Twisted: The Collected Stories (28 page)

Have you ever been in a fight, Daddy
?

“Don’t you worry, now,” the man muttered, focusing on Alex’s leg, “you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

No, sweetheart, I hate fighting . . . I’d much rather catch ’em by surprise. . . .

Alex leapt to his feet, sweeping up his own knife. He stepped behind the astonished fisherman, caught him in a neck lock. He smelled unclean hair, dirty clothes and the piquant scent of fish entrails. He jammed the staghorn knife into the man’s gut. The man’s voice wailed in a piercing scream.

As he worked the blade leisurely up to the shuddering man’s breastbone, Alex was pleased to find, as with his other victims, here and in Connecticut, that the anxiety that’d been boiling within him vanished immediately—just about the moment they died. He also noted that playing the injured fisherman was still an effective way to put his victims at ease. True, he was still a bit concerned about the sheriff’s department notice—somebody must’ve gotten a glimpse of him around the time of the last murder. Oh, well, he joked to himself, he’d just have to find himself a new fishin’ hole. Maybe it was time to try Jersey.

He slowly eased the man to the ground, where he lay on his back, quivering. Alex glanced toward the road but the park was still deserted. He bent low and examined the man carefully, a pleasant smile on Alex’s face. No, he wasn’t quite dead yet though he soon would be, perhaps before the crows started to work on him.

Perhaps not.

Alex climbed back up to the path and had a second cup of coffee—this one he enjoyed immensely; Sue was truly a master with the espresso maker. Then he cleaned the blood off the knife meticulously. Not only because he didn’t want any evidence to connect him to the crime but simply because Alex had learned his lesson well; he always oiled, dried and sharpened.

Later that night Alex Mollan returned home to find
60 Minutes
on, Jessica and Sue sitting on the couch in front of the tube, sharing a huge bowl of popcorn. He was pleased that the show was about a government contractor’s malfeasance and not murder or rape or anything that might upset the little girl. He hugged them both hard.

“Hey, Jessie-Bessie, how’s the world’s best daughter?”

“Missed you, Daddy. Mommy and I baked gingerbread boys and girls today and I made a dog.”

He winked at Sue and could see in her face that she was pleased to find him in such a good mood. She was more pleased still when he told her that all the fish he’d caught were below size and he’d had to throw them back. She was a sport, but fish, to her, were entrees served by a man in a black jacket who deftly deboned them while you sipped a nice cold white wine.

“Did you bring me something, Daddy?” Jessica asked coyly, tilting her head and letting her long blonde hair hang down over her shoulder.

Alex thought, as he often did: She’ll be a heartbreaker someday.

“Sure did.”

“Something for our collection?”

“Yep.”

He dug into his pocket and handed her the present.

“What is it, Daddy? Oh, this’s totally cool!” she said and his heart hummed with contentment to see her take the watch in her hand. “Look, Mommy, it’s not just a watch. It’s got a compass in it. And it fits on your belt. This’s neat!”

“You like it?”

“I’ll make a special box just for it,” the girl said. “I’m glad you’re home, Daddy.”

His daughter hugged him hard, and then Sue called to them from the dining room, saying that dinner was ready and could they please come and sit down.

L
ate night on the West Side of Manhattan.

The young cop walked past Central Park, through the misty spring air, wondering where was the downpour the Channel 9 meteorologist had promised.

Patrol Officer Anthony Vincenzo turned west. He crossed Columbus then Broadway, half listening to the static from the speaker/mike of his Motorola Handi-Talkie pinned to the shoulder of his uniform blouse, under the black rain slicker.

He looked at his watch. Nearly eleven
P.M.
“Hell,” he snapped and walked faster. He was in a bad mood because he’d spent most of his tour at the precinct house, typing up an arrest report and then accompanying the perp—a young chain snatcher—down to Bellevue because he’d OD’ed after he’d been collared. He’d probably swallowed his whole stash before Tony ran him down so the DA wouldn’t add a drug count to the larceny. Now, he’d not only go
down for the smack or rock but he’d had a tube suck his gut clean. Some people. Man.

Anyway, the collar made the cop miss the best part of his beat.

Every night for the last hour of his tour Tony Vincenzo would coincidentally on purpose find himself circling a block in the West Seventies, which just happened to be the site of the New York Concert Hall, a dark brown auditorium dating from the last century. The building was not well soundproofed. So, if he got close to a window, he could easily hear the performances. Tony considered this a perk of the job. And he felt entitled to it; he’d wanted to be a cop since he was a kid, but not just any cop—a detective. The problem was he was only in his mid-twenties and it was hard as hell for a youngster like that to get a gold shield these days. He’d have another four or five years of boring Patrol to get through before he’d even be considered for Detective Division.

So as long as he was forced to walk a beat, he was going to walk a beat
his
way. With a perk or two. Forget free doughnuts and coffee; he wanted music.

Which he loved almost as much as he loved being a cop.

