Intimate Items was a block off Broadway, and wasn't the kind of blatant sex shop its name might suggest. The merchandise was varied but mostly ran toward sexy lingerie, massage potions, aphrodisiac incense, romantic CDs, and other mood makers. Pearl thought the mannequin in Intimate Items' display window was dressed more for a romantic night at the Hilton than a session at an S amp;M club. Satin rather than leather, lace rather than Velcro. Make the mannequin's see-through gown more opaque, her panties bikini instead of thong, and she might fit right in flaunting her stuff in the windows of midtown department stores.
Opening and closing the door set off a soft chime somewhere in the shop. A hidden sachet made the place smell faintly of cinnamon. The design and decor were those of an upscale boutique, racks of clothes down one side, harder merchandise and a sales counter on the other. Changing rooms and full-length triple mirrors up on a low, carpeted podium were at the far end. Vibrators were kept out of sight beneath the counter. The shop's customers were almost exclusively women.
At the moment, Pearl was the only customer.
A young, primly dressed woman in a high-necked white blouse, with a sweet face that looked swollen from too much sleep, smiled puffily at her from behind the glass counter.
"May I help you?"
"Cell phone vibrators," Pearl said.
The woman, maybe still in her twenties, appeared faintly surprised by Pearl's request. Then the puffy smile widened, doing something to her eyes and making her appear Asian. "Dial Ins?"
"Those are the ones."
"I'd like to help you, but you're too late."
"I'm not even forty," Pearl said.
The clerk ducked her head and looked embarrassed. "No, ma'am, I didn't mean that."
"I know," Pearl said, then dipped into her purse and flashed her shield. "My job infects people with a strange sense of humor."
"You think mine doesn't?" the clerk said, glancing at the badge before Pearl put it back out of sight.
"Point taken. What about those vibrators?"
"We haven't handled them for a few months. Not that they didn't sell, but we got a few customer complaints. Some people thought they'd also bought functional phones."
"Yuck," Pearl said.
"I thought the phone-vibrators were a great idea for the shop. They let you travel without being embarrassed by some security or customs character rooting through your luggage and coming across a vibrator he just knew wasn't for your stiff neck."
"Seems like an item that'd be right up your alley," Pearl agreed.
The woman frowned.
"A discreet, intimate item," Pearl explained.
The sales clerk seemed satisfied that Pearl hadn't been exercising cop humor.
"So you returned them to the manufacturer?" Pearl asked.
"Not actually. We sold them at wholesale price to Nuts and Bolts. It's a lounge on East Fifty-second. A pickup place but respectable. Lots of single professional women hang out there, the sort with jobs where they have to travel. The boss knows the lounge's owner, so that's where the cell phone vibrators went."
"How many?"
"Oh, two cases and a partial, about fifty of them. I bought one myself before we let them go. I think they're such a super idea. And they really do look like cell phones."
Just in case, Pearl showed the clerk photos of the first two victims, then the gruesome morgue shot of Ida Ingrahm, and asked if she recognized any of the women.
"I don't think so," the clerk said, swallowing. "But the first two look vaguely familiar. This last one, is she…?"
"Dead," Pearl confirmed. "They all are."
The clerk's puffy features registered dismay. Was she about to cry? "God! That's horrible!"
"They're all victims of the same killer."
"That's why the first two look familiar. I must have seen them in the paper or on television news."
"Are you sure they never came in here? Maybe bought mock cell phones."
"Oh, I'm positive. I'm here during all our open hours, so I sold all the phones."
Pearl slid the photos back in her blazer pocket and thanked the woman for her time.
"May I interest you in anything else?" The clerk was suddenly very professional, a reaction to distance herself from the Ida Ingrahm photo by grounding herself in the normal world. "We have all sorts of products that aid in relationships with men."
"Thanks anyway," Pearl said. "I already carry a gun."
But as she left the shop, she glanced again at the display-window mannequin in the transparent nightgown and thong underwear.
She thought she could bring it off. Probably.
Nuts and Bolts was on the ground floor of a gray stone office building, flanked by an office supply store and a maritime insurance agency. It was closed, but it served food as well as booze, and Pearl could see through the tinted glass door that several people were bustling around inside in the dimness, preparing for the lunch crowd.
She rapped on the glass with the cubic zirconium ring on her right hand, making a lot of noise. The last guy she'd dated had given her the ring, telling her it was diamond. It turned out to be as genuine as he was.
A chubby, bald kid peered curiously through the glass at her. He made exaggerated shrugging motions while he shook his head back and forth violently to signal that the restaurant-lounge was closed. He held up all his stubby fingers, then two, indicating that she should return at noon.
As he turned away, she rapped on the glass again and pressed her shield to it.
He turned back, stared at the NYPD detective's badge, then faded away in the dimness.
A few seconds later, the door was opened by a potbellied man in a white T-shirt, wearing a stained white apron over jeans. He was about forty, balding, jowly, and with a double chin. Pearl guessed he was gaining middle-age weight steadily and it would eventually catch up with his beer belly. He looked somewhat like the kid who'd answered Pearl's knock, and she wondered if they were father and son. His tired blue eyes moved up and down, taking in all five-foot-one of Pearl and registering nothing.
Thanks a lot.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"You tell me." Pearl smiled when she said it, trying to steer the guy from neutral to friendly. Why make things difficult?
He did smile back, making him look younger and less fleshy, a glance at an earlier version that wasn't the kid who'd first come to the door.
"I don't think we've broken any laws," he said, wiping his hands on the apron and stepping back so she had room to enter.
"Maybe the soup yesterday," the kid said. He was leaning on a broom about ten feet away, grinning. He was wearing a black Mets sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, baggy stained chinos, and looked as if he had an erection. Pearl felt alternately amused and flattered.
"Get back to work, Ernie," the potbellied guy said wearily.
Ernie kept his dreamy smile trained on Pearl for a full five seconds, then turned away and began sweeping. Pearl decided she kind of liked him.
"Is the owner around?" Pearl asked.
"I'm him," potbelly said. "Lou Sinclair."
"Good. I want to talk to you about vibrators that look like cell phones."
Ernie continued to sweep, but was moving toward them now so he could hear better.
"I bought those phones from somebody I know," Sinclair said. "Somebody honest. If they're stolen, neither one of us knows about it."
"Me, either," Pearl said.
"We get lots of traveling businesswomen in here. I let Victoria, my female night bartender, tell the ladies about the phones. If they're interested, she shows them one and maybe makes a sale."