John Lutz - In for the Kill

"You would know, being a cop." Victoria forgetting all about her stereotype ban.

She excused herself and moved down the bar away from Pearl to wait on a man and woman who'd just come in. They both ordered what looked like martinis. The woman sampled hers and smiled. Pearl took the time to listen to the music. The woman at the piano was still playing nothing Pearl could identify, and she was reasonably sure the music was impromptu. Still, it was mesmerizing. It always amazed her how in New York there was so much talent to be found in unexpected places.

When Victoria returned, she said, "Most of our customers are single, or pretending to be. If they come in alone, connections are sometimes made. That's one reason we're in business."

"God bless connections," Pearl said, lifting her frosted glass in a toast before sipping draft beer that felt icy and good going down.

"Amen," Victoria said. "The ones who stay late, they're the ones most likely to be troublesome."

"Late and alone?"

Victoria seemed to think about that. "Yeah, maybe pissed off because they're not gonna get laid."

Pearl lifted her glass again. "God bless getting laid."

"I like to think He does," Victoria said.

A man on the good side of forty edged up to the bar, almost pressing against Pearl. She could feel the vibrancy of his presence, smell his cologne or aftershave. She looked at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar-regular features, average size and build, well groomed, tailored blue suit with white shirt and nondescript tie. Not much for a woman to complain about. Not on the surface, anyway.

Their eyes met in the mirror and he smiled at her-nice smile-then turned his attention to Victoria and held out something gold. Pearl diverted her gaze from the mirror and looked at the object. A cigarette lighter, knife-thin and expensive looking.

"I found this wedged down behind a seat cushion," the man said. "Somebody must have lost it."

"There's no smoking in here," Victoria said.

"I know, but I figured somebody might want this back anyway."

Victoria accepted the lighter. "I'll put it on a shelf where it can be seen. Maybe somebody'll claim it. Nobody does, you can have it."

"I don't smoke," the man said. He pushed back away from the bar. As an afterthought, he turned and said, "Thanks."

"You're the good Samaritan," Victoria said. When the man was gone, she grinned at Pearl. "You shoulda spoke up. You could've had a nice lighter."

"At least," Pearl said.

Victoria laughed. It was a loud laugh that held nothing back.

"But I don't smoke, either," Pearl said. "Do you?"

"Secretly. Like a lotta people." She winked at Pearl. "Cops are secretive about some things, right?"

"Meaning why am I here?"

"I guess so."

"I wanted to see what kind of place two of the victims spent time in," Pearl said, "so it might give me more of an idea of the kind of women they were."

"Can I ask if you're married," Victoria said, "or if you've got a special someone?"

"Yes, you can ask. I won't be secretive. Answers are no and no."

"Then you should understand. We just get your average career woman in here. They're from the office buildings in the neighborhood. Average working guys, too. White-collar drones. Tired from a long day at the office, needing a drink, maybe some understanding the wife doesn't give them. I guess what I'm saying is, there's probably not much you can learn about those two victims here, other than that they led more or less average lives."

Pearl knew about average lives. "Sure, and they happened to stop in at Nuts and Bolts."

"And probably some other places around here."

"And bought Dial In cell phones from you."

"Yes, they did. How many grown-up women do you know who don't have a vibrator?"

"We're back to that secretive thing again," Pearl said.

Victoria emitted another loud laugh. The place seemed to be getting more crowded, more alive with conversation. The piano was louder and playing something identifiable. "Night and Day." One of Pearl's favorites. She wouldn't have minded sitting for a while and listening, but she knew she shouldn't. And Victoria was right, there was probably nothing to be learned here. It was simply another Manhattan nightspot, someplace she and Quinn might have frequented when they were together.

Quinn.

Why am I thinking of Quinn? He's still interested, and he knows I'm not. Over. It's over.

The music was insistent and hypnotic.

"Want another?" Victoria asked.

Pearl looked down and noticed with some surprise that her glass was empty.

"No, thanks," she said. "Early day tomorrow."

She placed some bills on the bar and stepped away to leave.

"I thought maybe you'd learned something," Victoria said. "You looked so thoughtful, like maybe you were detecting."

"I wish it worked that way. Drink a beer, then detect. What you took for detecting was just my mind wandering."

Cops are secretive about some things, right?

"See you."

"Maybe," Pearl said.

Victoria watched her leave. She kind of liked Pearl the cop, and felt sorry for her. There was something sad about her. Maybe because, with her job, she saw mostly the worst in people.

A man three stools down ordered a scotch rocks, and Victoria went to the back bar to pour it, noticing the gold lighter somebody had lost. It did look pretty expensive, like real gold, and even had some engraving. A fancy letter N.

The subway system lay like arteries just beneath the city's flesh.

A fanciful thought, but those weren't uncommon for Marilyn.

Marilyn Nelson loved riding the subway. She relished the cool breeze of an approaching train, the piercing twin lights down the long dark tunnel, then the great rush of wind and the metallic creak and strain underlying the train's roar. Car after car would flash past, the illuminated windows like personal instant tableaux that were here then gone. There was no sign of slackening speed. Surely the train was going to roar on beyond the station. But it didn't. Instead it slowed smoothly but with surprising abruptness, like a living thing suddenly drained of energy, and came to a complete stop. A pause, and the doors would hiss open with an urgent whisper that seemed to spur on the people spilling out onto the platform or wedging their way into the cars.

She'd been in New York a little over four months, after spending most of her adult life in Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha was a nice enough city, she thought, but it had nothing like Times Square, the Village, or Central Park-or the subway, which to Marilyn was the very essence of her newly adopted city.

She emerged from underground at West Eighty-sixth Street near the park, as impressed as she always was by how quickly she'd made it here by subway from her apartment near Washington Square. It was late afternoon, Sunday, and as she entered the park the dwindling sunlight lancing between the buildings highlighted her long dark hair. A slim, attractive woman in a white blouse with large patch pockets, and jeans that were tight everywhere except for the bulging cargo pockets on each thigh, she drew the attention of almost every man she passed. The thick leather belt and fringed boots didn't detract from her appeal, either. The belt and boots were black, and the belt had a large silver buckle that glittered like the matching studwork pattern on the boots.

The farther into the park she got, the quieter it became. Marilyn stepped off the asphalt trail onto soft earth that was easier on her feet, and began crossing the grassy area toward where the concert would be held.

Ross Bossomo was going to play here soon, along with his backup musicians. Marilyn had grown up listening to Bossomo's hit records, then followed his career as he became less mainstream and more experimental. A free concert! She'd read about it in the Village Voice. Not much like this happened in Omaha. At least, not very often. But here, in New York, there seemed to be surprises every day. Serendipity, she told herself, smiling. Serendipity city.