Urge to Kill

“His dresser drawers are hangin’ open an’ there’s signs he’s grabbed some clothes from his closet. Half a carton of milk’s settin’ on the kitchen table, like he took a drink an’ didn’t bother to put the carton back ’cause he knew he wasn’t comin’ back. Didn’t even put the cap back on. The milk’s still cool, so he couldn’t have left very long ago. Also, you can see where he musta dragged somethin’ large an’ heavy off the closet shelf, left a big space an’ knocked a few things onto the floor. There’s an indentation on the mattress where it looks like a suitcase sat. Top of all that, that old truck of his is gone from behind the house. He’s fled, all right. No sign of where, though.”

Quinn thought he might know where. To New York City, to avenge his son’s death by killing the woman who’d caused it.

He hung up on Hazelhoff and called Pearl.

“Quinn,” she said, when she answered. “What’s up?”

“I don’t want to take time to explain, Pearl, but I want you to leave your apartment right now. Don’t take anything with you, just hang up the phone and go.”

“Go where, Quinn?”

“To the corner deli down the street from your apartment. Stay there till I show up.”

“I don’t understand this, Quinn.”

“Do you have to? Right now?”

“Damned right I do.”

“Can’t you trust me, Pearl?”

“Do I have to answer that?”

“Damn it, Pearl!” He surprised himself by how anguished he sounded.

“I can trust you,” she said, hearing the same thing in his voice. “Quinn—”

“Go, Pearl. Please! Go now!” Quinn broke the connection.

Quinn immediately phoned Renz and explained the situation, then asked Renz to send radio cars to intercept Avis if he happened to show up.

On the way outside to climb into the Lincoln, Quinn phoned Fedderman on his cell and told him what was happening.

Then he drove fast toward Pearl’s apartment.

It had been damned hard work. Must’ve been, or Hobbs wouldn’t be so winded. And his right arm was sore, as if he might have messed up his rotator cuff again.

He’d been drinking a while and figured he must have a snoot full, the way the room was tilting this way and that, making it difficult not to bump into things as he made his way toward the bed. It was like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

Hard work, but worth it. Teach the bitch a lesson.

After beating Lavern harder than he ever had, Hobbs staggered across the bedroom and fell onto the bed. He snorted a couple of times and then let out a long sigh. He lay there in peaceful drunken slumber as she crawled from the bedroom, certain that this time he’d broken one of her ribs completely. More than one. He had to have, the way he’d hit and kicked her.

As she crawled, one of her elbows felt wobbly and kept giving, and she dragged one knee.

Damn him, damn him, damn him…

She crawled off the bedroom carpet, onto the hardwood floor of the hall, then onto the softer hall runner. Every inch she crawled brought pain. Lavern had been warned that Hobbs would go too far and kill her some day. Maybe this was the day. Maybe he had killed her. Maybe this was an exercise in revenge and not prevention.

If that’s what it is, so be it!

Damn him, damn him, damn him…

When she reached the closet, she opened the door, felt around behind the coats, and closed her hand around the shotgun.

She used the gun as a cane to aid her in struggling to her feet, where she could reach the box of shells on the closet shelf.

Leaning against the wooden door frame, breathing hard and hurting with every breath, she slipped a shell into the breech.

80

As soon as he turned the Lincoln onto Pearl’s block, Quinn knew he was too late. Police cars were angled in at the curb in front of her building. Several uniformed cops were standing outside the building but up close to it. Quinn could guess why. They didn’t want to be visible from an upstairs window and become targets. They were talking with a man in a brown suit. Quinn recognized the blocky form and head of tousled black hair. Sal Vitali.

Quinn parked the Lincoln fifty feet away from the nearest police car, then climbed out, stayed inside the protective angle of vision, and jogged toward the knot of cops and Vitali.

“What’ve we got?” Quinn asked when he’d joined the group. He glanced over. Fedderman had arrived out of nowhere, shirt cuff flapping like a signal flag.

Vitali pointed to a uniformed cop, a skinny guy in his forties with a long, pointed nose. “Everson here was first on the scene,” he said. “Officer Cullen, who’s inside helping clear the building’s tenants out the back fire stairs, showed up a few minutes later. Cullen used the elevator, and Everson took the stairs. Everson won the race and got to Pearl’s floor just in time to see the suspect back up with her into her apartment and close the door. He had an arm around her neck and a gun held to her head.”

Quinn looked at Everson. “What kinda gun?”