Nightlife_ A Novel Part 33

They walked to the Mine, listening to the drops popping on the fabric of their umbrellas. They stayed close to the storefronts, far from the curb, where a pa.s.sing car might plow through a puddle and splash them. Once, Greg suddenly tugged her with him into an alcove outside a store entrance, and she thought he was saving her from a soaking. In a second she learned he had done it so he could kiss her in the alcove, where they were out of the lights and the rain.

The Mine was good tonight, the music all new work by a girl band called Danae. They had their own following, so the energy was all happy and appreciative, and the band tried to show itself at its best. Judith didn't mind that Greg's eyes lingered too long on the girls of the band. She might have resented the tight jeans on the ba.s.s guitarist, the ripped and abbreviated T-shirt on the drummer, but not tonight. It all helped to keep people's eyes on the stage, and not on her. She was enjoying a part of her perfect moment, and she didn't want to be disturbed.

49.

Catherine Hobbes knew exactly how she wanted to conduct her hunt. The only success she'd had so far was the result of circulating the pictures of Tanya Starling and Rachel Sturbridge. This time she had printed five hundred flyers with the two color pictures, the physical description, and the list of murders. The words "armed and dangerous" were in larger, darker type.

During the early part of the afternoon, uniformed officers went to the businesses where the Catherine Hobbes credit card had been used, left flyers, and talked to salesclerks and waiters to find out what they could remember about the girl. Catherine had gone to Stahlmeyer's Department Store herself.

The women's-wear manager had checked the computerized record to find out exactly what purchases Tanya had made. As she walked Catherine to the right part of the fourth floor and began to show her the items Tanya had bought, Catherine felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to stand.

Tanya had bought designer pantsuits. Two of them were almost exactly like the ones Catherine had bought at Stahlmeyer's a week before, tailored so the coats were not pinched inward to the waist but had a bit of drape. They were cut to hang from the shoulders, like a man's suit, so they allowed Catherine to carry a concealed weapon. Tanya was doing the same thing.

Catherine went outside to retrieve the digital camera in the trunk of the unmarked car, then carried one sample of each of the four suits Tanya had bought into a dressing room and photographed them. The blouses Tanya had chosen to go with them were conservative, very like the ones that Catherine had bought.

Catherine knew that Tanya must have seen her on television in Arizona and probably in Portland. It wasn't difficult to find clothes like Catherine's in a big city. But why was she buying them? What did Tanya hope to accomplish by imitating Catherine Hobbes? Did it have something to do with getting the credit card accepted?

Maybe Tanya was working up to doing a killing and then taunting Catherine. She might rent a getaway car in Catherine's name, or leave a charge receipt with Catherine's name on it at a crime scene.

The idea that Tanya might be making her killings into a game was not a welcome one. The list of killers who had begun teasing the police and leaving riddles for them was long and ugly. From the time when they began to taunt the police until the time they were caught, they became more active and prolific. Catherine hoped that whatever Tanya was doing, she was not getting ready to kill somebody just to torment Catherine Hobbes.

Catherine drove back to the bureau, downloaded the photographs into her computer, and made copies for the evening-shift patrol officers in the downtown district. Then she went to the second floor, to the vice squad office, and found Rhonda Scucci.

Rhonda looked up from a file she was reading, and said, "h.e.l.lo, Cath. What's up?"

"Hi, Rhonda. I've got to go out tonight looking like somebody else."

"What are we talking-wh.o.r.e? Drug mule?"

"This is a single woman, maybe five years younger than I am, if the light is dim enough. She works nine to five in an office. She might be out with a female friend or two. She hasn't got a date. You know the Mine? Metro? That's the kind of place. All I have to do is not stand out and not get recognized."

"Yeah, there's a lot of that around this building. But don't worry. I know those places. You want what? A skirt and blouse? Shoes? Probably a raincoat tonight, just to protect our investment."

"I can use anything you can get me. But the part I need most is the wig. The hair is really important."

"So the suspect has seen your face?"

"Yes."

"Jesus, Cath. A homicide suspect? Is that what they ask you to do these days?"

"Don't worry. I'm going to be backed up."

