Fear the Night

by John Lutz

  Past the musty-smelling basement laundry room. Still unoccupied.

  Out the side door into the dark passageway. The fresh night air.

  He hurried toward the paler rectangle of light that was the block behind Amelia Repetto’s apartment, his long coat flapping as he took giant strides while fitting the rifle in its sling. Protruding from one pocket of his threadbare coat was a brown-wrapped bottle that would account for the uneven gait caused by the rifle extending down alongside his left leg. Its awkward, shifting weight only added to the suggestion of inebriation. As he walked across a subway grate, he worked the rifle’s bolt and let the spent shell drop from beneath his coat to fall into darkness. If he must, he could throw the coat open and raise and fire the rifle in an instant.

  If he must.

  Right now, he didn’t anticipate the need. Though his shooting could have been more accurate, his escape from the area was going just fine. He would stay in his homeless costume this time, and make his way as one of the invisible into the vastness and anonymity of the city.

  He forced himself to move more slowly and deliberately, as if he were unafraid, as uninterested in his pursuers as they should be in him.

  Another ten minutes and he’d be safe. The ageless equation of the desperate: time equals distance equals safety. . . .

  He was unaware that a large percentage of the NYPD was in the area. And that they knew more than he imagined.

  As Repetto jogged the final few yards to Amelia’s apartment door and started up the concrete steps to the stoop, his cell phone chirped.

  “We got a name,” Melbourne told him.

  “We got a shooting here! My place!”

  “Amelia okay?”

  “Dunno. Gonna find out.”

  Repetto was through the door now, shoving aside a uniform as he made his way toward the still form of a woman on the floor.

  Then he became aware of Amelia standing off to the side, holding a bloody towel to her face.

  She came to him and hugged him fiercely, dropping the towel and pressing her bloodied face to his shoulder. He hugged his only child tight, kissing her forehead, then leaned back to stare more closely at her.

  She didn’t appear to be injured badly, but she’d need treatment. He could see glass shards glittering in the small cuts that peppered her cheek. Outside, sirens were yowling, drawing near.

  “We got EMS on the way,” a voice near him said. Repetto turned to see a uniform, tried to recall his name but couldn’t.

  Amelia had moved away from Repetto. A guy wearing a bowling jacket and beard who Repetto knew was undercover was helping her over to the sofa, gently guiding her with a hand on her elbow so she’d sit down.

  Repetto began thinking more clearly through his fear and concern for Amelia. He understood now that the woman on the floor was Meg.

  He went to her on numbed legs, barely avoiding the blood. We’re going to get the bastard!

  The trap was closing.

  We’re going to get him.

  After making sure her wounds were only superficial, Repetto saw Amelia off not in an ambulance but in a patrol car. He called Lora, talking to her only briefly, to let her know what had happened, to reassure her that Amelia would be all right. Then he called Melbourne back.

  “Amelia . . . ?” Melbourne asked, when he heard Repetto’s voice.

  “She’ll be okay,” Repetto said.

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Meg’s not so good.”

  After Repetto had brought him up to speed on what had happened at the apartment, Melbourne said, “Our sniper’s name is Dante Vanya.” He spelled it for Repetto. “Weaver tracked him down. We did a rush through Central Warrants and tossed his apartment, swank place on the Upper East Side. He’s the son of a guy the Department of Sanitation fired sixteen years ago. Dad became depressed and shot Dante’s mom, then himself. Dante lived for a while as a street kid, got himself badly burned in a subway station fire, then rehabilitated at a charity foundation ranch out in Arizona. That’s where he learned from an expert how to shoot.”

  An orphan who’d grown up on the street, trying to kill a girl too stubborn to run. Sons and daughters, Repetto thought. Put the tape on rewind, and almost every crime could be prevented. “We sure about all this?”

  “We are. You were right about Weaver. She did a hell of a job gathering facts. Vanya’s also got a room in his apartment with a door that doesn’t look like a door, and inside it is the biggest collection of rifles and shooting paraphernalia you ever saw. Ballistics is gonna be in heaven.”

