Dixie.
'This is my friend Charlotte,' Dixie said. Her arm stayed reassuringly firm around Charlotte and contracted again in a gentle squeeze. 'Charlotte, this is my brother, Don.'
'On your way someplace?' Don asked.
'Just left someplace,' Dixie said.
'We haven't seen each other for quite a while.'
'That's for sure,' Dixie said.
'I've got an idea,' Don said. 'Why don't we go to my place for drinks? The three of us. I can drive us there, then afterward take you wherever you want to be dropped off.'
Dixie felt Charlotte draw back. But then, she knew what Charlotte wanted. She kept her arm tight around Charlotte at the shoulder and looked down at her, smiling encouragingly. 'Charlotte?'
'I don't think so, Dixie. Not tonight. I'm feeling pretty dragged down.'
'You sure?'
'Certain.' She gave Don a tentative smile, asking for help.
The two guys who'd passed on the other side of the street appeared again, walking the other way.
Don seemed to think about it. 'Don't force her,' he said to Dixie. He grinned up at Charlotte. 'There's always another time.'
'Okay,' Dixie said. 'We'll give you a call.'
Don was still looking at Charlotte, still smiling warmly at her. He winked. 'It's a date.'
He drew back into the shadowed confines of the car and the window glided up. Charlotte and Dixie watched as the big Chrysler pulled away from the curb and turned the corner at the next intersection.
'Your brother,' Charlotte said, as if still digesting this new piece of information about Dixie.
Dixie took her arm and they began walking again. 'My brother. We don't see each other often, but we get along. I think you'll like him.'
Charlotte kept pace and leaned into Dixie again so that they were almost thigh to thigh. 'He seems nice.'
'Everyone says that,' Dixie said.
26
It was moments like this when Pearl emitted a kind of energy that anyone near her could feel. Quinn felt it now. Something was up with Pearl.
They were riding along in Quinn's big Lincoln on a fine New York morning. The slanted sunlight cast stark, sharply angled shadows of tall buildings so that light and dimness danced over the vast expanse of metal that was the car's gleaming black hood. Pearl had shown up at the Seventy-ninth Street office early in the unmarked car, and now they were driving to pick up Fedderman so the three of them could meet with Renz in his office at One Police Plaza. Quinn felt his hands tighten on the steering wheel as Pearl spoke.
'I understand you're seeing that M.E. who smells like formaldehyde.'
Quinn braked to avoid rear-ending a dusty white delivery van and let the Lincoln edge forward in the blocked traffic. 'I never noticed a formaldehyde scent.' He felt his jaw setting. Who was Pearl, anyhow, to worry about whom he was seeing or sleeping with? Pearl and that asshole Milton Kahn. Quinn cautioned himself about his anger. After all, he'd never even met Kahn, only heard about him.
'I didn't say scent,' Pearl told him. 'I said smell. More like stench.'
Quinn shrugged, which seemed to infuriate Pearl. He could sense her seething beside him. They drove along. The motor hummed. Pearl seemed to hum, though she wasn't uttering a sound.
She was trying to start something, Quinn knew. Always trying to start something. Born with a burr up her ass.
Finally she said, 'Goddamned car stinks, too. Like you've been smoking cigars in it.'
Screw this! Quinn had wanted a peaceful morning, but if she was determined to make trouble, he was going after her. She'd brought it on herself. 'That might be you burning, Pearl.'
'Why should it be?'
'You seem upset about me seeing Linda. Not that you oughta be. You're the one who's always harping about the end of our relationship.'
'What's to harp about?' she asked. 'It's over. There is no relationship.'
'Then why are you-'
'Who said I was?'
'So pissed off about-'
'I'm not in the slightest angry over anything concerning you, Quinn. Who you're seeing. Who you're screwing.'
'You brought up the subject.'
'The Linda subject?'
'Doctor Chavesky,' Quinn corrected, still in an unforgiving mood.
Pearl played it cool. She knew him, knew what he was doing, and how he usually refused to engage her in argument unless he was particularly angry about something. She must have pushed the right buttons. This Doctor Chavesky must've really gotten to him, for him to react by coming after Pearl so hard and tough. What was she supposed to do, shrink away in fear? Is that what the overgrown Irish thug expected?
'Move the goddamned car,' Pearl said. 'Try to keep up with traffic.'
Quinn glanced up. It was true, traffic had begun to move forward. The dusty back of the van he'd almost hit was half a block away and picking up speed. He goosed the big Lincoln so it would keep up. He ignored Pearl.
She wouldn't let it go.
'So now you've got something new to obsess about,' she said.
'You're the one with the new obsession.'
'Which would be?'
Screwing Milton Kahn. 'Disliking Dr. Chavesky.'
She laughed loudly and without a shred of humor. 'You talk like I should actually give a shit about you two getting it on.'
'You talk like you care.'
'Why should I care?'
'You shouldn't. I won't obsess about you anymore, Pearl. That's what you always accused me of doing. That's over. No need for you to get upset about it any longer.'
'Is this me being upset?' she asked, pointing her forefinger at her deadpan expression. 'Is it?'
'I've gotta keep an eye on the traffic,' Quinn said, not looking at her. God help him, he was beginning to enjoy this. A little.
Pearl seemed to sense it. 'You do that,' she said. 'You keep an eye on the traffic while you obsess about your doctor friend. You're not careful, you're liable to drive right up somebody's ass. Maybe like you-'
'Pearl!'
They were both silent while he tailed the van along Forty-ninth Street in stop-and-go traffic. About five minutes passed. Quinn thought maybe Pearl had run down. He settled back in the leather upholstery and paid more attention to his driving.
'Know what I think?' Pearl asked.
'Usually not.'
'I think you're so good at getting inside the minds of serial killers because you're obsessive just like they are. You're psychotic. You and the killer are opposite sides of the same coin.'
'That's important, being on the opposite side.' But Quinn knew exactly what she meant and it bothered him. He'd always been stubborn, tunnel visioned, obsessive… Or was it persistent, unrelenting, determined…? And what the hell was the difference? These were fine distinctions that had now and then gotten Quinn in trouble. Pearl's hard head had gotten her into more than a few messes, too, so she had a lot of nerve talking to him that way,
