He stepped back into the office and reloaded both Colts, then threaded their baffled stainless-steel suppressors – Swiss-made, top-of-the-line Brügger and Thomets – to the barrels. He strapped the weapons around his waist and pulled on a coat.
Dangerous world out there, he thought as he quickly descended the tenement stairwell toward the street.
Never know who you might run into.
Chapter 49
Pierre Lagueux, fashion photographer extraordinaire, felt like a joy-filled bubble as he walked down the back stairs of the West Side Models agency.
Not just any bubble, either. High as he was on some top-grade MDMA, the drug otherwise known as Ecstasy, he felt like a très chic bubble of Cristal champagne.
It was almost unfair how well life was working out for him, he mused. Only twenty-seven and already rich. Handsome, heterosexual, French, and very, very talented at taking pictures. The hardest part about being him was – the thought made him giggle – waking up.
He had a real eye, they said. They, meaning the people in the fashion world who actually counted. In spite of his youth, the word icon was being whispered. His name was dropped in company with Ritts, Newton, Mapplethorpe. Sorry, fellas, move over. There’s a new enfant terrible in town.
And best of all, the parties. Tonight, already a fabulous dream, was just beginning, and how many more would he have? He could practically see them in an endless array stretching out before him. As long, elegant, and dark as the row of designer suits in the gymnasium-sized closet of his loft down on Broome Street.
All around him, the world breathed, Yes.
He stepped out onto the street. The night was young – just the way he preferred his ladies. Like the barely legal, new Ford Nordic blonde he’d just “met” in the back stairwell. He could actually fall in love with her, if only he could remember her name.
“Pierre?” a woman’s voice called.
He craned his neck, raising his stubbled face toward the sound. It was she – his new nameless lovely, as statuesque as the figurehead of a Viking ship, standing on the fire escape above him. Or was she an actual flying Val-kyrie? As high as he was, it was hard to tell.
“Catch!” she said.
Something sailed down toward him, dark and diaphanous, and settled into his outstretched hands – a warm, wispy weight that was barely there. A feather from an angel wing? No, better. Thong panties. What a wonderfully American parting gift! How Girls Gone Wild!
He blew her a kiss, removed the silk handkerchief from the breast of his cashmere Yves Saint Laurent sport coat, and inserted the undergarment in its place. Then he continued on his way to Tenth Avenue to cab to his next soiree.
He was midway up the east side of the block when he spotted a man standing alone on the sidewalk, alongside the train overpass.
A fellow reveler, was Pierre ’s first thought. But then he saw the guy’s serious face.
He stared unabashedly. He was always on the lookout for a striking photo image, always honing his eye. That was probably the reason he would be immortal. And this figure – there was something tragic in the way it stood against the dark, otherwise completely empty street. It was the essence of noir. So Hopperesque.
But more still, there was also something about the man’s eyes. A startling, yearning intensity in them.
As mesmerized as he was, it took Pierre a good thirty seconds before he saw the two silenced pistols the man was holding beside his thighs.
What?
Pierre ’s drug-addled mind scrambled for comprehension. The girl in the stairwell, was the first thought it grasped. Was this an angry rival?
“Wait!” Pierre said, raising his hands placatingly. “She said she had no boyfriend. Please, monsieur, you must believe me. Or perhaps you are her father? She is young, yes, but very much a woman? -”
The Teacher shot him twice in the crotch with the suppressed.22, and once in his throat with the.45.
“Not even close, French fry,” he said, watching the worthless hedonist bounce face-first off the sidewalk.
He knelt beside the fallen man and pulled his hair back from his forehead. With his teeth, the Teacher uncapped a Sharpie and began to write.
Chapter 50
As the Teacher headed back into his building, the last thing in the world he expected was the small, attractive blond woman who rose up furiously from the outside steps.
“I finally found you, you son of a bitch!” she screamed.
Holy crap! the Teacher thought, panicked. It was his publicist, from his former life – the life he’d abruptly abandoned when he’d started on his mission two days ago.
“Wendy,” he said soothingly. “I’ve been meaning to get back to you.”
“How gallant of you,” she fumed. “Considering I called you thirty-six fucking times. Nobody no-shows the Today show! You’ve ruined yourself! Worse, you’ve ruined me!”
He glanced around nervously. Standing out here arguing wasn’t cool. If somebody hadn’t already discovered the dead Frenchman, they would any second now.
But then he realized that she was falling-down drunk, with bloodshot eyes and a smell like a brewery. A plan snapped into his mind. Perfect.
“I can do better than explain, Wendy,” he said, with his most charming smile. “I’ll make it up to you, ten times over. Got an e-mail that’s going to blow your doors off.”
“Make it up to me? How are you going to un-demolish my business? You know how hard I worked to get you booked? At this level, you don’t get a second chance. Now I’m over.”
“I’m talking Hollywood, baby. I just heard from the Tonight Show,” he lied. “Leno’s hot to have me on. It’s going to fix everything, Wendy. I promise. Hey, come on upstairs with me. I’ll cook you breakfast. You loved it when I did that last time, right? How about some fresh Belgian waffles?”
She turned away from him, trying to remain angry. But she failed, and started slurring out words in drunken honesty.
“You don’t know how much I missed you. After that night we had, and then you didn’t call me, and? -”
The Teacher put his finger to her lips. After a few more seconds of resistance, she nibbled his first knuckle.
“We’ll have a better time tonight,” he said. “If you’re really good – or should I say, really bad? – I’ll even warm the syrup,” he said, deepening his killer smile.
Finally, she smiled back. She removed a compact from her purse and touched up her hair and makeup. Then she took his hand and walked upstairs with him to the apartment.
Inside, he locked the door behind them.
“What’s it going to be first?” he said. “Food or e-mail?”
“I want to see that e-mail. Are you kidding?” she said, kicking off her high heels excitedly. “I can’t wait!”
“It’s in here. Follow me.”
As they walked through the spare room doorway, her gaze flicked across the corpse on the bed. She took two more steps before she stiffened and spun back to stare at it, abruptly seeming sober.
“Oh, my God!” she breathed. “What is that? What’s going on here? I don’t understand.”
Unceremoniously, the Teacher shot her in the back of the head with the silenced.22. Then he dragged her into the hall closet, dumped her Manolo Blahniks on top of her, and shut the door.
“Yeah, well,” he said, wiping his hands. “It’s a long story.”
When he fell back into his bed, his eyelids suddenly felt like manhole covers, and his breathing slowed to its usual peaceful rhythm.
Who needs warm milk? he thought as he softly faded into sleep.
Chapter 51
When my cell phone went off, it took me a second to distinguish the sound above the constant hacking of the Bennett sick ward. I groped for it in a stupor, noting that the time was just after three A.M. For all my big hopes, I’d gotten maybe ten minutes of real sleep.