Fanatics

by Richard Hilary Weber

  “Never seen him.”

  Marty left for the john, and Flo feigned immense interest in the marching band parading down the football field.

  “They drive or walk here?” she said to the bartender.

  He freshened her ginger ale. “Not sure. Probably walked, they come in looking all wet and windblown. Hang on, I think they’re finished eating down there. Steak and fries. They eat, drink, leave. Always the same.”

  The taller man signaled for the bill. Bartender Donny Reilly walked to the cash register, picked up the order slip, and moved down to the other end of the bar.

  Marty returned from the john. “Cars on their way,” he muttered, and his eyes stayed glued to the TV screen.

  “They’re leaving,” Flo said. “They’re paying up. You two go. Bartender figures they walked here.”

  6:50 P.M.

  Zanonovich had returned from a Roman Catholic Saturday evening Mass—no Orthodox church nearby—walking back with Professor Gerald F. X. McLaughlin to the safe house at 8 Garden Place in Brooklyn Heights.

  The professor’s caregiver had stayed late and was about to serve supper. She’d set the dining room table for one person.

  The house echoed with the sound of the professor’s silver bell, an insistent noise.

  A thin black woman with a tired, patient expression appeared from the kitchen.

  “I have a guest,” the professor said. “Two settings, please, Winona.”

  “Yes, sir. I made roast pork.”

  “Let’s have a Gigondas with it. Something that stands up to pork. And candied yams, Winona?”

  “Them, too, sir.”

  “We got enough?”

  “Yes, sir, always enough.”

  Zanonovich looked forward to a pleasant meal, good food and drink, a bit of intelligent conversation, before he would descend into the subway again for the ride out to Sheepshead Bay, with his sports bag holding a SOCIMI rifle and telescopic night sight.

  And he would remove the obstacle to God’s work.

  6:53 P.M.

  The Chechens left McDonough’s Grill by the main entrance, and detectives Murphy and Keane stepped out the side door behind the television crowd, who never once looked away from the screen.

  “They’re going up the boulevard,” Marty said.

  “Go up the other side.”

  The police officers walked along the north side of Rockaway Boulevard a block behind the Chechens, until the pair ahead of them turned down 137th Street toward the oceanfront. When the detectives reached the corner, they saw the Chechens enter a house.

  “Third from the beach,” Marty said. “A summer place. Got to be colder than a grave digger’s ass.”

  “Good thing. Shit weather, great game. People stay home. Out here, it’ll hit the fan soon.”

  “This windy? Our luck? God bless.”

  Marty spotted the black Mercedes, New Jersey plates, parked on 137th Street on the other side of the boulevard and within sight of the house. He walked to 138th and called in the coordinates.

  “Them all right. Don’t take all day.”

  Then they walked back to McDonough’s Grill.

  7:04 P.M.

  Six unmarked police vehicles converged at the prefab summerhouse on 137th Street in Rockaway, headlights and searchlights beamed directly on the front door and windows.

  Two ambulances and an arrest wagon waited at the corner on Rockaway Boulevard.

  Police in body-armor vests jumped from the cars, and Flo Ott, her voice as urgent as the wail of a banshee, shouted into a car megaphone, “Everyone in there. Out now. Unarmed. Hands raised. I count to five, you’re out the front door. Or we open up.”

  The killers’ reply was quick in coming. Rapid rifle fire from two front windows.

  The police were just as fast to respond. Waves of gunfire and four tear gas grenades crashed into the same front windows. A few seconds of continuous fusillade shattered the evening tranquillity as the summerhouse erupted in serial explosions.

  Heat from the blasts kneaded at the policemen’s faces. A sudden wall of flame burst about ten yards away from the police line, a blaze so fierce Flo felt her body swelter as if wrapped in liquefied lead. Glowing cinders soared up into the sky and garish lights cast rays deep into surrounding streets. At the foot of the block, across the sands and ocean surface, long fingers of yellow and red and orange flashes stretched out past the surf as though clawing to escape the land.

