Valentine (7 page)

He frowned, remembering the tense moments in the front closet when the strange woman had come into the apartment and gone into the kitchen. The slow, agonizing move from the closet to the front door. It had taken several seconds to open it without making a sound. He’d heard the deafening click behind him as he’d dashed for the stairs. Well, he’d made it back here undetected, and listened as the cleaning woman had moved around with the vacuum cleaner. The sound was clear, and he could hear her in all but the two back rooms. Good.

So. Two cards, and now Jillian Talbot was going to the police. Hmmm . . .

He gazed across the street at the two tiny figures embracing on the couch. Deep in thought, he slowly reached for a cigarette.

The Sixth Precinct is a long, low, beige brick building on Tenth Street between Bleecker and Hudson, exactly three blocks north of Jillian’s home. It was constructed in a period of urban American architectural history when designers seemed to think that no style at all was its own form of artistic statement, particularly in public buildings. It has thick, functional walls and high, useless windows and a roof, and that’s about it. A small blacktop drive along one side provides parking for several blue-and-white sedans. The station house stands out on the quaint, tree-lined Village street, nestled between long rows of elegant townhouses and lovely red brick apartment buildings like a minibus among Rolls-Royces.

Jill looked up at the bland edifice before her, frowning. She’d been here several times in the recent past, researching her last novel. But the friendly detective who had served so patiently as her advisor was now
retired: she no longer knew anyone here. Besides, she told herself again, the whole thing is just so silly. Had Nate not been with her, even now stepping forward and opening the glass door, she would have turned around and gone home. But Nate
was
here, regarding her steadily as he held the door for her, so she braced herself and went inside.

Nate did all the talking at the front desk, and a pretty, bored young woman listened, glancing occasionally from him to Jill and back again with what Jill could only interpret as polite skepticism. When he was through, the young woman nodded once and waved them over to the row of beige chairs along one beige wall that served as the waiting area. And wait they did, for nearly forty minutes, during which time Jill observed the steady comings and goings, the NYPD business-as-usual she always saw in movies and on television shows, and had never truly believed. A wino was brought in, booked, and sent to a holding cell somewhere at the back of the building. Two young hookers in miniskirts and mesh stockings were brought in and booked, and they, too, disappeared. Then came a very tall young black man in a miniskirt and mesh stockings and an enormous blond wig. He bore a remarkable resemblance to Tina Turner, and he insisted in a loud, high-pitched lisp that the arresting officers address him as Veronica.
Nate brought Jill some terrible coffee from a nearby vending machine, and they waited some more.

At last they were approached by a small, stocky Hispanic man in a dark uniform, his curly black hair and impressive black mustache emphasizing the roundness of his friendly face. He introduced himself as Sergeant Escalera and led them to a tiny, partitioned cubicle at the front of the room. There was only space for one chair next to the sergeant’s cluttered little desk, and Jill sank into it, purse on knees, wondering where to begin. Nate stood rigidly beside her, half in and half out of the cubicle, and dropped a hand onto her shoulder. They watched as the sergeant squeezed his fleshy frame into the chair behind the desk and reached for a blank report form.

She stated her name, address, telephone number, gender, age, Social Security number, and occupation. This last caused Sergeant Escalera to glance up, smiling briefly, before looking back down at the myriad tiny instructions on the paper. When he asked her the nature of her complaint, she paused, wondering what to call it, what word to use. Nate leaned forward and supplied one: harassment. Jill looked up at him and blinked, then turned back to the officer, shrugged, and nodded. Harassment.

They showed him the two valentine cards, and Jill told him about the telephone message. He sat back in his chair, his head resting against the thin partition,
and listened politely. He leaned forward twice to scribble something on the form, and at one point he held up a hand to interrupt them and called out to someone in the main room, reminding him to tell someone named McCoy that he was to get in touch with someone named Peewee by four o’clock if he wanted help with the collar. A raucous, laughing voice behind Jill called back that Peewee was crazier than something-or-other, and so was McCoy, and, besides, the collar was already going down. She sat, staring at the purse on her knees, waiting for Sergeant Escalera to return his attention to her.

When he did, his dark features formed into an apologetic smile, and he explained in a low, reasonable voice that there wasn’t really anything they could do at this point. He went on to say, after glancing surreptitiously at his watch, that no overt threat had in fact been made, and that, unpleasant as they were, the greeting cards were—well, greeting cards. He asked her if there was anyone, anyone at all, that she thought might be doing this, and even suggested that perhaps one of his men could pay that person a visit and tell them to stop. He glanced over, then, at the large, muscular, capable-looking young man beside her, who immediately picked up his cue and said no, that wouldn’t be necessary, that
he
would do it. Pen poised, the sergeant nodded to him and
looked back at Jill, waiting for the names of any suspects.

She could not think of any. Actually, she could think of only one, but she wasn’t going to report that. Not yet.

Clutching her purse tightly, she rose to her feet, preparing to thank the friendly sergeant for his help. At that moment, however, there was a shout from the room behind her, and the sound of running footsteps, followed by several voices, raised and tense. The sergeant jumped up from his chair and rushed past them out of the cubicle, tossing back a brief good-bye as he went.

Nate took her by the hand, and they came out of the tiny office into pandemonium. People in uniforms and people in street clothes were running this way and that, calling to each other. The sergeant had gone to join the young woman at the main desk, who held a headset up to one ear as she shouted instructions to various people hurrying by. They stood aside at the main door as several officers rushed by them and out of the station. As she and Nate finally made their way out to the sidewalk, the sirens began. Three police cars came screeching out of the drive at the side of the building and took off down Tenth Street, their red lights flashing.

