Naked Cruelty Read online

  “That’s an impressive list, even for 1968,” said Helen, taking over from Delia. “It suggests to us that the Dodo is well aware what his victims do professionally. He’s an intellectual snob, and we’re guessing that file clerks, waitresses and cleaning ladies are safe. Also undergraduates. All his victims so far have been old enough to acquire at least one degree.”

  “How does he find out their professions?” Carmine asked with a frown. “There’s a list of Gentleman Walkers and their occupations, but the most Sugarman does with women is to write them down on his list for a party. Helen, your job is to check how many of them are on Sugarman’s party lists. We can’t hope for that from Mason Novak, he’s too disorganized.”

  “He must be organized at work,” Delia said.

  “You’re right, he must be. However, the Walkers have no idea from seeing a girl out and about in Carew whether she’s a doctor or a file clerk. The Dodo must find out the hard way, by multiple break-ins. A woman’s living space will tell him for sure. But it adds to the danger of discovery.”

  “File clerks don’t carry heavy briefcases,” said Nick.

  “No, I believe the Dodo has access to records of some sort. What throws me off are the non-academics,” Delia said. “Two of them, a dress designer and a dress buyer. Both women’s wear, yet not really related. How does one find out about them?”

  “Walk up to them in a shop and ask, with a very charming smile?” Nick said, half joking.

  “He’s a snob in all kinds of ways,” said Helen, tired of Nick. “He doesn’t use a foreign object during his rapes, except maybe his fist, but that’s a part of his body. It interests Delia and me that the most strenuous tussles he had with his victims were before he put socks on their feet and cut their nails. We think he’s taking precautions for later in the night, when he might flag a little himself. Those long, huge erections must take a heavy toll. I mean, sex is a pleasure, but it’s also something you have to work at, especially the man.”

  “Has anything further turned up about the books? It seems weird to me that the victims don’t remember a title,” Carmine said.

  What a pertinent way to change the subject, Helen thought. The boss could see my frankness made Nick uneasy, so Carmine to the rescue of a fellow man.

  Delia answered. “The smallest library held three hundred books, and all of them contained at least a hundred novels. Most of the novels were old and hadn’t been read in years. All the victims could have named a purloined textbook, but an old novel? They knew one had gone because the shelf held a gap where no gap had been before.”

  “That says it wasn’t a beloved novel, like Little Women—its absence would have been noticed,” said Helen.

  Carmine caught the gleam in Nick’s eye and got in first. “I estimate that we have a little over two weeks before the Dodo rapes again. If, that is, he sticks to his three-week cycle.”

  Helen jumped, suddenly very excited. “Captain, what if I set myself up as a lure? He might go for it.”

  The shake of Carmine’s head was emphatic. “You’re not thinking straight, Helen. This guy doesn’t choose at random, he’s working from a list he’s already drawn up. It’s not impossible that you’re on it, but nothing indicates that. He’ll know you’re a cop, and I would have said that’s not a profession he’d deem worthy of his attention.” He grinned. “Sorry, but it’s a fact.”

  She subsided. “Yes, Captain, you’re right.”

  “If the Dodo also happens to be a Gentleman Walker,” Delia said, looking businesslike, “then he can’t be rostered for walking on an attack night. So I took all Mark Sugarman’s rosters and went through them.” She grimaced, revealing lipstick on her teeth. “No correlations, Carmine—not a sausage. I could have skimmed through the lot in less than thirty minutes if Mason Novak didn’t do a good half of them—untidy! But there’s nothing to find, except that I suppose nothing is something.”

  Carmine grinned, black brows flying high. “Who’s a nothing that could be a something, Deels?”

  “Sixty-one names that never occur on a Dodo night. However, some are bigger somethings than others,” said Delia, smiling. “I mention Mark Sugarman and his two companions—er … Arnold Hedberg and Gregory Pendleton, and Kurt von Fahlendorf and his two—Dapper Dave Feinman and Bill Mitski. The list is on your table. Would you like me to try fishing for alibis?”

