Quinn watched her walk away from him. It seemed she was always doing that. She walked past a neighborhood junkie, apparently uninterested in his unlawful act of demonstrating a drug fix for a small group of well-dressed out-of-towners.
One of the nicely dressed people obligingly held a lighter under the junkie’s spoon as the man filled his needle with a liquefied dope. The junkie expertly tied the elastic cord around his upper arm to make a vein bulge out. And now he inserted the needle, and the spectators watched him fly away to the land of Wynken, Blynken and Slow Death.
This was not the first junkie Quinn had seen up close.
He had seen Oren Watt outside the gallery on the night Aubry died. He had only taken note of the dark glasses and the bizarre mouth. All the other features had been wiped out by the headlights of three police cars, all trained on Oren Watt. His limbs had been jerking to a music of the mind with only half its notes intact. Between his lips, his tongue had darted in and out like a small pink mouse, keeping the rhythm of his spasms, as Watt’s feet tap-danced in codes of pain. He had fallen to the ground, and then scrambled back to his feet.
“What a trouper,” one cop had called out.
“Encore,” yelled another.
And Oren Watt had done his junkie’s song and dance one more time.
Quinn, Markowitz and Riker had been passing by the drug addict and his art critics in blue uniforms when Quinn brought the parade to a halt. He had pointed to the junkie, and Markowitz shook his head, saying, “Not enough blood on him.”
Quinn remembered looking down at his own clothes that night, the blood on his shoes and pantlegs. And the policemen and technicians filing past them, going to and from the gallery, all had blood on them.
Koozeman jerked his head to the sound of her voice. She smiled. It had taken less than twenty minutes to instill this lab-rat reflex in the man.
“Miss Mallory.” His smile was forced this time.
“Just Mallory is fine. I suppose your next opening will be an Oren Watt show?”
“No. I told you I don’t handle him, and I never will. The television people only rented the gallery for the shooting. Just business. Nothing to do with art, really.” He was perspiring, and his hand went to the knot of his tie, unconsciously working it loose.
Feeling the heat, Koozeman?
“Don’t you think Oren Watt is a genius?”
“Of course not,” said Koozeman. “He knows nothing about art, and it shows. He could never work outside that narrow market of ghoulish souvenirs. The drawings are poor by any standard. If you’re thinking of investing-”
“No, but I am interested in art-more and more every day,” said Mallory. “The most fascinating piece of art I ever saw came out of your old gallery in the East Village.”
“But you would have been a child when I was in that location.”
“I was. All I have now are the photographs of the artist and the dancer when the butcher was done with them. I study them every day, every damn day. I can’t stop looking at them. I’d say there was a dark genius to the arrangement of the bodies. Wouldn’t you?”
“In the context of the crime, perhaps-”
“But Oren Watt is no genius, is he?”
Koozeman’s forehead was filmed with sweat. And now, not wanting to lose the momentum of a hit-and-run, she went off in search of Charles Butler. She had a few questions for him, too.
“The scar? Quinn told you about that?”
“He says you did it.”
Charles took Mallory by the arm and led her to the only corner of the room unpopulated by tickets or patrons.
“I’ll tell you some other time, all right? Here,” he said, presenting her with a red ticket. “A souvenir.”
Mallory looked down at her ticket. “I can’t believe you paid good money for this.”
“I didn’t. Koozeman would never insult me that way. He gave me an obscene discount. I think he wants to cultivate me for the A list. I hope you like it. Dean Starr’s idea for this one was an elephant museum. His plan was to reenact all the elephant jokes with stuffed elephants. The real thing. Only dead.”
“Charles.”
“Oh, lighten up. It’s only a joke.”
“So, that wasn’t really one of his numbers.”
“Oh, yes it was-one of his best.”
She smiled at him. It was one of those rare smiles, not meant to convey anything threatening or sinister, but only the pleasure of the moment. And to think he had bought that pleasure with an elephant joke.
Then the moment was over, the smile was gone. “Quinn thinks these tickets were Koozeman’s idea.”
“Well, that would only fit if it was a joke. He’s always been a man of extremes. But he-”
“Maybe it was a joke. I’ll bet you even money that Koozeman was surprised when some of the tickets actually sold the night of the first show.”
“No bet, Mallory. I’m sure you’re right. Koozeman does have an interesting sense of humor. Let me see if I can guess where you’re going with this. You think Koozeman was setting up Dean Starr to look like a fool in public, am I right?”
She nodded. He continued. “When Starr was a critic, his writing showed a lack of native intelligence. Odds are the joke would have gone over his head. So the scheme would suggest some animosity, a-”
“A falling-out among killers?”
“That’s reaching, Mallory.”
“Not really. Koozeman still owns the old gallery in the East Village. He rents it out through a real estate agent. According to the agent, he put both of the galleries on the market this morning. He’s planning to liquidate and run.”
“That theory won’t hold up,” said Charles. “He’d be running very slow, given the current real estate market.”
“He’s greedy. He wants to leave, but he can’t let go of the money on the hoof. The tickets are worth money, but only if he sells them fast. It all hangs on money, the old murders and the new one.”
She seemed so comfortable inside of Koozeman’s skin, it seemed a shame to point out the obvious flaw in her logic, which was also the flaw in Mallory. “You always force everything to a money motive. And I blame this on your father. That was his all-time favorite, wasn’t it? But twelve years ago, most people just looked at the evidence of butchery and said, ‘Psycho.’”
“Charles, twelve years ago, Quinn didn’t buy the psycho theory. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
As J. L. Quinn approached them, Mallory turned and glided away. The critic stopped and watched her back for a moment. Then he smiled at Charles. “She asked you about the scar?”
“Yes, but I put her off.”
“You must tell me how you did that. I’ve never met anyone more tenacious than Mallory.”
“It’s an old magic trick.” Charles pulled a coin from his pocket, displayed it in his spread hand, and then made a fist. “You do it with distraction, replacing one thing with another.” When he opened his fist again, the coin had become a twenty-dollar bill.
“I’m in your debt, Charles.”
“Good. Perhaps you could explain something to me. I understand you think the tickets were Koozeman’s idea. I like that theory. It suits Koozeman. But it doesn’t explain why people are actually buying the tickets. They’re all grown-ups. Not a four-year-old in the pack.”
While they discussed the big production of the little tickets, Charles took slower, more careful measurements of the man who might be stalking Mallory. Jamie Quinn was a cool one, and always had been. Charming manners and eyes that chilled. As Quinn had once instructed him in the art of fencing as a child, he now guided Charles Butler through the unfathomable.
“So, it’s just business? If you don’t have the talent of an artist, you can make do with the talent of a businessman. Close?”
“Yes, Charles, it’s very close.” Quinn pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “But why not carry it just a bit further?”