Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

Style, thy name is Kerry . She watched the bartender dance away to pour another round for a patron. Without facing Quinn, she asked, “Why were you at the old East Village gallery on the night of that double murder?”

“Don’t you ever shift out of the interrogation mode? I told Markowitz. I’m sure he left-”

“I don’t care what you told him. I can place you in each of Koozeman’s galleries at the time of two different homicides. That’s bound to make me curious, isn’t it? Now talk to me.”

“I was told to meet Aubry there. A message was left at the newspaper in her name. Later, I figured that I’d been set up. The killer wanted to be critiqued, or that was your father’s thought.”

“Was it? I don’t think you cared what Markowitz thought.”

“Pardon?”

“I think you spent all your time steering the old man in the direction you wanted him to take. I think you were obsessed with your own theories.”

“You’re interrogating me, aren’t you?”

“Cops do that.”

“Are you considering me as a suspect? You think I murdered Starr? That’s ridiculous. The only kind of artist a critic can kill is a good one. Mediocrity is indestructible. You can step on it and flush it down the toilet, if you like. Not only will it survive, it actually flourishes in the crap.”

While she quietly ruminated over his toilet metaphor, he signaled Kerry for another round of drinks.

The jukebox was playing a tune from the late forties. All the records were perishable vinyl, played with needles to grooves. Mallory understood to the penny at what great cost these collectible recordings were rounded up, played until worn and replaced with others.

She listened to the clear, sweet notes of the girl singer and wondered who she might have been. It was a distinctive voice, but she didn’t recognize it from Markowitz’s collection. She left the bar and walked to the jukebox. The song was ended, the record slowed and stopped. The singer’s name was on the record label below the name of the band, and in very small type-Hildy Winkler, the owner of the bar. So Quinn had missed that, or else he would have thrown it into the tour ramble. What else might he have missed?

Hilda Winkler was shaking her head slowly as she waved one hand at the wide plate-glass window. Mallory caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. The old woman’s face swiveled quickly back toward the bar, and she was surprised to see Mallory staring at her. It was guilty surprise, a look Mallory knew well. She smiled at the elderly bar owner, just the line of a smile to ask, What are you up to, old woman ?

Mallory turned to the window in time to see the back of an old hag dragging a wire cart down the sidewalk.

So that was it. Just waving off the riffraff. Move along , was all the old woman on the inside meant to say to the crone on the outside, No loitering, no rest for you - not at my door .

Charles rang the bell again. Punctuality was her religion. He was genuinely stunned that Mallory was not at home. They had agreed to meet at eight o’clock, and it was ten of the hour now.

He stood outside Mallory’s door as people passed by him on the way to a party in the apartment at the end of the hall. And every passerby looked at the man with the flowers, the tuxedo and the foolish smile. He was so transparently in love, they could read the plaque bearing Mallory’s apartment number through his soul.

The elevator announced itself with a metallic ping. The doors opened and Mallory appeared, striding down the hall, a canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder. “Hi, Charles.”

“You’re not dressed.”

“You said eight o’clock.” She looked at her watch. “It’s only ten of eight now.”

He followed behind her as she pressed through the door, dropped her tote bag on the rug and disappeared into her bedroom. “Clock me,” she called back to him as the door was closing.

He sat down in a massive armchair. He wished everyone’s furniture was so accommodating to his large frame. Every object in this room had been selected for simplicity of form and function. If he didn’t know this was her apartment, there would be nothing to give him a clue to the inhabitant’s character. This was a non-atmosphere, impersonal, with no imprint of background. All the furnishings were expensive, but nothing was sought for show. There was a Spartan quality to the bare walls where the giveaway photographs and paintings should be. There was not a single bookcase to tell anyone that Mallory had a life of the mind. Her reading matter was squirreled away in her office at Mallory and Butler, Ltd.-all manuals for machines, and no literature to show even a passing interest in human beings. He looked around him again. Yes, he could believe that a machine lived here.

The tote bag toppled over on its side and a slew of photographs spilled out onto the rug. He was staring down at the image of a man’s severed head. He looked away. He knew this must be the head of the artist who had been murdered twelve years ago. Though the photographs had never been published, no adult living in New York City had been spared one gruesome detail of the deaths in the old Koozeman Gallery. He did not want to look at the photograph, but could not help himself.

When his gaze was drawn back to the picture on the floor, the bloody head was partially obscured by one green satin dancing shoe.

Beauty triumphed over bloody violence. His eyes lifted to the stunning sight of Mallory, green eyes and flowing green satin, waves of golden hair curling just above her bare white shoulders. He would have wagered anything that no other woman in Manhattan could have managed this in less than an hour. She had done it in less than five minutes. But then she was beautiful in blue jeans. She needed little else but the red lipstick to go with her flawless red nails. More would have been less.

In years past, the ball had been the social event of the season and quite successful on this account. However, as a charity function, it never failed to lose money. The most lavish gala of New York society drew funds from the families of the Social Register Four Hundred and many power moguls of Fortune’s Five Hundred, but it rarely turned much profit to the coffers of any worthy cause. Most years it ran to red ink, and this year the ball had barely broken even.

The elderly chairwoman, Ellen Quinn, was photographed in the act of handing an envelope to the administrator of the Crippled Children’s Fund. There was, of course, very little in the envelope, the chairwoman hastily explained in a whisper, and alas, no more was forthcoming. And so the administrator of the fund was photographed with an authentic expression of shock and slack-jawed surprise.

Charles made an entrance with Mallory. They passed through the great doors and into the spectacle of cathedral-high ceilings and a chandelier of a thousand lights, a room of silks, sequins and brilliant color interspersed with black tuxedos. A full orchestra was on the bandstand in black tie. The acoustics were marvelous. Music swelled to all points of the room, and perfumes swirled past them on the dance floor. Mallory walked close beside him, her hand on his arm to complete the overload of all his senses.

As Charles and Mallory moved through the crowd, heads throughout the room began to turn, each head alerting the one behind. The ball photographer abandoned his model of the moment to flash picture after picture of Mallory, exploding the flashes only a few feet before her eyes. The photographer’s former model, the director of New York’s largest bank, was left to smile foolishly at nothing at all in a pose with his wife, who also continued to smile.

Other women in the room were carefully coiffed and lacquered. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds could not have dislodged a single hair. Mallory’s hair waved in natural-looking rivers and curls of blond silk slipping over silk, moving as she moved. Her eyes had a charming, startled look which was largely attributable to flashbulb blindness. People continued to stare, some boldly, some covertly, at the young woman in the sea-green satin ball gown.