“Suppose he had a way of relieving that pressure. Like seeing a good psychoanalyst. Somebody he could talk to about these killings.”
“Confess to, you mean?”
“Maybe even that.”
“The analyst is obligated to tell us about criminal activity, especially murder.”
“Unless the analyst becomes a victim herself.”
Renz didn’t answer for a while, his breath hissing into the phone. “David Blank and Dr. Maxwell, huh? It’s a stretch, but possible. Sick fucks like that do suffer from a growing need to confess. That’s why we got the Miranda law. But even if true, it doesn’t help us. If the Night Prowler and David Blank are the same person, his charade worked. We got us a dead analyst who served her purpose, and David Blank is still nowhere to be found.”
“It gives us more insight into the Night Prowler. And that’s what this is all about, figuring how he thinks.”
“It doesn’t help us,” Renz repeated. Not as much as you being a serial molester.
Quinn couldn’t deny it. All he could muster was “But it might.”
“There’s only a few grains of sand left in the hourglass, Quinn. This is something I can’t control. Keep that in mind.” Renz hung up without saying good-bye.
Quinn sat in the shade with the dead phone and watched the unmarked pull to the curb out on Central Park West. He watched Pearl and Fedderman climb out of the car and make their way toward the park entrance and bench. They looked tired again. Pearl was plodding and Fedderman seemed as if he could barely drag his cheap suit along with him. His pants had worked themselves so low he looked like a prison gang-banger; they puddled around his feet and would have dragged the ground if not for his big clunky shoes. These two did not look like the NYPD’s finest.
Unsurprisingly, they reported no progress.
Quinn related the conversation he’d just had with Harley Renz.
“Sounds like we’re royally fucked,” Fedderman said, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief that looked as if it had been used to change oil.
“I can’t think of a better way to put it,” Pearl said.
“We’re all in a lousy mood,” Quinn said. “Let’s get outta here. Get into some air-conditioning.”
“I gotta get back to the precinct house and pick up my car,” Fedderman said. “I’m going out to dinner with the wife. We got reservations.”
I’ll bet she does about you. “Take the unmarked,” Pearl said.
“Thanks. Drop you two at Quinn’s place?”
They both nodded, and the three of them trudged glumly toward the car. Nobody spoke because there wasn’t anything to say. That was the problem. They were headed toward a wall and they all knew it, and talking about it wouldn’t change a thing.
Pearl was driving, Fedderman in front with her, Quinn in the backseat.
The car had just pulled out into traffic and was starting to accelerate when gunfire came at them from the park.
59
There was a muted cracking sound from outside the car, and a louder crack as a small hole appeared low in the passenger-side window. The sounds were so close together it was impossible to know which came first. Fedderman said, “What the fuck?” and held out a bloody hand, then slumped forward.
Pearl figured it out right away but couldn’t accelerate out of trouble because of stopped traffic ahead. The car jerked to a halt. Quinn rammed a thumb down and unbuckled his seat belt. “Get down, Pearl!” He slid low behind the front seats.
Another shot sounded off to their right.
Quinn heard Pearl shouting into the radio, loud but not frantic. “Ten-thirteen, shots fired, officer down! Eighty-sixth and Central Park West!”
She repeated the call for help, which would immediately attract every cop within blocks.
“Feds,” Quinn said, “you hit bad?”
“His arm, I think,” Pearl said.
“Upper arm,” Fedderman said. “I got the bleeding stopped. Can’t you move the fuckin’ car, Pearl?”
“Sure. Other than the motor’s dead and we’re blocked in.” Another shot. “I can’t see him. I can’t see him, dammit!”
Quinn sat up straighter and saw the top of her head above the level of the dashboard as she peered into the park trying to spot the shooter. “Get down, Pearl!”
“I can’t see the motherfucker.”
“Down, Pearl. Goddammit, get down!”
Another shot. The rearview mirror suddenly became detached and whizzed and whirled, clattering around the confines of the car like a gigantic insect trying to escape. The passenger-side window turned milky as the deflected bullet snapped over the slumping Fedderman.
Pearl got down.
It had been quiet but for the shooting. Now sirens were yodeling all around them. There were shouts and blaring horns outside. A siren so near and loud it hurt Quinn’s ears, and the screech of tires as a vehicle braked hard.
The siren growled and grumbled to silence. Quinn cautiously raised his head and saw a police cruiser directly alongside. He pointed toward the park, and the cop riding shotgun nodded. The two uniforms piled out and the near one took shelter behind the cruiser, while the other jogged bent low toward the stone wall that ran along the edge of the park.
“Stay low and call again for an ambulance,” Quinn said to Pearl as he worked the door handle and prepared to slide out of the car.
“Radio’s damaged. They know Fedderman’s shot and should be sending medical.”
“Look after him till they get here.”
“Look after yourself, Quinn. Remember your heart.”
Quinn knew she was right about an ambulance being on the way, but he wanted to make sure, so he used his cell phone to verify the request. Then he was aware of his heart fluttering like a panicked bird in his chest. But what else would you expect? It was the rush of adrenaline. And there was no pain.
He stayed low, opened the door, and eased out of the car to join the uniform hunkered behind the patrol car. Smashed sunglasses lay flat on the pavement near one of the cops’ regulation black shoes. Quinn could see other units that had responded. Sirens were still wailing and an ambulance with lights flashing was picking its way like a broken-field runner through stalled traffic on Central Park West.
Slowly the cop behind the car stood up straight. His partner was still crouching with gun drawn behind the low wall. Beyond him, Quinn could see blue-uniformed figures moving among the trees in the park. The cop next to him, an old-timer with gray tufts of hair sticking out from beneath his cap, looked at Quinn and said, “All the noise we made, the shooter’s shagged ass outta here by now.”
Quinn nodded, feeling a lot of tension flow out of him. It had been a while since the last shot was fired, and a virtual army of blue was on the hunt in the park.
He walked around the unmarked to see how Fedderman was doing. Behind him, he heard the gray-haired cop say, “Stepped on my fuckin’ glasses.”
The paramedics were already moving Fedderman out of the car and working him around so he could lie on a stretcher.
Pearl was also out of the car and had come around to Fedderman’s side. She touched Quinn’s shoulder lightly as if to assure herself he was solid and all right; then he was aware of her moving away.
“It’s just my arm,” Fedderman kept saying, trying to sit up. One of the paramedics, a guy with biceps the size of thighs, gently forced him back down.
