“The time’s coming when he won’t,” Helen said. “He’ll make a mistake because unconsciously he wants to. He wanted to play his game in the first place with Beam because he knew he’d eventually be nailed.”

“That last one’s hard to believe,” da Vinci said. Now he did look over at Helen.

Helen shrugged.

“If it’s true, he’ll get his wish.” Beam said. He’d sorted through his emotions and knew now how he felt—angry. Even if the killer had nothing to do with Lani’s death, it was as if he’d somehow defiled her. “He’s going to get a return message he isn’t going to like.”

Helen smiled like something carnivorous about to take a bite. Beam still didn’t have much confidence in her, but he was beginning to like her.

37

“You really wanna score some coke?” Vanessa Asarian asked Gina.

They were in Häagen-Dazs near where Vanessa shared an apartment with two other NYU students. There were only a few places to sit after buying your ice cream or drinks at the counter. Gina and Vanessa were at a table near the back of the long ice cream shop. The only other occupied table was up front, where three preppy types Gina thought looked like future asshole attorneys were sitting spooning in ice cream.

Vanessa wasn’t one of Gina’s best friends at school, but she was a friend. While Gina had a reputation for being serious and studious to the point of being dull, Vanessa, beautiful, blond, and with improbably large brown eyes, had just the opposite reputation. Both reputations were pretty much on the money.

“I want you to put me in contact with this guy Reggie I always hear you and some of the others talk about,” Gina said. She was trusted by those who knew her well, and they discussed matters involving lovers and drug suppliers in front of her without fear of betrayal. Or so Gina thought. Vanessa’s reaction to her request surprised her.

“You haven’t been talking to the police, have you, Gina?”

At first Gina thought she meant talking about the trial of Genelle’s killer and the Justice Killer, and wondered how she could know. Then she realized what Vanessa meant.

“You’re not really afraid of me snitching to the narcs, are you, Van?”

Not that it was narcotics Gina was interested in. She was more interested in Reggie. For a while he’d been away from the scene, and Gina had learned he was in prison, not for selling or possession of drugs, but because he’d been caught burglarizing a pawn shop in New Jersey.

Vanessa sipped her Diet Pepsi through her straw, making a show of it with her pouty lips for the three preppy types sitting up near the entrance. When she lowered the plastic cup there were lipstick smears the first inch of the straw. The preps didn’t happen to be looking her way. Sometimes, Gina thought, Vanessa could be too much.

“Do you really think I’d turn snitch?” Gina asked again.

“No,” Vanessa said. “But Reg has had problems lately. He was beat up a few nights ago and his merchandise was stolen.”

“Coke?”

“Coke, grass, meth.”

“I didn’t know he dealt in all of that. I thought he was only a coke dealer.”

Vanessa stared at her wide-eyed, with her jaw dropped as if in shock. It was known around school as the Vanessa look. “He’s a businessman, Gina. Businessmen diversify.”

“That’s investors,” Gina said.

“Same thing. Being smart. Branching out.”

Gina studied her friend. She’d chosen Vanessa to ask about Reggie because she’d long suspected the two might be lovers. Or at least fornicators. The way Vanessa was defending her supplier seemed to underscore the notion. “The guy’s a drug dealer, Van.”

“So’s your friendly pharmacist.”

“I want to talk to Reggie in a friendly way.”

“If you want to try coke, I can get you some.”

“I want to talk to Reggie.”

“You sure you two have never met?”

Gina smiled at her. “It’s nothing like that.”

The Vanessa look again. “Like what?”

“You know what. And you’re making too big a deal out of it. I only want you to put me in touch with someone I don’t know.”

Vanessa looked away and took another sensuous sip through her straw. Distracted this time, though. Gina knew she was considering whether Reggie might be interested in Gina if they met. Gina doubted he would be, but then she didn’t know much about Reggie other than that he dealt drugs and made a bad burglar. Gina knew she was the serious type. She couldn’t picture a hedonist like Reggie being interested in her. But Vanessa might not see it that way.

“What do you want with him?” Vanessa asked around her straw, then did the pouty business with her lips again.

“Would Reggie want me to tell you?”

Vanessa’s cheeks became concave as she sucked in soda. The preps up front were staring at her now, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t want to have sex with him,” Gina said, “only talk to him.”

Vanessa’s eyes widened in genuine surprise this time. Gina didn’t usually talk this way. “Gina—”

“Don’t bother,” Gina said. “It’s none of my business who you or Reggie screw, and it’s going to stay that way.”

One of the preps, maybe a lip reader, looked as if he might get up and make his way back to them, but he didn’t work up the nerve to rise from his little wrought iron chair.

“Okay,” Vanessa said, “I’ll set up a meeting with Reg. But tell no one.”

“I don’t intend to,” Gina said.

“Whatever you wanna sniff or smoke, it’s okay with me.”

“I know that, Van, or I wouldn’t have come to you.”

“Done, then,” Vanessa said. She glanced around as if she’d heard someone call her name, but only as an excuse to survey the front of the shop. “Those guys that look like potential lawyers and doctors been looking at us?”

“At you,” Gina said.

38

“I hardly knew the man,” Marge Caldwell said, obviously tired of Beam’s questions after she’d already given a statement to the police—and less than an hour after Manfred Byrd had died.

“You knew him well enough that he died in your apartment,” Beam said.

Except for Nell, they were seated in the unfurnished living room on imitation Chippendale chairs that Beam and Looper had dragged in from the dining room. Nell was out on the balcony, looking around again to see if the crime scene unit had missed anything, thinking this was an apartment most New Yorkers would die for.

“Well, not exactly in my apartment, thank God,” Marge said. “He was a decorator who was recommended to me by my hair stylist.”

“Who is?”

“Terra. I don’t know her last name. She owns Terra’s Do’s and Don’ts, over on First Avenue.”

“How long have you been going there?” Beam asked. Looper was silent; on the drive over, they’d agreed to let Beam do the questioning.

“I’ve been there exactly once,” Marge said. “I’ve only been in New York a little over a month, and I wasn’t crazy about Terra.” She unconsciously raised a hand to touch her permed, graying hair. “She insisted on doing my hair her way. She’s like a lot of hair stylists—she doesn’t listen.”

Beam had read the preliminary report on Marge; it briefly described a markedly ordinary woman except for one thing.

“You won the Michigan lottery?” he asked, making sure.

“Three point nine million dollars,” Marge said, with an expression suggesting she’d answered the question many times before and it annoyed her.

“Congratulations,” Looper said.

Marge looked over at him and smiled. He was a nice man, not like Beam.