Ladykiller (4 page)

Dave glanced over at his oldest friend from Queens, now a wellknown crime reporter, running beside him. “The press conference
about the latest shooting is at ten this morning,” Jimmy went on, panting slightly. “You were there last night, right?”

“I can’t help you on this, Jimmy,” said Dave, who wished he
could. Big Dick Mancuso would trace any leak to him.
“Christ, this is a big story.”
“Sells newspapers, right?” Dave said in jest, knowing this would
get to Jimmy. It did.
“Get lost. We make money from advertising, not newsstand
sales, for God’s sake.” Conlon’s irreverence toward every national institution stopped short when it came to his own, which he viewed as a
sacred shrine.
“You’re right that people are shaken up,” Dave said. “Hey, I’m
shaken up.”
They were running in Central Park along with battalions of yuppies getting early morning exercise before dressing for success and
going to work. The park this early had a promising March snap to it,
its grass already succulent with rain-fed green, its tree branches laden
with fat spring buds, its blue-domed sky streaked with angelic contrails. Its women beginning to show their skin.
“Jesus, I’m in love,” Jimmy said as they passed a sleek-thighed
goddess, her breasts bouncing gently.
Dave hadn’t noticed. “We’re under a lot of pressure.We have to
find this hump before he does it again.”
“You think you’re frustrated?” Jimmy said, chugging along beside
his friend, who was almost a full head taller. “My editor’s going nuts.
He believes that a kid from Queens who grew up with a million cops
should be coming up with exclusives.”
“We honestly don’t know anything, Jimmy.”
“It’s so stupid.” Jimmy loved newspaper reporting but he loathed
his boss. “Bunch of snotty, Ivy League assholes who spend their time
sucking up to each other on the squash court. This dickbrain asked
me,‘Have the cops ruled out organized crime?’ ”
Dave snorted. “What’d you tell him?”
“I answered, ‘Yes, Chip. They’ve ruled out organized crime, beings from outer space, sharp-hooved giraffes, and you.’ ”
Dave chuckled. “For all I can tell, a being from outer space is behind this.”
They ran in companionable silence for a minute. “Seriously,
Jimmy, if we break the case, and I have anything to do with it, you’ll be
the first to hear.”
They ran past a massive shoulder of majestic rock that looked as
if retreating glaciers had shoved it into the light of a prehistoric sun.
“Break it,” Jimmy said, “and I’ll make you a hero. Like you ought
to be. Again.”

At 8
A
.
M
., Dave Dillon slouched into the operations room that housed
the Ladykiller task force. The detectives clustered around a
battle-scarred table strewn with manila folders leaking papers, Styrofoam cups leaking coffee, ashtrays leaking butts. Dave pulled up a
chair and muscled in between Wise and Jamie Loud.

Jamie, not for the first time, gave thanks that her black skin covered her blushing. Jamie touched Dave’s arm, giving herself a tiny frisson as her fingers touched his muscled, honey-colored skin, bare
below rolled-up sleeves. When he turned to her, she passed him a
sheet of briefing paper.The hooker now had a name.

As Dave read the information on the girl, her short rap sheet, last
known address, and preliminary medical findings, Jamie studied him.
She had a sudden, hot, vivid image of the two of them in her bed together. Not how it would feel. How it would look. An aerial view of
them beneath the slow blades of the ceiling fan, the crisp white sheets
crumpled after hard-pumping sex, the large fern beside the bed
brushing his golden skin where his arm hung over the edge, his muscular blond nakedness a perfect match for her supple black curves.
She shuddered and sighed aloud.

Jamie jerked her attention back to the operations room in time
to catch Lt. Blake’s entrance. One corner of his mouth was twisted
upward.

