The Axeman's Jazz

chance to gather her wits. “Skip, whereyat?” he said as if he hadn’t seen her in a week or two. He didn’t give Di a chance to wedge a word in. “Skip, Di says she lost her scarf and her lipstick.”
    “Lipstick,” said Skip. “Fiesta, right? He wrote the A in Fiesta.”
    “Oh, Jesus.” She had scrunched her hands into semi-fists and wedged them up against her mouth, maybe trying to get it to stay shut. “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What’s going on? What’s going on here?”
    Skip said, calm as a Valium addict: “Someone’s setting you up, Di. He strangled Jerilyn with your scarf, and then he wrote the A with your lipstick. Or did you do it yourself?”
    “No!”
    “Then he planted the typewriter.”
    “And the book,” said Steve.
    “And the book. You think he’s a friend of yours, but he’s trying to get me to arrest you. You probably gave him the keys yourself.”
    “No!” She had crossed her arms under her breasts, her hands holding her elbows so tightly they looked like claws. “I left my extra set on the table.” She indicated a dark, carved one. “I keep it there and when someone comes, I throw it to them from the balcony. It’s gone, though. I wondered if he forgot to give it back.”
    “Who, Di? Who? Alex?”
    “Alex?” She wrinkled her brow as if trying to remember who on earth Alex was. “Not Alex. Sonny. I was at his house. I forgot some things—I put on fresh lipstick—” She interrupted herself. “That’s why he didn’t come Thursday! I went by his house twice, once after I left PJ’s and then when Steve left here. He was going to follow me home, but he didn’t. He just left me at PJ’s. Oh! Steve, I didn’t mean—”
    Steve said, “Missy didn’t lose her keys. Sonny came back to PJ’s make sure Abe was still there.”
    “I’ve got to go,” said Skip.
    What she needed were Di’s keys. But she needed a search warrant to get them. Okay, okay. She’d get one. But first Sonny. He wasn’t under surveillance. Somehow, she felt desperate to find him, just to pin him down, to know where he was before she called Cappello.
    She went back to the bar and called the hospital. He’d been there, but he’d gone home sick. She said she was Missy and asked how long ago he’d left. An hour.
    Then he ought to be home. But he wasn’t. At least he didn’t answer his doorbell. She tried phoning and got no answer.
    Missy’s?
    As she was standing on the porch, about to ring the bell, the door burst open and Skip found herself face to face with Alex.
    “I wouldn’t go up if I were you. I came to return a book I borrowed. Sonny just got there and he’s in an awful mood.”
    A book. Sure. You hoped to find Missy alone
. She smiled. “Probably because of me. I asked him to meet me here, and he sounded like he had better things to do.”
    Alex held the door for her. Skip went up the stairs and stood for a moment outside Missy’s aunt’s apartment, not wanting to knock, hoping to hear what was going on, to make sure it wasn’t violence. She felt her hand going to her purse, snapping it open just in case.
    Missy was talking. “Oh, Sonny, I feel so awful. I’ve never done anything like that in my entire life. I don’t know if I’m losing my mind or what. I’m out of control. I called my therapist, but he wasn’t in, and then I went to see Di—”
    “No, Missy, I’m the one who should be apologizing.” It was Sonny’s voice. “I was like that, like the way I was, because somebody else died this morning and I felt really horrible about it.”
    “At the hospital? You mean you lost a patient?”
    “I didn’t exactly lose him, I made him die. I make a lot of people die, there’s something about me.”
    “Sonny!”
    “But I can make it right. I can stop it. I have to get the atonement right, that’s all. I’m still fine-tuning the atonement. See, it happens when I try to help them. If I try to help them, they die.”
    “Sonny, don’t be ridiculous. Every doctor loses patients. You make it sound as if you never save anybody, as if that’s not what being a doctor’s all about. I don’t see why you’re so down on yourself.”
    “It’s that way for other people. It’s different for me. It’s getting so all I have to do is touch them, like that old man this morning. I thought it was a fluke the first time it happened. I thought all I had to do was atone with a blood sacrifice, like I had to do that other time. And I tried to be kind. I know I was