Any kind of music. He had Squirrel Nut Zippers CDs. He had Tony Bennett LPs from the fifties and Django Reinhardt disks from the forties. He had Diana Ross on 45s and Fats Waller on 78s. He had the Beatles’ White Album in every format known to man: CD, LP, eight-track, cassette, reel to reel. If they’d sold it on piano roll he’d have one of those too.

Tony even loved classical music and had since
he’d been a kid. Which, if you grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was risky business and could get you pounded bad in the parking lot after school if you admitted it to anybody. But listen to it he did, and admit it he did. He came by this love from his parents. His mother had been a funeral parlor organist before she got pregnant with the first of Tony’s three older brothers. She’d quit the job but continued to play at home for the family on their old upright piano in the living room of their attached house on Fourth. Tony’s dad knew music too. He played the concertina and zither and owned probably a thousand LPs, mostly of opera and classic Italian songs.

Tonight, as he walked up to the fire escape of the concert hall, where he liked to perch to listen to the performance, he heard the finale of a symphony, followed by enthusiastic applause and shouts. The New American Symphony Orchestra had been appearing, he saw from the poster, and they’d been playing an all-Mozart program. Tony clicked his tongue angrily, sorry he’d missed the show. Tony liked Mozart; his father had played his
Don Giovanni
LP until it wore out. (The old man would pace around the living room, nodding in time to the music, muttering, “Mozart is good, Mozart is good.”).

The audience was leaving. Tony took a flyer about an upcoming concert and decided to hang around the stage door. Sometimes he got to talk to the musicians and that could be a big kick.

He ambled up to the corner, turned right and walked right into the middle of a stickup.

Twenty feet away, a young man in a ski mask, sweats and running shoes was holding a gun, protruding from the front pouch of his black sweatshirt, on a tall, immaculate man in a tuxedo—one of the musicians, about fifty-five or so. The mugger was after his violin.

“No,” the man cried, “don’t take it. You can’t!”

Drawing his service Glock, dropping into a crouch, Tony spoke into his mike, “Portable three eight eight four, robbery in progress at Seven Seven and Riverside. Need immediate backup. Suspect is armed.”

The perp and the victim both heard and turned toward Tony.

The mugger’s eyes went wide with fear as the policeman dropped further into a two-handed firing stance. “Hands in the air!” he screamed. “Now! Do it now!”

But the boy was panicked. He froze for a moment then swung the musician in front of him, a shield. The tall man continued to clutch the violin case desperately.

“Please! Don’t take it!”

Hands shaking, Tony tried to sight on the mugger’s head. But what little skin was visible was as black as the mask and he blended with the shadows along the street. There was no clear target.

“Don’t move,” the boy said, voice cracking. “I’ll kill him.”

Tony stood upright, lifted his left hand, palm outward. “Okay, okay. Look, nobody’s hurt,” he said. “We can work this out.”

Sirens sounded in the distance.

“Gimme it!” the boy snapped to the musician.

“No!” The tall man turned and swung his fist at the boy’s head.

“Don’t!” Tony cried. Certain he’d hear the pop of a pistol shot and see the man fall. Then Tony’d have to draw a target and pull the trigger of his own gun, making his first kill in the line of duty.

But the boy didn’t shoot. Just then the stage door swung open and a half dozen other musicians stepped out. They saw what was happening and scattered in panic—some in between Tony and the mugger. The boy pulled the violin from the musician’s grip and turned and fled.

Tony lifted his gun, shouting, “Hold it!”

But the kid kept going. Tony sighted on his back and started to apply pressure to the trigger. Then he stopped and lowered the gun. He sighed and sprinted after the boy but the mugger had vanished. A moment later Tony heard a car engine start and an old gray car—he couldn’t see the plate or make—skidded away from the curb and disappeared uptown. He called the getaway in and ran to the musician who’d been robbed, helped him to his feet. “You all right, sir?”

“No, I’m not all right,” the man spat out, holding his chest. He was bent in agony. His face was bright red and sweat ran from his forehead.

“Are you shot?” Tony asked, thinking he might not have heard the gun if it was just a twenty-two or twenty-five.

But the musician didn’t mean that.

Eyes narrow with fury, he straightened up. “That violin,” he said evenly, “was a Stradivarius. It was worth over a half million dollars.” He turned his
piercing eyes on Tony. “Why the hell didn’t you shoot him, Officer?
Why?
”

Sergeant Vic Weber, Tony’s supervisor, was first on the scene, followed by two detectives from the precinct. Then, because word got out that Edouard Pitkin, conductor, composer and first violinist with the New American Symphony, had been robbed of his priceless instrument, four detectives from headquarters showed up. And the media too, of course. Tons of media.

Pitkin, still immaculate except for a slight tear in his monkey-suit slacks, stood with his arms crossed, anger etched into his face. He seemed to be having trouble breathing but he’d waved off the medics as if spooking irritating flies. He said to Weber, “This is unacceptable. Completely.”

Weber, gray-haired and resembling a military rather than police sergeant, was trying to explain. “Mr. Pitkin, I’m sorry for your loss—”