Lightning

by Ed McBain

  “I’m sorry about that, but…”

  “Sure, don’t sweat it. I just got a call from Mary Hollings, she…”

  “From California?”

  “Yeah. She wants to know when I’ll be getting out of here.”

  “Maybe sooner than you think,” Annie said.

  “You calling off the job?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ve got some stuff that might interest you,” Annie said and began telling her about the pattern she’d detected while working on the computer printouts. Eileen looked at her watch. Automatically, she moved a pad into place before her on the desk and began taking notes as Annie told her about the four-week, three-week, two-week cycle. As she continued listening, she jotted down the dates on which Mary Hollings had been raped: June 10, September 16, and October 7.

  “That doesn’t jibe,” she said. “There’s a long gap between June and September.”

  “Yeah, but if you count off the weeks—have you got a calendar there?”

  “Just a sec,” Eileen said, and turned to the front page of Mary’s checkbook. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Just count out the weeks with me,” Annie said. “First rape, June tenth. Four weeks after that, July eighth. Three weeks after that, July twenty-ninth…Are you following me?”

  “Yeah?” Eileen said, puzzled.

  “Okay. Two weeks after that, August twelfth. A week after that, August nineteenth. End of cycle. You beginning to see it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then stay with me. Four weeks after August nineteenth was September sixteenth…Have you got those dates I gave you for the Hollings rapes?”

  “Yes. September sixteenth, right, here it is.”

  “Right. And when’s the next one?”

  “October seventh.”

  “Exactly three weeks later,” Annie said. “And what’s two weeks after that?”

  “October twenty-first.”

  “Tomorrow,” Annie said.

  “So you think…”

  “I think…Look, who knows how this creep’s mind is working? There may not be a pattern at all, this may all be coincidence. But if there is a pattern, then Mary Hollings is the only victim he’s hit on Fridays and tomorrow’s Friday, and it happens to be two weeks from the last time she was raped.”

  “Yeah,” Eileen said.

  “What I’m saying…”

  “I got it.”

  “I’m saying be careful tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You think you might need a backup on this?”

  “We might spook him. I’ll chance it alone.”

  “Eileen…really. Be very careful.”

  “Okay.”

  “He has a knife.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s used it before…”

  “I know.”

  “So watch your step. He pulls that knife, don’t ask questions, just blow him away.”

  “Okay.” She hesitated. “When do you think he’ll make his move?” she asked.

  “It’s always been at night,” Annie said.

  “So I got all day tomorrow to shop, and eat lunch in health food joints, and go to the museum or whatever, right?”

  Annie laughed, and then sobered immediately.

  “While you’re doing all that,” she said, “keep an eye out for him. If he’s going to hit tomorrow night, he may be tracking you.”

  “Okay.”

  “You sure you don’t want a backup?”

  Eileen wasn’t sure. But she said, “I don’t want to lose him.”

  “I’m not talking about men. We can throw a couple of lady cops in there.”

  “He might smell them. We’re too close now, Annie.”

  “Okay. But remember what I said. If he pulls that…”

  “I’ve got it all.” She looked at her watch again. “That it?”

  “Good luck,” Annie said, and hung up.

  Two good lucks in the same night, Eileen thought as she put the receiver back on the cradle. I’m going to need it, that’s for damn sure. It was almost 10:30. If Bert was nothing else, he was punctual. She went back into the bedroom, debating putting on a nightgown, and decided on a pair of panties instead. She was about to draw the blinds when the telephone rang again. She went back into the living room, and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Honey, it’s me,” Kling said.

  “Yes, Bert. I was just about to—”

  “Listen, I’m sorry, but we got some names and addresses from Motor Vehicles on these hangings. The loot just phoned me, he wants us to hit them in three teams.”

  “Oh,” Eileen said.

  “So…uh…it’ll have to wait, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Eileen said.

  “Maybe tomorrow night,” Kling said.

  “Maybe.”

