exhaust fumes tumbled into the car. He took a final pull on the cigar and tossed the glowing butt out into the street, watching it bounce and spark like a miniature fireworks display.
“Littering,” Renz said. “Illicit cigars, gambling, speeding, and now this. Jesus, Quinn! You’re a one-man crime wave.”
“It gives me something to do in retirement.” Quinn sighed and brushed cigar ash off his shirt. “It’s still hot out there.”
“Hotter than you know.”
Quinn left the window down to let in plenty of heat so maybe Renz would leave sooner and the car would air out. He leaned forward so he could reach the ignition key and killed the motor.
“This story of yours,” Quinn said. “Go ahead and tell it. And try not to be so cryptic.”
5
The car was uncomfortably hot within minutes. Quinn suffered gladly, knowing it would hasten Renz’s departure. He had a hunch what kind of story he was about to hear, and where it would lead. Quinn was uneasy about that last part, where it would lead.
“A month ago,” Renz began, “a hedge fund manager named George Manders was shot to death in a crowded SoHo club.”
“Never heard of him,” Quinn said. Maybe he could hurry Renz along.
“That’s okay, you’re not a suspect.” Renz made a face and wrinkled up his nose. It was probably a reaction to the cigar smoke smell in the car, somehow made stronger by the humid night air. Maybe Renz had a bloodhound nose as well as the looks of the breed. “At the time of the shooting,” Renz continued, “Manders was dancing with a woman he didn’t know. At least according to her. They’d just met ten minutes ago, and he’d asked her to dance. The dance floor was illuminated by those colored strobe lights that make everything look fast and herky-jerky, and the music was so loud nobody heard the shot from a small-caliber gun.”
“How small?” Quinn asked.
“Twenty-five caliber.”
It wasn’t an un common size bullet, but more rare than a. 22 caliber when it came to small handguns.
Renz said, “The way the light was flickering, and the sound of the shot being drowned out by all that noise that passes for music, nobody realized at first that Manders had been shot. When he went down, they thought maybe it was some kinda tricky dance step and he was gonna pop right back up. Then witnesses said they saw someone bend over him-they thought to talk to him, maybe make sure he was okay-and the guy reached in and removed something from Manders’s suit coat pocket and then shag-assed outta the club.”
“This is the same guy that shot him?” Quinn asked, wanting to keep the facts straight.
“Far as we know,” Renz said. “Nobody actually saw a gun. Hardly anyone even noticed there was something wrong. The music went on for another minute or so after Manders went down, and people kept dancing.”
“Can anyone identify this guy who ran from the club?”
Renz shook his head no. “It all happened too fast, under conditions where it’d take a while for people to react. Half of them were juiced up on one substance or another anyway. So we got no positive ID in the offing. And nobody knows what was removed from the victim’s pocket. His wallet, stuffed with cash, was intact, as was his Rolex watch and gold ring.”
“Wedding ring?”
“No. Manders was divorced five years ago. He was living alone, like you.”
“What kinda club was it?” Quinn asked, ignoring the barb.
“Straight clientele, upper to upper-upper class, looking for action.”
“So that’s what Manders was doing,” Quinn said “and he got a different kind of action than he was looking for.”
“Could be.”
“And maybe whoever bent over him wasn’t the shooter but really was somebody wanting to help him, and when he realized Manders was dead he ran out of there so he wouldn’t be involved.”
“So what was taken from the victim’s pocket?”
Quinn shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe the guy bending over him was feeling for a heartbeat. Coulda been a doctor stepping out on his wife and didn’t want any record that he was there.”
Renz had to grin. His canine teeth were longer than most people’s, and tinged yellow. “That’s pretty good, the heartbeat thing with the philandering cardiologist. Why you’re such an ace detective. Trouble is, there’s more to my story.”
It began to rain, hard. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Quinn worked the buttons and raised all the windows, making it even warmer in the car. The windows blurred immediately, isolating Quinn and Renz from the outside world. There was a musty smell now to go with the stale tobacco scent. Nothing moved the sultry air.
Renz didn’t seem at all discomfited. “Last week an insurance executive, Alan Weeks, was shot to death in Central Park, in front of witnesses too far away to see the killer’s face. They did see the killer lean over the victim and remove something from his pocket before disappearing into the woods.”
“Not his wallet?”
“Nope,” Renz said. “Not his expensive pocket watch, either. The bullet that killed Weeks was fired from a twenty-five-caliber handgun, but not the same gun that killed Manders. Nothing about the murders seems to connect Weeks and Manders, other than bullets in the head. And possibly whatever was removed from their pockets.”
Quinn drummed his fingertips for a while on the steering wheel, making a sound something like the rain pattering on the car roof.
“Maybe coincidence,” he said, not believing it. He’d been conditioned not to believe it. Coincidence and detective work were incompatible.
Renz flashed another canine smile in the wavering light making its way through the rain-washed windows. “Like it was coincidental we bumped into each other tonight.”
Quinn stopped with the fingers. “Fate?”
Renz shook his head no. “Design.” The grin stayed. “Another homicide like the first two,” he said, “and we’ve definitely got ourselves a serial killer and all the media hype that goes with it. I need you and your team ready to go in the event that happens. Usual terms.”
For particularly difficult and sensitive cases, the clever and immensely ambitious Renz called on Quinn and his team of former NYPD detectives, Pearl Kasner and Larry Fedderman, to act as his personal investigators. Their work-for-hire status provided them use of NYPD resources, but they suffered few of the department’s hindrances.
Quinn knew this wasn’t only because Renz wanted serious crimes solved on his watch. Quinn understood the bureaucracy and still held a grudge against it from when it had turned on him. He didn’t have to be told that an important part of his job would be covering Renz’s ass.
“You could call it a standby basis,” Renz said, “but we both know it won’t be standby very long.”
“That’s what my gut tells me.”
“Your gut tell you to take the job?”
“Tells me not to touch it.”
“How about your head?”
“My head says run from it fast as I can.”
“But you’re going to call Pearl and Fedderman? Be ready to go after this sicko?”
“Yes,” Quinn said.
Renz stared at him for a while, studying him.
“Your heart must be telling you what to do,” he said. He grinned hugely, all incisors and canine teeth gleaming in the night’s reflected light. “How sweet.”
“Get out of the car.”
“Can’t,” Renz said. “You mighta noticed the radio car I was riding in has driven away, and now it’s raining. I
