Darker Than Night fq-1

by John Lutz

  She’d been the one who jumped the light, but Quinn said nothing. He became aware that his right foot was pressing against the car’s floor on the passenger side, as if there were a brake pedal there. He made himself relax-somewhat. Sometimes he thought it would be a miracle if he lived through this investigation.

  A cell phone chirped and he blanched at the thought of Pearl driving and talking on the phone simultaneously. Then he realized it was his own phone.

  He dug it out of his pocket and answered.

  “Quinn?” Harley Renz’s voice.

  “Yeah. It was my number you called.”

  “So what’s this latest bullshit?”

  “I guess I’m gonna have to ask you the same question.”

  “Kay Kemper.”

  “You mean your interview with her?”

  “I mean the story about you and those other teenage kids.”

  Other teenage kids? “Tell me what this is about, Harley.”

  “You don’t know? Sure you don’t. On her six o’clock news report Kemper reported that a reputable anonymous source informed her you mighta molested other kids besides Anna Caruso. She said others in the NYPD had confirmed there were rumors to that effect at the time of the Caruso rape.”

  “Others? You mean somebody in the NYPD is dishing out this crap?”

  “My impression is her primary source was a former cop, but she didn’t come right out and say that.”

  “Egan. It has to be Egan, or one of his flunkies.”

  “If Egan didn’t dream up the idea, he’ll sure take to it, and he’ll try using it against us. So, is it true?”

  Quinn was glad they weren’t having this conversation face-to-face; he might have grabbed Renz by the neck and squeezed. “It’s as true as the Anna Caruso story.”

  That didn’t seem to be what Renz wanted to hear. Instead of saying anything immediately, he made a soft wheezing sound, as if breathing through a stopped-up nose. “Well, in a way it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters a hell of a lot to me.”

  “Sure it does. What I mean is, the media’s already playing you off against Anna Caruso. Now these rumors, true or not, lend more credibility to her story.”

  “If there really are rumors, whoever’s spreading them can’t come up with a complainant or a witness, Harley, because these molested girls they’re talking about don’t exist and never did.”

  “Jesus, Quinn, Anna Caruso identified you.”

  Quinn was silent for a long time, barely noticing when Pearl missed a startled pedestrian by inches. “So where’s this leave us, Harley?”

  “I said when you started that you had a short shelf life, Quinn. It just got shorter.”

  “I’m telling you-”

  But Renz had hung up.

  Quinn broke his end of the connection and slid the phone back in his pocket.

  “So what was that all about?” Pearl asked, glancing over at him as the car struck a pothole hard enough to cause one of the sun visors to flip down.

  He told her.

  She didn’t ask him if the new accusations were true. He appreciated that.

  “The assumption is that the source is a former New York cop,” Quinn said.

  “Genuine anonymous sources,” Pearl said, “usually try staying as anonymous as possible.”

  Quinn sat and watched her drive. “Meaning?”

  “Maybe the source isn’t NYPD. The informer might have wanted Kay Kemper to think so because it would lend credibility to his lies.”

  A white work van cut off Pearl as she slowed to take a corner. She honked the horn and the driver glared at her and raised his middle finger. Pearl sat quietly, as if she hadn’t seen.

  It was a possibility, Quinn thought. “The most likely source would be the Night Prowler himself.”

  “Sure. You’re getting under his skin. He had to do something to get back at you, so he used Kay Kemper. It all fits. And it’s the way assholes like that operate.”

  “The Night Prowler-”

  “I meant Kemper. She probably knows the story’s bullshit, but she’ll do anything for ratings.”

  “He must be getting frustrated, to pull something like this.”

  “That’s the idea, isn’t it?” Pearl said. “We want him frustrated. We break the fucker so he messes up, and we nail him.”

  The white van hadn’t moved after cutting off Pearl. She leaned on the horn and the driver, a guy in a dark shirt with a cap set way back on his head, repeated his obscene gesture.