  “I gotta run, Meyer’s picking me up in five minutes.”

  “Okay, darling. Be careful.”

  “You, too.”

  There was a click on the line. Eileen hung up and walked back into the bedroom. As she was reaching for the hanging cords on the venetian blinds, it suddenly occurred to her that Bert’s idea wouldn’t have worked, anyway, there wasn’t a phone in the bedroom.

  Sighing, she pulled the blinds shut.

  From where he crouched behind the parapet of the roof opposite, binoculars to his eyes, he saw the blinds closing, his view into the bedroom suddenly replaced by a rectangle of light as impenetrable as a brick wall.

  He’d been watching her ever since nightfall. Would have preferred following her all day long, but that was impossible. He wasn’t free until 4:00, sometimes 5:00, each afternoon. Even getting away at night was difficult, the excuses he had to make. Didn’t want to be away on too many nights because the nights dictated by the calendar had to be absolutely certain ones. Whatever else happened to fall on these nights, he’d say no, sorry I have to be someplace else. Here, there, anywhere. His excuses were bought. Not always without question, but always bought in the long run. He was a determined person. People had learned a long time ago that there was no sense trying to argue him out of any position he’d taken.

  Mary Hollings should have learned that by now. Three times already. Tomorrow night would be the fourth time. Four should be enough, but five was better. If you could catch them five times, you were reasonably certain you had them right where you wanted them. He debated whether he should try going into her apartment again tomorrow night. Probably not. Too risky. Almost fell off the damn fire escape last time, lost his footing as he was climbing up, too risky. Left by the front door afterward, a lot safer, ran down the stairs, came out onto the street, hung around until he saw the police car arriving, knew she would call the police, she had each and every time.

  Tomorrow night, he’d try to catch her on the street. Unless she didn’t go out. She’d gone to a movie last night, walked home afterward, perfect time to have caught her again, but he preferred doing it by the calendar. Too careless the other way. If you had a plan, you should follow it. Anyway, there were too many of them now. If you didn’t follow the calendar, you could lose track of which one was due, and then the whole plan would be screwed up. Even if opportunity seemed to present itself, as it had last night, it was better to show restraint and follow the dictates of the calendar.

  Very busy tonight, Ms. Mary Hollings.

  Strutting around the apartment as if she was looking for it to happen. Maybe she was. Damn hypocrites, all of them. All wanted the same thing, but pretended they were doing it for other reasons. Tried to sanitize the act by giving it loftier meaning. Tried to impose that meaning upon others. Denied the sex act itself as a means to an end. Never mind what they really felt about sex, never mind the little acts they did in private when he was watching them, forget all that. Pure in their minds, oh yes, but in their hearts—

  The heart was quite another matter. The heart and the slit between the legs. Nev
er mind what cause was being propounded in the head. The heart and the slit were what really governed them. Mary Hollings tonight. Stripping naked with the blinds open. Building here how many feet across the areaway? Anyone could have been watching. Wouldn’t even need binoculars to see what she was advertising, red hair and red bush, tits like melons. Ms. Mary Hollings who advocated a policy that denied sexuality in favor of femaleness, the same femaleness shared by any beast of the field. Dashed past the open blinds wearing nothing but a towel later on. Came back into the bedroom and put on a pair of panties. Stood admiring herself at the mirror, the blinds still open. Left the bedroom again to go into the living room—he knew the layout of the apartment, he’d been in there.

  In her, too.

  Three times.

  Tomorrow night would be number four for Ms. Mary Hollings.

  Tomorrow night.

  On the night of Darcy Welles’s murder, three men had parked automobiles between the hours of eight and ten in the garage around the corner from Marino’s restaurant. Lieutenant Byrnes decided it would be best to hit all three tonight. If one of them was a murderer, tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. But even if all three were clean, the chances of catching them at home tonight seemed better than waiting till morning. Tomorrow was Friday, a work day. If these men held jobs, a visit to their homes in the morning would net three zeroes. Questions would have to be asked of whoever opened the door, and further visits would have to be made to their places of work. Better to do it tonight; the early bird catches the worm, and besides he who hesitates is lost. So went the lieutenant’s reasoning.