  In seconds, wind whipped the fire engulfing the house, incinerating most of whatever the killers still had with them, a wall of flame pushing skyward, licking up toward clouds that sent back a mournful purple glow.

  Sparks flew out over the beach and high, dry sea grass started to ignite in several spots.

  Within minutes, most evidence of the killers inside would be carbonized, nothing but ash except for teeth, bones, and some molten weapons.

  Policemen’s faces, shadow-striped, caught a hellish illumination, an imprint of wildness, an image so fierce it made Flo feel even heaven itself couldn’t stop these horrors now. This was their work and police gunfire went on and on.

  Flo looked up at the red- and purple-streaked sky. Above the hellish scene, hundreds of seagulls filled the air, a sound storm of screeches and cries and furious flapping of wings.

  She walked up to a police cruiser on the corner at the boulevard. She called Cecil King and reassured him the ordeal was over, and that there’d be no news announcements for as long as the police could hold back public statements about the events at Rockaway Beach. “But people around this neighborhood here,” she said, “they’ll be phoning in about all the shooting and the fire, count on it.”

  Flo called her husband, Eddie. “I’m running a little late, but I’ll be there.”

  “Dessert is waiting.”

  And she settled into a police cruiser for the ride over to Emmons Avenue, Sheepshead Bay. She had no appetite for food, only an overwhelming need to hug her husband.

  8:12 P.M.

  “It’s over?” Eddie Ott said, his voice a weak rasping sound, scarcely above a whisper.

  Flo nodded. “Done.”

  “Got them?”

  She nodded again and sat closer to her husband, holding his hand.

  “Arraigned,” he said, smiling. “About time those barbarians were in jail.”

  Flo shook her head. “No, the morgue. Nice flowers here, who sent them?”

  “From the guys. I woke up for supper and there they were.”

  “Thoughtful of them.”

  8:55 P.M.

  Slowly, Zanonovich knelt down on one knee, almost as if genuflecting before the Blessed Sacrament, lowering himself and his weapon in between two of the dumpsters on the Sheepshead Bay harbor front near the Breezy Point ferry.

  He repeatedly flexed his fingers and arm muscles so as not to stiffen up.

  And he prayed.

  The distance from his position to the window of nursing home room 2-G was no more than 120 yards. But if it had been five times as far, he was certain he’d still hit his target. The night-vision scope was a technical wonder. And the sound of a single shot would hardly be heard above the constant cacophony of car motors rumbling up and down four lanes of traffic between him and the nursing home.

  In the past hour, the temperature had fallen at least fifteen degrees, typical New York weather, erratic, like the inhabitants’ characters.

  Zanonovich kept his coat’s hood pulled up over the top of his head. He raised the rifle butt to his shoulder and sighted through the scope. He could risk only one shot if he wanted to escape immediately after.

  Thanks be to God…there she was standing, walking around, illuminated in clear light. He followed her movements with the scope. He placed his index finger inside the guard, barely touching the trigger. He relaxed his muscles, his body filling with a satisfying sensual warmth, the taste of roast pork and Gigondas still a fresh, comforting memory. His finger rested on the trigger without a tremble. He enjoyed the feeling
of complete physical and mental self-control.

  His target turned her face toward the window and her head filled the frame of his scope. Lovely. It was beauty who killed the beast. Except…she looked like a kid. Not at all his mental image of his police opponent. A female cop this slight was an impossibility; she had to be the wrong person. She couldn’t be Lieutenant Florence Ott, homicide detective, his brainy nemesis. A daughter, maybe a niece, but definitely not the detective herself. Not the engineer of his single fiasco.

  Zanonovich observed her through the scope and swore a Russian oath. It would be so easy to kill this wisp of a woman.

  And then what…How would the police react? They’d burn him at the stake if they could. They’d certainly torture him; they did that here now in this country, too, and he’d seen torture from the inquisitor’s side. You’ll say everything you’re told to say, everything you’ve ever learned, everything you’ve ever seen or read, it all returns to your mind as if you’re transported, not to heaven but straight to hell. And not only what your inquisitor wants, but anything you imagine might please him, because once he stops inflicting pain, a bond grows between you and him.

