The Night Watcher

by Lutz, John

  “Yes.”

  “Brand’s like the rest of them, then. Ambitious, wrapped up in himself, blinder than most. I have to take him by the hand and lead him.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “No. This Brand gonna go somewhere, you think? Become president and take you with him to the White House?”

  Etta heard herself giggle. “Why?”

  “I always wanted to sleep in the White House. Answer the question.”

  “He’ll become mayor of New York, after he gets voted in next election.”

  “Election’s a long way off.”

  “Gotta plan ahead, in my game.”

  Dani turned toward her and kissed her on the forehead. “I know your game.”

  “Hmm. You certainly do. How come you’re interested in Leland Brand?”

  “I’m not. I’m interested in you. You can be naive in some ways, and I wanted to make sure you knew you weren’t in Kansas anymore. And I wondered about how Brand’s treating you.”

  “He’s okay. He listens. Because deep down he knows that without me he couldn’t find his ass with either hand. He’s like a strong horse that needs coaxing and direction. He needs me. I remind him of that from time to time, though he doesn’t realize it.”

  Dani smiled. “A whole other side of you.”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Not at all.”

  Etta felt better than contented now, felt like teasing. “You worried about me cause I’m surrounded every day by all that testosterone?”

  “No,” Dani said. “I’ll show you why not.” Her head disappeared beneath the covers.

  Etta hadn’t told quite all the truth to Dani about Leland Brand. She did owe some loyalty to her client. She hadn’t told Dani that what was different about Brand, what she really liked in him as a client, was that after a few weeks with him she’d realized he had no moral convictions whatsoever. His ego and ambition were the most expansive she’d ever seen in a politician. He would do anything to realize those ambitions—anything.

  It wasn’t that these were rare qualities at all in politicians. It was that Brand had less conscience and more pit bull in him than even he knew. Etta was still learning how to draw it out. This boy had possibilities. He was an interesting challenge.

  But not one she wanted to consider at the moment.

  Dani often thought how astounded a smart cookie like Etta would be if she ever learned in the future what she didn’t know now. But people like her seldom did eventually learn.

  It wasn’t that Dani wanted to take advantage of Etta; she would draw the line at hurting her in any way Etta didn’t want to be hurt. One of the things Etta might be surprised about was how fond of her Dani actually was. Dani hoped that someday, if Etta ever found out how duplicitous her secret lover was, Etta would understand and forgive her. Dani knew that would be a lot to ask, so she was content to leave their relationship unchanged.

  She’d never confided to Etta her real occupation. She had nothing to do with software or computers; she worked for a medical supplier. That was where she could obtain what she needed, then secretly put it in Etta’s drugs or booze.

  One of the characteristics Dani liked best in her lover was that she talked in her sleep. Sleeping soundly after a night of sex and treats laced with the proper medications, Etta could be extremely conversant. Awake, she was secretive about her life in politics. Asleep, she couldn’t be more eager to share information.

  During long, warm nights of pillow talk, like tonight promised to be, it was surprising what Dani could learn.

  Some of the information she could sell.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Stack’s phone roused him from sleep at—he squinted at the glowing red numerals on the clock radio—2:17 A.M. Lying on his stomach, he reached out with his right arm as if doing a swim stroke, miraculously found coiled wire, and reeled in the receiver.

  “Stack?…”

  It was Rica. “Um.” He realized he’d been dreaming about her but he couldn’t recall the dream. About her, though, and not Laura. It had been a while now since he’d dreamed of Laura. Stack rolled over onto his side, then worked his body parts so he was sitting up but slumped over.

  “Stack?”

  He managed to wriggle backward and sit up straighter. The wooden headboard was cool on his bare shoulders. What did Rica want? Had he gone too far at the precinct and encouraged her? Was this going to be an invitation to take a cab for a late-night ride to her apartment? Phone sex? God, he hoped not. He’d never understood why people…

  “You awake, Stack?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Yes, I’m awake.” Half awake, anyway. Probably couldn’t even get a hard-on, if that’s what she—

  “Listen, Stack. Ernest Fagin phoned. Said he just happened to dial my number before yours, so I told him I’d contact you. Another call came in a few minutes ago to the FDNY, a high-rise fire on East Sixty-fifth near First Avenue.”

  “I’m on my way,” Stack said. He scooted sideways on the bed and stood up too fast, pressing the phone to his ear and still dizzy with sleep. Terrible taste in his mouth. “I’ll swing by in the unmarked and pick you up.”

  “I’m close enough to this one, I’m gonna cab over to it. I can be there while you’re still getting dressed.”

  Stack doubted it, but he didn’t argue. “See you there.” He hung up and said, “God!” Then he switched on the lamp and set a course for the bathroom.

  And stopped in midstride when the phone rang again.

  Rica calling back, he figured.

  When he picked up the receiver and said hello, a familiar gravely voice said simply, “A high-rise fire on East Sixty-fifth off First Avenue. Hurry.”

  Hearing the voice momentarily froze Stack. “Wait! Hey, where—”

  But the Torcher had hung up.

  When Stack’s skin stopped crawling, he took the caller’s advice and hurried.

