John Lutz - Pulse

“Okay. How could he get in?”

“Key. I leave my spare key under my doormat out in the hall.”

“That’s the first place anyone would look, Linda.”

“Right. And when I get home I always look to make sure the key’s still there. If it is, that means nobody’s used it to get inside. Then I’m not afraid to go in.”

Grace wasn’t going to cross swords over that one. “Was the key under the mat the day you saw the man in your apartment?”

“Of course not. So I used my key and went in. I was going to see him, talk to him, make sure he was real. But he was already halfway out the window.”

Something with countless legs crawled up Grace Moore’s spine. “Did he say anything before he left?”

“No. He was more interested in getting out of there. He left the key, though. I found it on the corner of the kitchen table. I put it back under the mat.” Linda laced her fingers behind her head and regarded the doctor. “Now you’re wondering, was there really a man? Might he even have followed Linda here? Or is this simply more of Linda’s usual paranoiac bullshit?”

Grace smiled. “Of course you’re right.”

“I get so tired of not being believed.”

“I didn’t say I disbelieved you.”

“Word games. I bet you’re good at Scrabble.”

“I’m unbeatable,” Grace said.

“Well, you’ve never played anyone crazy.”

“But I have. Maybe someday you and I can-”

“No. You probably know too many seven-letter words.”

“You know you do sometimes hallucinate. And you don’t always take your meds as prescribed. It’s easy to forget. And you do hear voices. So what makes you think-”

“If he hadn’t been real, don’t you think I would have given him a voice?”

Grace was a bit startled by that observation, because it was a reasonable question. “Let’s make him this real,” she said. “I think you should find a better place for your spare key.”

“Then I wouldn’t know if it was dangerous to go inside the apartment. I’d no longer have my key-nary in the mine shaft, if you know what I mean.”

“I do. And it’s good you still have your sense of humor.”

“If I didn’t have that I’d go cra-hey, wait a minute!”

Grace had to laugh. Linda was, in her own way, often the brightest person in the room.

“The son of a bitch is real,” Linda said. “Believe it.”

Dr. Moore knew better.

I t was cool and dim in the lounge off the Lumineux Hotel’s lobby. The lounge featured lots of black leather, tinted glass, and brushed aluminum. A few business types sat here and there, talking deals, making excuses, their drinks before them like ceremonial potions on square white coasters. Futures could be made or lost here in ways profound but barely noticeable.

The killer sat at the bar and periodically checked his watch. Linda Brooks hadn’t suspected he was following her. At first he’d thought she might enter the hotel, which could have provided some interesting aspects. Each quarry was, after all, an adventure.

Instead, she’d walked past the hotel and entered the Cartling Towers, a glass and steel monstrosity adjacent to the Lumineux. He’d managed to squeeze into the crowded elevator she’d ridden to a high floor, and exited after she did, turning the other way in the hall and then stopping and watching which door she entered. He could perform that maneuver adroitly and without attracting attention. He’d had practice.

A psychiatrist’s office. Wonderful!

He glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes before the hour, so it was likely she had an appointment.

Linda had entered the office of a Dr. Grace Moore, according to the brass lettering on the door. So probably she was under analysis, learning to cope with her problems. She hadn’t realized her primary problem was close behind her, watching the play of her nylon-clad calf muscles as she strode in her high heels, the pendulum sway of her hips, the graceful elbows-in swing of her lissome arms.

He made a study of her, as he did with all of them.

The killer considered entering the doctor’s office, perhaps taking a seat in the waiting room, if there was one. Pretending, if necessary, that he’d accidentally entered the wrong office. Linda wouldn’t recognize him. Not for sure. She’d only seen him from a distance, and then only briefly. He’d never moved in close without being positive he wasn’t spotted. And she’d never imagine he could pop up here, of all places.

He would artfully make his exit while her mind was still working and wondering, leaving her frightened and unknowing. Oh, he was tempted. It would be daring and fun and productive. And it would certainly confuse, and maybe rattle, her analyst. But he had second thoughts about that idea. It might be a mistake for her to see him in such close quarters.

This wasn’t the time to take risks. There was no reason to prod the increasingly muddled mind he was making uneasy, or to stir the will he would soon break. This hobby-oh well, obsession-of his fascinated in part because it always became a joint venture. Eventually his quarry would long for the suspense to end, and would join in the process.

Standing in the hall outside Dr. Grace Moore’s office door, he’d decided to have a drink at the bar in the hotel next door, and then go to Linda’s apartment while she was still on the couch-if her analyst actually used a couch-and rearrange some things in her refrigerator and medicine chest. Not drastically, but unmistakably, so she’d strongly suspect-but not know — that someone had been in her apartment during her absence.

He could picture her, still rattled by what she’d seen in the fridge, standing in front of the rearranged medicine cabinet where she’d gone to take one of her tranquilizers, and seeing the bottle of pills for some reason resting on the wrong shelf-and upside down. How soon she’d be off the track, almost immediately after a session with the good doctor. It would be enough to shake her faith in science.

He paid for his drink and dismounted his bar stool, then left the hotel and had the doorman hail a cab.

As he gave the driver a cross-street destination, he thought he might spend a little time in Linda’s apartment, go through some of her papers and perhaps find out why she was seeing a shrink. She’d be on the couch (if Dr. Grace Moore used a couch) at least another half hour or so, and it would take her a while to arrive even if she came straight home.

“Keep in touch with Quinn and Q and A,” Harley Renz told Nancy Weaver, “but I’ve got something else important, and confidential, I want you to do.”

Nancy Weaver, seated in one of the chairs angled toward Renz’s desk in the commissioner’s office, was keenly interested. And alert. She didn’t actually trust Renz. Not all the way. He’d sacrifice her in an NYPD minute if it suited his purpose. He was a valuable but tricky ally.

Knowing when to keep her mouth shut, Weaver waited silently for Renz to continue.

“There’s an undercover cop named Tennyson, working Vice in Midtown right now.”

Weaver came up with the vague image of a tall, lanky cop. “Jim Tennyson?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“Seen him around, is all.”

“Would he recognize you?”

“I doubt it.”

“Take precautions anyway.”

Weaver waited again, seemingly unconcerned. Renz would make known what sorts of precautions were necessary.

“I want you to put a loose tail on Tennyson, find out where he goes, who he sees. You’re going to have to be careful. He crosses paths with some pretty mean assholes.”

“When you say put a loose tail…”

“I mean you by yourself, Weaver. And whatever you learn, you’ll share with me and no one else. It’ll be worth your while.”