She was tired and her feet were sore. There'd been a cash pickup at Fifth National, so she'd worked after hours. Helping the Brink's guys make sure the depositors' money was safe. Not that there was really much danger the place would be robbed.
But some danger. Enough. And enough pay.
Hard on the feet, though. Pearl spent a lot of time standing around. And being nice. That could be tiresome.
No job was perfect, and all things considered, she liked this one. Liked wearing the gray uniform instead of the blue. Easier hours. Fewer complications. And flat feet in middle age either way.
A couple of suits walking toward her stared at her breasts, then one of them lifted his gaze to her face. He smiled.
None of the men said anything, though. Because of the uniform.
Or maybe because she was wearing a gun.
Cold.
Pain.
Janice Queen couldn't move. Not a muscle.
Where?
Janice opened her eyes to bright light and a familiar gray tile wall. She knew she was in her bathroom. Uncomfortable. Cramped. She tried to raise her head but couldn't. She raised only her eyes and saw the chromed showerhead.
Knowing now that she was seated leaning back in her bathtub, she let her eyes explore. She was nude, her body textured with gooseflesh where it showed above the water.
Water?
That was why she was so cold. Water was running from the spigot. Only cold water. It was well above her waist.
Her arms were crossed just beneath her breasts and bound so tightly she couldn't move them, couldn't feel them. Straining hard, she glanced toward her feet, which she at least could barely feel. Her calves and ankles, even her thighs, were bound together tightly with gray duct tape. Janice could wriggle her toes-underwater-but that was it.
Her head was throbbing so that the pain was almost unbearable.
She tried to call out and discovered she couldn't make a sound. She couldn't move her lips. Her probing tongue found rough surface when she managed to part her lips slightly. The roughness and tackiness of tape. There had to be duct tape across her mouth.
The deliveryman entered the bathroom. He was nude, as she was. He only glanced at her, which frightened her even more because it was as if she no longer mattered much to him. Not alive.
He turned his back on her, stooped, and began searching through the cabinet beneath the washbasin, pulling out liquid soap, a large bottle of shampoo. He placed the containers on the edge of the tub, then left the bathroom. She heard him rummaging around in the kitchen, banging cabinet doors, opening and closing drawers.
The water was almost up to her armpits now. She panicked for a second, then made herself remain calm. What was he going to do with the soap and shampoo?
Is he going to wash me? Is this some crazy sexual thing? Will he do something to me then go away?
It's possible. It could happen. It must happen!
She was part of the singles world and knew about the kinky things that went on in Manhattan. The hard- earned knowledge was something to cling to for hope. He might satisfy whatever oddball compulsion drove him, then simply leave.
When he returned he was carrying boxes of dishwasher soap and laundry detergent from the cabinet beneath the sink. And he had his long white box, which he placed on the toilet seat lid. The dishwasher soap and laundry detergent he put next to the other cleaning agents.
The water was at the base of her neck now. In the lower edge of her vision she could see long strands of her brown hair floating on the surface. It reminded her of seaweed she'd seen fanned and floating like that years ago when she was on a Caribbean vacation.
If only she could scream!
He gave her another glance, then leaned over her and turned off the water.
The sudden silence after the brief squeal of the faucet handle seemed to herald her salvation.
She wasn't going to drown!
Thank God!
He straightened up slowly, then abruptly yanked the clear plastic shower curtain from its rod. He'd had the curtain draped outside the tub so it would remain dry, and he was careful to keep it that way. He crouched down and carefully spread it over the tile floor by the tub.
When he was finished spreading the plastic curtain, down on his knees now, he reached over and lifted the lid of the white cardboard box.
She only caught a glimpse of what was inside: knives, a cleaver, and something bulky gleaming bright orange with an arc of dull, serrated extension. Her mind flashed back to weekend days in her father's woodworking shop in the garage. A shrill scream of steel violating wood-a cordless power saw!
Even taped tightly as she was, she created tiny ripples as she trembled in the cold water.
The man remained on his knees on the shower curtain. He reached toward her feet-no, toward the chromed handles and faucet. She heard him depress the lever that opened the drain, and water began to gurgle softly as it started to swirl from the tub.
Still trembling with cold and fear, Janice saw the man stand up and was shocked to see for the first time that he had an erection.
He leaned over her, staring into her eyes in a way that puzzled her.
And she was puzzled in her terror. What? She screamed the simple question silently through the firmly fixed rectangle of tape.
What are you going to do to me?
He bent lower and worked an arm beneath the crook of her bound legs, the backs of her knees. Hope sprang up in her. He was going to work his other arm beneath her back so he could lift her from the tub. Then do what? Carry her into the bedroom? Rape and torture her?
She glanced again toward the white box and felt a thrill of terror.
But instead of reaching beneath her shoulders, he placed his hand at the back of her head and forced it forward so she exhaled noisily through her nose. With his other arm he lifted her legs, causing her upper body to slide down so her head was beneath the water.
Her bound lower legs began pumping up and down, but he held them high enough so that they contacted only air. While they flailed frantically, they were the only part of her moving even in the slightest. The way he had her head, she couldn't breathe out, only in.
Only in!
Cold water flooded into her lungs. She could do nothing but welcome it.
She watched him watching her on the other side of the calm surface as she drowned.
2
The day Frank Quinn's life was about to change unexpectedly, he had a breakfast of eggs, crisp bacon, and buttered toast at the Lotus Diner. Afterward, he leisurely read the Times over a second cup of coffee, then strolled through the sunny New York morning back to his apartment on West Seventy-fifth Street.
He thought, as he often did, that there was no other city like New York, no place like Manhattan, with its sights and sounds and smells. With all its flaws, it had become a part of Quinn.
He didn't mind at all.
As soon as he got home, he sat down in his brown leather armchair for a smoke. A guy who called himself
