Chill of Night (22 page)

Beam, as always, showed up early for his weekly dinner with Cassie. Her high apartment was a comfortable enclave amidst the sheets of summer rain that were sweeping across the city. He sat and watched TV news while she carried things out from the kitchen to her elaborately set dining room table. Beam would have been glad to help, but he knew he'd get his hand slapped. Cassie liked to put on her dinners by herself. She liked to fuss.

She'd prepared almond-crusted trout this evening, along with green beans, and mashed potatoes with garlic in them. The meal was complemented by an Argentine white wine Beam had never heard of.

When Cassie was ready she called him, and Beam simply used the remote to switch off the TV, then went to the table and sat. Outside, thunder rumbled over New York.

The dishes were Haviland, with silver flatware and Waterford crystal. Cassie sat down opposite Beam, and dinner began with a silent toast with wine glasses, then with a salad of spinach leaves, scallops, and tomatoes, with an oil and vinegar dressing. Cassie had also prepared warm rolls.

Beam sometimes thought his sister would have made some man a good wife, but she never discussed her love life. He thought she might have a girlfriend down in SoHo. He'd even glimpsed them once on the street, holding hands, the hefty form of Cassie alongside a slim woman with long, straight hair, but he'd never mentioned it and hadn't seen the woman since. However, Cassie didn't mind discussing Beam's love life. Ever the analyst, even when Lani was alive, his sister sometimes surprised him with her blunt and probing questions or observations about them.

Beam didn't mind. He and Cassie had learned to trust each other before they were ten years old. He usually answered her questions, and she his, though his were less personal.

“The profiler in the Justice Killer investigation thinks our man might be in the initial stages of coming unraveled,” he said, and forked in a mouthful of spinach leaf.

Cassie sipped her wine. “I thought you didn't believe in profiling.”

“Can't be dismissed completely,” Beam said. “Like your predictions.”

She understood he was joking. He knew better than to ignore his sister's predictions. They had a way of coming true, even if it happened to be in some manner that made you wish they hadn't.

“No predictions here, “Cassie said, “But the timing might be about right for the murderer to start coming unglued. Taking a human life is a destructive process for both parties. Is he killing more often and more brutally?”

“Yes, and varying his methods.”

“Playing a game,” Cassie said, and began moving her salad ingredients around with her fork, almost as if looking for something in the cut glass bowl.

“Very much like a game,” Beam said.

“Like the ones the rest of us play.”

Flashes of chain lightning illuminated the apartment. “The rest of us don't go around killing people.”

“Oh, we do. In one way or another.”

Beam finished his salad. People who'd never dealt with serial killers couldn't know how devoid of human empathy and conscience they were. They had a mission, a compulsion that, to them, was in and of itself enough justification for their actions. “It's not like you to get all cryptic and philosophical on me, Cass.”

“Sorry. I'll revert to the prosaic. How's Fred Looper? He still off the cigarettes?”

“As far as we know. He still reaches for them.”

“Nell okay, too?”

“Fine, I think.”

“You only think?”

“She's a hell of a detective,” Beam said. “She has insight and talent, and she's damned tenacious.”

“But?”

“She tends to push things too far sometimes. Like when a security tape caught her beating up on a suspect.”

“The one who tried to stab her?”

“That's her story. I've seen the tape and I believe her. But even if it's true, she seemed to like her job too much—the part of it where we take on the bad guys physically if they don't give up.”

“Nobody hates the bad guys more than you do, Beam. And you've been in some scraps.”

“Yeah. Can't deny it. But I've also learned how to hold myself back. It's part of professionalism.”

“Would you be able to hold yourself back with the Justice Killer?”

Beam glared at Cassie. She did have an instinct for the Achilles' heel. “I would try to, Cass.”

“Maybe Nell tries. She's not as experienced as you are. Give her a break. I've got a good feeling about her.”

“Another thing I've noticed,” Beam said. “Nell's been distracted the past few days.”

“Maybe she's in love, or at least in sexual thrall. It happens. And she's still young and attractive.”

“That could be the reason,” Beam said. Actually, he was pretty sure of it. He'd seen the signs before, in cops of both sexes. It was the sort of thing that could make you careless and get you shot.

“Do you think it's interfering with her work?”

“I wouldn't say that.”
Not yet.

“So there's no problem.”

“None,” Beam said. “Except I get the feeling I don't know her as well as I used to.”

“Do you still trust her?”

