8 The Man Who Loved Women to Death Read online

  “Look up, dude. See that gee in the tree?”

  I could just make him out in the twilight, strapped in about thirty feet up, wearing a green parks department uniform. “Yeah … ?”

  “He’s on the job.”

  “He’s a cop?”

  “What I just said.”

  “I hope he knows what he’s doing to that maple.”

  “Shit, yeah. Has a degree in forestry. Wanted to be a park ranger out west until he found out they get shot at by the crazies. Likes the odds better here. Dig, he was wondering why most of your windows are blacked out.”

  “You don’t want to know. What else have you found out?”

  “For starters, our time frame plays. They’re guessing she was strangled sometime late Monday. The body was kept indoors, then dumped in the park shortly before it was found—she wasn’t cold enough to have been out there for long. They didn’t find any rope burns or lacerations on her neck, which means he did her with something smooth.”

  “Like a lamp cord?”

  “Like a lamp cord. You with me so far, dude?”

  “I’m with you, Lieutenant.”

  “Good, now dig on this—she was not, repeat not sexually assaulted. No seminal fluid in her vaginal vault or in her mouth. Even if he was ultracareful and wore a hat, which some of your career rapists have taken to doing, we’d still find vaginal secretions, bruises, abrasions, something.… We found bupkes. No bites. No scratches. No tissue or blood under her nails. No fingerprints on her skin. They iodine-fumed her head to toe, Magna-brushed her, Kromekoted her, nothing. No evidence of human contact, period. Man didn’t lay a hand on her.”

  “Is that typical?”

  “No way. When it’s a pretty girl, and it’s violent, it’s almost always sexual. Although, come to think of it, David Berkowitz never laid a finger on ’em.”

  “I was really hoping you wouldn’t do that, Lieutenant.”

  “Do what, dude?”

  “Mention David Berkowitz.” Better known as Son of Sam.

  “Just thinking out loud.”

  “Next time you feel like thinking out loud, shut up.”

  “We did ID the lipstick on her forehead. It’s Revlon Orange Luminesque. Available at any drugstore. Otherwise, we got zero to work with. No hairs, no carpet fibers. This gee’s either a neat freak or a former crime scene technician. I mean, that girl’s body is sanitary.”

  “Hmm …”

  “What’s that, dude?”

  “Nothing. I just said, ‘Hmm …

  “What, again?”

  “Have you had your hearing checked lately, Lieutenant?”

  “Same goes for those pages he sent you. Man must have been wearing latex gloves when he handled ’em. Which leads me to believe he has a record. We could make him in thirty minutes if he was in our database—like, for example, you are.”

  “Told you.”

  “Those were some big-time black hole days you had yourself, dude. For damned sure. Drag-racing a member of the New York Mets up Second Avenue at three in the morning, doing ninety miles per.”

  “That wasn’t such a big deal.”

  “Second Avenue runs downtown, dude.”

  “We felt otherwise.”

  “You also threw a barstool through the front window of Pete’s Tavern.”

  “So?”

  “So there was a person on the stool at the time.”

  “It was my stool and he wouldn’t get off.”

  “And here all along I thought you were civilized.”

  “Well, now you know better.”

  “I’m liking you more and more, dude.”

  “Down, Lieutenant. I’m taken.”

  “The typewriter’s an old Olivetti. Tracked that down at a place called Osners. Old lady there is major pissed at you, by the way.”

  I cleared my throat. “She is?”

  “Said you used to be one of her best customers. Haven’t been around in ages.”

  “I suppose I am overdue for a lube.” Good old Mrs. Adelman.

  Very paused a moment. “You’re slipping, dude.”

  “Am I?”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me about the ink?”

  “What about the ink, Lieutenant?”

  “Came off a ribbon made by General Ribbon Corporation of Chatsworth, California. It’s their universal ribbon, works on every manual typewriter known to man or woman. Their biggest customer is Staples. It’s like their house brand.”

  “So we’re talking dead end, in other words.”

  “You got that right.”

  “How about the envelope? Was that any help?”

