Over My Live Body (19 page)

My reaction to Louise’s predatory moves on Quick surprises me. This is a potential threat to my
life
that he was here about, and here I am carrying on like a woman warding off a rival from
my man
. My hand clutches a fettling knife. I rip away at black plastic until the Vestal Virgin is once again exposed, the one that I asked Louise to pose for, and I start to whittle away clay and give her a face, one that I notice after an hour of nonstop carving looks
nothing at all
like Louise
and
very
much like
me.
As is always the case, when I get into my work, really get into it, I lose track of time and space. The only thing palpable to me is the cool clay that I’m modeling with mold knives and spatulas and fingertips. When the door suddenly slams behind me, I nick my thumb with the serrated edge of a sabre saw. Before I have a chance to squeal in pain, I look up and see Quick. How many hours have passed since he left, anyway? At least four, according to my watch, and maybe more since the hands aren’t moving. I need a new battery if I’m going to get anywhere on time. I turn back to Quick. The expression on his face is enough to make time stop. I can feel my heartbeat vibrate like a souped-up V-8 engine and put down my tools before I can do further damage to myself. “Are you ready?” he asks me, not moving from the door.

For what
? is what I’m wondering. I don’t know what the right answer is,
yes
or
no.
“I need to wrap my sculpture first.”

“It looks like it’s coming along good.”

“Thanks.” A compliment from him under any other circumstances would be enough to give me wet dreams. Right now all I feel is wet, but in a mucky clothes-stuck-to-me way. “I won’t be long.”

He stands erect against the threshold, unmoving, like the statue of a sentry gracing some public park, minus the requisite bayonet. What he’s got instead is his semi-automatic tucked in his shoulder holster. I feel self-conscious picking up my neon-green water pistol to wet down the clay and look over my shoulder at him, expecting the sight of the plastic gun to draw a laugh, but his expression remains sober. The muscles in his jaw twitch, but not in good humor.
What am I getting ready for here
? My finger nervously pumps the white plastic trigger, shooting more water before I’ve fully turned back to my sculpture, spraying the work table, barely missing the front of Quick’s blue pinstriped oxford shirt. He doesn’t flinch.
I
do. “Did I get you? I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Done?”

“
Al
most.” I put the water pistol down on the work table, gather the torn black plastic sheathing, wrap it around the sculpture from top to bottom and knot it. “
Now
I’m done.”

“Okay,” he holds the door open for me. “Let’s go.”

As we walk past the reception desk, Louise’s eyes follow Quick as he leads the way. He turns back to make sure
I’m
the one who’s trailing behind him. Louise clears her throat. “If anyone wants to know how to reach you, what do I tell them?”

“The same thing you would have told them yesterday,” Quick snaps.

“I’ll call in for my messages,” I promise. “Tell Morgan…”

Quick spins me around and propels me to the stairwell before I can say another word. “She’ll be in touch,” Quick says succinctly, this time following me to make sure I don’t turn around again. I stop at the door and tilt my head up until I see him looming over me as he opens it, signaling that it’s time
we ride off together into the sunset.

It’s Brooklyn we’re riding off to, Quick tells me as the sun begins to set behind us. He opens the passenger door of a blue Volvo that almost but not quite matches the denim of my dress. “This is
my
car,” he says. I clamber in, expecting to fight for seat space with a lot of personal belongings since it’s not police issue, but aside from a neat bundle of brochures of some sort bound with a rubber band that he quickly tosses on the back seat, and a Daily News opened to the Sports section, the interior is so uncluttered that it could pass as a rental car from Avis. There are no other clues about what makes Quick tick, except maybe that he likes the color blue.

“You’re going to be staying at my sister’s place on Henry Street,” he tells me as he starts the motor. “It’s nice and quiet there. You’ll like it.”

“How about your sister? Is
she
going to like it? My being there, getting in her way?”

“You won’t be in anyone’s way.” The muscles in his jaw tighten conspicuously as he checks out the view of oncoming traffic in the rearview mirror. “She’s not there right now.”

“Then my guess would be that she’d like it even
less
.”

He gestures to the safety belt dangling to my right. “Buckle up,” he orders, hinting that I better prepare myself for bumps and jolts along the way, and not necessarily just those caused by road surface and vehicular traffic conditions. “She knows you’re going to be there,” he says as he jerks the steering wheel to the right. “I spoke to her. She’s okay with it, Delilah.” The car continues to lurch forward. “There’s a few things I have to tell you about before we get there.”

I tighten the shoulder strap preparing myself for a crash.

“While you’re in Brooklyn, we want to plant a decoy in your place, set a trap. We’ve got a female officer, about your coloring and build, who’s going to mimic your movements. If Curtis makes an appearance, we nail him, and she’s going to make damn sure he can’t resist making an appearance.” He doesn’t say
how
. “I’m going to need your house keys. You’re not going back there until we take care of it on our end. If you do, you’ll be jeopardizing your own safety and
hers
as
well.
” He turns to me. “The life of a
cop
.”

