14

Kit pressed the back of her head against the wall behind her, knowing even as she did that it would not save her face. A scant tick before the diamond crashed into her cheek, a blur came from her left, striking her assailant and altering the course of his fist so it barely missed her nose as he was spun on one foot and driven against the wall himself. With an economy of movement that almost made the fight seem choreographed, the man who had come to her aid twisted her assailant’s arm at the wrist with both hands, driving him to his knees, howling. Then the one standing delivered a vicious kick to the other one’s arm, producing a sharp crack like a bat hitting a home run. This brought a horrible shriek from the injured man and he was allowed to roll into a ball, clutching his arm.

“You bastard. It’s busted. You busted my goddamn arm.”

The whole thing had lasted only a few seconds and they’d been moving fast, mostly with her rescuer’s back to Kit. But she’d known immediately who it was.

“You all right?” Nick Lawson said, turning to her.

“I think so.”

“Hey, Nick, what’s this all about?” a loud voice said.

Finally, a cop, one Kit didn’t recognize.

Lawson pointed at the mewling body on the pavement. “Tommy, that guy attacked my friend.”

“He was after this,” Kit said, holding out the grocery bag. “It’s full of stolen wallets.”

The cop’s brow knitted. “How’d you come by them?”

“I took them from an old lady picking pockets on Bourbon Street. I think that’s her accomplice.”

The cop turned the guy on the pavement over so he could get a better look.

“I’m Dr. Franklyn. I work for the medical examiner and the police.”

“I can vouch for her,” Lawson said.

Though grateful for Lawson’s intervention, Kit bristled at his presumption she needed a reference.

“Where’s the old lady?” the cop asked.

“Who knows?” Kit said. “When I caught her with her hand in somebody’s kangaroo pouch, she took off.”

“You mind comin’ around to the station and givin’ us a statement? Won’t take but a few minutes.”

“Of course,” Kit said. She looked at Lawson, who appeared a bit wild-eyed.

“Lead on,” he said.

The cop got the guy up and handcuffed him, ignoring his screams of protest about his broken arm. After they’d given their statements and were back on the street, Lawson let out a whoop and clapped his hands together. “What a rush.” He whooped again.

Unexpectedly, Kit’s knees got a case of the wobbles.

“Whoa,” Lawson said, steadying her. “I think you need to sit down.” He guided her half a block down the street to a dimly lighted piano bar where, as soon as they found a table, a waitress in a short black skirt, pleated blouse, and a black bow tie appeared for their order.

“Rum and Coke,” Kit said. “Heavy on the rum.”

The waitress accepted Lawson’s order of iced tea showing no change in her pleasant expression. Kit, however, found his choice surprising. “You don’t drink?”

“Dulls the senses,” Lawson said. “And you never know when you’re going to want to be sharp.”

“That’s right, you’re a . . .” She hesitated, searching for a phrase that wouldn’t offend. “You like to take risks.”

Lawson cocked his head and his eyes narrowed. “How’d you know that?”

“Someone I was talking to mentioned it in passing.”

“Terry Yardley, maybe?”

“I don’t divulge my sources.”

“Good for you. It’s true. I once heard it said that life without risk is a twilight existence. I believe that. Be honest— didn’t you get just the tiniest rush out of what happened out on the street?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Don’t answer out of habit. Think about it. The possibility of serious injury, rescue at the last minute, most people have to experience that at the movies or in books. You got to live it.”

“I’ll take the movie version anytime. Did you have to break his arm?”

“We weren’t dancing out there. That guy was serious. You get in a street fight with scum, you have to put them down for good. People like that survive by exploiting charity and timidity.”

The waitress arrived with their order and Lawson paid her, including a tip, which, considering the run-down place he lived in, seemed to Kit too generous. Kit hadn’t touched her drinks at Shirley’s, but she took a long pull at this one and quickly felt the fiber returning to her legs.

“What were you thinking when you got involved with those pickpockets?” Lawson asked.

“Like I told the cops, the old lady tried to steal my purse in the library the other day. When I saw her again, doing the same thing, I couldn’t help myself.”

He nodded. “I can respect that, even if it did almost get you hurt. You should have kept the little guy with the gun around a while longer.”

“How’d you know about him?”

Lawson looked at her oddly over the rim of his iced tea, then lowered the glass. “I didn’t exactly just happen by. I was following you.”

Kit straightened in her chair. “Why?”

“Because Kyle Ricks didn’t tell me anything interesting and Bill Pope wouldn’t talk to me at all. I didn’t know what to do next. So I thought I’d see what you’d come up with. Is Merryman working at Shirley’s?”

“What makes you think that picture has anything to do with the killer we’re after?”

He shot her a disappointed look. “C’mon, Kit . . . Ricks told me what you and he discussed.”

“How’d you get Ricks to talk to you?”

“Why shouldn’t he? Did you tell him not to?”

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered if you had, because he somehow got the idea when I called that I was your superior, checking on your conversation with him.”

“And Pope didn’t get that idea?”

He shrugged. “So, is Merryman working at Shirley’s?”

