little TV near the foot of the bed.
Mexico figured to be his best chance. He could even speak a little-
'…Tom Coulter, who murdered a suburban woman and her two children in New Jersey. In other news…'
Huh?
He grabbed the remote from the bedside table and ran up the channels until he found another cable news network.
There he was! There was his photograph!
It was an old mug shot, one where the camera had caught him by surprise with his mouth open so you could see his bad teeth. His hair looked greasy and all messed up over one ear, too. Like it was combed with an eggbeater, his mother used to say. He wished they'd used another photo.
A voice from the TV said, 'New York police confirmed today that wanted multiple murderer Thomas Coulter, who fled when police attempted to arrest him at his apartment, is suspected of being responsible for the Torso Murders that have terrorized the city and baffled law enforcement officials for weeks.'
Holy Jesus!
How'd they come up with that? Was it some kind of trick?
No, he knew it wasn't a trick. He knew how the police worked, and it wasn't that way.
Of course, Coulter knew about the Torso Murders. They were national news.
And now I'm national news again.
The big stage.
The cops might have it wrong-big surprise. But I'm already wanted for three murders, so what's the difference? They sure as hell aren't gonna look for me any harder.
Cable news moved on to another story, then a commercial about some kind of vitamin supplement for dogs and cats.
Coulter was safe here, but he couldn't leave for a while, what with all the new publicity. Though he wasn't too worried about the photo, since it looked so little like him.
Sometimes a bad rap could have its advantages. Soon they'd be saying he was famous. Or infamous. Whatever. He knew there really wasn't any difference. His bad luck could be like good luck here.
Firmly back in the pantheon of celebrities, Coulter smiled.
His nerves were tingling too much for him to continue just lying there in bed, thinking wild thoughts and staring at a goddamned loser fly on the window. He should think of other things, give his mind a rest so his body could rest, too.
Why should dogs and cats need vitamin supplements? Wild animals never take them, and they do just fine.
You have to watch out for everything and everybody. Every goddamned thing in life is a racket.
The celebrity got up and paced.
Quinn and Fedderman entered the West Side brick building where Madeline had had her apartment. They did so separately, figuring someone other than the undercover cop at a well-concealed observation post across the street might be watching.
The undercover had reported there'd been no sign of the new Madeline for four days. During that time, the lights in her apartment windows never came on at night. And there still was no sign of anyone else observing the building, which of course might only mean that the somebody else was very skilled at his or her job.
Maybe the new Madeline was away on a visit somewhere, or maybe she'd moved out. Either way, Quinn figured it was time to take a look.
It would have been easy to see the super, flash their shields, and gain entry into the apartment, but there was always the possibility the super might talk.
Quinn and Fedderman met in the hall at the apartment door. Quinn, first in the building, had already tried to call up on the intercom from the lobby and hadn't gotten a reply. Still, they knocked and waited before going in.
Since the apartment was unoccupied, the door wouldn't be locked from the inside, and Fedderman was one of the best at using a lock pick. He had the door open and them in the apartment within three minutes.
Though the place was furnished, it was almost immediately obvious to a cop's eye that no one lived there. A thin layer of dust was visible on all the wood surfaces. It was hot, since the air conditioner wasn't running. There wasn't a sound that didn't filter in from outside, not even the refrigerator motor. The apartment even smelled empty.
Most of the furniture looked cheap, and what didn't look cheap was in some way damaged. There was a big pressed-wood combination bookcase, desk, and TV hutch along one wall. The books were all hardcovers without dust jackets and looked as if they'd been passed unread from tenant to tenant for years.
Quinn started with the living room. Fedderman began in the bedroom, and they worked toward each other. They looked in empty drawers and empty closets, in cabinets that held nothing other than roach traps, wadded rags, or empty cleaning or insecticide containers.
They searched for hiding places: inside light switch plates, the toilet tank, top closet shelves, beneath sofa and chair cushions, behind drapes, the outside backs of dresser drawers (a favorite place for people to tape envelopes and small packages that allowed the drawers to close all the way). They found nothing.
The refrigerator held very little: a few frozen dinners, an almost empty orange juice carton, and a withered tomato. A kitchen wastebasket, already emptied, yielded a week-old cash receipt from a deli in the neighborhood. It had been stuck to the bottom in something that had spilled there long ago. The receipt was for $9.63 and it wasn't itemized. Unhelpful.
When Quinn and Fedderman stood in the small galley kitchen, the final room of their search, Fedderman leaned back against the sink with his arms crossed and said what they both knew.
'The new Madeline's moved out.'
'And moved clean,' Quinn said. 'This place might as well have been scrubbed by a pro.'
'There'll be fingerprints,' Fedderman said.
Quinn shook his head. 'They won't do us much good. She wouldn't have been an E-Bliss client if her prints were on file.'
'We should have had her tailed whenever she left here,' Fedderman said.
Quinn shook his head again. 'We've got only so much manpower, Feds.'
'The same old story. We need one cop for every dishonest citizen.'
'One honest cop,' Quinn said.
'Renz is gonna be plenty pissed off.'
'Like I am,' Quinn said.
41
It seldom took Pearl long to become a pest, and here it was her job.
Tony Lake stood up from the corner table in Raissen's and showed his consternation for only a second when he saw Jill walk in with Pearl. Then his customary radiant smile flashed across the room to the two women.
The tuxedoed maitre d' spoke for a few seconds with Jill, then unnecessarily swept an arm to direct her and the other woman across the exclusive and isolated restaurant. Raissen's hadn't been open long. It occupied the entire top floor of a midtown office building. There were several color-coded rooms. This was the red room, open only for lunch. It had red tinted crystal chandeliers trailing oval rubies, was carpeted in deep red, and had white tablecloths edged in red. Dark red drapes framed a dazzling view of Manhattan Island and beyond. Like the other rooms in the restaurant, it featured genuine silver settings and cut crystal.
Supposedly just back in town, Tony was expecting only Jill, and he was planning on entertaining her and perhaps taking her back to his apartment while hers would be available for other purposes. The time of client substitution was fast approaching, and everything had seemed to be going smoothly, until just now.
'This is my good friend Jewel,' Jill said, with a big grin. 'We were supposed to meet for lunch today. I forgot all about it when you called. I didn't think you'd mind if I brought her along.'