  “For the moment, no. It’s negative evidence at best, and the only guys who’ll be able to supply alibis are the diarists. Work with the victims, you have their trust.”

  “What about me?” Helen demanded.

  “Your schedule says you’re with Lieutenant Goldberg and the armed holdups,” said Carmine, sounding adamant. “It’s suddenly gone state wide and is being worked from Hartford with Lieutenant Goldberg in command, so it will be invaluable experience.”

  “What about you?” Helen asked, then bit her lip: it had come out far too insolently. Oh, damn cops and their armed services style protocols! Why couldn’t a person ask?

  No change in Carmine’s expression occurred, though Nick looked annoyed. “I have the Big Three to worry about,” he said levelly. “Sugarman, Novak and von Fahlendorf.”

  “Oh, Kurt’s all right,” Helen said blithely.

  “No one is all right, Miss MacIntosh, until I say so.”

  “Ow!” Nick exclaimed, laughing. Serves you right, you pushy little bitch, he thought.

  CHAPTER II

  The Glass Teddy Bear gift shop actually showed to best advantage after the Busquash Mall had closed its ornate doors and before the timer turned the shop’s interior lights out. No customers disturbed the glitter from arrays of exquisite wine or water glasses, the sparkle from cut crystal vases, the gleam from transparent plates, cups, saucers, ornaments and paperweights. It was a cavern filled with pools and points of light arising out of mysterious shadows, an effect enhanced because every background thing was painted black, or covered in black.

  All else paled in contrast to the glass teddy bear himself. He sat in the window on a black velvet box, all alone, glowing like a phosphorescent sea creature. His plump body, legs, arms and head were colorless, made of glass so flawless it held not a single air bubble. His legs stretched out in front of his body, the pads on the bottom of his feet a clear yet satiny ice-blue, each surrounded by stitches in glass thread of a darker blue. One arm was slightly forward of the body; the other was extended in mute appeal. Each had an ice-blue, satiny paw pad. The little round ears were lined with the same glass as his pads, and his face, mouth fixed in a joyous smile, bore two huge, starry eyes of a deeper blue. Though of itself the bulk of his glass had no color, this genuine work of art picked up the blue of paw pads, ears and eyes, and shimmered as if an invisible palest blue flame rendered him incandescent.

  Most amazing of all was his gigantic size: about the same as a hefty three-to-four-year-old child.

  Though to some extent the shop was still illuminated from the Mall, the lights inside the shop had been out for five hours when the unfaltering forest of pinpoints and pools shivered, some snuffed out, some diminished, others unaffected. The door from the service corridor into the shop’s back room had opened, and remained open as a dark form passed back and forth through it, lugging plastic trash bags. This done, the door closed and a battery-powered lamp came on. From its position atop a filing cabinet, its rays lit up the curtain of glass beads, a frozen waterfall, that barred entrance to the shop itself. The dark form gathered the curtain up and tied all its fabulous ropes against the jamb. A trash bag disappeared into the shop, and came the noises of cans colliding, bottles clinking, boxes and cartons thudding, wet squelches from cascading organic matter. The bag emptied, the form went back to fetch another bag, empty it in a different place. Ten bags in all—more than enough.

  The smell of decay was rising as the dark form moved then to the front of the shop, where the glass teddy bear sat on his blac
k velvet box and the night lights from outside made him glow with a dimmer fire. Whoosh! A cloud of dust and debris flew from the smaller bag that the dark form held out and flapped; the glass teddy bear’s luminescence was extinguished under a pall of sticky, grimy vacuum cleaner residue.

  There were several more whooshes in other parts of the shop, then the dark form released the bead curtain, which fell into place with a series of chimes that plastic beads could never produce. A knife came out to slash the strands holding the beads; it hovered, undecided, then the dark form snapped the knife closed, and the bead curtain was safe.

