Nightlife

by Thomas Perry

  It was dark. There seemed to be no sounds of movement in the apartment. Judith stood absolutely still, listening. She heard Dewey’s heavy feet move off. After a few more seconds she heard the elevator doors open, then heard them slide shut. The last barrier was gone. She was in.

  56

  Judith felt relief, but it was only tentative. She was not yet sure that Catherine had not heard her enter. She listened and waited for a long time, and then began to orient herself in the darkness. This was a big open space, and ahead of her was the large window she had seen at the front of the building. She was standing in the tiled entry where Catherine had left a pair of shoes that must have been wet from yesterday’s rain.

  Judith stepped over them and onto the soft carpet, across the room to the window. She took her time, not rushing to the bedroom. It was only twelve-fifteen. There were probably day-shift people in the building who had not even gone to bed, and some of the night-shift people might leave late for the hospital.

  She stood at the window and looked down at the street. She could see a white van down there that must belong to Dewey. It had steel screens in the back windows, probably to keep thieves from breaking in and taking Dewey’s tools while he was inside some apartment building fixing a hot-water heater or something.

  Judith knew that when this was over, Dewey’s description of her would not be of much use to the police. It would make them lose a day finding all the female tenants Dewey didn’t know and letting him see them, then showing him the identification photographs of the female employees of the hospital, and then probably interviewing the clerks at the stores where a person could buy hospital scrubs. It would all be a waste of time.

  She wanted to wait until Dewey had left the building. She didn’t see any need to harm him, and she knew that she would have to if he returned. She watched for several minutes, and then several more. Cars went by. The neighborhood had reached the hour of night when there were no pedestrians out, everyone’s dog had been walked, and the hospital’s visiting hours were long over.

  Dewey’s foreshortened, wide body appeared below the front window, coming down the front steps in a little dance. She watched him reach the bottom, walk down the sidewalk, step off the curb, and cross the street to his van. When he got inside she saw the van shake a little as though he were walking around in it, but then the taillights came on. The van slid forward, away from the curb, moved up the street, and disappeared. Dewey was gone.

  She stared down at the street for another minute. Dewey did not return, and no one came to take his place. She looked at her watch. It was still well before one. She turned away from the window and studied the darker parts of the apartment.

  It was sparsely furnished, just like the one Judith had rented on the west side, across the river. Catherine had not even added any pictures. She was treating her apartment like a hotel room, just a place where she came to sleep. Catherine was undoubtedly planning to rebuild her house very soon, and she would save her decorating ideas for that. Judith hated the thought of it—an insurance company paying to build Catherine a better, newer place. Judith had risked her life for that.

  She walked slowly from the window across the room to a narrow hall. Her eyes were now accustomed to the dark. Every shape, every line was clear to her, but it had been cleaned of its color. Time had changed for her too: if she took a single step and did not take another for fifteen seconds, it made no difference. There was no need to risk making a succession of rapid sounds that did not fit with the slow current of the night. Soon enough she was standing in the doorway of Catherine’s bedroom.

  She could see Catherine curled up in the middle of a queen bed. She was smaller than Judith had thought from the television shots. Or maybe it had been the telephone conversations. She had always sounded big, authoritative, like a strict teacher. But Catherine was one of those people who looked like children when they were asleep, the closed eyes pressing the eyelashes against the cheeks, making them look longer, the skin on the forehead and around the eyes smooth and relaxed, the body curled on its side with the covers pulled to the chin.

  Judith spotted Catherine’s purse on the dresser. She drifted silently to it and reached inside. Her hands felt Catherine’s wallet, a small leather case that seemed to be filled with business cards, a thin leather identification folder. She would go through all of that later. She didn’t want to let her eyes stray from Catherine.

  From this angle, she could tell that Catherine had left some things under the bed on the side where she slept, away from the door. She could see a long, black four-battery flashlight, a pair of slippers, and Catherine’s gun, stuck in a tight little holster that barely covered the trigger guard and two inches of the barrel.

  Judith drifted quietly to the bed, bent her knees, and picked up the gun and flashlight, then rose and stepped backward two paces. The pistol was a semiautomatic, and Judith had to get to know it by touch. There was a safety catch, so she clicked it off, then raised the pistol to aim at Catherine’s head. “Catherine,” she whispered.

  She watched Catherine’s face as the whisper reached her brain. Her body flinched involuntarily, her eyes snapped open, and her head gave a quick side-to-side motion that was like a shudder while she found the shadow near her bed. She started to sit up.

  Judith turned on the powerful flashlight to blind her. “Sit still, Catherine,” she said. “Don’t move.”

  Catherine said, “Hello, Tanya.” Her voice was a bit raspy from sleep, but she was making an effort to keep it artificially calm.

  Judith knew Catherine was afraid. She could see Catherine’s heart beating, making the thin pajama top quiver—see it. “I’m not Tanya. I haven’t been Tanya for a long time.”

  “Who are you now?”

  “Lie down again, this time on your stomach.”

  “You don’t really want to do this.”

  “You really don’t want to make me angry. You know that I wouldn’t mind pulling the trigger.”

