"She was one of the girls who turned away, wasn't she?"
Again Kirstin nodded. "She'd never hurt anyone."
"But she took down marks?"
"Like the rest of us."
"Anything more you can tell us?"
Kirstin looked up. "She had this thing about mirrors. It was spooky.
She could do mirror writing, too. She told me she liked writing on marks that way. ''s like signing my work,' she said."
Janek stood. He was surprised that Kirstin had been so forthcoming, and even more surprised that Gelsey had apparently used her real name with Carlson. But Kirstin had something to add:
"The night Diana cut me-that same night Gelsey quit. Way I heard it, she took off her clothes, threw them on the floor and walked. Diana was furious." Kirstin smiled. "Gelsey was her top producer."
On the way down the stairs, which were even more redolent now with the smell of fish, Sue apologized.
"I know I messed up, Frank. Sorry." "Forget it," Janek said. "We learned a lot. Kirstin obviously knows where Diana lives. She'll tell you, too, if you handle her right. Let her think about it a couple days, then come back alone and talk about yourself, your work in the Sex Crimes Unit, how you feel about things-your job, your life."
"Girl talk."
Janek nodded. "Gain her confidence again and she'll probably tell all.
Then you may get your chance to collar Diana."
In front of the fish market, he and Sue split up. She returned to Special Squad. He started walking east.
As he passed ethnic-food shops and mom-and-pop cigarette stores, he asked himself why he felt depressed instead of energized. His case was moving. Now he knew who he was looking for, had a name for his redheaded quarry. Her name was Gelsey and he even had a sense of what she might be like.
But for some reason that knowledge did not delight him. The hour spent with Kirstin had brought him down. He wanted not to think about the way she'd been deliberately scarred, the fear in which she lived, her belief that she deserved her fate, her rat-hole of an apartment, the smell of fish, the smell of a wasted life.
He didn't want to think about any of that, or that he could have been blown up inside his car, or about Mendoza, Da kin, Timmy and his demons, Sarah stirring up old regrets or his sadness that he had never fathered a child. But as much as he wanted to fasten onto something positive, he could not rid himself of the vision of Kirstin, held down tight by the other girls, staring with terror at the gleaming knife descending in Diana's hand toward the sweet pink center of her cheek.
He thought of something Luis Ortiz had said within the first few minutes of their acquaintance-that, in such difficult times in Cuba, all he had to hold on to was his honesty.
So, what have I got to hold on to? Janek asked himself. Pride in my skill? Pride in being a cop?
Approaching Forty-second Street, that particular pair of virtues didn't seem half good enough. The city was mean. He knew the worst of it, had spent the better part of his life witnessing its cruelties. But, unlike so many of his colleagues, he had never grown inured to the malignancy.
That was, he thought, his greatest strength, and also, perhaps, his weakness. He still could feel the pain of others, and each time he did he felt his own pain, too. Kirstin had brought him closer to the hurt within, a hurt deeper and more grievous than anything Fonseca and Violetta could inflict. They had only tried to break his pride. The real damage occurred when some of that hurt he shared with the injured of the world-the Kirstins, Stiegels, even his tormentors in Havana-spewed up from the secret lake inside. When that happened, as it had that morning, the melancholy nearly overwhelmed him.
That night he got a call from Kit. Netti Rampersad had, that very afternoon, filed papers on behalf of Jake Mendoza.
"Works fast, doesn't she?" Janek said. "I suppose she wants a new trial."
You bet," Kit said. "And not only on the basis of youe Figueras affidavit. She's got something else. A homicide down in Texas. Took place three years ago. Some society woman was strung up and beaten to death just like Mrs. Mendoza. Rampersad is pleading that the similarity shows the killer is still at large. Therefore Jake's conviction shouldn't stand."
Janek had never heard of the Texas case. "Did we know about this?"
"Sure. We figured it for a copycat job. We've been in touch with the El Paso police-who still haven't solved it, by the way."
"What if it wasn't a copycat?"
"That's Rampersad's problem. Let her convince a judge."
"How'd she find out about it?"
"Probably through her partner, Rudnick. He's a digger, smart and very good."
"I met him. Wears a skullcap. Seemed nice enough."
"I don't know if he's nice. He's the kind can find a legal precedent for anything."
"What's the story on Rampersad? I never heard of her until that night in Queens."
"No one heard of her till last year when she won a big case in Rockland County. Now she's the new hot defense attorney in town. We get a couple of those every year. Actually, she's better than most."
"Still, if the Metaxas note was fake, and there's someone going around killing women the same way-then the whole goddamn case falls apart."
"Makes your head spin, doesn't it?" Kit said.
After he put down the phone, he did feel his head begin to spin. With Mendoza the possibilities were mind boggling, the permutations endless.
He tried to sleep, but couldn't. Ever since the bombing, insomnia had become a problem. Perhaps, he thought, he was afraid that if he let himself doze off, there'd be another explosion and he'd die. I guess when they kill me I want to be awake.
Still restless at one in the morning, he decided to call Timmy. He wasn't sure what he wanted from him: confrontation or friendship. What he got was banter.
Timmy, as it happened, was awake, too. He sounded as if he'd been drinking, but not so much that he was out of control.
Heard about your car, partner." Timmy's voice was sweet and sad. "Too bad. She was a nice jalopy."
I was wondering if you had something to do with her demise."
"Were you, now? And what might my motive have been?"
"Get me to stay away from Mendoza."
Timmy laughed. "If there's one thing I can think of that would keep you on Mendoza, it would probably be something like that."
"So maybe you wanted to take me out and the bomb went off early by mistake."
"Oh, that's grand, Frank. You always had a grand imagination. If you ask me, you should put it to better use."
"Is that your advice, Timmy?"