Footsteps of the Hawk (17 page)

I didn't need Mama to remind me. I still hurt for Belle—for what happened to her. My fault, all of it. Mama wouldn't have used such a heavy hammer on me unless she was scared about something.

"Mama, I don't like this girl. That's the truth. I think I'm in a box, and I think she's part of it. There's no way I can hide from her. I have to go down the tunnel, look around for myself."

"Take Max," she suggested.

"Maybe. Maybe later. I have to see first, okay?"

Mama nodded her head, reluctantly agreeing.

W
hen I checked in later, Mama told me I had a message from Belinda. "That woman," Mama called her. It wasn't much of a message—just an address in the Village and a time.

The address Belinda left was on Van Dam, a few blocks south of Houston, just off Sixth Avenue. Ten o'clock, she said. I left my car on Fifth, just north of Washington Square Park, figuring I'd walk the rest of the way.

When I was a kid, I used to come here a lot. By myself. There was always something to see: the chess hustlers on the permanent playing boards, folksingers trying out new stuff, pretty girls walking—gentle, safe stuff. I was so young then that I thought the sun had something to do with it—that all the bad stuff only happened after dark.

Or inside houses.

Even a kid wouldn't believe that anymore. The sun burned fresh–butter bright, but it didn't mellow the shirtless man wearing a heavy winter hat with flapping earmuffs, viciously arguing with a schizophrenic inner voice. And it didn't have any effect on the drug dealers and assorted lurkers. It didn't calm the nervous citizens looking over their shoulders.

An open–top, pus–yellow Suzuki Samurai slowly prowled past, a boom box on wheels, aggressively smashing its hyper–amped sound violence at hapless citizens in a scorched–earth assault. The latest city ugliness—the sonic drive–by.

A long–haired white man in a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off strolled by, pushing one of those metal shopping carts they give you in supermarkets. The homeless love those carts—they pile all kinds of stuff in them and wheel them around the streets. The carts are stainless steel—they don't break easy and they never rust. They're real expensive too, and the supermarkets hate to lose them. In fact, they have a contract with a business that gets a flat rate for every one they recover.

The stroller wasn't homeless, he was a thief. There's a guy works out of a vacant lot off Houston on the East Side—he's got a standing offer to buy all the carts you can bring in.

On MacDougal, the precious–special shops looked depressed, pounded into near–submission by the sidewalk vendors. It was prime–time out there for cruising, but I didn't see many tourists. A man urinated against the side of a building. A woman sat on the curb, picking at her head, her blackened fingernails no match for the lice. Another boom–box Jeep rolled by, this one full of young men all decked out in brand–name gangstah–gear. Even the scavenging pigeons looked more degenerate than usual.

I stopped at a corner, right behind two guys on bicycles. They were pro messengers—you could tell by their gear. Not the Speedo pants or the fingerless gloves or the whistles on cords around their necks. Not even by the crash hats—open–weave padded leather fitted tight over their heads. No, what gave them away was the heavy combat chains wrapped around the base of the bicycle seats, always ready. One of them had his chain in his hands, talking urgently to the other.

"Motherfucker tried to
door
me, check it out! I laid it down, but when I come up swinging, pussy decides to bail!"

The other messenger high–fived his endorsement of biker self–defense as I stepped around them to move on. Three black youths approached, spread out in a fan across the sidewalk, blocking the way. One wore a T–shirt with "Back The Fuck UP!" on the chest. Another had a picture of Mike Tyson silk–screened on it, with "I'LL BE BACK!" below. I guess that was a political statement—Tyson gets convicted of raping a young girl and all of a sudden he's Emmett Till.

I gave way to them, stepping into the street, ignoring the sneering hiss one threw in my direction. When I was their age, I wouldn't have stepped aside. I was stupid then, and I paid what stupid people pay.

The sidewalk was clogged, but I wasn't in a hurry. I stopped at a bakery, bought myself a French bread, scooped out the inside and dropped it in an overflowing garbage can, and munched on the crust as I moved along.

On the next corner, a dressed–for–success woman was telling a tall man—her husband? boyfriend?—some miserable story.…I could see it in her stance.

"You know, you kind of expect this over in the
East
Village," she said, pointing a finger at a decrepit gray–haired man huddled in a doorway, his pants down around his ankles, calmly dumping a load as people stepped out into the street to avoid him.

