Slaughter - Lutz John. Страница 32

Renz listened while Quinn brought him up to speed with what he knew, mostly gleaned from what he’d seen on TV and what Sergeant Rutler had said.

Renz didn’t have anything solid to contribute, even though he’d been among the first to reach the site after the crane fell. Now he was running around, probably in full dress uniform, trying to leave a lasting impression that he was in charge.

A sigh came over the phone. “It isn’t pretty here, Quinn.”

“Does it look like a crime scene?”

“The way things are these days, I’d have to say yes.”

“Has the crane been examined?”

“Not yet. But it doesn’t seem there’s anything wrong with it. There was an operator in the crane when it fell. Or until just before. We’re still interrogating him. We’ll keep you informed, Quinn.”

“Do that, Harley. This is almost surely part of the Gremlin case.”

“Fire, an elevator, a crane, what’s this madman thinking?”

“They’re all different,” Quinn said. “In most ways, they’re just like the rest of us. That’s why they’re difficult to recognize.”

“That’s why we have you on the case, Quinn. You’re just like the rest of us, only different.”

“Those are important differences,” Quinn said.

Renz said, “That’s what all you guys say.”

34

The killer sat in his favorite armchair, with a view of nighttime Manhattan out the window that was slightly to his left. He liked to enjoy the spectacular view, shifting eyes and interest back and forth between that and big-screen TV news coverage of the crane collapse. He was in his stocking feet, legs extended and ankles crossed, sipping two fingers of single-malt scotch over ice. A dash of water to help bring out the flavor.

Using a variety of aliases and forged identities, he had, like a rat in a pack, joined the fringes of serious crime. He maneuvered, he thought brilliantly, befriending certain criminal types, ingratiating himself with them, and at a certain point letting them know he was . . . well, head rat.

He was impossible to apprehend, because he wasn’t greedy—at least not on the surface. He was financially secure from a year ago, when he’d spent a week of sex and pain with a crooked investment manager and his wife.

The killer knew enough to result in the man losing everything and going to prison. Probably his wife, keeper of the secret books, would also do time. But the killer had broken both of them, spiritually and physically, in the investment manager’s secluded cabin that was more like a full-fledged house.

The wife, Glenda, in her forties, was not particularly attractive, more of a greyhound than a cougar. She didn’t know it yet, but the divorce papers were about to be served when, during a drug-enhanced night, the killer taught the money manager, Hubby, how to induce and manage someone else’s pain.

Hubby was better at that than managing wealth. Under his tutelage, Glenda learned how soundproof the cabin was when she screamed and screamed and no one came to her rescue.

Within a few hours she was eager to turn over to her husband and the killer the secret set of books that she kept, complete with numbers and names, and sometimes photographs.

This was just the sort of thing the killer sought. It would have been silly, at this point, to set the wife free. Besides, a plan was growing in his mind like a disease.

After a few days Wifey was trembling so that she had to be spoon-fed so she wouldn’t make such a mess. Hubby the money man led her to a wall, made her lean against it, and beat her with a beaded leather strap. By now she automatically obeyed his instructions and made no sound while she was being whipped. A gag was no longer necessary.

When the husband’s arm was almost too tired to lift, the killer walked over, took the whip from his hand, and laid the whip hard along the back of the wife’s thighs.

Wifey was sobbing now, her head bowed in submission.

“Take her to the basement and hose her off,” the killer said.

Hubby looked confused. “Hose her . . . ?”

The killer grinned. “With water. If you want to beat her with the hose, maybe we can arrange that later.”

He could barely stop smiling. These two were perfect.

When the killer went down to the basement, he saw that things were in order. Wifey’s arms were tied over her head and she was hanging from a rafter with her toes barely touching the concrete. Quite a stretch. She tried to shift position now and then to relieve the pain when her stretched muscles cramped. Sheer agony. A hard rubber ball was jammed between her upper and lower teeth so her jaws were strained wide open. Her hair was soaked, pulled back, and fastened with a rubber band. She knew the rubber band was so they could see her face. Her expressions. That was great for photographs that could be sold and resold on the Internet. Her husband and their houseguest had taught her that.

The faint, rhythmic thrashing sound began, more vibration than noise. The killer was ready for it, knew that it would stop, knew how to stop it.

He stood with his hands pressed to his ears, his eyes clenched shut. Waiting.

Finally the thrashing noise reached a crescendo then subsided, and he was calm. The air that he breathed was like nectar.

The killer tested the strength of the ropes, felt the warm wetness of her body, then unnecessarily told Hubby the fund manager to stay where he was and went upstairs.

Ten minutes later the killer came back down the basement’s wooden stairs with something obviously heavy beneath a blanket.

“What’s that?” the husband asked. He hadn’t so much as budged.

The killer smiled. “My equipment. Car battery. Cables. Alligator clips.”

Terror paralyzed the wife. She emitted a lot of gagging and gurgling, and then lost consciousness.

The killer knew that unconsciousness was where they often went to escape. A country of painlessness and peace.

He had brought smelling salts.

35

Four people had been killed, seven injured, in the fall of the construction crane at the Taggart Building. Two of the dead were off-Broadway chorus line dancers, Betty Lincoln and Macy Adams. Their names and faces were known only to avid playgoers.

Not enough time had passed that Quinn and his detectives were done talking to the few witnesses who’d actually seen the crane come down, observed the panic, heard the screams. Then almost instantly the impact of the crane, followed by the landslide rumble and crashing of concrete, marble, and brick.

Quinn and Fedderman were doing the last of the interviews of witnesses, which didn’t make for a long list. Usually they weren’t technically witnesses, as it was the bomb-like crash of the crane that first drew their attention. It also scrambled their senses so that much of what they saw and said was wrong, forgotten, or irrelevant.

Now Quinn and Fedderman were in a modest apartment on the East Side, interviewing a giant of a man the others in SBL Properties called Little Louie. He had a bandage on the bridge of his nose and an arm in a sling. Quinn knew they were injuries from the crane accident. Next to Little Louie, on a faded but comfortable-looking sofa, sat Louie’s wife, Madge.

Louie Farrato looked like what he was, a solid type who worked with his hands, simple but not stupid. He would have made a great Indiana Jones in the movies. Madge was a sloe-eyed beauty of the sort who would abide no nonsense.

Quinn glanced at the preliminary notes made within hours of the crane incident.

“Would you like some iced tea or lemonade?” Madge Farrato asked.

Quinn declined. Fedderman gave it some thought and settled for iced tea.

They both waited patiently, along with Little Louie, until Madge returned with a tray on which were four glasses of what looked like iced tea. “Just in case,” she said with a smile that made her look like Sophia Loren. (Had Loren and Harrison Ford, who owned the Indiana Jones role, ever been in the same movie? Fedderman wondered.) “There’s real sugar and some artificial on the tray.” She set the tea on a glass-topped coffee table, and they all settled in as if they were going to watch a movie on television instead of talk about murder.