by John Lutz
Fear the Night
( Night - 5 )
John Lutz
John Lutz
Fear the Night
For a dark hour or twain.
— Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act III. Sc.2. L. 404.
1
He flung open the service door and was on the roof and in the cool, dark vastness of the night. In the building beneath his feet people fought and loved and hated and dreamed, while he lived the dream that was real. He was the one who decided. Below and around him the Theater District glowed, as did the stars above. He was sure that if he tried he could reach up, clutch one of the stars, and plunge it burning into his pocket. The end and the beginning of a dream. .
On the night he died, Marty Akim was selling.
Marty sold anything that would fetch a price, but he specialized in nineteen-dollar watches that he bought for ten dollars.
Warm evenings in New York would find him lounging outside his souvenir shop, Bargain Empire, just off West Forty-fifth Street in the theater district. Inside the crowded shop were lettered Tshirts, cheap umbrellas, plastic Statues of Liberty, Broadway show posters, glass snow globes that played New York tunes while dandrufflike flakes, swirled by shaking, settled among tiny replicas of the buildings Chrysler, Empire State, and Citigroup, towering inches over Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Station. There were plenty of cut-rate laptop computers, digital cameras, cell phones, recorders, and suitcases, many with brand names that seemed familiar at a glance.
Outside the shop, next to a rack of rayon jackets featuring colorful New York scenes, and a table with stacks of sports logo caps and pullovers, was the display of wristwatches. Alongside them, his seamed and friendly face bunched in a perpetual smile, sat Marty in his padded metal folding chair. Marty caught the eye, with his loosened silk tie and his pristine white shirt with its sleeves rolled up, his slicked-back graying hair, and his amiable keen blue eyes. Sitting there gracefully and casually, his legs crossed, a cigarette either wedged between yellowed fingers or tucked loosely in the corner of his mouth, he looked like a once-handsome, aging lounge singer taking a break between sets. A man with tales to tell and eager to tell them for the price of a return smile.
But interesting and approachable as Marty seemed, it was the watches that drew customers, all the glimmer and glitter of gold and silver electroplate and plastic gemstones, colorful watch faces with bright green numerals and hands that looked as if they’d surely glow in the dark. There was something about all that bright, measurable time so closely massed, the tempo of Times Square, the chatter and shuffle and hum and shouts and roar of traffic and pedestrians, all of them moving to some raucous, frantic music punctuated by blaring horns. In the middle of all this happy turmoil was this ordered display of shining metal and geometric precision, and Marty, waiting.
Customers would come and he would talk to them, not pressuring them, not at first. Where were they from? What shows had they seen? Were they having fun? Sure, he could recommend a restaurant or direct them to the nearest subway stop. All the while they’d be sneaking peeks at the watches, the Rodexes, Hambiltons, Bulovis, and Mowados. (The cheap, illegal knockoffs bearing correctly spelled brand names were kept out of sight beneath the false bottom of a showcase inside the shop, sold only to customers who’d been referred to Marty and could be trusted.) Often Marty’s customers were a couple, a man and woman, and the woman would invariably find something that interested her, squint at it, pick it up, then hold it to her ear, like with this couple.
“They’re all quartz movement, ma’am.” Marty smiling wider and whiter, beginning to work his magic on the two of them. “Factory seconds of quality brands-I’ll leave you to guess which brands-some of them with flaws you’d need a microscope to see. But ordinarily they’re expensive and the people who buy them expect perfection. Perfect they’re not, but then neither are you and me, and I know these watches are closer to heaven than I’ll ever get.”
“They’re reasonably priced,” said the woman. She was about forty, short, with a chunky build and dyed red hair. The man was older, lanky, with rough hands and a lot of hair sprouting from his nostrils. He had sad eyes and a wheezy way of breathing.
“I notice the lady’s not wearing a watch,” Marty said to the man, trying to draw him into conversation.
“I left it in the hotel safe,” the woman said. “Bob warned me I might get robbed if I wore my good jewelry out on the streets.”
“Bob’s wise to advise caution,” Marty said, nodding sagely to Bob, both of them seasoned by wide experience. “What New York women do is wear their cheaper but still high-quality jewelry when they go out at night.”
“Makes sense,” said the woman.
“And they dress stylishly but discreetly, like you’re dressed. Attractive women need to be careful. Bob knows what I mean.” Marty wished Bob would mention her name. That would make things easier.
