Still, he’d wanted confirmation that the narratives matched.

It would have been wise to hear the truth from Weaver, whispered through lips distorted by pain. The pure truth.

He glanced at his wristwatch. The daily television news/entertainment show Minnie Miner ASAP would soon be on New York One. It was a program he enjoyed, especially when Minnie or her guests were talking about him. She had contacts throughout government and the law in New York City, and knew things sometimes minutes after they happened. (Her detractors said sometimes before.) Maybe she’d have something to say about the daring attempt on Weaver’s life. About him.

When the killer was safely home in his apartment, he leaned with his back against the closed door and took in the warm and slightly mildewed scent of the place. It made him feel much better, safer, like the cozy and well-concealed nest of an animal. But this nest had cream-colored walls on which classic art was carefully arranged, from chromolithographs to charcoal sketches; candle-glow Vermeers to sun-dappled Rembrandts; sunflowers by Van Gogh to trees by Klimt.

Near a low tan leather sofa in an alcove was a silver art deco nude woman on a pedestal, stretching languidly with both arms raised high, fingertips lightly touching, as is she were about to dive from a high place into deep water. There was a similar pedestal, unused, near the opposite end of the sofa.

What all of this art had in common was that it was part of a display of skillfully produced copies. Quality stuff—just not the real stuff.

The real art, the great art, was elsewhere, much of it in Mexico, and some in Europe. Locked away safe and tight even if it happened by chance to be discovered.

Feeling much better, the killer started to take off his dark raincoat and paused.

There was a hole—large enough to fit his little finger through—in the coat’s waterproofed material. He stared at it, knowing it was a bullet hole. It was actually in the coat’s right hand pocket. His hand darted inside the pocket and found the bulk of the semi-automatic he carried. He felt the coat’s material beneath and beside the gun. No pain. No apparent injury. He explored with his fingers the bottom of the pocket, the inner seam. No bullet.

Think about this.

The bullet must have penetrated Weaver’s apartment door and been deflected when it hit the coat, found its way into the fabric.

It must be here.

But it wasn’t.

When he removed his gun to make his search easier, he felt and then saw the small caliber bullet lodged in the checked wooden handgrip. If it had continued its course, it would have struck him in the hip. Would probably be lodged in bone the way it was stuck in the gun’s grip.

The bullet wasn’t so deformed that a ballistics test wouldn’t have revealed it was fired from Weaver’s gun.

Proof positive that he’d been the man in her apartment.

Enough evidence to hold him while they connected him to other crimes. He knew how it worked. Like dominoes. That was why he’d vowed never to be taken alive. He would die true to himself, in his own fashion, in his own time.

He didn’t feel so much like watching the news now. Instead he went into the European-style kitchen and poured three fingers of scotch into a crystal tumbler. Added a cascade of cubes from the stainless steel refrigerator’s growling ice maker.

Holding his drink level, he returned to the living room and stood among the almost real works of the real greats, knowing with a glow of pride that this was only a shadow and reminder of what was his and his alone. Like a woman’s drawer of paste jewelry that emulated what she had that was genuine and valuable.

But like a dog with a rag, his mind kept returning to his recent close call. And to Quinn.

He sat on the sofa and tried not to conclude that he was shaken, running afraid now, and making mistakes.

He knew that Quinn feasted on those kinds of mistakes.

38

Quinn was seated in a plush chair facing Renz’s desk. Renz was slouched in his chair behind the desk, in full and glorious uniform. He was dressed to attend the funeral of a cop who’d been killed earlier that week in a drug-arrest shoot-out on Broadway near Times Square.

The office was stuffy and smelled as if someone had recently snuffed out a cigar. Quinn wondered if someone had.

“The trouble is,” Renz said, “we can’t control how the media will interpret the killer’s try for Weaver.”

“That won’t matter if they don’t find out about it. Nobody actually saw D.O.A. in Weaver’s building, and the bullet hole in the door can be patched before anyone takes a close look at it and figures out what it is.”

“That’s already been done,” Renz said. “We’re lucky.” He held up both hands, palms out. “No, I’ll start over. We’re lucky—but only in a way, for God’s sake—for all the fuss in the media about Wallace.”

Wallace was the young cop who’d been shot and killed on Broadway.

“I know what you mean, Harley. I’m not going to quote you.”

“The Wallace shooting is a tragedy. A gallant officer leaves behind him a wife and two young children.”

“I’m not going to quote you,” Quinn repeated, wishing Renz would stop talking like a distraught TV anchorman.

“Yeah,” Renz said. He shook his head. “Poor bastard. And the truth is, he was a good cop.”

“It’s better the media’s singing his praises and squawking about the dangers of Times Square than concentrating on D.O.A.”

“You said it, not me,” Renz said. “It’s a cruel friggin’ world.”

“How’s Weaver holding up?”

“The lady has balls.” Renz patted his breast pocket, as if absently reaching for a cigarette. Or a cigar. “We didn’t make too big a fuss after the attempt on her life. Just a couple of radio cars. The CSU van. Far as we know, the press isn’t in on the deal, doesn’t even know it happened.”

“It should seem that way to the killer,” Quinn said, “as if nothing newsworthy has happened.”

“And that’ll drive him nuts. At least according to you and Helen.” Renz did his reaching thing again, this time only brushing a fingertip over his breast pocket. “You really think D.O.A. is starting to crumble?”

“He’s showing signs,” Quinn said. “He might even be carrying a bullet.”

“The hospitals would tip us to that one.”

“Not if he knows an agreeable doctor. Or if it’s a minor wound and he can treat it himself. A twenty-two slug doesn’t hit like a broadaxe. But it made it through the door and we didn’t find it, so maybe it’s inside the killer.” Quinn stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankles.

Renz held up two crossed fingers.

There were three soft, evenly spaced knocks on his door, more like a signal than a request to enter. Renz said, “Showtime.” He stood up and buttoned his uniform jacket. Smoothed the material with both hands. “These two dead sisters, or cousins, or whatever the hell they are. This family from Ohio. How do you read all that?”

“Not sure,” Quinn said.

“Maybe they’re not family at all. Maybe it’s all bullshit. Like some kind of cult thing. You know, like the Manson Family.”

“It seems that way sometimes.”

Quinn got up out of his chair so he could leave the office with Renz. “According to Helen, that they’re not all related by blood makes them all the needier and tighter with each other.”

“Hmph. Helen. You believe that psychobabble malarkey?”

“Sometimes,” Quinn said. “I’ll see that you’re kept up on it.”

Renz held the door open for him.

“Bagpipes,” Renz said. “I’ve heard them so many times at funerals. I can’t listen to them and not think of death.”

“They strike a sad note.”

“Can I drop you someplace in the limo?”

“Wouldn’t seem right,” Quinn said.

“Guess not,” Renz agreed. He shook his head. “Lord Jesus, I hate bagpipes!”