  Pearl lowered her window and waved her shield around. “I’m a cop! Move that van now, shit for brains, or I’ll arrest you for vehicular stupidity!”

  Watching the van driver maneuver his big vehicle out of the way by putting two wheels up on the sidewalk, Quinn thought again that Pearl was some item.

  “He has a lotta nerve, that stewhead!” The car shot forward and Quinn noticed his foot was mashing down again on his nonexistent brake pedal.

  “Guy’s probably tired and on his way home from work,” he said.

  “Not the van driver, the Night Prowler.”

  Quinn sat back and closed his eyes. Pearl…

  “I’m staying over with you tonight,” she said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You need me, so it’s settled.”

  She was so right. And she still hadn’t asked if the rumors about him were true.

  Pearl.

  There was still enough daylight to see to shoot. The setting sun had turned the horizon, barely visible beyond a dark row of trees and distant buildings, a vivid burned orange threaded with gray.

  The Night Prowler was standing on the slope of an abandoned quarry outside Newark, New Jersey, where many amateur target shooters, not to mention rat hunters, went to sharpen their aim. He was the only one left in the orange-tinted, failing light, but still he sighted in carefully on bent tin cans or beer or wine bottles protruding from the landfill near the base of the quarry.

  He stared intently over the sight of his handgun, squeezed the trigger gently, and saw a slight puff of dust as the bullet struck a yard to the side of what looked from this distant like a pound coffee can.

  Not good enough!

  He had to improve! Had to learn to shoot for distance. And he was lucky enough to have the handgun; he couldn’t risk buying or stealing a rifle, as difficult as they were to conceal. And using one would be a problem, anyway. Long guns were, let’s face it, noticeable. New York wasn’t Wyoming.

  It amazed the Night Prowler how swiftly Quinn had struck back. Tit for tat, this for that, death for that. He squeezed off another shot. Closer. It seemed that Kay Kemper had no sooner mentioned on TV the rumors of more child molestations by Quinn, than Victory called and told the Night Prowler he’d learned of a woman cop-Detective Pearl, no doubt-asking about key reproductions. The hardware store where she’d been making her inquiries was not only in Victory’s neighborhood, it was also in the Night Prowler’s, and only a few blocks from his apartment.

  Drab gray officialdom in my personal territory! Intolerable!

  So, the law was concentrating now on who might have had keys to the murder apartments. No problem, so far. But it was only a matter of time before they learned he had a portable machine for setting locks and cutting keys. And he’d done work in all the apartments where the murders occurred.

  Only a matter of time. In-fucking-tolerable!

  Another shot.

  Another miss.

  At least the phone call to Kay Kemper had gone as the Night Prowler expected. She’d been interested and tried to pump him for more information about himself. But he’d sold her on the idea that he was a former cop, and he was afraid for his life if it became known he’d turned snitch on the NYPD. He had a pension and a sick wife to consider. Kay Kemper had bought it, true blue, probably because she wanted so much to believe him, wanted the story.

  And as the Night Prowler had suspected, Quinn’s enemies in the NYPD took the opportunity to stick more barbs in
to him. Yes, they’d heard the rumors, they said anonymously. No fire, but a sky full of smoke. No proof, but then there hadn’t been any lock-tight proof in the Anna Caruso case, and everyone in the NYPD knew who’d committed that crime. Everyone in the city.

  The Night Prowler smiled, aimed, shot.

  Another miss.

  Smile became frown.

  Is Quinn impossible to kill? Is that what the message is here? Is Quinn being favored by fate?

  There! Something!

  The Night Prowler had glimpsed movement about twenty feet away, where there was a low mound of what looked like cinders and assorted trash someone had dumped. It had been there awhile. The labels on cans and bottles were faded, and even in the dying light swarms of flies were visible droning around the base of the mound.

  But something other than insects had moved. The Night Prowler was sure of it.

  He crept closer, holding the gun before him in both hands, like cops on countless TV shows.

  And there was the movement again!

  A rat?

  No, an ordinary squirrel.

