Chill of Night n-6

by John Lutz

  Some of us from being human, Beam thought.

  “In my line of work,” he said, “being human can be dangerous.”

  “In everybody’s.” Cassie stood up to go to the kitchen and get the main course.

  She returned a minute later carrying two steaming plates. She set one down in front of Beam, the other on the side of the table where she would sit.

  “Looks delicious,” Beam said. He could smell the seasoning on the fish, the garlic in the mashed potatoes. And there were other, more delicate scents, herbs and melted butter. Cassie was one terrific cook.

  Brother and sister picked up knife and fork, and for a few minutes they sat silently and ate and sipped wine. The Argentine wine was perfect with the trout.

  “It all tastes even better than it smells,” Beam said. “If you ever give up psychoanalysis, you could have a career as a chef.”

  “Or a culinary psychiatrist.” She took a bite of potato. “I have a theory that everything in life is connected in one way or another with food.”

  “Hmm. Didn’t Freud think it was sex?”

  Cassie lifted her square shoulders in a shrug. “That’s Freud for you.” She took a sip of wine and dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “Have you seen your friend Nola again?”

  “I’m not sure I like the segue.”

  “Are you avoiding the question?”

  “I suppose. And I shouldn’t avoid it. Maybe you can tell me what’s going on.”

  Ignoring his food-which to Cassie might be meaningful-Beam told her about sitting in his car across from Nola’s antique shop, and what went on between them when finally he did go inside.

  When he was finished, she said, “You went inside the shop. I congratulate you for acting on your fear.”

  “My nervousness, you mean.”

  “I mean your fear.”

  Beam knew she was right. He had been afraid. “I remembered what you told me,” he said, “about her needing to forgive me.”

  “Do you agree now that’s what she needs?”

  “I told her it was what she needs.”

  “How’d she react?”

  Beam told Cassie about Nola insisting that he leave, but not insisting that he not return. He was dismayed that in the telling, it seemed like wishful thinking on his part. It also sounded stilted and futile.

  What had happened in the antique shop was beyond words. Words simply weren’t up to the task. They were as useful as paddles in mid ocean. Nola was beyond words.

  “Do you think she’ll want to see me again?” he asked Cassie.

  “Was your account of what happened between you two accurate?”

  “I’m a cop,” Beam said. “I remember details. It was accurate.”

  Cassie finished her wine and grinned. “Then you can bet your sweet ass she wants to see you. Don’t you understand, bro, you’re her way out.”

  And she’s mine.

  When Beam left Cassie’s apartment a few hours later, he drove past the antique shop even though he was sure Nola wouldn’t be there.

  The shop’s windows were dark, like those in the rest of the businesses lining the block. Even the lettering on the glass was part of the night and unreadable. The windows reminded Beam of blank, uncomprehending eyes staring out at the street.

  When he steered the Lincoln in a tire-squealing U-turn and drove for home, he didn’t notice the car following him, as he hadn’t noticed it when it fell in behind him as he’d pulled out of the parking garage half a block from Cassie’s apartment.

  In his business, distraction could be dangerous.

  41

  Fear, real fear, was one mean mother. You could put up a front and hold it off, but it wouldn’t go away. It just backed up a step and stayed there, licking its chops, waiting.

  Be a bitchin’ song.

  The commercial possibilities blew through his mind like an icy breeze. The fear came in its wake.

  He wasn’t Cold Cat now. He was Richard Simms, the defendant. He kept his fingertips touching the hard mahogany surface of the table so his hands wouldn’t tremble. His knees were almost weak enough to give, and the same could be said of his bladder. His mouth was filled with cotton, and while he could keep his expression neutral, he couldn’t keep the tears from welling in his eyes, which he kept fixed straight ahead at a picture of Justice Thurgood Marshall hanging on the wall behind the bench.

