I knew the answer already. “Pratt didn’t do it.”
“Is that a guess, or do you actually know something?”
“It’s a guess,” I said. “What I do know is that it’s probably a good one. This guy had a hard-on for Asian women. Robin Burrell was zilch to him. Not to mention Riddick.”
“He’s got an alibi for Robin. His parole officer.”
I shouldered the phone to crack the window. White sparks of snow leaped in under my fingers, along with a welcome blast of cold air. “That’s a good alibi. One of the best.”
“We’re filing attempted murder charges against Mr. Pratt. I hope that makes you happy.”
“My heart frolics on sylvan clouds.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing, I’m just being not so clever. So tell me, any word on Bruce Spicer? Have you hauled him in?”
“Not yet.” Gallo paused. “Not that I’m on silver clouds about that.”
“Sylvan.”
“Whatever. We’ll get him. He’s been making calls to the media. He’s talked three different times that we know of to Jimmy Puck. If you want to call it ‘talk.’ More of the raving-lunatic garbage Megan told me about yesterday.”
“How’s Nancy Spicer doing? What’s her condition?”
“It looks like she’ll be fine. We’re having Saint Vincent’s hang on to her until we’ve tucked her husband away.”
“Let’s hope that’s soon.”
“Sooner than soon,” Gallo said.
“Right.”
I hung up the phone and stood another minute or so watching the snowfall. It really couldn’t have been prettier. A part of me wanted to stand there all day watching it coming down. That’s the part that the other part of me always disappoints.
37
ROSEMARY FOX LEFT the man lying in bed. He didn’t stir as she slid out from under the deadweight of his arm. She crossed to the closet and put on the green satin robe. As she knotted the sash, she saw that one of her nails had broken.
“Shit.”
She looked over at the bed. He hadn’t moved. He was lying on his front, diagonally across the bed. Hog, Rosemary thought. One of his feet jutted out over the edge of the mattress. Size thirteen, as he was always so fond of remarking. The foot had patches of dark hair along the top, as well as wiry tufts sprouting below the toe knuckles. I’m fucking an ape, Rosemary said to herself. I moved from a cowboy to an ape. Where do I go from here? She laughed inwardly as she thought about the Turkish race-car driver she’d met recently. Maybe I can get him to run over my dear little ape. She thought of the Turk’s hands and the strength it must take to keep control of a machine tearing around a track at those insane speeds. She imagined the strong hands gripping her shoulders and how much she’d have to struggle to free herself from them. That had been one of the disappointments with Marshall; he’d been nowhere near as physical as she’d anticipated. She thought they grew ’em tougher out there on the ranch. Marshall had never lacked for invention, she’d grant him that-a hell of a lot more sexual creativity than the sleeping ape-but in the end, ideas are only as good as their execution. At least the ape had delivered. You couldn’t take that away from him.
Rosemary moved into the front room, where she saw that it was snowing. She crossed the checked tiles, grabbing up matches and a pack of cigarettes from the glass table as she swept by, and stopped at the sliding glass doors that led out to the patio. I should be in fucking Vail, Rosemary thought. She scooted a cigarette from the pack, imagining the mountaintop crawling with people in their garish skiers’ garb. The parties. All that laughter. She lit her cigarette and blew the drag out to the side. This is like being under house arrest, she thought. Marshall’s in a jail cell, and I’m in my penthouse prison. Standing by my man. This is how it’s done. She knew the tedious script, and she hated it.
She yanked at the handle and stepped out onto the patio. The air felt arctic. The overhang allowed for an area up against the building where no snow could gather. Rosemary felt her legs turn to ice. Her bare feet were either burning hot or biting cold, it was the same thing. She stepped to the edge of the snow line, taking a long drag on her cigarette, letting the smoke spill out of her mouth of its own accord.
Marshall would piss in his pants if he had even a clue what Rosemary had been up to since the very first day of their estrangement. Poor boy. Such an old-fashioned view of the world. Boys will stray but girls will remain faithful. Marshall knew this wasn’t technically the case, but it was how he operated. It had infuriated Rosemary, how arrogant Marshall had been about his adventures, as if he really were the great gifted god that the hype machine had conjured up and sold so well to the willing public. Hubris. The brilliant god hadn’t even known the damn word when Rosemary had accused him of it. And who were some of these women, anyway? That was where Marshall really put it in Rosemary’s face. Easy-lay actresses were one thing. But these working girls. Women with their one-room apartments and their garish friends and no sense of how to really fucking live. Especially that little one with the fake breasts and the tiny doll body. How low can you go?
Rosemary tossed her cigarette aside and stepped forward onto the dusting of snow on the edge of the patio. It crunched beneath her feet like pulverized glass. No one could see her. The snow was a dense white curtain. Unknotting her sash, she pulled her robe open, holding it out to her sides like a pair of green satin wings. The snow fell on her bare skin, melting on contact. It felt good, like a soft shower of whispers, or thousands of tiny attendants kissing, kissing, kissing…
MEGAN LOADED HER CLIP and slapped it into place. She adjusted her goggles and her protective ear covers. She felt as if she were still very much in her morning dream, operating in a haze. The muffled sounds from the half dozen other shooters were oddly pacifying.
It was a private shooting range, located in the basement of a midsize building on West Twentieth Street. A place to blow off steam and lead in equal measure. Megan assumed the shooting stance, clamped her left arm onto her right forearm, and sighted along the barrel. Like a lot of cops, she was fond of the old-fashioned target, the black-and-white drawing of the beefy antagonist hunched over his snubby. Gus. At least that’s the name she’d picked up for the target along the way. Sweat was pouring down Megan’s face. Her goggles had fogged somewhat, but she didn’t care. She didn’t need to see the target clearly. In fact, all the better if Gus remained cloudy. She could apply any face to the target she chose. Even her own.
Megan logged a half hour at the range. She slaughtered Gus over and over and over. He kept coming back for more. Fresh and crouched and ready. Megan’s entire body was drenched in sweat by the time she left. She caught the subway back down to the Village and showered and dressed for work. Before she left, she threw a plate at the kitchen wall. By the time she headed uptown, she was sweating all over again.
THE SNOW EDGED around Rosemary’s pink toes. Her eyes were still closed. She was making some decisions.
She thought again of Vail. She thought of Santorini. She thought of Tuscany, where the Turk had told her he had a place on a small hill surrounded by olive groves. She imagined a patio, not frosty like this one, but baked warm by the Tuscan sun. The sea of soft green rows. The burnt-sienna horizon.
What the hell was she still doing here?
Rosemary reknotted the sash on her robe. She felt remarkably new. Cleansed. Fresh. Most amazing, really. Now she just had to get rid of her ape. Wrap up that business. Pray he wouldn’t make a scene. The story of Rosemary’s life, it seemed. They always made a scene. Big, strapping men, and in the end they acted just like babies. She wondered if she should even bother with the Turk. She was just so damn tired of scenes.