Len Levinson - Without Mercy

“Can you come with me now?” Rackman asked gently.

Fournier nodded. They stood and Rackman led the way out of the bar. They got into his car and drove downtown, wondering where the killer was and why he was knifing prostitutes. On lower Broadway, he figured Fournier had recovered his composure sufficiently to be of use.

“Mr. Fournier, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

Fournier reflected for a few moments, as they passed dark factory buildings. “Go ahead, m’sieu.”

“Did you or your wife know a woman named Cynthia Doyle?”

“Cynthia Doyle? No.”

“Your wife was killed by a big heavyset man about my height, with short black hair. He wore a red and black wool jacket. Do you know such a person?”

“No.”

“Can you remember seeing such a person recently?”

“I do not think so.”

Rackman stopped his unmarked Plymouth in front of a white east side apartment building that looked like an upended carton of a dozen eggs. It was fifteen minutes after midnight and he’d just dropped Fournier off at his hotel. Fournier had identified Rene LeDoux, alias Rene Fournier, in the morgue. It seemed certain that the same person had killed Cynthia Doyle and Rene LeDoux, but they still had no solid leads.

Rackman pulled down his Official Police Investigation sign and got out of the car. The doorman recognized him and said hello. Rackman got into the elevator, rode to the third floor, and knocked on Francie’s door.

She opened it and gave him a cross look. Wearing jeans and a white blouse, she was slim with large breasts, auburn hair, and finely chiseled Anglo-Saxon features. Rackman thought she resembled Greta Garbo a little.

“Hi baby,” he said, kissing her cheek.

She looked away. “I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

“How could anyone ever forget about you?”

“You’re not even in the door yet and already you’re bullshitting me.”

“I’m not bullshitting you.”

“You know very well that you hardly ever think about me.”

“I think about you all the time, but I’m busy.”

“Nobody could possibly be that busy.”

She led him past the tank of tropical fish into her living room, which doubled as her bedroom. She’d been sitting on her red corduroy sofa reading a script. At the age of thirty-two she still was taking acting classes and workshops, still hoping for her big break. Across the room against the far wall, in an elaborate plastic apparatus of tubes, boxes, and treadmills, was her pet hamster, Ziggy, looking at him.

He sat on the sofa and took out a cigarette. The atmosphere was laden with frustration and repressed anger. The look in her eyes hit him like a blast of arctic air.

“Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She went to the kitchen, futzed around, returned with a bourbon and water, and placed it on the coffee table before him. Then she sat so far over on the opposite side of the sofa that if she had moved over a few more inches she’d have fallen over the armrest onto the floor.

He sipped the whiskey and puffed his cigarette. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“I think it’s time that we had a talk about our relationship and where it’s going,” she said.

“That’s all we ever talk about, Francie.”

“I think you’re afraid to have a real relationship with me.”

“Here we go again.”

“I think you’ve been traumatized by the relationships you’ve had with your wives and now you’re afraid of women.”

“I’m very busy, Francie. I don’t have much time for seeing people.”

“That’s only an excuse. If people like each other they find time to get together.”

“I work fourteen hours a day. People are killing each other without letup out there. Did you read in the paper about the girl who got her throat cut in an alley on the west side the other night?”

“I don’t read those kinds of papers,” she said haughtily, for she read only Variety, Backstage, and Show Business.

“Well that’s the case I’m working on now. It’s not easy to track down a killer like that.”

“The truth is that you don’t care very much about me.”

“We’ve been over this a million times. If I didn’t care for you I wouldn’t be here.”

“You come here twice a month, and that’s it.”

“I don’t have much time.”

“Of course, because this relationship doesn’t mean very much to you.”

“It does too. It’s the only relationship I’ve got. The problem is that you’re not doing anything with your life and you expect me to come around and make everything okay for you. But I can’t make everything okay for you. You’re the only one who can do that.”

Her eyes flashed. “What do you mean I’m not doing anything with my life? I go to acting classes every day, and I go to the gym, and I go to auditions! You always say I’m not doing anything with my life, but I’m doing more than you! And I go to group every Tuesday night, and I’m writing a book on nutrition with my chiropractor!”

“If you’re so busy, why do you want me around all the time to pat your head and play kissy face?”

“Is that the way you see it? Just patting me on the head and playing kissy face? You’re a grown man, but you don’t know what love is. I feel sorry for you.”

“The kind of love you’re talking about is ridiculous. You should have grown out of it by now.”

“Maxwell says you’re afraid of a real relationship.” Maxwell was her psychiatrist.

“Fuck Maxwell.”

“Don’t you talk about Maxwell that way!”

“I think he’s an asshole, and you’re a bigger asshole because you’re paying him forty dollars a week. If you kept that money you could afford an apartment with a bedroom.”

“If I got an apartment with a bedroom, would you stay with me more often?”

“How should I know?”

She slid closer to him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and kissed his cheek. “I love you so much, Danny. Why can’t you love me too?”

“Because I don’t believe in that crazy horseshit anymore. It’s okay for movies and television but for real life it can ruin you.”

“You’re not romantic at all.”

“You can say that again.”

“Don’t you care about me?”

“Of course I care about you.”

He turned to her, kissed her fragrant throat, and moved toward her ear. She pulled away quickly.

“All you ever come over here for is to get laid,” she said coldly.

“What’s the matter with that?”

“It makes me feel shitty.”

“Don’t you like to fuck me?”

“You’re the best sex I’ve ever had in my life,” she said, and melted in his arms.

They lay side by side on the sofa, pecking each other’s lips, tasting tongues.

“I love you, Danny,” she whispered.

“I know it.”

“Maxwell said I shouldn’t settle for relationships that aren’t what I want.”

“Why don’t you just keep on with me the way we’ve been going, and give up Maxwell.”

“I couldn’t give up Maxwell!”

“You’re a grown woman but you can’t make a move unless you talk it over first with that asshole.”

“He’s a very intelligent, aware, caring man.”

“Then why don’t you go out with him?”

“He’s married!”

“I’ll bet his wife is breaking his balls right now just like you’re breaking mine.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll stop. You just tell me what kind of relationship you want to have with me, and that’s what we’ll have.”

“Why don’t we just continue whatever it is that we have, and if you find somebody you like better than me, go ahead out with him.”