  Cold Cat seemed to him more of an invention than ever, a hard structure to hide within, as Richard Simms stood in court and awaited the verdict in his trial for murder. Richard Simms knew he wasn’t nearly as tough as Cold Cat, and the harsh world could be dealt with only if it were Cold Cat and not Richard trying to cope. Here in the emotionally charged, smothering heart of the racist bureaucracy, with a hostile world sitting in judgment, he found it impossible to be Cold Cat.

  Richard Simms himself would have to face the system, would have to bear up, whatever the verdict.

  It was the total silence that got to him more than anything. All his life Richard had hated silence. It made it difficult for him to breathe, to think. He felt as if he might pass out soon from lack of oxygen.

  Richard felt ten years old standing there, the age he’d been the three times he’d attended church at St. Matthew’s, at the insistence of a fiercely religious aunt who’d tried to force the spirit on him. Religion hadn’t taken root in Richard; some of his lyrics, in fact, were virulently anti-faith-all faiths.

  But he knew what a benediction was, and that was what he felt when the words were loosed in the stifling courtroom. They were only sounds with no meaning at first, and then, finally, they sank in. They bore in. They suffused apprehension and despondency with relief, and then incredible joy.

  Not guilty.

  If ever Cold Cat was going to be converted, to experience his epiphany, this was the moment. He almost collapsed with his newfound sense of freedom, sagging so that his attorney Murray had to stand up beside him and support him.

  No more jailhouse food, no more god-awful threads, no more nights alone with those dreams.

  There’s never music in my dreams.

  Then he and Murray were hugging, and the attorney whispered something in his ear that Cold Cat couldn’t understand, because other voices were rising. His mother was screaming hallelujahs! over and over. Hands patted, pounded on his back. He was shaking hands. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, hug him, and hang on.

  And the gavel banged! Again! Louder and louder, more and more insistent, until it overwhelmed every other sound in the courtroom and silence returned like a cool river.

  At his lawyer’s insistence, Cold Cat sat back down, with a backward glance at his mother, who was sobbing in her jubilation. He watched the judge as she dispassionately polled the jury, and he listened as each juror answered.

  The verdict was unanimous. Cold Cat did not murder his wife.

  He was free!

  It was at that moment that the old rage, the furnace fire of his youth, still burning strong, began to take hold in him. The system had tried to get him but failed. He’d whipped its ass and he would again with his music. It was a scumbag society out to get him from the git-go and it couldn’t shut him up, couldn’t stop his message. He was better than the fools who’d tried to bring him down. Better in every way. He would tell them so. When the time was right, he’d let them know.

  Unanimous. Try to reverse that one on appeal, Mr. Smart-ass prosecutor Farrato. Richard tried to catch the little prosecutor’s eye, but Farrato, busy scooping up papers and stuffing them into his briefcase, wouldn’t look in his direction.

  Better not look my humpin’ way!

  Put ya way down

  Ya don’ see it my way

  Make ya way pay

  Turn ya way gray

  Be yo one last final day!

  Yes, there were definitely some lyrics here. Food for the beat. It was all material for Cold Cat, all part of his message.

  As he stood up to leave the courtroom with his attorneys, he w
as full of the rage he’d turned to riches. He didn’t glance at the jurors, wasn’t going to mouth a “thank-you” like Simpson. The Melanie cunt that he’d got all wet between the legs in court and conned into helping him was of no use to him now. He knew how he affected some women, and she’d probably try making a pest of herself, but he wouldn’t let her. Old bitch. Older, anyway. Those were bones he didn’t want to jump, so piss on her. He made a mental note to describe her to his security staff so they could keep her the hell away.

  That Merv Clark, though, nervy guy that’d been around, had his own troubles, and lied his ass off to get a lighter sentence from the man, was a different matter. He’d have to see what he could do for that brother, maybe put him on his staff, loyal soldier like that.

  Knee High was in the corner of his vision as two burly bailiffs cleared the way, and graceful Murray guided Cold Cat with a light touch to his elbow, nudging him toward the paneled door to freedom.