“Chief of Detectives Mancuso is not pleased,” Blake said. “We’ve
got to start moving, people.”
“Big Dick Mancuso,”Wise said.
“This is no joking matter,Wise,” Blake said sternly.
“Sorry, Loo.Too much coffee, too early.”
“Or maybe too little,” Safir added.
“Thanks to Detective Loud’s late-night session with the computer, we have some stuff on our victim,” Blake said.
Jamie resisted the temptation to smile at his praise.
“Lydia Daniels,” Blake continued. “Age 22, born in Minnesota,
came to New York three years ago. Arrested three times for prostitution, twice for possession. Lived in an SRO on the Deuce, the Dixie.
Pimp that ran her is a minor player named Jacob Weinstein, street
name Jackie Why. Dave, you know him?”
Jamie looked up, startled. She could swear she felt Dave bristle
beside her at the question. But his voice was calm when he replied.
“Jackie? Sure. Two or three convictions for girls and possession.
Went to Attica on a felony dealing beef, but was back on the streets in
a short time. I think he turned over his dealer, which makes it a little
more surprising he’s still around. He’s always had a string of girls and
a little dealing action. Kind of a complete entertainment center for
traveling businessmen. Not too high class. Not the worst, either.
When trade gets slow, though, his girls work the street. He likes
production.”
“Like Big Dick Mancuso,” Wise said in an undertone that everyone could pick up.
Blake ignored him. “Great. You talk to this character, then. The
beat guys brought him in an hour ago. Says he doesn’t know where
Lydia is or where she spent the night. He says she was supposed to be
working, but he hasn’t seen her.”
After Blake issued some marching orders to the twenty detectives on the Ladykiller task force, the meeting adjourned with a tortured scrape of chairs. Dave slouched over to the wall where the
hooker’s bloody crime-scene photo had been added to those of the
other victims. Beneath each glossy picture was a summary of the murder. Dave stood before them, scanning every one, back and forth.
The first murder, six weeks ago, was Evelyn Hernandez, 29, a
housewife and mother of four who lived in Spanish Harlem. Her husband worked the desk at a big Midtown hotel. She had been shot on
the desolate street behind the SPCA building just off the FDR Drive,
the yelps of the dogs no doubt drowning out the gunshot.
The second murder, a week later, established the pattern. It captured the attention of the media, the politicians, and Dick Mancuso.
Lucy Cristides, 16, a cheerleader from Queens whose parents owned
a Manhattan coffee shop, was found in the Meatpacking District.
Nobody ventured there after dark.
The third came three weeks hence: Kimberly Worth, 35, a moneyed stockbroker who lived on the Upper East Side. She met her
killer in Carl Schurz Park, several blocks from her elegant apartment
building.This park, bordering the East River, was populated with yuppies by day and by no one at night.
And now, Lydia Daniels.
Blake said to Jamie, “Loud, you go with Dillon when he interrogates the pimp.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And keep him out of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Any kind,” Blake said as he left.
There was something about Dave that no one was telling her.
Jamie joined him as he examined the victims’ photos.
He didn’t look at her, but acknowledged her presence by saying,
“There’s a pattern in there somehow. It only appears to be random.
Normally, a serial killer will go for one type: prostitutes or coeds or
redheads or some other easily identifiable trait. They also rarely kill
outside their ethnic group. Here, we have three whites and an Hispanic. One teenager, two in their twenties, one in her thirties.And the
spectrum of social classes: a wealthy stockbroker, a middle-class borough kid, a working-class wife, and a streetwalker. Two worked for a
living: the stockbroker and the hooker. Two didn’t: the Spanish
Harlem mother and the high school girl.There’s nothing to link them.
They apparently didn’t know one another.”
Jamie nodded encouragingly.
“But there’s some thread. Some thread binds them together.”
Jamie gazed at Dave while he perused the victims, as intense as if
he were determined to penetrate the secret smile of the
Mona Lisa
.
“I’m sure you’ll find it,” she said.

Jackie Why sat in the interrogation room. He sat insolently backward
in his chair, his legs splayed to either side. His hair was greased and
combed flat back, ending in a ponytail so oily he could lube an engine
with it. Jackie Why chainsmoked unfiltered cigarettes. Several
burnt-out ends lay crushed on the floor around his cowboy boots.