“All the way. But if she's in love…”

“She's vulnerable,” Cassie finished for him. She pushed her half-eaten salad aside. “But from what you've told me, and what I've seen of her, I don't think you have to worry about Nell being vulnerable as a cop. She might be distracted now, but it's only temporary, while mind and body adjust. She takes her work seriously. We all have to take time off now and then for being human.”

Some of us
from
being human, Beam thought.

“In my line of work,” he said, “being human can be dangerous.”

“In everybody's.” Cassie stood up to go to the kitchen and get the main course.

She returned a minute later carrying two steaming plates. She set one down in front of Beam, the other on the side of the table where she would sit.

“Looks delicious,” Beam said. He could smell the seasoning on the fish, the garlic in the mashed potatoes. And there were other, more delicate scents, herbs and melted butter. Cassie was one terrific cook.

Brother and sister picked up knife and fork, and for a few minutes they sat silently and ate and sipped wine. The Argentine wine was perfect with the trout.

“It all tastes even better than it smells,” Beam said. “If you ever give up psychoanalysis, you could have a career as a chef.”

“Or a culinary psychiatrist.” She took a bite of potato. “I have a theory that everything in life is connected in one way or another with food.”

“Hmm. Didn't Freud think it was sex?”

Cassie lifted her square shoulders in a shrug. “That's Freud for you.” She took a sip of wine and dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “Have you seen your friend Nola again?”

“I'm not sure I like the segue.”

“Are you avoiding the question?”

“I suppose. And I shouldn't avoid it. Maybe you can tell me what's going on.”

Ignoring his food—which to Cassie might be meaningful—Beam told her about sitting in his car across from Nola's antique shop, and what went on between them when finally he did go inside.

When he was finished, she said, “You went inside the shop. I congratulate you for acting on your fear.”

“My nervousness, you mean.”

“I mean your fear.”

Beam knew she was right. He
had
been afraid. “I remembered what you told me,” he said, “about her needing to forgive me.”

“Do you agree now that's what she needs?”

“I told her it was what she needs.”

“How'd she react?”

Beam told Cassie about Nola insisting that he leave, but not insisting that he not return. He was dismayed that in the telling, it seemed like wishful thinking on his part. It also sounded stilted and futile.

What had happened in the antique shop was beyond words. Words simply weren't up to the task. They were as useful as paddles in mid ocean. Nola was beyond words.

“Do you think she'll want to see me again?” he asked Cassie.

“Was your account of what happened between you two accurate?”

“I'm a cop,” Beam said. “I remember details. It was accurate.”

Cassie finished her wine and grinned. “Then you can bet your sweet ass she wants to see you. Don't you understand, bro, you're her way out.”

And she's mine.

 

When Beam left Cassie's apartment a few hours later, he drove past the antique shop even though he was sure Nola wouldn't be there.

The shop's windows were dark, like those in the rest of the businesses lining the block. Even the lettering on the glass was part of the night and unreadable. The windows reminded Beam of blank, uncomprehending eyes staring out at the street.

When he steered the Lincoln in a tire-squealing U-turn and drove for home, he didn't notice the car following him, as he hadn't noticed it when it fell in behind him as he'd pulled out of the parking garage half a block from Cassie's apartment.

In his business, distraction could be dangerous.

Fear, real fear, was one mean mother. You could put up a front and hold it off, but it wouldn't go away. It just backed up a step and stayed there, licking its chops, waiting.

Be a bitchin' song.

The commercial possibilities blew through his mind like an icy breeze. The fear came in its wake.

He wasn't Cold Cat now. He was Richard Simms, the defendant. He kept his fingertips touching the hard mahogany surface of the table so his hands wouldn't tremble. His knees were almost weak enough to give, and the same could be said of his bladder. His mouth was filled with cotton, and while he could keep his expression neutral, he couldn't keep the tears from welling in his eyes, which he kept fixed straight ahead at a picture of Justice Thurgood Marshall hanging on the wall behind the bench.

Cold Cat seemed to him more of an invention than ever, a hard structure to hide within, as Richard Simms stood in court and awaited the verdict in his trial for murder. Richard Simms knew he wasn't nearly as tough as Cold Cat, and the harsh world could be dealt with only if it were Cold Cat and not Richard trying to cope. Here in the emotionally charged, smothering heart of the racist bureaucracy, with a hostile world sitting in judgment, he found it impossible to be Cold Cat.