I half expect him to start reciting my rights, feeling like I’m guilty before the fact. There is no worse crime than
this
. I fish out my keys and clench them in my palm before handing them over. “Why couldn’t I just stay there then? I’d obviously have police protection. Why try to con me that I wouldn’t be safe and then tell me ‘oh, by the way, we’ve got a female cop we want to put up in your place while you’re
else
where.’ Don’t I get to have any say in this?”

“You get to say ‘yes.’ It has to be this way, Delilah. Trust me.” He takes the keys before I have a chance to drop them and puts them in his pocket. “You should be safe at my sister’s place as long as you stay put. Even if you don’t, you’ll be
some
what safer than you would be at Waverly Place right now. I know some people in the Eight-Four; they keep an eye on the place. If you need help, you’ll get it. I don’t live too far away, but I may not be home much.” He veers off gridlocked Houston Street and onto the FDR Drive entrance ramp and guns the gas pedal as he cuts into the left lane. “I’ll keep you informed.”

“Just like you’ve
been
doing?”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know for sure,” he reminds me. He turns onto the Brooklyn Bridge entrance ramp.

“What you’re
not
telling me is telling
enough
.” I say. “I overheard you saying something about a task force this morning. How big
is
this?”

“It’s getting bigger. Majesty Moore got an invitation a lot like the one you got today the day before she disappeared, Delilah. It was one of the things that were found in the trunk of the car along with her remains.”

“What were some of the other things?”

“Mannequin parts. Heads, torsos, limbs.” He frowns. “A model stand that was probably used to prop one up in a store window. And of course what was left of Miss Moore.”

“How did she die?”

He turns to me and I notice his hand momentarily slip off the steering wheel. “She was impaled with part of the model stand.”

The horizon starts to look wavy to me and I’m not even looking down at the East River below. I close my eyes.
A couple of armatures disappeared during the night. Armatures made of twisted wire. All the better to
pierce
you with, my dear.
I feel Quick turn a sharp right and open my eyes. The buildings to the left and right of me are shorter and browner than the ones directly across the river that now have a tantalizing glow; from this distance, they look like long strands of tinsel lit by tiny bulbs. Quick turns up one street and down another, forced to find a legal alternate-side-of-the-street parking space for the Volvo like the rest of the mere mortals in this city. I feel like I’m going around in circles, and
not
just because of being driven around the block a few times.
She was impaled with the model stand.
Quick suddenly pulls up to a vacated space in front of a pastoral courtyard and adroitly backs into it, making the tight squeeze in one try. He turns off the motor and turns to me. “Are you okay?”

I shrug.

He gets out of the car and comes around to open the passenger door for me. “It’s only a couple of blocks,” he says, slamming the car door behind me, setting off a sharp trill that blends in with the bird sounds emanating from the trees behind the wrought-iron fence. He stops for a minute in front of the fence, looking in almost as if expecting to see someone he knows there, then steers me ahead of him and to the left, past brick and brownstone buildings barricaded by more wrought-iron gates. He turns again, this time to the right. The neighborhood looks pricey. I start to wonder about his sister. She must have a damn good job to be able to afford to live here. I wonder again where
he
lives.
Not too far away.
He stops in front of a brick building that looks a lot like the one I just left this morning on Waverly Place. “This is nice.” I hesitate in front of the concrete stairs. “You’re sure it’s no trouble?”

“We don’t want
you
to get in trouble,” he says, gesturing with a jerk of his head to follow him. The hallway smells of cabbage. He sidesteps a ten-speed bike affixed to the banister with a U-bar and leads the way up the stairs. Two flights of stairs.
Three
flights of stairs. All the way to the top and I can still smell cabbage when I catch my breath. He opens the door with no hesitation and walks in like
he
owns the place. “
That’s
funny,” he says, his hand brushing the collar of a down coat slung over a metal café chair. Not
ha-ha
funny, I take it; he’s not exactly smiling. I tiptoe in behind him. He goes from room to room. “Alison?” he calls softly. “Allie?” He turns back to me. “My sister’s coat,” he says, gesturing to it. “She’s not supposed to be here.”

“Maybe
I
shouldn’t be…”

He puts his hand up like he might if he were assigned to traffic duty, totally in control, but
is
he
really
? He backs up and walks into another room. “Allie!” I hear a brief scuffle, a soft female voice uttering something incomprehensible, a toilet being flushed. Quick emerges from the bathroom with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and picks up his cell phone. “Medical emergency, send an ambulance.” He barks out the number of the building before putting the phone down and going back where he came from. He reappears again. “I’ll go down to let them in.”

“I can do that. Stay with her.”

“Just open the door and come right back up here,” he commands. I nod.
Four flights.
I hear the toilet flush again. I shut the door behind me and descend into the cabbage patch.
I’ve just left the stew up there
. The EMS wagon jerks to a screeching stop just as I open the front door, and a couple of paramedics scramble out. “All the way up?” one asks with surprising familiarity as the other hauls a stretcher out of the back of the wagon. He takes a sip of coffee from a plastic mug that says PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE BUT NOT WHEN I HAVE PATIENTS, then puts it down on the curb, freeing his hands to take more apparatus out of the wagon. I half expect him to tell me to watch it for him while he’s gone, and I do. I pick up the mug and bring it into the foyer with me while I wait at the foot of the stairs.

