Shadow Dancers Page 7

  So I don’t apologize for a thing. I’m proud. It’s the Lord’s work I do. That’s what Suki says and I believe her. The Lord chose me to do that work and I’m gonna damned well do it the best way I know how. When He thinks I’ve gone too far, He’ll let me know.

  The one thing that still bothers me, Janine, is that you’re the only other person on this earth who really understands me. Knows my work and my special calling. You and me, Janine, we go back a long ways. I know that if I had trouble. Not just ordinary trouble, but big bad trouble, I know you’d be the only one in this world I could turn to. And even though we haven’t spoken to each other in two years (next March 12th will be two years exactly), I know I can still trust you.

  But sometimes late at night I can be lying in bed unable to sleep, and my mind running 150 miles an hour. You can’t imagine the stuff that flies through your head nights like that. But sometimes, when I’m feeling a little down, and off my mark, the thought does cross my mind … what if Janine … what if some night with some guy, Janine.... Like, you know what I’m saying. Just the thought of it …

  “… gets me crazy. And if I ever believed that was the case, long as we’ve been friends and all that, I’d have to come and do something about it. …”

  Her voice trailed off. She’d been reading it aloud. Not actually aloud, but with her lips forming each word under her breath, but hearing his voice pronounce them. The voice was inside her head, quiet and slow and slightly singsong, the way he had, with that oddly British inflection of his. She wondered where he got it from. Certainly not that scruffy crowd they ran with in the old days when she first knew him. More probably, it came from watching old British movies. The same ones, over and over again: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, The Lavender Hill Mob, Brighton Rock. He loved Brighton Rock, particularly the character of Pinkie. He was a great mimic and could recite by heart most of the major roles in those films. It had got so that he would speak that way without his even knowing he was doing it. There were times, she knew, he would stay up all night, watching those films on a VCR, one after the other. Watching them with some secret solitary delight, seeing them each time all new and fresh as though he were just watching them for the first time.

  He was no more British than she, of course. That was just some kind of make-believe in his head. He was a city rat, like her, right out of one of those unclaimed litters. They lived in the rubble of basements and condemned buildings. They ran in packs and battened on refuse and whatever they found that hadn’t been nailed down. They were a sort of nomadic tribe in those days, roving, predatory, homeless, orphaned, made up chiefly of those who’d fled domestic situations out of a strong sense of their own self-preservation. “Bug life,” the police in the station houses used to call them during the periodic roundups and the appearances in juvenile court, with the judges and lawyers and social workers and other functionaries all going through the solemn charade of administering a system virtually bankrupt of any solution to their problems.

  “… friends and all that, I’d have to come and do something about it.”

  She read the words again. This time more slowly, aware of the slight breathlessness she felt, and of the cold numb spot about the size of a quarter that had risen like a moon on her forehead.

  It was his handwriting, all right, a calligraphy such as one seldom sees in the course of normal daily commerce. Those small, crimped, penciled figures, looking as though each had been wrought with a chisel. Each figure precisely the same height, all slanted at precisely the same angle, descenders and ascenders all matching perfectly, each with a tiny serif at the bottom and all unattached, but yet close enough to read as a whole. Marshaled one against the other, they gave the impression of tiny toy soldiers massed in perfect formation.

  Holding the paper up to the light, she could see that each character had been drilled into it under the exertion of a hard, fierce pressure, so that the back of the paper could have been read like braille. A kind of barely contained rage seemed to emanate from the tight little whorls and bumpy elevations — a rage that belied the soft, cajoling words indited on them. Looking at the page as a whole, it had the look of something curiously antique, a kind of cuneiform graven on an ancient scroll.

  She became slowly aware of an odor rising off the sheet, a rather good piece of heavy, tea-tinted paper. He’d always had a taste for good things. Maybe that was his trouble. It was a faint smell, redolent of earth and roots and cellars — a smell buried deep within her memory. It conjured up in her mind dark, bad images, murky subterranean places where unpleasant things were wont to occur.