  “Prints galore on it. Half the fucking postal service touched it. No one who matches anyone in our database, though.”

  “Well, that’s comforting to know.”

  “Postmark tells us zilch about where he mailed it from. You have it stamped and mailed at the counter of your post office, yes, they put a zip code on it. You stamp it yourself and drop it in a box somewhere like he did, no. All we know is it was mailed somewhere in Manhattan.”

  “What about saliva?”

  “Saliva?”

  “If he licked the envelope shut, wouldn’t there be traces of his saliva on it?”

  “What, you think it’ll turn out he just ate some rare kind of salami that’s only sold in one deli on the Lower East Side?”

  “Actually, I was thinking more of a DNA test.”

  “See? That’s the O.J. thing again. I hate that.”

  “The O.J. thing, Lieutenant?”

  “Before O.J. you never heard about DNA evidence in normal conversation.”

  “Trust me, Lieutenant, this is not my idea of normal conversation.”

  “Suddenly everybody’s an expert on blood evidence and how long it takes a cup of ice cream to melt.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “In answer to your question, dude, our perp sealed the envelope with a moist sponge. And the stamps were self-adhesive. This gee is thorough and he’s careful.”

  “Very.”

  “What’s that, dude?”

  “How about the garment bag?”

  “Came from Hold Everything. They got two stores in the city, one out on the Island, two in Jersey, two more in Connecticut. Plus they got a catalog. We’ll be tracking down any credit card sales of that particular item. The only problem is it retails for twenty-eight and change.”

  “Meaning he could have paid cash for it.”

  “Uh-huh. I also spent some face time with the kid who worked with Diane in the store. Malik Washington, age seventeen. According to Malik, Diane worked late on Monday. Said she had some orders to place. He offered to stick around but she told him to go on home. He left at a few minutes after six. Was home in Brooklyn by seven, according to his grandmother. He don’t remember any gee stopping by just before closing time to buy kibble. Or any particular gee coming in that morning either, although he was down in the basement a lot stacking stuff. As for your next question, why didn’t he report her missing, he claims Diane kept talking for weeks about taking a ski trip with her sister. When she didn’t show for work on Tuesday he figured that’s where she was, and either she forgot to tell him or she did tell him and he forgot.”

  “Any chance Malik’s the answer man?”

  “Doubtful. He’s a high school dropout, below average language skills. Plus he doesn’t know how to type. Which is the same shit my computer keeps telling me. Like, I turned up a gee just got paroled in Pennsylvania after pulling seven years for stalking a chick, okay? Under occupation they list ‘dishwasher.’ I’m thinking, okay, maybe he’s worth looking up: Trouble is, he can only read and write at a fourth-grade level. Our man’s way smarter than that. He ain’t no mumbling crackhead lives out of garbage cans. He’s someone you’d go home with. She did.”

  “This being your so-called information age, I’m assuming that if a similar unsolved crime had taken place somewhere else in the country—”

  “We’
d be on it in a flash, dude. I didn’t turn up a thing. The answer man is all ours.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Check this out,” Very went on. “There’s no Greek coffeeshop around the corner from the pet food store. Nearest one’s way over on First and Thirtieth. Man behind the counter don’t remember anybody camped out there drinking coffee with twelve sugars any time recently.”

  “How about the Yushie bar?”

  “Several in the area, but so far he’s ringing no bells. You ask me, he made a lot of that shit up. Which just makes our job harder.”

  “That may have been the whole idea, Lieutenant.”

  “You got that right, dude.” He sighed grimly.

  “So what now?”

  “We canvas the people who ride the numero uno train same time she did every morning. Maybe somebody saw something. We check the welfare hotels for recent arrivals. We check the psychiatric hospitals for recent departures—addicts, sex offenders, gees who write kook letters, gees with a history of violence, gees with mommy hang-ups. We talk to social workers who work with young fathers. We talk to drug counselors. We work the restaurants, ’specially places that routinely take on parolees or mental outpatients. We dog the details, dude, every single goddamned one of ’em, no matter how many man hours that takes. Because, dig, that girl was found in the park. And that fucks with the people’s heads. Scares ’em shitless.” Romaine Very sounded serious. More serious than I’d ever heard him. “Now listen up—no one, but no one knows how you hook up to this thing. Just me and my immediate superior, and he’s sworn to secrecy. So the press should not be on to you. They get on to you, let me know, okay?”

