John Lutz Bundle (49 page)

“Why would I want to know this nephew Milton?” But Pearl knew why.

“Because he’s eligible in every way, and newly single.”

“I don’t have time right now to search for a husband, Mom, being busy searching for a killer.”

“What search? I’m dropping him into your lap.”

“I want my lap empty for now.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the connection. Then: “Speaking of your lap, so how is that nice Captain—excuse me—Mr. Quinn?”

“Jesus, Mom!”

“Pearl!”

“Sorry for the language. Mr. Quinn’s fine.”

“You didn’t preface his name with ‘nice.’”

“No, I didn’t. He isn’t nice all the time.”

“So who is, dear? Did he ever beat you?”

“Never.”

“Then he was nice enough to you and would be again. He’s quite handsome in a manly way and is a person of substance, Pearl. There will come a time when you won’t want to chase criminals, or stand in one spot in a bank developing varicose veins just to earn a small paycheck. There will come a time when you might be in assisted living.”

Pearl hated these phone conversations with her mother. They almost always ended in arguments, and this evening Pearl was tired. She’d worked hard. She didn’t feel like bickering with anyone, much less her mother. And she especially didn’t want to argue about her status as a divorced single woman. It simply was not in her at this time to foster her mother’s delusion that her daughter was actively seeking a husband.

“Whether or not you say so, Pearl, Mr. Quinn is a fine man.”

“He’s an obsessive psychopath.”

“They can be good providers, dear.”

Pearl hung up.

Hard enough that her mother wouldn’t call her back tonight.

But maybe tomorrow.

The Butcher prepared himself to go out. He took a shower, not a bath, then put on clean blue silk boxer shorts. He brushed his teeth with Crest, combed his hair, and leisurely dressed in his new clothes.

All the time he was doing this, somewhere in his layered and partitioned mind he was thinking about Marilyn Nelson; the rhythmic roll of her hips when she walked, the mischievous glitter like dark tinsel in her eye when she turned and ducked her head to glance at him. As if on some level she
knew.
And maybe she already did know. Like some of the others, maybe from time to time she caught a glimpse of destiny that transcended conscious thought.

His second
N
woman.

Florence Norton had been a matter of expedience. This one he would take his time with and relish. He owed her that, as he owed himself. They were in this together now, whether she realized it or not. Partners in crime and time and players in the game that could only end one way for Marilyn Nelson.

Finished dressing, he stood before the full-length mirror attached to the closet door and appraised himself. He could smell his expensive spicy aftershave. It was much too strong now, but he’d recently applied it and knew that within a short while it would lose much of its potency.

He turned this way and that, striking poses like a confident and playful catalog model, observing how he looked in the outfit he’d bought that morning at Rough Country in Queens.

Marilyn would be pleased, but it wasn’t his usual style. He wasn’t crazy about the square-pocket jeans and rough piped cotton shirt with its flap pockets and dull brass snaps instead of buttons. The essence of Rough Country style seemed to lie in the liberal use of metals and coarse material. He preferred tailored conservative suits, custom-made shirts of Egyptian cotton, and silk ties. But since he had on the shirt and jeans, he didn’t so much mind the boots. They were surprisingly comfortable.

He did flatly like the hat. It was like a cowboy hat but with a narrower, raked brim. Like something Glenn Ford might have worn. He was partial to Glenn Ford movies, and fancied that he bore some resemblance to the late movie star, which was enhanced by the hat.

He laid the hat on the bed (knowing some people thought doing so brought bad luck, but the hell with superstition if you were smart), then adroitly dusted his dark hair with aerosol spray.

Posing before the full-length mirror again, he placed the hat on his head carefully so as not to muss his hair. He adjusted the hat, touched a finger to the curved brim, and shot himself a smile.

Then he switched off the light and left in something of a hurry.

He had a date.

Quinn had finished his impromptu late dinner of hash and eggs, and was enjoying a cigar at his desk in the den, when there was a knock on his apartment door. This didn’t surprise him, as the building’s security system allowed most anyone with an IQ higher than a rabbit’s to find a way to enter without being buzzed in.

