John Lutz - Darker Than Night

In fact, it was exactly that kind of smile. She knew where she’d seen it before: while walking past a mirror in the bedroom of the sister of a murdered child, when she’d unexpectedly glimpsed it on her own face. It had scared her a little then. It scared her now.

And Pearl wondered, how did Quinn know so much about doors?

Marcy Graham got home from work before Ron. The subway had been a mob scene, and the first train had been so crowded she had to wait for a second. To add to her ordeal, some oaf in a big rush had stepped on her toe as she’d been climbing the steps to the street.

Tired, overheated, irritated, she sat down on the sofa and worked her shoes off. She examined her ankles, which were as swollen as she thought they’d be after a hard day on three-inch heels. The toes of her left foot, which was slightly larger than her right, felt as if they’d been pressed together in a vise. Dressing for success was dressing for discomfort.

Marcy sat and massaged her sore, stockinged feet for a while, then realized she was thirsty. Probably dehydrated after the struggle with crowds and summer heat on her way home.

It seemed too warm in the apartment. She stood up, leaving her shoes lying on their sides on the floor, and padded over to the thermostat. After edging the dial down a degree, she heard the air-conditioning click on. The apartment could be a cool refuge, and would be soon.

It was freshly painted and comfortably furnished. The advance Ron had gotten on his new position at work had been well spent, even if maybe too hastily. Decorating the apartment, buying new clothes they’d both need if they were to stay in style, then paying off old debts, had left the checking account almost in the red.

Marcy swallowed dryly, reminding herself of her thirst.

Feeling a rush of cold air from an overhead vent, she made her way into the kitchen. She was pretty sure there were some diet Cokes in the refrigerator.

And there they were on the bottom shelf, a six-pack, the cans still joined by their plastic harness.

As Marcy worked one of the cold cans loose, then straightened to close the refrigerator door, she noticed a wedge of Norstrum Gouda cheese, her favorite to spread on crackers for snacks. It was shrink-wrapped and unopened, yet she was sure she’d eaten some since the last time she’d bought groceries at the D’Agostino.

She pulled open the plastic meat-and-cheese drawer and saw a half-consumed wedge alongside a plastic container of leftover meatballs. She shrugged. Apparently, she’d bought two wedges when she last shopped. That should be all right. Did cheese ever really go bad? Might it be the only thing in the world that didn’t?

Sipping soda from the can, she went into the bedroom, bending down adroitly to pick up her shoes on the way. It would feel good to ditch the panty hose and get into some cool slacks and a sleeveless blouse. She removed her gray skirt and blazer, then sat on the bed and peeled off her panty hose. After draping skirt and blazer on a hanger, she took off her blouse and dropped it in a white wicker clothes hamper. She extended her elbows out and back, in a practiced gesture made somehow graceful, and unhooked her bra, then slipped it off. Bra and panties followed the blouse into the hamper. Nude now, she went to her dresser to get another pair of panties.

When she opened her lingerie drawer, there was a small, flowered box of chocolates. It was lying on top of her folded panties. No note. No card. No explanation.

She picked up the box and examined it more closely. The plastic encasing it hadn’t been disturbed, and it was an expensive brand.

A gift from Ron?

Not likely. She remembered the dustup over the coat.

Yet the chocolates had to be from Ron. Who else had access to the apartment, to her dresser drawers? And, in truth, the leather jacket that caused all that trouble had to have come from Ron. Unless she bought into the weird idea that Ira, the salesclerk at Tambien’s, had a way into the apartment and harbored a compelling crush on her. But the truth was, there wasn’t any way Ira could even know where she lived.

Ron. It must have been Ron. But what was going on? Did he have some kind of mental glitch? He’d been under strain with the new position. Marcy knew people weren’t always logical. They did do inexplicable things and then sometimes denied them even to themselves-like that girl where she used to work who sent people to various addresses for deals on clothes and jewelry. Only the addresses weren’t real, and the shops and people she referred to didn’t exist except in her mind. Ron’s little eccentricity wasn’t as serious as that.

So, if he had a kind of mental hitch in his thinking, leaving her gifts and not remembering, what was the harm? It was probably only temporary. So why should she-

Marcy heard the door from the hall open and close. Ron. He was home!

It took her only a second to decide not to mention the chocolates. It sure hadn’t helped to show him the coat.

She shoved the box beneath her folded panties and closed the dresser drawer.

Just in time. His shadow rippled over the carpet as he approached the bedroom doorway.

“There you are,” he said, smiling when he saw she was nude, in the middle of changing clothes. “I bought you something.”

He tossed her a glittering object and she caught it. Almost weightless. A thin gold bracelet with a tiny diamond in a plain setting.

“Don’t think it’s real. Some guy on the street was selling them, and I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s beautiful.” She slipped it on her wrist, then rotated it before her as if she were on the Home Shopping Network. Fully clothed, of course.

He watched her, obviously enjoying her pleasure. “It’s a pretty well-made knockoff. Either that or it was a hell of a sale.”

Marcy went to him and kissed him on the lips, and after a few seconds felt him return the kiss. His arm slipped around, behind her bare back. He truly did love her. So maybe he did have this strange compulsion to buy her gifts, sometimes anonymously.

She could live with that.

Quinn finished the last of his spaghetti and used his half-eaten roll to sop up sauce from his plate. He was in his sister Michelle’s dining room. She had a spacious-by New York standards-apartment on the West Side with a river view. Never having seen a floater gaffed like a fish and hauled to shore, she obviously didn’t think about what Quinn did when she looked at the river.

About once a month she’d invite Quinn over for dinner and prepare spaghetti using an old family recipe for the sauce. Quinn had become tired of the recipe, which called for too much garlic, but he always made it a point to eat all that was served. His sister had been his lifeline to a world where he could hold his head up, and he didn’t want to insult her. Besides, the apartment, furnished in expensive modern, was a welcome change from his usual surroundings, and Michelle always served a good red wine with her meals.

Though she ate out most of the time, Quinn knew she enjoyed cooking. Michelle had lived in a lesbian relationship with a woman named Marti in Vermont until six years ago. She’d told Quinn about it after their parents were both dead, not long after the passing of their father. Both their father and mother would have been horrified if they’d known the truth about her, or so Michelle assumed. Quinn, who’d seen the full range of the human spectrum as a New York cop, didn’t give it much thought. As far as he was concerned, Michelle’s sex life was none of his business.

When Marti had been struck by a car and killed only months later, Michelle returned to New York and put her formidable mathematical ability and her Harvard M.B.A. to work. She was deeply involved now with her job and her computer. Quinn didn’t know anything about her love life and didn’t ask. Anyway, he was in more of a position to be stoned than to cast the first one.