John Lutz - Darker Than Night

Michelle poured them both another glass of the excellent Australian red she’d found, probably on the Internet, and surveyed Quinn over the dirty dishes and what was left of the salad and hard-crusted rolls. Four years older than Quinn, she’d put on weight and was a big woman now, but still more large-boned than fat. Though she looked more like their mother, she shared Quinn’s square jaw and green eyes. Also his unruly brown hair, which she wore almost as short as his but in a considerably neater style.

“You going to take me into your confidence?” she asked.

“Are you kidding?”

He filled her in on his thinking about the Elzner case.

She stared at him for a moment, then asked, “What about your partners? What sort of people are they?”

She’d met Fedderman years ago and liked him. Quinn told her about Pearl.

“Sounds like the type who thinks outside the box,” she said.

He knew she wasn’t talking about Fedderman, the good, stolid cop. “There are some who’d like to put her in a box. I think she’s a damned fine detective, but she’s got a temper and a political tin ear.”

Michelle grinned. “And doesn’t that sound familiar?”

“Also,” Quinn said, “I’m still not completely sure I can trust her.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Only because Renz assigned her to me, and I know I can’t trust Renz. It’s possible that part of her job is to keep him informed about me.”

“Spy on you?” Michelle was never one to equivocate.

“Yeah, you could use that word.”

“I suppose it’s something to keep in mind.”

“On the other hand, Renz might simply have assigned her to me because she’s-”

“A fuckup.”

“Well, she might seem so to him, but she really isn’t that. She has…maybe too much character.”

“Ah. You like her.”

“Sure. You can’t help but like her. But lots of people liked Hitler before he became Hitler.”

“Hitler, huh?” Michelle leaned back in her chair and sipped wine, regarding him over the crystal rim.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Figuring the odds.”

“Like always,” Quinn said. He didn’t have to ask her about the object of her figuring.

He finished his wine, then stood up to clear the table.

It was past nine when Quinn got back to his apartment and found his phone ringing.

He shut the door behind him, crossed the living room in three long strides, and scooped up the receiver.

“It’s Harley,” Renz said after Quinn’s hello. So now they were on a first-name basis. “I got some info for you, Quinn.” Almost first-name basis.

“Will I like it?”

“Doesn’t matter. Info’s info. And does it matter what you like?”

“I hope that’s a rhetorical question.”

“Or what you hope? Anyway, I talked to my source in the lab. Marks on the gun that was in Martin Elzner’s dead hand were definitely made by a sound suppressor attached to the barrel. They’re consistent with a Metzger eight hundred model, a rare sort of one-size-fits-all for semiautomatic handguns.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Neither did I, but then neither of us is a silencer expert. Turns out it’s a cheap unit made in China and marketed mostly mail order. Not a lot of them are sold. They advertise in magazines for gun nuts and guys who see themselves as soldiers of fortune and other kinds of armed romantic figures.”

“What with the big market in used guns and gun gear, it could be difficult to trace even though it’s not a popular item.”

“Yep, it mighta changed hands ten times at gun shows, or was sold from car trunks.” Renz seemed almost happy about the odds. That Harley! “On the other hand, we can try. I’ll keep you informed.”

Quinn thanked Renz and hung up, thinking it was hard enough to find a particular gun in this wide world, much less a silencer.

But if searching for it helped to silence Renz even a little bit, the Metzger 800 was still doing its job.

Pearl had a late supper alone in her apartment, a Weight Watchers chicken dinner washed down with scotch and water. My own worst enemy.

She rinsed out the empy glass and replaced it in the cabinet, and dumped what was left of the dinner into the trash. Dishes done.

Sometimes she wondered what her life would be like if Vern Shults had lived. They’d been very much in love when they were twenty, or Pearl had thought so. What was left of her family had ostracized her for becoming engaged to a devout Catholic. How devout even Pearl hadn’t guessed. Vern had announced to her one night after sex that he was breaking their engagement; he’d decided to study for the priest-hood.

A week later, he’d been found dead in his bathtub, drowned after apparently falling and striking his head. Leaving Pearl as alone as a woman could be alone.

God moving in His mysterious circles. Pearl trapped in the celestial geometry.

Where she remained trapped.

She watched TV for a while, then didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, so she got the glass back down from the cabinet.

Marcy Graham couldn’t sleep, knowing the anonymous gift of a box of Godiva chocolates was only about ten feet away in one of her dresser drawers, not fifteen feet away from her sleeping husband. She remembered how unreasonable he’d been about the leather jacket from Tambien’s, the problems it had caused.

Even if the chocolates were from Ron, he might not admit it. Or for some reason she couldn’t understand, he might not even remember leaving them for her.

Marcy waited until her nerve built, then quietly climbed out of bed and opened her dresser drawer. Moving silently, she removed the box of chocolates and carried it into the kitchen.

She couldn’t resist opening the box and sampling one of the chocolates.

Delicious! Light caramel with a cream center.

She ate another before closing the box and sliding it into the trash can beneath the sink. Then she tore off a paper towel and placed it over the box so it wouldn’t be visible to Ron if by chance he decided to throw away something.

When she returned to the bedroom, she carefully slipped back into bed and lay awake awhile, listening to Ron’s deep, even breathing.

She was sure he was still asleep.

She felt safe now.

He didn’t anger easily. He was beyond that.

He’d thought.

He paced silently. This was an insult, a rejection. A thoughtless, callous act. Who wouldn’t anger at the sting? Sting at the slap?

There was no reason to fear making too much noise as he paced. The steady, reverberating buzzing covered the slight sound of his soft-soled shoes on the tiles.

The buzzing, in fact, seemed to be growing louder and was getting under his skin. Where’s it coming from? What’s its source? He’d checked outside, but there was nothing in sight that might be making such a relentless sound. And inside the building no one seemed to be cleaning their carpets or running an appliance without cessation.

The buzzing continued. It was almost as if he were trapped in the confines of a small space and being observed by some gigantic, predatory winged insect that threatened him, that could almost reach him with its painful and paralyzing venom, that would never give up because it knew that eventually it would reach him.

Black…black…

The sound became even louder and more piercing, a buzzing that tripped the frequencies of his body and caused a terrifying vibration in every cell. A buzzing like death and dying. The buzzing of ending and becoming. Of the swarming insects of decay and the whirring of buzzards’ wings, of bees and wasps in the damp and dark of the underground. Beelzebub…

He knew if he didn’t do something it would make him scream. And if he screamed…