The Frenzy Way (20 page)

Angela turned her back on him. “Go back to the reservation, where you’re safe.” A slip of the tongue; she did not want him to know that she knew he lived and worked on the Chautauqua Reservation.

“I can’t do that.”

“You know what this means.” Folding her arms across her breasts, she sensed him moving still closer.

“They would have found me sooner or later anyway. You did.”

Unable to control herself, she spun toward him. “That doesn’t mean you have to walk right into their territory!”

Staring into her eyes, he spoke in a calm voice. “I can’t run away, Angie.”

Her throat hardened. “You did before.”

Reaching out, he stroked her face. “I was scared then—for both of us.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she felt her lips quiver. “You didn’t even say good-bye.”

Stalk wiped away the tear with his thumb. “There wasn’t time. I knew I was being followed. I saw them wherever I went.”

She pretended to ignore his touch. “You could have taken me with you.”

“They’d have come after us both. By leaving alone, I protected you as well as myself.”

“Then why come back now?”

He closed the distance between them, and she felt his breath on her face. “Do you really think I could have stayed away, knowing what I do? You know me better than that.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

He shook his head. “That won’t do any good.”

Her eyes filled with tears, obscuring her vision. “I’ll make them understand.”

“They’ll never accept me.”

She felt herself trembling with rage. “Damn you! Why did you have to come back?”

Still he remained calm. “We damned each other a long time ago.”

Fighting back more tears, she closed her eyes. Then an inhuman wail filled the apartment, forcing her to open them again.

Stalk’s gaze moved to the iron bedroom door. “Angus?”

She nodded. “He must recognize your scent.”

“He didn’t make a sound when I came in.”

“He’s not well. I had to move him here so I could keep an eye on him. I … I’d better go look in on him. You can sleep on the sofa.” Angela crossed the apartment to the heavy door. Producing a long key, she unlocked the door and opened it just enough to slip into the bedroom. Then she closed the door and locked it from the other side.

Candice Smalls removed a roll of black tape from her black bag and said, “Arms.”

Patty, sitting topless on a stool in the decoy apartment’s bedroom, raised her elbows level with her shoulders, like a chicken flapping its wings. Outside the window, which overlooked Grove Street, blackness had claimed the sky.

Candice pressed the tape’s end against Patty’s left breast and unwound it around her back, beneath her arms, then over both breasts.

Patty took a deep breath. The tape felt tight. “How am I supposed to lure this creep with my tits taped flat?” Candice pushed her thick glasses up the bridge of her nose and wrapped Patty in tape again, this time under her breasts. “Honey, I’m giving you the best support of your life.” She pressed a wireless microphone against the tape between Patty’s breasts. “Hold that there.”

Patty held the mic in place with her middle finger. She had painted her nails black to match the temporary dye in her hair.

Candice wound the tape around Patty’s torso again, this time covering most of the tiny black microphone. She stepped over to the tablewhere her recording equipment had been set up. One screen displayed a wide-angle view of the interior of a car in a parking garage. The image was transmitted by a night vision camera, and everything in the frame appeared bright green. Candice pulled on a set of headphones and focused on the audio meters on the digital recorder. “Say something.”

Looking down, Patty said, “I like New York in June.”

Candice glanced at Patty. “Look straight ahead, not at the microphone.”

Patty looked at her fellow policewoman. On the monitors before Candice she saw opposing views of the male cops waiting in the living room. “This is Foxy Lady, hoping to catch a big, bad wolf.”

“Okay, put your top back on.”

Patty pulled on the sleeveless black top, which left her midriff partially exposed.

“Keep talking.”

“I can’t help but wonder why these women allow this guy to pick them up. They must sense he’s off. Why take the chance for a casual fuck?”

Candice adjusted the sound levels on the recorder. “You’d know better than me. You’re single, aren’t you? I’ve been married twelve years. You’re good to go.”

Patty exited the bedroom, followed by Candice. Sitting on the sofa, Mace and Willy looked up. Morrissey and Landry stood with four POs and Rod Kramer, the detective in charge of DATR—Digital Audio Transmission and Recording.

Willy whistled at the sight of Patty in pumps, fishnet stockings, and a black Lycra miniskirt. “Trick or
treat.
Vampira’s risen from the grave.” He nodded at the cross on her right bicep. “Where’d you get that fake tat?”

“That’s real, wiseass.”

