by John Lutz
All thoughts of cancelation left her when her date walked into the restaurant. Not a few women’s heads turned so they could stare at him. He looked more handsome than Zoe had ever seen him. He was fit, tanned, and downright gorgeous in an obviously expensive dark suit, white shirt, and a tie that matched the handkerchief peeking out of the suit coat pocket. When he walked, the swing of his arms made gold cuff links glitter.
Rich, Zoe thought. That was the word that came to mind when she looked at him. Rich. That and another word.
“Been waiting long?” he asked, sliding onto the chair opposite hers. The petite tables were round, with yellow and white china, silver flatware, and cut crystal glittering on white cloth. They were small enough so that two people seated opposite each other could lean forward and kiss, made for romantic assignations.
“Awhile,” Zoe said, “but it was worth it.”
In so many ways!
The evening progressed with a smile and a peck on the cheek, another drink, smooth conversation, a white and a red wine with a delicious meal, then an after-dinner port.
Zoe consumed another drink gradually, then champagne between dances. She tried to stretch the time between sips, but slowing down didn’t help. The alcohol had her now, and she knew it.
The mayor shot . . . mayor of New York . . . The concept knocked on the door of her consciousness from time to time, but she didn’t invite it in.
She danced, she drank, she gazed hypnotized into eyes like blue ice. God, he was handsome! He could even dance well. He was perfect!
By the time they rode the elevator up to his floor, she thought tomorrow would be soon enough to worry about the mayor.
At 3:00 AM Repetto crawled into bed alongside Lora, trying not to make the springs squeak. A calmer Melbourne had relented on his rash and impractical no-sleep policy. When mind and body were dead tired, both were trudging along in place, not tending to business but trying to ride the treadmill to some future respite that never quite arrived.
The area around Rockefeller Plaza was frozen, cordoned off by yellow crime scene ribbon, isolated from pedestrian and vehicular traffic by NYPD sawhorses and sleepy cops in parked patrol cars. What a nightmare the rerouted traffic would cause tomorrow morning, when people tried to make their way to work.
In the morning the investigation would begin again full force. The search area around the Plaza would be widened. The Night Sniper might seem like a phantom, but the bullet that struck the mayor was real and had to have come from somewhere. And somewhere could be found.
Repetto hadn’t been this exhausted in years. He sighed as he settled down on the mattress and pulled the light sheet up around him. Cool air from the vent near the ceiling flowed lightly over him, soothing him through the thin linen.
Lora stirred beside him. “You just get in?”
“A few minutes ago,” Repetto said. “I made straight for the bed.”
He heard her roll onto her side and felt the sheet pull taut. “So how’s the mayor?”
“They think he might make it.”
“Good. He’s not a bad guy. Not that I’m gonna vote for him.” She raised her upper body, dug an elbow into the mattress, and cupped her chin in her hand, staring down at Repetto. “Any progress finding out who shot him?”
“Not so far.”
“Others still working?”
“No. Skeleton crew’s got the area secure. It all starts again tomorrow morning.”
“It’s already tomorrow morning.”
“Um.”
She was silent for a while, unmoving. “I take it you don’t want to talk.”
“Too tired.”
Her lips were cool on his forehead, and he heard and felt her lie back down beside him.
Weary as he was, Repetto knew he wouldn’t fall asleep easily. Still too much adrenaline in his system.
“I’m worried about Meg,” he said.
Linen rustled, Lora sitting up now.
“She’s acting peculiar,” Repetto said. “Like she’s . . .”
“In love?”
Repetto didn’t lift his head from the pillow, but craned his neck so he could look at Lora in the dimness. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve had lunch with her a few times recently. I know the signs.”
Women and lunch, Repetto thought. If Lora wasn’t lunching with Zoe Brady, she was lunching with Meg. He really didn’t mind now, perhaps because he knew he was helpless to control the female tradition that kept so many Manhattan restaurants in business. Besides, food and gossip could be a revealing combination, and he was curious about both women.
“Also,” Lora said, “I shouldn’t tell you, but she mentioned to me she might have found someone.”
Repetto was wide awake now. “Ah! She say who?”
“No, she was very secretive.”
“That’s it?” Repetto asked. “Meg told you that much, then stopped talking?”
“About that subject, yes.”
“So why did she mention it to you in the first place?”
“She’s a woman. We all like to share the good news.”
Repetto lay for a few minutes listening to the faint and distant traffic sounds drifting on the night. New York. Never completely silent or completely still. Never completely predictable. Like people.
“What about Birdy as Meg’s secret suitor?” he asked.
“Be serious. Anyway, he’s married.”
“They spend a lot of time together.”
“Okay, they do. And love can be random. Do you think Meg might be involved with Birdy?”
“No.”
“I can tell you one thing for sure,” Lora said. “She’s hooked.”
We’re all hooked, Repetto thought. He listened to a siren wailing off in the distance. Trouble never let up, never eased up on people.
Resting a hand on Lora’s thigh, precious contact with the person he loved more than his life, he dropped into dreamless sleep.
Sooner or later, one way or another, we’re all hooked. . . .