He’d get the woman’s name, he decided. And he’d sell her a watch. He could sell air to these two.
It was a challenge Marty enjoyed, selling watches on a fine warm night like tonight, practicing the basics of his trade. He stood up so he could point to a Rodex. “That one would suit Marie just fine,” he said to Bob, “with its dainty band.”
“He better not give it to anybody named Marie,” the woman said.
Marty looked confused. “I thought I heard Bob call you-”
“Forget this crap and let’s get going,” Bob said to the woman. Bob catching on.
“I dunno, Bob, Some of these-”
“We’re gonna be late.” Bob edged away, as if he might pull his companion along with some kind of magnetism.
Marty was still smiling. “I understand your cynicism, Bob.”
“It’s not cynicism, it’s reality.”
“Most of the time, I’m sure.”
Bob ignored him. “C’mon, Ellie.”
“If you’re not interested, that’s okay.” Marty still with the smile. Fuck the both of you.
“Nice patter but no sale,” Bob said. He gripped Ellie’s elbow and guided her away from the watch display, almost getting tangled with a couple of teenagers in gangsta pants swishing past. Ellie glanced back at Marty and grinned and shrugged: What’re you gonna do? She didn’t mind being taken, if she was having fun and would come away with something.
Bob had been like a brick wall. Marty figured he must be some kind of salesman himself, big farmer type, maybe sold tractors in Iowa or some place where there were crops. He put the couple out of his mind and neatened up his display where Ellie had inadvertently rearranged some of the watches.
There was this crack! that didn’t belong. Louder than the din of the street, like a crisp clap of thunder that bounced and echoed down the avenue.
Marty would have wondered what made the sound, but that was when he had his heart attack.
At least that’s what Marty thought it was at first. A sudden sharp pain in his chest, a hard time breathing. Not heartburn. Too painful. So painful he could hardly move. It even hurt when he absently lifted his hand to massage the lump of pain in his chest.
He felt wetness. Looked down. His hand was red. So was his tie and the front of his bright white shirt he’d bought just yesterday on sale at Filene’s Basement. His fingers danced over his chest, probed.
Huh? He’d been shot.
Shot! Oh, Christ!
Bob the farmer had shot him. That was all Marty could think of. He looked around. Bob and Ellie were nowhere to be seen. People had stopped streaming past the shop and were standing staring at him. He felt light-headed. And breathing was even more of an effort.
He sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of his watch display.
Blood all over the concrete.
My blood …
Marty was recovering from his shock enough to be terrified.
A doctor visiting from Toronto with a woman not his wife was walking past and saw what was happening.
He hurried to help Marty but it was too late.
Time had stopped for Marty.
2
A spring shower that was almost mist was falling the next evening when Assistant Chief Lou Melbourne wrestled his bulk out of a cab in front of Vincent Repetto’s residence on Bank Street in the Village.
Repetto, who’d gone to a living room window to see if it was still raining, noticed Melbourne crossing the street. The two men were about the same age-midfifties-but almost exact opposites. Melbourne was short and very much overweight, balding, with a pug face and clothes that were always a size too small. He had on a blue jacket that didn’t look water resistant, and he walked fast for an obese man and with an economy of motion.
Repetto was several inches over six feet, lean and with long arms and big hands. The progeny of a Dutch mother and an Italian father, he still had most of his dark hair, but it was fast turning a gunmetal gray. His eyebrows, graying but not as fast, were permanently arched in a way that gave him an expression of alert and aggressive curiosity. I will get to the truth, said his arched gaze. His clothes tended to black and gray and were well tailored, but tonight he was wearing faded jeans and a white pullover with NYPD on its chest.
Melbourne, crossing the street diagonally, saw him watching through the decorative iron bars on the window and raised a hand in a wave. Repetto nodded to him, then left the window to open the door. Two months ago, Melbourne had presented Repetto with an engraved silver platter at one of his many retirement parties. Repetto appreciated it. A man couldn’t have too many silver platters.
“Lou, you should have an umbrella,” Repetto said, as Melbourne took the concrete steps to the stoop, then hesitated.
“They bring bad luck.”
“Like making it rain?”
Melbourne grinned. “Like making it rain harder because you have an umbrella.” After wiping the soles of his shoes on the doormat, he shook hands with Repetto. “How you been in your brief retirement, Vin?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet.” Repetto used the handshake to pull Melbourne in out of the rain, then waited while Melbourne worked out of his jacket. Repetto draped the jacket on the antique brass coatrack and ushered Melbourne into the living room.
