The Death Artist (33 page)

The words–
normal life–
cause him to smile. The fact is, it is getting harder and harder to control himself. Sometimes he just wants to say it, to whisper the words in someone’s ear:
It’s me, you know. I’m the one.
What is it that stops him? Perhaps the fact that he’s not sure he is the one, not sure which is his real self.

But with that thought comes despair–that they will never know his work, that everything he has done has been in vain.

He shakes his head against the thoughts.

He holds up the finished birthday card. “My best goddamn piece of work.” He stops a moment, thinks. “No. It
will
be my best work. Perfect.”

Now all he has to do is wait.

But can he? His hands start to shake. And then he feels it–his need–like a hot coal burning through the walls of his stomach, bleeding into his organs; he can actually see his heart exploding, ribs cracking through flesh, blood splattering everywhere. He’s got his hands pressed against his shirt, but they’re useless to stop it. The pain is overwhelming. His liver is melting into a mass of purplish goo, his groin’s on fire, the intensity so stunning that he tears his pants off, thinks he can see the flesh on his prick bubbling, searing off.

A moment later, he is standing in this abandoned building holding his limp dick under a faucet of cool, rusty water.

But the cold water isn’t nearly enough to quell the fire inside him.

He slides the reproduction into an envelope with a trembling hand. Yes, it’s time to send it. He just can’t wait.

Richard was already gone by the time Kate dragged herself out of bed, a note scribbled on a Post-it adhered to the bathroom mirror: “I love you.”

Kate could barely remember their conversation, just that she told him about her fight with Willie, her maddening day of attempting to deal with four different NYPD divisions, that she was tired. So tired.

She wanted to go back to bed, but couldn’t.

There were still so many questions she needed answers to–though she didn’t know how or where to get them.

The station house seemed calmer this morning–or was she projecting? There wasn’t much on her desk–a memo from Mead about another meeting, the usual plastic bag of rerouted mail waiting for her to go through, a three-dollar umbrella she’d picked up the other day.

Out of habit, Kate put on gloves and spilled the mail onto her desk.

Was the case actually over? Could she simply pick up where she’d left off–planning charity events, lunch with the girls, the occasional lecture? Maybe it was time to start another book. She’d heard that there was a joke circulating in the art world, that she should write a sequel–
Artists’ Deaths.
Typical.

Kate flipped through bills and brochures, gloom falling over her like a frost, until she saw the plain manila envelope. In an instant, she was alert.

Her gloved fingers trembled slightly on the envelope’s edge.

Another art reproduction. This one an installation piece–a figure, or mannequin, cast in some sort of resin, lying on top of an old gynecologist’s table, six glass tubes shooting out of her belly, a fishbowl stuck in her mouth; beside the figure, a coat on a hat stand, a chair, an open suitcase on a floor of checkerboard tiles, a clock and calendar on the wall with two indecipherable paintings.

But it was the actual tuft of hair attached to the pictorial woman’s head that made Kate shiver.

Kienholz.
That was it. Ed Kienholz. The sixties Pop artist. Kate didn’t know this particular piece, but his style was unmistakable. She’d written a paper on him in college.

She held the picture in her hand, stared at it. Could Damien Trip or Darton Washington have made this before they died? And why? It didn’t appear to document anything. Unless there was a body somewhere that they’d missed. Kate felt the chill inching up her spine. There was, she knew, another possibility–that the death artist was still out there.

Kate could actually see her breath in the lab’s frigid air. She handed Hernandez the Kienholz reproduction.

“Sorry ‘bout the cold,” said Hernandez. “We got a couple of day-old stiffs ready to ship to the ME. Didn’t want them to stink up the place.”

Kate shivered. “Do you have any hair samples here from previous victims, specifically Elena Solana’s or Ethan Stein’s? It can’t be Pruitt. The man was practically bald.”

“You’d have to check with the ME,” said Hernandez. “No, wait. I got the contents of Solana’s Dustbuster. They’re separated and bagged. One of the samples–the main one–was Solana’s hair. I can see if they’re a match.”

Minutes later, Hernandez was looking through a microscope. “It’s Solana’s hair, all right.”