  Catherine lay down again and rolled onto her stomach. “You don’t get anything for doing this. That’s what I meant. I’ve been trying to help you come in safely for a long time. Breaking in here doesn’t help your cause, and it’s dangerous.”

  “Hands behind your back. Cross your wrists.”

  She watched Catherine do as she had ordered, then leaned over and pulled up the blankets, keeping Catherine’s arms and hands on the outside. Catherine said, “You came here to talk to me, didn’t you? Well, I’m happy to listen, and I’ll try to do what I can for you.”

  There was silence. Catherine was beginning to feel heaviness coming on her. There had been a few seconds of hot panic, when she had heard the whisper in the dark, and then seen the shape that proved it had not been just a nightmare. But now the heat and the urgency were gone, and the cold fear had begun. Fear was bleeding her muscles of strength and making her nerves slow to transfer signals. Fear made her arms and legs weak and heavy. She concentrated on controlling her voice. She knew she had to keep talking. “What can I call you?”

  “Nothing.” The voice came from behind her now, beyond the foot of the bed. That was a very bad sign. Dennis Poole had been shot in the back of the head. The banker in Los Angeles had been shot in the back of the head. Gregory McDonald had been blindfolded in bed and shot in the head.

  Catherine tried again. It was easy to kill someone who was lying facedown and silent. She had to keep talking to stay alive. “If you were just planning to kill me, you wouldn’t have needed to wake me up. You took a risk, so you must have wanted my help. That was a wise decision. Coming in to the bureau with me voluntarily to answer questions is the best thing you could do.”

  “Answer questions?” The voice was bitter, angry. “Are you still pretending that you just want me to answer a few questions?”

  Catherine knew she had fallen into a way of speaking that could get her killed. She had to be extremely careful now not to offend her, and not to appear to be lying. She had to keep the same tone, not
retreat. “I’m a police officer. What I say and do have to reflect what the law says. You haven’t been charged with anything. You’re still wanted for questioning—here and in Arizona and California—so that’s what I have to call it.”

  “And when I’m done, I’ll be able to walk out, right?”

  Catherine spoke as carefully as possible. “I think that you almost certainly won’t. You’re a suspect, and so you’ll probably be detained. You can wait to answer questions until a lawyer is with you.”

  “I’m not here for questions.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  “I’m here for you. I’m what you asked for.”

  “I asked you to come in to save yourself.”

  There was a small, voiceless laugh, like a quiet cough that Catherine heard coming from the foot of the bed. She waited for the shot, the pain. But instead, it was only the voice. “If I came in to the office with you tonight, the way you asked, you’re saying you wouldn’t get any benefit out of it?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “What kind of benefit?”

  “Some people I respect would be proud of me.”

  “Who?”

  “Other cops. One in particular. He’s retired, but he’d hear about it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Whenever a person in trouble can be persuaded to come in peacefully, it makes everybody safer. And no cop had to do anything that gives him nightmares.”

  “God, you’re such a liar,” said Judith. “You’d be a hero. They’d promote you, and they’d show the mayor on television pinning a medal on you. That would be my life. You could pin my life on the front of your coat. Each time you wore it you could remember me.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to prevent—you losing your life.”

  “Shut up, and don’t move until I tell you.” Catherine heard her step in the direction of the closet. There were sounds of hangers scraping on the pole, then other sounds like the sliding and swishing of fabric. There were more sounds of hangers moving on the pole, a couple of dresser drawers opening and closing. Finally, after a very long time, she said, “Very good, Catherine. You didn’t move. Now listen carefully. Roll over to the center of the bed onto your back. Do not sit up.”

  Catherine had been listening carefully to the sounds, but she had not been able to devise a way to take advantage of any possible lapse in Tanya’s attention. Lying on her belly under the heavy blankets with her hands crossed behind her had prevented her from making any kind of quick move, and any move might be the wrong one. Now, as she rolled onto her back, she freed her arms, swept the blanket off her, and looked for Tanya. She was still standing at the foot of the bed, where Catherine could not hope to reach her before the gun went off. Tanya had learned a lot in a very short time.

  Catherine saw the throw, and winced in advance, but what landed on her was an old white sweatshirt with the University of California seal on the front.

  “Put it on.”

  Catherine held it up with both hands, used the seal of the university to find the front, slipped it over her head and arms, and tugged it down in back. She knew she had to start talking again to keep herself human in Tanya’s mind. “Why do you want me to wear this?”

  “For fun.”

  That made Catherine feel the heavy, passive kind of fear again. Maybe Tanya had turned that corner too. Sociopaths talked that way. Things struck them as funny. Another bundle flew through the air. This one landed on Catherine’s stomach, and she flinched. She touched it and felt denim. It was a pair of blue jeans. As she slipped them on, still lying on her back, she decided that Tanya had made a mistake. Clothes made her feel stronger, less vulnerable and helpless.

  “All right. Sit up.”

  Catherine sat up. The light came on, and she saw Tanya. She felt her breathing stop for a second, as though her chest wouldn’t expand to take in the air. Tanya was standing at the foot of the bed, holding her gun. She had taken off whatever she had been wearing, and now she was in one of Catherine’s suits.

