'Nice name.' He feigned awkwardness, but for just a few seconds, letting it register on her.
'Who's Nadine?' she asked.
'Someone I was very fond of a long time ago in another place.'
'I'm sorry to disappoint you.'
He took a step away, then turned back. 'Maybe it was fate that I thought you were Nadine.'
'Fate?'
'You know. Destiny.'
'I'm not sure I believe in destiny.'
'What do you believe in?'
'Well, I believe you're trying to pick me up.'
He put on the awkward act again, standing with his body square to hers, hands jammed in pants pockets. 'I'm trying too hard, I guess. I apologize.'
'Accepted.'
'The pickup or the apology?'
The easy laugh again. 'Maybe both.'
The speakers yeeeowled! as a sound technician adjusted them. People laughed, groaned, or cupped their hands over their ears.
The handsome man grinned at her. 'That noise they heard was me expressing pleasure at your answer,' he said. Don't be too smooth yet. Not with this one.
Marilyn thought it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her. And there was one thing they had in common already-they were both Ross Bossomo fans.
'I don't know your name,' she said. The speakers screeched again, and she winced and repeated what she'd said.
'Joe. Joe Grant.'
'Grand?' The speakers again.
'Grant,' he said. 'You know, like the Civil War general. Ulysses.'
'I know,' she said. 'The one on the winning side.'
He glanced down. 'By the way, I like your boots.'
She gave him a wide grin. 'Good. What I'm wearing is clothing from Rough Country. They're a Midwestern chain, except for a small trial store in Queens, and they're going to enter the New York market in a major way. That's why I'm here. I'm an interior designer specializing in retail space. I'm going to lay out their stores for them.'
'Talented woman.'
She waited, as if giving him a chance to tell her what line of work he was in, but he remained silent, raising his head and glancing at the trees. Dusk was just beginning to close in. Enough people had gathered to constitute a crowd. Their collective conversation and laughter was louder now. Half a dozen scruffy-looking young guys with musical instruments were filing up onto the stage. A warm-up band.
After a few seconds, Marilyn said, 'There's gonna to be a mob here soon. Do you want to see if we can get closer?'
'That's a good idea,' he said. 'Let's get closer.'
15
In the course of his mission, it was essential that he control events, and he had events by the balls.
Things were going so smoothly that he tended more and more to take time in order to contemplate and enjoy. The Butcher sat in his leather recliner, his feet propped up, a Jack Daniel's over rocks in his hand, and gazed out his high window at the lights of the city he felt was his. Or if it wasn't his, it soon would be. Because the city was only beginning to experience the terror he'd inflict on it. The control he would exercise. Before he was finished, he'd own New York in a way no one searching for him would have imagined possible. In the world's greatest city, he would be the world's greatest nightmare.
It had been so simple to manipulate the police into bringing Quinn out of retirement. Then it was easy to see that his former partner in and out of bed, Pearl Kasner, would join him in the hunt. All it took was research and a modicum of personal involvement. People like Pearl and Quinn took personally the knowledge that a serial killer was operating in what they considered their city. It was born in them; they had to set things right.
The killer understood what compelled them, because he gloried in and was burdened by the same obsession. The only difference was in the definition of right. That was subjective. And that was where he and Quinn and his team clashed, which was precisely why they were perfect adversaries.
The Butcher hadn't intended Pearl's involvement at first, but when he was doing his research on Detective (then bank guard) Kasner, he discovered where she'd lived during the last case she'd worked with Quinn, and been pleasantly surprised to find the apartment now occupied by a rather pretty young brunette. Pretty enough, anyway, so that it would be a pleasure using her to send a message to Quinn and Kasner. They'd know the death of the apartment's present occupant hadn't been coincidental. Cops didn't put much stock in coincidence.
Neither did killers who didn't get caught.
The Butcher took a sip of Jack Daniel's and smiled at his reflection in the dark window. There he was, outside himself, observing himself, a transparent figure in a reflective world between where he sat and the jeweled and glimmering nighttime cityscape beyond the glass. That was how the world was, really, layer after layer like coats of paint upon reality, and if you were smart enough you could move from one layer to the other. Live in more than one. He'd learned to do this at a young age because he'd had to in order to survive. Some lessons you never forgot. And if you never forgot them, you could put them to good use. You could control the game.
The last letter N had been a matter of expedience. The next one he would fully enjoy.
After the bland Ross Bossomo concert, he'd accompanied Marilyn Nelson home to her apartment, but he hadn't gone in. He wasn't ready yet. Didn't have his equipment. Didn't sense, as he always did, the proper time. Marilyn had told him she didn't believe in destiny. She was a fool. He knew her destiny, even if she didn't.
One thing for sure: meeting and moving toward the moment with Marilyn was instructive as well as pleasurable. He hadn't considered monogrammed or initialed clothing and accessories, like Marilyn's oversize belt buckle, as an aid to identifying prospective victims. Many women indulged in that simple exercise in ego. However it might work in the future, he thought it had been much more precise and productive than following strange women and scanning apartment mailboxes. That was how he'd found Florence Norton-and wasn't Marilyn Nelson a brighter trinket?
Everything had gone so well he decided he'd enjoy her for a while before the time was right to end their affair.
To end Marilyn.
Quinn and his team were in their office a few blocks from the precinct house. The window air conditioner was humming and rattling away, not doing a bad job of cooling the place because it was still morning and the sun was low. The aroma of roasted beans from the Mr. Coffee brewer Pearl had bought wafted in the air. Now and then, just outside the door, they could hear another door closing and soles shuffling on concrete, people coming and going at Nothing but the Tooth, the dental clinic that occupied the other half of the building.
'So the owner and both employees at Nuts and Bolts didn't recognize the other victims,' Quinn said. 'And of course we only have two victims we know frequented the place and bought those kinky cell phones.'
Pearl was sure his tone was accusatory.
He was sitting behind his desk, leaning dangerously far back in his chair. Pearl and Fedderman were pacing, each with a mug filled with coffee. The mugs were from a home decorating store on Second Avenue and had their individual initials on them so nobody would mix them up. When Pearl had handed Fedderman his, he commented that initialed mugs seemed like something the killer might send them. Pearl had said maybe that was so, and seemed thoughtful.
Fedderman thought she might be contemplating nudging Quinn's chair the rest of the way over.
