by John Lutz
Horn had told her about the woman—Marla, was her name. He’d wanted Marla to be in on this because basically it was her idea. At least she’d given Horn the idea. What was going on here? Was Horn stepping out on that stuck-up blond wife of his? Screwing the waitress? Naughty, naughty, Horn! Lucky waitress!
With misgivings, Nina paid for her Pepsi and walked back to join them.
Toward the rear of the diner the mingled scents of lunch were still in the air: pastrami and overfried onions, maybe a spicy mustard somebody had spilled. After introductions, Nina sat down. Horn and Marla were on one side of the booth, Nina across from them. A souvenir American flag was tacked to the wall behind the counter. On the wall to Nina’s left was a large, framed black-and-white aerial photo of the Statue of Liberty. That was about it for motif.
Horn explained the plan. It was simple. Beginning with tonight’s six o’clock newscast, Nina, with occasional advice from Marla, was to step up her campaign of denigrating the Night Spider, heavier on direct insult and humiliation. Then she’d go about her business as usual, driving home after work, maybe stopping for a late snack as she often did, renting a video movie at Hollywoodland near her building, then spending the evening in her apartment and going to bed at her usual time.
The difference was she’d be protected, surreptitiously, by an army of NYPD undercover cops.
The difference was a world-class serial killer was going to try for her.
The difference was, she’d be bait.
“Bait,” she said, thinking aloud.
“That’s what you wanted,” Horn told her.
Nina forced a nervous smile. “I can’t deny it.”
“Are you having second thoughts?” Marla asked.
“Sure. Wouldn’t you?”
“Wouldn’t have had first thoughts, myself.”
“I’ll play the victim looking for victimizer,” Nina said. “I finish what I start.”
“Are you looking for a victimizer?” Marla asked, calm dark eyes fixed on Nina.
Nina laughed. Mind your own business, bitch. “Not hardly. Though I understand that’s how the Night Spider might see me. That is, if I’m playing the role well. The unattainable, therefore, more desirable. The haughty who thinks she’s superior. The eternal brat who needs a harsh lesson. The challenge.”
Marla was nodding. “You do understand.”
“Maybe not everything,” Nina said. “I haven’t spent a lot of time around serial killers. Not intimate time, anyway.”
Horn took a sip of coffee. “You won’t see us, but you’ll be as safe as possible. Even in your bedroom. Especially in your bedroom. The more unaware of us you are, the better. Nothing in your actions will tip off anyone that you’re being guarded. If he goes for you, he won’t get you.”
“Can you promise me that, Horn?”
He shook his head slowly. “You know I can’t.”
“All right. So we understand each other. We all know that sometimes the fish steals the bait.”
“Not this time,” Horn said. “Not if I can help it.”
“That’s all I ask,” Nina said.
Marla pushed aside her coffee cup and saucer and leaned toward Nina. “When you talk about him on the air, question his manhood, suggest he can’t find sex any other way, or that he’s impotent so he has to use a knife. Cowardly’s effective, too, with this kind of asshole. Make it clear you think he’s a coward, and that everyone else—all your viewers—think he’s yellow. And don’t hesitate to say he’s mentally ill. Use the word sick as often as possible.”
“I know how to get to him,” Nina said.
“But keep it as a mind-set so your words come naturally,” Marla said. “Don’t script it or make it too obvious. Remember, you’re trying to seduce him. You’re weaving a web.”
“Like his webs,” Nina said.
“Very much so.” Marla and Horn exchanged glances.
They both liked the web analogy. And Nina thought there might be something else in that glance. She was always looking for changes in relationships, chinks in armor, potential leverage.
“If everything’s done right,” Marla said, “this killer will try for you. He can’t ignore a dare.”
“Everything on my end will be done right,” Nina said.
“In a way, your job’s easy,” Horn told her. “Simply lean harder on the Night Spider and live your usual life.”
“There’s a distinction between simply and easy,” Nina said. She looked at Marla. “You were a psychologist?”
“Yes. A psychoanalyst.”
“It shows.”
“Now and then. Like old scars.”
Nina didn’t ask her why she was waiting tables instead of overcharging an endless line of neurotics by the hour. Nina would find out in her own time and way. Scars were part of her business. You had to find them in order to pick at old wounds. “Interesting work, psychoanalysis.”
“It can be too interesting.”
“That why you gave it up? It became too interesting?”
“Too personal.”
“Maybe after this you’ll have a career as a profiler.” Nina rotated her right wrist and glanced at the oversized watch she never wore on the air. “I’ve gotta go invent some news.”
“And make some,” Horn said.
“One way or the other, huh?”
“Not the other, Nina. And you don’t have to do this.”
“You know I have to finish doing it, Horn.” She smiled. “Or finish getting you to finish it.”
“You set it up that way, Nina. Practicing to deceive.”
“Jesus! Poetry from a homicide cop! That’s what I find fascinating about you, Horn.” She stood up from the booth and looked down at Marla. “Webs again, hey?”
“Hey,” Marla said.
“Men.”
“Men,” Marla agreed.