  Over the past several years, she’d been able to put all of those memories out of her head. Not out entirely. Never that, of course. That, she knew, was impossible. But shunted off to the side, at least, in a way that permitted her to get on with some semblance of a normal life. She might go through days, weeks, even months, without once thinking about it, only to wake some night, sitting bolt upright in bed, bathed in a cold, clammy sweat and trembling all over.

  He was right. They had not spoken in two years. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t seen him. She had. On all those strange occasions. How else could you describe them? Perhaps a half dozen times or so. All were meant to appear fortuitous, but in her mind, knowing him as she did, she was certain they’d been planned. Orchestrated right down to the last detail.

  No more than glimpses really. Sudden manifestations in large open areas where he could appear and disappear so quickly, she might well think that what she’d seen was chimerical — a figment of the imagination, or possibly just someone bearing an uncanny resemblance to him. But, of course. Wasn’t that the most plausible explanation? Hadn’t she buried for so long those features once so omnipresent in her former life? What could be more natural than on occasion they would come boiling to the surface, as unexpected as they were unwanted in the most improbable places? On street corners or subway platforms, in the blue fluorescent glare of large department stores where they would vanish instantly in a throng of other faces.

  But wasn’t that just like him? Secretive and skulking about, playful in a way that carried with it just some faint, yet unmistakable hint of menace. Intended to amuse as much as to frighten. Letting her see him but not permitting her to approach — not that she would. Keeping her off balance. Showing how he meant her no harm. He wouldn’t bother her; just so she knew that anytime he wanted, he could reach out and put his hand on her.

  “… I’d have to come and do something….”

  “Oh, shit,” she whispered, aware that her mouth was dry and she could smell the staleness of her breath. “Not now. Please, not now.”

  She started to crumple the paper, intending to wad it in her fist and flush it down the bowl. But her fist wouldn’t close. It was as if all the strength within it had failed. Instead, she carefully flattened out the crumpled letter, then folded it first in halves, then in quarters, finally cramming it into the pocket of her skirt.

  She had to get back out onto the floor. Mr. Whitborn was waiting and Mr. Whitborn did not suffer tardiness gracefully. He was the sort of individual so full of the marvel of his own personal rectitude, he couldn’t bear not to share its wonderful example with others.

  She started out from the lounge where she’d gone at once to read the letter. She’d found it that afternoon, sitting on her desk, so tidy and welcoming and seemingly innocuous. Emerging from the lounge at a near run, she almost collided with someone just entering and was suddenly aware that was she nauseous.

  * * *

  SIXTEENTH HOMICIDE IN NEW YORK AREA

  PERPLEXES POLICE

  Believe They Now See Signs of Pattern Emerging

  With the brutal slaying of Mrs. Marie Torrelson in the basement of her Douglaston, Queens, home last week, police say they now see a pattern emerging in the string of sixteen homicides that have taken place here in the metropolitan area over the past twelve months.

  Chief of Detectives Clare Mul
vaney declined to comment on whether the police had any suspects in the string of murders that have bedeviled them since last March, all of which have been noted for their particularly ghoulish and brutal nature.

  Responding to questions, Chief Mulvaney would only draw parallels between each incident in order to illustrate the thread of similarities common to all sixteen. He made a point of six such parallels to elucidate the pattern he saw emerging. These were as follows:

  (1) With one exception, the crimes have all taken place in quiet residential areas, characterized by the police as “low crime areas.” In eleven incidents the murders occurred in small detached or semidetached one-family houses on quiet streets with easy access to major highways and thoroughfares, presumably to ensure quick escape.

  (2) The crimes usually take place during the daylight hours, or in the early morning hours shortly before dawn.

  (3) The victims have been mostly women ranging in age from 22 to 64. In one instance, a two-year-old child, the daughter of one of the victims, Mrs. Gail Wheatley, was brutally bludgeoned to death in the same room with the mother.

  (4) In each case the motivation for the crimes appears to be robbery with sexual assault generally preceding it, although in several assaults nothing was taken.