He propped the cigar in an ashtray so it wouldn’t go out, and made his way into the living room. With a glance at his watch, he saw that it was past nine o’clock. He’d spent most of the evening reading over the murder books on the Butcher’s victims, hoping something might snag his attention and open new vistas of investigation. It seldom happened, but happened often enough to warrant tireless scrutiny of file information. It hadn’t happened this evening.

Peeking through the round peephole he saw only what appeared to be the shoulder of someone not very big. He opened the door to the hall.

A young woman of about eighteen stood staring in at him. What drew his eye was the glitter of a tiny glass or diamond stud in her left nostril. Then there was the general impression of build, average if a bit fleshy, five-feet-four or so, stuffed into a tight aqua-colored top made of some kind of stretch material. Her dirty, faded jeans were too tight and rode low, revealing between waistband and blouse an expanse of stomach that showcased a navel pierced by a small silver ring. She had brown hair combed in a practical short do, a slightly turned-up nose, wide, generous mouth, a strong chin, and green eyes exactly like Quinn’s.

She smiled and said, “Hi, Dad.”

Astounded, Quinn actually backed up a step or two. This almost stranger was his daughter Lauri, whose mother May and her present husband, Elliott Franzine, lived in California, where Lauri lived with them.

Should be living with them.

Only Lauri wasn’t in California. She was here. Quinn was seeing her for the first time in a little over a year. The change was astounding.

He said, “Lauri?”

Still smiling, she came in and dropped an overstuffed backpack he somehow hadn’t noticed on the floor, then glanced around. “Your place is nice.”

“You’re…here,” he said, still stunned. She was so much older, grown-up. A full-sized…person.

“Sure am.” She came to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed his cheek, and was gone before he’d had a chance to hug her back.

“May…Your mother…”

“I decided to leave California. Saved up some money. Rode buses all the way. That Port Authority place is like wild. Got anything to eat?”

“Sure.” He led the way into the kitchen, his mind atilt. “You’re supposed to be in school.”

“Summertime, Dad. Graduated anyway. High
B
average. Coulda done better.” She opened the refrigerator. “Hey! New York stuff! That fatty red meat.”

“Pastrami,” Quinn said. “They have it in California, too.”

“Not where I been. You like it?”

“Sure. You graduated from
high school
?” His guess would have been that she was a junior, maybe a sophomore. Time working its malicious magic.

“Yep.”

Drawers opened, twisties were untwisted, jars unlidded; the refrigerator door was worked, and a squeeze bottle of mustard
squeeched
! A pastrami sandwich with pickles on rye appeared incredibly fast before Quinn. The fridge door opened and closed again.
Hisssss!
Lauri was seated at the table with a fizzy cold can of Pepsi, attacking the sandwich.

“Does your mother know you’re here?” Quinn asked, embarrassed to sound like a character in an old TV family sitcom.

“I think not.” Through a huge bite of sandwich.

“What about Elliott?”

“He’s a dork.”

Quinn remembered her calling
him
a dork not that many years ago. It had stung. “Elliott’s not such a bad guy.”

Which was true. Quinn had himself at first thought Elliott a dork, but eventually, when he finally accepted that it was over forever with May, he came to appreciate the home and consistency that real-estate attorney Elliott provided for his family—that used to be Quinn’s family. Quinn, who any day or night at work might have been shot, had never been able to provide that kind of security at home. A cop’s wife leaves him—who doesn’t understand and sympathize?

“Does Elliott know you traveled to New York?” Quinn asked, amazed by how quickly the sandwich was disappearing.

“Nobody but you knows I’m here, Dad. This stuff is great. I’m looking forward to New York. Don’t worry. I’m gonna get a place of my own soon as I find work.”

“Huh? Place? Work?”

“You got a spare bedroom, Dad, right? Place to crash. Extra bed? I don’t snore, most of the time.”