"Just be sure it's close backup." Rhonda led her down the hall to a storeroom and unlocked it. It looked as though it had been a broom closet originally, but now it held shelves full of electronic equipment for stings-microphones, tape recorders, video cameras-and a wide array of clothes for men and women on hangers. Rhonda picked a few things off the rack and held them up to Catherine until they agreed on an outfit. Then she helped Catherine try on wigs.

The third one looked right. Catherine could tell as soon as she looked in the mirror. The hair was dark brown, long, and straight, parted in the middle. It wasn't eye-catching, and if she ducked her head a bit, it would fall forward to hide her face if she wanted it to. "What do you think?"

"What the h.e.l.l do you care? It's to impress a killer. Want him to die excited?"

50.

Catherine was on the street, walking the district where Tanya Starling had used the Catherine Hobbes credit card. Catherine had spent time in this neighborhood during vacations from college. Part of the attraction had been that the area had a bar scene full of young single people even then, and part of it had been that it had not been part of her father's precinct. She had been very careful to stay out of the parts of town where she might meet Lieutenant Frank Hobbes on business.

After that she had married Kevin and moved to Palo Alto. When that had fallen apart, and she had come home and become a cop too, she had not been a.s.signed to fashionable places like this. She had spent her time as a patrol officer in the parts of town where people got robbed or killed, or bought ten-dollar bags of drugs.

The feel of the area had not changed, but it was much more crowded, much more expensive, and more stylish than it had been when she was in college. She supposed she could have said the same about all of Portland. It had spent the time filling up with the people who had ruined California.

Tonight was the third night of a persistent rain, and it was a weeknight, but it didn't matter. Men and women in their twenties and early thirties, some of them in suits and skirts from the office, were going into the restaurants and gathering at the bars, standing in knots while holding drinks in warm, wood-paneled taprooms.

Catherine needed to get used to the district again, and to develop a feeling for the spots where Tanya had used the credit card. She studied the entrances to the nightspots, picked out front windows where she might get a table to watch for Tanya, or where Tanya might be sitting right now.

All of Tanya's credit card charges had been between Eleventh Avenue and Fifteenth, as far north as Lovejoy Street and as far south as Glisan Street. The rain gave Catherine a chance to walk up each of the streets studying the buildings and the crowds, carrying an umbrella and wearing a hooded raincoat that hid her face. In Portland, rain didn't make anybody think of staying home, but Catherine's rain gear made it easy for her to study faces without much risk of being studied in return.

She patrolled systematically tonight, learning the traffic patterns. She began at the corner of Eleventh and Glisan and headed north to Lovejoy, then turned left and left again to go south on Twelfth. Each time she came to one of the places where Tanya had already been-the Mine, Sybil's, Metro, La Mousse-she lingered a few minutes, watching the doors, surveying the buildings.

One of the things she was trying to do was to evaluate the ambience and the customers. She needed to get a sense of whether the place would appeal to Tanya Starling or was somewhere she had gone once, had not liked, and would never revisit. Tanya seemed to like luxury-the bars in good hotels, nice restaurants-and the clothes she had bought in Portland were expensive. La Mousse and Sybil's were essentially the kind of restaurant that Tanya chose in every city, so Catherine was satisfied with them.

Catherine spent more time searching the parking lots and the nearby streets looking for Tyler Gilman's car. By now, Tanya might have sold it or abandoned it, as she had done with other cars, but until it turned up, there was a chance that she had kept it and might drive it to this district on a rainy weeknight. The little blue Mazda was just the sort of car that Tanya might convince herself would not attract any attention, and Tanya would not want to show up at a restaurant or a club looking like a wet rat. She would want to look good to attract the next man.

Catherine had not been able to find any record of Tanya's having done anything for a living but accept gifts from men. She seemed to have lived in the high-rise apartment building in Chicago for an extended period of time. The building manager had said he didn't know how long she had been around, but he remembered seeing her occasionally for years. The apartment had been rented by a man named Carl Nelson, and her name had never appeared on the lease or the mailbox. About a year ago, Carl Nelson had died of a heart attack during a trip to Europe.

After Nelson had died, Tanya had gone to Aspen and found Dennis Poole. He had supported her and given her money and expensive gifts. She seemed always to be looking for a man to take care of her, and always finding that she had to move on.