  “I take it Vanya wasn’t home when you arrived with the warrant.”

  “No, and we both know where he was.”

  We know. Repetto felt rage become determination in his gut. “We got his photo?”

  “None anywhere in the apartment, which is also curious. Vanya never had much to do with his neighbors—not so unusual in New York—but the doorman describes him as average height and build, in his thirties, black and blue, good-looking guy, and a sharp dresser.”

  “Get the name out to the media. Spread it all over the city, along with his description. Somebody’ll know him and tell us more.” Repetto thought about the NYPD personnel stationed in the neighborhood, and the cordon of cops in the wider area, closing in, tightening the trap so there were more and more cops to the square block, the square yard. “We have him. I can feel it.”

  “When he knows he’s trapped,” Melbourne said, “he’s gonna be desperate and even more dangerous. And he can shoot the buttons off your shirt, only he won’t be aiming at your buttons.”

  “We put out his description,” Repetto said, “and maybe he’ll surprise us and surrender in remorse.”

  “I believe you hope he doesn’t.”

  Repetto didn’t see any point in answering that one. “Better make sure the public knows he’s armed and dangerous.”

  “Right now I’m making sure you and the rest of your people know it,” Melbourne said. “Right now I’m reminding you, this guy is deadly.”

  Repetto said, “Tell it to Meg.”

  “Word just came in on another line, she was hit in the shoulder and should be okay. She look to you like she was gonna make it?”

  “There is no okay when you’ve got a bullet in you,” Repetto said. “And we’ll find out soon who’s gonna make it, and who isn’t.”

  61

  A chill ran through the Night Sniper as he saw a man carrying what looked like a small duffel bag, crossing the street half a block down. He slowed his pace, stalling until the man had climbed half a dozen steps to a concrete stoop and disappeared into a building.

  Relieved, the Sniper picked up his pace.

  He hadn’t expected this kind of security. Since leaving the apartment across the street from Repetto’s, he’d spotted uniformed cops, then people who might be working undercover. Real or suspected, he’d managed to avoid them all.

  Other people walking the dark streets, who fortunately weren’t police, paid little attention to the homeless man in his long, rumpled coat, shuffling dazedly along the sidewalk. The fact that there were somewhat fewer homeless in New York these days seemed to make him even less noticeable, less of an actual person. He was a problem that was ended, or at least made manageable, and was no longer of concern. If anyone did look at him closely, the brown paper bag jutting from a pocket would explain his apparent disorientation. There was nothing unusual about people like him in New York. They existed in the thousands and drew no particular interest.

  Yet he didn’t feel the smug invulnerability that usually sustained him when in his homeless persona. His heart was beating faster and he was slightly out of breath, hyperalert. Adrenaline. Terrifying, but like a drug.

  There was another police car, gliding across the intersection at the next block. The Sniper barely managed to halt and become part of the shadows. Again, he was sure he hadn’t been noticed.

  Reasonably sure.

  How long before they see me? Approach me
?

  What was going on here? Security in Amelia Repetto’s neighborhood, yes. But this sudden and relentless tightening of a net was beyond what he’d anticipated.

  What do they know?

  How do they know it?

  One thing was for sure. They knew something. They’d been ready for him and had a plan that was now in effect. No surprise there. Everyone in the game knew that Amelia Repetto was being used to lure him. Like a staked lamb. But the number and intensity of the Sniper’s pursuers were upsetting.

  For the first time since the game had begun, his confidence was shaken.

  He was frightened.

  He had to admit it. Afraid.

  But, as always, he knew where he was, and what he had to do. He changed direction and walked several blocks to the west. To a subway stop that had been closed for several months, awaiting renovation.

  He managed a smile but didn’t like the nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth. Like a fox, he’d go to ground and let the hounds pass over him, near him, unaware of his presence, not realizing how lucky they were not to find him. He was pleased by the analogy. He drew comfort from it.