  That kid’s mother or the aunt or whoever the hell she was, that bitch cop must be up there in the room now, too. And of course she would act immediately. She was no crippled invalid. She had to be a brute. A bruiser. And he’d soon be trapped.

  He dispassionately examined the small woman’s temple, her dark brown hair tucked behind an earring-less ear. Her profile filled his field of vision. She had a lovely small nose.

  Zanonovich lowered the rifle barrel a couple of inches and resolved to wait. Not wait for another chance at his intended target, but instead go back to the apartment, back to the professor’s house, and wait for the organization’s orders. No profit in giving himself away killing the wrong person.

  He dismantled the rifle and replaced it in the tennis bag.

  He had his chance and, in his confusion, the quality of mercy, so unstrained, unwittingly made him blow it.

  9:50 P.M.

  Flo Ott was riding home in a police cruiser when Frank Murphy called.

  Affixed to the cruiser’s dashboard was a copy of the drawing of the unnamed aristocratic-looking suspect. Every cruising police vehicle in the city was meant to have a similar copy, as were Homeland agents and the FBI at all US airports. The suspect who never showed up at the bar in Rockaway.

  “Flo,” Frank said. “I just got a call. They spotted that other guy, walking from the Jay Street subway heading toward the Heights. Alone. I’m in a car going there now. You?”

  “Same. Keep calling.” And Flo said to the driver, “Take the BQE to the Heights.”

  She regarded the drawing on the dashboard and allowed herself a small smile as they headed to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

  9:52 P.M.

  The temperature rose again as quickly as it had dropped.

  Stiflingly uncomfortable in the sudden warmth, Zanonovich left his coat unbuttoned and the hood down as he walked along Fulton Street from the subway station and into Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights.

  This was his first mistake.

  His second was taking a direct route to Professor McLaughlin’s house on Garden Place. But of course he had no idea an image of his face was nearly ubiquitous within the confines of the New York police, and no inkling that his four Chechen comrades in arms were now carbonized corpses. Except for police units directly involved, no one else in the city had yet heard the details of that grisly news.

  Likewise, Zanonovich was unaware that, from a minute or so after he left the subway, he was being observed by a series of police vehicles, passed from one to the next, and as he approached the stoop of 8 Garden Place, homicide detective Sergeant Frank Murphy, now on foot, was past the corner at the other end of the block. Frank picked up where the police cruisers left off.

  As Zanonovich entered the professor’s house from the top of the stoop, Frank was ringing the downstairs bell across the street at number 9.

  9:58 P.M.

  The resident at 9 Garden Place, William Everdell, high school history teacher and author, took his pipe from his mouth and called up to his wife.

  “I’ll get it, Barbara.”

  He rose from his cozy rabbit hutch of an office built under the building’s stoop and went into the hall to answer the doorbell.

  The sight of a burly man outside holding up a police detective’s shield for him to see clearly startled William Everdell.

  “Can I come in?” Frank Murphy said in a low voice.

  “What for?”

  “It’s an emergency, please.”

  “Well, yes, if you can explain—”

  As soon as Everdell closed the ground-floor door, Frank Murphy got right to the point.

  “You know the assassination threats? That Aryan Committee—”

  “Of course, they’re insane. What have I got to do with them?”

  “You’re right across the street from the killer.”

  “The old professor, Mr. McLaughlin? I think you’re very mistaken, Officer. He’s ancient.”

  “No, I don’t know who McLaughlin is. This man isn’t so old.” Frank Murphy pulled out the identity drawing. “This one. Recognize him?”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m finishing a book and I’m up to my eyeballs in work. Maybe Barbara might, my wife.”

  Frank stood at the ground-floor window and surveyed the building on the opposite side of the narrow street. He saw lights on the parlor floor and the top floor.

