movie? Alone?
But she didn’t stop at the glassed-in booth to buy a ticket before entering the lobby.
The Night Prowler slowed and moved sideways to skirt the closed shops.
He watched through glass doors as Claire talked smilingly to the young man taking tickets. Finally he grinned back at her, charmed as he would be, and Claire brushed past him and across the carpeted inner lobby.
The Night Prowler pushed the door open and pretended to study movie posters in the outer lobby while actually keeping an eye on Claire. The theater was having a science fiction retrospect, and the poster was for I Married a Monster from Outer Space. He was pretty sure he’d seen that one years ago; he remembered the luscious brunette with the bangs, screaming on the poster. Four stars.
Claire was at the concession counter, waiting patiently behind a bald man buying popcorn. The Night Prowler moved closer, standing before the poster nearest the main lobby entrance. It advertised the feature for tonight, Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Night Prowler recalled that one, too, and knew it was a classic. Richard Carlson spitting into his scuba mask and swimming around in Florida. Didn’t Carlson also star in I Led 3 Lives? Of course that one was television. Three lives? That was nothing!
After the bald man had sprinkled salt on his popcorn and finally walked away, Claire moved up a step and pointed at something in the display case. The woman behind the counter stooped, straightened, and handed her a large box of candy. The Night Prowler recognized the brand even from this distance-chocolate-covered mints in a green-and-white package. He recalled from an e-mail he’d read on Claire’s computer that they were her favorite candy.
So, she was weaning herself away from the muffins, or suddenly they’d become repulsive to her. Women-
Coming this way!
He turned away so she wouldn’t see his face, and in the reflection of the Black Lagoon poster glass, he watched her walk past, not glancing at him. The creature, some sort of amphibian with a permanent scowl, glowered at him. It knew what he was about.
The Night Prowler waited at least a minute before turning around. Then he went outside and bought a ticket, even though the woman in the booth warned him the movie was well under way.
Inside the theater he went to the concession stand and bought half a dozen boxes of mints before going into the darkened auditorium and finding a seat.
He got comfortable, opened one of the mint boxes, and began eating Claire’s favorite candy. He let the chocolate melt on his tongue while he thought about her. On the screen an attractive scuba diver, with long, beautiful legs, was swimming in dark waters. She was obviously afraid even as she stroked deeper, propelled by the screenplay. Danger, death, could suddenly embrace her from any direction in the murky depths. It was much like life outside the movies.
Someone in the audience tittered. The Night Prowler pressed a fingertip against the back of the unoccupied seat in front of him and thought a sharply pointed knife would penetrate the material easily, then cut through the back of anyone seated there and reach the heart. Bloodred, scarlet blue in the dark. If he acted out what he was thinking, the person, the titterer, would die immediately and the few other patrons in the theater would assume he was simply asleep, while his killer got up and walked out.
It could be done. It was a thought. People who talked in movies, who rudely intruded in other people’s dreams and diversions, deserved death.
The volume of the music rose, and so did the swimmer. Wide-eyed and fearful, she was yanked up, just in time, into the boat, where she was safe.
At least for a while.
Not very realistic, thought the Night Prowler, forgetting about the titterer.
It would have been better in color.
55
The sun was bright and there were no clouds in the morning sky, but thunder roared like a distant lion in the east. Quinn was sitting on one of the concrete and wooden benches just inside the Eighty-sixth Street entrance to the park, looking out at a gentle slope of ground shaded by mature trees. Beyond the slope a few sunbathers were out on towels or webbed aluminum loungers, though it was still early and the day’s heat was just beginning to build.
Quinn thought it was a beautiful morning that belied his troubles. He glanced at his watch. Pearl and Fedderman should be along soon.
“So, this is where you meet,” said a voice behind him.
Harley Renz walked into view. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a light pinstripe, a blue shirt and patterned red tie fastened with a gold clasp. Somebody had spent a lot of time buffing his shoes to a high gloss. He belonged in the park like Fred Astaire belonged at an Ozark clog dance. Quinn figured there must be a TV interview scheduled for this morning. He could see a shiny black Lincoln at the curb out on Central Park West and thought it was probably Renz’s driver waiting for him.
“You might get rained on,” Renz said with a smile, as if he didn’t think that would be so bad. “Hear that thunder?”
“It’s out at sea.”
“Where you are,” Renz said, still smiling. He lightly hooked a thumb in his belt, so he looked like a catalog clothes model, and glanced around. “Your roach trap apartment’s in the Nineties. There’s an entrance to the park closer to where you live, so why don’t you meet your partners in crime solving there?”
“This is more central to us.” Which was true. It was also true there was a playground near the Ninety-first Street entrance, and Quinn didn’t want to spend time on a park bench too close to it. The media had enough to work with, as it was.
“I was on my way to Channel One, then the precinct, and I thought, I bet Quinn has something to report. I knew this was where you and your team met sometimes, so I had my driver stop off here so we could chat.”
Quinn told him about Pearl’s key-reproduction theory.
“And?” Renz asked.
“We’re still checking it out. It makes sense.”
“Which is your way of saying you don’t have diddly shit.”
Quinn nodded. “Your way of saying it is better. But we’re not done. Pearl and Fedderman have been on it and might have something when they get here.”
“On it how?”
“Checking places where apartment door keys might have been duplicated.”
“Jesus, Quinn. Do you know how many-”
“It’s not as long a shot as you might think. There are certain blanks for particular kinds of locks that are usually on apartment doors.”
“Blanks?”
“Plain, unnotched keys that haven’t been cut.”
“And there are only millions of apartments in Manhattan. If one half of one percent of their occupants had duplicate keys made, it’d mean you only had hundreds of thousands to check out.”
“Remember, we’re looking for tradesmen who had keys duplicated. That narrows it down.”
“To only tens of thousands.”
“Harley, you’ve been spending time trying to trace a silencer that doesn’t have an individual serial number.”
“And found a guy living on the West Side who threw one out in his trash a few months ago.”
“If it’s the same silencer.”
“It might be.”
“So do you have your troops searching landfills?”
“No. Too much of a long shot. And I wouldn’t have them going around visiting hundreds of places that
