Pulse (28 page)

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Authors: John Lutz

Tags: #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Suspense, #Espionage, #General

BOOK: Pulse
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He rested the back of his head against the sofa cushion and wondered ...
 
 
It seemed like five seconds later when Rory woke up. It was dark outside. He struggled to an upright position and took a sip of soda. It was warm and fizzy and some spilled down onto his shirt.
He looked around for a clock, then remembered that there was none in the living room. That was where he was, in the living room of his house.
Reassuring, familiar territory.
After unremembered dreams?
He took a few deep breaths and decided he felt pretty good. Maybe a little confused, and sort of... heavy.
Light played over the living room walls. Headlights. Tires scrunching gravel. A car in the driveway.
Voices. A car door slamming. High heels clacking on the concrete porch. Paper sacks crackling. A soft jingling and then the ratcheting sound of a key being inserted in a lock.
The light came on, causing his eyes to ache.
“Why on earth are you sitting there in the dark?” Rory’s mother asked. She was standing near the door, clutching several large Antoine’s bags.
“I was watching TV. Musta fell asleep.”
“I hope you didn’t spill any of that soda on the couch.”
“Nope. I was careful.”
He suddenly realized he had to piss, and urgently, so he stood up, swaying gently. He couldn’t get his legs to work for a moment; then he trudged heavily toward the hall and the bathroom.
“You’re still half asleep,” his mother said.
“I guess I am. TV does that sometimes.” He plodded on toward the bathroom. How did it get so far away?
He still felt heavy. More like three-fourths asleep. Drugged.
Sherri and her little white pills.
But they
had
worked. He remembered feeling much better not long after taking them. The tension, his fear that he might say something wrong, or that in some other way Sherri would find out what really happened to Duffy, had seemed suddenly unimportant and then left him.
If the pills worked this time, they’d work again. People expected so much from him. It wasn’t as if he lived a life without pressure.
He bumped into the small table in the hall, causing it to scrape against the wooden baseboard.
“For God’s sake, turn on a light,” his mother said behind him. “I hope you don’t drive that way at night. You’re liable to kill somebody.”
55
New York, the present
D
r. Grace Moore’s office was on West Forty-fourth Street, in a building attached to The Lumineux, a swank hotel with European décor. The idea was that some of the tasteful mood and environment might rub off.
Her office was furnished much in the manner of the hotel, with minimalist style and obviously expensive furniture. Matching taupe carpet and drapes set off—but barely—mauve furniture and throw rugs over a hardwood floor. Deep blue was, here and there, an accent color. The tan leather sofa where her patients sat was incredibly comfortable. She thought that in sum the office gave her patients confidence in her, and engendered a heightened tendency to share secrets.
Linda Brooks, a twenty-nine-year-old woman Dr. Moore had been treating for two years, had seemed exceptionally upset when she’d arrived for her appointment today, but now, sitting back on the sofa with her head resting against the cushions, her eyes half closed, she’d obviously calmed down.
Linda was an attractive dark-haired girl with well-defined features and a cleft chin that helped to lend her a habitual sincere and determined expression. Her teeth seemed always clenched, her jaw muscles almost constantly flexing. Linda had been diagnosed five years ago as mildly schizophrenic with episodes of paranoia. Lately, the paranoia had been increasing in frequency and seriousness.
“Have you been taking your meds as required?” Grace asked, seated in a soft swivel chair with her legs crossed. As usual, she was composed and calm.
“Of course I have,” Linda said. “That’s what they’re for, aren’t they?
“Do I sense hostility?”
“Toward you, no,” Linda said.
“Toward yourself?”
“God, let’s not get into that.”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“I
knew
you were going to ask that.”
“Of course you did; it’s the obvious question.”
“So is my reply. No offense, Dr. Moore, but you don’t know the right questions.”
“So what are they?”
“The questions I’d ask.”
“Such as?”
“Will I ever again look forward to getting out of bed when I wake up? Am I ever going to be able to develop a loving relationship with a man? Will I ever have to live on the streets because my parents’ money and my insurance have run out? Will any of these shitty medicinal cocktails you dream up actually cure me? Is it possible I’m imagining being stalked by the same man?”
“What was that last one again?”
Linda smiled, pleased to have piqued Dr. Moore’s interest.
“He’s average height, built like a young Frank Sinatra, wears a baseball cap sometimes, like he thinks it’s some kinda disguise. But I see him. I know him. I recognize him. You think he’s a hallucination, but he’s not.”
“Frank Sinatra ... I would have thought you’d say Mick Jagger, or somebody more to the musical tastes of people your age.”
“Okay, Mick Jagger. Even though he’s older than both of us.”
“This man who’s following—”
“Stalking.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Where he appears, how he moves, how he looks at me. Have you ever gone to the zoo and tried to outstare one of the big cats?”
“Believe it or not, yes,” Dr. Moore said. “A long time ago. A panther. I found it impossible.”
“Because if the bars hadn’t been there, the panther would have consumed you. Both of you knew that. And now one is stalking me. There are no bars.”
Dr. Moore felt a chill of fear, and pity, for what Linda must be going through. “Where do you see this man, Linda?”
“The street, subway, park, my apartment ...”
“
Inside
your apartment?”
“Once, for just an instant, when he was leaving out through the kitchen window. There’s a fire escape out there.” Linda opened her eyes all the way to match stares with Grace.
Like the panther
, Grace thought. “He
wasn’t
a hallucination.”
“Was the kitchen window closed and locked?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. How could he get in?”
