"First thing, she forced me to turn over my money, not just the briefcase either. She made me tell her where I kept my savings from two years on the job. Lucky for me I kept some of it hidden in this couch.
That's all I was left with. I've been living on it ever since. Basically she cleaned me out, kept half for herself and divided the rest among the others. Then she had them hold me down while she took a knife and… "
Kirstin brought her hands to her cheeks. Tears formed in her eyes.
"She cut me. She said it was to teach me a lesson. ' won't be picking up too many guys now." I think she liked doing it. She grinned when I screamed. Nobody said a word. Maybe I would have kept quiet, too, if I'd been one of them. Thanks to her, they all got rich, didn't they'."'
Kirstin wiped away her tears. "Maybe she was right. I knew the rules. I broke them. I deserved what I got." The tears began to flow again. "I just didn't think she'd go that far, that's all. I would never have done it if I'd known she'd cut me up… "
Janek was appalled, perhaps less by Kirstin's story than by her notion that somehow she had gotten what she deserved. It was a familiar paradox, the psychology of the masochist, the basis of most relationships between hookers and pimps. It never ceased to sicken him whenever he heard it expressed, especially by a victim to justify abuse by a tormentor on account of "infractions" of some phony "code of honor" devised by a psychopath to control underlings.
Sue seemed to have trouble imagining the scene. "The others helped by holding you down?"
"Two of them did. The other three turned away."
"What about the one who turned you in?"
"She held me the tightest," Kirstin said.
Sue's face was filled with indignation. "We're going to have to find Diana and put her away. What's her full name? Where does she live?"
As soon as Janek heard Sue speak, he knew she'd made a mistake. Her tone was wrong-abrupt, harsh, accusatory, when she should have been focusing on Kirstin's tragedy. Sue seemed to recognize her error; she reached out for one of Kirstin's hands. But she was too late. The dynamics had changed. Kirstin pulled her hand into her lap. It was as if she'd drawn a curtain.
"Okay," Janek said, " we don't want to tire you. You've helped us." No response. "There's just one thing." He picked up the sketch of the redhead, turned it right side up and placed it in front of Kirstin again. "I know you know her. It's okay." He studied Kirstin's eyes, detected a trace of liveliness. "We're not going to do anything to her.
But we need to talk to her. A man's been killed. She may be able to tell us how or why."
Kirstin stared down at the sketch. "We were pretty good friends."
"Can you tell us her name?"
Kirstin nodded. "Gelsey. I never knew where she lived. None of us did.
She was kind of… mysterious."
"She was one of the girls who turned away, wasn't she?"
Again Kirstin nodded. "She'd never hurt anyone."
"But she took down marks?"
"Like the rest of us."
"Anything more you can tell us?"
Kirstin looked up. "She had this thing about mirrors. It was spooky.
She could do mirror writing, too. She told me she liked writing on marks that way. ''s like signing my work,' she said."
Janek stood. He was surprised that Kirstin had been so forthcoming, and even more surprised that Gelsey had apparently used her real name with Carlson. But Kirstin had something to add:
"The night Diana cut me-that same night Gelsey quit. Way I heard it, she took off her clothes, threw them on the floor and walked. Diana was furious." Kirstin smiled. "Gelsey was her top producer."
On the way down the stairs, which were even more redolent now with the smell of fish, Sue apologized.
"I know I messed up, Frank. Sorry." "Forget it," Janek said. "We learned a lot. Kirstin obviously knows where Diana lives. She'll tell you, too, if you handle her right. Let her think about it a couple days, then come back alone and talk about yourself, your work in the Sex Crimes Unit, how you feel about things-your job, your life."
"Girl talk."
Janek nodded. "Gain her confidence again and she'll probably tell all.
Then you may get your chance to collar Diana."
In front of the fish market, he and Sue split up. She returned to Special Squad. He started walking east.
As he passed ethnic-food shops and mom-and-pop cigarette stores, he asked himself why he felt depressed instead of energized. His case was moving. Now he knew who he was looking for, had a name for his redheaded quarry. Her name was Gelsey and he even had a sense of what she might be like.
But for some reason that knowledge did not delight him. The hour spent with Kirstin had brought him down. He wanted not to think about the way she'd been deliberately scarred, the fear in which she lived, her belief that she deserved her fate, her rat-hole of an apartment, the smell of fish, the smell of a wasted life.
He didn't want to think about any of that, or that he could have been blown up inside his car, or about Mendoza, Da kin, Timmy and his demons, Sarah stirring up old regrets or his sadness that he had never fathered a child. But as much as he wanted to fasten onto something positive, he could not rid himself of the vision of Kirstin, held down tight by the other girls, staring with terror at the gleaming knife descending in Diana's hand toward the sweet pink center of her cheek.
He thought of something Luis Ortiz had said within the first few minutes of their acquaintance-that, in such difficult times in Cuba, all he had to hold on to was his honesty.
So, what have I got to hold on to? Janek asked himself. Pride in my skill? Pride in being a cop?
Approaching Forty-second Street, that particular pair of virtues didn't seem half good enough. The city was mean. He knew the worst of it, had spent the better part of his life witnessing its cruelties. But, unlike so many of his colleagues, he had never grown inured to the malignancy.
That was, he thought, his greatest strength, and also, perhaps, his weakness. He still could feel the pain of others, and each time he did he felt his own pain, too. Kirstin had brought him closer to the hurt within, a hurt deeper and more grievous than anything Fonseca and Violetta could inflict. They had only tried to break his pride. The real damage occurred when some of that hurt he shared with the injured of the world-the Kirstins, Stiegels, even his tormentors in Havana-spewed up from the secret lake inside. When that happened, as it had that morning, the melancholy nearly overwhelmed him.
That night he got a call from Kit. Netti Rampersad had, that very afternoon, filed papers on behalf of Jake Mendoza.
"Works fast, doesn't she?" Janek said. "I suppose she wants a new trial."
You bet," Kit said. "And not only on the basis of youe Figueras affidavit. She's got something else. A homicide down in Texas. Took place three years ago. Some society woman was strung up and beaten to death just like Mrs. Mendoza. Rampersad is pleading that the similarity shows the killer is still at large. Therefore Jake's conviction shouldn't stand."
Janek had never heard of the Texas case. "Did we know about this?"
"Sure. We figured it for a copycat job. We've been in touch with the El Paso police-who still haven't solved it, by the way."
"What if it wasn't a copycat?"
"That's Rampersad's problem. Let her convince a judge."
"How'd she find out about it?"
"Probably through her partner, Rudnick. He's a digger, smart and very good."
"I met him. Wears a skullcap. Seemed nice enough."
"I don't know if he's nice. He's the kind can find a legal precedent for anything."
"What's the story on Rampersad? I never heard of her until that night in Queens."
"No one heard of her till last year when she won a big case in Rockland County. Now she's the new hot defense attorney in town. We get a couple of those every year. Actually, she's better than most."