Parker 02 - The Guilty (12 page)

closed the window and pressed the door release button.

"Doesn't he have his own home? What's he doing here at

this hour?"

"I have no idea." I'd worked with Jack for over a year,

and never once had we seen each other's apartments. I

pictured his clean, full of polished wood and cracked books.

Shelves lined with erudite literature and snifters of amber

liquid, a fire roaring as he puffed a pipe and wrote great

news of the day.

I looked around my apartment. Wondered if his vision of

mine contained empty bottles of Pepsi and a subscription to

Glamour.

"Quick," I said. "Hide stuff."

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101

I picked up all the girly magazines, food wrappers and

rubber bands I could find and threw them in the trash. Which

was already overflowing with girly magazines, food wrappers

and rubber bands.

"What are you doing?"

"Amanda, baby," I said, taking her hands in mine. "I

idolized this man growing up. He's probably the only man

I've ever dreamt about. And now he's coming up to my apartment." She eyed me like I'd just insulted her mother. "Okay,

forget I said that. Just help."

For the next minute, we scrambled around the room

tidying up as best we could. In those sixty seconds, our onebedroom apartment went from resembling a tsunami-affected

college dorm room to resembling an apartment lived in by two

people who cleaned dishes after using them.

I heard a knock at the door. I looked around, panicked, then

threw myself onto the worn polyurethane sofa and crossed my

legs. Amanda glared at me.

"You expect me to open the door?"

"Would you mind?" She gave an exasperated sigh.

"Just so you know, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

She went to the door. Peered through the eyehole for dramatic

effect. "Who is it?"

"Now it'd be some coincidence if it was someone other

than the guy who was just downstairs," Jack said, his voice

muffled by the door.

Amanda unlocked the door and opened it. Jack was breathing heavy, the trenchcoat seeming to weigh him down. He

took off his hat, a few loose gray hairs sticking to it.

"You must be Miss Davies," he said.

"That's right."

"Charmed." He took her hand, kissed it as he looked into

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her eyes. She smiled demurely. "Henry here talks about you

nonstop."

"Is that so? Well, at least one man here can call himself a

gentleman." She led him into the apartment. "Can I get you

a drink, Mr. O'Donnell?"

"Please call me Jack. And I'll take a Jack as well, if you

have one, on ice." Amanda and I looked at each other. "It's

been a long day."

Amanda disappeared into the kitchen. She came back

with a glass full of brown liquid over ice. "Seagram's Seven.

All we had."

"Do nicely," Jack replied. He moved over to the couch, let

out a groan as he sat down. "How you holding up?"

"Me?" I said incredulously.

"Heard you were at the Franklin-Rees building when...it

happened."

"Nearby," I corrected. "I'm holding up fine. Jeffrey

Lourdes is the one who was shot."

"Murder has a ripple effect, gets a lot of people wet," Jack

said. "You better than anyone should know that."

Jack took a sip of his Seagram's. His cheeks were red, eyes

tinged with veins. I wondered whether he was simply fatigued

from taking the stairs, or if that Seagram's wasn't his first

cocktail of the evening.

"I'm fine," I said. "Really."

"You know they haven't found a quote at the scene of

Lourdes's murder," Jack said. "The first two were left in such

prominent locations, either he dropped the whole thing, or..."

"Or he just didn't have time."

"You have to wonder, really, what kind of person walks up

to a man in broad daylight and shoots him in the head."

"Same kind of person who shoots an unarmed woman and

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103

a cop from a distance," I said. "They're not dealing with your

average run-of-the-mill lunatic. This guy has an agenda."

"You think so?" Jack said.

"Well, look at his targets. Athena Paradis, Mayor Perez and

Jeffrey Lourdes. Remember, Joe Mauser was a mistake. All

three of those people are celebrities, in some form or another.

He's not killing random people, he's killing people whose

deaths would pretty much dominate news coverage. I mean,

just look at the Metro papers the last few days. Athena,

Mauser and tomorrow Jeffrey Lourdes will be everywhere."

"What do you make of the gun?" Jack asked, another nip

of brown disappearing down his throat.

"I really don't know," I said. "Seems like he's using some

sort of antique, something with a meaning. Don't quite know

what yet, but Amanda has a contact from school who might

be able to shed some light. I spoke to Lourdes's assistant at

the scene. She got a quick glimpse of the killer and a partial

of the murder weapon. Unfortunately she couldn't ID the

actual shooter, and her police sketch is more vague than a

Rorschach. Because of the chaos at the Franklin-Rees building, the guy was able to escape in the stampede."

"Mayor Perez, Athena Paradis and Jeffrey Lourdes," Jack

said. "Not exactly three people you could imagine having

brunch together on a Sunday morning."

"But someone sees them fitting in the same pattern."

"In this city," Jack said, "there's no shortage of people like

those three. People who hog the front page. And though our

great police force is locked up tighter than my grandma's

cooter when it comes to terrorism, there's no defense for a

sick fuck who wants to kill one person at a time."

"Lourdes," I said, "was surrounded by a hundred people

when he died. His shooting caused a stampede. It couldn't

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have been any easier for the killer to disappear than if Scotty

had beamed him aboard the
Enterprise.
"

"Nobody disappears," Jack said, swallowing the last of the

whiskey. "It's our job to find out what rug they're hiding

under."

"I'm on it," I said. "You know the last quote he used. When

he killed Joe Mauser." I'd told Jack about my tip.

"I'll let them know what bad means," Jack said.