  (5) In each case the murderer had left behind, usually on the wall directly above the murder victim, messages and pictures in the form of ghoulish graffiti — sometimes a number or series of numbers scrawled in seemingly random fashion. The pictures are generally of a phallic nature, along with bizarre, somewhat self-mocking little captions. In the most recent incident involving Mrs. Torrelson, the message scrawled in vivid red from a can of spray paint read, “I am the Monster of Chaos.”

  “You read slow, Mooney.”

  “That’s ‘cause I’m absorbing every detail.”

  “Looks from here like you’re dozing off. Come on, what d’ya think?”

  “I think you said it all right here, Clare.” Mooney tossed the newspaper back on the chief of detectives’ desk. “I couldn’t have stated it better myself.” The note of sarcasm in the detective’s voice did not escape Mulvaney.

  “Why do I bother?” He rose and with fists plunged deep in his pockets, he strode around the smoky squad room in small, lunging little circles. He was a short, stocky man with a hood of close-cropped, tightly curled blond hair and a ruddy complexion that gave the impression of someone perilously close to apoplexy. “I call you in here in the wild hope you may have some small thing to contribute —” He went on flailing his arms at the stale, tired air. “After a year, one would think …”

  “I think you’re doing a great job on this, Clare. I really do. You make some really heavy points in the article.” The chief of detectives was in no mood to be patronized that morning. A spray of angry capillaries throbbed at the side of his nose. “Mooney, I take it that an old hand with as much time on the force as you — eighteen months to retirement, is it?”

  “Seventeen, but who’s counting?”

  “Seventeen. Forgive me.” Mulvaney affected contrition. “I take it by now that you grasp the fact that this is a very important case with regard to the reputation of this precinct. Aside from the basic media swine, some very important people are watching us. It’s a rare day, indeed, when New York City detectives are given full jurisdiction to coordinate the investigation of a series of crimes taking place throughout the five boroughs and their immediate environs. I take it you grasp all this, Frank.”

  “I grasp it,” Mooney replied with irritating serenity. “I do grasp it.”

  “I take it, too, that you’re not unaware that the commissioner has developed an unnatural sensitivity on this subject. That the mayor, by applying a blowtorch to the commissioner’s bottom, has tended to increase that sensitivity. And now, partly because it’s his job, and partly because he’s no fool and wishes to reduce the discomfort to himself, the commissioner is anxious to deflect that heat to others.” Mulvaney’s agitated fingers drummed an angry tattoo on the desktop. “Do you know whose bottom has borne the major brunt of the old man’s fury these past few weeks?”

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” Mooney put his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. “Is the individual nearby at this moment? Perhaps even seated right here in this room?”

  Storm clouds appeared to lower over the chief of detectives’ beetled brow. When he spoke, his voice sounded half-strangled in his swelling chest. “I’m warning you, Frank. Don’t be funny with me here today. Not now. We’re past the time for little funnies. I’ve committed sixty men to this thing now, with no end in sight. I’ve got guys staked out in every borough of this city, and on up into Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester County. I’ve got ‘em sitting in parked cars in little side streets in the Bronx and Queens. I got ‘em out on the avenue dressed as junkies and panhandlers, as housewives all ritzed up in mules and pedal pushers. All just waiting for something to happen. I’m getting no results, see? Zero. Zip. Goose eggs. I called this little meeting this morning to express my impatience with the general state of things. I am not sleeping well these nights. I do not enjoy my food. I’m suffering what is called generalized and systemic acidita.”

  Mulvaney’s large, domed head lowered. His eyes, fixing Mooney, appeared to swell from their sockets. “Am I getting through to you, Frank?”

  “You’re making a big impression, Clare.”

  “Good.” Mulvaney’s face had turned an alarming purple. “Let me tell you why. No less a personage than the mayor himself was on the phone to me this morning.” Mulvaney watched his old colleague to see what effect his words were having. Nothing but the most blissful innocence shone in Francis Mooney’s eyes. Mulvaney resumed his quiet rant. “Not at nine A. M. , mind you, our standard starting time in this office. But at six A.M. at my home as I was just stepping from my shower.”

