John Lutz - Pulse

If either Enders or Coil had caught her copying the contents of their computers, all hell would not only have broken lose, it would have run riot.

Jody understood that what she’d done was illegal, and there would be no point in pretending she hadn’t known. Not only would she have lost her internship, she would have lost all possible chances for a position at a respectable firm. If she’d been caught copying files, she probably would have been arrested and charged. After all, this was a law office.

On the other hand, the law was malleable.

T he Happy Noodle was within easy walking distance from where Neeve had been working on the Overbite manuscript in the park. Still, she was slightly late when she walked into the restaurant for lunch with her friends and former colleagues.

Melanie, who arranged these occasional lunches, had made the reservation and was sitting at the head of the white-clothed table. Rhonda and Lavella were on either side of her. Each woman had before her a drink along with folded paper napkins, twisted red plastic swizzle sticks, and a few squeezed lime wedges.

“Train delay,” Neeve said, by way of explaining why she was fifteen minutes late. The truth was that her purse, and the heavy computer case containing the Overbite manuscript, had slowed her down, and she’d felt faint. She’d found a doorway to stand in, where the swarms of people on their lunch hour wouldn’t buffet her and she could catch her breath. She figured she might be experiencing a sugar crash, after only a doughnut for breakfast.

She’d felt around in her purse, found what was left of a wrapped Tootsie Roll, and popped the chocolate morsel into her mouth.

It did seem to help, as she proceeded more slowly to the restaurant, feeling her energy level gradually rise.

She sat down next to Lavella and placed her purse and computer case on the floor, propped against her chair leg.

Lavella was a beautiful black woman who worked as an associate editor at one of the big publishing houses. She glanced at the computer case.

“If the food server steps on that stuff, you’re gonna need a new computer,” she said.

“No computer in the case,” Neeve said. “Manuscript.”

“New thriller?”

“Vampire novel.”

“Surprise, surprise. Any good?”

“It sucks.”

The server, who looked a lot like a young Susan Sarandon, arrived. She didn’t step on the computer case, and jotted down Neeve’s order for white wine, and a fresh round of drinks for the others at the table.

The four women fell into easy conversation. They talked about the fact that Rhonda and Neeve had been forced into the ranks of the self-employed by the shrinking and consolidation of major publishers. About the encroachment of e-books. About a new book Lavella’s publisher was bringing out that claimed there was a secret government plan to cause the bond market to crash. About a launch party at a mystery bookstore. About Melanie’s new boyfriend, who used to play in the NBA and whom the other three had never heard of but pretended they had. All four women decided they liked a new bestselling thriller about a serial killer in New York. They were smart, strong women who enjoyed a good vicarious scare.

Though Neeve was a drink behind the others, she still felt slightly tipsy as they finished their lunches of soup and salads and left the restaurant. Beneath a large sign that indeed depicted a happy noodle, they wished each other luck, hugged each other, and went their separate ways.

Neeve was in a much better mood and was pleased to notice she was easily walking a straight line, so must not have drunk too much. What? Three glasses of wine? Four? Well, she’d had pasta with her drinks. Rather, drinks with her pasta-an important distinction, in Neeve’s mind.

The afterglow of drink and food was making her sleepy. By the time she’d reached her building and stood before her apartment door, she knew her plans to work some more on Overbite were going to be put on hold. A short nap was in order.

Self-employment. It has its advantages.

Q uinn sat at his cherrywood desk in his den, reading Sal and Harold’s respective reports, wishing he could smoke a cigar. His Cubans remained unlit in a small humidor in the desk’s bottom drawer. If he actually lit one anywhere in the brownstone, even near the brownstone, Pearl would smell the tobacco smoke and bitch at him. And now a second nose was in the picture. Jody wouldn’t actually say anything to him about the scent of tobacco smoke, but she would regard him with a sad and disdainful expression that was very much like Pearl’s.

Quinn absently touched his shirt pocket where a cigar wasn’t and reflected that it would be nice if eyewitness accounts were actually as accurate and useful as they were in TV police shows and the movies.

If ifs were skiffs we all would sailors be.

Something his daughter, Lauri, used to say. She lived in California, where she was doing okay, according to her occasional letters or cards. A few times she’d sent some e-mails, with photographs of her and some guy she was dating. Gary, Quinn thought his name was. There were palm trees in the backgrounds of all the photos, as if she was trying to make a point. She’d never return to New York.

Quinn wondered if Lauri and Jody would get along.

Separated by a continent, it was possible that they would never meet.

Made melancholy by such thoughts, Quinn considered phoning Renz and seeing if the NYPD had any new information that might help in the investigation. It could be a good idea to remind Renz that information flowed both ways.

On the other hand, it was always annoying to talk with Renz. If Renz wanted to pass on information to Quinn, he’d call, so why should Quinn subject himself to having to listen to the conniving and ambitious commissioner?

Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to Renz? Such encounters left an odor of corruption and had a lasting effect, like radioactive garbage.

Quinn decided it would be better to feel melancholy.

Renz lay on his back in the hotel room bed, still panting. He knew if he didn’t start losing weight, sex with Olivia would kill him. He grinned. On the other hand, if he kept having sex with Olivia he was bound to lose weight. Hell, Olivia might kill a healthy man.

He could hear Olivia tinkering around in the bathroom, then the faint hiss of the shower. Renz wondered if she had another appointment booked. He knew Olivia was one of the highest-paid call girls in the city, though he never found out exactly how much she charged. That was because she was free for Renz, as long as he kept the vice squad away from the supposedly honest escort service where she was employed. It was odd, Renz sometimes thought, how the fact that no money changed hands made things different. A real relationship had developed. For Renz, anyway. He wasn’t sure about Olivia Dupree, which wasn’t her real name.

He knew her real name, and more than that about her.

Olive Krantz had been raised by strict Baptist parents in St. Louis, where she started getting into trouble with the police when she was fourteen. By the time she was eighteen, marijuana possession and peace disturbance had become breaking and entering and prostitution. Even at fourteen she’d looked more like a beautiful woman than a teenager. By eighteen she’d been devastating. And she’d devastated the lives of two mall security guards who were caught on video exchanging merchandise for sex. The woman in the grainy security camera video hadn’t been identifiable, and Olive Krantz had walked away without being charged.

She apparently liked prostitution, and before she was twenty she was in New York, working for one of the big escort agencies. She was twenty-nine now, and probably rich in her own right, because she’d never been a fool.