Play It Again (24 page)

R.J. got switched around several times until he had the Drama Department office. When he finally managed to get them to understand what he was after, he got disconnected. He called back and got the secretary again, who apologized and said she was still trying to figure out how the phones worked.

“I have the same problem with secretaries,” R.J. told her.

She giggled, and R.J. heard her hit the switch.

She got it right this time. After three short buzzing rings, someone picked up the phone and R.J. spoke with a woman named Barbara who had a very nasal voice.

“I certainly don’t advertise that I’m the senior faculty member,” she said. “I may have to do something awful to Shirley for this.”

“Who?”

“Shirley, the gal in the office. She could have given you the lighting teacher; he’s been here almost as long. Of course, he probably wouldn’t speak to you at all.”

“Barbara, I’d like to ask your help in a murder investigation.”

“If it takes time, forget it. We have three productions in the next month, and I’m doing a movie this spring.”

“I just need you to look at a picture. Tell me if it’s a former student.”

“What makes you think he might be?”

“He has good speech.”

She laughed, a funny, nasal little heh-heh-heh. “It would have to be quite a while back then,” she said.

“It could be,” R.J. told her.

“Well, send it along. I guess I can look at a picture.”

* * *

R.J. made a similar call to Juilliard. The only real difference was that he could drop the picture off in person, since the school was located in Manhattan.

He found the place easily enough, not too far from Lincoln Center, and located the office. He left the picture with a strange, pale young man who wore a pince-nez and bow tie.

R.J. felt reluctant to trust the picture to someone who looked like he belonged in a fish tank.

“You’ll get this to the professor?” he asked.

The young man goggled damply at him. “I said I would.”

“You won’t forget or anything?”

The young man sighed. “At the moment I am keeping in memory, flawlessly, the entire keyboard oeuvre of J. S. Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Eric Satie. I think I can remember to hand an ugly picture to an old professor.”

R.J. had to grin in spite of himself. “I guess maybe you can. But you should loosen up a little.”

“How so?” the fish asked him, already bored.

“Learn some Jerry Lee Lewis oeuvre,” R.J. said.

On his way back through midtown R.J. gradually lost the edge of excitement he’d been riding. He needed action, and dropping off a picture didn’t do it for him.

The fight with Casey had hit him, even harder than he thought it had. Get a grip, he told himself. If it’s over, it’s over. It’s happened to you before, it’ll happen again.

He felt bad enough that he decided to stop off and see Hookshot on the way back to the office. Maybe his friend could coax a laugh out of him. Always had before.

But when R.J. came to the kiosk it was closed.

He blinked. Hookshot’s place was never closed. Never. If he had to go someplace one of his urchins would watch the till.

Except it was closed now.

There was a raspy clatter behind him. R.J. whirled. Benny, the smart-ass kid, slid to a stop, popping his skateboard into the air and catching it casually.

“Yo, hey, you some kind of a friend of Hookshot’s or something?”

R.J. looked at the kid. He looked worried—as worried as a snotty street punk could look.

“That’s right.
Friend
is the right word. What about you?”

Benny pulled a black wad of fabric out of his battered backpack. “Yeah, funny. Lookit here.” He held up the wad. R.J. took it, shook it out.

It was Hookshot’s jacket.

R.J. looked at Benny. “Where’d you get this?”

“What, like I
stole
it? Fuck you.”

“No, like where you’d get it? Hookshot wouldn’t leave it lying around. He likes this jacket.”

“No shit. Like I don’t know that?”

R.J. threw a hand out. Benny was fast, but R.J. was faster, and he got a hand twisted into the kid’s jacket. He lifted. The skateboard clattered to the sidewalk.

“Listen, Ace. I’d love to hang around and teach you some manners, but I think something’s wrong with my friend. I need to know: Where—did—you—” he said, shaking the kid with each word, “get—this—jacket?”

“All right, shit! Give me fucking whiplash. I found it right here.”

“Here? At the newsstand?”

“Yeah. What the fuck—” He stopped as R.J. shook him again. “Right here. It was stuck on the front there.”

R.J. put Benny down. “What do you mean, ‘stuck’?”

Benny snaked a hand in and out of his backpack. “With this.” He held up an icepick, the handle wrapped with duct tape. “Fresh, huh?”

* * *

Hookshot lived in a tiny roach motel of an apartment on East 12th Street. He could have bought himself a brownstone on Fifth Ave or a co-op anywhere in the city, but he wanted to stay close to his roots. Either that or he was just cheap. A lot of millionaires were.

The building smelled like somebody had been boiling cabbage in dog piss. R.J. held his breath as he climbed the stairs to the apartment.

The up side to the place was that there was no doorman, no security of any kind. When nobody answered his knock, R.J. had no trouble kicking in the door.

He stood in the doorway looking for just a moment. “Shit,” he said.

Hookshot was cheap, but he was neat. Always had been. He would not have left the place like this. The battered couch was flung on one end into the corner. Dishes and food were scattered across the floor. The curtains were ripped down.

It looked a lot like Casey’s apartment had looked.

“Shit,” R.J. said again. Heart pounding now as he realized what that meant, he turned to go.

He stopped dead. So did his heart.

Skewered into the wall beside the door was a silver curve of metal.

Hookshot’s hook.

