“You see,” Larkin continued, “Harry Regmore was only the catalyst. The senderknewAlfred Niederman. So yes, to answer your question, I believe the identity of Janie Doe will play a crucial role in tracking where Niederman’s life crosses with that of our unknown sender—as he’s suggested Janie’s importance when saying I ignored the memento.”
“The game is afoot,” Doyle said solemnly.
Larkin hesitated a fraction of a second before nodding curtly. “Yes.”
Connor folded his arms over his massive chest. He asked on a long exhale, “And that quote from the first letter?”
“It was taken from a book,” Doyle said. “Portraits in Plaster.”
“Same with the second?”
Doyle said, “Lifted from a collection of essays on postmortem photography.”
Larkin tugged the cassette free from its cardboard sleeve, raised the tape, and said, “And if I’m correct, this video will be a memento mori, with possible allusions to outdated mourning practices, of a homicide victim whose killer is still walking the streets.”
“And your pen pal is aware of the crime,” Connor concluded. “Potentially evenknowsthe murderer responsible.”
Larkin said nothing more as he turned, popped the tape in the VCR, and hit Play. He adjusted the volume before taking a step back.
Tracking distortion warped a black screen, and a camcorder-quality mess of muted colors and poor resolution flickered to life: a bed—covered in cheap satin, if the glare of light bouncing off its surface was anything to judge by—with a man and woman atop, naked, fucking hard. The audio track kicked on a second later, filling the room with grunts, groans, and loud shouting and jeering from—the camera panned back into a wide shot—an audience of men, watching the couple on what appeared to be a stage.
Larkin blinked a few times before saying, “The sender obviously still has a thing or two to learn about me if they thought to deliver me straight porn.”
Connor had to smother a laugh. “Never change, Grim.”
Larkin cast a sideways glance at his lieutenant.
Pointing to the screen, Connor said, “You boys are probably too young to know this, but in the ’70s and into the early ’80s, anything went in Times Square. They had these theaters where you could pay to watch a live sex show.”
“I’m sorry,” Larkin said, raising a hand. “What.”
Connor smirked, looking away from the screen and down at Larkin. “You wouldn’t be curious to check one out? Even if it was, uh, aman-event?”
“Perhaps it’s prudish of me,” Larkin said, “but I prefer sex to be personal and private, and preferably somewhere I won’t pick up crabs.”
Doyle finally spoke up. “It was good money.”
Larkin leaned around Connor to stare at Doyle.
“Couples did anywhere from four to eight shows a day.”
“Eight shows a day,” Larkin echoed, deadpan.
Doyle nodded.
Larkin redirected his gaze to the television. The couple had changed position—the woman on her back, head at the foot of the bed, dark hair tumbling over the side, the audience granted a clear view of her heaving chest and partner going at her like a jackhammer. “The man must be severely dehydrated.”
“The really popular teams could make upward of eight hundred bucks a week,” Doyle continued. “That was a lot of money in the early ’80s, which is my guess based on the… grooming choices… of our participants.”
“Inflation would put that over two thousand dollars today,” Larkin answered.
“We’ve all gone into the wrong line of work,” Connor concluded.
The screen flickered and the scene cut to a new location. The video was such low quality, so dark and grainy, it took Larkin a few seconds to make sense of the location: a single window open onto a dark night, artificial light spilling into a room, its definitions marked by the forms of dated furniture as the cameraperson panned—a nightstand with a phone, its receiver hanging over the side by a cord, an unmade bed with a comforter in a shade Larkin could only describe as harvest gold, and a partially nudesomeonepositioned as if they’d been crucified to the mattress.
The sound distorted as the person behind the lens jostled the camcorder, their erratic and heavy breathing filling the silent seconds between Larkin and Doyle and Connor. The cameraperson approached the bed, a hand briefly reached into frame, and they tugged a dark fabric from the face of the person, its gauzy, crimped material evident as it was passed before the light spill from the window. Revealed was a young white woman—dark hair, with a well-defined Roman nose. Her mouth hung open and her gaze was locked on the ceiling.
The image skittered, briefly lost in a mess of distortion and color.
