John Lutz - Pulse

“I figured you’d want to see me,” he said to Renz, “after I heard.”

“Where’d you hear?” Renz asked.

“Word gets around on the street. ’Specially about somebody like Olivia. She was one of Harry Primo’s stable.” Tennyson shrugged in his many-pocketed vest, as if to say, These things happen. It made Renz mad, this blase attitude toward someone he… something that had been his.

“Why would you think Primo had her killed?”

“Christ, I didn’t say I thought that. Did somebody have her killed, you think?”

“We both know she was killed,” Renz said.

“In a legal sense? As in homicide?”

“That’s a good question.”

Renz had given it some thought. Olivia had been sleeping with the police commissioner, which had been good for Olivia. And in fact good for Tennyson, who was holding the information over Renz’s head so he could convince Renz to use his influence to Tennyson’s advantage. Olivia-Renz had finally come to accept-had gone deeper and deeper into heroin and had been getting mouthy and untrustworthy. She’d become an increasing danger to the status quo. Tennyson had known that. So had Olivia’s employer, Harry Primo. Love being blind, Renz hadn’t.

The way Olivia had died made Tennyson’s information even more potentially damaging to Renz, who could easily fall into the category of suspect. And of course Primo might have killed her to silence her.

Renz knew he hadn’t killed Olivia, so almost surely it was one of the other two men. Or, unlikely as it seemed, her overdose really had been accidental.

So here Renz sat, uncertain.

One thing was for sure. It was in all three men’s interest that Olivia’s affair with Renz should fade into the past with Olivia.

“It’s a damned shame, what happened to her,” Tennyson said. Pushing already, as if he was clean and without motive in Olivia’s death. He’d catch on soon enough that the game was mutually assured destruction. That’s what would tamp down the danger of the dead woman in the hotel room.

Renz understood that Olivia’s death would remain a mystery. Everyone involved had to understand that. Everyone but her killer.

“Her death should go down as accidental,” he said, not looking directly at Tennyson.

“Wasn’t that what happened? Women like that, sometimes they just get enough of the business, and there’s no other way for them to quit. Shit bums like Primo see to that.”

“That’s God’s truth,” Renz said. “What’s Harry Primo think of all this?”

“Not much one way or the other. Primo loses an Olivia or two every year.”

Renz suppressed a surge of grief and anger. “I suppose.” It was amazing, he thought, the way the truth could be bent and the past revised.

“I was thinking it’d be nice to work plainclothes.” Tennyson smiled. “I’m getting tired of dressing like a bum and not showering. Of course, nobody’s ever completely clean.”

“Nobody’s ever out of danger.”

“That’s not quite the same thing.”

“I’ll see about the plainclothes assignment,” Renz said. “Over in Queens. Plenty of white-collar investigations there.”

“That’d be fine. Maybe you could replace me with Weaver. I been seeing her around lately, out of uniform, almost like she was tailing me. She’d make a great decoy, playing the whore. If you could keep her from actually screwing the suspects.”

“It’s a thought.”

“I was onto her from the beginning and she knows nothing,” Tennyson said. “I guarantee that.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“For all of us.” Tennyson hitched his thumbs into his vest and moved toward the door. Before going out, he turned. “Sorry again about Olivia.”

Renz didn’t move for a while, thinking about Tennyson. His suggestion about Weaver was worth considering. Weaver as a decoy hooker. Like typecasting.

In the offices of Enders and Coil was what Jody could only think of as a subdued celebration.

Mildred Dash’s death solved a lot of problems.

Jack Enders, holding what looked like a scotch on the rocks, leaned toward Jody in passing and whispered, “ Deus ex machina.” He grinned. “Know what that means?”

“I think it’s Latin for ‘We didn’t have to kill her,’ ” Jody said.

Enders moved away, holding the grin for her benefit.

Joseph Coil edged up to Jody and beamed down at her. “You feeling okay? You look a little pale.”

“My stomach’s a bit upset,” Jody said.

“The excitement, maybe.” He took a sip of whatever he was drinking. It looked like water. “Listen, Jody, I know this case was of particular interest to you. That you even had a special sympathy for Mildred Dash. You might find it difficult to believe, but we all felt that way about her. At least most of us.”

“The law is the law,” Jody said.

Coil looked at her seriously. “No, Jody, it isn’t.”

Dollie the receptionist squeezed past them, bumping Coil’s elbow so some of his drink spilled on Jody’s arm. Unaware that she’d caused the problem, Dollie continued on her way.

Coil took the napkin he’d been using to hold his glass and patted Jody’s arm dry.

“You do look rather peaked,” he said. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Rest up. Give it a new start tomorrow.”

Jody smiled at him and nodded. There was no way to dislike this man on a personal level, even if he was a highway robber.

“I think I will,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Take in a show tonight,” Coil suggested. “Forget about this.”

“Maybe I will. Something with a happy ending.”

“It all depends what kind of ticket you buy,” Coil said, raising his glass to her and showing her his back.

Meaning my future is my choice.

Everything everybody said in this place seemed to have at least a double meaning. As if life were a courtroom and their words would be reviewed on appeal, and God help them if they were too honest and plainspoken.

Jody was getting tired of that delicate verbal dance and the alertness and dexterity it demanded.

What the hell aren’t they telling me?

She didn’t go out to a play or swoon into a faint after leaving the firm’s ghoulish celebration. Where Jody went after leaving Enders and Coil was to the Meeding Properties demolition site.

Meeding had obviously been prepared and wasted no time. Mildred Dash’s possessions had been removed from her apartment and put in storage, in case an heir chose to claim them. Where her apartment had stood was nothing but a cracked concrete slab.

The development company seemed to have sprung to work only moments after Mildred’s death. No doubt on the advice of Enders and Coil, they’d made sure the deed was done before any possible sort of stay could be issued.

The block-long wound in the landscape was now unbroken by anything higher than three feet. Yellow bulldozers were scooping up dirt and debris and dropping it into the beds of sturdy-looking trucks. The trucks bounced and shuddered as each mass of weight suddenly crashed down with the metallic clang of the dozer blades. Then they emitted much roaring and clouds of dark exhaust and drove away. Workers in hard hats stood off to the side, leaning on shovels and conferring like wise men witnessing some solemn event.

Well, they were right about that. The end of Mildred Dash’s long struggle, everything she’d fought for being devoured by yellow monsters, was indeed somber. Unfair and final and debasing. As far as the eye could see was the mud of defeat.

A short, heavy woman with a round, seamed face like a withered apple approached Jody. She was wearing joggers, jeans, and a T-shirt. At first Jody assumed she was one of the workers and was too careless to wear her hard hat. She looked familiar, but Jody couldn’t place her.