wouldn’t even let her stand in the lobby, where it was cool.
As he had all day yesterday and earlier today, he’d informed her that Simms wasn’t home. This time she refused to believe him, and she’d raised enough hell that if she promised to wait outside, he’d call upstairs to make sure. Apparently others had suffered her fate, but for different reasons, because there was a litter of cigarette butts around where she stood.
The afternoon was heating up in earnest, and the hairdo she’d gotten yesterday and was nursing along was a tangled mess in the humidity. A bead of perspiration broke from her hairline and trickled along the side of her forehead. As she raised a wrist to look at her watch, she felt the tug of her clothes sticking to her and got the faintest whiff of her deodorant.
When Melanie was almost to the point of giving up hope and going back into the lobby to give the doorman one more blast of insults before storming away, the tinted glass door swung open wide, held by the doorman. He gazed blankly at her, unassailable in his position and uniform, as an African American man the size of a locomotive pushed past him and outside and looked down at Melanie. His straightened hair was gelled and combed sleekly back, and his eyes were tilted down at the outside corners to give him a permanent pained expression. He had on a flowered shirt and muted plaid pants held up by broad red suspenders, an obvious color and design mismatch to attract attention. Combined with his size, it worked. People hurrying past on the sidewalk couldn’t resist glancing his way, and the somewhat startled looks they gave him lingered and suggested trepidation.
“I’m Lenny,” he said to Melanie in a surprisingly high voice. “I work for Mr. Simms.”
Melanie struggled to find her voice. “I’m-”
“I know who you are,” Lenny interrupted. “Seen you in court.”
Melanie tried again. Her throat seemed to be blocked. “I-”
“You wanna see Mr. Simms. That’s unfortunate, ’cause Mr. Simms, he ain’t seein’ nobody today.”
“What about yesterday and tomorrow?” Melanie asked, feeling less intimidated and more angry.
“You’d have to ask Mr. Simms ’bout that.”
“But I can’t get in to see Mr. Simms.”
Lenny shrugged massive shoulders. “Way the world works.”
Melanie fought to remain calm, but her hands were trembling. She knew her lower lip was, too. She tried to choose her words carefully, but they were slippery and kept whirling around in her mind and were difficult to grasp and match with her intent. “I want you to take-I want you to deliver a message.”
“I can do that.”
“You tell Cold Cat-Mr. Simms-that there’s a madman in this city killing people for doing what I did for Mr. Simms. What I did was save Mr. Simms’s life. The least he could do is see me, talk to me. He doesn’t answer my phone calls and he doesn’t invite me up when I come here personally. That isn’t right.”
“Maybe his lawyers have advised him not to talk to you,” Lenny said. Was he smiling? Ever so slightly?
Despite herself, Melanie felt her heart leap with hope. “Is that true? Have they told him that?”
Now Lenny was most definitely smiling, and there was cruelty in those dark, angled eyes. “You’d have to ask Mr. Simms.”
That goddamned smile!
“The Mr. Simms I can’t get in to see so I can ask him?”
“Uh-huh. Same Mr. Simms.”
“You tell Mr. Simms I feel used!” Melanie was aware she was out of control but couldn’t help herself. Her rage, her shame, were in charge. Spittle flew as she spoke, catching the sunlight and adding to her humiliation. “You tell him I risked my shitting life for him, and I feel used!”
The big man gazed calmly down at her with disinterest. The smile only a shadow now. “That it?”
Melanie glared fiercely at him. “That is goddamned it!”
Lenny simply turned his huge bulk away from her and opened the tinted glass door to enter the lobby. He was part of Cold Cat’s security, probably his personal bodyguard, or one of them. His business with Melanie was finished.
“Woman got a mouth on her,” she heard him remark to the doorman as the door swung closed.
Melanie thought of making further trouble for the doorman but decided against it. She’d made enough of a fool of herself for one day-enough for the rest of her life.
She stalked along the crowded sidewalk, gripping her purse tightly and swinging it almost as a weapon to clear a path for herself. She knew one thing-she would never again play the fool for any man. She hated all men, every single one of them. They were the enemy.
And one in particular terrified her.
Beam set aside his coffee cup after finishing a lunch of angel hair pasta in an Italian restaurant on Second Avenue. He glanced again at the forensics report on Judge Parker. The bullet wound to the head was the only injury to the judge and had proved instantly fatal. The bullet, still intact after penetrating the skull, was indeed a thirty- two caliber, and it matched the others that had been used in the Justice Killer murders. There wasn’t the slightest doubt that it was fired from the same gun.
He doesn’t care if they match. He wants them to match. Likes to taunt. Helen the profiler is so right about that one.
Beam’s mobile phone buzzed. He set aside the lab report and dug the phone from his pocket. Probably Nell or Loop; he’d assigned them to interview people close to the late Judge Parker. Drone work that would probably lead nowhere, but it had to be done. Every side road along the way had to be explored, because any one of them just might lead to a six-lane highway.
But it was neither Nell nor Looper on the phone.
At first Beam didn’t recognize the voice. Nola.
“Beam, I need for you to come to the shop as soon as possible.” Her voice, always so level and without emotion, had a slight quaver in it.
Fear?
“You alone, Nola?”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“No. As soon as possible.”
“I can get a radio car to you within minutes.”
“No, I want you.”
“I’m on my way.” Beam signaled for the waiter.
“The closed sign will be up,” Nola said, “but the door’s unlocked.”
She broke the connection.
On the wild drive to Things Past, Beam worked the phone’s keypad with one hand and called to talk to her again. He got only her machine with its recorded message. Nola but not Nola.
44
They were moving rapidly through the lobby. Carl Dudman couldn’t have felt better. He could see that it was a wonderful afternoon outside, with sunlight brightening his side of the street. He’d been on the phone most of the morning, and now it seemed as if his efforts were going to pay off and the agency would represent sales of a projected new West Side condominium tower.
What real estate bubble?
Dudman patted Mark the doorman on the shoulder as he passed. The considerable bulk of Chris Talbotson, his bodyguard, was in front of him. As soon as he’d cleared the door Mark was holding open, Chris’s head began to swivel. Dudman followed him outside into the clear, sun-washed air. The orange scaffolding was still up in front of the building, but new sidewalk had been poured and the fresh concrete looked pale and unspoiled.
Chris had impressed upon Dudman that timing was important. Chris would precede Dudman, open the waiting limo’s right rear door, and without hesitation Dudman would follow and duck as he approached the big car, then remain low and lean forward as he entered. Chris would quickly follow. All within seconds. All carefully
