carpeting, a pale gold, but it was barely visible underneath all the pillows. To the right of the bed was a round glass table with a lamp on it. The lamp shade was thick and crenellated, also beige. Jack guessed that it was more to lend atmosphere than to provide usable light. Across the room from the bed was a big-screen TV mounted into a console with enormous speakers built into either side. To the left of the television, resting only on the carpet, no table, was a CD/stereo system. A very expensive one, in fact. The exact same system Jack had in his own apartment.
He started to leave the room, stopped, went over to the large closet to the right of the TV. It was stuffed with perfectly tailored Armani suits and dress shirts. The shirts were in five different colors – white, light blue, light gray, charcoal and black – and each color grouping had five identical shirts arranged together. There were also about twenty Banana Republic T-shirts, also in different colors, hung up and pressed. Six or seven pairs of Bruno Magli shoes lined the closet floor, along with three pairs of Nikes.
Jesus, Jack thought. Pat Riley could go shopping in this place.
And then his next thought: Who paid for all this?
He heard something then, a squeaky floorboard, and he quickly shut the closet door. He shook his head – what difference did it make if the closet was open or shut? He was in this apartment on false pretenses, he was probably committing a crime just by being in here now – and listened. But the sound was gone. He walked back into the living room, glanced around. Nothing. No one had come in. Doesn't take long to get paranoid, does it, he thought. How the hell do burglars do this for a living? To be on the safe side, he walked to the front door and peered through the peephole. He had heard something. The young couple across the hall were carrying groceries into their apartment and laughing. He could hear the elevator door slide shut and the elevator head back down to the lobby. He shrugged off his attack of nerves and began to explore the rest of the apartment.
There was a second bedroom, set up as a miniature health club. Almost all free wall space was mirrored, which gave the room a slightly surreal appearance and also emphasized the vanity that went into its design. The equipment was almost identical to what Kid had installed in Jack's apartment, as was the layout. There were three seats, one for benching, one for incline presses, and a flat one that could be used for almost any exercise. There was a slant board that attached to pegs built into a wall. There was a row of dumbbells, resting on custom-built holders that ran under and along the length of the windows on one wall. There was a full-sized barbell and a specialized one for bicep curls. There was a Universal leg-lift machine as well as one for benching and incline benching. There was a state-of-the-art StairMaster, a treadmill, and a VersaClimber, which Jack did not have at home. There was nothing in the room other than the equipment. Nothing that seemed personal or relevant to what Jack was looking for – whatever the hell it was he was looking for – so he ran his hand lightly over some of the weights, trying to figure out how Kid could have afforded all this, then he moved on to check out the kitchen and dining room.
The dining room was small, little more than an alcove, really. The table was black marble and there were six black-and-white stuffed, straight-back chairs around it. There was an armoire that held wineglasses and a set of dishes. The dishes were not fine china but were plain and perfectly nice. They looked like they might have come from the Pottery Barn or Williams-Sonoma.
The kitchen was perhaps the strangest room in the apartment because it was outfitted for a gourmet cook. There was a six-burner Viking stove, along with a convection oven and chrome vent above it. All the equipment was stainless steel, black or chrome: a Cuisinart; a blender, also Cuisinart; a Kitchen Aid mixer with all the accoutrements; a regular electric drip coffeemaker as well as a restaurant-quality espresso/cappuccino maker. There was a circular chrome device that hung from the ceiling and dominated one corner – its hooks held expensive pots and pans, cast-iron skillets, and heavy stew pots. To the left of the stove was a small, fifty-bottle wine cooler. Jack couldn't help himself, he checked the labels to find it full of '93 Barolos and Amarones and several superb '85 Burgundies. There were also two bottles of '83 Yquem, which Jack figured at an easy $800 per bottle or more. Next he opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator and by now was not shocked to find one shelf filled with Dom Perignon and bottles of white wine, all Chassagne-Montrachet. The rest of the shelves were largely empty, although there were a dozen brown eggs, several tins of beluga caviar, a large container of plain, non-fat yogurt, a covered dish – which Jack lifted to find several partially eaten soft cheeses – and several jars of Dijon mustard. There were also six bottles of mineral water, three sparkling, three non, and two cans of Bud Light. In the freezer was a bottle of Polish vodka, the kind with strands of buffalo grass flavoring it, and a bottle of an Italian liqueur called Lemoncello. When he went through the cupboards, he found similar fare. He thought of a line from one of his favorite movies, Pat and Mike, with Tracy and Hepburn. He and Caroline owned a tape and used to watch it together. At some point in the movie, Tracy says about Kate, in his Brooklyn accent, 'Not much meat on her – but what's there is mighty cherce.'