Kate swiped the reproduction with her gloved fingers. “I have to show it to the squad right away. I’ll bring this back.”

“Gloves,” Hernandez called after her. “Everyone. Gloves.”

Kate laid the Kienholz picture on the conference table between Floyd Brown and Maureen Slattery. “It’s no copycat or crank. Not with Solana’s hair attached to it.”

Slattery leaned her elbows onto the table. “But it’s different from the others. I mean, we haven’t found any vic like this.”

“I have a feeling he’s changing the rules,” said Kate.

Slattery frowned. “Why would he change now?”

“From what I’ve seen,” said Brown, “these guys change the rules as fast as we can figure them out. All they care about is their goddamn ritual.”

“And his ritual is making art,” said Kate.
“That
hasn’t changed.”

Slattery studied the picture. “Those fucking things jutting out of her belly. Nasty.”

“Or
into
it,” said Brown. “What do you make of the fish-bowl wedged against her open mouth?”

“A silent scream? Suffocation? Kienholz is symbolic,” said Kate. “It’s some kind of an abortion piece–or sexual violation–or both.”

Randy Mead cut into the room. His smile shut down the minute he saw the three of them huddled over the reproduction. “What the fuck is this?”

Kate filled him in.

Mead tugged at his bow tie, his features screwed up. “Maybe it was something Trip was planning. But never got to.”

“I thought that, too,” said Kate. “But check out the postmark. It was express-mailed from the Main Post Office on Thirty-fourth Street and Eighth yesterday at four twenty-five P.M.”

“And I’m still waitin’ for the check that my ex
supposedly
mailed a week ago.” Slattery shook her head.

“It was around five when I found Trip,” Kate continued. “He’d just been shot. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to get from midtown to the Lower East Side.”

“But enough,” said Mead. “Leave the post office at four twenty-five. Back downtown by five. Could do it by cab if the traffic was good.”

“At that hour?” Kate tapped her gloved fingers along the conference table.

“Subway,” said Slattery. “But there’s no direct line. He’d have to transfer.”

“And walk several blocks,” Brown added.

“And get into his place and have the altercation with Washington,” said Kate.

“It doesn’t take long to shoot someone,” said Mead. “Or it could be Washington’s work. We can’t rule that out yet.” He sagged into one of the metal chairs. “But I hear you.” His face had gone pale. “But it still
could
be Trip–or Washington. I mean, maybe there’s a body out there we haven’t found.” His voice cracked, the desperation having an effect. “I’m gonna send out the troops, contact all the districts, see if anything like this has turned up.”

Brown rubbed a hand over his skull. “We have to consider that our unsub is still out there, Randy. That Trip was
not
the man we were looking for–and neither was Washington.”

“You think I’m not considering that?” Randy Mead looked as if he could cry. “You realize the FBI boys were ready to step in? They backed off since our two main suspects, Trip and Washington, died. Now . . .” He sighed.

“I’ll talk to my friend in the Bureau,” said Kate. “In the meantime, let’s concentrate on what we know.”

“So, if the rules are different . . .” Brown went back to the altered Kienholz picture. “What’s this tell us?”

“I’m not sure,” said Kate. “But these have been drawn on.” She indicated the clock and calendar. “So they have to mean something. Could be he’s giving us the day and time. He’s drawn the hands on the clock to eleven. On the calendar, he’s crossed out half the days of the month up till today.”

“So it could go down today?
Shit.
” Mead sucked his teeth.

“Maybe,” said Kate. “And we don’t know if it’s A.M. or P.M.”

“I’d vote for P.M.,” said Brown. “All the others were killed at night.”

“Maybe the guy has a day job,” said Kate, considering it.

“What about the circled two dates on the calendar?” asked Slattery. “The tenth and the thirteenth?”

“Both those dates are already past. Could be next month,” said Mead.

“I don’t think so.” Kate shook her head. “He’s clearly labeled it May.”

“And that’s too long for one of these guys to go,” said Brown. “They’re like pressure cookers. The more they kill, the more they want to. The intervals in between will be getting shorter, not longer.”