Richard Simms himself would have to face the system, would have to bear up, whatever the verdict.

It was the total silence that got to him more than anything. All his life Richard had hated silence. It made it difficult for him to breathe, to think. He felt as if he might pass out soon from lack of oxygen.

Richard felt ten years old standing there, the age he'd been the three times he'd attended church at St. Matthew's, at the insistence of a fiercely religious aunt who'd tried to force the spirit on him. Religion hadn't taken root in Richard; some of his lyrics, in fact, were virulently anti-faith—all faiths.

But he knew what a benediction was, and that was what he felt when the words were loosed in the stifling courtroom. They were only sounds with no meaning at first, and then, finally, they sank in. They bore in. They suffused apprehension and despondency with relief, and then incredible joy.

Not guilty.

If ever Cold Cat was going to be converted, to experience his epiphany, this was the moment. He almost collapsed with his newfound sense of freedom, sagging so that his attorney Murray had to stand up beside him and support him.

No more jailhouse food, no more god-awful threads, no more nights alone with those dreams.

There's never music in my dreams.

Then he and Murray were hugging, and the attorney whispered something in his ear that Cold Cat couldn't understand, because other voices were rising. His mother was screaming hallelujahs! over and over. Hands patted, pounded on his back. He was shaking hands. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, hug him, and hang on.

And the gavel
banged!
Again! Louder and louder, more and more insistent, until it overwhelmed every other sound in the courtroom and silence returned like a cool river.

At his lawyer's insistence, Cold Cat sat back down, with a backward glance at his mother, who was sobbing in her jubilation. He watched the judge as she dispassionately polled the jury, and he listened as each juror answered.

The verdict was unanimous. Cold Cat did not murder his wife.

He was
free!

It was at that moment that the old rage, the furnace fire of his youth, still burning strong, began to take hold in him. The system had tried to get him but failed. He'd whipped its ass and he would again with his music. It was a scumbag society out to get him from the git-go and it couldn't shut him up, couldn't stop his message. He was better than the fools who'd tried to bring him down. Better in every way. He would tell them so. When the time was right, he'd let them know.

Unanimous. Try to reverse that one on appeal, Mr. Smart-ass prosecutor Farrato. Richard tried to catch the little prosecutor's eye, but Farrato, busy scooping up papers and stuffing them into his briefcase, wouldn't look in his direction.

Better not look my humpin' way!

Put ya way down

Ya don' see it my way

Make ya way pay

Turn ya way gray

Be yo one
last
final day!

Yes, there were definitely some lyrics here. Food for the beat. It was all material for Cold Cat, all part of his message.

As he stood up to leave the courtroom with his attorneys, he was full of the rage he'd turned to riches. He didn't glance at the jurors, wasn't going to mouth a “thank-you” like Simpson. The Melanie cunt that he'd got all wet between the legs in court and conned into helping him was of no use to him now. He knew how he affected some women, and she'd probably try making a pest of herself, but he wouldn't let her. Old bitch. Old
er
, anyway. Those were bones he didn't want to jump, so piss on her. He made a mental note to describe her to his security staff so they could keep her the hell away.

That Merv Clark, though, nervy guy that'd been around, had his own troubles, and lied his ass off to get a lighter sentence from the man, was a different matter. He'd have to see what he could do for that brother, maybe put him on his staff, loyal soldier like that.

Knee High was in the corner of his vision as two burly bailiffs cleared the way, and graceful Murray guided Cold Cat with a light touch to his elbow, nudging him toward the paneled door to freedom.

Murray, too. Man deserves a bonus. Smoother'n goose shit.

“Catch you later, man!” Knee High yelled.

Cold Cat glanced at him and raised a hand with thumb, forefinger, and pinky stiffly extended. Cameras hadn't been allowed in the courtroom, but the miniature lightning of flashes going off brightened everything, momentarily blinding Cold Cat.

“You'n me all the way now!” Knee High shouted, as the acquitted man and his entourage exited behind the bench. “You'n me all the way!”

“Goddamn believe it!” Richard Simms mumbled.

All the way.

Cold Cat was back.

 

Two days later New York Appeals Court Judge Roger Parker was found shot to death in his limo by his driver, who'd gone into a service station in Queens to buy a morning paper for the judge.

A slip of paper with a red capital letter
J
printed on it with felt tip pen was tucked beneath the limo's wiper blade on the passenger side, like a parking ticket.

The limo driver started to remove it, then thought he'd better leave it for the police.