A surprised burglar would fit with that. So did the open storage room.
Some sort of confrontation, Olafson announcing he was calling the police, turning his back on the bad guy.
Stupid move. Olafson’s comments about suing Bart and EmmaSkaggsreeked ofarrogance. Maybehe’d gotten overconfident and had not taken the burglar seriously.
The oversize chrome hammer implied the bad guy hadn’t come prepared to kill. Did the selection of weapon imply some sort of symbolic deal-killed by art, like Darrel had said-or just opportunism?
Katz had lived with symbols. That’s what you got when you married an artist.
A would-be artist.
First the sculptures, then the shitty paintings.
Be kind. Valerie had some talent. Just not enough.
He put her out of his mind and returned to the case. Came up with nothing new but was still thinking when he reached his space and parked and entered. The room was just as he’d left it: pin-neat. He pulled down the Murphy bed, ate, and watched TV and thought some more.
He lived in a three-hundred-square-foot tin-roofed outbuilding behind the Rolling Stone Marble and Granite Yard on South Cerillos. It had a front room and a preformed fiberglass lav. Warmth courtesy of a space heater, air-conditioning courtesy of opening the windows. He cooked on a hot plate, kept his few belongings in a steel locker. The view was stone slabs stacked vertically and forklifts.
Temporary lodgings that had stretched to permanent. Semipermanent, since maybe one day he’d find a real house. There was no reason to right now, because the rent was minimal and he had no one to impress. Back in New York, the same dough wouldn’t have gotten him a cot in a basement.
He was the middle son of a dentist and a hygienist, the brother of two other tooth jockeys, raised in Great Neck, a onetime jock but no student, the black sheep of a resolutely middle-class family. After dropping out of SUNY Binghamton, he’d worked as a bartender in Manhattan for five years before returning to John Jay and earning a degree in criminal justice.
During his five years with NYPD, he’d ridden a patrol car in Bed-Stuy, done some dope-undercover, some jail duty, finished up at the Two-Four in the city, working the western border of Central Park from 59th to 86th. Nice job, covering the park. Until it wasn’t.
He continued to moonlight as a bartender, was socking away enough money to buy a Corvette, though he had no idea where he’d park it or when he’d use it. He was mixing ridiculous fruit martinis at a place in the Village the night he met Valerie. At first, he hadn’t thought much of her. It was her girlfriend Mona who’d caught his eye; back then he’d been into breasts and blondes. Later, when he learned how crazy Mona was, he was thankful he hadn’t gotten involved with her. Not that things had turned out so great with Valerie, but you couldn’t put that down to her being nuts.
Just…
No sense lingering.
He read a paperback for a while-a police novel that bore no resemblance to any reality he knew, which was exactly what he needed. Drowsy within minutes, he placed the book on the floor, turned off the light, and stretched out.
The sun would be up soon, and by seven a.m., Al Kil-cannon and the workers in the stone yard would be shouting and laughing and getting the machinery going. Sometimes Al brought his dogs and they barked like crazy. Katz had his earplugs ready on the nightstand.
But maybe he wouldn’t use them. Maybe he should just get up, dress warm, and take a run, be ready to meet Darrel at Denny’s.
Waking up in this dump could be depressing. He didn’t miss Valerie, but he did miss greeting the morning with a warm body next to him.
Maybe he missed her a little.
Maybe he was too damned tired to know how he felt.
The night they met, Mona got picked up by some loser, and Valerie was stuck sitting there by herself. Now, out from Mona’s shadow, she seemed more visible and Steve noticed her. Dark hair cut in a page, pale oval face, maybe ten extra pounds, but the distribution was pretty good. Big eyes, even from a distance. She looked forlorn and he felt sorry for her, sent her a complimentary cosmopolitan. She glanced over at the bar, raised her eyebrows, and came over.
Definitely good distribution.
They went home together to her apartment in the East Village, because she had an actual room as opposed to his curtain-partitioned space in the two-roomer on 33rd that he shared with three other guys.
The whole time, Valerie stayed forlorn, didn’t talk much, but sex switched her on like a light and she made love like a tigress. Afterward, she took a joint out of her purse and smoked it down. Told him she was a sculptor and a painter, a Detroit girl, NYU degree, no gallery representation yet but she’d sold a few pieces at street fairs. He told her what his day job was, and she looked at the ashes left by the doobie and said, “You busting me?”
He laughed and revealed his own stash. Shared.
They were married three months later in an impulsive civil ceremony that proved yet another disappointment to Katz’s family. Valerie’s, too, as it turned out. Her dad was an attorney. She’d grown up in a borderline social set, had given her parents nothing but problems.
At first, their rebelliousness seemed enough to cement the relationship. Soon it wasn’t, and within a year they’d settled into mutual avoidance, polite asides, occasional sex of diminishing ardor. Katz was enjoying police work well enough, but he never talked about work to Valerie because talking seemed wimpy and, besides, cruelty upset her vegan soul. Also, her career was going nowhere fast, and his being content with his own job didn’t seem to help.
The night things changed, he was working the latter half of a double shift, partnered with a ten-year vet named Sal Petrello. Quiet night. They’d chased a few kids who were obviously planning mischief out of the park, helped a German tourist find his way back to Fifth Avenue, investigated an assault that turned out to be a middle-aged couple bickering loudly. Ten minutes before midnight a call came in: male mental case, running around naked near Central Park West and 81st.
When they got there, they found nothing. No maniac, naked or otherwise, none of the witnesses who’d called it in, no people at all. Just darkness and foliage in the park, the sounds of traffic from the street.
“Probably a fake-o,” said Petrello. “Someone screwing around.”
“Probably,” Katz agreed. But he wasn’t sure. Something was tickling the back of his neck-so insistently that he actually reached back there to make sure no bug was exploring his skin.
No bug, just an itchy feeling.
They searched for another five minutes, came up empty, called it in as a fake-o, and started to leave.
As they made their way back to the car, Petrello said, “Better this way. Who needs lunatics?”
They’d almost made it when the guy jumped out and planted himself in front of them, blocking the pathway. Big muscular guy, square-faced and heavy-jawed, with a shaved head, pecs like sides of beef. Naked as a jaybird.
Excited, too. He howled and slashed at the air. Something shiny in his left hand. Petrello was closer to him and drew back, reached for his weapon, but not fast enough. The guy slashed again and Petrello screamed, grabbed his hand.
“Steve, he cut me!”
Katz’s gun was out. The naked loony was grinning, moving toward him, stepping into filtered street light, and now Steve could see what was in his hand. Straight razor. Pearl handle. Rust-red with Petrello’s blood.
Katz kept his eye on the weapon while sneaking a glance at his partner. Sal had one hand pressed tight over the wound. Blood was seeping out. Seeping, not spurting. Good, didn’t look like an arterial cut.
Sal groaned. “Motherfucker. Shoot him, Steve.”
The maniac advanced on Katz, waved the razor in tiny concentric arches.