The Decoy (9 page)

'His previous relationships have ended badly. And his marriage was heading for some kind of crisis.'

'A history of failed relationships. That's also typical of a sex killer.' Dr Leichtman's pen squeaks on the white surface of her board. 'My turn. We know this killer's highly selective — one might say, a perfectionist.'

'While Vogler's been described as a control freak.'

'If he follows the same pattern as other sex killers, he'll have a highly developed fantasy world which sustains him between killings.'

Frank pauses for a moment. 'Vogler's kind of a fantasist, too,' he says. 'Poetry and all that.'

'OK. Claire, put "fantasy" down.'

Several minutes later they draw to a close.

'So, what do we have?' Dr Leichtman asks.

Claire indicates her board. 'All of those are the overlaps.'

'Which means' — Dr Leichtman walks across, takes Claire's marker from her and writes on her board the single word 'Claire' — 'in order to attract him, you have to appeal to all these qualities.' She rings the words on Claire's board as she speaks. 'You have to be naive, curious about new experiences, yet appealing to his sense of secrecy. Intelligent, yet not so much that you threaten his desire to master and control you. Vulnerable. A fantasist who can enter and share his private world. Interested in erotica and the dark side of your own sexuality. A perfect victim to appeal to his desire for perfect control. You see? These qualities, and only these, we can justify on the basis of what we know about the killer. Anything else is just a fishing expedition.'

'So you need me to turn this list into a plausible character.'

'Exactly'

'No problem. It's just like constructing a character from a script, isn't it? Except that here the character comes first. How do I approach him?'

Dr Leichtman caps her pen. 'Leave that to us.'

Dear Mr Vogler,

You may remember lending me the enclosed book,
Les Fleurs du Mal.
I met you in Flaherty's about six months ago, and although our conversation was a brief one, I have often thought about it. I apologize for not returning the book sooner, but I've been reading the poems with fascination and didn't want to send it back until I'd finished.

In fact, I should be completely open with you and admit there was another reason I didn't get in touch before. I saw in the papers that your wife had died, and I didn't know what to begin to say to you. I hope that now a little time has passed you are beginning to put some of that behind you. Believe me, I know what it is like to have lost someone close.

Perhaps those experiences of mine are the reason I find so many resonances in Baudelaire. I love his darker, more ambiguous poems in particular. I, too, have 'a thirst for oblivion', and seem to recognize in his writing something of my own particular sensuality.

I have tried to translate several of the poems, though I'm sure you would laugh at my efforts. His words seem to lose so much of their erotic charge in translation.

I would be very interested to know what you think and am enclosing my e-mail address in the hope that we can continue our discussion.

Claire Rodenburg.

'He won't reply,' Frank says.

'He will if he's the killer,' Dr Leichtman says calmly. 'If he's the killer, he'll be drawn to her vulnerability the way a shark's drawn to blood.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Another lesson — outside, this time, while Dr Leichtman gulps down nicotine from yet another cigarette.

'My first plan of attack is to get Vogler to expose himself through his fantasies. If he's the killer, he'll have an extremely sophisticated and well-developed fantasy life. The killing fuels the fantasies, and the fantasies in turn fuel the desire to kill again. In the right circumstances, and with the right confidante, I believe he could be induced to reveal what he fantasizes about.'

'Why would he do that?' Claire objects. 'I thought we agreed that this guy was smart.'

'Yes, but he's also lonely. He's aware that he's crossed a threshold that separates him from other men. He'll jump at the chance to connect with someone who seems to share his predilections.' She waves the cigarette like a baton as she talks. 'As he reveals more, the details of his fantasies will increasingly come to resemble the actual details of the murder —
not surprisingly, since that's the fantasy that sustains him. He'll derive potent gratification from reliving every moment. Even so, I'd expect him to quickly try to move the relationship with the confidante from the verbal to the real. He'll fabricate whatever pretext he thinks necessary to progress to physical intimacy.'