  “Could you ask your wife to come down, please? Discreetly. Don’t upset anyone.”

  “Barbara?” Everdell called. “There’s a gentleman down here wants to talk with you.”

  Barbara Everdell came down from the parlor floor. “What’s the mystery? A gentleman caller for me?”

  “This is detective—I didn’t hear your name.”

  “Murphy. You recognize this man?”

  “Nice drawing,” Barbara Everdell said. “Looks almost like a snapshot.”

  “Computer generated.”

  “And actually, you know this one does kind of look like that new tenant right across the street. I saw him. I’m pretty sure it was him and Professor McLaughlin coming home from church this evening.”

  “Barbara,” her husband said. “You’re really sure?”

  “Bill, my eyesight’s fine. And that’s a good picture. What do you want him for?”

  “Murder,” Frank said.

  “In Garden Place?” Barbara Everdell sounded incredulous. “Go on. In Professor McLaughlin’s house? That poor old man, he’s half-gaga. Who got killed?”

  “The bombing at the school,” her husband said. “Up in Park Slope.”

  “My God, he’s here? It’s him?”

  “Can I go upstairs?” Frank said. “Can I look from your windows? Just for a minute.”

  “Of course.” William Everdell was eager to help. “Let me go up and pull the blinds down.”

  Barbara Everdell was less enthusiastic than her husband. “You’re not going to start shooting now, are you? Bill, you be careful up there.”

  10:06 P.M.

  Homicide detective Florence Ott ordered the police cruiser to stop on Joralemon Street just before Garden Place.

  Three cruisers were already closing off this end of the quiet, narrow street, and four more were stationed at the other end on State Street.

  Flo ordered two cars from each corner to proceed at once to number 8 and train their searchlights on the building.

  She followed in her car.

  As soon as all the police vehicles were in position and their lights illuminated number 8, she activated the car’s megaphone speaker.

  “Out! Out now!” she said. “No weapons! Hands over head. Out the front door. Out! Out! Out!”

  10:08 P.M.

  The bitch…she’s down there.

  Zanonovich cursed her and cursed himself. He should never have returned to th
is old fart’s house. He was betrayed. Intentionally or by stupidity, it didn’t matter now. He should have waited in front of that nursing home. He should have waited and waited in the cold and dark until she appeared, and then simply killed the bull dyke.

  Armageddon. He immediately turned out the apartment lights and removed the rifle from the sports bag. In the dark, he mounted the scope above the action.

  Out of the depths, I have cried unto Thee, O Lord. O Lord, hear my prayer. Let my cry come unto Thee…

  He walked deliberately to the front window and, with his rifle barrel, parted the curtains a couple of inches.

  In the street below, police were positioned everywhere.

  10:08:50 P.M.

  From his prone position at the front of the roof of 9 Garden Place, Frank Murphy saw the curtains moving in a top floor window across the street at number 8.

  He saw a rifle barrel raised, and he immediately opened fire. Three rounds in rapid succession from his Glock .375.

  In an explosion of splintering glass, the window at number 8 blew apart, and the body of the aristocratic-looking man flew backward, holes the size of soup bowls blasted through his spine and out his back.

  And all this while, the dead man’s collaborator landlord, the thickly bespectacled, monk-like retired law and politics professor, Gerald F. X. McLaughlin, stayed sitting by a parlor room front window, his face a ghostly image frozen in astonished grief. When he saw homicide detective Lieutenant Flo Ott mounting the stoop to his house, he shuffled over closer to the window, furiously shaking his silver supper bell.

  “I ain’t coming!” Winona his caregiver shouted back from the kitchen. “I stay late to clean up and I ain’t going nowheres, Professor, nowheres there’s shooting. No way!”

  On his own steam, Professor McLaughlin struggled into the vestibule and opened the front door for Flo Ott. He looked at her questioningly.

  “That man upstairs?” she said to him. “He was delusional, a killer.” Old man McLaughlin frowned at her.