  Five of the detectives working the three teams would have preferred staying home in bed rather than chasing all over the city after a man who only maybe was the actual perpetrator. “Perpetrator” was the word Ollie Weeks used. He was the sixth detective making up the three teams of two men each, and he much preferred being out in the city on a hunt than staying home in an apartment even he admitted was seedy. Lieutenant Byrnes wasn’t too sure about the protocol of allowing Ollie to participate in a potential bust. Ollie argued that the third stiff had been found up in the 83rd, hadn’t she, and so he had every right to go along. “Besides,” he pointed out subtly, “I was the one got them fuckin’ tickets at the garage, without which nobody from MVB would’ve been able to come up with these names and addresses, so let’s cut the shit, okay, Loot?”

  The men set off for different parts of the city at approximately 10:30. Carella got lucky; he was teamed with Ollie Weeks. He rolled his eyes heavenward as they went downstairs to check out an unmarked sedan. Ollie was dressed rather nattily for Ollie. He was wearing a plaid mackinaw and a deerstalker hat; the weather, so mild until now, had turned raw when the sun sank below the horizon; the October honeymoon seemed to be over. Carella, still wearing what he’d put on this morning, felt a little chilly, and he hoped the sedan was one with a working heater. It wasn’t.

  The owner of the Mercedes-Benz with the 604J29 license plate number lived not ten minutes away from the station house. His name was Henry Lytell.

  “That name sounds familiar,” Ollie said. He was driving. Carella was leaning over beside him, banging on the heater with the heel of his hand, trying to get it to work. “Don’t that sound familiar to you? Henry Lytell?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Carella said. “Okay, I give up, the hell with it!”

  “You guys oughta get some new cars,” Ollie said.

  Carella grunted, pulled up the collar on his sports jacket, and tried to hunch down into it.

  “What I do,” Ollie said, “I always keep extra gear in the trunk of my car, case it turns cold, or starts rainin’ or somethin’, this city.”

  “Um,” Carella said.

  “What we shoulda done, we shoulda taken my car ‘steada this beat-up shebang. Up in the Eight-Three, we got brand new cars—Mercurys and Fords. The lieutenant comes out back every time we bring one in, makes sure we didn’t put a scratch on it. We know how to live up in the Eight-Three. That name sounds very familiar, Henry Lytell. Ain’t he an actor or something?”

  “It doesn’t ring a bell,” Carella said.

  “Lytell, Lytell, I’m sure that’s somebody’s name,” Ollie said.

  Carella did not mention that since Lytell was somebody’s name, then it had to be somebody’s name. Carella was thinking he should have worn his long johns to work this morning.

  “It’s the Henry throws me,” Ollie said. “What’s the address again?”

  “843 Holmes.”

  “Like Sherlock?”

  “The same.”

  “We hit pay dirt, we share the collar, that clear?” Ollie said. “Credit goes to both precincts.”

  “You bucking for Commissioner?” Carella said.

  “I’m happy with what I am,” Ollie said. “But fair is fair.”

  “Aren’t you cold in here?” Carella said.

  “Me? No. You cold?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s supposed to rain,” Ollie said.

  “Will that make it warmer?”

  “I’m only saying.”

  They were silent for several moments.

  “Did Meyer mention what I said about ‘Hill Street Blues’?” Ollie asked.

  “No,” Carella said.

  “About suing ‘Hill Street Blues’?”

  “No, he didn’t. Who’s suing ‘Hill Street Blues’?”

  “I think you and me should sue them.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you think Furillo sounds like Carella?”

  “No,” Carella said.

  “Don’t you think Charlie Weeks sounds like Ollie Weeks?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. Charlie Weeks sounds like Charlie Weeks.”

  “To me, they sound almost like the same name.”

