Night bait, page 27
"I'm very fond of you, Vickie," he said through his kisses. "I've never been very good at saying things like that."
"You don't have to say it," she whispered back. "I know. I need you."
"I want to be with you. I want to stay with you. Even if it's just this one time, let me stay with you."
"I want you to stay, but not just once. I don't think I could let go."
He looked down at her, that sweet-sad pensiveness pouring from his eyes over to her. Neither of them said anything. They went back into the apartment, and he clasped her hand awkwardly by three fingers as she led him away down the dark hall and into the darker bedroom. She snapped on the tiny reading lamp by the bedside, then turned back to him. They stood there in each other's arms, and they kissed for a long time.
In shy movements, each of them undressed; then they crawled between the cool bedsheets. Each turned on their sides, they faced each other, and lay still. With the lamplight behind him, Chet's face was backlighted; it looked to her like a soft shadow, but even in the semidarkness, she could see his eyes opened, gazing. One of his hands rested between her pillow and the curve of her neck, while his other hand, outside of the covers, lightly cupped her hip.
"I've only known you a week," she said, "and here I am in bed with you. I hope you don't think that's cheap."
"A week or a year, what does it matter?" he told her with a half-smile. "Maybe we're really a modern Romeo and Juliet, love at first sight and all that."
"Be careful what you say. I might take you seriously."
"That's how I want you to take me."
She inched closer to him, so that her face was right next to his. "I really like you. I know I've given you a hard time, and I've been a pain in the ass. But it's only because I like you."
She reached over him and turned off the light, then settled back against him, comforted by the warmth of his body and the vivid caress of his lips. He shifted his position and lay flat on his back. She could feel his hands moving along the slopes of her body as he continued touching and kissing for a while longer. He traced a finger down her cheek, then ran his hand through her hair. In response, she draped her leg over his and laid her head on his bare shoulder, one hand opened flat on his chest. She couldn't remember ever feeling so relaxed before. Her eyelids grew heavy with the soft, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.
She wanted him so much.
A second later, they were both asleep.
The thunder startled him.
He couldn't remember what he had been doing for the last several minutes, and he thought that maybe he had dozed off. God knew how tired he was; everyone was tired. He entertained the thought of kicking back in his chair, propping his feet up on the desk, and nodding off for a half hour or so. But then the thunder outside cracked and boomed through the sky, as if to say, "Don't you dare go to sleep, Dignazio. The day isn't over yet." Ordinarily, the day would be over. It was Monday, five o'clock in the afternoon, the usual time to pack tools and head for home. But that was no normal day. Elliot still had not returned from the hospital; nor had he called to let Dignazio know how things looked. He had no choice but to assume that Maurice was still alive, but hadn't regained consciousness yet. Dignazio would keep his fingers crossed and hope that Maurice would come to, and make a statement or a confession before finally fizzling out.
The thunder rumbled again, then cracked one as loud as a 175mm howitzer, with such force that the building shook. Through the window, he noticed an instant white flash from the bolt of lightning, which made the unusually dark afternoon seem morning-bright for a single second. Then came the soft patter of rain against glass.
Dignazio's train of thought finally surfaced from the muselike wandering, and he realized that he was supposed to be in Mullins' office at five. He didn't know what the deputy chief wanted, didn't care either, but Mullins had called him earlier that afternoon and had told him that he wanted to see him. By the tone of the man's voice, it hadn't sounded very important; however, Mullins was the sort of man that could talk about World War III as though it were a horse race. Pissed and grumbling, Dignazio looked at his watch and saw that it was just past five. He wished there were a way he could wangle out of it; seeing Mullins always unsettled him, made him a little bit queasy in the gut. But he admitted to the futility of stalling, and he left his dreary office and half-galloped up to the third floor.
He stood in front of the door which read: DEPUTY CHIEF MULLINS, MAJOR CASE, and he fixed his tie, brushed some imaginary lint off his jacket, then rapped a knuckle on the hard wood of the door. After hearing an affirmative response from within, he stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. Mullins was sitting behind his huge desk, looking like the president of GM, and as usual he wore his Big Cheese, Head Honcho chief's uniform, black tie, white shirt, gold tin, nameplate, and rank flaps on the shoulders, like the kind the Gestapo wore. Sitting off to the right of the desk was another man, a lean, sleazy-looking twit with a smooth, poker face; dark, incurious eyes; mulch-brown hair, wearing a charcoal-gray suit. He had one leg crossed and his hands folded in his lap. Dignazio had never seen him before, and by the looks of him, he hoped he'd never see him again. The man had an irrevocable aura of danger about him, bad news; and he reminded Dignazio of that homosexual child molester they had busted and canned a couple of years ago. The two of them sitting there side by side made Dignazio want to laugh out loud: some buttfuck henchman shark-staring him on one side; and old, wrinkly, bald-headed Mullins perched real buddy-buddylike, right next to him, the smooth dome of a head shining away, that idiotic grin creased onto his face, all in all looking about as old as Prince Bismark himself.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Dignazio said, still trying damn hard not to laugh.
