The Man Who Loved Women to Death (7 page)

Where she was going, I was going.

I sat halfway down the car so she wouldn’t notice me. She was reading
Backstage,
which is some kind of show business newspaper. An actress, maybe a dancer. She was certainly hot enough. I figured she’d get off at Times Square. Maybe was in some show that was running there. But she didn’t. Kept right on going all the way down to 14th Street. We both got off.

I followed her up the stairs and due east toward Sixth Avenue, staying a safe twenty feet back. She moved with great purpose. This has always excited me in a honey, E. I don’t like the ones who can’t make up their minds. I like the ones who are going somewhere. And this one was going somewhere. I had to pick up my pace just to keep up with her. No way I was going to lose her though. She had a Band-Aid on her left heel. Following that was like tailing a car with a broken headlamp, which you and I both got pretty good at in our younger days. But enough about that sorry subject. I’d much rather talk about these here legs. They were something, E. I mean you could go three, four years and not see a pair of legs like hers, except maybe in a magazine. I just kept beaming on them, wondering how anyone on the street could so much as think about anything else. But they paid her no notice. Locked into their own empty little lives, just like always.

Turns out she was heading to this place called The New School on West 12th Street. You know the place, E? They teach all of these bullshit classes there on how to write poetry and paint still lifes, like anybody who’s teaching a class there has a fucking idea about how to do anything except scam people out of their money
a
nd their time. No way I was going inside, so before she went in the door I stopped her and said I just wanted to say thank you. She said For what? And I said It was just such an incredible pleasure following you down the street. You light up the whole neighborhood. She thanked me, E. And she smiled. She had a great big smile. You know the kind I mean. Then she went on inside.

I waited outside, smoking cigarettes. Waited a couple of hours. It was getting windy and cold, but I didn’t care. She was with a small group when she finally came back out, all of them talking excitedly. When she saw me she stopped, frowning at me, and said What do you want? I said I thought we could get a cup of coffee. She didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no.

She just started walking with me.

It was really turning chilly. I kept wondering if her legs were cold, being bare. I finally asked her. She told me that the cold was no problem for her, since she was originally from Minnesota and it had to be something like thirty below zero for her to even feel it. I mentioned how confident and athletic her stride seemed, and she said Well, I was a real tomboy growing up. Played basketball and soccer and I still ski whenever I get a chance. I said Where did you get that tan? And she said I was just down in Miami with my boyfriend. He was down there on a photo shoot. Turned out her boyfriend was a model and so was she, but what she really wanted to do was act which was why she was taking this course at The New School on the history of the cinema from this guy who she said was brilliant. Mostly, she’d done a lot of modeling for the catalogs, although she had just landed a nonspeaking role in a Lipton Tea commercial which she was really pumped about. Laurie London was her name. I told her I was in the business myself, kind of. As a casting director for motion pictures. And if I could ever do anything to help her out it would be my pleasure.

She showed me her smile again.

It’s like I told you before, Friend E: Be who they want you to
b
e. That’s my secret. Hey, I ought to write a book about it someday.

Hey, maybe I am.

Laurie said You know, I thought you looked familiar
—
I bet I’ve read for you. You probably have, I said. And she said Do you know Bonnie Timmerman? And I said Are you kidding? We’re having breakfast together tomorrow morning. Which Laurie seemed to think was way cool. Right away she wanted to know what I was working on. I told her the new De Niro movie, which seemed safe, right? Isn’t there always a new De Niro movie? And don’t they always suck? I said In fact, Laurie, there’s a part that would be perfect for you. She said Hey, I’d love to read for you. I said That might be difficult. I said I’m heading out to L.A. right after my breakfast with Bonnie. I said Too bad you don’t have any pictures I could take a look at. She said Would you like to look at my book? My apartment’s not far from here.

I said Well, okay. But I can only stay a minute.

Friend E, it flat out amazes me just how needy and desperate these New York women are. Even the beautiful ones. I mean, here I am walking along in Greenwich Village with this gorgeous honey and here she is all excited because she’s thinking I’m the answer to her prayers. And all I’m thinking is Oh, baby, sweet baby
—
I am.