Stunned, unwilling to believe what he was seeing, R.J. stepped closer. The hook was pinning something to the wall, a flimsy piece of sheer fabric. R.J. had seen it before, seen it recently. As he recognized it he stopped breathing, and everything went black for half a second.

It was a pair of Casey’s panties.

CHAPTER 30

R.J. was down the stairs and out on the sidewalk in less than a minute. He sprinted up to the corner and flagged a cab. “Twenty bucks if you get me there in under ten minutes,” he said, knowing it was impossible, knowing it didn’t matter, it was too late, Casey was dead, Hookshot was dead, the killer was gone already.

“Get you
where
in ten minutes?” the cabbie asked.

R.J. froze. He had no idea
where.

His brain whirled furiously. The killer was most likely holed up someplace safe, quiet, someplace R.J. could never find.

He realized he was panting and his palms were sweating.
Think, goddamn it.
But there was nothing to think about, no way to figure out where he had taken them.

Except…

R.J. knew the killer was really after him. Not Hookshot, not Casey—
him.
He’d known since the attempt on Casey. He
didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew it with certainty anyhow. He was the target.

That meant Casey and Hookshot were just the bait.

And bait had to be left in the open where it could be sniffed out.

Which meant the killer had taken them someplace that R.J. could find,
would
find—not right away, maybe not on the first try, but the killer wanted R.J. to find him eventually. Wanted to torture R.J. with a search, certainly, tantalize him with the knowledge of what was happening to Casey and Hookshot while he scrabbled around, hopelessly looking for them; he wanted it to drag on as long as possible.

But, ultimately, he wanted R.J. to find them.

He
wanted
to be found. He wanted to do whatever he did and he wanted to do it to R.J.

R.J. was as sure of that as he’d ever been of anything. The killer was out there someplace, waiting to be found.

But where? Not Casey’s apartment; he had used it once already. Not the office, or he would have used some personal item of Wanda’s.

Where?

“There’s other people want the cab, mister,” the cabbie said. “You want to go someplace or what?”

Someplace he would not expect, but a place that he would eventually have to come up with. Someplace—personal.

“Where to, buddy?” the cabbie said again.

R.J. blinked. Of course.

* * *

It is going so beautifully. Just as he planned it; everything is perfect. Now, though, he must simply wait. It isn’t so hard, the waiting, not with everything in place. In the theater, one learns patience. He will practice it now. Waiting for his supporting player.

He will just check his props one last time, as he does before every performance.

Look at them, the two of them. His two little rabbits. Rabbits set to catch slightly bigger game.

The sight of them is deeply satisfying. Nodding quietly to himself, he reaches for his camera and takes a few more pictures. First the man, straining against his bonds, eyes blazing, thin muscles knotting with effort. Good. Wonderful. He could not have posed it better.

Now her. The woman. Oh, what a study she is. So much more interesting
—
much like the other woman, the mother. All cold fury and patience.

She is much tougher than he thought she would be. Perhaps there will be time to explore her, later, after the scene. It would make a fine epilogue to the larger drama.

It might be very fulfilling.

* * *

The cabbie did not make it in under ten minutes. It was closer to fifteen by the time they pulled up in front of R.J.’s building.

R.J. paid him too much anyway. He leaped out of the car and flung the first bill out of his pocket, a twenty, at the front seat and sprinted into the building.

Just let me be on time, he prayed silently. He hadn’t prayed for twenty years, but this seemed like a good time to start. Please, just let me be on time.

He went up the stairs without even noticing them. By the time he hit the landing of his floor he had his gun out and cocked.

He paused in front of his door and took a deep breath, steadied his gun hand.

One, two
—

Smash!

He hit the door with everything he had, and it flew inward on its hinges, the lock a tattered thing.

R.J. flung himself through the doorway and stood at a crouch in the center of the room, gun ready. He looked to his left, to his right; in the kitchen. The bedroom. The closet.

Nothing.

Just to be certain, he stalked carefully into each room, letting the gun lead him, every sense quiveringly alert. But he knew it was no good.

The place was empty.

The killer was someplace else.

But where?

He sank onto the couch. He had been so sure this was the place. The killer was one jump ahead of him again. Had been the whole time. The guy seemed to know everything about him, what he was thinking, what he would do next.

So what would he do next?
Think,
damn it. Where else could he take them?

R.J. closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, tried to think like the killer. Where would he hole up?

Someplace quiet, someplace that R.J. would guess sooner or later, but not too soon. Someplace personal. But what could be more personal than his own apartment?

As it hit him, he was up and out the door before the thought really registered.

The shattered door flapped shut, open, half shut behind him.

He was already halfway down the stairs when the telephone rang. After three and a half rings the answering machine picked it up.

“Hello, R.J., it’s Uncle Hank. I’m at your office. I came right over here because I got a complete profile for you, and it’s a doozy.

“I think I know what the guy will do next, R.J. And it will happen soon. In the next day or two. So if you get this message, get ahold of Miss Wingate and
sit tight.
I think he will try to hit
you through people close to you. I’ve sent your secretary out of town for the rest of the week, so she’ll be okay.

“R.J., above all else,
don’t
try to take this guy alone. When he’s in his fugue state he’ll be about five times as strong as you are. Please, son, be careful.
Tengas cuidado, hombre.

“I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

It was quicker this time getting across town. The cabbie had at first refused to go through Central Park. He’d changed his mind when R.J. held the gun to his head.