Mullins clasped his fingers in front of him. "Well, Captain, I'd just like to talk to you about a few things. First, I wanted to tell you that I'm pleased with the job you and your squad did this morning. Good work. By the way, where is Sergeant Winslow?"
"Being that he's been working the graveyard shift for three years, I imagine he's home sleeping."
"That's a shame. I would have liked to have congratulated him personally."
"Well, sir," Dignazio said, trying to be cynical, "Sergeant Winslow's not the kind of guy who'd really care about being congratulated for shooting someone. Just the same, I'll give him your best wishes."
"Good," Mullins replied with a nod. "Have you seen today's paper?"
Dignazio shook his head.
"When you do, you'll notice that there is nothing in it about the apprehension of Michael Maurice."
"How'd you manage that?"
Mullins smiled. "Oh, we have our ways of dealing with the press. And I don't want any information about the arrest released by you or anyone on your team. We'd like to hold off on that for a while, and we ΊΙ arrange for the press to get the information when we're ready. Two or three more days, I'd say...Aren't you a bit curious as to why we don't want anything about this in the papers?"
Dignazio smirked. "Why?"
"Because I have good reason to believe that Michael Maurice is not The Electrocutionist."
"May I ask the source that your 'good reasons' come from?"
"I'm not obliged to say. Just take my word that it's a reliable source."
"As it stands, sir, it certainly looks like Maurice is our man."
Mullins' voice was stern. "He's not. And that means we'll all have to work that much harder to catch the real Electrocutionist."
"Is that all you have to tell me?" Dignazio asked. "That Maurice is a fluke, and that The Electrocutionist is still on the street?" He was beginning to get hot under the collar.
"Basically, yes."
"Do you have any tangible information for us to go on?" you old, stupid, weather-beaten piece of shit, Dignazio continued in thought.
"Not yet."
Dignazio decided that it was time to get rude. "Then what the fuck am I supposed to do? Hire an oracle? Jesus, I've been working my people round the clock; what am I supposed to tell them? That Deputy Chief Mullins is reopening the case because he's been told to by a reliable source which he refuses to reveal? Do I tell them that?"
"There's no need to get perturbed, Captain."
"Oh, there's plenty of need to get perturbed," Dignazio huffed. "It looks like you're hiding something from me. We're both on the same side, remember? That's a lot of fucking bullshit."
Mullins wheezed a deep breath. "Nobody's hiding anything from you, Captain. It's just that we're not sure about everything yet. When we are, we'll let you know. All I can say is that this case may be a lot bigger than we think."
"That's a lot of fucking help, sir. Peachy. I'd like to know what makes you think Maurice is innocent."
"I didn't say he was innocent," Mullins said, rubbing his crabbed hands. "The physical evidence indicates that he only murdered one girl, the Baker girl. Someone killed the others. We're sure of that."
"What do you mean we?"
"Again, I'm not obliged to say at this point."
"And what happens if Maurice regains consciousness and confesses to killing all of the girls?"
Just then, another bolt of lightning cracked in the sky like a burst of napalm. All three of the men jumped for a second and looked to the window. "Beastly weather we've been having," Mullins commented to the man in the gray suit. The man replied with an innocuous nod, and Mullins returned his attention to Dignazio. "To answer your question, Captain—if that happens, I'd still be inclined to say that Maurice is not The Electrocutionist. People with severe psychiatric disorders often confess to crimes they haven't committed, especially if they know they don't have long to live."
"But you won't tell me why?"
"I shouldn't have to, Captain. I am in charge of this case. It's unpleasant for me to have to pull rank, but you leave me no choice. You will do as I order."
Dignazio shook his head in disbelief. "Then just what the fuck are you ordering, sir?"
"To continue with the case as usual. I'll tell you only that other parties are involved in this now, and if we work together, we'll see an end to it shortly."
"What other parties?" Dignazio asked, not expecting an answer.
"Never mind that now. But let me assure you that these other parties are working as hard as we are, and they have a greater capacity to handle it. Soon, they may have valuable information regarding The Electrocutionist."
"Then I guess I'll just go back to my office and sit on my fucking thumb to wait on your other parties." At that moment, Dignazio noticed that the man in the gray suit was staring at him. He didn't like to be stared at. "Who are you:
"A friend," the man answered in a reserved, tolerant tone.
A friend, huh? Dignazio thought. Yeah, well you look like you just climbed out of a fucking homo menswear catalog, you ugly fuckface fag. He turned back to Mullins. "Anything else, sir?" His sirs were disrespectfully sharp.
"That about does it."
"I'm going down to the fucking hospital and check out Maurice. Find out if he's going to fucking say anything."
"You do that, Captain, and let me know if he does."
Dignazio turned to leave, but before he opened the door, Mullins called to him again, "Oh, and Captain . . ."
"Yes?" Dignazio said, whipping his head back around.
"Are you aware of your language? It's absolutely atrocious."
"Yeah, I know. I can't fucking help it," Dignazio answered and left.
