Len Levinson - Without Mercy

“Larry please?” said a man.

“Larry?” she said.

“I think I got the wrong number.” The man hung up.

Dorothy returned the phone to the cradle. “What time is it?”

“Five after six,” said Rackman. “The calls really should start coming in now.”

The phone rang, and Dorothy picked it up. “Hello?”

“Kim?” asked a man.

“Speaking.”

“Is your ad for real?”

“Yep.”

“You can’t be very pretty if you’re advertising in the paper.”

“You might be surprised if you saw me.”

“Pleasantly surprised?”

“Uh huh. How much do you weigh, honey?”

“Three hundred and five.”

“Oh, you sound like a nice one.”

“How much do you weigh?” he asked.

“A hundred and ten.”

“I’ll crush your bones, kid.”

“Oh no you won’t.”

“Where are you now?”

“Home.”

“Where’s that?”

“I live near Central Park on the West Side. You want to meet me?”

“Why not?”

“How about in front of the Coliseum. We can have a cup of coffee in one of the little restaurants in the neighborhood.”

“Why don’t you just come over to my place? I got tons of coffee over here.”

“I’d rather get to know you in neutral territory first.”

“I can dig that. What time?”

“How about seven-thirty tonight?”

“You’re on. By the way, my name’s Walter.”

“Hi Walter. What’ll you be wearing?” “A blue business suit. I’ll go to the Coliseum directly from my office.” “See you then, Walter.” “Bye-bye, baby.”

Dorothy left Midtown North at seven o’clock, accompanied by Rackman, Olivero, and Dancy. They got into Rackman’s car and headed for Lincoln Center, where the first meeting would take place. Thereafter there’d be meetings at every half hour until ten o’clock, when they’d return to Midtown North and Dorothy would take some more calls.

Rackman parked the car in a lot a few blocks from Lincoln Center, and they split up. Dorothy would go directly to the fountain and wait for the first guy, while Rackman and the other detectives would cover the plaza from different angles. When a fat man in a black raincoat approached Dorothy, they’d swoop in on him and take him into custody.

Rackman’s route took him to Tenth Avenue, and he entered the Lincoln Center complex through the entrance near the Vivian Beaumont Theater on Sixty-seventh Street. He stopped next to the pool in front of the theater and looked at the Henry Moore sculpture in the water, trying to figure out what it was supposed to represent. A kid with a beard was taking a picture of it, and Rackman looked at his watch. It was only seven-fifteen and there was plenty of time, but the first fat man might show up early, and if he was Kowalchuk, Rackman wanted to be ready for him.

He lit a cigarette and walked beside Avery Fisher Hall to the plaza, weaving among the benches and the bushes planted in concrete. He reached the plaza and looked at the fountain in its center. It was thirty yards away and he could see Dorothy sitting at the rim with her legs crossed. Johnny Olivero leaned against a pillar in front of the State Theater in his special barrio outfit of jeans, sneakers, a red nylon jacket, and a denim cap turned around backwards. In the corner at the other end of Avery Fisher Hall, Dancy was looking at posters of upcoming concerts while smoking his pipe. He looked like the type of person who attended concerts at Lincoln Center, which in fact he was. Rackman thought Dancy looked least like a cop than any cop he knew.

The square was covered, and Rackman looked at a poster advertising an upcoming performance of Aida. Turning to the plaza, he scanned quickly for a fat man in a black raincoat, but couldn’t spot him yet. It probably was too early. A uniformed member of the Lincoln Center security force zipped by on his three-wheeled scooter, making sure local kids didn’t pick the pockets of the tourists. Jenkins hadn’t notified the security force that there might be a little excitement near the fountain at seven o’clock, because he knew they’d start behaving suspiciously, and that might tip off the Slasher.

Rackman meandered around the plaza, looking at the buildings and hoping he appeared like the other people wandering around. It was a warm sunny day and a lot of people were here, just hanging around or waiting to go into one of the theaters. Rackman touched his blazer jacket where it covered his service revolver. It was loaded and ready to go. He hoped this first guy would be the Slasher, but knew the odds were against it. Maybe the Slasher was too cautious to answer an ad in the New York Review of Sex. But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was a sucker, and anyway, they had to do something to get him. Nothing else had worked, and this wasn’t the sort of case that was solved by an informant. The Slasher was a loner and somehow they had to draw him out. Rackman remembered the Buffalo Butcher, who’d gotten away with twenty-one murders. The Slasher already had five, and they couldn’t let him get anymore. He’d broken his pattern by killing Doolan and his old girl friend. His next victim could be anybody.

Rackman walked to the fountain and looked at the water gushing into the air. He glanced at Dorothy, their eyes met for a split second, then they looked away again. To Rackman’s left were three Puerto Rican kids listening to a portable radio, and to his right was a scruffy couple in their mid-twenties smooching. He thought of Francie. Oh Lord, what am I going to do about Francie?

He saw the fat man in the black raincoat coming up the steps next to the State Theater.

Olivero had spotted him but Dancy and Dorothy were looking in other directions. The fat man reminded Rackman of Jackie Gleason as he walked toward the fountain, his hands in the pockets of his raincoat and his head hunched down in his collar. His black and white checkered cap was worn with the visor high on his forehead. He didn’t look like he could harm a flea but Jack the Ripper probably looked harmless too.

Olivero was following the fat man across the Plaza, and Dancy had seen him now and was moving toward the fountain too. Dorothy looked directly at the fat man.

Rackman decided that there was no point in letting this guy get too close to Dorothy. He pushed away from the fountain, flicked his cigarette into the air, and walked toward the fat man. He sauntered, with his hands in his pockets and his head toward the ground, heading a few feet to the right of the fat man who was halfway across the plaza now. Olivero and Dancy saw what Rackman was up to and were converging on the fat man too. Rackman glanced up at the fat man and saw that he was looking at the fountain eagerly, unmindful of the NYPD closing in on him.

When Rackman got close to the fat man, he side-stepped in front of him, drew his revolver, and said loudly: “Freeze!”

The fat man blinked in disbelief at the Smith & Wesson .38 pointed at his gut.

Rackman whipped out his shield. “Police! Don’t move a muscle!”

Olivero came at him from the right. “Put your hands in front of you—quick!”

The fat man blanched as he held out his hands, and Olivero snapped the cuffs on him. Dancy felt for hidden weapons and Rackman looked at his face, but he didn’t look anything like the photo of Kowalchuk.

A crowd was forming around them, and Dorothy joined them.

“What’s going on here?” the fat man asked in a hesitant, high-pitched voice.

“Just do what you’re told and you’ll be all right.”

They marched him across the plaza and into the lobby of the State Theater, where they showed their shields to the security man on duty, an elderly black man.