John Lutz - Night kills

"Scared," Fedderman said. "That's good."

"What's left of her stash might be running out," Quinn said.

"Also good."

"But pure hell for her."

"She took the elevator down," Fedderman said. "Far as we know, nobody forced her to get in."

"Meanwhile, let's go over the murder book on Ruth Malpass," Quinn said. "See if between us we can spot something useful, especially if it makes a closer connection to E-Bliss."

"Weaver?" Pearl said. "Weaver filling in for me?"

It wasn't out of the blue. Quinn had been expecting it.

"Weaver," he confirmed. He tried to use a tone of voice that would discourage Pearl from making a drama out of it.

Pearl wasn't crazy about seeing Officer Nancy Weaver brought in on the case. The two women didn't like each other, maybe because similarity bred contempt. And competition. Weaver and Pearl shared the same relentless approach to their work, as well as the same tendency to raise hackles. Weaver didn't have Pearl's short fuse, though. Quinn had to give her that.

"Weaver's back in uniform," Pearl said. "Got some shit-hole assignment over in Brooklyn. She got caught fooling around with a married lieutenant on the vice squad."

"Seems the place to do it," Fedderman said. "What the vice squad's all about."

Quinn wished Fedderman would take it easy. There was no point in detonating Pearl.

"That woman put the 'cop' in copulate," Pearl said.

"But she's good at what she does," Fedderman said. "Being a cop, I mean." He tried but failed to take a sip of his searingly hot coffee. "Almost at the boiling point," he said, looking at Pearl and not his coffee.

"All Weaver wants is to be promoted," Pearl said.

"I want her promoted, too," Quinn said, "if it's for helping us break this case. Weaver's got her flaws, but she's also smart and resourceful. Renz will put her back in plain clothes for this, and she'll work herself to the nub to stay there."

Pearl made a sniffing sound. "It's hard for Weaver to stay in any kind of clothes."

Fedderman gave her a pained look. "Give the woman a break, Pearl."

"Just don't give her any trouble," Quinn said in the voice he used to warn people. No mistaking it. Like God laying down the law from on high.

"You know me," Pearl said.

Some ringing phones are better left unanswered.

Victor had been alone in the offices of E-Bliss.org and fielded Maria Sanchez's phone call.

He was still pale and obviously angry when Palmer Stone walked in wearing one of his Armani suits and carrying his Hansom and Coach leather briefcase. Palmer was also wearing his usual handsome and benign expression, that of the kind sitcom father who'd never once raised hand nor voice to his make-believe wife and children.

"Something the matter, Victor?" he asked, with a concerned frown, as he set the briefcase alongside his desk and settled into his leather swivel chair. Victor might well have been his troubled son.

Victor, slumped on the sofa, stopped gnawing on his lower lip. "The Sanchez bitch phoned here a while ago, talked like she was crazy. Didn't even use her Madeline Scott name, called herself Maria. As if Maria Sanchez still actually existed somewhere."

The concerned frown, genuine now, stayed glued to Stone's symmetrical features. "I didn't expect to hear from her again. She seemed to understand the rules, and why they're necessary."

Once the new identity was assumed, there was no reason ever to contact E-Bliss.org again. It didn't exist anymore. The old identity no longer existed except here and there on paper or in obscure databases. Each special client was made to understand that that was the entire idea, to draw a line between an old and a new reality. Madeline Scott (Stone no longer allowed himself to think of her as Maria Sanchez) seemed smart enough to comprehend that. Seemed safe as a special client. Apparently she hadn't come as advertised. Stone felt himself getting disturbed and pushed the heat of his anger aside. Anger was an emotion he couldn't allow. Only one letter away from danger, he reminded himself. Bad for business in so many ways, anger.

Victor, Stone observed, seemed to still be angry over the phone call. Victor, who might himself be a potential problem. Stone wondered, would Gloria, if he asked, be able to deal with Victor?

A problem for another day. Here was Stone, worried about Victor's anger today.

"What did our troublesome special client want?" he asked Victor

"Said she wants the better apartment we promised her. She wants money. She wants us to live up to our end of the arrangement. She wants things to change. She wants, wants, wants!"

Stone smiled. "She wants quite a lot."

"No, I think she wants one thing," Victor said. "A fix."

Stone thought for a moment, then shook his head no. "Maria Sanchez couldn't be a drug addict. She was around the stuff, but not a user. Somebody like that, in her position, she wouldn't survive long if she even started to use."

"If it became a problem."

"It always becomes a problem," Stone said. "Or often enough that no chances are taken. People in the business know that going in."

"Maybe it was a problem that hadn't had time to develop enough to be noticeable."

Stone said nothing. That was a possibility. An unsettling one. The company might have inherited a nascent problem, only just beginning to become a monster.

"I know the signs, Palmer. I know how cokeheads talk, especially when they get desperate. The bitch was unhinged."

"I still say it's unlikely that drugs are the problem," Stone said.

"If she's not a head that hit the wall, she sure sounded like one. You should've heard her, Palmer. She was ranting like she was nuts. She had to be crazy to phone here in the first place."

Stone thought back to the poised young woman he himself had interviewed, to the background file reaching into her childhood. She'd been something of a revolutionary as a young girl, but a smart one. Near the top of her college class when she met her husband. Stone even knew her IQ, which was in the superior range. He remembered her correct and concise replies to his questions, the calm and appraising intelligence in her cool blue eyes.

Palmer Stone knew breeding and quality when he saw it. Maria Sanchez qualified.

"I'll phone and discuss things rationally with her," he said. "Don't worry, Victor, I can calm her down."

Victor thought about the surest way to quiet the nutcase new Madeline Scott, a way he'd relish and she wouldn't. But he said nothing and with effort turned his mind away from possibilities already stirring in the core of him. The new Victor would think about the new Madeline Scott later, but he wouldn't act on his imaginings. Not in any way involving her. It wouldn't be worth the risk. She was business and would stay business.

He knew this was the kind of situation that called for bullshit, and nobody was better at it than Palmer Stone. He was built of the stuff.

Victor stood up from the sofa, stretched, and nodded.

"Whatever you say, Palmer."

Jill could see that Tony was getting tired of it. And maybe a little puzzled.

He'd dropped in unexpectedly this evening, and two minutes later Jewel had turned up at the door. Jewel the pest and barrier to the bed. Jewel was talky, and downright pushy sometimes. She didn't take a hint and she didn't scare away. Tony and Jill were stuck with her. Jill played it that way, raising her eyebrows and making a what-are-you-gonna-do face at Tony when Jewel wasn't looking.

Jill had been barefoot tonight when Tony arrived. As soon as Jewel showed up, on had gone the shoes. Obviously, Tony saw that as a bad sign.

"Let's go out someplace and grab a bite to eat," he suggested, standing up from where he'd been sitting on the sofa.