Claire turns to look at Dr Leichtman. 'Physical intimacy? You mean he'll want to sleep with me?'

'Don't worry. We'll have secured the information we need long before it comes to that.'

'But I'll have to… seduce him, won't I?'

Dr Leichtman looks at Claire. Then she leans over and kisses her, on the lips. Claire doesn't react.

'Good,' Dr Leichtman says. 'Very good.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

She's made new friends. Carrie, Victor, The Brat, Beethoven and The Marquis.

>>In pain, elegance is everything. There's no satisfaction in trussing up a submissive like a steer and booting them in the stomach. To the accomplished top, half the pleasure lies in selecting a posture or activity in which the slightest movement, or the smallest change in the cinching of a knot, will produce exquisite suffering.

That's Beethoven. Carrie adds:

>>Absolutely. One of my favourite toys ever was a simple plank of wood, turned edge-on and raised just a couple of inches too high to comfortably stand astride. My bottom had to get on the very tips of her toes to straddle it. Watching her as she slowly grew too exhausted to maintain the position and sank onto the painful edge was a pleasure in itself.

Claire types:

>>'My bottom'? Sorry, I don't understand.

Victor explains:

>>When Carrie talks about her bottom, she doesn't mean part of her own anatomy, Claire. She's talking about her submissive.

>>Ah. Sorry.

This is a world as impenetrable and jargon ridden as the military, she's discovering. The acronyms alone are making her head spin. CP, BDSM, CBT, YMMV. She's plucked up the courage to ask about some of these, though discovering that YMMV means 'Your Mileage May Vary' hasn't actually clarified matters.

As for the conversations about neck snaps, Wurtenburg wheels, top space and pony play, she's floundering.

Carrie says:

>>Tops and bottoms fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, Claire. To us it's a relationship as natural, and as neat, as the conjunction of male and female in the vanilla world.

>>The vanilla world? Oh, I see. One flavour suits all.

>>Exactly.

Carrie adds:

>>Your innocence is delicious, Claire. Sure you wouldn't like to step into a side window and try out some of my cybertoys? Netsex isn't quite like the real thing, but it can be just as intense.

Victor says:

>>Leave her be, Carrie. Claire is with us this evening purely as a curious observer.

She likes Victor. Although he contributes little to the discussion, preferring to lurk unseen on the sidelines, he seems to have appointed himself her guide to this strange new world, and he's doing a good job of making sure she doesn't get overwhelmed.

>>Sort of, try before you buy,

Carrie sneers. Claire types back:

>>More like look before you leap. Actually, I'm not entirely new to this stuff. Someone I knew once was into it, but I was very young at the time, and back then it seemed like a bit of an acquired taste.

>>Is it? Once you're tuned into it, control is implicit in every relationship. We simply make overt what others disregard. You know: 'In love there is always one who kisses, and one who turns the cheek.'

That was The Marquis. On an impulse, Claire types:

>>I prefer Baudelaire myself. 'I have more memories than if I had lived a thousand years...'

Carrie says:

>>Oh God, not you too.

>>Me, too?

>>Victor's always quoting Baudelaire. Come on, Victor, strut your stuff.

But Victor, still lurking on the sidelines, says nothing.

===OO=OOO=OO===

In another room in the same building Connie Leichtman and Frank Durban sit huddled over a computer, watching the lines of text scrolling down the screen.

'She's doing well,' Connie says at last. 'She's established motivation and background, there's an implicit appeal for a mentor to show her what to do and a reason to hang back if things go too fast.'

'I told you she could improvise more than nonsense.'

'If she
is
still improvising,' Connie says.

===OO=OOO=OO===

It's gone midnight when she logs off. Her eyes ache and her wrist hurts from tapping at the keyboard.

Going past the open door of Dr Leichtman's office she hears the psychiatrist call her name. Connie is sitting at her desk, surrounded by paperwork. A cigarette, propped on an ashtray, pours a thick stream of smoke upwards into the cone of a desk lamp.