“Unless we missed it,” said Mead. “And the body is waiting for us, that it
was
Trip’s–or Washington’s–work.”

Kate could see Mead was praying to be right. But her gut was telling her he was wrong. “There’s one more thing. See here?” She aimed a gloved finger at a tiny playing card, a joker, glued over a tile in the checkerboard floor.

“Maybe it’s a symbol for him,” said Brown. “You know, that he’s a joker, playing with us.”

“Could be.” Kate tried to think it through. “But it could be something totally different.”

“Like what?” asked Mead.

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

Mead pushed himself away from the table. “If this is from him and he’s still alive, we have a tiny window if he’s not striking until eleven tonight. In the meantime, let’s do everything. Contact every precinct, see if there’s any abortion-related killings, anything at all like this that we haven’t heard about. Brown, Slattery, get a crew together, start calling.” He turned to Kate. “And you, art lady. I want you studying that reproduction like your mother’s life depended on it.”

Why was that?

Here she was, one of the hottest art dealers in the hottest art city in the hottest art market representing a dozen of the hottest young artists–well, eight out of twelve (and those other four wouldn’t be around much longer), and still, she felt . . . what? Unfulfilled? Depressed? Lonely? Maybe all three.

How could that be? She was taking that damn Zoloft religiously. But still, there was that low-level malaise, a kind of ennui that seemed to ruin everything.

Everything except a good sale. Now
that
got her going. Could even make her happy. For a while. Like the other day, selling two WLK Hand paintings to that German couple, sight unseen, by telling them there was a waiting list for the work, when there wasn’t. If there was one thing Amanda Lowe knew, it was how to create a market. She thought she could sell just about anything.

So, why, tonight, after a totally hip party, a private room, no less, in the grooviest Meat Market watering hole, with all her little art stars and art collectors surrounding her, and a few wanna-bes to kiss her ass, did Amanda Lowe feel so bad?

It was not just that it was her forty-seventh birthday and she was going home alone. Hell, if she’d wanted to get laid she could always find some hungry young artist-on-the-make more than willing to come home with her. No, that wasn’t it.
So what was it
?

Thirteenth Street was fairly deserted, just a few twenty-somethings at the far end of the street, laughing. Amanda Lowe instantly detested them–for their youth, the beauty she supposed they possessed, their lives stretching ahead of them filled with so much promise. She wanted to call out:
You’ll see. It will all turn to shit
! But she just looked away, hurried down the dark street, the whole time holding her breath. When, she wondered, will those awful butchers and wholesale meat purveyors be pushed out of the neighborhood by the high rents–and take their stink with them? Not soon enough for her.

Though it was hardly cold, a shiver coiled its way through Amanda Lowe’s emaciated body, as though, for a moment, something had passed through her. A spirit, or . . . ? She pulled her black leather Prada car coat tighter, hugged her thin arms around her bony torso, quickened her step.

The metal gate, which guarded the huge green-tinted glass fronting her gallery, was down for the night. It made her sad. As though the only thing she cared about–her art business–was in jail, caged.

Inside, she wrestled with the old freight elevator–one of the minuses to owning an entire building by herself–finally getting it almost level with her new, wide-paneled oak floor.

She stepped in. Flicked a switch. Cool halogen lights illuminated the stark four-thousand-square-foot space she shared only with one Siamese cat that bore an uncanny resemblance to its mistress. She checked her Piaget watch. Ten-fifteen. At least she was home early.

Back in her tiny office, Kate was following Mead’s order–concentrating as though her mother were alive, and the woman’s life depended on it. The invention warmed her, actually propelled her.

So far, Slattery and Brown had turned up a half dozen unidentified bodies. But only one with a connection to the Kienholz picture–an apparently illegal abortion gone wrong, the girl dumped at a landfill on Staten Island. But there was no ritual there. None of the others had anything at all that might suggest the work of the death artist.

Kate had had the Kienholz picture enlarged two hundred percent, could now read the clock and calendar added to the artwork clearly, could see every strand of that lock of hair. But even two-dimensionally–knowing that it was actually Elena’s hair–it was enough to make Kate cringe.