  Like a fox. But dangerous.

  When he reached the darkened subway stop, he paused near the narrow concrete stairwell descending to the plywood-boarded entrance. No one seemed to be observing him, but just in case, he removed the bagged whiskey bottle from his pocket, pretended to take a swig, then started down the stairs that descended to blackness.

  He was in familiar territory now, where a part of him had never left and still knew where it belonged, a discard and a freak hiding away from the rest of humanity.

  His probing fingers found a rough wooden edge in the darkness, and he inserted them beneath it and began prying a plywood panel loose on one side to provide entry.

  Through his fear he knew he was going home. Home to the ferocious security of a demon in hell.

  Vanya. Dante Vanya.

  Bobby had heard two guys standing outside Rocko Bill’s Sports Lounge talking about this Vanya, about the Night Sniper. They’d observed something on TV inside the lounge and seemed to think Vanya and the Sniper were one and the same.

  One of the guys gave Bobby a shit-kicker look, and Bobby moved on.

  They were both big and they might have been a little drunk, so he waited until they’d left before returning to the lounge entrance. He edged the door open to the sound of talking, laughing, and a baseball announcer doing a Braves game on the channel out of Atlanta. Bobby had a clear view of one of the big TVs above the bar. There was a news crawl across the bottom of the screen, but he couldn’t make out what it said. He did hear the name again—“Vanya”—in the conversation of people seated near the door.

  Dante Vanya.

  “Hey, you!”

  Bobby looked in the direction of the voice. A bald man behind the bar was waving what appeared to be a white towel at him. “Out! Get the fuck out!”

  Bobby backed away, letting the door swing shut. Things had changed. Now he—and the police—knew the name of the Night Sniper:

  Dante Vanya.

  If he was the Night Sniper.

  If he was the homeless man who didn’t belong.

  If he was real.

  So many ifs. Bobby jammed his fists into his pockets and bowed his head as he limped away on newly raised blisters.

  That was the trouble. When you went to the police and they didn’t believe you, it made you doubt yourself.

  Officer Tom Dillon hoped to hell somebody knew what they were doing. He wasn’t due at the precinct till tomorrow for his next shift, and here he was looking for a guy named Vanya who might be the Night Sniper.

  It was all part of a Special Operations Division plan that had sprung into place because Repetto had called it in after somebody’d shot at his daughter. Dillon had been on the Job only two years, but he’d heard plenty about Repetto. The guy knew his shit, and that was the only thing that kept Dillon from thinking tonight might not be a total waste of time.

  Fifteen minutes ago an RMP car had dropped him off three blocks away from the crime scene, and he’d been walking ever since. He’d been assigned to stay on the move, observe, and get the information out fast on his two-way if anything or anyone merited suspicion.

  Dillon wished he were home in bed with his wife, Glorianne, who was pregnant. Even in her fifth month, Glorianne was capable of having and enjoying sex. That had been something of a surprise to Dillon. But the doctor had said—

  The young officer stopped and stared. He was sure he’d just seen somebody start down the steps of a subway stop half a block away, near the next corner. Which didn’t make sense, because he knew the subway stop was closed and boarded up. Had been for months.

  Or maybe it had been a trick of his vision, a play of shadow, and he hadn’t seen anything at all. Dillon couldn’t be sure.

  He’d better make sure.

  Telling himself this might fall into the category of something that merited suspicion, he went to investigate.

  Dillon peered down the narrow concrete stairwell into darkness. There was no sound from below. The acrid smell of stale urine wafted up at him, almost strong enough to make him turn his head.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “You, down there!”

  If anybody’s down there.

  He got out his flashlight and aimed it down the stairwell, tentatively descending three or four concrete steps so he might see better.

