, bit by bit of her mind, and then altogether gone and taking her body with her. Once Sabra’s life had been filled with glorious color. Color had throbbed about her in an electricity of bright scarves, textured stockings and summer dresses of impossible combinations of purples and greens. When she lived alone, her apartment had been alive with color. The rugs and drapes held vibrant, clashing conversations. Each careless thing that lay strewn about the rooms would contradict the thing it lay upon. This had been a part of the excitement of her, the wild charm of Sabra. After they were married, he began to work his changes on her, maintaining all the while that he loved her as she was. First he changed the shape of her body with their only child. Then he refurnished her environs, save for the rocking chair that had been her mother’s, all that he approved of, good solid wooden thing. But glaring prints of rugs and drapes were cast out with the trash and the multicolored coat. Standing in the perfect quiet of the church and gazing up at the stained-glass windows, he saw again the wild colors in a jam of rolling rainbows, escaping down Bleecker Street in the junkman’s cart. And he watched Sabra running after the cart, shaking her fists at the junk-man, and returning triumphant with her coat of many colors. Oddly, it was never Sabra the mother he saw whenever she walked into a room in middle age with thickened waist, but wild Sabra, her bright colors flashing and waves of jet-black hair. And then insanity had come to their house with the death of Aubry. It seemed as though it happened in one night when Sabra came downstairs, very late, to sit in her mother’s chair. At first he thought she’d come to keep him company as he grieved for Aubry in the dark. Then as he stared at his wife and she took form in the poor light from the street, he realized that her lustrous black hair was gone. Her crown was a cap of stick-out hair, and in some places she was shorn to the gleam of white scalp. Then Sabra had begun to rock, slowly at the beginning and then faster and faster, rocking furiously. Laughing like a mad child, she spilled out onto the floor, and crawled like a baby to the stair. Twelve years later, Gregory Gilette lit a candle for his wife, and then another candle, and another. He went on to the next statue and the next, lighting all the candles. One by one, he begged the saints who stood above the flames, did they know where his Sabra was? Did they know the way she had gone and, most important, the way back? The poor Protestant atheist, rational man of show-me country, broke down like a child when stones would not consult with him. And that cat-size creature at the far side of the roof, twitching and compulsively rubbing its hands. Was that a mouse? Surely not. Mice were cartoons, and rather cute. This was something loathsome. Tonight, the creature had come close enough to be splashed with champagne. Not to waste the wine, Andrew made a cross in the air above the scurvy animal, and he christened it Emma Sue. Then he tried to smash it out of existence with the bottle. But he was too slow- the empty bottle too heavy. His head lolled back and he was staring up at an empty sky. Empty? He was too tired to crawl to the edge of the roof where he had left the binoculars. He shivered and hugged his knees to his body. His naked eyes drifted slowly from side to side, scanning heaven, searching for the stars. But they were gone. He fell into a light sleep, awakening at the thud behind him. He turned around slowly to see the brown paper bag, torn open to reveal a small loaf of bread. A miracle. He fell on the loaf, ripping the cellophane wrapping away from the bread. He broke the loaf open and smelled it, and then he wolfed down the sweet, white, fibrous, glorious bread, his gift from the sky. So, there was a God. Riker had a few bad moments watching her make the drop from the edge of Bloomingdale’s roof to the narrow ledge beneath the top-floor window. When she was safely inside the building, he breathed again. He trained the binoculars on Andrew Bliss and watched him feeding on the loaf. Riker’s binoculars strayed to the surrounding buildings and then down below to the stream of late traffic. Ah, New York, all decked out in city lights like sequins on her best dress-all dazzle and smart moves. He had seen the city in harsher light, and he knew she was really a whore, but that could be fun, too. He had underestimated Mallory’s time in crossing the street and climbing to this tenth-floor