“Key. I leave my spare key under my doormat out in the hall.”
“That’s the first place anyone would look, Linda.”
“Right. And when I get home I always look to make sure the key’s still there. If it is, that means nobody’s used it to get inside. Then I’m not afraid to go in.”
Grace wasn’t going to cross swords over that one. “Was the key under the mat the day you saw the man in your apartment?”
“Of course not. So I used my key and went in. I was going to see him, talk to him, make sure he was real. But he was already halfway out the window.”
Something with countless legs crawled up Grace Moore’s spine. “Did he say anything before he left?”
“No. He was more interested in getting out of there. He left the key, though. I found it on the corner of the kitchen table. I put it back under the mat.” Linda laced her fingers behind her head and regarded the doctor. “Now you’re wondering, was there really a man? Might he even have followed Linda here? Or is this simply more of Linda’s usual paranoiac bullshit?”
Grace smiled. “Of course you’re right.”
“I get so tired of not being believed.”
“I didn’t say I disbelieved you.”
“Word games. I bet you’re good at Scrabble.”
“I’m unbeatable,” Grace said.
“Well, you’ve never played anyone crazy.”
“But I have. Maybe someday you and I can—”
“No. You probably know too many seven-letter words.”
“You know you do sometimes hallucinate. And you don’t always take your meds as prescribed. It’s easy to forget. And you do hear voices. So what makes you think—”
“If he hadn’t been real, don’t you think I would have given him a voice?”
Grace was a bit startled by that observation, because it was a reasonable question. “Let’s make him this real,” she said. “I think you should find a better place for your spare key.”
“Then I wouldn’t know if it was dangerous to go inside the apartment. I’d no longer have my key-nary in the mine shaft, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. And it’s good you still have your sense of humor.”
“If I didn’t have that I’d go cra—hey, wait a minute!”
Grace had to laugh. Linda was, in her own way, often the brightest person in the room.
“The son of a bitch is real,” Linda said. “Believe it.”
Dr. Moore knew better.
56
I
t was cool and dim in the lounge off the Lumineux Hotel’s lobby. The lounge featured lots of black leather, tinted glass, and brushed aluminum. A few business types sat here and there, talking deals, making excuses, their drinks before them like ceremonial potions on square white coasters. Futures could be made or lost here in ways profound but barely noticeable.
The killer sat at the bar and periodically checked his watch. Linda Brooks hadn’t suspected he was following her. At first he’d thought she might enter the hotel, which could have provided some interesting aspects. Each quarry was, after all, an adventure.
Instead, she’d walked past the hotel and entered the Cartling Towers, a glass and steel monstrosity adjacent to the Lumineux. He’d managed to squeeze into the crowded elevator she’d ridden to a high floor, and exited after she did, turning the other way in the hall and then stopping and watching which door she entered. He could perform that maneuver adroitly and without attracting attention. He’d had practice.
A psychiatrist’s office. Wonderful!
He glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes before the hour, so it was likely she had an appointment.
Linda had entered the office of a Dr. Grace Moore, according to the brass lettering on the door. So probably she was under analysis, learning to cope with her problems. She hadn’t realized her primary problem was close behind her, watching the play of her nylon-clad calf muscles as she strode in her high heels, the pendulum sway of her hips, the graceful elbows-in swing of her lissome arms.
He made a study of her, as he did with all of them.
The killer considered entering the doctor’s office, perhaps taking a seat in the waiting room, if there was one. Pretending, if necessary, that he’d accidentally entered the wrong office. Linda wouldn’t recognize him. Not for sure. She’d only seen him from a distance, and then only briefly. He’d never moved in close without being positive he wasn’t spotted. And she’d never imagine he could pop up here, of all places.
He would artfully make his exit while her mind was still working and wondering, leaving her frightened and unknowing. Oh, he was tempted. It would be daring and fun and productive. And it would certainly confuse, and maybe rattle, her analyst. But he had second thoughts about that idea. It might be a mistake for her to see him in such close quarters.
This wasn’t the time to take risks. There was no reason to prod the increasingly muddled mind he was making uneasy, or to stir the will he would soon break. This hobby—oh well, obsession—of his fascinated in part because it always became a joint venture. Eventually his quarry would long for the suspense to end, and would join in the process.
Standing in the hall outside Dr. Grace Moore’s office door, he’d decided to have a drink at the bar in the hotel next door, and then go to Linda’s apartment while she was still on the couch—if her analyst actually used a couch—and rearrange some things in her refrigerator and medicine chest. Not drastically, but unmistakably, so she’d strongly suspect—but not
know
—that someone had been in her apartment during her absence.
He could picture her, still rattled by what she’d seen in the fridge, standing in front of the rearranged medicine cabinet where she’d gone to take one of her tranquilizers, and seeing the bottle of pills for some reason resting on the wrong shelf—and upside down. How soon she’d be off the track, almost immediately after a session with the good doctor. It would be enough to shake her faith in science.
He paid for his drink and dismounted his bar stool, then left the hotel and had the doorman hail a cab.
As he gave the driver a cross-street destination, he thought he might spend a little time in Linda’s apartment, go through some of her papers and perhaps find out why she was seeing a shrink. She’d be on the couch (if Dr. Grace Moore used a couch) at least another half hour or so, and it would take her a while to arrive even if she came straight home.
 