She and Horn watched Nina stride from the diner, tall even in her sneakers, hips switching and long arms swinging with each stride. Arie, the guy behind the counter, lowered his Sports Illustrated and looked. The homeless type at the counter even turned his shaggy head to watch her passing.
“Think she’ll actually go through with it?” Horn asked.
“She’ll do it,” Marla said. “Risk has already become dare.”
“And?”
“Nina can’t ignore a dare, either.”
“Um,” Horn said. Webs again.
“It’s fucking crazy,” Newsy said, when Nina told him about her meeting with Horn and Marla.
“Lots of news is,” Nina said. “Your job’ll be to have everything set up so we have tape for a breaking news segment. We’ll be the only outlet in the city with tape.”
“What? You want me to make sure there’s tape of that psycho stabbing you to death?”
“Only if he stabs me to death. But that’s not in the plan. You can set up in the building across the street and tape him lowering himself from the roof, using his glass cutter, and raising my bedroom window and climbing inside.”
“You really think the police will let him get that far?”
“Sure. They don’t want to arrest some guy who can say he was just out practicing mountain climbing. If he doesn’t actually enter my bedroom, they don’t have much of a case. You know how it goes when a pack of publicity-hungry defense lawyers makes over a suspect. By the time the trial’s over the guy’ll be acquitted and have his own talk show.”
“You’re taking a hell of a chance, Nina.”
“Not if the NYPD does its job.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I’ve gotta get to makeup now, do the session for that promo. We set for the six o’clock?”
“Just about. Nina, listen, I’m gonna give you a gun. It’s a little thirty-two semiautomatic, a lady’s gun. Will you take it?”
“Sure. Then you can stop worrying.”
“I’ll worry, Nina. I’ll worry.”
And he would. Because they were friends, he’d worry about her. And he’d worry about what would happen to
the newscast if something happened to her.
He’d worry about his job. Unemployment. About his life.
Murder was like a stone plunked in a pond, and Newsy Winthrop could see a ripple the size of a wave bearing down on him.
Psychotic. Impotent. Cowardly. Sick scum. Loathsome. Mental case. Sociopath. Yellow. Unmanly. Insecure. Ill. Ineffectual. Sexually stunted. Unbalanced.
What that bitch had said about him! Who did she think she was? What was her right? What could she know? How dare the evil cunt!
The Night Spider watched the six o’clock news’s final cut to commercial, then used the remote to switch off the television. He was mashing down his finger so hard on the power button, it suddenly occurred to him the black plastic case might crack. With an effort, he relaxed his fingers and set the remote aside.
He sat alone in the silence and listened to his heartbeat. Loathing Nina Count. Nina Cunt! Knowing she’d say the same things about him tonight on her eleven o’clock newscast.
It wasn’t fair, the way she misused the airwaves, filled them with her poisonous words like stinging darts. And what did she really know about him? She knew about his soft center, she said. Twice, she’d referred to his soft center.
What soft center?
She’d keep talking about him, to him. That was how women like that were, taunting him, thinking he was helpless to act. In her corrupt self-absorption, she assumed there was no way to stop her from talking about him to the world.
To the world!
He sat alone in the silence and hid his disfigured face in his hands.
He sat alone in the silence and sobbed.
Horn had finished giving instructions to the dozen cops besides Paula and Bickerstaff whom Rollie Larkin had put at his disposal.
“It’s going to be difficult and time-consuming to find the Night Spider,” Horn had told Larkin in his office earlier that afternoon. “Nina Count started out a fool, but she’s given us the one strong hand we’ve had to play. We need to play it all the way.”
Larkin had leaned back and puffed on the El Laquita Especial Horn had given him as an obvious bribe. “And if anything happens to Nina Count’s precious ass, it will be all our asses.”
“That’s how it is,” Horn admitted.
“You’re already pensioned off,” Larkin said. “Out of it.”
“I’ve thought of that. You have the most to lose, Rollie.”
“Other than Nina Count.”
“Goes without saying. But we might catch a killer.”
Another long puff on the cigar. Larkin’s office was getting cloudy. “Talking head, set of boobs and legs, but I guess we have to give her that she’s got some balls.”
“She’s counting on us having some, too.”
“You’re such a bastard, Horn.”
“Can be. Yes.”
Larkin had carefully propped the cigar in the ashtray on the corner of his desk. “Go ahead and bet your hand, Horn. Raise the stakes.”
“I didn’t figure you’d let us down, Rollie.”
“And spare me the bullshit,” Larkin added.
He was picking up the cigar again as Horn left the office and headed for clear air. In the outer office, Larkin’s uniformed assistant had a little electric fan spinning on her desk to dissipate smoke. She glanced over at Horn and held her nose as he passed.
Horn smiled. Everybody in the office had balls.
When everyone knew their role and had left the precinct conference room, Horn went to see Royce Sales. Then he called a friend on the FDNY and drove south to the docks.
He wanted everything done right, so he didn’t rush. He didn’t waste time, either. Time was running out for the Night Spider or for Nina Count.
31
The insults, derision, humiliation! She’d pay; pay soon and in full!
In full!