"I know," the tall man commiserated. "Just the other—"

"I hate them," the woman interrupted. "The fucking
homeless
. I can't help it. I really
hate
them for what they've done to this city. You can't even use an ATM machine in peace anymore—they're always there, standing around with their hands out, like a pack of filthy doormen."

The dangerous ones, you won't see their hands,
I thought to myself. I never considered sharing my professional knowledge with the woman—New York isn't that kind of place.

Once I crossed Houston into Little Italy, it got quieter. I wondered how long that would hold—in this city, there's no border invaders won't cross.

I
found the place easy enough. The sign on the door said: RING BELL AND STEP BACK! I knew what that meant, so I wasn't surprised when I saw a second–floor window open and Belinda lean out. "Catch!" she said, tossing down a thick wooden stick with a key attached by a loop of wire.

I used the key to let myself in, then climbed a set of metal stairs to the second floor. Belinda was standing in an open doorway, wearing a baggy T–shirt that fell to mid–thigh. Her hair was lighter than I remembered, reddish highlights dancing in the reflected sunbeams from the window. As I stepped past her to walk inside, she put her lips against my cheek, a butterfly kiss so soft I couldn't be sure it had landed at all.

The place was furnished totally in Now and Today—which, from looking around, I guessed meant Retro. The joint was loaded with reproductions of old junk—a red–and–white Coke machine reprogrammed for diet soda, a Wurlitzer jukebox that spins CDs instead of 45s, and a painting that gave me a headache. I walked over, took a closer look. It was about twice the size of an eight–by–ten, done on white Crescent board. Supposed to be the Seven Dwarfs, near as I could tell, slapped on in a crude, amateur style, all in primary colors, right out of the tube. In the lower right hand corner: POGO in small block letters. I looked over at Belinda.

"An original," she said. "Before they made him stop signing that way."

I nodded, keeping my face expressionless—it wasn't the first time I'd seen Serial Killer Chic proudly displayed by moral midgets. The thrill–killers themselves have a rigid pecking order: if you want to qualify for celebrity status, if you want freakish disciples memorizing your trial transcripts like they were religious tracts, if you want erotic mail and money orders too, it's not enough to have slaughtered a bunch of people, there's other qualifications you have to meet. First, it really helps to have three names, like Westley Alan Dowd or Henry Lee Lucas. Then you need a high body–count—preferably in several states, so you can have serial trials to go with your serial killings. If you can lead the cops to some buried bodies, that's always good for a few more fans. But the most important thing is what John Wayne Gacy lacked—the secret ingredient that rocketed Ted Bundy to high–status serial killer even without a middle name. If you want to be at the top, you've got to kill females, the younger the better. Holding victims captive is a plus. So is torture. But it's all for nothing if you don't do it to females—male–victim snuff films always do lousy box office.

Belinda spread her arms wide, like a rancher showing how much land he had. "This is a perfect place," she said. "All the other lofts are empty—the owner bought them out. He wants to convert the place to condos. This is the last one."

"Very nice," I said, still thinking about the Gacy painting.

She walked over and perched on a big white plastic cube—it must have been stronger than it looked. The only other seat was a leather director's chair, with "Jon" written in embroidered script across the back panel. I took it, settled in, waited.

Belinda leaned forward. "Did you…find out anything? I know it's early, but…"

"Yeah," I told her. "I found out some stuff. DNA."

"That isn't foolproof," she said so quickly that she must have known. "They only got that in Jersey, right? And the woman on University Place, George
knew
her, I told you. Before it happened, I mean. And there was no sperm in her anyway, remember? Just that red ribbon…"

"So he just caught a bad break, right?" I asked. "He had legit sex with her, then some maniac came along and wasted her before she got a chance to leave the apartment?"

"It's not the weirdest thing I've ever seen," she said. "One time, when I was working Vice, I—"

"Yeah. Okay, I got it—people are strange, sure. But here's the part that throws me—the woman on University Place, the other two victims,
none
of them had any sperm in them at all. How does that play with you?"

