Run for Your Life (Michael Bennett 2)

“What’s that mean, really? Chief McGinnis isn’t letting you in on that one?”

“Off the record?” I asked.

“Of course,” Cathy said, clicking off her recorder as I leaned in.

“No comment,” I whispered.

Her emerald eyes didn’t look so frolicsome anymore as she clicked the recorder back on.

“Let’s talk about last night, up in Harlem,” she said, totally switching tracks. “Witnesses say police snipers shot an unarmed man. You were right next to the victim. What did you see?”

I was used to aggressive reporting, but I was starting to wonder where I’d left my pepper spray.

“Cathy, I’d just love to relive that experience, especially with you,” I said. “But as you can see, I’m in the middle of an investigation, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it over lunch? You have to eat, right? My treat. And no tape recorder.”

I snapped my fingers in fake disappointment. “Wouldn’t you know it? I already have a reservation at Twenty-one.”

“Very funny,” she said with a wry look. Then she shrugged. “Oh, well. A girl has to try. I probably shouldn’t tell you this—it’ll go to your head—but I could think of worse lunch dates. If you ever put an ad in the personals, I’ll give you a couple of tips on what to say. Tall, nice build, thick brown hair, definitely cute.”

I was startled that she thought that about me. Maybe she was just flattering me to get more information, but she seemed like she meant it.

“I don’t have any plans to,” I said. “But thanks.”

“And that crack I made about you not looking like a Polo customer was below the belt. You’re actually a very sharp dresser.”

My hand rose automatically to smooth my tie. Christ, was she really hitting on me? Or was I a total fool to even imagine it? Cathy was damned nice-looking herself, and in the kind of outfit she was wearing right now—short, tight black skirt, tighter blouse, and patent leather pumps—she was flat-out hot. As long as you could ignore her being a bitch on Rollerblades.

But was she even such a bitch? I started wondering. Or just a hard-driving professional trying to do her job, with a brassy style of flirting, and I was a hopelessly grumpy old bastard who’d been taking it all wrong?

I backed away, as confused as a schoolboy. She was watching me with her hands on her hips and her head cocked a little to one side, like she’d challenged me to a duel and was waiting for my response.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Cathy,” I said, “but I could think of worse lunch dates, too.”

Chapter 20

I SPENT THE REST OF THAT AFTERNOON at the 21 Club, mostly interviewing witnesses who had been there when the maître d’, Joe Miller, was shot. When I finished, I sank into a red leather banquette in the back bar and yawned. There’d been a lot of them.

No one here had seen the actual killing, but there didn’t seem to be any doubt that the shooter was a bike messenger, who had come in and left again quickly at just that time. Miller had been found with the bloody message tucked between his shoes. There was also a general consensus that the messenger was a fairly tall, white male, probably around thirty years old.

From there, it was a good news/bad news scenario. Every single person I’d talked to, from the high-powered executive customers to the busboys, confirmed that he’d been wearing a light, uniform-style shirt—not an orange Mets jersey. But he’d also had on a helmet and sunglasses. Like at the Polo store, nobody had gotten a clear look at his face, or even his hair color. Which left us still without any details for matching the suspects in the various assaults.

Along with that little problem, there was another troubling mystery. The bullets that had killed the maître d’ were .22 caliber, very different from the .45s that were used on Kyle Devens. Then again, shell casings were also clean of fingerprints.

There were still a ton of possibilities. But in spite of the contradictions, my increasingly queasy gut pushed me more and more toward thinking that the two shootings, at least, were related. The suspects’ ages and general physical descriptions were similar. Both crimes had occurred at high-end establishments.

But most important was the text of the typed message found with the maître d’s body. I lifted up the evidence bag and read it again.

Your blood is my paint. Your flesh is my clay.

It had a creepy similarity to what the Polo clerk shooter had said to Patrick Cardone.

You are the witness to history. I envy you.

My hunch was that we were talking about a guy who’d gotten an A in Crackpot Composition 101, and wanted people to know it—wanted them to buy into his delusions of grandeur. But the only way he could get that kind of attention was through vicious, cold-blooded murder.

Unfortunately, if I was right, he was smart, and also careful. Different outfits, different guns, face hard to see, no fingerprints.