She considered lying about Merryman, but all Lawson had to do was hang out at Shirley’s a while and he’d see her. Like he said, he was a clever guy. “She’s working there as a dancer.”

“Big change for an EKG tech.”

“She had some drug trouble at the hospital where she worked and got canned. Apparently, she’s had trouble getting a job at another hospital, so she took up stripping.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? You gave me something and now I’m going to give you something.”

“What’s that?”

“The right to tell me if I can use any of this.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. I think the band is the key to the killer’s identity and I’d prefer that stay under wraps for now.”

“All right . . . providing you keep me posted. And I promise that whatever you want off the record stays off the record until you say otherwise. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now, since I always like to know who I’m working with, let’s talk about you. Where’d you grow up?”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“Humor me, please.”

Kit twirled the plastic stick around the ice in her drink, setting up a tiny whirlpool. “It was an obscure little town in New York State where they think Camp Fire Girls is preparation for life in the real world.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

Even though Kit had been with Broussard for over a year and had seen in that time nearly every kind of human depravity, Phyllis Merryman had spotted her for what she still was, a small-town girl who didn’t have a prayer of becoming the streetwise urbanite she wanted to be. Still smarting from Merryman’s discovery of that, Kit said, “It’s just . . . I can’t seem to shed what that town did to me. Sometimes I’m so provincial I can’t stand myself.”

“Supportive parents that got along well?”

“Sure, the whole bit.”

“Mother a good cook?”

“It sounds crazy, but I can’t recall. Maybe that means she wasn’t. But then, food has never been very important to me.”

“Doesn’t sound like you get much use out of your kitchen.”

“I not only have no ability there; I have no guilt about it. Grocery shopping is something I do when I’m out of toilet paper.”

“When somebody says they have no guilt about something, does that mean they really do?”

“Usually, unless it’s me.”

Lawson smiled, not the wise-guy grin she’d seen in the past but a genuine smile with no hidden agenda lurking in the corners. Then his expression turned wistful.

“I wouldn’t have minded parents like yours. Mine paid more attention to the dog than they did to me. I took off right after my high school graduation and I’m not sure they’ve noticed yet that I’m gone.”

“You haven’t done so badly for yourself.”

“I suppose. If I had any ambition, though, I probably wouldn’t still be in the cop shop. But I can’t imagine doing anything else. That’s where the action is.” He moved his glass on the table in a figure eight. “Knew that’s what I wanted from the time I was an intern. I’d get to a scene and see a guy lying there all bloody and wonder what had happened . . . how he’d gotten in such a mess. Was it his fault, or was he minding his own business and trouble found him? From there, it was a short hop to the one responsible. What brings someone to take a life? What makes a killer? You know what I mean?”

“I’ve spent a few hours trying to puzzle that one out myself. Murder in the heat of passion, I understand. Murder motivated by greed, jealousy, or a desire for revenge, I still have some questions about. But the predator . . . the serial killer . . . there’s the ultimate challenge. Take this guy we’re after now; he seems to be totally without conscience.”

“I used to think this country invented serial killers, but then there was that one recently in Russia, the Rostov Ripper.”

“My guess is, they’ve always had them. Only now, they’re willing to admit it.”

Lawson took another sip of his iced tea. “You figure every culture has them?”

“I’d hate to think so,” Kit replied, “because that’d suggest it’s genetic, that there’s a certain number born every year, like hemophiliacs.”

“Scary thought, but maybe not so wrong. That guy in Omaha in the early eighties who killed those two little boys said when he was only six, he fantasized about killing and eating the baby-sitter. In a way, a genetic cause could prove useful. I mean, maybe they could find a marker. . . .”

“Then what, screen all new babies?”

“Sure, why not?”

“What happens when they find one with the marker?”

Lawson thought about this a moment, then said, “Well, you’d never get a baby-sitter for him.”

Despite the subject of the conversation, both smiled. Sitting there, all comfortable and safe with her belly warmed by the rum, Kit began to see what a charmer Lawson could be.

“Now a very personal question,” he said. Getting no protest, he continued. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Yes.”

“Is it serious?”

“We don’t date others.”

Lawson raised one hand. “Okay, I accept that . . . for now. But things change. When they do, will you keep me in mind?”

Kit shook her head. He might have saved her, but she wasn’t going to turn her personal life inside out for his inspection. “First, there’s no chance in the wind. Second, you’re not my type. I prefer men who aren’t likely to come up missing someday because they were killed performing some fool stunt.”

“I’d tell you I could change, but that’d be a lie. So I guess you’ll have to.”

“Don’t count on it. Now, as pleasant as this has been, I’m going home.”

Lawson had parked in the same lot, so they walked there together. In the rearview mirror, she saw him watch her drive away. It had indeed been a nice talk and she’d changed her opinion of him for the better. But that didn’t mean she felt guilty for failing to mention the killer’s forensic connection. Nor was she sorry she omitted her belief that when she and Phyllis Merryman were talking about the Heartbeats, Merry-man had definitely held something back.