  Ten minutes later, he was driving toward the East Side when he heard the sirens. They got louder as he drove. What the hell? he thought, and decided to join the chorus. The streets he was speeding along were almost deserted, but he placed the unmarked’s light on the roof and switched on the car’s siren. All that howling and warbling in the night, he thought, all closing in on the same point. Like a pack of wolves on the scent.

  The Torcher stood across the street among the crowd that had formed when tenants from the facing building came down to view what was happening. Neighbors often didn’t know each other in Manhattan, even if they lived in the same building and on the same floor. Certainly everyone didn’t know everyone else in a large building, so no one would pay particular attention to who under other circumstances would be a stranger.

  Quite a sight, this fire, with flames leaping from the windows of the twenty-first-floor apartment. But only that apartment, the Torcher noticed with satisfaction.

  This time the Torcher had decided to stay close and make sure. This time precautions had worked: the care taken to contain the fire in the kitchen, or at least the apartment, then the call to the fire department, then to Stack, to be doubly safe. Mark Drucker lived alone; he was the only one to die tonight. A plan gone right.

  A cab stopped at the corner, near the police barricade, and Detective Erica Lopez climbed out. The Torcher moved back somewhat in the knot of spectators and watched.

  Odd that Stack, so respected and even feared in the NYPD, hadn’t come with Lopez, even after the phone call. The Torcher rotated a wrist to peer at a gold watch. Well, it was a bad time of night even for cops. Stack had probably been rousted out of bed by the call, and decided he wasn’t coming. Nothing could be done tonight; it would wait till morning and be more comprehensible then. They worked long, hard hours, did cops. They didn’t always have the advantage or all the energy in the world. Stack might simply have sent his partner to observe the fire and ascertain the facts. Seniority could be a wonderful thing. And a good thing for the Torch
er, who unquestionably felt some relief that the venerable Stack hadn’t appeared.

  The flames were fascinating, but the Torcher ignored them and kept watching Lopez. Such a small, nimble woman. But she moved decisively, as if she was strong. Time at the gym, probably, to make up for her short stature. Most likely, despite changes in society, it was still a hard life, being a woman in the NYPD.

  Lopez crossed the street, flashing her shield, carefully stepping over hoses and avoiding scattered equipment. She seemed to know she was out of her element and didn’t want to get in the way. Water was streaming down the front of the building, and the street was wet from curb to curb. The boots of the firefighters, who were bustling back and forth in their dark slickers with the luminous horizontal yellow bands, were starting to kick up rooster tails of spray.

  Lopez had stopped to talk to one of the firefighters, a tall, lanky man. He was wearing a slicker but his helmet was different from the others and his boots looked like ordinary black rubber galoshes. The Torcher remembered seeing him before and wondered about him. Was he a fire department bigwig? Some kind of cop? Someone else to fear?

  There was Stack!

  All of a sudden. The ally and nemesis. Standing across the street and facing away from the burning building, his gaze scanning the apartments opposite as if he were searching for someone looking back at him. He was wearing his too-long, bulky coat, like a biblical robe.

  A stab of fright almost like panic sliced through the Torcher.

  There was no reason to stay here now. Only the flames. Only the flames. But they were high and majestic, taunting the enemy because they’d done their work for the night. They were invincible. If they were extinguished here, they would reappear there. By match or coal or lightning or destiny. Invincible and forever.

  The Torcher separated from the knot of onlookers and drifted to the side, then stepped into a narrow, dark gangway that ran between two brick buildings. It would take only a minute or so to cut through the gangway to the next block, to be well away from danger, from Stack.

  Movement caught Stack’s eye. Everyone on the other side of the street was staring transfixed at the darting and licking flames high above. It was almost as if they were paying homage to some ancient god. Their fascination and immobility was striking.

  Except for one dark figure that moved.

  When Stack looked more closely, it was gone.

  Someone had slipped away from the hypnotized, stationary crowd on the sidewalk and disappeared. It took Stack only a second to realize the one way that was possible.

  The dark mouth of the gangway.

  He forgot about joining Rica and Fagin, and instead ran across the street, his shoes splashing water and getting his cuffs and socks wet.

  He ran around a coiled fire hose and found himself aligned directly with the long gangway. There was a tall slab of faint light from the next block, like a crack leading to another world, and for only an instant, but an instant for sure, his gaze caught the silhouette of a dark running figure.

  Stack felt adrenaline kick in like a massive injection. He ran faster. When he entered the darkness of the gangway, he slipped his right hand beneath his coat and drew his venerable Police Special from its holster.

  He could hear his breath rasping loudly, the slap of his soles on concrete. Ahead there was a slight sound, a brief metallic clatter, as if a trash can had been brushed or its lid knocked off. Yet he could see nothing but—

  There!

  When Stack was more than halfway through the black gangway, he saw a figure pass like an illusion through the tall slash of dim light, dart around the corner, and turn right on the sidewalk in the next block. Someone was there, all right. He knew who it was, who it had to be!