Jill and Nate stood in front of the station for several moments, communicating in silence what both
were thinking. There was a fire, or a murder, or an armed robbery in progress, or some other earthshaking, life-threatening event. One of the endless trials and tribulations of city life, one of many that would occur on that day alone in New York. They both gazed mutely down at the envelopes in her hand. With a sigh, Jill put the envelopes in her purse, and they walked away down Hudson Street toward home.

He stared at the photograph on the inside of the back cover of the paperback. Then he got a beer from the tiny fridge in the comer of the room and settled down in the armchair at the window with his new purchase.

He’d followed them to the Sixth Precinct on Tenth Street about an hour ago. Then, deciding that they’d probably be there for a while, he left them there and went over to Partners & Crime Bookshop a couple of blocks away. There he had bought three paperbacks and a shiny new hardcover: the complete works of Jillian Talbot. He’d come back here to wait for her return.

He’d never been much of a reader, and his life of late had provided no time for books. But now it was time, he’d decided; time to get to know Jillian Talbot better. He looked down at her four published suspense novels.

The cover of her first novel,
Darkness
, showed an
attractive, terrified young woman staring out from the doorway of an attractive, suburban-type house. In the otherwise empty front lawn in the foreground lay a discarded Raggedy Ann doll. The copy proclaimed the book to be an Edgar Award winner, and a quote from a newspaper review read, “A mother’s greatest fear . . . a modem masterpiece of suspense.”

He turned to page one and began. For the next two hours he only glanced up from the book once, when he heard the motorcycle start up and roar away down the street. Then he saw the lights go on in the apartment across the way. Jillian Talbot was home, and Nate was no longer with her. He watched her moving about for a few moments, then returned his attention to her novel.

The attractive suburban housewife’s seven-year-old daughter had vanished in the very first paragraph. The first sentence, actually: “
At the moment that her daughter disappeared, Lauri O’Connell was in the utility room, adding fabric softener to the rinse cycle. The most mundane, everyday thing, she would later think: even as we do these, we are never safe
. . . .” What followed were three hundred twenty-seven pages of sheer suspense. He’d never read such a book before, but even he admitted that this was addicting. Not until the final moment of the story, after Lauri had overpowered the shell-shocked Vietnam vet/school custodian, and the police had finally arrived to drive her and her
drugged-but-otherwise-okay child away, did he put the paperback down and reach for his binoculars. Moments later, the tape recorder on the table next to him sprang into action.

“You’ve reached the home and office of Dr. Dorothy Philbin. I’m not able to come to the phone now, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Please wait for the beep.”

Beep.

“Hello, Dr. Philbin, this is Jillian Talbot. I’m sorry to be calling you on a Sunday, but I—I was wondering if I could make an appointment. Umm, this week, if you have any openings. I—I’ll explain when I talk to you. My number is . . .”

She left her number and hung up. She was reaching again for the receiver when she stopped herself. No, she thought, don’t call Nate. He’s busy.

Nate. Smiling, she relaxed back into her chair. This wasn’t the longest relationship she’d ever had; not yet, at any rate. But it was the most complete, the most satisfying. From the moment they’d met, she’d been acutely aware of that amazing combination of sexual attractiveness, artistic brilliance, humor, and tenderness that seemed to define the man. Her women friends were forever stressing the vast differences between the genders and decrying their men’s roughness, their lack of attentiveness, their frequent
moods, their covert attraction to other females: their insistence on doing “man” things. Jill shook her head, counting off all the so-called usual behavior patterns of adult males, and marveling again that Nate didn’t seem to fit any of them. Today had been a perfect example: the strong, masculine presence she’d felt at her side throughout her unpleasant ordeal at the police station—

The police station. The memory sent Nate from her mind, replacing him with harsh reality. She sat in the little office at the back of the apartment staring out the window above her desk as the shadows lengthened and twilight fell. She thought for a long time about the greeting cards and about her trip to the Sixth Precinct. Then, with a glance at her watch, she picked up the phone again and dialed.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Tara, it’s Jill.”

“Hey, babe. What’s shakin’?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking. A lot. You know your friend on the show, the one you told me about in the restaurant yesterday?”

“Yeah, Betty.”

“Betty. Right. I want you to do something for me. . . .”

He listened to their conversation. Then, when they’d hung up and the machine stopped, he put down the
headset, went to get another beer, lit a Marlboro, and reached for her second novel. This one was called
The Widower
, and the cover art was an extreme close-up of the face of a pretty blond woman, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a scream. The copy on the back began:

He thought briefly about the phone calls he’d just heard. Then he opened the second book and began. He read long into the night.

Soon, he thought as he read. Soon . . .

“I don’t understand,” Barney Fleck said. “I don’t understand what it is you want me to do.”

Jillian stared at the unusually tall, gray-haired, fiftyish man behind the enormous desk in front of her. He’d been so friendly, so downright jovial ten minutes ago, when she’d first come into the surprisingly modem office in the big gray building on Twenty-fifth Street. He’d poked his large head out the door to the waiting room where she’d sat for some five minutes, watching the efficient-looking, middle-aged secretary working at her computer. When she’d first seen him, Jillian had wondered whether, perhaps, she had made a mistake in coming here. Barney Heck (“Rhymes with ‘tec’,” he’d laughingly told her) had ushered her into his office, waving her into a leather armchair facing the big, cluttered desk, and gotten right down to business.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Talbot?”

She’d told him what he could do for her, but apparently he had not understood her.

“I want you to find him,” she repeated, enunciating her words as if clarity of diction would make up for her apparent lack of clarity of meaning. “I want you to find Brian Marshall. He and my mother were divorced sixteen years ago, and he moved to Cleveland. At least, I seem to remember that it was Cleveland. It might have been Cincinnati—I always get those two cities mixed up. I guess it comes from being an arrogant New Yorker.”