"Screw that! Sometimes you gotta-"
"And no place in the Village will hire you again to play music."
That gave Wormy pause.
"I don't like what's happenin'," he said, wrenching his arm from Lauri's grip and turning his back on Jamal.
"Nothing's happening."
"Shahi korma's happenin'," Jamal said. "Right there ready to serve an' startin' to cool."
Wormy glared back over his shoulder at him, then said again to Lauri, "I don't, goddamn it, like it!"
"Like there's some law," Jamal muttered.
Wormy stormed out of the kitchen, not bothering to check and see if anyone was coming the other way through the swinging doors. Fortunately, no one was.
Lauri picked up the plate of shahi korma and placed it in the center of a circular tray, then lifted the tray so it was perfectly level.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," she said to Jamal.
"That Joe guy been around askin' for you," he said, deadpan.
"When?"
"Now an' again."
She carried the tray from the kitchen, careful to go up on her toes and check through the tiny window to make sure Wormy wasn't lurking outside the swinging doors.
No sign of him. But that didn't mean he'd left.
"Ever think of goin' out with me?" Jamal asked behind her. "Shed yourself of that worm man?"
If Wormy was still in the restaurant, Lauri didn't know it. She looked neither left nor right as she bore the shahi korma to its table with the regal bearing of a queen.
It didn't take the Butcher long to locate the hotel. The low marble steps, the dark lower edge of the marquee, the glass revolving door set in a wall of brick and smooth white stone-all were like features of a face.
He'd spent a while at his computer, visiting the websites of New York hotels, before he'd found the right one-the Meredith-and compared it with the newspaper photograph to make sure. It was a mid-priced-which in Manhattan meant merely astronomical-business hotel, with all the amenities to make it competitive. He took a virtual tour of several rooms, as well as the restaurant and coffee shop. Most useful.
Later that day he rode past the Meredith in a cab in order to see it in three dimensions and get a feel for the place. Then he got out and walked around the surrounding neighborhood, terrain into which he might someday have to escape.
It had been only hours since he'd learned this morning that his mother was in the city, and already he knew her exact location. Knowing it somehow made her even more real, more menacing. Her presence haunted him like a specter as he walked the streets, mulling over what to do. Even in a city this size, it was possible they'd pass each other on the sidewalk, perhaps not even glance at each other.
Or one of them might glance. The thought gave him a chill.
He was surprised when he looked at his watch and saw that his research had taken most of the afternoon. Though he wasn't hungry, he had a tuna melt and coffee in a small diner before returning to what he increasingly thought of as his lair.
He did feel somewhat better since gaining the essential knowledge of his mother's whereabouts when she slept. The Meredith Hotel. Now what? Time to practice to deceive?
Not yet. Time to learn more.
He poured a Jack Daniel's, walked to his recliner, and situated himself where he could see out the window at the darkening city. Such a long way from that time years ago in the swamp, but time could be folded like an accordion. More and more lately his dreams carried him back, his nightmares that weren't as horrifying as the actuality that gave them birth. The swamp had invaded his mind and become a part of him, and there were things living and crawling there he didn't want to touch. He thought he'd escaped them but they'd been there all along.
Some nights he lay in bed staring into darkness, terrified of falling asleep. Was it only because of his dreams, or was he feeling the pressure the literature on serial killers proclaimed them to feel as their victim count climbed?
None of us ever escapes.
Perhaps his mother wouldn't escape. The things that crawled in the darkness of his mind crawled in hers.
It had been so long since they'd seen each other, but he was sure they understood each other.
He also understood Quinn.
Of course the Meredith would be a trap. He knew his nemesis, Quinn. He'd followed him, studied him. As Quinn had studied his nemesis. They'd crawled into each other's brains. He knew Quinn's mind better than Quinn himself knew it.
Quinn had his own miasma of problems, his own dark swamp. A record of harsh justice and violence, a stained reputation, an alcoholic past, a failed marriage, a troubled daughter, a woman he loved who didn't love him. An insatiable need and talent for the hunt.
None of us ever escapes.
Do we really want to?
There was no doubt in Sherman's mind that his mother was bait, an archangel of evil that had to be slain. That she was being used to lure him to destruction was fitting.
Quinn certainly had to understand that the Butcher wouldn't be able to resist the lure of the very demon he'd been trying again and again to slay, the angel demon that wouldn't stay dead. But Quinn didn't understand Sherman's mother as well as he thought. She was bait, but she was deadly bait. She wanted to kill her son as badly as when she'd tried all those years ago in the swamp, only now she'd be even more determined.
Deadly bait.
Sherman would have to plan carefully. Move carefully. He felt like a spider walking the web of a much larger, much deadlier insect. One that was waiting for him and would sense his slightest misstep. One that could paralyze him with a glance and suck him dry of life even before his heart stopped.
Mom…
Nine-year-old Sherman took a sip of Jack Daniel's and told himself things had changed and he was grown up now, an adult. With an effort of will, he ignored his fear and engaged his mind.
He was nothing if not a problem solver.
The Meredith Hotel wasn't precisely a spiderweb. There were different ways to approach it, and different ways to move within it.
Quinn's trap was a problem that could be solved. That must be solved.
It was a family matter.
59
Something new. Something exciting.
Lauri didn't get to the Upper East Side very often. She tried not to let it show that she thought Mangio's was one of the neatest places she'd ever seen. She and Joe shared a tiny round table near a wall, away from the small dance floor. A band, guys in matching jackets and ties, not like The Defendants, were playing soft syncopated music that she guessed was rumba. Other than the dance floor, the place was carpeted in plush red, contrasting with the white tablecloths and glinting silverware. The long-stemmed glass from which Lauri was sipping a vodka martini, straight up, was fine crystal that glittered in the light of the single candle in the center of the table. She supposed this was what people called class.
She looked around at the women seated at tables or dancing and was glad she'd worn the dress Joe had bought for her. It had been a gift from an exclusive shop on Madison Avenue and was obviously expensive. Since her father was busy in the evenings he hadn't seen her leave in the dress, which was a good thing, because it might have required an explanation. She really should have her own apartment. Her world was opening up like a flower warmed by the sun. If this thing with Joe continued to work well…
"You look happy," he said, smiling across the table. "That makes me happy."
"The only thing that would make me happier," she said, "is if this-being someplace like this with you-would last forever."
"No," he said, "There's something else. I know what would make us both infinitely happier."
She reached across the table and lightly dragged her fingernails over the back of his hand. "Joe-"