Ladykiller (16 page)

Nita didn’t respond. “You’re tired. Go home and get some sleep.
We have a long day tomorrow.”
“Walk home?”
“No, thanks. I have to stay here for a while and catch up on the
paperwork.”
“No, I meant, walk
me
home,”Tim said. “This time of night I get
scared.” He giggled some more.
Nita waited a few minutes after Tim slammed the front door.
Sweeney was deeply asleep, sitting in a chair tipped back.
Midway down the stairs, she took the .45 out of her bag and
checked the action.

“Hey, ain’t this the psycho house you go to?” Billy Ray said. “And
ain’t that the gorgeous piece of pussy what was on the news after they
arrested your sorry ass? She was talking about this here loony bin and
how it took care of sorry fuckers like you.”

Billy Ray did not notice the look in the dark. “But I’ll tell you
this.You’re right about one thing. She’s a walking wet dream.”
“Let me alone with her,” Ace said. “You stay here.”
“Fuck no. I want to meet me this little lady.” Billy Ray hitched up
his pants.
“Please give me a minute, Billy Ray. I’ll pay you a hundred.”
“You ain’t good for no hundred.”
“Please.”
“You pathetic sack of shit.” Billy Ray said disgustedly. “Go talk to
the bitch. But then I get introduced.”
Ace climbed out of the dense purple umbra and into the uncertain light of the street. He wished he had drunk more. But his throat
was so tight that he doubted he could force one more drop down.
“Good evening,” he said to her, trying for debonair. The result
was more like strangled chicken.
“Walk with me,” she said, all business.
They walked in silence.
“Have you ever followed me?” she asked.
“Me?”
“Like this afternoon on the street.Was that you, Ace? Was it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can we talk about important stuff? Can we —?”
“In a moment. Did you mention me to the police?”
“What? You kidding? Me?”
“If you did, Ace,” she said, “I’ll find out. I’ll know.”
“No. Never. I’d never betray you.”
“Good.That’s good, Ace.You realize you let me down?”
“It ain’t my fault,” he whined. “Honest. I tried.”
They reached the playground, whose slides and jungle gyms
were weird, otherworldly shapes in the pit-deep night.
“Ace, sit on the end of that slide.”
He did as bidden. “Shit, a slide,” he said with nervous laughter. “I
never had no slide when I was a kid.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun, now,” Nita said. She reached in her
handbag.
The constellations above threw a glint off her gun.
“Oh, no,” Ace exclaimed, frozen to the spot. “Hey, wait. I love
you. Please.”
“It’s necessary, Ace,” she said. “The truth is I don’t need you anymore. Sorry.” She aimed carefully.
“Hey! What the fuck you doing, lady?” Billy Ray bellowed from
the edge of the playground.
Nita turned her gun in the direction of the outburst. Ace used
the opportunity to scramble off the slide and rat-run amid the equipment.
She fired at his flitting shadow. Missed. Then she couldn’t see
him.
She ran after Ace toward the street, where she heard a scurry of
boots racing into the sanctuary of the night.

Dave’s words echoed cruelly through Megan’s mind all night, spoiling
her sleep, and into the day, distracting her.When she bought coffee at
the doughnut shop, she forgot to scoop up her change.