Dave held the door to the room to allow Jamie to enter first.
Then he stepped in and closed it softly behind him.
Jackie Why, his lips pressed around a cigarette, shook his head
and smiled. “You got taste for a change, Dillon.” He winked at Jamie.
“Y’know what they say: Once you go black, you never go back.” He
sucked hard on the butt and its ember glowed.
Jamie seemed to be taking the insult stoically. Dave stood in front
of the pimp and said,“Haven’t you heard the new rules, Jackie? No
smoking.”
“Ain’t no rules in a cop shop, Dillon. Anything goes, pal.”
Dave grabbed the cigarette out of Jackie Why’s mouth and threw
it hard at him.The burning end sizzled briefly against his forehead, and
he swatted at it and grimaced in pain.
“Hey, watch it, Dillon. Don’t go around assaulting citizens,
okay?”
Dave bounced a hard finger off the pimp’s chest. “Don’t worry
about it, creep.”
Jackie Why was not cowed. “Dillon, I’ve been sitting here for an
hour like a good little boy. No one has charged me with shit. No one
has served me with any papers. So unless you get on with your bullshit, I’m booking out of here.”
Dave glanced at Jamie. He knew Blake had sent her along to make
sure he behaved. And he was determined to keep his temper in check.
“So tell me, Jackie,” Dave began, “who were Lydia’s friends?”
“Only me. I was her friend.”
“What about other hookers?”They went around and around for a
spell. Dave showed Jackie the pictures of the other three murdered
women and recited their names. Jackie was aware of them solely from
media reports of their deaths; he was sure Lydia didn’t know them.
Shown the long coat she had died in, he opined that it didn’t belong to
her, although he volunteered no notion of its true owner’s identity. He
knew little else about her other than her performance as an employee.
“She was a world-class suction pump.” Jackie Why leered at
Jamie. “Know what that is, baby? She had the — what they call —
labial control. Sit on top of you and blow your mind. Shit, take her to
an oilfield and strap her on top of a rig, this country’s energy problems
would be history.”
“She had a batch of condoms in her purse,” Jamie said. “But they
were in unopened packages. Not one was used. Did she practice safe
sex?”
“Fucked if I know. She did with me. I ain’t letting none of them
scuzzy bitches get around my nice pork without something between
us.” He winked at Jamie. “I use French ticklers.”
Dave persisted. “Did Lydia’s customers like to do it without condoms?”
“Maybe some did. Feels better when you can do it raw.” He
smirked at Jamie. “Right, honey?”
Jamie said nothing. She kept her eyes fixed on his.
Dave rapped Jackie Why’s temple with his knuckles. “Knock,
knock, asshole.Anybody home? We don’t go around making stupid remarks to police officers. Otherwise, bad, bad things can happen.”
Jackie Why sneered. “Hey, I got a lawyer, Dillon. After the heat
you took for Mr. Slice and Dice, you don’t need another brutality
problem. Good break for you that fucking redneck last night was too
dense to file charges.”
Jamie could feel Dave’s tension as he shrugged and got up to
leave. She followed and they were at the door when Jackie took one
last shot. “Oh, by the way, I had a phone call from a friend of yours. A
special
friend.” He sniggered unpleasantly.
Dave’s face became a mask, as he held back his urge to go back
and bounce Jackie Why’s oily head off the wall. Instead, he opened the
door and spoke evenly. “You can go, Jackie.”
The pimp got to his feet and swaggered to the door, giving Jamie
an up and down appraisal as he moved past her. “Nice legs you got, for
a cop.”
“Beat it, scumbag,” Jamie said quietly, “Or I’ll kick your butt so
hard, you’ll be wearing it as a necklace.”
Jackie Why left without another word.
Dave looked at Jamie in surprise, as if he were seeing her for the
first time.
She smiled.“I’m not partial to pimps.”
“Me neither.You can tell Blake I didn’t smack him around.”
Jamie’s smile evaporated. “I’m not here to spy on you.”
“Good,” Dave said tersely.
“And if you had smacked him around, I might have helped.”
Dave allowed himself a glimmer of a smile. “You’re okay, Loud.”
“Call me Jamie,” she said.
Dave decided to like her. She was smart, strong, and steady.
Exactly the sort of woman the Dillon men needed but never got.
For the hundredth time that morning, Dave thought of the
woman Jackie Why had called his special friend. She was lost to him
forever. His heart ached.

Despite having pulled the graveyard shift, Megan was expected at the
West Side Crisis Center’s weekly staff meeting the next morning. She
had slept only a couple of hours and wore the same clothes as the
night before.

She entered the center’s main lobby, a dirty cavern where motes
of dust jigged in the light from the soot-caked windows.The clientele
wandered about the lobby, as purposeless as the dust. A woman strutted by with boxes under her sweater, giving her large, square breasts.
A man, his entire head wrapped with mummy-like bandages, sat nodding in a corner. One old woman was taking small steps in a circle,
around and around. A hubbub of conversation filled the lobby, although it was mostly from clients talking to themselves.

The staff had crammed into the staff lounge, a tiny room with
lockers, a coffee maker, and old furniture that bled stuffing. Reuben
sat laughing inanely on a sofa with Tim, a young, gay man with a buzz
cut. Nita sat in a chair off in the corner, in a fresh change of clothes;
she was absorbed in a file and there was no place near her to sit.
Megan ended up on the sofa with Reuben and Tim. She said hello to
Rose, the sweet motherly lady who sat on a rickety chair next to her.