With that duty had come sudden opportunity. Dudman perfectly fit the profile of the Justice Killer’s victims. All Gina would need to do after shooting him was leave the red letter J near his body. She’d seen reproductions of it in the press after the murders where the letter had been scrawled on paper, and once with lipstick on a bathroom mirror, and she’d practiced and could duplicate it precisely.
Could she do it? Actually squeeze a trigger and put a bullet in Dudman? There was no way anyone could know something like that for sure until the time came. She’d know it when she was looking down the barrel at him.
But she had confidence.
And in her purse she had the hard, cold thirty-eight caliber semiautomatic Reggie had sold her. He’d smiled as he counted her money, and he’d casually told her that if she did use the gun she should wear gloves and she could drop the weapon anywhere-and she should as soon as possible-because it couldn’t be traced to her or to anyone else.
But she wasn’t going to drop it anywhere. The Justice Killer didn’t leave his gun where the police might find it.
She straightened up from where she’d been leaning against a building and eating a knish she’d bought from a street vendor at the corner. Her eyes narrowed against the sun reflecting off a windshield. There was Carl Dudman, emerging from the building across the street, where his real estate agency was located.
Gina hadn’t seen him since the trial, and he looked slightly older and heavier. But he still made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. If she were a different sort of person, not as careful, less determined, she would have simply gone into the real estate agency offices and shot her way to where he was and then killed him. The way those people did on the news almost every week somewhere, and for less reason than Gina’s. Newscasters often described them as “disgruntled.” Sure they were disgruntled.
But Gina was more than disgruntled, and she knew that indiscriminate blasting away left too much to chance. Besides, she didn’t plan on being apprehended or to kill innocent people.
There would be no direct and easy way to kill Dudman, not even one involving wholesale slaughter. Dudman was no fool. He must know he was in danger and was being careful. She’d have to bide her time.
A tall, hefty fellow, with a buzz cut only a little longer and gray in front, and wearing a tight blue suit, was right behind Dudman, looking this way and that. He strode with a step surprisingly light for such a big man. He reminded Gina of nothing so much as a bull getting a feel for the ring and a matador. A dangerous looking guy.
Gina took a bite of knish and smiled as she watched the giant usher Dudman through the orange scaffolding in front of the building, then into a waiting limo. As he moved, he let his gaze slide up and down the block, over her like cool water. Satisfied but obviously still wary, he lowered himself into the car after Dudman.
It wasn’t surprising that a rich businessman like Dudman would have a security system, including bodyguards. That meant extra planning for Gina, and extra work and time.
Gina didn’t mind putting in the hours, and she did have some advantages. A bodyguard with the Justice Killer on his mind wouldn’t be suspicious of a pretty young woman with a smile just for him. Or a college student applying for an internship. Or a naive young girl new to the city and lost and needing directions.
The possibilities were almost endless, and one or more of them would work. The trick was in the choosing. Then in the execution.
Someone clever, patient, and determined, could breach any security system.
Gina truly believed that a genuinely determined person could do just about anything.
43
“You home, Beam?” Nell asked him on his cell phone.
Beam glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Ten fifteen.
“Yeah, I’m home.”
He tried to hide the thickness in his voice. He’d been sitting in the darkness of his den, sipping Glenlivet eighteen-year-old scotch to relax, letting his mind roam over the landscape of the investigation. He liked to do that, give his unconscious free reign from time to time. It had worked before, and he was willing to try anything to nail the Justice Killer.
Trouble was, he kept finding himself thinking about Nola. Nola cocking her head to the side the way she did when she listened to him. Nola standing behind the antique shop counter as if in judgment of him, her lingering look and the graceful line of her back and shoulder as she turned away from him in calm dismissal.
“Beam? You near a TV?”
“Not one that’s on.”
“Better turn it on to the Matt Black Show.”
Beam knew who Black was, a young guy with a late-night local talk show on cable. He had tightly curly hair, wore snappy double-breasted suits, and had a space between his front teeth like Letterman. But there the resemblance ended. Black was lots of things, but funny wasn’t one of them.
“Beam, you there?”
“Here and moving toward the television.” Feeling my way in the dark. Ouch! Stubbed toe. Teach me to sit around in my stocking feet.
“You okay?”
“Okay, Nell.”
“You won’t be in a minute. Black’s guest is Adelaide Starr.”
Beam groaned as he found the remote and switched on the small-screen TV in the bookcase.
“I’m hanging up,” Nell said. “I don’t want to miss a cute word.”
In the soft light from the TV, Beam carried the remote back to his desk, sat down, and sipped more scotch as he turned up the volume.
Adelaide Starr had on a lacy black and white low-cut dress and was wearing her blond hair in pigtails. She looked like Little Bo Peep, minus the sheep but with great bazooms.
“But we’re celebrities,” Black was saying through his gaping grin. “We deserve special treatment.”
Studio laughter.
Adelaide was smiling innocently while leaning forward to display cleavage, pretending to be listening hard to her host. “If I really thought that,” she said, “I’d move to France.”
“You wouldn’t have to do jury duty there,” Black said. “They just whoosh!-off with your head.”
“I’m being serious,” Adelaide said. “I don’t want to do jury duty.”
“You’ve made that clear.”
“But I don’t want special treatment just because I’m an actress. And nobody I know in show business wants to be safe from this killer at someone else’s expense.”
Studio applause.
“Let me get this straight, Adelaide. You raised four kinds of hell because they were going to make you do jury duty. Now you’re complaining because they’re excusing you?”
“No! Well, no, yes! It’s like a trick on their part. A gamwit.”
Confusion on Black’s face. “Gambit, you mean?”
“Gam something.”
Black ogled her legs. “Gams! Yeah, sweetheart!”
“You know what I mean. Don’t make fun of me, please!”
“I’m not, I’m not. So you think the authorities are simply trying to sidestep trouble by showing preference?”
“Of course I do! Don’t you?”
“Well…yes. You’re too much for them, sweetheart.” Black grinned conspiratorially into the camera, then turned again toward Adelaide. Serious time. “So what, seriously, do you suggest?”
“A mora…whatchamacallit. Where somebody stops something?”
Black looked puzzled. Then he brightened. “A moratorium?”
“Exactly. Don’t give celebrities special treatment. Give everyone equal treatment under the law. Let everyone
