“Oren, aren’t you going to tell them about the Outsider Artist scam? Big names, big scandal for the evening news. It might boost the ratings if you nail Senator Berman.”
Enough! Bitch!
He put one flat palm against the wall close to her head. “Now listen, honey-”
He heard the click of metal before he saw the handcuff dangle from his wrist. In the next moment, he was being spun round and knocked off balance. His cheek was pressed to the hardwood floor when he heard another click of the cuffs, and his left hand was prisoner to the right.
All the following moments were barely comprehensible to him. He was on his feet, being hustled toward the square of daylight in the distance. As he rushed his body forward, she kept him off balance. He was staring at the floor now and fearing that he would fall on his face. Then he was out on the sidewalk, and she was pushing down on the top of his head, forcibly seating him in the rear of a small tan car. In another minute, they were rolling, speeding through the streets, ignoring stop signs and lights, barely avoiding a collision with a bus.
He was sweating profusely when the car pulled to a curb in SoHo. She pulled him out of the car and escorted him in a quick shuffle through a door and into an elevator, then down a hallway and into a room luxuriously decorated for another century. They passed down a short hallway and into another room of computers, modern furniture and a familiar face he had not seen in years. What was this cop’s name?
“Hi, Riker,” she said, answering his question.
Riker seemed stunned.
“I want my lawyer,” said Oren Watt.
“Up to you, Oren,” said Mallory, pushing him roughly into a chair. “But if we call your lawyer, then we have to go down to the precinct and go through all the damn paperwork, pressing charges for an assault on a police officer.”
“I did not assault you!”
“You’ve been away a long time, haven’t you, Oren? Eleven years? It’s a new world. There’s a huge political base out there that says I get to lock you up just for calling me honey. Yeah, the assault charge will stick. Four people saw me identify myself as a police officer while the cameras were still rolling. And there are a few old charges I could make stick.”
“The statute of limitations was over-”
“Is that what you were counting on, you idiot?” She brought her face close to his. “Murder never goes away. You didn’t do it, but you’re tied to it. You might need police protection, so play nice.”
“Protection?”
“The whole scam is coming apart now, Oren. Koozeman and Starr are both dead, and I think you’ll be the next man down. Want to come in out of the cold?” She leaned down to forage in a cardboard carton. When she stood up again, she had an axe in her hand. “Last chance, Oren.”
“This is insane!”
“Isn’t it? A bit like a bad acid trip through Wonderland.” She slammed the axe down on the table with great force. Oren Watt stiffened. “Well, come on, little Alice, it’s time for the unconfession. No? I wonder if the killer will use an axe again? The last murder had a little more creativity. Koozeman died eating the artwork. He was a greedy bastard, wasn’t he? Everything he saw was food, animate, inanimate. Now you sell drawings of body parts. Yeah, I think the killer will use the axe for you. It’s so fitting, isn’t it?”
“I’d go to jail if I told you anything. You said obstruction of-”
“Ease up, Mallory.” Now Riker spoke to him in a rational voice, almost kind. “This is the way it works, sir. The last one to cooperate loses immunity and takes the fall.”
“Seven years in a cell, Oren,” said Mallory. “Or maybe I could arrange to have you shipped back to the funny farm for three more months of unrestricted television privileges if you cooperate. But that shrink of yours is definitely doing time for this. If you don’t recant that confession, I’m going after him. Then you know what happens? He throws you to the district attorney as a bribe. If he rolls over on you, he gets immunity from prosecution. He walks, and you do the hard time by yourself.”
“That’s enough, Mallory. Stop badgering him,” said Riker. “You really want to think it over, sir. But don’t talk to your doctor. She’s right about him, you know. He will give you up in a heartbeat. He couldn’t care less what happens to you. He’s a profiteer first. I’m not sure he ever was a doctor. I don’t trust any of those bastards.”
“You’re both nuts.”
She leaned down, her eyes level with his. “High praise from you, Oren, considering your mental history. Markowitz asked you if you had any trophies from the kill, maybe a body part. What did you tell him?”
“I don’t remember. I was high, I was jazzed. I swear I don’t remember what we talked about.”
“I’ll give you one more chance. You tell me what piece of the body was missing. If you guess right this time, I’ll leave you alone.”
“Her heart.”
“Too poetic. You lose.”
Now she left her seat to walk around the table and stand behind his chair. “Let’s try an experiment, shall we?” She pulled the chair out from under him, tumbling him to the floor.
“Mallory!” The other cop was leaving his chair, moving toward her.
She gave Riker a look to say, Back off or you’re next.
Oren watched her walk around the side of the desk, and now she was advancing on him, hands clenched into fists. He managed to right his body to a sitting position. Working legs and rear end like an inchworm, he scooted back to the far corner of the room, tucking in his head to protect it from the rain of blows that was surely coming. She pursued him on cat’s feet, slow and quiet. One hand came from behind her back, the hand that held the axe. That hand was rising now, and he was crying.
The other cop came up behind her and took the axe away. Riker pinned one of her arms behind her back and dragged her from the room and into the outer office. The door was slightly ajar. Oren watched the other cop slam Mallory’s body up against the wall as he yelled at her.
“I can’t trust you anymore, Mallory!” Riker reached inside her blazer and took the gun. “You know, you were right. Watt didn’t do it.” He slapped her face. “But you’ve snapped, kid. You’re a loose cannon now.”
Suddenly, it was Riker’s turn to be surprised. He was being lifted bodily off the ground, and then he was flying toward the couch, landing there in a tangle of arms and legs. He looked up to see Charles advancing on him in slow deliberate steps, as Mallory moved quickly in the other direction to shut the door to her office.
Charles’s mouth was set in a grim tight line of anger, an expression Riker had never seen on the gentle giant’s face before. He knew that at any moment, this large man he dearly loved could take his head off with one blow, and by his face, Charles meant to do just that. Riker still held Mallory’s revolver in his hand, and Charles didn’t like the gun at all, not in this proximity to Mallory, and he showed no fear of it.
“Stay back, Charles.” But Charles was still coming. Now Mallory had moved between them.
“Charles,” she hissed, “stay out of it! Back off.”
He did stop, but his face showed no signs of abating anger, and he was not backing off. So Mallory only held the giant on a string for the moment.
Riker untangled his legs and placed them squarely on the floor. “The game is called good cop, bad cop, Charles.”
He could almost see the mechanics of Charles’s beautiful brain rapidly processing this information, realizing what he had done, and changing his mood from rage to unbearable sadness. Charles turned and slowly walked back to his own office, pulling the door closed behind him.
“It’s time,” said Mallory, motioning Riker toward the door.
He entered Mallory’s office alone. Oren Watt was still shivering on the floor. Riker crossed the room to kneel down beside the man, and this made Watt drive his body deeper into the corner.