“Troubles, Megan?” asked the kindly old storekeeper after he’d
called her back.
“Sorry,” she murmured and picked up the coins.
She went back to her apartment and tried to read the paper. But
the news columns were an inky jumble. The coffee cooled, untouched, as she stared through the newsprint and into the past.
Megan wished she had close friends to talk to. Or a mother. Or
even a father. Both her parents were dead. And her old friends, the
ones to whom secrets should be told, were years gone — married or
in business school or law school, none of them near New York. What
was she supposed to do? Pick up the phone and say, “Hi, remember
me? My life is falling apart.”
She shook her head ruefully. She only had one friend, but she realized she couldn’t talk to Nita about this.
When she was younger, Megan expected that the coming years
would make her more assertive and that her success was assured. She
would be able to carve a career, a marriage, a family, and a boatload of
happiness out of the future’s glittering raw material.
Maybe she still expected that. Megan had obsessed about Dave
and Nita all night.And now, thoughts of Robin kept assaulting her. She
remembered sitting in his study, pretending to be reading her textbooks, and watching him write. He had seemed to glow, iridescent.
How could she have been so stupid? So blind? And was she doing
it again?
She wanted Dave with a kind of physical craving. She also felt
the kind of romantic longing for him that she had felt for Robin. She
wasn’t sure if she wanted to swoon in his arms or fuck him — hard.
She shook her head violently, laughing bitterly at her own distress. No. Enough. Maybe a walk would do her good.
She emerged into the day and noticed what she hadn’t on her
earlier coffee foray: How wonderfully spring-like the weather was.
Then, as she strolled along, she noticed how many couples were out
and about, holding hands, kissing. She resolutely suppressed a pang of
envy and shook her head to clear it.
She marveled at how different her neighborhood was during the
day, when the sunshine rendered it benign. She looked around with
pleasure and the bounce came back into her walk.
She was smiling at a dog walker who had eight dogs of various
sizes and breeds on leashes and was bopping along briskly, his charges
well behaved and in perfect harmony, when she thought of Dave’s cat.
Why was it that every thought seemed to lead her back to him?
Then she heard her name.
Dave pulled up alongside her in his unmarked car. He was doing
his best at a welcoming smile. Her heart skipped a beat.
“I’m sorry for what I said last night.”
“Me too.”

Lucy Cristides’ mother stalked over to them. “What you want?”
she fairly snarled at Dave.
“Two gyros,” Megan said. “And two Cokes.”
Mrs. Cristides nodded tersely and left.
“You do the ordering often?” Dave said.
“Today I do.” When the woman returned with the sodas, Megan
said, “Let me ask you one question before we eat, and we’ll leave you
alone.”
Mrs. Cristides sighed. “What you want?”
“The food here, I’ll bet, is great.”
“Is good. So what?”
“About Lucy,” Megan said. “Did she like to eat this food?”
“Sometimes.” The woman appeared to be warring with herself
whether to walk away or stay.
“I understand she was pretty thin,” Megan said.
“You want me to say bad things about my daughter, my Lucy?
That what you want?” Mrs. Cristides wasn’t belligerent now, but
softer, even sorrowful.
“Tell me what bothered her,” Megan said. “Tell me that, and we’ll
catch the man who killed her.”
Her husband came out of the back and said, “Gina?”
His wife waved him away. “My Lucy —” She wiped a tear
that had tumbled down her cheek. She pulled herself together with a
visible effort. “My husband and I make people food. Sometimes Lucy
served the food here for us. On weekends a lot, when we were very
busy.”
“And?” Megan gently prompted.
“My Lucy stopped eating the food. She said she was fat. She was
not fat. She wanted to be thin. She got too thin. Like bones, my Lucy.”
Her husband stood by mutely.
Gina Cristides brushed at another tear. “We worry.We make her
eat. She make herself throw up.We read articles.We sent her to doctors. Nothing worked. She said she would deal with problem herself.
Said she was getting help.”
“Who —?” Dave blurted until Megan motioned for him to shut
up. He did.
“We afraid she would starve to death,” the girl’s mother said.
“No. She shot to death.”
“Whom was she getting help from, Mrs. Cristides?” Megan
asked, barely audible.
“She never told us.”
“What did she say about this person, Mrs. Cristides?”
The woman’s lips quivered. “She worshipped this person. This
person was like a god to my Lucy. But my Lucy, she wouldn’t tell us
anything.”
“I try to get Lucy to tell me,” the father said. “I was worried about
who my little girl was seeing. I said to Lucy, I said this person wasn’t
doing her any good. Lucy not get rid of the anorexia.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Cristides,” Dave broke in, “does the name Reuben
Silver mean something to you?”
“Of course,” the father said. “He the last one to die, right?”
“I mean, did Lucy ever mention him?” Dave asked.
Both parents shook their heads.
As they left, Dave said thoughtfully, “It’s a funny thing. Carla said
almost the exact same thing about Lydia. She was seeing someone she
worshipped.Was Reuben capable of inspiring worship in his clients?”
“No. Reuben was a plodder. An old-fashioned paint-by-numbers
social worker. His lack of inspiration, imagination, and commitment
to the clientele drove Nita nuts.The best you can say is that he did his
job adequately.”
“What I can’t understand is how Ace knew all the victims were
clients of Reuben. We let Ace go before we asked him about that.”
Dave opened the car door for her.
“Can’t you bring him back in?”
“I’m going to.” Dave circled around the car and got in on the driver’s side. “We assumed there would be files at the crisis center on the
victims. That they were disguised, yet recognizable. Maybe we just
didn’t focus on them. So Jamie is going to go through them again.
Jamie is very thorough.”
“Is she?” Megan said, eyes straight ahead.
Dave was glad she didn’t look at him because he knew he was
blushing.