  Murray, too. Man deserves a bonus. Smoother’n goose shit.

  “Catch you later, man!” Knee High yelled.

  Cold Cat glanced at him and raised a hand with thumb, forefinger, and pinky stiffly extended. Cameras hadn’t been allowed in the courtroom, but the miniature lightning of flashes going off brightened everything, momentarily blinding Cold Cat.

  “You’n me all the way now!” Knee High shouted, as the acquitted man and his entourage exited behind the bench. “You’n me all the way!”

  “Goddamn believe it!” Richard Simms mumbled.

  All the way.

  Cold Cat was back.

  Two days later New York Appeals Court Judge Roger Parker was found shot to death in his limo by his driver, who’d gone into a service station in Queens to buy a morning paper for the judge.

  A slip of paper with a red capital letter J printed on it with felt tip pen was tucked beneath the limo’s wiper blade on the passenger side, like a parking ticket.

  The limo driver started to remove it, then thought he’d better leave it for the police.

  42

  When Beam, Nell, and Looper arrived an hour after the shooting, Beam knew almost immediately the crime scene wasn’t going to give them much. The black Lincoln stretch limo was still parked at the pumps, being swarmed over by the crime scene unit. Judge Parker was slumped in the backseat, the tinted window down. In the harsh morning sunlight, he looked like a plump-faced, elderly man peacefully dozing in the middle of all the turmoil, but for the black round hole in the center of his forehead.

  Minskoff, the little ME with the glasses and bushy mustache, was standing alongside the limo, near the dead judge, writing something with a blunt pencil in a small black notebook. He was concentrating on what he wrote, the tip of his tongue protruding slightly from the hairy corner of his mouth.

  Beam approached him while Nell and Looper went to find the uniforms who’d taken the call and were first on the scene. Apparently the driver had gone into the station for the paper while the tank was still filling. The gas pump nozzle was still stuck in the limo; it and the hose reminded Beam of a snake that had sunk its fangs into the big car and wouldn’t release it. Beam stood patiently, the sun starting to get hot on the back of his neck, until Minskoff finished writing and closed his notebook.

  “What’s the preliminary?” Beam asked.

  “Looks like one gunshot wound, center of the forehead, bullet entered the frontal lobe of the brain at a slight leftward, downward angle. No exit wound. Death immediate.”

  “Thirty-two caliber?”

  “Could be. We’ll know when we remove the slug.”

  “Has the body been moved at all?”

  “Lividity indicates not in the slightest.”

  “I mean since you arrived to make your preliminary examination?”

  “The good judge is exactly as he was when I got here. I haven’t even opened the car door. No need to, considering the location of the fatal wound.”

  Beam leaned down so he could peer into the car without touching anything. It appeared that the door where the judge sat was unlocked, as was the driver’s door.

  He straightened up, then walked alongside the car to the windshield, where the sheet of paper with the red J on it was still wedged beneath the wiper blade. He didn’t have to remove the paper. The letter J was plainly visible, and looked like the others left by the Justice Killer.

  Minskoff had walked along to join him. “Appears to be your man again.”

  “Hardly a man at all,” Beam said. “Sick slugs like this killer have given up being part of humanity.”

  Minskoff shook his head. “Nobody resigns from the human race. But he’s sure a part of us we don’t like.”

  “When you arrived, was the rear door where the judge sat unlocked?”

  “Yes. I saw that it was, but I didn’t open the door. Didn’t have to, so I tried to help keep the scene frozen.”

  “Window already down?”

  “Yes, it was open just as it is now.”

  “The judge is facing forward,” Beam said. “If someone approached the car from the side and tapped on the window, and he opened it and turned his head to speak to whoever it was, then was shot, would his head turn to face forward again?”

  “It very well could. Probably would, as his body slumped back. I don’t rule out the possibility that he was shot by someone inside the car, but how we found him is consistent with what you just hypothesized, being shot by someone standing alongside the car. The apparent angle of the entry wound indicates that also.” Minskoff looked mildly irritated, like a man who’d drawn a bad card at poker. “It’d all be easier to reconstruct if we had an exit wound and could examine blood splatters.”