roof. He turned to the right, and she was standing beside him, looking down on Andrew Bliss. “Mallory, there’s gotta be a better way to feed him. That ledge is dangerous.” “Yeah, right. A little old lady wouldn’t have a problem with that ledge. The roof would be crawling with reporters right now if the bastards weren’t afraid it would kill their story. Whoever Andrew’s hiding from will get to him eventually.” “Didn’t Markowitz ever tell you it wasn’t nice to hang a taxpayer out as bait?” “I think he did run that by me once.” She checked the bolt action on the assault rifle, and aimed the sight on the roof of Bloomingdale’s to test the night scope. “Charles thinks Quinn is stalking me.” “Quinn has good taste. He only goes after the brightest and the best. You’re his type, kid.” “So was Aubry.” “What are you saying, Mallory? She was his own niece.” “Oh, right, and murderers are such stand-up moral people. What was I thinking of?” She walked off to the other side of the roof and stood there staring down at Andrew, her pet mouse, as he was nibbling at his bread. “It doesn’t work for me, kid.” And he suspected it didn’t work for her either, but this was her idea of sport. He turned the binoculars to all the dark corners of the roof below, and lost track of Mallory by sight and sound. “But the killing of Dean Starr suits him,” said Mallory, close to his ear now, spooky kid, back for another shot at him. “According to Quinn’s bio, he’s a fencer, a former Olympic champion,” she said. “He’d know where to put the steel to do the most damage. And it was such a neat crime, wasn’t it? No mess. And that suits him too.” “So now you’re thinking revenge?” Riker shook his head and lowered the binoculars to face her. “Quinn’s not the type to go on a vigilante solo.” “Quinn held out on the old man, and he held out on us. He knows what the connection is. Dean Starr was tied to the old murder case, but I’m betting he wasn’t the only one.” “Well, you’re not thinking that poor little bastard down there could have done murder with an axe?” “Andrew? He knows something, and so does Quinn. I’m sure there’s more than one killer.” “Why?” “I don’t think Starr could have taken the artist and the dancer down by himself.” “Peter Ariel was stoned on dope that night. A twelve-year-old could have done him in.” “But Starr was a junkie too. So what about the dancer? Physical peak, good reflexes and some muscle.” Well, the killer couldn’t have taken Mallory down, but Aubry was not the same species. She had been young and protected. Mallory could only see the muscle of the dancer, the reflexes. That was as close as she would come to Aubry. She paced behind him. “I think Quinn could tell us who wrote that letter to Special Crimes, but he won’t. He wanted Starr dead. If he didn’t do the killing, he’s still part of it somehow.” “Truth, Mallory? I think Qren Watt killed the artist and the dancer. But let’s say he had some help, maybe Starr’s help. If Starr’s death was revenge, I’m on the perp’s side of this one. You can’t know what that crime scene was like. All the pictures and all the reports won’t tell you. If Starr was part of that, I’m glad the freak is dead. If Quinn had any part of the killing, I’d rather give him a medal than arrest him.” “When I catch the perp, I’m gonna bust him. I don’t care who he is or why he did it. Those are the rules.” He was startled for a moment. For she had been the child voted most likely to send the crayons outside the lines of her coloring books. Sometimes he forgot that she did have rules. Markowitz had given them to her, but they were the rules of sport. Markowitz had been ingenious at fashioning games for her, games to keep her alive, to help her pass for normal. She was a born competitor, and this had been the only way to reach her. Now Riker almost felt sorry for the nameless, faceless perp who got between Mallory and what she wanted most-to win. He watched Andrew gathering up the last crumbs of his loaf, then handed the binoculars to Mallory as he pulled back from the edge of the roof. “You know the little guy is totally nuts.” “No he’s not. That’s just the booze working on him,” she said to the alcoholic standing beside her, “and the guilt. I see he found another candle. What’s the deal with the candles? Any ideas?” “It’s gotta be religion,” said Riker. “That altar with the mannequin is giving me the creeps. I say he’s nuts, but I can’t see him hacking up those bodies or slipping a pick into Starr’s back.” “He did |
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