That's what Jack was thinking about this apartment. Not much there, but what there was was expensive and fine. Mighty cherce.
And very un-Kidlike.
Jack went back into the living room now. He still had about twenty minutes – and, if need be, he was sure he could bribe good old Alex for a bit more time. But he wanted to get out of this place; it was starting to give him the chills. The sun was fading now, disappearing behind some of the tall buildings farther downtown, and the swaying shadows made the entire apartment feel as if it were somehow alive.
He sat down on the floor, back to the front door, and began going through the packed boxes.
He began with the ones that were still unsealed.
The first box was fairly uninteresting. More T-shirts, a few pair of jeans and sweats. Some socks. A light jacket that Jack recognized. There were a few other bulky items: a leather football, a baseball glove, a Sony Discman, and about thirty CD's.
The second box was more interesting. It was filled with personal papers, a calendar, and an address book. The first thing Jack pulled out were bank records from Citibank. With a little sifting, Jack found the most recent statement. It was valid as of two weeks earlier. On the first page of the four-page statement, it said that George Demeter had a savings account worth $9,468.72. In his checking account he had $680.
Not the kind of numbers that gets you this apartment, Jack thought. That's not even two months' rent, never mind buying the place. This could go for a million and a half bucks, maybe more!
He began going through more papers, not sure what he was looking for, surprised at how compelling it was to search through another man's life.
He pulled out a black day-at-a-glance calendar and began leafing through it, starting in January. Early in the year, Kid had several notations per day. Some of them were names Jack hadn't heard of – Lydia, Becky, Michele. One notation said 'Paul: movie.' Nothing much of any interest. In mid-January, he saw a line that just read: 'Entertainer.' And as he began moving forward in time, there were more listings for Entertainer and regular notations for Samsonite and Mortician. In February, there were several bookings for Rookie. Those seemed to stop in March. Also in early March, the notation 'Murderess' started appearing regularly. And at the end of April one date was marked, at seven in the evening, with 'Destination.' The word 'Destination' was followed by several question marks.
Jack realized there were quite a few notations that just said 'Butcher.' They were almost all early in the morning and it took Jack a few moments before he understood that this was his own nickname. Kid had dubbed him the Butcher.
Son of a bitch, he thought, a vague smile crossing his lips. The nicknames were carefully chosen – that's what Kid had said. Is that what Kid had thought of him? After all was said and done, underneath it all, he was still a butcher, back at Dom's, back in his youth? Back with Kid's father?
In a sudden inspiration, Jack turned quickly to the month of June and checked the page for the date of Kid's death, but it wasn't there.
The entire page had been torn out of the book.
Jack frowned, set the calendar aside, found similar date-books from the two years previous. For the prior year, the notations were fairly similar. A lot of appointments with the Butcher and with Mortician, Samsonite, and Entertainer. There were a few other nicknames that Jack hadn't heard of – Catwoman, Cayenne, and Ginger – and he realized these women had been part of the Team before Kid had shown up in his apartment or else he'd stopped seeing them before he'd begun discussing the situation with Jack.
He went back one more year and there were a few nicknames that showed up, but more real names, almost all women. It made sense – Kid was not doing as much personal training then so there was no need to assign