Safely back in his suite, lying beside the sleeping Zoe, the Night Sniper watched the silent TV screen beyond the foot of the bed. Zoe’s bare foot extended from beneath the sheet so that her toes blocked his view of the screen’s lower right quarter.
A muted blond anchorwoman with seriously collagened lips was smiling widely as she soundlessly mouthed the news. The TV was set for closed caption. He read in white capital letters on a black background that the mayor was expected to survive.
The Sniper had to contain himself to keep from cursing out loud and waking Zoe.
No, she wouldn’t wake up. Not after all the alcohol she’d taken in tonight. Zoe was a smart, competent woman, but early in their relationship he’d noticed she liked to drink, maybe even had a developing problem. It was a weakness he’d homed in on, knowing its usefulness.
It hadn’t been difficult to accelerate her drinking. After a while it was no longer even necessary for him to be subtle. Zoe might have an understanding of the criminal mind—the average criminal mind—but like so many people, she was blind to her own vulnerabilities.
Her drinking made her easy to convince, and to manipulate. Usually they ended their dates in her bed, and while she lay in an alcohol- and sex-induced slumber, he would log on to her Toshiba laptop and learn what he could about the NYPD’s progress in the Night Sniper case. Those files he thought might be of further use to him, he copied.
Zoe snored softly, and her breathing became even deeper and more regular. She was hours away from so much as fluttering her eyelids.
The Night Sniper gazed again at the TV and he did curse out loud. He’d missed his shot. Not completely, but he had missed. It was unacceptable. He directed another expletive at the TV screen. Zoe didn’t stir.
He laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling, thinking. So his shot hadn’t been perfect and the mayor would survive. Perhaps, considering the innate difficulties and the variables, the shot actually was impossib
le. Maybe he’d asked too much of himself.
He smiled in the soft, flickering light from the TV, then scooted back on the mattress so he could watch the screen through eyes that weren’t narrowed by angle. He saw that mayoral aides and assorted sycophants were huddled grimly in what looked like a hospital waiting room. They knew that whatever the mayor’s chances for survival, the game wasn’t over.
The Sniper would settle on another target to strike soon and make up for the mayor’s narrow escape (so far) from death. Perhaps the target should be Repetto, who’d already lost his surrogate son and protégé.
No, not Repetto. Not yet. Repetto deserved not death, but another loss, as the Night Sniper had lost two fathers.
The police would expect him to try for Repetto. Zoe might even tell them it was in the Sniper’s character and methodology. In fact, he might be able to steer her in that direction, advise the NYPD on how best to apprehend him. Intriguing idea. He absently reached over and gently twirled a long strand of Zoe’s red hair.
The Night Sniper’s genius was in doing the unexpected.
He knew what Zoe didn’t know. What the police didn’t know.
Repetto deserved more grief, more pain, another loss. And just when he was getting so close—or thought he was.
Loss, not pain.
The game had changed and the Sniper had even left Repetto clues to tantalize and torment. That was another good reason to save Repetto for later. He should suffer. He should know he’d been outsmarted. Let the law and the media think the Sniper was displaying the serial killer’s well-known subconscious desire to be stopped, to be caught. Zoe might even tell them that, encourage them. Wonderful!
But it was the game. The vengeance game.
Another loss for Repetto. Another grave. Another emotional bullet to the heart. No blood, no pulped flesh, but another rend that would never heal as long as Repetto lived.
Lying silently in the dim room, listening to Zoe breathe, the Night Sniper quietly composed in his mind his next theater seat note:
Rapunzel will take a tumble.
50
Bobby spent the night in the Dismas Shelter in Lower Manhattan. Ordinarily he preferred the street, especially during those times of year when the weather was bearable. But with the rally uptown, he thought the entire borough would be too active, not only with the people who roamed the streets before and after the affair at Rockefeller Plaza, but with those who saw them as prey. With all the muggers, rapists, pickpockets, con men, car thieves, and various other criminal types on the prowl, the shelter was a safer place.
The food was miserable but free—if you didn’t count the sermon—and the beds were little softer than park benches or subway seats. But once you warned away the crazies and resolved to sleep lightly, the shelters would do for a night or two.
The coffee was free that morning in small Styrofoam cups. Bobby took his outside the shelter, sniffing cool morning air that smelled fresh after the dormitory scent of stale booze, vomit, and pine-scented disinfectant he’d just left. Sipping the strong black brew, he trudged two blocks across town, then uptown, putting distance between himself and others who’d ventured from the shelter at about the same time.
No one had mentioned the news while Bobby was in the shelter. It was a place where life-changing events were smaller and more personal, and horizons nearer. When Bobby noticed a harried-looking business type dropping a folded Times in a trash basket, he stopped walking. He went to dig out the paper before it might become damp from discarded garbage, and saw for the first time the headlines proclaiming the mayor had been shot.
There was no place nearby to sit down, so he leaned his back against a building and read, ignoring the glances of people hurrying past on the sidewalk.
The mayor would live. That was good. The asshole Sniper had missed for the first time.
Why?