  “Not very considerate,” Mooney clucked sympathetically.

  “The gist of his call was to express his dissatisfaction with the way this investigation is going. As you know, His Honor is not shy about expressing his dissatisfaction.”

  “On the contrary. Sort of enjoys it, has been my impression,” Mooney observed sagely.

  The finger drumming sputtered ominously to a halt. “I’m trying to give you some smart advice, Frank. Oddly enough, after twenty-five years of having you abuse my support and friendship, I still hold some small affection for you.”

  The older man’s cragged, ruddy features cracked into an amiable grin. “You’re a sucker for punishment, Clare.”

  “Not much longer, my friend.” Mulvaney’s voice had dropped to an ominous whisper. “The mayor asked me to consider …” He paused, staring hard at Mooney. “Merely consider, mind you, transferring command of this investigation from you to Sylvestri.”

  If Mulvaney had made little impression on his old friend up until then, the mere mention of the name Sylvestri appeared to have an instant seismic effect. Mooney blanched. “Sylvestri?”

  “His very self.”

  “But why?”

  “I’d thought I told you why. I’ve been trying to tell you for some time. The problem is, you haven’t been listening.”

  Mooney’s lips moved, attempting to form words. But in place of words came feckless little puffs of air. When at last he could speak, his voice sounded dry and gravelly as though pebbles rattled in his throat. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Well, you’d better.”

  A long, troubled pause ensued.

  In terms of seniority and rank, Edward Sylvestri stood just behind Mooney. Nearly fifteen years Mooney’s junior, his advance on the force had been swift and meteoric, moving from patrolman to lieutenant of detectives in one of the city’s crack precincts in record time. He was brash and aggressive. People both hated and feared him. He had few friends on the force, which is sufficient to kill the career of most men. But Sylvestri had a saving gift: he knew how to attract the attention of people in high places. He had even cultivated the commissioner a
nd, so it was said, had his ear. He used that advantage to poison the air around whomever he perceived to be an adversary, chief of whom was Francis Mooney, his immediate superior.

  Mooney knew him for a fair-to-middling cop who’d risen largely through self-promotion and by appropriating the hard work of underlings and subsuming it under his own personal credit columns.

  “Sylvestri,” Mooney murmured again, the taste of ashes in his mouth.

  “The very same.”

  “That wimp. That twerp. That suckass.” He spat the words out with slow, gathering momentum.

  “Be careful, Frank.”

  “He’s not taking over this investigation.”

  “Who says?”

  “I’ll go to the commissioner. I’ll go to the mayor myself.”

  “I told you. The mayor’s the one who suggested it.”

  “And you would sit still for this? Knowing what a fraud that dried-out little stool is?”

  The chief of detectives attempted a glower, which crumpled quickly into despair. “There’s very little I have to say about it. If the mayor wants it, the commissioner wants it. If the commissioner wants it, I want it, unless I’m looking to end my days in a blaze of glory at some drowsy little precinct house in Staten Island, escorting old ladies across the street.” Mulvaney daubed his sweat-beaded forehead with a handkerchief. “The way of the world, my friend. The way of the world.”

  Mooney sat frozen in his seat, framing in his mind some withering reply. None came. Eloquence was not his strong suit. Instead he bolted to his feet and lumbered toward the door.

  “I’m telling you this out of friendship,” Mulvaney cried after him. “Because I think you should know it. Make of the information what you will. Get cracking, Frank. The little prick is breathing down your neck. As of now, your days on this case are numbered.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s the number?” Mooney jeered. “That’s for me to decide and for you to guess. When your time’s up, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.” The dusty, mote-filled air between them fairly sparked with rage. By that time Mulvaney had recovered something of his old, venomous charm. “Think of it this way, Frank. It’s only about another year and a half to go for that pension. How do you want to leave? On wings of glory or on your knees?”