  “Okay, Lieutenant.”

  “Everything cool?”

  “I think I can safely report that everything is not cool.”

  “Are you cool?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Stay with me, dude,” he said, and then he hung up.

  But I wasn’t fine. Merilee knew it as soon as she joined me in bed after supper, which had been late. Rehearsal had run long. Her director, a hot young filmmaker, had never done a play. In fact, Merilee was starting to think he had never seen a play.

  “You look awfully pale, darling,” she observed fretfully. She had on her red flannel nightshirt. She always wears that when work is going poorly. Comfort food for the limbs, she calls it. “Your feet are positively gelid. And you barely touched your dinner.”

  “I’ve never liked lamb shanks. Ask anyone.”

  She glanced down at Lulu, who was curled up between us. “Why, even Lulu looks glum.”

  “Lulu always looks glum. It’s one of her charms.”

  Merilee was silent a moment. We both were. My mind was elsewhere. My mind was on that typewriter, an Olivetti Studio 44.

  “They’re always out there, darling,” she said quietly. “The loons and freaks and oddballs. The stalkers with their AK-47s. The mad bombers with their fertilizer and diesel fuel. But we mustn’t give in to them. We mustn’t let them rule our world. That’s how they win.”

  “I know that, Merilee.” I reached over and took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

  “Of course it is, darling.”

  But of course it wasn’t. And I knew it. I knew it as soon as the phone woke me and I picked it up and I heard Romaine Very’s voice on the other end. This was early on Monday morning.

  “Put your pants on, dude,” the lieutenant said heavily. “We got us another one.”

  Three

  DEAR HOAGY,

  I’ve taken the liberty of enclosing the second chapter of my work in progress. I don’t dare call it a novel yet, but it really does seem to be taking shape. More importantly, I think I’m starting to hear my character’s voice. And that is very exciting. But you are the expert, of course, and your opinion means much more than mine does.

  It occurs to me you don’t know how to reach me. If you want, you can take out one of those little personal ads at the bottom of the front page of The New York Times. Just address it to me. I’ll keep my eyes open, like any good writer should. And I’ll be sure to get back to you. By the way, do you think I’ll need an agent? Can you recommend one? Or will you be my agent? Please advise. Anyway, I hope you like this. And thanks again for your time.

  Yours truly,

  the answer man

  p.s. Did I mention the movie rights? Make sure you hold on to them. We’re talking millions here!

  p.p.s. Glad to see you’re a fan of Barney Greengrass. It’s always been one of my favorites. Those people at Zabar’s are so incredibly rude. Who was that short, muscular guy in the leather coat, a fellow author?

  2. the answer man goes to school

  New York City, December 4

  Friend E—Thanks for that fifty dollars, man. Knew I could count on you. You are a true friend, not like all of these front artists out here who call you their friend but are strictly looking out for themselves. I’ll pay you back soon as I can, not that you’re asking. I’m needing to get back to work anyway. Not just because of the bucks, but because work is what holds you together when you’re out. Your work is who you are. Take a man’s work away from him and it’s like you’ve stripped him naked in the middle of Times Square.

  That was one of the cool things about being inside. Didn’t matter who or what you were before you got there. All that mattered was HERE and TODAY. Because EVERYONE has been stripped naked. As I’m riding the subway I find myself eyeballing some sharp, together guy and wondering how he would do in there. Not too goddamned well, I think. Because all he knows about is his own unreal little universe. He doesn’t know about being in the cage with us. He doesn’t know about REAL.

  It was her legs I noticed first, E.