  The Night Prowler aimed, fired, and the squirrel leaped into the air violently as if electrified, then dropped to the trash pile dead.

  Blood makes the difference! Shooting for real. The blood!

  He walked over and looked down at the gray and the red that was the squirrel, the glimpse of white that was the purity of bone. Most of the animal’s head was missing.

  Fate was no longer something to fear. Neither was time. Death was an ally. The Night Prowler’s luck had changed.

  And Quinn’s.

  “Bad luck, I’m afraid,” said the voice in Jubal Day’s ear.

  Jubal was in the living room, on his cell phone. He’d just returned from reading for the role in West Side Buddies at a small studio on West Forty-fourth Street. He and the producer and Jubal’s agent had gone out for drinks afterward. There were two more auditions to be held, they said, two more candidates for the role. If neither of them made the grade, then Jubal looked good for the part. His world was opening before him. His career was about to be launched big time. If only-

  “Jubal, did you hear?”

  The caller was Don Henson, the director of As Thy Love Thyself, in Chicago.

  “Yeah, Don, so what’s going on?”

  “Astin’s come down with some kind of bug that’s got him flat on his back with a hundred and three temperature. We’re lucky the theater’s black tonight, but we have to have you back here.”

  “How soon?”

  “Yesterday. Tonight. Early tomorrow morning at the latest. We’ve made some revisions, and you’re going to have to run through them before going on tomorrow evening.”

  Jubal’s mind was bouncing around in his skull. Would it hurt his chances for the TV series if he cut and ran out of New York? Probably not. He’d already read for the part, and it was doubtful they’d want him back for another reading.

  Unless one of the other two candidates for the role came through big and made the decision difficult.

  “Jubal, you’re all we’ve got, my man. No troops in reserve. You’ve gotta do this!”

  “I will, Don. Don’t sweat it. I still have time to catch a flight out tonight.”

  “You’re a prince, Jubal. I owe you a piece of the kingdom.”

  “Careful, Don, I might claim it one of these days.”

  “Hey, that’s how it works.”

  “When it works. I’ll be at the theater tomorrow morning, I promise.”

  “Early?”

  “Before you get there, Don.”

  “I doubt it. I don’t do much sleeping lately.”

  “You can sleep well tonight,” Jubal said, and hung up.

  Now what?

  Claire was in the kitchen puttering around, trying to decide if she was hungry. She wasn’t going to like Jubal dropping in for a few days, then streaking back to Chicago. Jubal didn’t like it himself.

  But then there was Dalia.

  Jubal realized he had something to do before he told Claire he was packing and leaving within an hour. While she was busy in the kitchen, he went into the bedroom so he could retrieve the necklace he’d bought for Dalia. He’d concealed it well by taping it to the outside of the back of one of the dresser drawers. The drawer would have to be completely removed before the necklace was visible.

  He was reaching to remove the drawer when-

  “Jubal.”

  Claire’s voice spun him around.

  She was standing in the doorway, smiling. “Scare you?”

  Almost to death. “No, not at all.” He grinned. “I was just about to start packing.”

  Her smile disappeared. “For what?”

  He told her about Henson’s phone call.

  “What about West Side Buddies?”

  “I don’t think it should make any difference.”

  Claire looked disappointed, even for some reason afraid.

  He tried to lighten the mood. “I don’t feel like cabbing back to the airport and jumping on a plane again, but it’s nice to be needed.”

  She came to him, moving more heavily in her pregnancy, and kissed him on the lips. “Now more than ever.” When she pulled away, she said, “How soon do you have to leave?”

  “Within an hour at most. I’ll grab something to eat at the airport.” He extended his hands, palms out, a gesture he’d practiced before a mirror: Nothing I can do about this, and I’d move heaven and earth if I could change it. “I’m really and deeply sorry about this, hon.”

  “I know,” she said, biting her lower lip but not crying, not crying. “I’ll help you pack.”

  Jubal decided Dalia would have to wait for her necklace.

  There was no choice, as with so much else in this world. Women. The way they got beneath your skin and into your blood; they ran like a chemical in your veins.

