Violence came as easy to him as laughter. One of his friends had reminded Lavern that Hobbs had barely escaped being kicked out of college for almost killing another student with his fists in an argument over a movie. She vaguely remembered the incident, the talk on campus. He would have been expelled, only that was before he hurt his knee, and he could still bowl people over at football. Assault charges had been dropped, and the matter had been classified as an incident of boys being boys, when it should have been a clear warning.
Not that any of this was relevant to Lavern’s present circumstances. She knew she wouldn’t have heeded any warning. Not at that age. Not even when she was older. Just Hobbs being Hobbs, she had decided, along with the faculty. Like almost everyone else, she had excused him his youthful misbehavior. He was fun to watch on the football field. There was even talk of a possible pro contract. Lavern had wondered from time to time if there might be some way to meet him.
Then had come the knee injury, and soon thereafter she’d heard that he’d left school.
The mature Hobbs shoved her back into the bed and wrestled her almost inert body around so she lay on her back.
Then he was on her, straddling her, his weight mashing her slight form into the mattress. His breath hissed in the quiet bedroom.
He began to beat her, not as hard as he could, but methodically, slapping, slapping, slapping. She let herself go limp and closed her eyes to the onslaught, closed her mind.
Finally he stopped.
He’s going to kill me someday. He’s going to kill somebody.
She felt his weight shift and heard the rasp of his zipper being undone.
At least the beating was over.
He’s going to kill somebody.
9
Joseph Galin was conscious, but he wasn’t thinking or seeing clearly. It had become a world without time or meaning. He had no memory of how he’d gotten where he was, sitting slouched and apparently in a car.
His car?
He couldn’t move, and though there was no pain, there was an advancing numbness. It had begun with his feet, then his hands. Now he had no feeling at all in any of his extremities. He might as well have been floating like a balloon.
Galin could see out the windshield to the wide expanse of the car’s hood, where a bird of some kind was walking around, pecking, maybe damaging the paint. And it was night out. Evening. Dark and getting darker. Way past dusk.
Then darkness fell completely, as if he were in a sealed room and someone had pulled down a shade. Odd. Strange also that he wasn’t afraid. More curious. What the hell was happening?
Am I drunk?
He’d been on benders before and figured this wasn’t one of them.
Some kind of stroke?
If I could only remember who I am…
He could smell leather and something that reminded him of dirty coins…pennies.
A penny for my thoughts…
He might have smiled.
The darkness was heavy on him, keeping him from opening his eyes now. Not that it made any difference. He heard himself let out a long breath. Heard the bird pecking on the car hood, still working even though it was so dark. He heard a car passing way out in the street, beyond the mouth of the alley.
Alley?
He began to remember and was afraid. His mind searched for light and found none.
The fear remained. Held on to him like a lost lover dying along with him.
Dying?
Without meaning to, he said loudly and in a clear voice, “Hawk.”
The word meant nothing to him.
Then Galin saw nothing, became totally blind. He could no longer remember what he couldn’t see. Could no longer smell the leather and tarnished copper or anything else, could hear nothing, feel nothing…
Nothing.
The phone chirping by the bed pulled Quinn out of deep sleep. His mouth and throat were dry. There was grit beneath his eyelids. He glanced at his watch to see the time. It was…dark. Why the hell didn’t luminous hands work at the same brightness all the time?
He found the phone in the dark, lifted the receiver, and mashed it against his ear.
Damned chirping’s stopped, anyway. Like a nattering bird.
“Quinn?”
Renz’s voice. Great.
“Quinn,” he confirmed. He reached out and switched on the reading lamp on the table alongside the bed. Saw the face of his watch. A few minutes past five o’clock.
“You were sleeping, right?” Renz said, as if he’d been asked to answer some kind of riddle.
“You guessed it. That why you called? To wake me up?”
“Yeah, but there’s a deeper reason. Remember our conversation from a week ago?”
Quinn was almost all the way awake now. “I remember. We got another one?”
“’Fraid so. Remember Joe Galin?”
Quinn searched his memory. Found a stocky, gray-haired plainclothes cop with an easy smile that could turn hard. “Detective Joe Galin? Narcotics? Manhattan South?”
“The very one,” Renz said.
“Galin’s dead?”
“Or putting on a hell of an act.”
Quinn was having difficulty processing this. “Our killer did a cop?”
“Sure did. Single small-caliber bullet to the head. Ex-cop, by the way. He was retired, like you.”
“Like I was,” Quinn said.
Despite the hour, Quinn phoned Pearl and Fedderman. Then he got dressed, went outside to where his car was parked, and in the glimmering dawn drove across town and over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge into Queens.
It was a gray but bright morning when Quinn pulled the Lincoln to the curb and braked to a halt behind a parked radio car. There was another patrol car and what looked like an unmarked city car parked directly in front of a take-out pizza joint with PIZZA-RIO painted on its window. Beneath the name in smaller letters was PIZZA WITH A SPANISH KICK.
Might be good, Quinn thought, as he climbed out of the Lincoln. But not now. Not here. What he wanted was coffee. He knew he should have taken the time to swing by the Lotus Diner and get a go cup. It would have taken only a few more minutes. Several uniformed cops and two plainclothes detectives were standing around on the sidewalk in a circle. They were holding white foam cups, some of which had steam rising from them, and at least two were eating doughnuts.
As Quinn walked toward the mouth of an alley where, according to Renz on the phone, the shooting had taken place, one of the plainclothes guys—the shorter of the two, with a gray buzz cut and a broad, florid face, spotted Quinn and walked toward him. He smiled. “Captain Quinn?”
Quinn nodded, noticing the man was holding two cups of coffee.
“I’m Detective Charlton Lewellyn. I’ve been with Commissioner Renz on the phone. He said this one was yours.” He held out one of the foam cups for Quinn to take, as if he’d been referring to it and not to what had happened in the alley.
Quinn accepted the cup, which had a white plastic lid on it to keep in the heat, and thanked Lewellyn. He sipped. Good coffee, cream, no sugar. Had Lewellyn checked with someone to see how Quinn drank his coffee?
“I