“Let’s not waste time talking about that.”
“Do you object to me referring to you that way—the Gremlin?”
“If you can hear a shrug on the phone, you just did,” the Gremlin said. His voice was male and strong, not what one might expect from a man described as resembling a destructive elf or leprechaun.
“And why did you want to talk with me, personally, rather than another journalist?”
“I’m interested in reaching your audience through you.”
“And the reason for that?”
“I don’t mind tales being told about me, as long as they’re based at least in part on the truth.”
“Do you think lies have been told?”
“You might call them selective editing. I call them lies.”
“Such as?” Minnie asked. She looked knowingly at the cardboard cutout, then at the audience. They were all going to get a glimpse into the hell that was the killer’s mind. This was journalism at its best.
“That I’m angry, violent, and vicious,” the Gremlin said, “and trying to get back at someone. Or that I’m on some kind of crusade. Or that I’m seriously mentally unbalanced.”
“Are you saying you’re none of those things?”
For several seconds there was only the sound of heavy breathing. Then what might have been a whimper. “I’m wondering how you get into the club they call the human race.”
Minnie looked wonderingly at her studio audience. “Is that what this is about? Are we going to hear about an unhappy childhood? Because that’s what all killers say.” Suddenly Minnie was angry. “Because if that’s it, we—that’s me and my audience and the huge audience out there—aren’t buying any of those bananas.”
“I’m not selling bananas. Or anything else. I’m just looking for the truth. For someone who won’t lie to me.”
“Well. You found her. The language spoken here is the liberating, sometimes uncomfortable truth.”
“It wasn’t my fault those people died.”
“Which people?”
“The women who rejected me. The men who betrayed me.”
“Did you even know those people?”
“I knew all of them, because they’re all the same.”
“Like the people in the fire, and in the elevator?”
“All the same.”
“But why did you kill them?”
“So I might better understand them.”
“Are you saying that’s why you killed all those people in the elevator—so you could better understand them?”
“Not the people. The elevator.” Another pause. “The people, too, though.”
Minnie locked gazes with the audience, made a face, shook her head. “That’s so . . . sick.”
“You shouldn’t say those things about me.”
“I promised I’d tell you the truth.”
“That didn’t mean anything.”
“It most certainly did.”
“How do you make your living?” Minnie asked. “Do you have a job?”
“Of course I do. Robbing from the rich and giving to myself. And I enjoy the agony and acquiescence my profession entails.”
“Robbing the dead. You must know how perverse that is. You need help.”
“You mean someone to hold their finger on the knots while I pull them tight?”
“I can give you some names and phone numbers,” Minnie said.
“I can’t trust you.”
“You can, you can.”
“Are you trying to keep me on the line long enough so the police can trace my call?”
“Of course not.”
“See?”
Quinn heard the click as the killer hung up, then watched Minnie do the same.
Ten minutes later, Renz called. “It was a drugstore throwaway phone,” he told Quinn. “The call originated someplace in midtown west of Broadway. Even if we could find the phone, or what’s left of it after it’s been stomped on, it wouldn’t help us.”
“We can’t be sure of that.”
“Sure we can,” Renz said. “I can tell stories two different ways, then later on I can take my pick. Fall back on the one that’s the best fit. No one remembers what other people say, anyway.”
“Cops do,” Quinn said.
“Not if they don’t remember they’ve forgotten something.”
Quinn said, “I’ll grant you that. And they—we—also overlook things.”
“Not us. Not cops.”
“Even cops.”
“But how would we know?”
“We’d find out,” Quinn said. “Eventually.”
31
Betty Lincoln and Macy Adams looked like Broadway dancers. Both of them, from time to time, had come close. They were wearing tight designer jeans, pullover tops, and flat-soled, comfortable-looking shoes. Not shoes to dance in, but to give their feet a rest. Betty and Macy waited patiently for their shrimp salads and iced tea. Each woman was small, with a tight body, flat abdomen, large muscular buttocks and calves. Betty was blond and had a turned-up nose. Macy had dark hair and a Mediterranean profile. They moved with a kind of grace and power that drew the eye, even when they simply crossed the Liner Diner to the booths beyond the counter.
Sitting toward the back of the diner suited them. There were windows there, and they didn’t have complete privacy, but it would do. Students from the nearby Theatre Arts Academy hung out at the Liner Diner, and neither Betty or Macy wanted to be seen. Especially Macy. Betty had made the second cattle call. Macy knew by the casting director’s piercing look that she wasn’t going to make it.
They would find out officially after lunch.
Two other dancers, and Darby Keen, hot new star out of the TV world, walked up and stood outside talking, near the front window of the diner. Betty and Macy sat still, unnoticed, while the other two dancers entered and found a booth near the entrance, to the side and out of sight and earshot.
“At least we won’t have to listen to Keen brag about himself,” Macy said.
Betty didn’t comment. She thought Darby Keen was a beautiful piece of work. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t dance. But what the hell, he was a draw. And more than once, when she was onstage with the other dancers, he’d given her a certain look.
“What do you think of the playwright?” Macy asked.
The writer of Other People’s Honey, Seth Mander, was still in his thirties, tall and blond, with sloe blue eyes that turned Betty on. Betty thought she and Seth would make a good pair. Even if he was part of the process that might deny her the job, she was still prepared to like him.
Perhaps more than like him.
“Betty?”
“Seth is beyond cute.”
“And talented,” Macy said. “Other People’s Honey is a seriously good play.”
“With lousy choreography.”
“You noticed?”
“It’ll sprain or break a few ankles,” Betty said.
Both women laughed.
Then Macy felt suddenly glum. She’d be glad to risk a sprain, if only her luck would change and she could be a member of the cast that was shaping up for Other People’s Honey. Nobody really knew where hit musicals came from—they either did or didn’t have the magic. It looked, sounded, felt like Other People’s Honey was going to be a hit.
But Macy knew it wasn’t going to happen for her. Not this time, and maybe never. Enough rejection taught you how to recognize it when it was still on the way. She could see it in the posture and faces of the ones who were judging hopefuls for Other People’s Honey. The money gods who held fate in their hands. Macy, in her heart, was already defeated. All that was needed was for it to be made official.
Macy wanted to know, wanted the suspense to end. Or was not knowing a kind of masochistic pleasure? After all, if you didn’t know you were a failure, it wasn’t yet an established fact in the minds of others.
And in your own mind.
The verdict would be suspended for another hour or more, after the tryouts for voice. Macy didn’t worry about that. She didn’t even pretend to be able to sing. She was a dancer, and not just a chorus line dancer. She knew she was unique, and could carry a show.