Quick bounds down two flights ahead of the paramedics and gestures for me to stand back. I hear a soft moan and turn away until I hear the front door being opened. A couple of uniformed cops stand like stone lions on both sides of the entryway. When I look back, I see Quick talking softly to them, then to the paramedics. All I can make out is “Atlantic Avenue” before he turns back to me. “Here’s the key.” He holds it out in his palm. “Don’t drop it and don’t go anywhere except upstairs. Lock yourself in and wait until you hear from me. I’ll try to stop back here after I check on her.” He looks over his shoulder. “Or I’ll call from the hospital. Don’t set foot out of this place.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“She
should
be,” he says softly. His wearied tone suggests that a
lot
of things should be other than the way they are. “It’s a long story. She somehow managed to walk out of rehab. I’ve got to get her set up someplace else once she gets clean. In the meantime, I don’t want you leaving this place until things are secured, Delilah, not for anything, and don’t tell anyone where you are.
Any
one, got that? If you get a message from Curtis
or
Ivan, you call my cell number immediately. We don’t know where Curtis is, or Ivan either
for that matter, not since Tuesday night after he left the Sixth. Nobody’s seen
or
heard from him and I’d still like to know why
.
The two may be connected.“ He rattles the door. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.”

A
hug
is what I need, not a mere touch. Quick looks like he needs it too, maybe more than me.
But not now.
I have to cross my arms to keep myself from crossing that boundary, and wonder if I ever will.

The pictures his sister has on display on her faux-rococo mantel represent another threshold I’m not sure I’m entitled to invade, but I do, without even pausing to take off my coat. There are several snapshots of a young woman who I presume is Alison, in a prom dress, in a cap and gown, in advanced state of pregnancy. I
don’t
see any pictures of her with a child. To my right is a studio shot of her standing next to her brother when he was still in uniform, his hand gripping her arm authoritatively, their expressions equally austere. There are some pictures of him by himself too, also in uniform, probably taken when he was fresh out of the Academy; he looks green in them, and not just because of shifting dyes. I’m getting a picture of the family dynamic here.
Someone to watch over me
. Except that in some way he has failed and I’ve witnessed the failure, and he’s in no small way berating himself now. Another item framed in black on a table beside the fireplace catches my eye, an issue of Playbill turned to the credits page, where the name Alison Quick is circled in red under the listing for set design.

I look out the window and see a blue-and-white cruise by. Someone is indeed watching over
me
. Quick didn’t waste any time getting things in place. Even during a personal crisis, he’s being Robocop.

And
I’m
being
nosy
. Total security can have its boring moments. I need to do
some
thing to pass the time until Quick comes back. As if looking at the pictures on and near the mantel wasn’t enough, I start to explore the rest of the apartment, looking for the fire escape exit in case I need to use it.
It must be in the bedroom, the most dangerous place for the metal stairwell to be. Someone’s more likely to get in than need to get out.
I glance in and what I see makes me think of a fifth floor display in Bloomingdale’s: an all-too-perfectly made bed, a polished chest of drawers, a clothes tree in the corner. I wonder when was the last time Alison set foot in this room. The bathroom across the hall looks like a set not of
anyone’s
design
:
black and gold paisley towels scattered on the floor; bottles with unscrewed caps; a burned-out light bulb.
That’s
not the
only
thing in this apartment that’s burned out.

That reminds me to keep looking for the fire escape exit. Make sure it’s locked. I’m beginning to think like Quick now. I walk to the end of the hall, to the kitchen, which is more compact than the galley on a plane. The exit I’m looking for is right in front of me: a grated door leading out to a small balcony overhanging an alley. All I can see is coils of green hose down there; it makes me think of a viper pit. And thinking of snakes reminds me to check my voice mail, as if one thing has to do with the other.
Maybe it does
.
It all depends on what messages I have
. Just one message this time, from
Heidi Obermeyer, asking me if I can work for her Friday afternoon class. This is one assignment I’m going to have to turn down; I’m already hired for that time slot, at West 8th Street, and I don’t even know if can make
that
one.

The minute I hang up, the phone rings. I let it ring three times before I realize it’s got to be Quick and pick up. “It’s me,” Quick says. “Why’d it take so long to answer the phone? What’s going on? Where
were
you?”

“The bathroom,” I say before realizing this wasn’t the greatest thing to say and a lie to boot. The truth is I’m not sure what I was expected to say or do if it
wasn’t
him, but it’s too late for
that
now.

“Looks like I’m not going to be able to stop by until later. A
lot
later, I’m afraid, not till the end of my tour. I’m still at the hospital.” On cue, I hear a muffled voice paging Doctor Somebody-or-other over the intercom in the background. “I’ve got to go straight from here to work, and things have a way of cropping up late at night.”