  Stack didn’t have his two-way. Didn’t matter anyway. Now he had to run faster than he’d ever run as a young man. He knew he could do it. He knew! His chest heaved and his legs were pumping hard beneath the heavy wool coat. His right thigh brushed something, maybe the same trash can his quarry had disturbed, and metal clanged.

  Then he was through the gangway! Into the next block. Looked right. Just in time to see whoever he was chasing turn the corner at the intersection and head back toward the block where the fire was blazing.

  Stack tucked in his chin and pulled deeper breaths. Go ahead and run, you bastard!

  He ignored the ache in his lungs, the pain in his thighs, and ran faster toward the corner.

  Skidded around it and almost fell.

  He stood with his breath fogging in front of him.

  No one was there when he’d made the turn. Not even a bum sleeping on a grate for warmth, an insomniac smoking a cigarette or walking a dog. Only the dark, cold street with a few parked cars.

  He ran down to the next block and peered up the street to where the fire blazed a block away. Against the glare of the floodlights and the flames, it was impossible to be sure one of the moving, silhouetted figures wasn’t the Torcher.

  No, not that dumb!

  Stack took a chance. He raced down the street to the next block.

  It was a street almost narrow enough to be an alley, with a few cars parked along one side. Stack ran several yards up it and peered into the dimness ahead.

  No sign of movement.

  Then a faint, rhythmic sound. Footsteps?

  He took a deep, gasping breath and broke into a run toward the sound, pretending there was someone there. Hoping!

  To get so damned close!…

  Movement! He saw it, he was sure!

  He was sure he saw someone running toward the street one building over from where the fire was blazing in the next block.

  At the intersection the street was barricaded by police sawhorses, but there was no cop around. Didn’t need to be at this time of night. Early morning.

  Stack angled around the barricade and tried to run even faster. He’d closed some of the distance between himself and the figure he was chasing. If he couldn’t run as fast, he could damn well outlast his quarry, out-will him! He was gasping now instead of just breathing hard, and his legs ached and seemed to weigh twice what they should. His soles were making a different slapping sound as they struck the pavement, his shoes hitting heavily heel first, then flat.

  It took him only a short time to know why the block was barricaded. The night breeze was carrying the smoke this way, causing a black haze to settle over the street. Stack was having a harder time breathing now. He was sucking in thick, acrid smoke rather than crisp night air.

  The pain in his side was getting sharper as his oxygen was cut off. He stumbled and had to slow down.

  For a moment the smoke cleared and he saw the dark figure he was pursuing only about ten yards in front of him, head down, staggering as he was but still running hard.

  Stack tried to yell halt but couldn’t find the breath. He raised his revolver to fire, then realized he couldn’t. There was no way to know how far, or where, the bullet might travel if he missed, and he could no longer see the dark figure, only imagine where it must be.

  He had to keep his head. No target. No fuckin’ target! Warning shot, anyway…Fuckin’ regulations!

  He lowered the revolver and ran harder, harder…almost sobbing now as he fought to breathe. His eyes were burning, watering. He pushed himself on, feeling the tears tracking down his cheeks, feeling his legs going numb, hearing the gun drop to the pavement and fire as he lurched deeper and deeper into the lowering pall, into darkness.

  The Torcher staggered like a drunk, weaving, face red and wet with tears, eyes squinted narrowly in order to see anything at all.

  It seemed to take forever to reach the car and unlock the door, then collapse into the front seat on the passenger side.

  Thank God it was so late! So dark!

  Jesus, the pain! This had been so close! So goddamned close!

  Never again! Never again come back and watch the flames! Never again!

  Everything smelled like smoke, like death, like finality. It was inevitable,
but not tonight…Not tonight…

  The pain!…

  So goddamned close!

  “Stack?…Stack?…Stack?…”

  He opened his eyes and saw figures looming over him, the night sky above and beyond them boasting a few stars. Then he realized something was covering his mouth and nose, and he shook his head from side to side, trying to shake whatever it was away so he could breathe. Someone pressed the thing harder so it covered the entire bottom half of his face. Others held him down. What the hell were they—

  “Breathe, Stack! Please! Just relax and breathe!”

  He took the advice and forced himself to stop struggling. Cautiously at first, he began drawing deep breaths. He knew now it was a respirator held to his face.

  He tried to remember what had happened as he studied the figures above. It was Rica bending over him, he was sure, though it was too dim to see her features. Near her was someone in a firefighter’s helmet; he was the one applying the respirator. Above them, standing where he was catching more light, was lanky Ernest Fagin.

  Stack relaxed his body completely so they’d know he was okay and was finished resisting. He reached up slowly and deliberately and held the firefighter’s wrist, coaxing the respirator mask away from his face.

  He could breathe on his own! Cold, pure air. New York air he’d never again think of as polluted. He coughed violently, regained control, and sucked in some more of the sweetest air he had ever breathed.

  “You okay, Stack?” Rica asked.

  He looked around and realized he was about a hundred feet down the block from where he must have fallen. There was some smoke here, drifting high between him and the stars, but not nearly as much as when he’d been closer to where the building was burning in the next block. “What?…”

  “The smoke got you,” Fagin said. “Can you breathe okay now?”