Tanya should have left Portland. She had made an attempt on Catherine and killed Calvin Dunn, so Portland could hardly be considered a safe place to stay. She should be in the next city by now, but this time something was different. The charges on the Catherine Hobbes card had begun after Catherine's house had burned, not before. Catherine had to act on what Tanya was doing, not on what Tanya should be doing.

Catherine kept walking along the streets, her hood up, staying in the shadows and moving quickly past the lighted windows, then pausing in the entranceways of closed businesses or under awnings near bus stops, where her presence would raise no questions.

Part of her consciousness was always devoted to watching for Tanya. Every time she came near a restaurant where a young couple was coming out, putting up umbrellas or trotting toward their parked car, she studied the woman. Whenever there was a woman visible through a front window, Catherine's eyes had to focus on her and find some disqualifying feature before she could release her from her gaze. When a car glided past her searching for a parking s.p.a.ce, Catherine looked for Tanya inside.

She was also making mental notes about how to expand her search. The ideal way to do it would be to post a plainclothes officer at the bar in each of the district's clubs and restaurants for a few weeks, doing nothing but watching the door to see if Tanya entered. It was impossible, of course, but she thought maybe she could talk her captain into sparing one team. If there was one cop in Metro, Sybil's, the Mine, and La Mousse for a few nights, all of them connected by radio to a control van in the middle of the district, something good might happen. If Catherine drew the right male cops, Tanya might even try to pick up one of them.

She decided that the parking lot behind Sybil's, on Fourteenth near Irving, would be a good place for the van. The lot was used by a bank and about three smaller businesses during the day, but at night the only one that was open was Sybil's. When Sybil's was packed, there were still at least a few empty parking s.p.a.ces. A plain white van parked in the far corner near the rear driveway would look as though it belonged to the restaurant or one of its suppliers.

She reached the Mine, at Fifteenth and Johnson, at eleven-twenty. There were no windows, but every time the door opened to admit more customers, she could see inside, where the crowd surged on the dance floor and the music blared and thumped briefly, and then was m.u.f.fled as the door closed on it. The place was dimly lighted except for the stage, which she couldn't see from outside.

As she walked closer, Catherine had a subtle feeling that grew with each step: Don't walk past. Look inside. The Mine wasn't like a restaurant, where someone might make a second visit after a month or two. It was a nightclub. Tanya could go there every night. The place was crowded, and the lights were low and wavering. Catherine should get a better look. As she walked toward the door, the rain picked up slightly, so three girls who had been smoking outside headed for the door. Catherine pushed back her hood, closed her umbrella, and moved in among them.

The music was loud, and she could feel the pounding of the ba.s.s in her stomach. She glanced involuntarily at the stage, a simple reflex of the brain because it needed to know where so much sound was coming from. She noted that it was a girl band, and returned her eyes to the crowd.

The patrons were of the right age and the right style for Tanya. There were at least two hundred people of both s.e.xes in the big room, their faces sometimes illuminated by the glow of the spotlights on the stage, sometimes held in the dark for long periods. As she scanned the faces-smiling, laughing, trying to talk to each other over the music-she felt a shiver of fear for them. They looked like Tanya, clean-faced and alert, between twenty-one and thirty, all with good haircuts and dressed as though they were employed in some white-collar job. Tanya could slip in among them and be so like them that she would be unmemorable and invisible, until one of them was dead. It could happen any night that Tanya felt the urge. It could be happening now.

Catherine began to make her way through the crowd, squeezing into the border between the dance floor and the outer ring of patrons lined up for a turn at the bar. She would move sideways a few feet, then extend a hand between two people and let the arm and shoulder follow, repeating, "Excuse me. Pardon. Excuse me" as she went, her voice just part of the mixture of voices to be heard trying to climb over the music but barely over it, so that she needed to be within a foot of the next person before he knew anyone was talking. Catherine slowly made it closer to the destination she had set for herself, the ladies' room.

She had known that in a crowd this size there would be a line of women waiting to use the ladies' room. No matter what else was true of Tanya, if she was here, she would have to wait in that line sometime. Catherine came within sight and began to move laterally in the crowd, studying the faces of the women in the line. Tanya was not among them.

Catherine devoted a few minutes to studying the layout of the Mine more closely. There were two fire exits at this end of the building, and probably another behind the stage. If there was a sighting of Tanya here, Catherine would have to remember to have those exits watched. She turned and began to inch her way through the ma.s.s of moving bodies toward the door. She was blocked suddenly as a tall man stepped into her path. "Excuse me," she said.