  Women were a problem.

  “You’re telling me,” Harley Renz said the next evening on the phone to Quinn, “that you’ve got nada times nada.”

  “So far,” Quinn admitted. He was sitting in the heat on the bench inside the Eighty-sixth Street entrance to the park, waiting for Pearl and Fedderman. The bench was in the shade, but that didn’t help much, hot and muggy as it was today. “We’re not a helluva lot closer than we were last week.”

  “Last week when you were shot at?”

  Renz rubbing it in. “That week,” Quinn said. He’d been there awhile and wondered if his rear end might be welded to the hard slats of the bench.

  “Listen, Quinn, my sources tell me there’s another TV feature on Anna Caruso in the works, this one by Kay Kemper. She’s making this her story.”

  “Anna Caruso’s?”

  “Kay Kemper’s. She cares not at all about Anna except that the kid means ratings. You mighta noticed, local news in this city is a competitive business. The thing is, whenever Anna’s sweet young face appears on television, you look more and more like the villain in the piece. Especially with your rugged bad looks. Especially now that the rumor is you’re a serial child molester. There are voices telling me to yank you off the streets, Quinn.”

  “Arrest me?”

  “Of course not. Not without proof. But lots of people in the department and at City Hall would like to see you run over by a cab and no longer be a problem. Pressure keeps building, Quinn, on me, on you-”

  “And on the Night Prowler. He’d love to see you take me off the case. He’s probably the one who planted the child molestation story with Kay Kemper.”

  “Maybe. But don’t bet against Egan.”

  “Point. Where we going with this, Harley?”

  “Nowhere, faster and faster. That’s the fucking problem. It’s a matter of days, and you’re gonna be gone. I’ve got no choice, Quinn. I talk to you and you keep coming up blank.”

  “Speaking of blank,” Quinn said, “did you ever get a lead on Dr. Maxwell’s patient David Blank?”

  “Nothing. The guy doesn’t exist.”


  “You’ve come up blank.”

  “That’s cute, but-”

  “You’d think the Night Prowler would have broken under pressure by now, wouldn’t you? He’s been at it a long time with us on his heels.”

  “He’s one of the toughest,” Renz said.

  “Suppose he had a way of relieving that pressure. Like seeing a good psychoanalyst. Somebody he could talk to about these killings.”

  “Confess to, you mean?”

  “Maybe even that.”

  “The analyst is obligated to tell us about criminal activity, especially murder.”

  “Unless the analyst becomes a victim herself.”

  Renz didn’t answer for a while, his breath hissing into the phone. “David Blank and Dr. Maxwell, huh? It’s a stretch, but possible. Sick fucks like that do suffer from a growing need to confess. That’s why we got the Miranda law. But even if true, it doesn’t help us. If the Night Prowler and David Blank are the same person, his charade worked. We got us a dead analyst who served her purpose, and David Blank is still nowhere to be found.”

  “It gives us more insight into the Night Prowler. And that’s what this is all about, figuring how he thinks.”

  “It doesn’t help us,” Renz repeated. Not as much as you being a serial molester.

  Quinn couldn’t deny it. All he could muster was “But it might.”

  “There’s only a few grains of sand left in the hourglass, Quinn. This is something I can’t control. Keep that in mind.” Renz hung up without saying good-bye.

  Quinn sat in the shade with the dead phone and watched the unmarked pull to the curb out on Central Park West. He watched Pearl and Fedderman climb out of the car and make their way toward the park entrance and bench. They looked tired again. Pearl was plodding and Fedderman seemed as if he could barely drag his cheap suit along with him. His pants had worked themselves so low he looked like a prison gang-banger; they puddled around his feet and would have dragged the ground if not for his big clunky shoes. These two did not look like the NYPD’s finest.

  Unsurprisingly, they reported no progress.

  Quinn related the conversation he’d just had with Harley Renz.

  “Sounds like we’re royally fucked,” Fedderman said, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief that looked as if it had been used to change oil.