Naked Cruelty Page 25

  AAA-OOO-GAA!

  WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW-WOW!

  AAA-OOO-GAA!

  The world erupted into noise. Deafened, stunned, the Dodo stood for perhaps three seconds leaning against the door, then leaped for the bushes alongside the Hochners and went to earth, trembling, eyes blinded by sweat, those abominable alarms still shrieking and wailing in his ears. What was it? What hadn’t he done? The wretched woman had tricked him! He, Didus ineptus, had fallen for a trick!

  Plan C. He had to get away from here before the area swarmed with cops like flies on carrion. The knapsack was shrugged off, the ski mask, the jacket and the pants. From the exterior of the knapsack he pulled a series of aluminum tubes, screwed them together, and worked to make sure that his ordinary slacks were well down over his socks, not tucked in anywhere. Then, as the noises continued, he wormed his way around the back of the Hochners, who had emerged and were standing at Catherine’s door. Like a snake he slithered across the exposed ground bordering their back deck before burying himself in their bushes again. Then, down their far boundary to Cedar Street, where he crouched and watched the cops thunder by until, in a temporary lull, he appeared on the sidewalk supported by his crutch, limping along. The next bunch of cops rounded the corner from Cranberry Street, split up to pass him on both sides, and left him to make his way to Persimmon Street and his car.

  He was stopped twice, asked if he had seen anyone; he looked bewildered, said no, and was allowed on his way. The crutch was genuine, he was dressed in yellow checkered slacks and a red jacket, and he seemed a little simple. He never came under any suspicion, even from a stray squad car minutes later.

  The bitch! The fucking bitch! How had she tricked him?

  ***

  Carmine gazed about in amazement. No one, looking at the fortress from its outside, could ever have believed how beautiful Catherine dos Santos’s apartment was. None of the bars showed; instead, there were ceiling-to-floor falls of frail silk curtains that shaded from palest green gradually through to the dark green of a pine forest, then began to fade to pale again, all around the room, a gradual color waxing and waning. The carpet was dark green, the ceiling palest green. Chairs, tables, occasional furniture were carved mahogany upholstered in vivid peacocks.

  “I rarely spend time in the living room,” said Catherine. She had shut off the alarms; no one else could. “He must have watched me enter, but of course he couldn’t see me deactivate my alarms—I press a section of the door jamb and paint it again when it wears.” She led them farther into her artificially lit retreat. “Between the bars and the four bedrooms, I was lucky to find this place. In here I paint,” she said, showing them a studio with a half finished oil of dried flowers on the easel.

  “In here I sew and embroider,” showing them a second room.

  Shades of Desdemona! thought Carmine, staring at a priest’s chasuble on a dummy. Is that what all spinsters do?

  “And in here I illuminate manuscripts,” Catherine said. “I confess it’s my greatest pleasure. You’d be surprised, Captain, at how many institutions and people want something illuminated.”

  “So you sell your work?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s my hedge against an indigent old age.”

  “Do you ever go to parties, Miss dos Santos?” Helen asked as they returned to the living room.

  “Only Mark Sugarman’s. The last one was four months ago.”

  “Did you meet anyone memorable at a Sugarman party?”

  She concentrated, then nodded. “Yes, I did. A very nice man! We had a long, pleasant conversation, but he didn’t hit on me. I don’t think he gave me a last name, but his first name was Brett. I said that sounded as if he’d been named after a movie star, but he laughed and denied it. It was a family name.”

  Helen stifled her sigh; there was no Brett on Sugarman’s party lists.

  “Did he have an opportunity to rifle your bag?”

  “Only when I went to the toilet. I wasn’t gone long.”

  “Have you seen Brett since?”

  “No, never. That’s not surprising, Captain. I have no need of people, either at work or at home. Everything I do is art of some kind. I like solitude, I guess.”

  “Don’t you feel—well, imprisoned?” Helen asked.