  The Vandal moved into the back room, collected his flashlight from the filing cabinet, and let himself out. A good exercise … That idiot Charlie the Mall owners employed as their sole night watchman was on his coffee break, regular as the clock he consulted. How come such fools had the money and power to erect something as fine as this shopping mall, then didn’t see the virtue of good night security? They asked for everything they got. And, come to think of it, he could do with a second visit tonight.

  From the Glass Teddy Bear he went down to the Third Holloman Bank, whose premises, inside a very up-market mall, boasted little in the way of precautions like time-locked vaults—no need, in a venue where the clients were after cash or validation of checks. He disarmed the device in the service hall, let himself in, and went straight for the cage wherein Percy Lambert kept his cash ready for the morning. Who would ever have thought that these keys would prove so handy? People were so careless! The fifth key fitted the lock, the door opened; the Vandal strolled in and helped himself to $50,000 sitting on the table in preparation for apportioning to the tellers’ drawers in the morning.

  By four a.m. it was all over; the Vandal drove off just as Charlie was starting his rounds. He wouldn’t even notice, thought the Vandal, taking a bet with himself. It would take Miss Amanda Warburton and Mr. Percy Lambert to raise the alarm when they came in at eight.

  Amanda Warburton smelled the damage before she set eyes on it, so stunned that she dropped the leashes in her left hand and ran into the shop feeling as if someone had cut off air to her lungs. Gasping, choking, she took in the enormity of this crime, and found herself unable to scream. Instead, she used the phone in her back room to call the Mall manager, Hank Murray. Because she was fifteen minutes earlier than Percy Lambert on this first day of October, Hank came racing with his bottle of emergency brandy and some paper cups oblivious to how bad his morning was going to get, intent only on Amanda.

  “Oh, Miss Warburton, this is terrible!” he cried after one horrified glance into the shop. “Here, sip this, it will make you feel better. It’s only brandy—the best thing for shocks.”

  He was a presentable man in his early forties whom Amanda had liked on her few meetings with him, so she sipped obediently and did indeed feel some strength flow into her.

  “What did he do to the glass teddy bear?” she asked, tears coursing down her face. “Tell me the worst, please!”

  Having assured himself that she wasn’t going to pass out, he toured the glass shop, more astonished now than horrified—what was this guy about, for God’s sake?

  “Everything’s covered in filth, Miss Warburton,” he said, returning, “but it looks as if nothing’s been damaged—not even a chip. The glass teddy bear is fine underneath his dirt.”

  “Then why—? What—?”

  “I don’t know, except that it’s vandalism,” Hank Murray said in a soothing voice. “Because your stock is glass, it won’t suffer once it’s been properly cleaned. I know a firm will guarantee to clean up your shop as if none of this ever happened, honest. All we have to do is catch the Vandal, who couldn’t have done this if we had better night security.” He squared his shoulders. “However, that’s my business, not yours. Do I have your permission to get things rolling, Miss Warburton?”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Murray.”

  “Call me Hank. Are you insured for this kind of thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it really isn’t a problem. Have you got a card for your insurance agent? I’ll have to see him too, and he’ll have to see this.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I guess I sound cold-blooded, but I have to get things started for you, especially if Mall rumor says aright.”

  “What does it say?”

  “That you’re alone in the world.”

  “Except for a pair of very unsatisfactory nephews, rumor is true,” she said.

  “Are the nephews hereabouts? May I call them?”

  “No, they’re in San Diego. I’d rather you called Marcia Boyce—she’s my friend and lives next door to me.”

  His hazel eyes showed concern for her, his attractive face very serious. “I’m afraid I have to call the police. Too much malice for simple vandalism, and I don’t understand why, if the culprits are simple vandals, they didn’t break anything.”

  “Nor do I, frankly. Yes, I have to notify the police.”

  Her phone rang; Hank answered it, growing stiffer by the second. When he put the receiver down he stared at Amanda in a new horror.