 
“Keep in touch with Quinn and Q&A,” Harley Renz told Nancy Weaver, “but I’ve got something else important, and confidential, I want you to do.”
Nancy Weaver, seated in one of the chairs angled toward Renz’s desk in the commissioner’s office, was keenly interested. And alert. She didn’t actually trust Renz. Not all the way. He’d sacrifice her in an NYPD minute if it suited his purpose. He was a valuable but tricky ally.
Knowing when to keep her mouth shut, Weaver waited silently for Renz to continue.
“There’s an undercover cop named Tennyson, working Vice in Midtown right now.”
Weaver came up with the vague image of a tall, lanky cop. “Jim Tennyson?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Seen him around, is all.”
“Would he recognize you?”
“I doubt it.”
“Take precautions anyway.”
Weaver waited again, seemingly unconcerned. Renz would make known what sorts of precautions were necessary.
“I want you to put a loose tail on Tennyson, find out where he goes, who he sees. You’re going to have to be careful. He crosses paths with some pretty mean assholes.”
“When you say
put a loose tail
...”
“I mean you by yourself, Weaver. And whatever you learn, you’ll share with me and no one else. It’ll be worth your while.”
Weaver was sure of that. She also knew it would be a bad idea to refuse the commissioner’s request. Renz would slit his grandmother’s throat if it might help him in his relentless bureaucratic climb. No, it was a political climb now. Even better, if Weaver stayed on Renz’s good side. Especially if she learned something about him that made him vulnerable.
If she had something on him that made him
have
to trust her, she knew it could go one of two ways: her future would be secured, or he would destroy her so she’d no longer be a potential danger to him.
It was a rough game she was playing.
“I understand the necessity for confidentiality, sir. You can trust me.”
“I know I can, Weaver, or you wouldn’t be sitting here.”
Their gazes locked and something passed between them, an unspoken understanding between takers but not givers. The only two types of humans on this earth. Or at least in the city of New York.
Renz made a tent of his pudgy fingers and said nothing more, so Weaver stood up to leave.
“Do what you have to do,” he said behind her.
She nodded.
Story of my life.
 
 
Concrete walls bearing indecipherable graffiti, steep grades overgrown with weeds, cars moving along on trackside roadways, all flashed past the window wherein the killer could see his somber reflection.
He was on the train back into New York City from Stamford, Connecticut. It was only a forty-five-minute commute, and it had taken less than an hour to visit a hardware store in Stamford where duplicate keys were made.
He’d had to do this. There was no certitude. Linda Brooks might at any time remove her spare door key from beneath the welcome mat outside her apartment door and change her locks. If she was seeing an analyst, she might well receive that very sound advice.
He’d explained to the girl behind the hardware counter that he had to leave the original key with his wife so she could come and go in his absence, but he’d made a wax impression of their house key. Could she duplicate it?
Of course she could, but it would cost more than a simple reproduction.
He gladly paid the extra charge.
While the key was being made, he browsed around the store and bought a kit for hanging pictures. Let the girl working the key machine, who also had checked him out, draw her own conclusions about him and his fictitious wife moving or redecorating.
He was soon out of the hardware store and on his way back to the train station, a copy of Linda Brooks’s door key in a small envelope deep in his pocket.
He knew that having the key, feeling its warm, light weight and presence against his thigh, hastened the date when it would be used for the last time.
The train slowed and took on passengers at one of its stops along the way. Then it picked up speed again and rocketed along the rails toward the city and Linda Brooks and her destiny.

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