  Catherine dos Santos laughed, a high, clear sound of true amusement. “Good lord, no! Detective, in here I feel safe! No one can get at me. That’s always the terror of women who love living alone, that they’ll be targeted by a predator. I love my bars, which is why I went to a lot of trouble over my weak point—the door. Noise is the best deterrent—really loud, siren noises. They always deter. I installed the sirens myself, bought them in an electronics hobby store.” She smiled jubilantly. “I’m especially fond of the one that sounds like a submarine. With the Hochners for neighbors, I’m safe, believe me.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” Helen said. “What I find hard to credit is that you really like your life.”

  “You were at Mark’s party—how do you live?” Catherine asked.

  “I have a security penthouse,” said Helen, smiling.

  “Lucky you.”

  ***

  “My chief criticism of you, Miss MacIntosh,” said Carmine in biting tones after they left, “is that you have no idea how the other half lives, even after some exposure. That leads you to speak before you think. The moment Miss dos Santos said she did some of her art as a hedge against an indigent old age, you should have put a censor on your tongue. Why are you so quick to inform the world that you have millions, when what you ought to remember is that extremely few people are in your boat? I haven’t heard you contemplating giving any of your millions away to those less fortunate.”

  “I apologize, Captain. I knew it was the wrong thing to say the minute I said it, but I didn’t know how to get out of such an awful predicament—I apologize, Captain, I do!”

  “Why are you apologizing to me, Miss MacIntosh? You only offended me at second-hand. By rights you ought to go back and apologize to Miss dos Santos. This kind of apology is rather self-serving, don’t you agree?”

  “Too much time’s gone by for me to go back,” Helen said quickly. “If you like, I’ll write her a note.”

  “Yes, do that,” said Carmine, still simmering.

  He spoke no more until they were in his office, where Nick and Delia joined them.

  “How did he manage to get away?” Helen asked, still desperate to retrieve lost ground with the Captain.

  “By being prepared for all eventualities, I suspect,” said Carmine. “And helped by the Hochners, who should have stayed put and watched for him, not rushed to Catherine’s door and impeded the cops.”

  “They’re famous with the uniforms,” Delia said.

  “Ask Fernando Vasquez. He’s inherited Danny Marciano’s file on them. Eternal complaints, then they missed the Dodo.”

  Nick pulled the knapsack that lay on Carmine’s table closer to him. “Cool,” he said. “While the back of Catherine’s apartment block seethed with cops, he hunkered down in a bush on Hochner property and changed his appearance. He left the Dodo’s gear in the bush and emerged somewhere as a different person, I’m picking wearing gaudy clothes. But what was in these, Carmine?” Nick pointed to ruches in the knapsack’s exterior.

  “Struts that maybe kept the knapsack rigid?” Delia offered.

  “Why?” Nick asked.

  “Whatever they were, he took them out,” Carmine said slowly.

  “Unless they’re an intrinsic part that hampered him?” Helen asked. “Something that stopped him hiding the thing?”

  “No, the cavities are still distended by whatever was inside. Round pipes or rods …” He counted the ruched bulges. “Six. Added together, about six feet. But what would he do with something six feet long? Subtract one, and it comes down to between four and five feet, depending on the length of the com
ponents. Not all the cavities are the same length.”

  A conversation with two uniforms crashed into Nick’s mind. “It’s a crutch,” he said.

  The rest gaped at him.

  “Ike Masotti and his partner found a crippled guy on Cedar Street hobbling toward Persimmon. Not far from Catherine’s apartment. Crutch under his arm, dragging his right foot. He was wearing pants in that Scotch check that’s almost all yellow, and a red windcheater. Ike got no joy out of him, wrote him down as mildly retarded.”

  “The Dodo!” Helen cried.

  “He’s good, Carmine,” Nick said. “Fooled two smart cops nearly right outside where it happened. You know Ike Masotti—not easy to fool. It was early, mind, the sirens were still yowling because Catherine wasn’t home. A little later, the cops would have been less confused.”

  For answer, Carmine picked up his phone and asked Fernando Vasquez if he knew how many cops had encountered a luridly dressed cripple.

  “The guy’s brilliant,” he said, hanging up.

  “Slipped through our fingers,” Nick mourned.