He knew what she was doing and so did her viewers. That’s why she was doing it, to create more viewers, more fans. Playing the brave and dedicated journalist. Trying to lure him, to trap him, to kill him. Using him to boost her pathetic ratings. Nina Cunt!
The police, Horn, they’d be in on it, encouraging her, underestimating the Night Spider, the fearsome and fearful, the horrid and elegant. How could they know? How could they know what they were dealing with, how wrong Nina Count was about him? How it would all turn out? The small and the crawl shall inherit. . .
There she was again on the TV screen, cold and deadly beautiful, blond as vanilla ice cream, the long shot, the pale legs.
The empress of ice cream. The cunt! The evil, satanic, hurtful cunt!
He couldn’t stand to look at her. Couldn’t look away from her.
Couldn’t wait much longer.
* * *
My God, it was almost routine.
Nina thought this was going better than she’d anticipated. The advice of Marla the waitress-psychologist was golden; she really knew what Nina should say to get to this guy. If only it weren’t for the constant and cold lump of fear in Nina’s stomach, the loss of appetite and sleep.
She went through the motions of her day, studiously not looking right nor left to be sure she was protected. Denying herself the reassurance. She went to bed as usual, locking the bedroom window but leaving the drapes parted about five inches, per Horn’s instructions.
Horn. He phoned her frequently, checking on her, making sure her resolve wasn’t crumbling. Which showed how little he knew about her.
Nina carefully locked her apartment door behind her, then kicked off her high-heeled shoes and strode into the kitchen. She paused at the door, scanning before entering. A habit. Had she recently acquired it?
She wasn’t drinking alcohol these days, needed to keep her mind clear. So she went to the refrigerator and ran cold water from the ice maker into a glass. Before taking a sip, she held the glass against her warm forehead. Another tension headache tonight. That was what they were. Had to be.
It’s worth it. Every night is worth the fear!
Every night her ratings were climbing. And when this horror was over, some of that success would stick. She’d have the highest-rated local newscast for years, until something else came along that could be ridden like this crisis to her desired destination. She’d possess the fact that she’d trapped this fuck-head killer. Have it on her resume always. That could be good for a lot. Her ticket would be punched for the next ride. A bigger show. Network. Or maybe politics were in her future.
Meanwhile, her days were terrible but mundane journeys of boredom, trepidation, and frequent spikes of terror. The unfamiliar face with eyes observing her, the sudden moves of strangers—almost anything abrupt and unexpected— could strum her taut nerves and make her almost scream.
Routine. Repetition. Moving through it like an automaton.
Work, occasional late-night drink, occasional late-night dinner, occasional late-night dread. Home, watch a little TV, bed. Now and then uncontrollable trembling.
Relax! They’re there, they’re there! Watching over me like guardian angels with guns.
But she knew someone else might be there, watching her. Someone whose compulsion and psychotic game was watching and waiting. Someone clever enough and lethal enough.
She wished something would shatter the routine!
Or did she?
Another night or two, another newscast or two. Audience share was building like loan-shark interest, in quantum leaps.
She’d read in the Post how there were office polls that bet on her day of death and on how many times she’d be stabbed.
Oh, Christ!
It helped to fall asleep thinking about ratings.
Sometimes it was the only way.
Horn couldn’t think of anything more he might do to protect Nina, yet not alert the Night Spider.
“You’re not sleeping well,” Anne would tell him, before leaving for the hospital in the morning. At this point, he was sleeping mainly during mornings. And afternoons, when Nina Count was safely ensconced at the TV
station. Captain Thomas Horn, working the night shift like a rookie cop or a precinct detective on a stakeout. In a strange way, it felt good. Maybe he wasn’t as old as he thought. Maybe age was a matter of thought and not time.
Maybe the Night Spider would try for Nina tonight.
Marla said it would happen, and probably soon. The tension would mount in the killer, the pressure would build. Nina’s newscasts turned the valve up slightly higher every evening at six and eleven. Psychosis would become urgent, would vibrate like a boiler building steam, would become speculation then decision. Madness would become movement, like physics of the mind.
Marla said.
Anne said again, after leaning over the bed and kissing him on the lips, waking him all the way. “You’re not sleeping well.”
“Neither are you.”
“It’s the damned Vine family lawsuit. They’ve filed more motions.”
“If you ever do go to trial, it’ll be months before you see the inside of a courtroom,” Horn assured her.
“It can’t be too soon for me. I want this over. I want to be vindicated.”
“You will be.” This wasn’t how she was talking before; she would have done anything to avoid a court fight.
“You really think so?”
“Sure,” Horn lied. He knew juries could do anything. Make up their own laws, if they wanted. Juries were not in the least predictable, and they were as different from each other as snowflakes.
“I just want it to be over.”
He caught motion in the corner of his vision and heard the retreating tak, tak, tak of her high heels on the hardwood floor.
Unmoving on the bed, he closed his eyes and considered.
She wants vindication and legal absolution; assurance and recognition that she didn’t take away a child’s conscious life.
I want to stop a killer by preventing a murder; I want to save an unknown number of lives.
I want to change the future.