"Dance with me." He was handsome, but he knew it.

"No, thanks. Got to go."

"Come on," he said. His confidence grew until he became repulsive. "You know you want to."

To his right Catherine saw something that didn't fit, the flash of a face and then a sudden movement that went against the beat of the music. She saw a couple moving off in the crowd ahead of her. "Excuse me," she said as she tried to go around him.

He held her arm. "Please. I'm in love with you. The marriage is on."

She looked at his arm clutching hers, then up into his eyes. "Want a really nasty surprise?"

He let go, held up both hands, and stepped backward. She used the s.p.a.ce that he opened between them to slip past him and make six feet of progress before the next obstacle formed.

"Excuse me," she said to a group of young women who had just come in. The nearest of the women turned to look at her, just an aura of blond hair to frame an expression that was utterly empty.

Catherine said, "You won't be able to get in unless you let people out."

The woman reluctantly stepped aside six inches. Catherine brushed by her and the next two, and was out the door. She squinted into the rain, then down the street the other way, but she could not see the couple. She had lost them.

She tried to a.n.a.lyze the impression she'd had. It wasn't that the woman looked like Tanya-she had not been able to tell what she looked like in the dim light. It had just been the impression of furtiveness that had made her want to get a closer look.

She began to walk again, this time heading for Metro. She had noticed something, and it had not quite reached her consciousness until a moment ago. Every place where the Catherine Hobbes credit card had been used had one thing in common. They were all very dim. She hoped that when the officers had gone around this afternoon they had asked the owners of the businesses to post the circulars where people could see them.

51.

Judith was sitting at her favorite table in Underground. This was the bar where she had met Greg, and the table was the one where they had sat and talked for so long on that first night. She was drinking her second martini of the evening, and it was probably going to be the last. This night was precious, and she didn't want to get sleepy. It felt to Judith as though she had finally managed to hold together all of the elements of the life she had always thought about when she was a child.

She had not realized when she was eight or ten that what she was imagining was only a single evening that was repeated endlessly. She had determined that she would grow up, get away from her mother, and stop having to be Charlene Buckner. She had known exactly who she would be: a woman who wore beautiful clothes and held drinks in a manicured hand adorned with jewels that sparkled. She would dance with a tall, strong man who adored her.

Now she was a success. Charlene had grown up, and right now she was Judith and she'd had that special evening a hundred times. She leaned close to Greg and said, "I've wanted to go to the ladies' room since we were in the Mine, but I didn't want to wait in that line. I'm going now." Since she was that close to him, she kissed his cheek before she stood.

Greg smiled at her and shrugged. "I'll be here."

Judith walked to the back of the room near the bar, where there was a corridor. She pa.s.sed the pay phone, then the door of the men's room, and then approached the ladies' room at the end. There was only one woman waiting ahead of her, so she waited too. She stood away from the wall, and pretended to look at the things that were written on it, glancing now and then in the direction of the telephone so she didn't have to make eye contact with the other woman.

She heard the door open and close, saw the girl who had been in the ladies' room move past, and heard the one ahead of her go inside. It was a relief to be alone. Judith waited, leaning against the wall. She hated being trapped anywhere with people who might have nothing to look at but her face. It had been about three weeks since the local television stations had shown the pictures of her old driver's licenses. People usually forgot everything quickly, but if just one person recognized her, Judith would be finished.

The door opened again, the woman edged past her, and Judith went inside. The room was small, like a half bathroom in a house, but it was clean and private. The walls were covered with copies of old movie posters, menus from forgotten restaurants, and travel ads, all pasted there like wallpaper. She flushed the toilet, went to the sink, and stopped.

Just to the left of the mirror, what she had thought was just another old poster wasn't. The pictures on it were the familiar ones of Tanya Starling and Rachel Sturbridge. But now there was a third one. Her face on the California license had been given a new hairstyle by computer.

Judith stared at herself in the mirror, then at the photograph. It had been doctored. The picture had hair like Judith's-hair like Catherine Hobbes's.

