“You think he’s really inside? Or is this all some kind of trick?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure what his game is. But he flashed those concert tickets for a reason. He wanted us here.”
“Did you call Hayden?” Frost asked.
Jess exhaled something that might have been a laugh and might have been a snort. “Yeah, because I’m the person he wants to talk to. I’m not supposed to be here at all. If Hayden scrambles cops on my say-so, the new investigation’s already poisoned. Maybe that’s what Cutter is counting on.”
“Even if he’s inside, I can’t arrest him, you know,” Frost said. “He hasn’t committed any crime that we know of. We don’t have any probable cause to tie him to the murder of Jimmy Keyes.”
“Yeah, but you can put the fear of God in him. And you can scare off the girl he’s with.”
“Okay. I’ll check it out.”
“Thanks. I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything important. Like a date with Eden Shay.”
It was a joke, but a joke from Jess always had an edge. He knew what this was about. She’d put herself out there by offering to sleep with him, and he’d turned her down. She wanted to know if he’d done the same with Eden. Jess was as tough a cop as he’d ever known, but she was still a woman, and he’d hurt her feelings. She was also in a dark place and looking for reasons to feel bad about herself.
“I was with my parents,” he told her.
“Yeah? How are they?”
“Fragile,” he said.
“Well, I’m sorry to take you away from them.”
“No, I appreciate the rescue,” he said. “I wasn’t in much of a mood to talk right now. Why don’t you go back home? There’s nothing more you can do here.”
Jess shook her head. “I’ll keep watch while you’re inside. I want to be here in case he rabbits.”
“And then what? You can’t stop him.”
He saw the cloud on her face. She kept forgetting. Twenty years as a cop didn’t go away easily.
“I can follow him,” she said. “I won’t let him see me. At least we’ll know where he goes and whether he’s alone.”
It was pointless for him to argue. Jess was stubborn, and she was going to do whatever she wanted.
“Did you find out anything more about the girl at the bar?” Frost asked.
“Brown hair, lots of makeup, black dress.”
“That really narrows it down.”
“Cutter’s wearing a fedora. Double yellow stripes on the brim.”
“Just like half the hipsters in the city,” Frost said.
“Look who’s talking, Justin Timberlake,” she muttered sarcastically.
Frost laughed without taking offense, but he knew Jess was trying to be cruel. He was running out of patience with her. She was more upset than she let on about her life being turned upside down, but if she wanted to feel sorry for herself, he couldn’t do anything except let her wallow. She’d brought it on herself, and they both knew it.
“I’m going over there,” he told her in a clipped voice. “Keep your eyes open.”
Jess didn’t reply. She smoked, and she shrugged with false bravado, as if she didn’t care about anything. Her eyes were as cold as the rain.
Frost put his head down and crossed Fillmore Street toward the theater door. As he got closer, he could already hear the music trying to bust through the walls and the screams of the people inside. There was something animal-like about a concert floor. Pack the crowd together, turn up the volume, turn down the lights, and shatter your eardrums with noise. In a room like that, you couldn’t tell the hunter from the hunted.
The thought flitted in and out of his mind that he could shove his gun against Rudy Cutter’s heart in there, pull the trigger, and no one would ever know.
It was just a bad fantasy.
He went inside.
24
The music thumped inside Rudy’s chest like the beating of a second heart, wild and loud.
Hundreds of people squeezed shoulder to shoulder, screaming and throwing their hands in the air. Spotlights, like bright eyes, streamed through clouds of fog and cast an orange glow over the mass of bodies. The crowd undulated in unison, like a single living thing, dancing up and down. Elegant chandeliers dangled over their heads, strangely out of place here, as if a revolutionary army had stormed the royal palace. The floor shook. The band ruled.
Rudy didn’t dance like the others. He stood where he was, as motionless as a wooden mannequin, except to swivel his head to study the faces shining in the moving lights and monitor the exits out of the theater. He hid behind the mask of his sunglasses. His hands were in his pockets. He had nothing with him, other than cash; his backpack was hidden in an alley two blocks away. It would be easy enough to retrieve when he needed what was inside.
Beside him, Magnolia shoved her fingers in her mouth and whistled, but the noise was soundless amid the din. She tossed her head back and forth, and her long hair swirled underneath the brim of the hat he’d dropped on her head. Her forehead was dotted with sweat. Her lips mouthed the lyrics of whatever song the band was playing, but he couldn’t make out the words.
As she danced, the spaghetti strap of her little black dress slipped down one shoulder. He admired the exposed bare skin and the creamy curve of her neck. She saw him watching her, and she shouted something, but he couldn’t hear it. Then she grabbed his waist, pulled her body next to his own, and kissed him with her tongue snaking inside his mouth. He could see her eyes, which were big and drunk. He wondered if she’d scored some pills from someone in the crowd.
That was fine. That made it easier.
Magnolia’s lips found their way to his ear. She shouted at him, but he could barely hear her. “You’re cute.”
She was definitely drunk. Definitely stoned. He let his hand drift downward on the back of her dress.
“So are you,” he mouthed at her. He didn’t know if she understood him, but her eyes had a horny fire.
“I’m having a great time. The music is great.” She pressed herself hard against his body and breathed into his ear again. “Wanna get lucky?”
Rudy grinned at her, which was all the encouragement she needed. She kissed him again, and down below, where the hips of strangers bumped around them, her fingers fished inside his loose pocket. Squeezing. Tugging. His breath caught with what she was doing to him. It wasn’t going to take long for him to explode that way, but after she’d teased him to the edge, her hand disappeared. He tried to grab her wrist, but she nimbly avoided him and patted his cheek. She gave him a wicked smile and shook her head. With her face an inch away, he read her lips as she said, “Save that for later.”
She didn’t know there would be no later.
The band’s song ended. The split second of silence in the hall was followed by whoops and cries. His ears rang. Everyone was breathless.
“I need a drink,” Magnolia said.
“I’ll get you one.”
“I gotta pee first,” she said.
“Okay, we’ll drink when you get back. You like champagne?”
“I love champagne.”
“What kind?”
“The most expensive kind.”
He smiled. “Sure.”
“What if I lose you in here?” she asked.
“You won’t.”
Her hand dipped into her purse. She pulled out a business card and nestled against him and slid it into the pocket of his jacket. “Just in case. My address is on the card.”
Magnolia twirled away, stumbling against two other men. If the collision had been harder, it would have been like toppling dominoes. She wiggled a finger at Rudy to say good-bye, and then she weaved into the crowd. He followed her progress by watching the bounce of his fedora on her head, but he lost her among the sea of bodies.