Alafair Burke - Angel's Tip

Peter had told her on their first date that he’d been struggling for years on the same manuscript-a novel about a Manhattan-based journalist living, like Peter, in Hell’s Kitchen. Now his writing had been rejuvenated by his idea for a true-crime book based on the First Date case.

“That little bitch would be dead if you hadn’t saved his scrawny ass.”

“Well, as he sees it, his ass wouldn’t have been thrust into the middle of the case in the first place if it hadn’t been for me.”

“So you’re supposed to be understanding while he uses this case to become a celebrity journalist?”

She shrugged. “I get where he’s coming from. He lived through it all too, and if he wants to write about it, that’s his prerogative. As long as I don’t get dragged into it.”

Ellie’d had enough of the spotlight for a lifetime. First it was the flurry of stories a year ago about the College Hill Strangler arrest. Then it was the First Date case. A month ago, when she sat down with Dateline for an exclusive interview about the crimes of William Summer, she had sworn she was done being a story.

“Maybe if you’re really lucky, the jacket of his book will be that class picture you love so much.”

“Fuck you twice,” Ellie said, flipping him the bird for good measure.

For some reason, the media covering the College Hill Strangler arrest had all seemed to glom on to the same goofy school photograph of Ellie in fifth grade, with bright shiny eyes and an enormous toothy grin, completely oblivious to her ridiculous bangs and the asymmetrical pigtails jutting from the sides of her head. To the best of Ellie’s recollection, she had cut her own bangs the night before, desperate to emulate the look of her most recent pop hero, Debbie Gibson.

After the media had unearthed the photograph, Jess had terrorized her for weeks, e-mailing her links to every online story he could find containing the image and taping copies of the picture in the most innocuous places-the inside of her medicine cabinet, the side of a milk carton, even a wallet-sized version around the grip of her service weapon. The reign of horror had finally ended after Ellie dug out an old picture of Jess in his Wham days. A white tank top emblazoned “Go Go” in pink neon letters would do nothing for Dog Park’s street cred.

“You know what we should do?” Jess said. “Let’s go out.”

“It’s already past ten o’clock.”

“No place worth going any earlier. Come on. You’re home. I’m home. I’m still totally torqued by what I saw this morning. When was the last time we went out-like really went out?”

Ellie hadn’t outgrown the stage of occasional late nights, but she was ready to hit the sack. She started to make her excuses, but then realized there was one place she wouldn’t mind checking out.

“Ever heard of a club called Pulse?”

NOT ONLY HAD JESS heard of Pulse, he was pretty sure he knew someone who worked there. He scrolled through his cell phone directory until he came to the name he was looking for.

“Here she is. Vanessa.”

“Vanessa Hutchinson?” Ellie asked.

“I don’t do last names. I met her a few weeks ago at a bar in Williamsburg. She’s a friend of Kate. You met her once. She came with me to Johnny’s about a year ago.”

“The lawyer?”

“No, that was Rose. Kate’s in marketing or something. Short brown hair? Really tiny?”

Jess was proving once again the vast reach of his impressive social network, yet another difference between them. Ellie would love to be one of those women with a tight circle of best friends, but a good portion of her life was dominated by a job that made her an outsider to most women, and those same women certainly didn’t want her cozying up to their husbands and boyfriends. Between work, serial monogamy, and part-time caregiving to the rest of the Hatcher family, she had enough on her plate anyway.

Her brother, in contrast, had a way of meeting people once and forging lasting friendships with them, even if he didn’t run into them again for a year. And, more curiously, many of his social supporters were former girlfriends and past hookups who never seemed to begrudge Jess his refusal to commit to one woman (or one job, for that matter, or one mailing address) for more than a month at a time. Ellie’s best guess was that he had a way of attracting women who at least appreciated that, with Jess, what you saw was what you got: a fun guy and a good man who chose to remain in a perpetual state of adolescence.

“Who’s the Vanessa Hutchinson you know?” Jess asked.

“A bartender at Pulse. Mid-twenties, as I recall. No priors.”

Jess gave her a perplexed look, and Ellie explained her newfound interest in the club, as well as the list she’d been given of all of the club’s current employees.

“I should’ve known you had an ulterior motive for checking out a Grade A meat market.”

“I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a firsthand glimpse of the scene, see if anyone remembers seeing Chelsea.”

“I guess hanging out with the yuppies one night isn’t going to kill me.”

“Now I’m having second thoughts,” she said.

“You’re killing me, El. I was just getting my brain into club mode.” He bounced his shoulders and mimicked the ubiquitous and repetitive uhnn-chk, uhnn-chk beat of techno music.

“I’m not even sure we could get in.”

“What good is that handy dandy badge for, if not pushing your way past a behemoth of a doorman?”

“That would defeat the whole purpose. I was thinking I’d just go and hang out. Watch people. Talk a little. Be stealthy. But the club manager will recognize me. I was just there this afternoon-”

“Yeah, looking like, well, the way you look when you’re working.”

Ellie gave him an insulted look.

“Sorry, but you know you can do better. Get yourself all slutted up, and you’ll blend in with the rest of the chicks. Besides, the manager of a club that big and that crowded is not going to pay attention to the likes of us.”

She remembered Scott Bell, the club manager, speaking almost identical words that afternoon: When you spend enough time in clubs, everyone looks the same.

Fifteen minutes later, Ellie emerged from her bedroom. Clothes? On. Makeup? Slathered. Hair? Fluffed, thanks to some backcombing and a few spritzes of spray.

“Let’s get a move on before I change my mind.”

Jess looked up from the black Hefty bag that he was digging around in on the living room floor. She recognized it as the bag of belongings from his last semi-permanent address, which he had snuck behind her television while she was in Kansas.

He took a look at the outfit she had chosen: a black turtleneck sweater, her best jeans, and a pair of short black boots.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, continuing his rummaging. “Aha. I knew there was something in here that did not belong to me.”

He pulled out a purple baby doll dress with a halter neckline.

“Seriously?”

ELLIE OFFERED to splurge for a cab to the Meatpacking District. With her bare legs popping out of her tiny new dress and her feet covered in nothing but her one pair of high-heeled sandals, a few bucks for a heated car struck her as a bargain.

She made sure to keep her knees together as she swung herself out of the taxi. “Jesus. I don’t know what kind of woman lent you this dress, but I’m having a hard time not pulling a Britney here.”

“Hey, you were the one who said you wanted to blend. Plus, I got news for you. The very attractive woman who left that dress behind is five inches taller than you.”

Ellie was relieved to see fewer than twenty people waiting behind the red velvet rope erected outside the club entrance. She could tolerate a line of that length. Noticing that most of the other patrons were dressed at least somewhat appropriately for an early March night, she punched Jess in the bicep. “I was fine in what I had on.”