  “Yes, but Ike Masotti set eyes on his face,” Carmine said, “and while he may have attempted disguise hiding in the Hochner bushes, he didn’t have the time or the facilities to do anything dramatic. The cops who saw the cripple later might not have been so lucky, so it’s Ike’s description we go on. Who was his partner?”

  “Muley Evans.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Sharp. We’ll get a good drawing.”

  It was long after midnight before Didus ineptus went to earth. The red windcheater had been turned inside out to display its black side, and the MacLeod tartan pants were now showing their black lining. Thank his lucky stars for the verdure of Carew! He had gone nowhere near his car, still parked on Persimmon; the walk to his own car wasn’t impossible for someone who kept in shape by walking. When he hid to reverse his clothing, he dismantled the crutch and polished every inch of it outside and in. They’d not nail him with a print inside, even if they had the wit to think of it. Then he pushed the sections deeply into a bush and walked on, a man of ordinary mentality clad in black. Who wasn’t accosted at all. The crutch and flashy clothes had been a part of Plan C, an escape which he wouldn’t use again. When pulled up by three different sets of cops—one on foot (the first) and two in squad cars—he had given a sad, braying laugh that branded him as slightly retarded and been let go without being asked for so much as his name. It was worth noting for the future that a man in black who didn’t want to be seen tended not to be seen, even if he didn’t behave furtively. Black is better, black is definitely better! For flashy apparel, be retarded.

  On the border of Carew and Busquash was his rented apartment; he let himself in, still wearing surgeon’s gloves, and undressed. The stash of clothing was folded carefully and slipped through a manhole in the hall ceiling; they were too hard to get, necessitating a trip to New York City and theatrical suppliers, so while the apartment lasted, he’d hang on to them. After that he donned hiking gear and shouldered a new knapsack, filled with exactly the things a hiker would need for the Appalachian Trail.

  On the border of Busquash and Millstone was his own car; he reached it without seeing a cop, got in and drove away. If a cop should stop him, he had his story straight.

  But no cop did. Home at last, he realized he was ravenously hungry, took a Stouffer’s lasagna from the freezer and used the forty minutes heating time it gave him to put out his pajamas, secret the knapsack in his special place, and revel in a shower. Refreshed, clad in silk, he opened a bottle of French claret and sipped the wine with relish; no guzzling for Didus ineptus! It had been a close thing tonight. He never wanted a closer. The killer in him slavered at the thought of putting paid to Catherine dos Santos, but the survivor in him was stronger. There were other names in his book, other lives to take. The fucking bitch had tricked him, and, in tricking him, had evaded him forever. He would not be going back to vent his rage on Catherine dos Santos. Thinking that, he raised his glass.

  “Here’s to the Holloman police,” he said, smiling. “May they think me a vengeful man and waste their time!”

  The police artist’s drawing was interesting because no one recognized it. And that could not be.

  It showed the face of a brown-skinned man in his forties, dark haired and dark eyed, with a beaky nose and a wide, thin mouth. There was a general impression of a damaged mind.

  “This means he was in make-up for the attack,” Carmine said, and, to Ike Masotti, “It really looks like him?”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Captain, but it’s what my mom would call a speaking likeness,” Ike said.

  “Bearing no resemblance to the guy the Hochners had noticed creeping around.”

  “Yeah, but the Hochners are notorious,” Ike said. “Their guy was probably reading meters. This is definitely the guy I saw.”

  “Ike, you did better than you can realize. Your drawing shows us what we’re up against. Thanks a lot.”

  Ike departed, scratching his head.

  “Why do you think this isn’t the Dodo—or rather, that it’s a Dodo in disguise?” Helen asked.

  “Because Dr. Meyers has a general description of the charming man who had a long conversation with four of the rape victims,” Carmine said. “He had light brown hair, light brown eyes, and a fair skin. His mouth was full and his nose only slightly beaky.”

  “Perhaps the man the victims saw was also in disguise,” said Delia. “He’s very clever, so he will have taken it into account that we might elicit descriptions from the Sugarman parties.”