Too much security, Bobby figured. He knew a few things about being a sniper. It must have been necessary for the Night Sniper to set up and shoot from farther away than usual. And of course, if he’d set up too close to the Plaza, he’d have a harder time getting away after the shot.
Bobby read that the police thought the Sniper might be using subway tunnels to get around. Even hiding out in subway stops that were permanently or temporarily closed. Bobby had spent his time down there. It was a rough place to live. The Sniper was one tough guy if he was using subway stops and tunnels for shelter and to travel on foot.
It could be done, though, Bobby thought. It could be done. He recalled seeing the ragged man who didn’t fit his surroundings going down into a subway stop. Bobby had assumed the man wasn’t real, but now, considering what was in the paper, maybe he had been real.
Bobby’s legs and feet were beginning to ache. He folded the paper and tucked it beneath his arm to read more carefully later, then pushed away from the building and stretched in the warm sun heating up the concrete.
It took him about twenty minutes to get to Washington Square, where he found a bench, shooed away half a dozen lethargic pigeons, and sat down. Tired as he was, he didn’t lie down; he didn’t want to be chased. He sat leaning back with his eyes half closed, his face to the heat of the sun.
After a while he felt stronger, but he was hungry. He’d have to scare up some food, or the money to buy some, pretty soon. He remained on the bench, but he kept his eyes open for someone throwing away anything edible—a doughnut or breakfast muffin or pizza slice. It was amazing how many students from NYU liked cold pizza for breakfast.
So the ragged man is real.
Bobby couldn’t get the man with the hurried gait and the worn-out backpack out of his mind.
A girl about twenty, college girl probably, wearing a tight T-shirt and jeans that were slung low on her hips, walked past. Bobby’s gaze went with her. She had some kind of tattoo just above the crack of her ass. And she was talking on a cell phone.
“Way, way wrong!” a female voice said nearby. This woman was wearing a business suit and carrying a leather case in one hand. Her other hand held a cell phone pressed to her ear. She ignored Bobby as she swished past on high heels. She was built better than the college girl and he wished she were the one wearing those jeans.
He noticed that beyond the woman a man stood talking on a cell phone. Bobby settled back on his bench and studied the people around him in the square. It was amazing how many of them were talking on cell phones.
He watched the woman in the business suit lower the phone from her ear and place it in her purse. She left the purse open as she strode from the square and began moving faster, flailing an arm in an attempt to hail a cab. A woman was seated about two benches down, reading a magazine, her purse beside her, a small leather case that probably contained a cell phone alongside the purse.
Bobby was no thief. It wasn’t that he was so honest, more that he was stubborn. Despite his lowly position in life, he held on to his essential self. Or so he told his essential self. He drew lines. He didn’t cross them. He might be down on his luck, but he wouldn’t let circumstances make him a thief.
But this was different, what he had in mind. This was one of those rare times when the end actually did justify the means.
He knew he was going to steal a cell phone.
Repetto immediately understood the meaning of the note. Another nursery tale: Rapunzel. The beautiful girl held captive by a witch in a tower. The girl who let her braided golden hair grow so long that her lover could climb it and join her.
Only the witch had foreseen what would happen. The witch was in control.
Repetto knew who Rapunzel was in the Sniper’s note, in his mind, in his sights: Amelia Rapetto.
“You’ve got to move out of this apartment,” Repetto told his daughter, after showing her the note. “We can get you someplace safe.”
Amelia didn’t stir from where she sat on the sofa. “It wouldn’t do any good. The Sniper might simply follow me. Or find out where I went. From what you say, and what I’ve read about hi
m in the news, he might even have sources inside the police department.”
Repetto couldn’t deny it. He was amazed that she didn’t seem frightened. Her features were so composed, so calm. He found himself proud of her, even if he wanted to grab her long braid and drag her out of this apartment. Maybe he’d do just that, to save her life.
“I have a life to live, and I’m not going to let some sick killer decide how I’m going to live it. People aren’t like chess pieces he can move around anytime however he wants.”
“Amelia—”
“I’m twenty-one, Dad.”
“Meaning I can’t make you move out, even for a while?”
“Awhile?”
“Until this killer is caught.”
“That could be forever.”
“We’re talking about your life, Amelia.”
“Yes, my life. And I’m not going to let anyone dictate how I’m going to live it.”
“I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to preserve your life. And the Night Sniper’s not trying to dictate how you live. He’s planning to end your life.”
“If I’m the Rapunzel in the note.”
“You don’t believe he means you?”
She couldn’t lie. Absently her right hand touched her luxurious long braid, slung over her shoulder and falling almost to the waist of the faded Levis she wore without a belt. “I suppose he means me.”
“Then you’ll get out?”
“No.”
Repetto felt like kicking a piece of furniture. Kids! Teenagers! No, Amelia was no longer a teenager, no longer a child. She was an adult making an adult decision, albeit a bad one. “You’re just like your mother.”
“I’m like my father. Maybe I’ll even be a cop someday.”
Here was something new. Repetto was thrown. The women in his life seemed to keep doing that to him.
“Will you at least accept police protection?” he pleaded.