“He really can’t,” Helen added, defending Renz.
“Listen—”
Quinn rested a big hand on Pearl’s shoulder and gave her a warning look. She was losing this argument and knew it, and fell silent.
“I’ll issue the order,” Renz said. “No one is to talk to the media, or to interfere in the hunt. I mean no one.”
“Male-pattern madness!” Pearl said under her breath.
“Something more than that,” Quinn told her.
After leaving Renz’s office, on the walk back to where the Lincoln was parked in the sun, Quinn said, “Whatever happened with that mole of yours, Pearl?”
“Mole? It turned out to be nothing. No big deal.”
“Good. I figured that’s how it’d go.” Not even breaking stride. Making business-as-usual small talk.
Pearl stepped out and moved around to block Quinn’s path.
She looked him in the eye the way she sometimes regarded suspects.
“You can’t actually do this thing with the killer,” she said.
“I agreed to it.”
“Oh, so what? At least take an extra weapon. Something more than that ancient South African peashooter.”
“Time to drop the subject, Pearl. I mean it.”
She stalked off, bouncing in a way that attracted a lot of male attention.
“Pearl! Get in the goddamned car.”
She stopped and turned. There was a stiffness to her features caused by more than anger. She was almost, but not quite, crying. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Where you going, Pearl?” Quinn’s tone was softer now.
“To copy and mail something. I feel I have to do it. No choice. It involves life instead of death.”
Quinn watched her walk away, wondering what she’d meant. Then he opened the Lincoln’s door and felt heat roll out. He got in and sat with the engine running and the air conditioner blasting, watching Pearl through the windshield until she disappeared among a throng of people who’d just crossed with the traffic light.
Pearl talk, he figured, and fastened his safety belt.
70
Quinn sat with Zoe at a corner table in Hammacher’s, a German restaurant on the East Side. It was a place that afforded privacy, with high-backed wooden booths and lots of cloth and green carpeting to mute sound so voices wouldn’t carry. Deals legal and illegal were made here.
Quinn had courted some of his upper-echelon snitches in Hammacher’s, but hadn’t visited the restaurant in over a year. Nothing had changed. Still the hushed ambience, still the elderly waiters who kept their distance unless summoned, and still the indefinable mingled scents of spices, boiled sauerkraut, and something else that almost made the eyes water.
They’d both ordered German draft beers with unpronounceable names and the sauerbraten special and were waiting for their food to arrive, their gigantic frosted mugs of beer in front of them. No one was seated within twenty feet of their booth.
Zoe had on one of her psychoanalyst outfits. A light gray blazer over a white blouse, a blue skirt of modest length. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, which only tended to make her look younger. There was a frankness and receptiveness about her features. Patients might tell her everything.
Quinn explained to her about the plan to lure the killer into the open by agreeing to what he, the killer, regarded as a hunt.
Zoe listened carefully, then took a sip of beer. The foam left a slight mustache, and Quinn resisted the impulse to reach across the table and touch it, touch her lips.
“So the sport is that the two hunters are evenly matched,” she said. “Sometimes one is stalking the other; sometimes it’s vice versa.”
“That’s pretty much it,” Quinn said. “Usually the participants are accustomed to hunting in the wild. I suppose the urban setting is supposed to negate any advantage one might have over the other because of familiarity with certain types of terrain.”
Zoe gave him a slight smile. “At least the prey gets to shoot back. That’s what the anti-hunting movement has always dreamed of.”
“Are you part of that movement?”
“I’m not terribly zealous about either side of the argument,” Zoe said. “But two human beings stalking each other, and then one of them dying—that’s something different from hunting.”
“I’m not so sure it is,” Quinn said.
“This is a male thing. Is that why it appeals to you?”
“I don’t know that it appeals to me,” Quinn said.
Zoe smiled at him. “But it does.”
Quinn regarded his oversized beer mug. “Yeah, I guess on a certain level it does.”
Zoe reached across the table and touched his hand. “I do understand, Quinn.”
“And you approve?”
“If it’s something you feel you have to do, I’m behind your decision.”
“A friend of mine described it as…what did she say…‘mano-a-mano bullshit.’”
Zoe leaned back. “Well, it is in a way. But your friend simply doesn’t have a great enough understanding or appreciation of the compulsion to adhere to the male code. If she knew you at all, she’d know that you have to do this. Not only do you see it as your job, but you see it as your destiny. You are what you are. It’s a challenge between your ego and your id, and you must accept it to retain your manhood.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Quinn said. He hadn’t really thought it out. He’d simply known within seconds that to accept the killer’s challenge, to play the game by his rules, was the honorable thing to do. “Honor,” he muttered.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Zoe said. “Your honor. That is not a small thing, Quinn. And I think it’s important that you know I appreciate that and I stand behind you.”
“The classic male and female roles,” Quinn said.
“That’s true. They’re roles that are ancient and deeply rooted in human experience. Remember all those medieval tales about dragon slaying and rescuing the princess?”
“Enough of them,” Quinn said. “So you’re my princess?”
“Sure am,” Zoe said. “After dinner I’ll show you.”
For her birthday dinner, Rob took Mitzi to Mephisto’s, a marvelous restaurant in Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t where you’d go to dine economically. Mitzi was impressed by the fact that Rob would spend so much simply because she was turning twenty-five. She sampled her marinated mushroom appetizer and glanced around. Of course she knew no one. This wasn’t the kind of place her friends from the club would frequent.
Mitzi smiled across the white tablecloth and glittering crystal at Rob. It was obvious that he wanted to make this an occasion. He’d worn a perfectly tailored blue suit, a white shirt, and a silky floral pattern red tie with a gold tie clasp. There was a gold pin in the form of a soaring bird on his suit coat’s left lapel. Mitzi had to admit she’d never expected to dine in this kind of place with a man so perfect for her on her birthday. And he’d brought a gift for her. At least he’d intimated that it was a gift. It was in a blue carry-on bag that sat beneath the table. She’d tried to pry out of him what the bag contained, but he wouldn’t say anything other than that he wanted it to be a surprise. Men liked to play games. They made games out of just about everything they did. Mitzi had an entire routine about it.
Rob raised his champagne glass to her and fixed her with a smile that dazzled like the crystal. She reached across the table and clinked her glass against his, but not hard. The thing must cost a fortune.
“To Mitzi at twenty-five,” he said. “May you always remain so young.”
She grinned and sipped champagne from the delicate stemmed glass. “If only that were possible.”
“Maybe it is,” he said, “if you believe hard enough.”
“No,” Mitzi said. “Mother Nature’s a joker, just like me.”