By the way, E, if you have the slightest fucking idea who this Bonnie bitch is, please advise.

Laurie lived on the other side of Washington Square on Sullivan Street in a not very nice building. Looked like it had once been a tenement. One big room that had a loft bed built in, a ladder going up to it. There was another bed in front of the window. Place was filthy, E. Heaps of clothes everywhere, dirty dishes piled up in the sink. I cannot believe what pigs so many of them are. I mean, people have this belief that women are so neat and we are such slobs. Not true. Can’t live in a tiny cage if you’re messy, as you and me know only too well. I said Do you have a roommate? And she said Yes, I live with a girl from home who’s here in New York to get into modeling, like me, only right now she waits tables. I said Is that where she is now? And she said Yeah, until midnight. Laurie did apologize for the mess, E. Said lots of their girlfriends from wherever ended up crashing there on their way through New York and it could be a real zoo sometimes.

She got her photo album to show me. Cleared space on the sofa and we sat there together looking at them, our knees touching. There were pictures of her in all sorts of different poses. They were real professional-looking and she looked fine in them. Particularly the ones for panty hose. Man, those legs. Only she also looked, I don’t know … hungry. Like she really, really wanted to please you. Like she really, really needed a gig, any gig, and fast. I could see something in these photographs that I couldn’t see just from being with her, E. She wasn’t ever going to get there. She didn’t have it. I mean, no way. This honey was a loser. A born victim. Someone to be blewed and tattooed by every front artist in the business. Best she could ever hope for in life was to trade in those legs for some security
—
marry some nice guy with bucks who’d be good to her. And we both know how many of those there are in this world, E. I’ll tell you, it almost brought a tear to my eye when I realized just how right this all was, me showing up now in her life. Just think how much heartache and pain I’d be saving her from by performing my one little random act of kindness. Laurie would never have to deal with that shit ever again.

Laurie would be free.

The night was young, E. Lots of time until midnight. But all of that talk of girlfriends coming and going was making me edgy. You know me, I got to keep moving. I asked her would she mind if I undid my necktie. She said No, of course not. So I did. And then I went ahead and told her I wasn’t any casting agent. In fact, I wasn’t even entirely sure what a casting agent did. And she said I don’t understand
—
who are you, what are you? And I said Laurie, I am the answer to your prayers. And then she DID understand, because she gave me that look, the one where they KNOW. You know the one I mean. Only by now it was too late. I was doing my thing with my tie. She was a strong girl, no question. But I was too fast and strong for her. And too certain of my goal. And how right it was.

When it was over I helped myself to what I’d been wanting ever since I first laid eyes on her. I left my mark on her, too. Because she was mine now. All mine.

Thanks again for that fifty, E. I’ll get it back to you when I can.

Your pal, T

p.s. Just think how much fun I’d be having if I didn’t have to work

“W
HEN WAS LAURIE KILLED,
Lieutenant?”

“We’re guessing Friday night, dude. Roommate found her this morning.”

“That plays. He must have stuck this in the mail on Saturday.”

I had called Very back just as soon as Chapter Two showed up in Monday morning’s mail. I had read him the letter. Also assorted choice highlights. Now we were seated over steaming bowls of seafood soba in one of those Japanese noodle houses that were popping up around town almost as fast as Starbuck’s coffee bars were. This one was down on Bleecker, not far from the murder scene. Very had on a hooded blue New York Giants sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. He looked wired and fierce.

Lulu was lapping up a bowl of soba herself. She was not quiet about it. In fact, she sounded very much as if she were in the John helping herself to a tall cold one from out of the you-know-what.

The pages of the answer man’s second chapter were spread out on the table next to us. This time I had handled them with tweezers, too.

I said, “If he murdered her on Friday, why didn’t her roommate find her until today?”

“On account of she went to Sag Harbor for the weekend with some gee. Totally unplanned. They just hopped in the car and went. She called and left a message on the phone machine Saturday morning to let Laurie know where she was. You know, in case Laurie was worried. Which she wasn’t, dig, on account of she was dead. We played back the message. It checks.”