“Listen, Lauri…”

She stopped chewing pastrami and looked up at him with those green eyes. Smiled big.
Ah, God…May.

Memory was physical pain.

“There’s a spare bedroom,” he said. “I’ll have to move out a few things I’ve got stored in there.”

She took a big bite of sandwich and stood up. “Let’s go. I’ll help you.”

“Doesn’t have to be right now,” he said. “Finish your sandwich. Make another one if you’re hungry.”

She settled back down and began eating in earnest again. She said, “I don’t have any tattoos.”

He smiled. “Fine.”

“Do you mind if I get one?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“Sure. I asked, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Will you not get a tattoo if I say I mind?”

“Wouldn’t go that far.”

“I’ve gotta say I don’t have an opinion on you getting tattooed,” Quinn said honestly. “I never gave it much thought. I mean, I never figured it was a question I’d have to wrestle with.”

“I’ll wait, then. Till you get it straightened out in your mind.”

“Thanks.”

“Wouldn’t be right away anyway. Your place. Your rules.”

“Really?”

She grinned. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

He stared at her, befuddled.

“Make yourself another sandwich if you want,” he said. “And there’s more soda in there. I’ll be right back.”

He left her and returned to his den. His cigar had gone out. He relit it, then walked over and shut the door and called May and Elliott Franzine’s number in California.

Elliott picked up almost immediately.

“It’s Quinn,” Quinn said. “I’ve got Lauri here.”

“Thank God!” Elliott said. “She’s been gone four days. We thought she was at a girlfriend’s house until yesterday. We called the police, and they’re about to list her as a missing person.”

“Well, she isn’t missing. She’s here. Said she rode buses in from California.”

“May’s not here, Quinn. She’s out talking to the girlfriend’s parents. We’ve worried out of our skulls.”

“I guess so. Lauri get upset about something?”

“Didn’t seem to. Well, we did have a bit of a tiff about where and when she’d go to college. A few harsh words. But we’ve had those discussions before and everybody’s cooled down. We didn’t think she was mad enough to leave home. Though she’s been talking about not liking California, seeing more of the world. We didn’t think there was anything to the talk, just Lauri venting, but it seems we were wrong.”

“She’s planning on going to college?”

“Eventually, she says. After gaining what she calls true life experience, whatever that is.”

Quinn knew what it was. It could be painful. Even fatal.

“She intends to stay with me for a while and try to find a job in New York,” he said.

“How do you feel about that?”

“Like I’ve got no choice.”

“Well, she is eighteen.”

“That’s an age when you can get in a lotta trouble,” Quinn said.
And be a lot of trouble.

“May and I both know she’d be safe with you.”

“If I put her on the red-eye to California, she might bounce right back here,” Quinn said, thinking out loud.

“Probably would. Or go someplace else altogether. Like Minnesota.”

“Why Minnesota?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve always had a bad feeling about Minnesota. It’s a place where you can get in trouble if you’re eighteen.”

“Like plenty of other places,” Quinn said.

“If she’s really made up her mind to leave California,” Elliott said, “she’ll go someplace else. Lauri’s awfully stubborn. Once she’s made up her mind, she usually doesn’t change it.”

“Stubborn, huh?”

“Very.”

Quinn picked up his cigar and toyed with it. Studied it. No sign of an ember. He mentally pronounced it dead.

What a screwed-up world it was.

“We can try it for a while,” Quinn said. “On a trial basis. Maybe she’ll see how tough it is here and get New York out of her system.”

“This is great of you, Quinn.”

“Not really. She’s my daughter.”

“Yeah, she sure is.”

“Have May call me when she gets in.”

“Okay. Tell Lauri we love her out here in California.”

“You wanna talk to her?”

“Of course.”

Quinn went back to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later and picked up the phone.

“She said she doesn’t want to talk to you,” he told Elliott. “Said you were a dork.”

“That hurts.”

“Tell me about it.”

Quinn hung up the phone, smiling around his dead cigar.