The Wall Street area, situated between a church graveyard and the
river, was quiet on a Sunday. Long, stray shrouds of computer
paper bounced in the quiet wind along the narrow streets lined by the
discreet gray facades of the financial temples.

A bored guard with a gold earring let them into the lobby of a
building after Dave flashed his badge. “Mr. Corson of Corson & Worth
is expecting us,” Dave told him.

“Give him my regards,” the guard said. “Only don’t give him
none of my money. Go to the 14th floor.”
Corson & Worth had a stark, white-on-white reception area. No
one sat at the front desk. Dave knocked on the inner door. Then he
tried to open it. Locked.
“Why don’t you shoot it open?” Megan said with a laugh.
The door swung back on its hinges. A stout fellow in a gaudy tie
and bold suspenders stood inside. The suspenders had a skulland-crossbones insignia. Behind him were rows and rows of men in
shirtsleeves, talking on telephones. “Are you the detective?”
Dave introduced himself and Megan. “You’re Mr. Corson?”
“Sammy Corson. Yeah, that’s me. Here, let’s have a seat in the
reception area. We don’t exactly like to have outsiders on our floor.
Information is money and all that.” He spoke with the orotund assurance of someone keeping the secrets of the universe.
Dave and Megan sank into opposite ends of a chalk-white sofa.
Corson leaned his fat butt against the empty receptionist’s desk and
fired up a cigar. “Hope nobody minds my smoke,” he said. “Personally
hand-rolled for me by the best British tobacconist in New York.”
Megan made a face but said not a word.
“Today’s busy, and I got to get back on the floor,” Corson said.
“What can I do for you?”
“Your partner was Kimberly Worth, right?” Dave said.
“Yeah, and did she ever know the market. And fearless. For a
woman, she sure had a pair of brass balls.” When Corson laughed,
plumes of cigar smoke escaped his mouth like volcanic emissions. He
waved the cigar at Megan. “No disrespect intended for your lady friend.”
“Did Ms. Worth ever mention the West Side Crisis Center?”
Megan asked.
Corson spread his hands, and a heavy chunk of cigar ash fell to
the floor. “Nope. She gave to a bunch of charities. Could be this was
one. Beats the hell out of me.”
“Did she ever receive counseling of any kind?”
“From our lawyers? You bet.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Megan said. “I was referring to psychological counseling.”
“Kimberly? Nah. She was a woman, but she wasn’t a pussy. She
didn’t need some damn shrink. Oh, we have a lot of stress in this
business, all right. The stock market is war. Kimberly could stand on
her own two feet, though.”
“What does your firm do, Mr. Corson?” Megan asked.
“We trade common stocks, mostly. Nothing too exotic. No derivatives. No international issues. Just plain old common that the
average Joe can understand.”
“Uh-huh,” Megan said. “Mainly blue chip stocks?”
“No, no. Penny stocks, really. From companies too small or
young to be listed on a major exchange.” Corson drew a circle in the
air with his cigar. “We raise the money to fund the companies that will
be the Microsofts of tomorrow.”
“Well, with the exchanges closed today, how much trading could
you be doing?”
“Today?” Corson took a savage puff on the cigar, whose tip
glowed like the most wicked plutonium. He exhaled and the smoke
wreathed his head. “Oh, today we’re servicing accounts. Our staff
works very hard. Money’s a garden.You have to tend it constantly or
it’ll die.”
As they headed into the elevator, Dave said admiringly, “You’re
up on the stock market.”
“My father was a broker. He left me stock in his will. I play the
market now and then.”
“What do you make of this operation?”
“It doesn’t smell right,” Megan said. “It smells like a bucket shop.
They peddle lousy small stocks to poor suckers they enlist over the
phone. If you have any contacts with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, I suggest you ask about Corson & Worth.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Dave said.