  “The way Howard Hunter sounds like Evan Hunter.”

  “That ain’t the same at all.”

  “Or the way Arthur Hitler sounds like Adolf Hitler.”

  “Now you’re making a joke of it,” Ollie said. “Anyway, I’ll bet there ain’t a single person in the whole world named Hitler nowadays. Not even in Germany is there a kraut named Hitler. Everybody named Hitler already changed his name to something else.”

  “So why don’t you change your name to something else? If Charlie Weeks is bothering you, change your name to Ollie Jones or something.”

  “Why don’t Charlie Weeks change his name to something else?” Ollie said. “Why don’t Furillo change his name to something else?”

  “I don’t see any connection between Furillo and Carella,” Carella said.

  “Why you so irritated tonight?”

  “I’m not irritated, I’m cold.”

  “We’re about to make a collar, and the man is irritated.”

  “You don’t know we’re about to make a collar,” Carella said.

  “I feel it in my bones,” Ollie said. “Here we are.”

  He double-parked alongside a station wagon parked at the curb in front of Henry Lytell’s building. The building was a six-story brick, no doorman. They went into the small entrance alcove and checked out the mailboxes.

  “Lytell, H.,” Ollie said. “Apartment 6B. Top floor. I hope there’s an elevator. Don’t that name sound familiar to you? Lytell?”

  “No,” Carella said. It was as cold in the entrance alcove as it had been in the car, the kind of damp, penetrating cold that surely promised rain.

  Ollie rang the bell button in the panel set alongside the mailboxes. He kept leaning on the button. There was no answering buzz on the inner door.

  “You suppose there’s a super in this dump?” he asked, checking the bell-button panel. “No such luck,” he said, and pressed the button opposite the name Nakura, for apartment 5A. An answering buzz sounded at the inner door. Ollie grabbed for the knob and pushed the door open.

  “Thank God for small favors,” he said, walking toward the small elevator at the back of the hall.
He pressed the call button. The detectives waited. “These old buildings,” Ollie said, “the elevators’re as slow as a nigger in August.”

  “I have some advice for you,” Carella said.

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Don’t ever get yourself partnered with Arthur Brown.”

  “Why? Oh, you mean what I just said? That was a figure of speech.”

  “Brown might not think so.”

  “Sure, he would,” Ollie said, “he’s got a good sense of humor, Brown. What’s wrong with what I just said, anyway? It’s a figure of speech.”

  “I don’t like your figures of speech,” Carella said.

  “Come on, come on,” Ollie said, and patted him on the back. “Don’t be so irritated tonight, Steve-a-rino. We’re about to make a collar.”

  “And please don’t call me Steve-a-rino.”

  “What should I call you? Furillo? You want me to call you Furillo?”

  “My name is Steve.”

  “Furillo’s name is Frank. The sergeant there, he calls him ‘Francis’ all the time. Maybe I’ll call you Stephen. Would you like me to call you ‘Stephen,’ Stephen?”

  “I would like to you call me Steve.”

  “Okay, Steve. You like ‘Hill Street Blues,’ Steve?”

  “I don’t like cop shows,” Carella said.

  “Where the fuck’s the elevator?” Ollie said.

  “You want to walk up?”

  “Six flights? No way.”

  The elevator finally got there. The men entered. Ollie pressed the button for the sixth floor. The doors closed.

  “Speed this thing makes, we’ll be up there next Tuesday,” Ollie said.

  On the sixth floor, they found apartment 6B on the wall opposite the elevator, two doors down.

  “Better flank it,” Ollie said. “Lytell may be the one likes to break necks.”

  His pistol was already in his right hand.

  They flanked the door, Carella on the left, Ollie on the right. Ollie pressed the doorbell button. They heard chimes sounding inside. Nothing else. Ollie pressed the button again. More chimes. He put his ear to the wood, listening. Nothing.

  “Quiet as a graveyard,” he said. “Back away, Steve.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m gonna kick it in.”