  “You wouldn’t read about it, the Third Holloman Bank has been robbed. Looks like the Vandal was more than a vandal. Will you be all right until I can get Miss—Mrs.—Boyce here?”

  “Yes, Hank, I’m over the worst. You go. I’ll call Marcia—she’s Miss Boyce—myself. I’m okay, truly.”

  Only when Hank was gone did Winston make his presence felt with a long, highly displeased meow.

  Amanda gasped. “Winston! And Frankie! Where are you?”

  A growl in what sounded like a very big cat’s throat took Amanda’s eyes to a filing cabinet tucked in a corner; it didn’t meet the wall, which was on an angle, and two pairs of eyes stared at her reproachfully. But they wouldn’t come when she called—they were as upset as she was, obviously—so she had to go to them and remove their body harnesses; they walked on leashes with her to and from the car every day she opened her shop.

  Winston, which had paws the size of a lion’s, it seemed to people meeting it, promptly took its twenty pounds to the top of the filing cabinet and hunched there, a magnificent marmalade in color, with unusual green eyes. The dog, which most people judged a pit bull and steered a wide berth around, was black-and-white, its ugly white head adorned with a black ring around its right eye. In actual fact Frankie was a gentle soul utterly dominated by the cat, to which it was passionately attached. Both animals were males, and both castrated.

  At the end of a ten-minute sulk, the cat gave the dog its permission to go to Amanda, who clutched at its muscular back as if to a lifeline. What had happened? Who hated her enough to do this? The stench turned her stomach, but she couldn’t leave until the police came, and even then, she needed Marcia to drive her home, not trusting her own ability.

  ***

  Two patrol cops arrived first: Sergeant Ike Masotti and his long-time partner, Muley Evans. Though Amanda couldn’t know it, she had drawn the best team on patrol in the Holloman PD.

  “Weird,” said Ike to Muley after a cruise through the shop, “really weird, Muley. It’s not kids.”

  “Nope,” said Muley, who knew his place: agree with Ike.

  “You got any enemies, Miss Warburton?” Ike asked.

  “None that I know of, officer.”

  “It might be the glass. Some guys are kinky enough to see a shop full of glass as their ma’s cabinet full of best glass and china, and maybe they hate their ma, but they’re too afraid of her to break anything—just dirty it,” said Ike.

  “Right,” said Muley.

  “Only thing is, how does it fit in with the bank burglary?” Ike asked Muley. “Fifty thousand smackeroonies! He just picked ’em up and left. Locked the place behind him. Reactivated the alarm. Want to know what I think, Muley?”

  “Yep.”

  “Two different crims. The guy that did this and the guy
that did the bank are not the same guy.”

  “Uhuh,” said Muley noncommittally.

  “I like your animals, Miss Warburton,” said Ike, approaching Frankie fearlessly. “What a great dog!” He pulled its ears and it groaned in ecstasy. He examined its collar and disc. “Your name Frankie, huh? Who’s Mister Huffy over there?”

  “Winston,” said Amanda, who liked Ike Masotti a lot.

  At which moment Sergeant Morty Jones came through the back door, reeking so strongly of booze that the two patrolmen exchanged a significant glance.

  “Taft High kids,” he said after inspecting the premises.

  “You’re wrong, Morty,” Ike said. “A bunch of kids go to all this trouble? Never happen. They’d get their fun breaking glass, not covering stuff in filth. Did anyone else get vandalized?”

  “Not according to Mr. Murray,” said Amanda.

  “Then this is a personal vendetta, right, Muley?”

  “Right.”

  “In your ear it is, Ike,” said the detective, turning for the back door and freedom; the smell didn’t help his nausea.

  “I’ll write my report as I see it, Morty.”

  “You can write it as the devil sees it, Ike. Mine is going to say Taft High kids.” On that note, and with a curt nod to Amanda, witness to the entire conversation, Morty Jones left.

  “The detective goes, we gotta go, Miss Warburton. Sorry,” said Ike in genuine regret. “You gonna be okay here alone?”