“I’m Jerry’s sponsor in AA, Quinn. The one he goes to for help if he’s having trouble, or if he’s fallen off the wagon.”
“Jerry’s wagon travels a bumpy road,” Quinn said.
“Over the last few years I’ve gotten fond of Jerry.”
“He could use all the friends he can get.”
“Not friends like you.”
Quinn leaned back and held a pencil at both ends in his huge hands with surprising delicacy. “What makes you say that?”
“I went to visit Jerry and he told me what was going on. I know what you’re doing. You know an alcoholic does or learns things when he’s drunk, and sometimes he can only remember them when he’s drunk again.”
“Sobriety’s a different world,” Quinn agreed.
“And you want Jerry to visit his other world so he might get in touch with certain memories.”
“And capabilities. He’s a genius on the computer when he’s drinking,” Quinn said honestly.
“You’re using Jerry for your own ends. Taking advantage of him.”
Has this guy been talking with Pearl?
“Jerry’s involvement in this investigation might save lives,” Quinn said. “He wants to help. In fact, he came here begging to help.”
“And you took him up on his offer.”
“He thinks he can find atonement,” Quinn said.
“He searched for that in a bottle and didn’t find it, and he’s not going to find it by drinking with you and then going online and doing things that could land him in jail.” The stocky little man appeared disgusted. “My guess is you don’t even really drink with him. You probably pour your liquor into a potted plant when he isn’t watching.”
“That only happens in movies,” Quinn said.
“Jerry’s my responsibility, and I’m here to ask you not to be his enabler just so he might ferret out some information that’ll help you.”
“You say I’m using Jerry. Yes, I am. That’s because I know it might be worth it. He knows it, too. That’s why he wants to help.”
“I think it’s simpler than that. I think you’re an obsessive bastard who’ll stop at nothing.”
“To find and stop a serial killer? Yeah, maybe I’m exactly that.”
“Well, I’m obsessive when it comes to saving Jerry from the bottle.”
“Then we’re at cross-purposes. Jerry’s a big boy. He wants to aid in this investigation, and we accept his offer.” Quinn stood up behind his desk. “I’m afraid that’s how it’s going to be, at least until we nail this killer.”
Seemingly without moving a muscle the little man seemed to grow several inches, though he was still looking up at Quinn. “I’m asking you man to man, politely as possible, to leave Jerry Lido alone.”
“I can’t do that. And it seems to me that whatever Jerry’s doing is up to him.”
The man swiped his bare muscular forearm across his lips, making a face, as if he’d taken a bite out of Quinn and didn’t like the aftertaste.
“I can’t say it’s been a pleasure meeting you,” he said, and spun and headed for the door.
“He can, you know,” Quinn said.
The man paused and looked back.
“Can what?”
“Jerry can find atonement in what he’s doing.”
“While killing himself with alcohol. Anyway, it’s saints that find atonement by dying. And Jerry’s no saint.”
“One more thing,” Quinn said, as the man was opening the door.
“What’s that?”
“Your name. You never told me your name.”
“My name is Joe Nethers, and don’t you forget it.”
18
It was 2:00 A. M. when the intercom buzzer grated in the brownstone. Quinn switched on the lamp by his bed, and then struggled into his pants that were folded over the back of a chair. The buzzer sounded again as he staggered toward the intercom in the next room. He leaned on the button.
“Whoozere?”
“It’s Jerry, Quinn. We gotta talk. I found-”
Quinn pushed the button that buzzed Lido in downstairs.
As Quinn moved toward the door, he heard Jerry taking the stairs up from the vestibule. Though Lido had sounded sober, there was something about his footfalls on the steps that suggested he wasn’t navigating steadily.
When Quinn, a sleepy, grouchy-looking man with bloodshot eyes and wild hair, opened the door, he found himself face-to-face with another sleepy-looking man with bloodshot eyes and wild hair, only Lido was ecstatic.
Imagining the scene, all Quinn could think just then was, Couple of booze hounds.
“I hit some databases and found out some shit,” Jerry said, pushing past Quinn and leaving a wake of alcohol fumes.
Son of a bitch smells embalmed.
“It’s two o’clock, Jerry.”
“You’ll love this, Quinn.” Jerry started to pace. Quinn wondered where he got all the damned energy. He’d had a couple of drinks with Lido at O’Keefe’s last night despite Joe Nethers’s implicit warning. Rather, Quinn had downed a couple of drinks. Jerry had guzzled half a dozen. So here was Quinn, exhausted and with a headache. And here was Jerry, ready to leap over the moon.
Quinn let himself fall back on the sofa, stretched out his legs, and crossed his bare ankles. “So what am I going to love?” he asked.
Jerry stopped suddenly and glanced around. “Where’s Pearl?”
“Home in bed.”
“I thought you two were-”
“Not exactly.”
“Simon Luttrell,” Lido said abruptly.
It actually took Quinn a few seconds to remember that was the name scrawled in blood on a mirror at the last murder scene. He realized he wasn’t all the way awake, and possibly the alcohol he’d consumed last night still had his brain addled.
“You found Luttrell?” he asked.
“In a way. He’s connected to Philip Wharkin. Just like Wharkin, he was a member of Socrates’s Cavern. Gold keys, both of them.”
“Gold keys?”
“Sure. You had to join to get into the place. Cost plenty, too. Members were brass, silver, and gold key holders. The golds paid the most to join. Their first drink was always free, and they could go anywhere in the club.”
Lido looked around again, as if still searching for Pearl.
“Listen, Quinn… you got…?”
“Yeah, Jerry.” Quinn stood up from the sofa, trekked into the kitchen, and poured two fingers of scotch into a glass.
He returned to the living room and handed the glass to Jerry, then slumped back on the sofa. Jerry let himself down hard in a wing chair, accidentally sloshing some of the scotch on the carpet, and took a long sip. He seemed to calm down instantly, a trick of the mind.
“Luttrell was a Madison Avenue adman. Responsible for that dancing shirts commercial that used to be all over television. He joined Socrates’s Cavern in 1968, just when the club was getting going. He was a member until June of seventythree.”
Quinn couldn’t remember any dancing shirts commercial. “What then?” he asked. “Luttrell let his membership expire?”
“He expired,” Lido said. “In Del Rico’s restaurant, used to be on Third Avenue. He choked on a piece of steak. I don’t think people knew the Heimlich maneuver back then, or he might have been saved.”
“No point in trying to talk to him, then,” Quinn said. He stretched his body out straighter on the sofa and laced his fingers behind his head. “The names on the mirrors, the letter S necklaces.. . our killer continues establishing a Socrates’s Cavern theme.”
Lido was staring at him like a starving puppy.
“That’s damned good work, Jerry. We’ve established a connection and we’ve got a definite theme. Names of former Socrates’s Cavern members. Now we have to figure out what that theme means.”
“Sick jerks like him always have a regular routine,” Lido said. “Compulsive bastards. You know that better’n anyone.”
“Maybe I do, Jerry.” Quinn watched Lido down the rest of his drink. It wouldn’t be easy to get a cab this time of night-morning. “How you gonna get home, Jerry? You should be in bed, if you’re gonna be worth anything tomorrow.”
“If you don’t mind,” Lido said, “you’re sitting on my bed.”