He decided to bypass his own office—there was nothing he needed there—and he continued on down the stairwell to the ground floor. But just as he stepped onto the dividing platform between the first-and second-floor landings, he heard another violent burst of lightning, closer than the last one. Then the lights in the stairwell went out. He stopped on the steps and stood frowning in total darkness until the generator in the basement kicked over and the pale green emergency lights snapped on from their globes overhead. Slowly, Dignazio went down the rest of the steps and thought: What a bitch. No answers, no luck, and now, no fucking electricity.
The lobby was silent, and it glowed with the same eerie cast of green as the stairwell. From outside, he could hear sheets of rain blowing against the pavement and the front doors. As he approached the double-door exit of the main lobby, the desk sergeant stood up and smiled at him under the pale glow.
"Hey, Captain," the sergeant regarded. "It's pouring outside. Don't you have a raincoat?"
"Sure I do," Dignazio said. "In the car. Where else? Judging by this storm though, a raincoat wouldn't do me a damn bit of good. What I need is a scuba suit."
The sergeant chuckled. "Here, take mine. I'm here till midnight; I won't need it."
"Thanks." Dignazio took the yellow jacket from the officer. "These fucking lights better come back on soon. I'll be goddamned if I'm going to sit around in the dark when I get back."
"I'll give W, G, & Ε a call and find out what's going on."
Dignazio slipped his arms through the rubber coat. "Yeah, roust those assholes and tell them to get off their buns and get us some power. This shit's for the fucking birds. See you around."
The sergeant nodded, and Dignazio pushed the doors apart, then took a bold step into the cruel rainstorm. Head down, hands in pockets, he trotted between the rows of parked cars as the rain battered him without mercy, seeming to fall harder with every step he took. In one movement, he thumbed the button on the handle, yanked open the car door, and threw himself inside.
Like a blue-white nuclear flash, the entire sky lit up for a second with another lash of lightning, and the descent of the rain stepped up. Ain't this a hell of a storm? he thought. An electrical storm at that.
ELEVEN
Beaming through the only crack between the curtain and the window, a thin sliver of grayish-blue light landed on Vickie's face and caused her to wake up. She flipped over in a lazy roll and peeked over the fluffy bulk of her pillow, eyeing the luminous dial of her electric alarm clock. Strange, she thought. It's only five-thirty. Seems later than that.
Then she heard voices.
Aft first, she thought that she was dreaming, but as the grogginess gradually worked its way out of her, she thought sure she could hear someone's voice off in the distance. An instant later, she recognized the voice, and reality zoomed back. Chet had slept with her. In the mute darkness, she felt around the bed and discovered that he wasn't there.
She perched herself up in bed and listened. Chet was talking to someone on the phone in the living room, but before she could make out any of the words, she heard the toneless plastic clunk of the phone being placed back on the receiver. Then padded footsteps. A long square of light fell into the room from the doorway as Chet entered. He was wearing only a pair of undershorts.
"Hi," she said. "Aren't you well-dressed today."
Chet smiled and hitched up the waistband of his Fruit of the Looms. "I should be nominated for one of the ten best-dressed men of the year...Guess who I just talked to on the phone?"
"Oh no, not Dignazio."
"Yep. Bad news, too. Maurice died a few hours ago, but before he died, he confessed to only one of the murders. We found out that when most of the other girls were killed, Maurice was at work. He was the light man at Constitution Hall, and there were two dozen other employees who were with him on those nights, so he couldn't have killed the others. Dignazio brought that guy at the tobacco shop down to the hospital, and he said that Maurice positively wasn't the man who bought those screwy cigarettes."
"So what's all that mean?"
"It means that Maurice isn't The Electrocutionist. He must have read about it in the papers, and decided to do it himself once. The Electrocutionist is still on the loose—the case is still open."
Vickie pouted. "I thought we were going out tonight."
"We are—to the block. And we have to get moving; it's late."
"It's only five-thirty."
" 'Fraid not. It's just past seven. While the two of us were sleeping like logs, there was a thunderstorm. Half the city was blacked out for a couple of hours. But the rain's stopped now, for a while anyway. We've got to go soon."
She raised her arms in a luxurious stretch and yawned.
"Okay. Give me a few minutes to take a shower and get dressed. You can get ready in the bathroom in the hall."
Chet picked up his clothes and left Vickie to herself.
As she showered and dressed, she found that the grim news didn't upset her as much as she thought it would have, and she knew that it was because she and Chet had found each other the way she wanted. The Electrocutionist didn't matter; whether he was still on the loose or not, she would still have Chet. Now, she only had to concentrate on keeping him. It seemed funny to her that even though they had slept together, they hadn't done anything. Perhaps that was the most sincere part of all. Until then, she had thought that some of Chet's ideas were pretty weird, but she saw through all that now, through all the falseness and folly of typical relationships. Even with Steve, she had never felt quite right. Like many relationships, the entire affair really seemed to revolve around sex, and though he had told her that he loved her and that he wanted to marry her, she sensed that something was missing. But whatever that something was, Chet was filling the gap. She didn't feel empty being with him as she had at times with Steve. Chet was different; he wasn't selfish or pushy. He seemed to be more interested in Vickie Anderson the human being than Vickie Anderson the former whore, former stripper, former sexpot. For the first time in her life, something significant had happened to her, something she had ached for so long, yet something so foreign to her she didn't even know what it was.