  I was standing there on the platform waiting for the downtown train, which not many people do at six in the evening. Most of them are heading back uptown for home. Suddenly she came striding on through the turnstile toward me, her and those legs of hers. They were long. They were bare. They were tanned, which is unusual in December. None of those big fat hiking boots neither. She wore a pair of low-cut moccasins that showed off her ankles to full advantage. Her stride was a man’s stride, long and athletic and self-assured. A tall girl, at least five-feet-ten, with short black hair that she parted on the side like a boy. She had on a short leather skirt and a torn denim jacket. Mostly it was her walk I got off on. Man, could that honey walk.

  Where she was going, I was going.

  I sat halfway down the car so she wouldn’t notice me. She was reading Backstage, which is some kind of show business newspaper. An actress, maybe a dancer. She was certainly hot enough. I figured she’d get off at Times Square. Maybe was in some show that was running there. But she didn’t. Kept right on going all the way down to 14th Street. We both got off.

  I followed her up the stairs and due east toward Sixth Avenue, staying a safe twenty feet back. She moved with great purpose. This has always excited me in a honey, E. I don’t like the ones who can’t make up their minds. I like the ones who are going somewhere. And this one was going somewhere. I had to pick up my pace just to keep up with her. No way I was going to lose her though. She had a Band-Aid on her left heel. Following that was like tailing a car with a broken headlamp, which you and I both got pretty good at in our younger days. But enough about that sorry subject. I’d much rather talk about these here legs. They were something, E. I mean you could go three, four years and not see a pair of legs like hers, except maybe in a magazine. I just kept beaming on them, wondering how anyone on the street could so much as think about anything else. But they paid her no notice. Locked into their own empty little lives, just like always.

  Turns out she was heading to this place called The New School on West 12th Street. You know the place, E? They teach all of these bullshit classes there on how to write poetry and paint still lifes, like anybody who’s teaching a class there has a fucking idea about how to do anything except scam people out of their money and th
eir time. No way I was going inside, so before she went in the door I stopped her and said I just wanted to say thank you. She said For what? And I said It was just such an incredible pleasure following you down the street. You light up the whole neighborhood. She thanked me, E. And she smiled. She had a great big smile. You know the kind I mean. Then she went on inside.

  I waited outside, smoking cigarettes. Waited a couple of hours. It was getting windy and cold, but I didn’t care. She was with a small group when she finally came back out, all of them talking excitedly. When she saw me she stopped, frowning at me, and said What do you want? I said I thought we could get a cup of coffee. She didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no.

  She just started walking with me.

  It was really turning chilly. I kept wondering if her legs were cold, being bare. I finally asked her. She told me that the cold was no problem for her, since she was originally from Minnesota and it had to be something like thirty below zero for her to even feel it. I mentioned how confident and athletic her stride seemed, and she said Well, I was a real tomboy growing up. Played basketball and soccer and I still ski whenever I get a chance. I said Where did you get that tan? And she said I was just down in Miami with my boyfriend. He was down there on a photo shoot. Turned out her boyfriend was a model and so was she, but what she really wanted to do was act which was why she was taking this course at The New School on the history of the cinema from this guy who she said was brilliant. Mostly, she’d done a lot of modeling for the catalogs, although she had just landed a nonspeaking role in a Lipton Tea commercial which she was really pumped about. Laurie London was her name. I told her I was in the business myself, kind of. As a casting director for motion pictures. And if I could ever do anything to help her out it would be my pleasure.

  She showed me her smile again.

  It’s like I told you before, Friend E: Be who they want you to be. That’s my secret. Hey, I ought to write a book about it someday.

  Hey, maybe I am.

  Laurie said You know, I thought you looked familiar—I bet I’ve read for you. You probably have, I said. And she said Do you know Bonnie Timmerman? And I said Are you kidding? We’re having breakfast together tomorrow morning. Which Laurie seemed to think was way cool. Right away she wanted to know what I was working on. I told her the new De Niro movie, which seemed safe, right? Isn’t there always a new De Niro movie? And don’t they always suck? I said In fact, Laurie, there’s a part that would be perfect for you. She said Hey, I’d love to read for you. I said That might be difficult. I said I’m heading out to L.A. right after my breakfast with Bonnie. I said Too bad you don’t have any pictures I could take a look at. She said Would you like to look at my book? My apartment’s not far from here.