Fate had a bad effect on over-confidence. Nita realized this now.
She hadn’t been able to dupe the cops with Ace. And she hadn’t been
able to position Ace so she could dispose of him. Nita had spent the
night in her apartment, transfixed by the fish tank, charting her next
moves. Panic would be fatal. A well-thought-out strategy, based on
logical assumptions, was her best course.

The new blue fish swam slowly about, large-eyed and flat, almost
two-dimensional. With transparent feathers of fins, it idly moved the
water. Its deliberate motions had a certain majesty.The other fish, unsure of their place or purpose in a glass-bounded universe, darted
around like unstable molecules. Nita thought irrelevantly that if the
blue fish were a carnivore, it very quickly would be well fed and
lonely.

First, Nita drew up the logical assumptions. Ace was very afraid
of her— and probably still moonstruck, as well. But he would not go
to the police because he hated them and knew they wouldn’t believe
him. He also likely had not left the city. From their counseling sessions, Nita was certain that he felt at home nowhere else and fancied
that he was able to hide in the city’s corners and crevices until danger
passed. And judging from his delusions and intellectual vacuity, he undoubtedly had forgotten how much of his routine he had told Nita.

Next, Nita turned to the strategy. Ace must die and very soon.
Although the cops probably wouldn’t credit any of his stories, there
was no sense letting them or anyone else hear about her doings. As a
result, she should hunt him down, searching his various haunts. Before
their encounter at the playground, she had considered switching
weapons, confusing the cops about who Ace’s killer was and giving her
time to map out the second phase of her removals. But she planned to
stay with the trusty .45: This was her gun, and she worked best with
it. Big deal if the cops labeled Ace another Ladykiller homicide.

She wrapped a kerchief around her head, just as Evelyn Hernandez used to do, and popped on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. No one
could see her eyes. It was a simple but effective disguise. Most people
were very unobservant, and this would serve her well.

The .45 secure in her handbag, Nita set out into the buoyant Sunday. The initial stop was the sleazy rooming house off the Deuce that
Ace called home. The entrance was guarded by a desk clerk, a slimy
fellow with pockmarked skin and a cigarette dangling from his lips
like a spent penis. He regarded her sullenly from behind his bulletproof glass.

“I need the key to Thomas Cronen’s room, please,” she announced confidently.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“Ace.”
“Oh, that hump. What you want in his room, lady? He owe you
money, too?” The clerk gave a painfully dry laugh that wagged his
cigarette, which seemed glued to his lower lip.
She slipped a fifty dollar bill halfway into the narrow slot at the
base of the glass. “Please.”
“Shit,” the clerk said. “You got it, lady.”
“Is he up there?”
“Fucked if I know.” The clerk shoved a key through the opening
and snatched the bill.
“If he comes in behind me, please don’t tell him I’m here. I want
to surprise him.”
“No sweat. It’s first floor, up that flight of stairs. Number of the
room is on the key.”
Ace’s
hallway was a tour through one of hell’s grimmer
precincts. Only one solitary bulb hung from the ceiling, an obscene
appendage that shed meager light.The entire span smelled of the most
pungent urine, as though minutes before, a band of extremely ill men
had hosed it down. Crude drawings of enormous genitals decorated
the walls. Behind one door, someone was laughing hysterically and
nonstop. Behind another, two men were arguing in high-pitched
voices.
“He’s mine, you faggoty little bitch.”
“Why don’t you lick my lower intestine, like you do your daddy?”
The two men started smashing against furniture and screaming.
The laughing person laughed louder. Nita felt her heart pounding.
Ace’s rusty lock gave way with difficulty. He wasn’t inside. His
unmade bed was a tangle of gray, yellow-stained sheets. Empty beer
and soda cans and fast-food containers littered the floor. Large roaches
skittered among the debris.
“I can’t wait for him here,” Nita said aloud. Later, she knew, he
could be found at the Foxy Lady, but not yet. She had some time to
kill.