  “He must present as bulky before he enters his victim’s apartment,” Nick said. “Combat fatigues, and under them, another outfit as brightly colored as he can make it without looking any more than dressed in bad taste.”

  “And under the gaudy outfit, yet another, I think,” Carmine said. “He didn’t seem to be on the street as retarded and lame for more than a few minutes, yet no one saw him enter a car and drive away. He must know the location of every tree and bush in Carew, and as soon as he saw no cops anywhere, he was back into the bushes for a quick change into something dark and inoffensive. Has a crutch been found?”

  “No, despite a thorough search,” Nick said.

  “Did he abandon it? Or lug it home under his clothes? It seems he lugged it home, strange as that might be. His reasoning is beyond me!” Carmine slapped a hand to his brow. “To make matters worse, Sugarman himself can’t identify any victim’s drawings. He swears that he had no gate-crashers at any party. That means—no, it can’t!”

  “Means what?” Delia asked.

  “That he made-up for one conversation—impossible!”

  Delia squeaked. “Not really impossible, Carmine, if you think about it. Say he spots his quarry on a sofa grabbing a little rest from the bash, nips into the lav, makes himself up. If she’s still there when he pokes his head out, he’s on the sofa next to her as slick as a rat goes up a sewer pipe. If she isn’t there, he nips back into the lav and takes his make-up off. He’s full of gall—certainly he doesn’t lack it, now does he?”

  “Oh, that’s too much!” Helen cried.

  “No, Delia, I see where you’re going,” Carmine said. “It is possible, even if not very probable.”

  “He must have an ego bigger than Tokyo,” Nick said.

  “Well, we know that! How else can we fit all the pieces of this puzzle together? Parties, especially good ones, are about as easy to keep track of as the rails in a freight yard. They criss-cross perpetually. However, it does tell us one thing.”

  “It does?” Nick asked.

  “Yes. It says that the Dodo is fair in coloring. All his make-up has been brown, including light brown. Come on, guys! We’ve all had instruction in disguise—felons do resort to it, otherwise we wouldn’t have to sit through slides showing what blue con
tact lenses do to brown eyes—very little. Whereas if the eyes are light in color, it’s easy to change them with lenses of almost any color. We can say that the Dodo’s eyes are blue or grey or pale green, and his hair, at darkest, is a light brown. If he keeps a beak shape to his nose, then it’s probably straighter than that. Narrower too.” Carmine’s voice had grown excited, his hands moving expressively. “Skin has to be fair, and the bones of his face prominent. This guy’s cheeks are plump. Think of the Turks who shot Josef von Fahlendorf down in Munich—you know you’re not looking for fair gunmen. But if fair gunmen wanted to give an impression of Turks, it would be easy. Just thick, black hair and brown skin.”

  “Oh, oh!” cried Helen. “The von Fahlendorfs could have been the gunmen! They were, Captain, they were!”

  Carmine shot her a look of scorn. “No, they were genuine Turks. Why keep a dog and bark yourself?”

  “Carmine, dear!” Delia exclaimed. “You’ve just widened the Dodo pool of suspects enormously.”

  “No, diminished it. Holloman’s a place of many, many dark people—African, Mediterranean. There are far fewer fair.” He sputtered, grinned. “Hard to say that! Far—fewer—fair.”

  “Where would you draw the line?” Delia asked.

  “At Mason Novak, speaking of Gentleman Walkers. Don’t forget there were bunches of them at every Carew party. He’s basically red, which doesn’t exclude him. His eyes are a very light brown.”

  “Or, at the other end, Kurt von Fahlendorf, though he’s been busy being kidnapped,” Helen said.

  “Bill Mitski,” said Carmine. “Arnold Hedberg. Mike Donahue. Though if the Dodo is a Gentleman Walker, he’ll be easier to nail. We use the line-up. The rape survivors must have recovered enough by now to try identifying their attacker.”

  “No, Carmine, you can’t do that,” Delia said quickly. “It’s too demanding for the women, who haven’t recovered enough. I’m sure that’s what Dr. Meyers will say. No, I’m right!”