  Tanya smiled. She opened the coat. Catherine’s badge was pinned on the belt, where Catherine wore it sometimes. “I’m Catherine,” she said. “Maybe Cathy. I think I’ll be Cathy.”

  Catherine knew that she should have anticipated this. All this time, Tanya had been lost, trying to invent a person to be. Each time she had tried it she had succeeded for a time, been discovered, been chased. Of course this was what would happen. At last she had decided to stop being the runner. Now she wanted to be the pursuer, the one with the power and authority. “Don’t,” said Catherine. “Don’t do this.”

  “You don’t think I make a good Cathy?”

  “It’s not a name you can take, because it will get you caught, and maybe killed. People would know that something had happened to me.”

  “Then what? They would search for me? They’re searching now.”

  “You’ve got to start thinking clearly about how to end this.”

  “I have.” She was Cathy now. There was nothing that she needed to decide. “All right, Catherine. Listen carefully. You and I are going out. We’re going to walk together about a block to the west, and get into my car. There will be no talking along the way, and no noises. If I think you’ve made a noise that might wake people up, I’ll wake them the rest of the way by killing you.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I told you. My car.”

  “After that.”

  “We’re going to go for a ride. Or I’d like to. Obviously, if at any point you cause me trouble, I won’t be able to bring you any farther. You’ll stop there.”

  “Why are you doing this? Do you think I’m the only one who’s been looking for you? I’m one little cop in one town. Police forces everywhere are searching for you right now.”

  Cathy raised her gun and aimed it at Catherine Hobbes’s head. Her expression was cold impatience. Catherine waited for the shot. From this distance Cathy could hardly miss her forehead.

  Catherine wanted to close her eyes, but she knew instinctively that closing her eyes would be a bad idea, a signal of resignation and readiness. She forced herself to keep her eyes unblinking and focused on the eyes of—she had to accept the new reality—not Tanya, but Cathy. She tried to keep the fear and anger out of her eyes, and show only calm. The two women stayed that way for several seconds, an age, while Cathy decided.

  Cathy lowered the gun a few inches. “You’re right,” she said. “I did come to talk. I need to make a decision about how I want this to end. It will take time to make a decision and time to come to an agreement, and we can’t do it in this apartment. Being here is too dangerous for me. We’re going to my car now. Remember what I said. No talk, no noise.” She gestured toward the door. “Stand up. Put on those slippers and walk to the door.”

  Catherine looked at the closet. “My sneakers are right there. Do you mind if I wear those?”

  “Yes. Do what I said. Quiet.”

  Catherine stepped into the slippers and began to walk, the slippers flapping at each step. Cathy was lying. She wanted Catherine to wear the slippers so she couldn’t run or fight. Cathy had no interest in talking. She had become so much more sophisticated at killing that she now knew how to make the victim help her. She had learned that anyone she held at gunpoint would help her fool him. The victim might detect the false tone, but he would choose to believe it because it bought a few more minutes of hope, a few minutes when he could still be a person who was going to live and not a person who was about to die. It occurred to her that Cathy might be trying the lie for the first time. Everything a killer like Cathy did was a kind of experiment. She was learning now, preparing for the next person.

  Catherine walked to the apartment door and stopped in front of it. From this moment on, she had to force herself to stay calm, to see every spot of the world around her with immediacy and accuracy—with her eyes and not her mind—and try to construct an advantage. Accepting this woman as “Cathy” had been a first a
ttempt to acknowledge the fluidity of events. Each second from now on, she would need to do it again.

  Things were not as they had been, and not as they should be. They were what they had become. Catherine stood still and let Cathy open the apartment door. Catherine was thinking like a police officer again, and not like a scared young woman who had been dragged from her bed. She wanted to make sure that if she died tonight, there would be fingerprints here to tell the forensic team who had killed her.

  She watched Cathy’s left hand clasp the doorknob and open it. Then Catherine stepped out into the hallway. As Cathy pulled the door shut, Catherine watched surreptitiously. Cathy had taken a tissue with her from the box in the bedroom, and now she wiped the doorknob clean.

  Catherine walked toward the elevator, but Cathy touched her arm and shook her head. They walked to the stairwell. Once again, Cathy used her left hand to open the door, and kept her right hand on the gun. Catherine had to step into the stairwell, then stand in silence while Cathy closed the door with her left hand and wiped off the knob. There was no reason to wipe off the fingerprints unless Catherine was going to die.

  The two women walked down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor, and Catherine stopped. She considered the possibility that this was the place to make her stand. It was a lighted, closed vertical space with only cinder-block walls and a set of steel steps, so no bullet would go through a wall and kill a sleeping neighbor. She took too long to think about it, and the moment passed. Cathy had the door open, and she was waiting with the gun aimed.

  For a second Catherine felt anger at herself, but that passed too: the opportunity had to feel right before she took it. An intuition was not magical; it was a conclusion that came from a hundred small calculations made at once—distance between her body and Cathy’s, momentum and balance, eye motion and focus. If the conditions had been right, she had not detected it. The moment had not yet come. Catherine stepped out into the lobby.