  The figure he’d glimpsed had been real. A ragged, homeless man holding a brown paper bag was just beginning to settle down with his whiskey in the shadows at the base of the steps. He glared up at Dillon, surprised, frightened, and perhaps indignant. The expression on his face suggested Dillon was invading his home.

  Dillon was no stranger to the proprietary nature of some vagrants. He relaxed but kept the beam of his flashlight trained on the man. “You! C’mon up here.”

  The man stood up unsteadily, as if his legs were sore, facing away from Dillon with his feet widely planted. His lower arms and hands disappeared in front of him, a slight bend to the elbows.

  He appeared to be urinating, and not for the first time in the odorous stairwell.

  Dillon thought about telling him it was illegal to piss down there; then he decided to be patient, let the poor guy finish his business before making his painful way back up to the city’s surface world.

  That was when the man turned around with a sudden nimbleness that aroused Dillon’s suspicion. He saw that the homeless guy hadn’t been pissing but had struck a match and was holding it in the same hand that held the brown paper bag.

  No, not a match. Too much flame, and growing. A twisted rag sticking up from the neck of the bottle in the bag. A wick!

  Dillon tried to spin his body and clamber up the steps at the same time, scraping the toe of his left shoe on concrete and going nowhere. His right foot slipped and he banged his shin. He heard his flashlight clatter down the steps.

  The explosion was more of a whoosh! than a bang. Dillon picked up a momentary stench of gasoline and realized the man had thrown a Molotov cocktail at him, and he was standing where it had detonated.

  His legs were on fire!

  His screams drew attention, and through his pain he managed to wrest his 9mm from its holster and fire several shots blindly through the flames in the stairwell.

  The bullets splintered wood but missed the Night Sniper, who had bent down to pick up Dillon’s still-shining flashlight and shove it in a coat pocket. He hadn’t brought his own flashlight tonight because he hadn’t anticipated going underground.

  The fire provided enough light to work by.

  He got a fresh grip on the crooked panel and was through the plywood barrier and running down a frozen escalator, fumbling for the flashlight he’d need for the total darkness ahead.

  It took a few minutes for the cops on the street to reach the subway stop and drag what was left of Dillon up to the sidewalk. Assuming, with a glance at his charred and smolderin
g body, that he was dead, they switched their efforts to trying to extinguish the fire at the top of the stairwell.

  They had little other than the soles of their shoes and a shirt one of them had removed to try to smother the flames, but it didn’t take long for the remaining gasoline to burn itself out.

  Convinced that Dillon had expired, but also knowing it could be a mistake to mentally pronounce someone dead at the scene of a crime, the three cops decided they couldn’t desert him. The shirtless cop, a big African-American named Wilson, was elected to stay with the fallen Dillon to wait for an ambulance.

  It was a good thing. As if responding to their decision not to give up on him, the thing that Dillon had become began to moan.

  While the other two uniforms made their way down the blackened steps and through the dark gap made by the pried plywood panel, Wilson used his two-way to call for medical transport and to get out the word:

  The Night Sniper was in the subway system, on the run and under hot pursuit.

  62

  The Sniper ran stumbling along the tracks, staying close to the tunnel’s dark concrete wall, occasionally bumping it with his left shoulder. He knew that though the stop was closed, the E and V trains still roared through the tunnel. Now and then he thought he could feel the wind pressure of an approaching train shoving cool air ahead of it in the narrow tunnel. But there was no thunderous, clacking roar that accompanied the trains, and no approaching brilliant eye of light.

  He knew he could find shelter in the occasional tile maintenance alcove along the tunnel, where he could press himself back while a train passed a few feet away from him. He’d done it more than once during his time as a street kid, and more recently while using the tunnels to get around the city undetected. It was a convenient and private way to move about, once you learned the train times and layout of the underground maze.

  What he feared more than the trains was what he knew would soon be pursuing him. There’d been an army of cops in the area, and they’d see where he entered the tunnel. As soon as they’d tended to their burned comrade, and the fire blocking the stairwell was extinguished, they’d be after the cop’s killer.