On the other hand, I understood the attraction. As soon as I entered the place, discreetly on Richie’s heels, the throbbing, heated, olfactory atmosphere enveloped me like a cloak, stimulating some senses and dulling others, and I easily saw how inhibitions could be temporarily cast aside and new identities assumed. The energy and darkness encouraged boldness and anonymity, and it was clear from the expressions all around me how seductive that could be.
It was certainly familiar ground to Richie Lane. Hanging his parka on a peg by the door, he launched into the crowd like a penguin into the sea, sliding by and around obstacles with ease and pleasure, chatting, laughing, gliding his hands along shoulders, forearms, waists, and occasionally lower. He kissed women on the cheek or, more rarely, lightly on the lips, he gave manly handshakes to the men, sometimes accompanied by slaps on the back, and through it all, he watched, like a raptor in disguise.
It was a curious thing to witness, and as Sammie had commented earlier, viscerally repellent. In this man’s presence, all these happy faces, especially the women’s, began to seem vulnerable and frail, like children’s at a party being hosted by a covert sexual deviate.
I wasn’t sure of his game right off. He appeared to be merely cruising, checking the stock for any changes from the night before. Eventually, however, after a couple of hours, I noticed him returning to the same “lonely lady” with increasing frequency, having presumably pumped her for enough information in earlier fly-bys to qualify her for his attentions.
From then on, it became a study in carnivorous stalking. From my vantage point at a small table high and to the back of the room, I looked down on them as from a deer blind and watched as he slowly turned up the intimacy. Touching shoulders, chair-to-chair, then squeezing a hand now and then to emphasize highlights in his conversation, Richie gradually merged with his quarry, stroking her thigh with his open hand, her breast with the backs of his fingertips, and finally kissing her, long and deep, at around the sixth drink.
Not that similar activity wasn’t occurring all around us, probably much of it equally calculated. But my focus was on this man, and I was left with the impression, largely from the deft and practiced way he pretended to drink more than he had, that he was after more than a roll in the hay.
A little after midnight, they rose to their feet, she paid the tab, and they walked outside, she with a marked unsteadiness. Laughing, pawing each other, pausing frequently to kiss, they slowly worked their way to the second level of the garage and ended up next to a dark, late-model Mercedes station wagon. There, as the woman fumbled with her keys and I memorized the out-of-state registration, Richie gave her a fast kiss, murmured something in her ear, and began walking quickly down to the far end of the garage.
Confused, I quietly followed, keeping cars and concrete support posts between us as visual barriers, noticing over my shoulder that the woman had slipped into the Mercedes’ passenger seat.
Richie reached the back of the garage and vanished into the stairwell. As soon as he was out of sight, I jogged to the doorway and listened for which way he’d gone. It was up.
I tried to imagine what he was doing. Fetching something from another car? Meeting up with someone else? Taking the scenic route on the way to dumping his date? As I climbed the stairs after him, I couldn’t conjure up anything that made sense.
On the top floor, the double row of cars stretched out with showroom precision under a low ceiling, gleaming in the harsh, monochromatic fluorescent lighting like polished boulders beneath the sea, their rooftop ski racks sparkling like silver.
But there was no Richie Lane. He’d disappeared.
I stopped in my tracks, listening, suddenly tense. There was nothing. Wishing I was carrying a gun, I began to walk quietly down the central corridor, mentally kicking myself both for being lured up here and for not turning back as I knew I should. Caution dictated staying with the woman and awaiting Richie’s return. But curiosity, and perhaps arrogance, had gotten the better of me.
As Richie had known it would.
“Don’t move a muscle.”
I froze in place, except for spreading my arms out to show I had no weapon.
I heard Richie come out from behind the car that had been shielding him and approach me from the rear. A hard, round object jabbed me viciously in the back, making me stagger forward.
“Get on your knees.”
I thought back to his rap sheet. A violent man, mostly against women, a sexual predator, and an occasional thief. He hadn’t killed anyone that we knew of. I willed myself to take comfort in that.
I hoped my voice didn’t betray my nervousness. “You better think this through, Richie. Or Robert, to use your real name. I’m a cop.”
“Cute. Do what I said.”
Consciously controlling my breathing, I lowered myself to my knees. The cold concrete bit through the fabric of my pants as my mind began to race. I’d considered this kind of scenario before, as I guessed every cop had. You hope you’ll keep cool, stay in control, maybe even talk the other guy into surrendering… At the very least, you pray you won’t totally fall apart. I had no idea how well I was faring.
“Where’s your badge, then?” His free hand began patting me down.
“I’m undercover. I’m not carrying any identification.”
“That’s convenient. I know who you are anyhow, and believe me, you’re not doin’ me like you did Marty. I’m not that stupid, in case you didn’t notice.”
Gripped by real fear now, I began speaking in a rush. “You got it wrong. My name’s Joe Gunther. I’m a special agent with the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. We’re looking for Marty. We didn’t know he was dead. But that doesn’t matter. We’re after the same people you’re afraid of. If you know who they are, we can nail them for you. You can go back to walking around without looking over your shoulder.”
“Right. This where I give you my gun so you can blow my brains out? Maybe make it look like suicide? How dumb do you think I am?”
I couldn’t believe the irony of it-to be executed as a hitman. “Not dumb, Richie, but plenty scared. We were thinking you killed Jorja Duval to find out where Marty was, but I guess that’s not what happened, right? They knocked her off, looking for you and Marty both. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?”
He didn’t say anything.
“They cut her throat, Richie-almost took her head off. Why’re they after you? What did you and Marty steal, anyway?”
“We didn’t steal anything,” he said stubbornly.
I couldn’t believe he was still pitching his own innocence, especially given the circumstances. “Maybe you didn’t personally,” I tried conceding. “But you set it up so Marty could. You were his spotter, finding rich targets like that woman downstairs, checking out their houses and getting some action on the side. He’d call you on the first-floor locker room pay phone a few days before every hit. You did that eight times. Think about it, Richie. We know all that. That’s why we were tailing you. If we were the people you’re so afraid of, you’d be dead already.”
“Fuck you,” he said, his voice revealing his own frustration. “First you say you thought I killed the girl, now you say I’m a sitting duck for the guys that did. You don’t even have the number right on the break-ins. You’re just jerking me around, and I’m getting sick of it.”
I opened my mouth to answer him but was stopped by a blinding flash of searing pain in my head. I didn’t even see the floor as I bounced off it with my face.
Chapter 11
I heard a faint humming at first, like a distant furnace, steady and deep throated. It altered as I homed in on it, lightening in tone but becoming no louder. And it was accompanied by a headache of statuesque proportions that banged off the walls of my skull like a ball with boundless energy. I winced and became aware of a second pain between my eyes, but on the outside. Gingerly, I rolled onto my back and raised my hand, surprised to find it stiff, numb, and difficult to move, and touched my face around the nose and forehead, discovering both to be sore, tender, and crusty with dried blood.