"You sell a lot of them?"
"Yeah. I'm gonna try and get some more. Damned things really look like phones. You wouldn't believe it, but we had a woman here thought she could make a call and-"
"I believe it," Pearl said.
"Get busy, Ernie," Sinclair said. Ernie began sweeping harder, moving away from them this time.
"Victoria your only night bartender?"
"Her and me," Sinclair said. "She comes in at eight, and I'm here from nine to closing."
"How can I get in touch with her?"
"Easy. She's in the kitchen."
"She works days, too?"
"As well as nights? No, only the owner works those kinda hours. She came in to get her paycheck."
"Ah, my lucky day."
"Is it hers?"
"Far as I know. She's not in any kinda trouble. I just want to show both of you some photographs, see if you recognize any of the women in them, then talk to her about the phones. Maybe Ernie, too."
"Ernie goes home after we close for lunch and he's done busing tables. He's my brother's boy. A teen klutz. Knows from nothing."
"He's gotta grow up sometime," Pearl said.
Sinclair gave her a curious look, then said, "Wait here and I'll go get Victoria."
Pearl sat at the end of one of the booths, looking around. The floor was carpeted except where Ernie was diligently sweeping. There were round tables with white cloths, crystal chandeliers, a long bar inlaid with polished brass, fancy stools with high, curved backs. It wouldn't be a bad-looking place if they turned up the lights. Probably they didn't want passersby glancing in and seeing them cleaning up. Pearl couldn't read the lunch menu behind the bar, but it didn't look like much.
Sinclair returned within a few minutes with a tall, dark-haired woman in a tight tan pantsuit. Or maybe she wasn't so tall. She looked as if she'd just had her hair done, or overdone. It was piled improbably high and made her look as if she were about to play a country-western singer in a bad movie. When she was closer, she gazed with charcoal dark eyes from beneath dense bangs at Pearl.
Pearl introduced herself, then removed the photographs from her blazer pocket. "Ernie," she said, "put down your broom for a minute and come over here."
"Yes, ma'am." Still with the spacey smile. Did the kid ever stop grinning?
Pearl found the brightest spot on the table and spread out the photos. "Do any of these women look familiar?"
Ernie stopped smiling and pointed. "That's one's dead, ain't she?"
"She's dead, Ernie."
"Cool."
"Those two," Victoria said immediately, and pointed with a long red fingernail. "Janice and Lois. I don't know their last names. They come in here all the time."
"They who I think they are?" Sinclair asked.
"Depends," Pearl said.
"The women the Butcher killed?"
"Huh?" Victoria said.
"That's what people call him," Sinclair said, "the Butcher. Because of the way he carves up his victims and puts their parts on display. The meat. Don't you read the papers or watch the news?"
"No, I spend most of my time dealing drinks here. That's the only way I know Janice and Lois. They work in the neighborhood and come in sometimes in the evening."
"Together?"
Victoria wrinkled her nose, thinking. "No, I can't recall ever seeing them together. Or even here at the same time. But I could be wrong."
"I don't think I've ever seen them," Sinclair said.
"Ernie?" Pearl asked.
"I don't know any of 'em," Ernie said. "That dead one's gross."
"Yeah. There oughta be a law." Pearl looked at Victoria. "Ever sell either of them a cell phone?"
Victoria appeared startled behind her bangs. She glanced worriedly at Sinclair.
"It's okay," he said.
"I sold both of them cell phones," Victoria said. "One to Janice about two months ago. Then, maybe six weeks ago, one to Lois."
"Was either woman ever here with a man?"
"Not that I can recall. Not that they weren't flirted with. They're-they were-both real attractive. And for all I know they left with somebody from time to time. That's the kinda place this is at night, a social spot for people to meet one another."
"Do you recall either woman saying anything unusual?"
"We didn't have those kinda conversations. I mean, I only knew them from when they ordered drinks and we exchanged a few words. Then, when we began pitching the cell phones, I talked to them some more, but only about the phones." Victoria looked worried. "I'm not gonna have to go to police headquarters and make a statement or anything, am I?"
"No, we'll send somebody around. Nothing to it."
"It'll be okay, Vicky," Sinclair said, resting a hand gently on her shoulder in a way that made Pearl wonder. It could be a small, intimate world.
Pearl scooped up the photos and returned them to her pocket. "I want to thank both of you. You've been a big help."
She left them the way she left most people she interviewed, looking slightly confused and concerned. Pearl guessed everyone had something to hide.
As she was going out, she heard Ernie say behind her, "Phones? I never knew we sold phones."
Before the papers, even City Beat, had a chance to break the news about Ida Ingrahm, local TV had it. It had been leaked to them by one of their many sources at the NYPD, an organization that fortunately wasn't a ship.
Florence Norton saw it first thing when she got home from work, kicked off her shoes, and lazily clicked on the remote.
The TV was still on NY1, from when she'd checked the temperature this morning before leaving for her job as sales rep for Best of Seasons salad dressings. Florence was good at her job, and had just about convinced one of the hottest restaurants on the West Side to increase its weekly order of special ranch with bacon and beef bits. She was over forty and had bad feet, and the calls she had to make, along with the subway rides where there were no available seats were taking their toll. She had to lose weight, she knew, but she also, deep down, knew she was only fighting a holding action.
The volume came on slightly before the picture on her old TV: "…the Butcher again…"
Then there was the pretty blonde anchorwoman, Mary something, looking concerned but still sexy, as if someone were pinching her slightly too hard.
Florence watched and listened as the woman explained how police thought it possible that the Butcher was murdering women whose last initials spelled out the name of the lead homicide detective assigned to catch him, a guy named Quinn. Of course, police reminded, this could be a coincidence, and there was no need for public panic. Still, it was wise to take precautions.
"Victims Q, U, and I have already been found," Mary said with pained concern, which means-"
Holy Christ!
It suddenly occurred to Florence that she was an N.
A potential victim. All of a sudden, the Butcher didn't sound simply like a corny name for a killer on television news.
For a while her feet stopped hurting, and she was infused with so much nervousness that she almost got up from the sofa.
Calm down…Calm down…You're not some flighty ingenue. You're a grown-up, self-sufficient woman. Maybe even too self-sufficient. So Dad always said.
The police were right; there was no need for public panic.
Unless maybe you were a woman and your last initial was N. Unless maybe you were Florence Norton.
She turned up the volume and sat forward on the sofa, while the pretty blonde woman reminded viewers that the Butcher killed slim, attractive brunettes.
Reassuring, Florence thought, with bitter irony. She was breathing easier. While she had mousy brown hair, it was a comfort to know she was middle-aged, dumpy, and nobody had ever thought of her as attractive. Passable at her younger, thinner best, but that was years ago.