She had to giggle. “Where do I apply?”
“Right here. I can see you in a pirate outfit. You’d look sexy. Boots, three-corner hat, sword…”
“Eye patch?”
He seemed to think about it. “Sure.”
Their drinks arrived. She took a cautious sip of hers, remembering it was her second. If they stayed for a while here, he’d be a drink behind her. Dangerous.
“Boots and a sword,” she said. “Are you a little kinky, Richard Crane?”
“Only if you want me to be.” He tasted his scotch. “What turns me on is you. Just you.”
They drank silently for a while, studying each other.
He said softly, “Take a chance, Terri Gaddis.”
She felt her heart race.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said.
“Is that taking a chance?”
“Depends on where we eat.”
She smiled. “That eye patch thing is growing on me. Trouble is, I don’t have one.”
“We could make believe,” he said. “Or you could keep one eye closed. That’d be enough for me.”
Take a chance, Terri Gaddis.
“Let’s finish our drinks,” she said, “then go to my ship, and I’ll make dinner in the galley.”
“Sounds great. I’ll buy the wine on the way there.”
He wants to keep me drinking.
“Maybe we can have a treasure hunt,” he said.
“I think it’d be better if we sailed around a bit first.”
He wounded her with a smile, then sipped his scotch. “You’re the pirate.” He lowered his glass and regarded her. “If you’re worried about the rape and plunder part,” he said, “don’t.”
Terri smiled and rested a hand on his arm. “I would never plunder you,” she said.
He downed his scotch and said, “Damn it!”
John Riley had finally drunk enough wine that the voices were stilled. An hour after it got dark, he made his shambling way into the passageway between the Honeysuckle Restaurant and the Antonian Hotel. There were some black plastic trash bags piled against the hotel’s brick wall. Riley was pretty sure there wouldn’t be much of value in them, but they might make a comfortable enough bed for the night.
He still had half a bottle of the cheap wine he’d bought with what he’d been able to beg on the street. Breakfast had been half a cheeseburger he’d seen someone throw away in the trash receptacle at the busy corner down the block, and he hadn’t eaten since. The truth was, he wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe the spot on his lung, the one that doctor had told him about last year, had developed into some kind of disease that was making him thin. Or maybe it was old age. Riley was what…sixty-three? Or four? Whatever, anything over fifty was old for the streets.
Riley stopped halfway down the passageway and grinned. This was good. It looked as if more plastic trash bags had been added since he’d cut through here yesterday. Or was it the day before? Time was losing its traction in John Riley’s life. Why wouldn’t it? Night was often day in this city.
Being in the passageway, the bags probably weren’t part of the regular trash pickup, and the hotel would call now and then to have them taken away. Meanwhile, Riley could make good use of them.
He kicked with his right foot, chasing away two rats. Kicked at the bags again to make sure there weren’t more of the rodents there, out of sight. He didn’t kick so hard that the plastic would split, though, and release fluids or some foul odor that even he couldn’t abide. Carefully, to accommodate arthritic knees, he lowered his aching body and lay back on the mounds of black plastic. He wriggled around so he wasn’t in contact with anything hard, then uncapped his wine bottle and sighed. He was tired. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t dream. He wouldn’t hear the voices again until morning.
Riley took a deep draw on the bottle and felt the acidic liquid course down his throat. There’d been a time when he’d have sent this one back in a restaurant and ordered another vintage. In another life.
Some of the wine dribbled from his mouth and ran down his unshaven chin. Quickly he raised the bottle upright so he wouldn’t lose more of its precious contents, and lowered it to his side. He shrugged a shoulder to wipe his chin against it and looked down at the bottle, about to raise it for another sip.
That’s when he saw the hand.
At first he thought it might be a joke, someone hiding in among the trash bags. Or a fake hand. A mannequin’s, maybe. Something like that.
But he knew it was human, even though it didn’t look quite right.
Then he knew why it didn’t look right. It was dead.
The voices screamed.
37
There were floodlights set up in the street and at each end of the passageway, so it was like day, only the glare was surrounded by darkness. Moths fluttered in and out of the brightness in warm night air so humid they might have been swimming.
“Same as the others,” Fedderman said. He’d been closer and reached the scene ahead of Quinn and Pearl.
They were standing near the dead body that had been found beside the Antonian Hotel. Julius Nift, from the medical examiner’s office, was over by his black city car parked among the NYPD radio cars, peeling off his latex gloves. The CSU techs were still gathering evidence in the blocked-off passageway. Nift glanced over at Quinn, smiled, and nodded.
Quinn nodded back, thinking, Asshole.
He thought about going over and talking to Nift, but the arrogant little ME was already climbing into his car, pulling the door closed. Quinn figured it didn’t matter. As Fedderman had said, this one would be like the others. Cause of death: a small-caliber (which would later turn out to be a .25) bullet to the head. Nift might have a time-of-death estimate, but it would be only that—an estimate. Quinn could wait until tomorrow for the postmortem report.
He almost spat a foul taste and odor from the edges of his tongue, then remembered this was a crime scene and swallowed instead. He was pretty sure most of the stench was coming from the black plastic trash bags, but the dead man was contributing.
Quinn looked back down at him. The man was in his late forties or early fifties, dressed conservatively in neatly pressed Dockers and a blue checked shirt, wearing a black sport jacket that was twisted around his body because of the way he was lying. He actually didn’t look too bad except for the way his eyes had sunk back in his skull, and of course the hole in his forehead.
Fedderman had already searched the man’s pockets and found nothing other than a hotel key card. Galin had been the only victim who hadn’t had one of those on him. Galin, in fact, was the odd piece in this puzzle, linked by method and not much else.
“Looks like our killer shot this guy, then concealed the body back against the brick wall under the trash bags so it wouldn’t be found right away,” Fedderman said. “That guy”—he pointed toward a ragged, bearded man yammering and gesticulating wildly at a uniform from one of the radio cars—“happened to notice a human hand protruding from the trash while he was back here getting ready to sack out for a while with his bottle of wine. That sent him screaming out into the street, where he scared the shit out of people and snarled up traffic. An ex-cop from Denver dragged him back up on the sidewalk where he’d be safe and called us on his cell, saying there was a crazy man running wild and yelling about a dead body. Right on both counts.” Fedderman grinned at Pearl. “Why don’t you go over and get Riley’s statement?”
“Riley the crazy guy?” Pearl asked.
“He’s not the one with the uniform.”
“Why don’t you go?” Pearl said. “You’re more likely to connect with him.”
“I’ll do it,” Quinn said, to shut them up. This wasn’t the time or place for one of their pissant quarrels. He pointed to a gray door set in the brick wall. “Where’s that lead?”