They were closer to each other than they knew.

The killer understood that there was nothing of a personal or sexual nature between them, but their friendship, being a lasting one, would be the loss of something held dear. Weaver might be an informer for the idiot commissioner, Renz, but she was also protective of Quinn, and he of her.

How would Quinn feel if his faithful friend arrived contained in several boxes shipped to him on consecutive days?

How the killer wanted him to feel, that’s how. And such shipments could certainly be arranged. They would, in fact, be great fun.

The killer had familiarized himself with Weaver’s building. It was one of a row of narrow brick structures whose architecture suggested they were built in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. Its big, heavy street door opened to a small foyer. There was no elevator. Another heavy, paneled door led to a narrow stairwell. That door required a key.

The killer’s plan was to close the distance between him and Weaver as soon as she’d entered the foyer, but before the street door had closed behind her. He would press all the way inside quickly, perhaps as she was keying the stairwell door, and have a gun digging into the side of her neck before she realized what was happening. He would slide the gun lower, raking her back with it so that it was at waist level. That way he could shield it from view with his body, in case they encountered anyone coming down the stairs. The gun would stay there tight to her body while they slowly climbed the stairs, and Weaver unlocked her door and they entered her apartment.

With the door closed behind them, he would strike her head hard with the heavy butt of the gun, enough to daze her if not knock her completely unconscious. It was a tactic he’d practiced long and diligently, and he knew exactly where and how hard to hit. Weaver would be down and dazed before she knew what happened.

Then the fun would begin.

It was all choreographed in the killer’s mind, every move, every reaction, every counter move. Like a simple dance that, if the dominant partner led quickly and forcefully, would always end the same way, with a woman stunned and helpless before the killer.

If she happened to remain semiconscious, Weaver would still be vaguely wondering what was going on.

She was a cop. So what? A cop knew what a nine-millimeter bullet would do to her if she disobeyed. Weaver would have her choice of obedience, or having bloody chunks of her bone, muscle, and internal organs blasted all over her apartment wall.

Weaver slowed and was fishing around in her purse for her key to the stairs. She came to a complete stop at the three concrete steps leading up to the small stoop and door to her apartment building.

Then she found the elusive key, withdrew it from her purse, and placed her right foot on the first step.

The killer’s heart began to race, not from fear but from anticipation. The scenario he’d mapped out was firm in his mind. Weaver had no choice but to follow the script.

God, he loved this!

When she was on the stoop, with her back toward him, she reached forward to open the door to the foyer.

That was when the killer tensed to move.

Then froze in position, leaning forward but luckily still in shadow.

A figure had approached from the opposite direction, tall, darkly dressed. With a cap the killer recognized even through the mist.

This was a uniformed cop.

As the killer watched, the cop entered the pool of light from the electrified nineteenth-century gas street lamp near Weaver’s building. He was in his thirties, broad shouldered and with the paraphernalia of his trade dangling from his thick black leather belt. Including a holstered gun.

Weaver had turned and was coming back down the steps to the sidewalk. She and the cop came together in a tight embrace, then kissed each other on the mouth. The cop bent her slightly backward and she lifted one leg like the star of an old movie, as if her calf was a lever that released some of the pressure of her passion. The big cop probably saw it at the lower edge of his vision and was proud that he was responsible.

Finally they came apart, each stepping back, holding each other’s hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, and grinning stupidly.

They finally broke physical contact with each other and entered the apartment building together.

The killer moved farther back into the shadows and watched a light come on in the window that he was pretty sure would be Weaver’s. As if to confirm the fact for him, Weaver appeared at the window. Then the cop loomed behind her, cupping her ample breasts in his hands as she reached for a cord and closed the drapes.

The two lovers remained somewhat visible, but only as moving shadows on the drapes, distorted by folds of fabric. The killer leaned his back against the unyielding support of a brick wall and continued watching the window.

Shadows merged, separated.

Merged. Separated.

The light went out.

Half an hour passed.

The bedroom light came back on, but the uniformed cop didn’t leave.

It disturbed the killer, the way fate had intervened in the form of another cop and saved Weaver’s life. He couldn’t help but suspect that it might be an omen. Or a reminder. Fate was on his side, but he mustn’t count on it too heavily. He must continue to plan carefully, to be bold yet detail-minded.

The formless shadows were back, wavering and dancing behind the closed drapes, sometimes pulling apart, sometimes merging. The killer knew Weaver’s reputation, her sliding scale of ethics, and there she was enjoying her base instincts, saved by her crassness and immorality.

Rewarded for her bad behavior.

It hardly seemed fair.

The light behind the drapes went out again. The killer stood in the mist, looking up at Weaver’s blank window for a long time.

Angry, determined, patient.

And, he had to admit, lonely.

The dark window stared back at him like a disinterested eye. He could only imagine what was going on behind it. He tried not to think about it. He and the cop wanted the woman for entirely different reasons.

Or did they? Both of them wanted, in their own ways, to totally possess her, if only temporarily.

There’s the difference. The temporary part.

There was nothing temporary about death.

That dark knowledge didn’t make the killer any less lonely. The ache was still there, living and squirming in the pit of his stomach.

How could certain women do this to him? Even the doomed ones?

Especially the doomed ones.

He knew the cop might not leave until dawn. Maybe he and Weaver would even go someplace together and have breakfast. Bending toward each other over second cups of coffee. Sharing their conversation after sharing their passion.

The killer wondered what they’d say to each other. What secrets would they trade like cards that might be played later?

Annoying complications, the police.

Eventually he walked a few blocks to a corner and hailed a cab.

The driver spoke a language he didn’t understand.

PART THREE

A life is beautiful and ideal, or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship.

—HAVELOCK ELLIS, Little Essays

of Love and Virtue

29

Quinn had called for an appointment.

He sat in a comfortable wing chair in the director’s office at the Kadner Gallery on Fifth Avenue. It was a small gallery that also acted as a brokerage, directing art sellers to Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as well as to smaller, specialty auctions or private sales. Occasionally the gallery featured an exhibit by a hopeful artist, and even had discovered a few who became famous.