Urge to Kill

“Back in college people said psych majors went into it because of their own crazy hang-ups. Maybe they were right.”

Quinn shrugged. “I’ve heard the same thing about my profession. Maybe they were right, too.”

“I know I was an idiot, but I went along with it. A few times, it went too far. He cut me.”

“Cut you?”

“Not badly, and he always said it was an accident. But I associate dead women and knives with Alfred Beeker.”

“I can see why. I’m going to talk to him, Zoe.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“I won’t do anything drastic. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to feel Beeker out and see if he’s still into those kinds of games, and if they’ve become even more violent.”

“Quinn, I don’t want you playing the protector-avenger role.”

“I’m a cop, Zoe. Women are being murdered and butchered with a knife, and I’ve just learned about a sadist who likes to cut women. I need to look into him. I think you knew that, or you wouldn’t have told me about him. Am I right?”

“I don’t even know.”

Quinn thought he knew. The city harbored more than a few sadists who liked to cut women, and he doubted that Beeker was the Slicer. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to warn Beeker, to make sure the nutcase doctor knew there’d be consequences if he bothered Zoe again. Later, if necessary, would come the avenger part of Quinn’s role.

He moved closer to her, leaned down, and kissed her cheek. She was wet with perspiration.

“Let’s get in the car and get the air conditioner going,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”

“To my office,” she said. “I’ve got a two o’clock appointment.”

“With a psychotic killer?”

“With a man who’s terrified of turning corners when he’s walking alone.”

“Oh,” Quinn said, “that’s all of us.”

He opened the car door for her and watched her get in, thinking again how gracefully she moved and how beautiful she was. How much he already cared about her. She was becoming an addiction, his own illness and fixation.

So this is what it’s like dating a psychoanalyst.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, as they pulled away from the curb.

“How glad I am I didn’t bring up this subject in the restaurant,” he said.

Later that same afternoon, Quinn found Dr. Alfred Beeker in the Manhattan phone directory. His office was on Park Avenue, about three blocks away from Zoe’s.

Quinn thought he should see the doctor as soon as possible, with or without an appointment.

45

“So the doctor says, ‘Not only have I never seen anyone get pregnant that way, I don’t understand how it could happen.’”

Jackie Jameson’s delivery was spot on the beat, and the punch line drew a good laugh from the Say What? audience. But Jameson’s mind wasn’t completely on his work. It used to be that New York comedy clubs were hazy with tobacco smoke, but not anymore, so from where Jackie stood onstage it was easy to read the expression on the face of the man trying to bore holes in Mitzi Lewis with his eyes.

Mitzi was a looker who attracted lots of the wrong kind of attention, with her spiky white blond hair, childlike features, and compact, curvaceous body. She was used to the attention, and her fellow comic Jackie was used to seeing it, but this guy seemed different. Much more intense. Like he wanted to have her right now with his Coke and fries.

Mitzi was scheduled to do the set after Jackie, so she was standing just offstage waiting to be introduced, visible only to a small part of the audience seated off to the side. The guy with the laser eyes and his tongue hanging out was alone at his table and had a perfect view.

Jackie took him in again with a sidelong glance while laying the groundwork for his final joke, the one about the man who thought he was a violin. The man at the table was handsome in a dark, predatory way, about average height and build, but there was something about him that suggested great physical strength. Though he wasn’t the only guy in the club wearing a dark blue suit and white shirt with a tie, he was the only one who looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ. And the only one who for some reason looked flat-ass rich. He had the high cheekbones, well-defined features, and thick black hair of a male model.

If I looked like that, Jackie thought, I wouldn’t be funny.

But Jackie was funny, and headed for his own Comedy Channel special.

He continued his routine onstage without seeming to pay any attention to the man staring at Mitzi. But Jackie was still watching the guy. He was seated at one of the tiny tables that had been jammed in at the edges to accommodate maximum audiences. There was barely room on the thing for his elbows. The glass before him was empty. When a waiter approached and tried to push another drink on him, he made a flicking motion with his hand that somehow was a threat. The waiter retreated.