“You Irish Catholic gals are hardcore, girl. I wouldn’t recognizeyou if we bumped into each other on the street.”

“That’s because you never look at faces.”

“True.”

Patty looked around the room. During the time it had taken for Candice to wire her up, Landry and Morrissey had replaced the generic décor with artistic black-and-white photos and paintings of people with haunted expressions. “Nice job.”

“My cousin’s a fine arts major,” Landry said. “She’s into this gothic scene.”

Mace stood. “The fiber-optic camera’s all hooked up.”

Patty said, “I know. I saw it on the bedroom monitor.”

“Just remember,” Kramer said to Mace, “we’ll be able to see what’s happening from here, but you’ll be restricted to audio surveillance.”

Nodding, Mace said to Patty, “Kramer, Candice, and these uniforms will all be stationed in the bedroom. When you come in, go over to the window and close the curtains. They’ll be all over him.”

Glancing at the window, Patty saw the ghostly reflections of her fellow cops staring back at her. “What if he doesn’t give us enough to move on?”

“I don’t care. If you bring him back here, you must at least have an inkling that he’s our perp. That’s all we need. By the time he can lawyer up, or our twenty-four hours expires, we’ll have whatever else we need to charge him. I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks. Understand?”

“Copy that.”

“There’s a good chance our boy won’t even come out tonight, if he’s following a full moon cycle.”

“I need a cigarette,” Patty said.

Mace and Willy sat in the front seat of the unmarked Cavalier half a block away from Carfax Abbey II. A block farther up on the oppositeside of the street they saw the carpet van Landry and Morrissey occupied. A dozen bar hoppers stood outside the nightclub, all of them dressed in black, with cigarette smoke lingering around them. Patty appeared around the corner on the far side of the club, walking toward them.

“There she is,” Willy said.

Patty located Mace and Willy, and she gave them a slight nod. Stopping at the bottom of the steps leading to the club’s front door, she took a final drag on a half-smoked cigarette, flicked it away, and melted into the crowd.

“This is Mother Goose,” Mace said into his hand radio. “Sound check. Over.”

Candice’s voice crackled over the speaker. “This is Grandma’s house. Over.”

Patty ascended the stairs, swinging her hips just enough to draw attention to them.

Landry’s voice came over the speaker next. “The Brothers Grimm are standing by. Over.”

Patty disappeared into the club’s maw.

“Little Red Riding Hood has entered the woods,” Mace said. “Stay alert.” He glanced at his watch: 10:40
PM
.

In the vestibule of Carfax Abbey II, a tall black man whose short-sleeved T-shirt allowed him to show off his biceps when he folded his arms returned Patty’s nod. She paid the ten-dollar cover charge to a young woman with flame orange hair who stamped the back of her hand with an inky image she could not discern. Even in the vestibule, the sound system’s throbbing beat vibrated her legs.

The club’s interior had been painted flat black. Dingy colored light seeped through the darkness, and the floor and walls shook. Pale faces hovered in the darkness around the dance floor, and candles flickeredon the tabletops. Scanning the dozens of black-clad figures swaying to the electronic funeral dirge blasting over the speakers, Patty felt age creeping up on her. She sensed eyes watching her as she circumnavigated the dance floor, but the countenances she glimpsed seemed too self-absorbed to care about her. Two emaciated people occupied the DJ booth, but she couldn’t tell their sex.

She stood at the bar with a dozen other people and tried not to pay undue attention to the body piercings and bizarre hairstyles around her. The club reeked of sweat and alcohol. She had stood in this same spot less than twenty-four hours earlier, yet the melancholy atmosphere made it feel like an entirely different location. She nodded to the music’s beat, feigning a connection to it.

When Lloyd, the bartender, came over, her heart skipped a beat. His eyes flicked to hers, perhaps because she was a new face, yet showed no sign of recognition. “What can I get you?”

“Whiskey sour,” she said over the music.

Lloyd nodded and stepped away.

In the Cavalier, Mace and Willy heard Kramer’s voice. “This is Grandma’s house. Over.”

Mace picked up the hand radio. “Go ahead, Grandma. Over.”

“Patty’s level is weak. The bartender’s is worse. Over.”

Mace recalled the bar’s layout. “She’s close to the speakers. It should get better. Over.”

“Copy that. Over.”

Mace hung up and glanced at the sky. The moon, no longer full, shone down on the Village.