Mister X. John Lutz

      This is absurd. Nothing’s been stolen and I am not afraid!

      When she left the elevator and reached her apartment door, she studied it and saw no sign that it had been forced. She tried the doorknob, and it wouldn’t turn. The door was still locked, as it should be.

      Even if she hadn’t been afraid, she felt a huge relief.

      Imagination. Too much imagination because I’m creative.

      Curiosity overcame what was now merely a vague unease, and she unlocked the door and opened it. Drawing a deep breath, she stepped into her apartment.

      An encompassing glance told her that everything was okay. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed since she’d left to go job hunting this morning.

      Telling herself she’d been a big baby, she closed the door to the hall and locked the dead bolt, then fastened the chain. She crossed the room and yanked the drapes open wider so more of the early evening light spilled in through the window.

      She looked around more carefully. There were the throw pillows stacked as they’d been on the sofa, so she could prop her feet up while watching television. There was her empty orange juice glass she’d forgotten to carry back to the kitchen this morning, precisely where she’d left it on the coffee table, resting on a magazine so it wouldn’t leave a ring.

      She went to the window air conditioner and switched it on maximum, enjoying the cool breeze gradually generated by the humming blower. When she turned around her gaze went to the nearby desk, checking to make sure her computer was still there. She knew that it was, yet she still had to look.

      And there was her computer.

      But its lid was raised and it was on.

      Doubt crawled like an insect up the nape of her neck. She was sure she’d shut down the computer this morning. But she must not have. There it was, not online but with the desktop icons displayed against a field of blue.

      Mary went to the computer and laid her hand over it. She felt no warmth. Might that mean it hadn’t been on very long? Shouldn’t it be warm if she’d gone away and left it on for hours? She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t actually experimented to find out. How could she know?

      She switched on the desk lamp, then sat before the computer and went online. She moved the cursor and clicked on the computer’s history.

      The sites recently visited were familiar. Her e-mail from when she’d checked for messages this morning, the Times and Post online editions. eBay, to do some looking but not buying. USA Today, to find out what was happening outside New York.

      All the sites were ones she was sure she’d visited the last time she’d sat at the computer this morning. It didn’t appear that anyone had gone fishing for her personal information.

      On the other hand, she knew the entire contents of her hard drive might have been copied to an external disk drive, or even a flash drive, and she’d have no way of knowing.

      And she was sure, sure, that she’d left the computer this morning with its screen dark.

      But how sure was anyone of anything?

      Mary got up from the desk and made herself look through the rest of the apartment, extending a tentative hand and switching on lights as she went, even though it wasn’t yet dusk. She looked in closets, even peered under her bed, before she was satisfied that she was alone.

      She settled into the sofa and worked off her shoes, trying to relax. But she was still afraid—and angry.

      It wasn’t so much that someone—the man on the stairs?—might have entered her apartment; it was more as if he’d entered her life.

      There were plenty of dangerous nut cases in the human turmoil of the city. She’d been warned about them often enough. In the closeness and press of Manhattan, any woman was bound to pass at least some of them on the crowded sidewalks every day.

      She knew that some men became fixated on certain women with merely a glance. For them it was like obsessive love.

      She knew that some men killed the thing they loved.

      10

      Quinn was finishing his tuna melt and fries supper at the Lotus Diner when Thel, the waitress, approached him without her glass coffeepot.

      “Your friend Pearl’s on the phone,” Thel said.

      “Can you bring it to the table?”

      “I can yank it outta the wall and bring it to you—then what you do with it is your business.”

      Thel took kidding okay, but she always shot back. She was a middle-aged, dumpy woman in a dead-end job. Her forehead was folded into a permanent frown, and the deep etching around her mouth wasn’t laugh lines. Her teeth were yellowed and needed braces she’d never be able to afford. Being a smart-ass was what got her by in the world. It was what she had, and she worked it hard, sometimes making customers angry. The diner owner liked Thel, so she got by with her attitude act, especially after he’d learned that in some perverse way it actually attracted customers. And it didn’t hurt that the owner was at least slightly afraid of Thel.

      Quinn wasn’t afraid of her. He pretended not to have heard her, dabbed at his lips with his white paper napkin, and then slid out of the booth. His cell was turned off so he could eat in peace. Pearl and Fedderman had known where to find him, but they wouldn’t have bothered him unless the call was at least somewhat important.

      He knew where the phone was mounted on the wall near the doorway to the kitchen, at the end of the counter. As he approached it he saw that the receiver was unhooked and lying on the floor. He gripped the cord and hand-over-hand pulled up the receiver like a fish he’d caught and held it to his ear.

      “That you, Quinn?” Pearl’s voice.

      “Me,” Quinn said. “Straight from my tuna melt and coffee. Tell me this is important?”

      “As your sandwich, you mean?”

      “I’m getting enough crap from Thel, so don’t push it. What’s going on?”

      “Thel? You mean that woman hasn’t been fired by now? With her attitude and that mouth?”

      “You hang on—why not her? Why’d you call, Pearl?”

      “Harley Renz phoned here. He wants you to get back at him at his office like yesterday or sooner.”

      “Get back at him?”

      “To him. You know what I meant, Quinn.”

      Thel has infected us all. “Renz say what it is he wanted?”

      “You, to call him.” Pearl sighed her loud telephone sigh, as if dealing with a teenage obscene caller. “He is the police commissioner, Quinn. Maybe you should deign to return his call.”

      “You got a point,” Quinn said, and hung up.

      He depressed the old wall phone’s cradle button, then let it bounce up before he punched out Harley Renz’s direct line at 1 Police Plaza. This was no time to goof around with Pearl. Harley was police commissioner, so maybe he did have something important to say.

      Or ask.

      Or demand.

      As he listened to the phone chirp on the other end of the connection, Quinn glanced over and saw that Thel had gone from where she’d been wiping down the counter and eavesdropping on his conversation. Now she was standing by his table, which she’d completely cleared, and was ignoring him while scribbling on her order pad, figuring his total.

      And her tip.

      The chirping in Quinn’s right ear was replaced by Harley Renz’s impatient growl.

      “’Bout time you returned my call.”

      “What’s this about, Harley?”

      “Your