'You're working late, Claire.'

'I lost track of the time.'

'We don't pay overtime, you know.' Dr Leichtman holds out an envelope. 'But we do pay. Your first two weeks' salary, in advance.'

'Is it a cheque? Only I don't have a bank account.'

'We know. Don't worry. Two thousand dollars, cash.'

Dr Leichtman waits until the younger woman's footsteps have retreated down the corridor before she reopens the file she was working on.

The file is entitled 'Claire Rodenburg: psychological profile'.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Bessie isn't back from the show when Claire reaches the apartment. She checks her watch; it's gone one. Her roommate's probably still working off her adrenalin in a bar.

Claire takes a thousand dollars out of the envelope and fans it across Bessie's pillow. The bills still smell of Dr Leichtman's cigarettes. On the last one Claire writes, with a lipstick taken from Bessie's make-up table, 'RENT!'

Putting the lipstick back, she sees a crumpled business card amongst the make-up bottles. One end has been torn off, probably for a roach. She picks up the card and smoothes it out.

Alan Gold

Gold Associates

Attorneys to the Music Industry

An address in Atlanta.

You sure worked that one out fast, Alan.

I'm a lawyer, after all. It's my job to know when a witness isn't telling the truth.

Sighing, she takes another $500 out of the envelope. Then she copies his address onto the front and seals it.

Across the back she writes, 'Hope things are OK with your wife.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Seven miles away, on the other side of the river, Detective Durban waits for the flop. 'Hit me,' he says.

It's Mike Positano's turn on the button. 'Queen of spades, five of clubs, ten of clubs,' he says, laying them out.

Frank winces. Across the table from him, Eddie Lowell, a lean man in his early fifties, with hair greying where it hasn't been rubbed away by the worries in his lieutenant's cap band, laughs sonorously. 'Got the nuts, Frank?'

'Family pot,' Frank says disgustedly. 'I'll check.'

'I'll raise five,' Weeks says.

'Calling station Weeks,' Eddie murmurs.

'Did I call?' Weeks demands.

'As good as.' Five bucks wasn't a bet. Five bucks was a spectator's ticket.

'Fifteen dollars,' Weeks says, stung. Across the table, Eddie catches Frank's eye. No expression passes across either man's face, but the mere existence of such a glance is enough to tell both men they're thinking the same thing.

'Raise you fifty,' Frank says. Two minutes later, when Frank's remaining club comes through, Weeks is staring in disbelief as his money vanishes into Frank's top pocket.

'Slow-play bluff,' Eddie says, chuckling. 'Frank's speciality.'

'I'm out,' Weeks says miserably. 'I've lost enough for one night.'

Eddie yawns. 'Me, too. Thanks for the game, guys.'

Frank wants to say, One more game. But he doesn't. That's one of the things you learn, in poker. You never tell anyone what you really want.

So when the thought of going home is like the thought of taking a cold walk in the rain, you don't say anything. You just smile and say, 'See you tomorrow then, fellows. See you in the morning.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Above the streets of SoHo, Christian Vogler is also awake. Dressed in a silk dressing gown, his face illuminated by the cold white glare of his computer screen, he pecks and taps at his keyboard.

There's a pause while his words are sucked down the thousands of miles of fibre-optic cable that make up his Internet link, then another pause while, from somewhere else in the world, another connection is made. Bytes of data rearrange themselves on his computer screen into words, images and thoughts.

Vogler's nostrils flare. Excitement spreads like a rush of drugs from his cortex into his central nervous system. But his hands stay glued to the keyboard, moving like a concert pianist's across the clattering plastic keys, weaving new melodies that only he can hear.

The next day Frank comes to her apartment early.

'Pack a suitcase, Claire. You won't be back for a while.'

'Where are we going?'

'Connie wants you somewhere that's more consistent with your story. We've had a decorator do a rush job for us.'

'A decorator? Hey, I'm going up in the world.'