"I looked it up," I said. "Guess quoting a junior reporter

just wasn't scary enough, he had to upgrade to sicker game."

"Billy the Kid," Jack said. "Carruthers scowled during his

statement, like he couldn't believe this thing could get any

more macabre."

"He's moved on from quoting me to quoting mass murderers," I said. "Forgetting for a moment my disgust at being

in that company, if the killer does see himself as some sort of

avenger it probably means there's a longer list of people this

guy doesn't like."

"Billy the Kid," Jack said. "You know the Kid, or whatever

the hell his real name was, pretty much started the trend of

yellow journalism. His estate should get royalties from the

National Enquirer
and
Weekly World News.
Reporters and

hack novelists all over the country tripped over themselves

to drool over this guy. Made him out to be some kind of hero.

Some kind of Robin Hood. Idolizing celebrities practically

began
with the Kid."

"You think that's how this killer sees himself? Offing the

rich and famous to help the poor?"

"Remember he also quoted
your
ass," Jack said. "Let's just

hope all he's got is an affinity for scary words. In the meantime, we need to stay ahead on this story."

"Stay ahead? What do you mean?"

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105

He took another sip and looked at me. And for the first time

since I'd known him, Jack O'Donnell looked worried.

"Paulina," he said.

"What about her?"

"She's selling newspapers."

"Well, that's her job," I said. "From what I hear she just

didn't fit at the
Gazette.
"

"Maybe not," Jack continued, "but if the
Dispatch
beats

us to this story, they could see a double digit circulation

growth by the end of the year." I stayed silent. "What that

means, in lay terms, is we'd be fucked."

I considered this. "I know the
Dispatch'
s circulation is up

since she joined the paper, but I mean..."

"There's been a three percent swing this week
alone,

Henry. Whether it's our reporters getting beat to the punch or

her articles attracting our readers, it's happening. These three

murders are the biggest story of the year, everyone with a pen

and a brain trying to get a piece. There's going to be a clear

winner and loser here. We need to make sure we're not the

ones holding the silver."

"They weren't beating us to the punch when I reported

Athena's murder the morning she died," I said, my voice

coming out angrier than I'd hoped.

"That was days ago, Henry," Jack said. He sighed, sank

into the couch. "Since then it's neck and neck. Nobody is

getting new scoops. So it comes down to juice, plain and

simple. Paulina has it, we don't. People want salacious stories,

headlines in bold, and photos of celebrities in bikinis. Only

thing that can distract them from that is real, honest-to-God

news. And until we get that, we're going to get creamed every

day. If two people are tied during the race, everyone stares at

the one wearing flashier clothing."

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"I prefer jeans," I said.

"Don't be a smart-ass. And listen, Henry, you should be

aware of it...Paulina knows you were at the crime scene

today. Knew it before we did, actually."

"What--how is that possible?"

"I think she has some chumscrubber tailing you. But she's

mentioning it in tomorrow's article on the Lourdes murder,

claiming you always find yourself at the scenes of brutal

crimes. Between Fredrickson, Mauser, your quote being

found at Athena's crime scene and being seen talking to a

witness today, she's got enough paint on her brush to level

some pretty brash accusations."

"That was a coincidence. I was talking to a friend. Any

decent reporter would have done the same thing."

"A friend. You mean the cop."

"Yes, a cop friend, Curt Sheffield."

"I know Curt. Seen that recruiting poster everywhere but

my refrigerator."

"Whatever," I said. "Bottom line is I have a lead on a hell

of a story."

"You know, I thought you might."

"That gun, the one the killer is using, there's a reason he's

using it. I'm going to find out what that is. Paulina doesn't have

that. Combine that with this new quote, it's going to fit somewhere." I sat there silent. Watched Jack rattle his empty glass.

Then he stood up, tipped his cap at Amanda, nodded at me.

"Find the story," Jack said. "Behind every murder is a

motive. The cops don't care about that right now, they just

want the man. Motive will come later, once they can be sure

there aren't any more high-caliber bullets aimed at anyone's

skull. So keep on keeping on."

"I will."

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107

"Important work is silent until it needs to be heard. Keep

that in mind. Other people want this story, too." Then he left.

I turned to Amanda. "Your history professor," I said. "You

think she's still awake?"

18

The headline read, Head Of Franklin-Rees, Now Without

A Head.

Even I was shocked by the tactlessness and audacity of the

Dispatch'
s front page. The lead story, naturally, was the murder

of Jeffrey Lourdes, accompanied by a gruesome photo of the

man's legs with blood pooling around them. In Technicolor.

The paper neglected to mention how Jeffrey Lourdes had

revolutionized the magazine industry in the early seventies

with several titles that captured the zeitgeist with aplomb and

erudition, how he'd mentored many of the country's most

talented writers and journalists from scruffy-haired hipsters

to men and women who changed the face of American

culture. Instead the
Dispatch
focused on rumors of money

laundering, infidelity, drugs and under-the-table deals. It

noted how, over the last decade, Lourdes had been accused

of letting his legacy go to seed, eschewing strong journalism

for salacious stories and shoddy reportage that his younger

self would have thrown in the fire. It also noted how, despite

Lourdes's rumored twenty-million-a-year salary, circulation

for
Moss
was way down, and the magazine had long ago

ceded any cultural impact.

The Guilty

109

They would have had you believe Lourdes was as dirty as

they come, a common rat working in an ivory tower.

Our article for the
Gazette
painted a more accurate, more

even picture. Giving Lourdes credit where he deserved it. I

expected the
Dispatch
to kick our asses at the newsstand.