  “Messier, though,” Beam said.

  “Oh, I don’t mind that.”

  Beam left the M.E. as he saw Nell and Looper walking toward him. They stood out of earshot of the crime scene unit techs and watched the ambulance arrive to transport the body. It’s flashing emergency lights were lost in the bright sunlight, like those of the police cars.

  Too nice a day for a murder, Beam thought.

  “A bigshot judge,” Looper said, glancing over at the body in the limo. “Not good for our side. Da Vinci’s liable to show up here with his nuts in a knot.”

  “Most likely,” Beam said. “Maybe we can be gone. What’s the story?”

  “Uniforms got the call and arrived no more’n ten minutes after the shot was fired. Nobody heard the shot. Nobody saw anything.”

  “Busy intersection,” Beam said, glancing around. “Where was the limo driver through all of this?”

  Nell said, “He stopped here for gas, then while the tank was filling went inside to get a morning paper for the judge. It’s the judge’s regular limo service, and his regular driver. Since the tank had been almost empty, the driver chatted for a few minutes with the clerk. Then he paid for the paper and went outside. He thought at first the judge was dozing, then noticed the window was down and saw the hole in his forehead. He said he opened the door, gonna try to help. Then he saw it was no use and shut the door, came back into the station, and called the police.”

  “You sure he said the window was down?” Beam asked.

  Nell gave a little smile. “Yeah. I specifically asked. The chauffeur’s a sharp guy. After phoning the police, he went back outside and stood by the car, made sure nobody touched anything. He paid by company credit card, but he still hasn’t even touched the receipt sticking out of the pump.”

  “Did he see anybody leaving the scene?”

  “No one. And he said he looked in all directions. Nobody saw anything. It’s a slow morning, and the next people to arrive at the station were police.”

  “What about the clerk?”

  “No help there,” Looper said. “She didn’t even know anything was wrong until the driver went outside with his paper and came running back in.” He felt his shirt pocket. “Christ, I need a smoke.”

  “That’d be smart,” Nell said. “Don’t you smell the gas?”
<
br />   “Yeah. It makes me want a smoke.”

  “You addicts.”

  “Any other customers inside the station?” Beam asked. “Somebody wanting coffee or shopping around for junk food?”

  “No one,” Looper said. “Just the driver and the clerk. It’s quiet in there, but you can hear the traffic. Seems to me that if neither of them heard a shot, there was probably a sound suppresser on the piece. And I got a glimpse of the entry wound, most likely a thirty-two. Our guy.”

  Beam nodded. “That how you see it, Nell?”

  “Unless that letter J is different from the rest.”

  “It isn’t,” Beam said.

  “Then the shooter was our guy. This was a regular stop for the judge, usually just so the driver could buy a paper. But this time the limo needed gas, so opportunity presented itself. Way I see it, the killer musta moved fast when the driver went inside. Walked over to the limo and knocked on the window. The judge pressed the power button so the window’d glide down and he could talk to whoever’d knocked, and pop!”

  “Sounds right,” Looper said.

  Beam looked again at the scene. There was another set of pumps beyond where the limo was parked, so visibility wasn’t good from the street. Probably no one driving past would notice someone standing alongside a vehicle gassing up, or think anything about it if they did. As for the black limo, they were common as roaches in New York; it wouldn’t have attracted any attention.

  “A judge this time,” Looper said, tapping his barren shirt pocket again. “Da Vinci’s gonna shit a brick.”

  They stood silently for a few minutes, watching the ambulance pull away with the judge’s body. A white and silver tow truck, belching noxious diesel exhaust, vibrant bass notes, and gleaming in the sun as if it had just been washed and waxed, arrived to transport the mayor’s limo to the police garage. The limo would be dusted for prints, black-lighted, vacuumed, and partially disassembled.