“And the details of Chapter Two? Do they check?”

He nodded glumly. “Laurie was right there on the sofa, her photos laid out in front of her on the coffee table. Most bonus-looking chick I’ve seen in my life. A stone fox. She was strangled with something that might have been a necktie, not that he left it behind. Branded her same as Diane—the question marks on the forehead. Appears to be—”

“Wait, did you say
marks?
As in more than one?”

Something flickered in Very’s eyes. What, I didn’t know. “The bastard’s numbering ’em, dude,” he said between gritted teeth. “Appears to be the same lipstick. Same color, anyway.” He paused to slurp some noodles. “No sign of a struggle. No sign of sexual assault. No sign of a break-in. Place is a real mess, that’s for damned sure. I never seen so much clothing and clutter and dust in my life. You’d think they never heard of a vacuum cleaner.”

“You and the answer man seem to have a lot in common, Lieutenant. You don’t harbor a secret desire to write, do you?”

“He strikes quick, dude.” Very said it sharply. “He strikes quick and strong and clean. I’m betting we turn up bupkes there in the way of evidence.”

I glanced at the end of the chapter. “He says here ‘I helped myself to what I’d been wanting ever since I first laid eyes on her.’ What did he mean by that?”

“The Band-Aid. One that was on her heel, remember?”

I stared at him. Lulu raised her large black nose from her bowl and did the same. “What, he took the Band-Aid?”

Very shrugged his shoulders. “It’s gone, dude. Not on her heel. Not in the trash. Not nowhere. All that’s left are some traces of adhesive. She had a blister there. Her boyfriend told me she got it down in Miami from a new pair of sandals. She’s also got a bite mark—on her butt. Which
would
be major promising if our man did it. Only, the boyfriend says
he
gave her that a few days back when they were doing the wild thing.” Very’s lips pulled back from his own teeth in distaste. Or maybe it was envy. “We’re taking an impression of his teeth to see if there’s a match. According to the roommate, Laurie was crazy about this guy, only they were all the time fighting because he hosed around on her. Damn, how a guy could go out on that one.…” He shook his head, disgusted. “School me, why do they always fall for jerks?”

“Because that’s all that’s out there, Lieutenant.”

“Name’s Tibor Farkas. He’s a model. Does beer commercials, shit like that. One of those tall, cut-up gees with white teeth and no waist that women are all the time giving some to. I hate him. Although he
was
pretty broken up when he got the news.”

“Where was he Friday night?”

“You mean, could he be the answer man?”

“They do keep saying our man looks familiar. And Tibor
is
a model.”

“Claims he was out bar-hopping that night,” said Very. “Gave us a bunch of places and names to check out. Plus he’s offered to take a lie detector test.”

“Is that typical in this kind of case?”

“Dude, there’s no such thing as typical in this kind of case.

I stared down at the remains of my lunch. I had lost interest in it. Our waiter came to take our bowls away. We ordered tea.

Very said, “We’re keeping Tibor under surveillance. If he
is
our man we got to connect him up with Diane Shavelson, who he says he never heard of. We’re looking for some way they might have hooked up. Like did they ever go to the same eye doctor or bank at the same bank. We look for a link. Any link.”

“And if there isn’t one?”

“We try to link up the two victims. What did
they
have in common? We break down their address books, their credit card records. We talk to their neighbors, their families, their friends. Like, say this film class at The New School Laurie was in. That’s for real. I just spoke to the guy who teaches it—big claim to fame is he did a book on latent homoeroticism in the films of Laurel and Hardy. What a dickhead.”

“What a surprise.”

“He gave me a list of her classmates. A dozen people. We check to see if one of them is a hello.”

“A hello?”

“Y’know, like one of them pops up in Diane’s address book—
hello.
Or one of them recently bought a big blue garment bag from Hold Everything—
hello.”

“And if there’s no hello? If the answer man kills totally at random? What then?”