Belinda got up, started pacing in little circles. I noticed she was barefoot, her feet were tiny, too small for the rest of her. I watched her pace, not saying anything more. She walked over to me. Stopped and made a "come here" gesture. I got up. She put her finger to her lips, held out her hand. I took it, and she gently pulled me along a hall to a back room. A bedroom, it looked like, but only because there was a bed—the rest was all file cabinets and photography equipment.

"This isn't my place," she whispered into my ear. "But Jon lets me use it sometimes, when he's out on assignment. He's a video freak—I think he has the living room wired. There's something I have to tell you, but it's just for you, okay?"

I nodded Okay back, not saying anything.

"You want me to strip?" she asked. "So you can be sure there's no—"

"You're the only one talking," I reminded her.

"You sure you wouldn't want me to anyway?" she asked softly, more promise in her voice than in her eyes.

"Some other time," I said. "When I'm not working."
And when you're not either, bitch,
I thought.

"It's a date," she whispered.

I stepped past her, sat on the bed—there was no other place to sit in the little room. Belinda started her pacing again. Then she stopped, moved very close to me, bent down and whispered, "You don't have to talk. Just nod for Yes or No, okay?"

I nodded Yes.

"You looked at the autopsy reports, didn't you?"

I nodded Yes.

"And you saw…there was no sperm in any of the bodies, right? Not the one George went down for, not the ones that got killed after he was inside?"

I nodded Yes.

"So what does that tell you?"

I shrugged my shoulders, spread my hands wide in a "Who knows?" gesture.

"The killer…the
real
killer, I think he read the autopsy reports too. On the woman, the one George knew. I think he…the killer…figured it out. If he left any sperm inside the others, they'd know it wasn't George—the DNA would clear him. The way I figure it, he wore a condom."

I made a "So what?" gesture.

"I think the killer is crazy," she said. "Stark raving mad. And I think he killed those women, stuffed the red ribbons inside them…and then pulled them out of the dead bodies himself…later."

"When?" I asked her, tired of playing.

"When? What do you mean?" she said.

"I mean, when did he do it? What's so complicated? When would he get the chance?"

"Think about it," she said, no longer whispering.

I did. Inside myself, willing my face to go flat as my mind ripped through the possibilities.

Leaving only one.

"You're saying it's a—"

"Cop," Belinda finished my sentence. "Yes. And I think I know who it is."

I just looked at her—the name wasn't going to come out of my mouth. But I knew….

"Morales," she said. "Detective First Jorge Ortega Morales. He killed the woman on University Place. He killed them all."

I
didn't argue with her—what was the point? As soon as she dropped her bombshell, she sat back on top of a two–drawer file cabinet, hugging herself, almost squirming in the embrace. The look on her face—I'd seen it before. In England, just before I went over to Africa and into a stupid war. I saw that same look on the hard face of a woman who called herself Colleen—a woman who planted bombs in department stores. Not for the revolution—that was just her excuse—for the thrill. Colleen always wanted to be
close
to her work—close enough to bask in the fallout.

That was Belinda, the way I saw her then—playing with fire, close enough to feel the heat…the only heat that really made her hot.

"Why am I in this?" I asked her. "You got all this stuff, what do you need me for?"

"Don't you understand?" she said, leaning forward, holding my eyes. "This isn't about the truth. If that's all it was, this would be easy—
life
would be easy. The way I figure it, you don't have many choices. Morales wants you. You know it and so do I. He's not the kind of man that'll stop. That's what gives him so much juice—he's insane. Out–of–his–fucking–mind insane. Most cops, they
respect
that. That's his rep—an Officer Down goes out over the box, Morales is gonna be the first one on the scene every single time. And if you're outside a door—a
wood
door—and you know a bad guy's inside—a nothing–to–lose killer—one of those crazy young don't–mind–dying gangbangers, probably got his Tec–9 stuffed with Teflon bullets so even your vest won't save you, okay? Well, Morales, he's going
in,
you can bet on it. He's been shot on the job. Twice. Couple of years ago, he caught a round in the chest taking down a dealer in Washington Heights. And he dropped the shooter…just blew him away He's got more CCRB complaints than anyone working—any detective, anyway—but they keep cutting him slack because he's a cops' cop, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I know," I told her. "He may have a screw or two loose, but nothing you said about him makes him into a sex psycho."

"There's more," she said. "You remember McGowan, his old partner? The guy who worked the pimp detail?"