A dozen thoughts competed for her attention. Had those two women a moment ago seen the picture and recognized Judith? They had been in here, and they must have looked at the mirror. Could they have missed the pictures? What did the poster say? She read the print under her face. "Wanted for questioning . . ." That didn't sound like such a big deal. "Homicide, arson, auto theft . . ." That was worse. Maybe the women hadn't read that far. "Armed and dangerous." Could anyone not see those words? Could they have seen this and not connected the pictures with Judith?

She tried to calm herself. Maybe she had been lucky. Her pictures had been all over the western half of the country, on and off, and almost n.o.body ever recognized her. She had not talked to either of those women, had not even made eye contact. A bathroom line was one of the places where people hardly looked at one another. n.o.body wanted to get caught staring and then have to stand around with the person for five or ten minutes. And Judith had been careful.

She pulled the wanted poster off the wall, prepared to throw it into the wastebasket, but changed her mind. Whoever had put it up could be the one to empty the basket, and they might just stick it back up. She quickly folded it three times and put it in her purse. No, that was the wrong place. It was covering the handle of her gun, just when she might need to reach for it. She pulled the folded poster out again, put it into the side compartment of her purse, took a last look at herself in the mirror, and opened the door.

There was another girl waiting. Judith kept her head down and slipped past her, walking fast. She approached the next door, with its blue cutout symbol of a man. What if the poster was in there too? If it was in the ladies' room, why wouldn't they put another one in the men's room? Judith was alone in the corridor, but her solitude might last only a few more seconds. She quickly opened the men's-room door, glanced in to verify that it was empty, went inside, and locked the door.

There was the poster. She tore it off the wall, folded it, and put it in the side compartment of her purse with the other one. She went to the door, opened it an inch, and saw that the corridor was still empty. She slipped out and began to walk, then heard the door of the ladies' room open behind her. She should already be gone from this corridor, and the woman behind her knew it. Had the woman seen her coming out of the men's room?

She was filled with terrors, imagining possible disasters that demanded her attention right now. She was going to have to walk past the bar. Who had put the poster in the bathrooms? The bartender, or a waitress, or that creepy man at the end of the bar who was at least forty, too old to be anything but the owner. She couldn't let them see her face, but she couldn't look in the direction of the girl who had followed her up the corridor either. At least the girl had not seen the poster. No, that was too easy. Who was to say this was her first trip to the ladies' room? If she had been in there before she would have seen it, and now she would know it had been ripped down.

Judith came to the end of the corridor. She hurried past the bar and headed toward the table where Greg waited for her, looking pleased to see her. His happiness was an unwelcome reminder that she had been happy too, five minutes ago. Now his presence was jarring, something she had forgotten about but had to tolerate. As she approached she planned her words. It had to be better than "Let's go." She didn't want to open a discussion, and couldn't afford one. She would say something that had a finality. "I need to go home right now." Something like that should do it.

She saw that while she was gone he had ordered new drinks. He was sipping a scotch and water, and there was a fresh martini sitting next to the one she had not finished. It was irritating. How could he be so insensitive? A woman her size shouldn't try to drink that much at any time, and tonight it was dangerous.

She said, "I need to go now."

"What?" He put his drink down and moved his chair aside to make room for her to sit.

"I want to leave right now." She picked up her coat from the empty chair, then the umbrella.

"Are you sick? Did something happen?"

He looked so pained, so stupid and slow, that she felt herself lose her feeling for him. He might be clever about business, but he had no instinct, no intuition. If he kept that concerned expression, he was going to be noticed. He looked like a big, foolish hoofed animal, ready to join a stampede, so she started one. She took a step toward the door.

"Wait. I've got to pay first." He picked up the check, took out his wallet, selected a credit card, and tried to get the waitress's attention.

Judith s.n.a.t.c.hed the check from his fingers, already reaching into the side pocket of her purse. She pulled out three twenties, set the bill and the money on the table, and kept going. At the door she slowed for a second and his long arm came over her shoulder to push the door open ahead of her. She was out.

"What is it, Judy?"

"I had to get out of there. I've had enough of that place." She was calmer now that she was out in the night. The beautiful darkness made her feel anonymous again.

"Did something scare you?"

"Of course not." She waited until he wasn't staring at her anymore, then glanced up at him.

He was gazing straight ahead up the sidewalk, his jaw muscles tightening and relaxing rhythmically. "Then what was the hurry?"