“You’d better not be lying, because we’re going to check it out.”
“I’m not lying. Hey—what’s going on here, anyway? It’s not against the law to meet a girl.”
Rackman looked at Dancy. “Call Jenkins and have him send in the backup to get this guy and check out his story.”
Dancy went for the telephone, and LaGozzi looked horrified.
“Are you arresting me?” LaGozzi asked.
“No, we’re just taking you in for questioning.”
“Questioning about what?”
“The Slasher murder case.”
LaGozzi stared at Rackman for a few seconds. “The Slasher murder case?”
Chapter Twelve
A few blocks away, Kowalchuk walked into the West Side YMCA, carrying a shopping bag full of new clothes. He made his way to the office and stood at the counter until a young black man got up from his desk and came over to him.
“Can I help you?” the black man asked. He wore a yellow tee-shirt with West Side Y on it, and his name was Charles Garvin.
“How much to use the facilities for a day?” Kowalchuk asked.
Garvin peered at his face for a few seconds. “Five dollars.”
Kowalchuk reached into his pocket and took out five dollars. Garvin wrote him a receipt.
“You know where to go?” Garvin asked.
“No.”
Garvin pointed to the door. “Just go out there and turn right. Follow the signs to the locker room.”
“Thanks.”
Kowalchuk walked out of the office and turned right. Garvin watched him go, and wondered if his imagination was running away with him. The cops from Midtown North had been through the West Side Y twice looking for the Slasher, and they’d shown Garvin his picture. That man looked something like the Slasher except for his beard. He was heavyset and dressed like a bum; that fit the description too. Nah, it couldn’t be him, Garvin thought, returning to his desk.
He resumed going through the tickler file to see which memberships would expire next month. Whistling a tune, he took out the cards and looked through them to make certain the dates were correct. The bearded man’s face floated before him. If I call the cops and it isn’t him I’ll look like an asshole. The guy’ll probably sue me. But the cops said to call if anybody resembling the guy showed up. Garvin was plagued with indecision. He didn’t want to call and have the guy turn out not to be the Slasher, but on the other hand, what if he was the Slasher?
Garvin didn’t know what to do. Oh what the hell, he thought. I might as well call. He picked up his phone and dialed nine-one-one.
“Police Emergency,” said a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” Garvin told her. “I work in the West Side Y and a guy just came in here who looks a little like the Slasher. I don’t know if it’s really him or not, but I thought I’d better call anyway.”
“We’ll check it out,” the woman said. “What’s the address?”
Chapter Thirteen
Patrolmen Arthur Spelling and Jimmie Holmes were cruising down Columbus Avenue when the call came over the radio. “Signal six-eighteen… six-eighteen… A man answering the description of the Slasher has just entered the West Side YMCA on Five West Sixty-third Street. A one-three is requested. Which car responding?”
“I’ll take it,” said Holmes, sitting in the passenger seat. He’d been with the NYPD for fifteen years and had long black sideburns. Picking up the microphone, he said, “Car two eighty-one responding to the one-three.”
“Thank you, car two eighty-one.”
“Do you think I should put on the siren?” Patrolman Spelling asked Holmes. He wore his brown hair over his ears and had it cut every two weeks by a hair stylist on Lexington Avenue.
“Naw, we don’t want to scare him, but it probably isn’t the Slasher anyway.”
Spelling pressed down on the accelerator, and the patrol car gathered speed. As they were crossing Sixty-fifth Street, another voice came on the radio, “Car six-sixteen responding to the one-three.”
Holmes looked at Spelling. “That’s Baker, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, Baker and Fitzpatrick I think.” On the second floor of Midtown North, Jenkins sat in his office, drumming his fingers on his desk. He’d just heard the radio call and was wondering whether to drive over to the West Side Y. It was only twelve blocks uptown. What the hell, he thought he’d check it out. He looked at the schedule on his clipboard and saw that Rackman and his bunch would be in front of the Coliseum right now, waiting for another fat guy to hit on Dorothy Owens. The Coliseum was on the way to the Y; he could stop and pick Rackman up, because Rackman had been on this case since the beginning and would want to be in on the action.
Jenkins stood behind his desk and straightened his tie. He tapped his .38 in his belt holster and walked into the outer office, where Detective Donaldson was reading a copy of Penthouse magazine.
“I’m going to check out that situation in the Y,” Jenkins told him. “Watch the store until I get back.”
Chapter Fourteen
Kowalchuk stood under the hot jets of water in the shower room of the Y. It was a public shower room and a few other guys were with him.
“Nice tattoo you’ve got there,” said one of the guys, who sounded gay. “Looks like you just got it.”
“I did.”
“The scab’s still on it.”
“I know.”
“Where’d you get it?”
Kowalchuk looked at the guy through the steam and mist. He was young and well-muscled with a horse tattooed on his bicep.
“Someplace in Brooklyn,” Kowalchuk said evasively.
“Coney Island?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember what place. I was a little drunk at the time.”
Kowalchuk turned away from the guy and put his face under the nozzle. He’d trimmed his beard with scissors and a razor before coming into the shower, and he wanted to make sure all the little hairs were out, otherwise they’d be itchy.
He stepped back and let the water run onto his stomach; it felt good to take a nice hot shower. He’d like to stay for another half-hour, but he had to get moving. It wasn’t smart for the Slasher to stay in one place for too long.
He turned off the knobs and stepped out of the shower stall. His big YMCA towel was on the hook, and he lifted it off, plunging his wet beard into it. He walked into the locker room and stopped at the locker he’d taken, twirling the dial on the combination lock. The lock snapped open and he unlatched the door. Inside was the suit he’d bought at Macy’s.
First he put on his new underwear, and then the pants of the suit. He transferred the stuff in his jeans pockets to the pockets of the suit pants, looking surreptitiously around before dropping in the knife. Then he sat on the bench and put on his new stockings and shoes. He’d look like a businessman once he had the whole outfit on. Even the salesman at Macy’s had remarked how distinguished he’d looked. Kowalchuk’s plan was to check into a nice midtown hotel and call one of the whores who advertised in The New York Review of Sex that they’d come to your apartment or hotel for fifty dollars. He’d kill her and then move on.
Standing, he put on his new white shirt as other men dressed or undressed around him in the locker room. A man in his sixties who looked more dead than alive sat and wheezed on the bench a few feet down. Various conversations were taking place, and many of the voices sounded gay. Kowalchuk didn’t like gay men. He couldn’t understand why a man would want to act like a woman.
“You check the lockers, and PU check the shower room,” a man said.