Repetto and his wife, Lora, lived in a narrow redbrick house that had been built over a hundred years ago. Lora, who was an interior decorator, had chosen almost all the decor and furnishings. The upper floor was her office and sometime storeroom. Living quarters were downstairs.
The living room, where Repetto invited Melbourne to sit on a soft Queen Anne sofa, was furnished eclectically, mixing traditional with Victorian and Early American. On the wall behind the sofa stood a tall nineteenth-century walnut secretary. A Sheraton library table with stacks of books was along another wall, a Cape Cod window seat nearby where Lora sometimes sat sipping tea and looking out at Bank Street. The house was on a quiet, brick-paved block in the West Village, a desirable piece of real estate.
Repetto had married into money. Lora’s mother and father had died young in a boating accident and left her well off. She wasn’t your usual cop’s wife, but then Repetto wasn’t your usual cop. He’d risen through the ranks by virtue of his own hard work and ingenuity. When he retired after catching a stray bullet in the lung during a hostage situation that went sour, then being kicked up to captain, he was considered the shrewdest-and toughest-homicide detective in the NYPD. His specialty was serial killers.
When Melbourne was seated, Repetto asked him if he wanted a drink. “Some good eighteen-year-old scotch?”
Melbourne smiled and shook his head no. “I’m on duty, sort of.”
Uh-oh. Repetto settled down in a brown leather wing chair facing his old friend and superior officer.
Still smiling, Melbourne glanced around. “I don’t see any ashtrays. And I don’t smell tobacco. I guess for health reasons you gave up those Cuban cigars you used to smoke. The bad lung and all.”
“The lung’s pretty much healed. I still get winded too easy, though.”
“But still no cigars.”
“I allow myself one every few days. The doctors said it’s okay as long as I don’t inhale.”
“Sure they did.”
“Other than that, I don’t smoke. For Lora.”
“She make you lighten up?”
Repetto didn’t bother to answer.
“So it’s true what they say about life after you retire and you’re home with the wife.”
“What do they say?”
“She takes over the company.”
“Yeah, that’s true. She’s been a cop’s wife over twenty years, Lou. If she doesn’t want me to smell up the house with cigar smoke, I won’t. She deserves to be spoiled.”
“She doesn’t want you dying of lung cancer.”
“That, too.”
Melbourne focused his flesh-padded gray eyes on Repetto. “How’d you and Lora manage it, staying married all this time, you doing the kinda work we do?”
Repetto had to give it some thought. “I don’t know for sure. Maybe somewhere along the line we learned how to stay out of each other’s way.”
“That’s an unsatisfactory answer,” Melbourne said with a touch of bitterness. Twice-divorced Melbourne.
“Lora’s at a meeting with a client,” Repetto said. “You wanna come back to my den and we can smoke some cigars?”
Melbourne cocked his head to the side. “You won’t get in any trouble?”
Repetto laughed and stood up. “I haven’t had a smoke in two days. Haul your ass outta that sofa and come with me.” He didn’t tell Melbourne the den was the only place he smoked in the house, and he had to make sure there was plenty of ventilation.
Repetto’s den was large, carpeted in deep red with thick red drapes, a quiet room, considering it was at street level. There were commendations on the walls, a mounted trout Repetto had caught in Vermont, and several signed and framed publicity photos of Broadway stars.
Repetto walked over to his desk and opened a small mahogany humidor near the green-shaded lamp. He gave Melbourne a Venezuelan cigar and a cutter, then chose a domestic brand for himself. Before lighting the cigar, he went over and opened a window, letting in some dampness and cool night air. Within a few seconds he could feel cross ventilation from the already cracked window on the adjacent wall stir the hairs on his bare forearms.
When he returned to sit in his black leather desk chair, Melbourne had already seated himself in one of the upholstered chairs angled toward the desk and lighted his cigar.
Repetto settled down behind his oversize cherry-wood desk. “You mentioned you were on duty.”
“Sort of. Here to ask you about something.”
Repetto smiled. “Am I a suspect?”
“I don’t believe you lead an exciting enough life now to get in any trouble.” Melbourne puffed on his cigar. “This is great. Cuban?”
“Aren’t those illegal?”
“A rhetorical question, I’m sure.” Melbourne might have winked. He knew Repetto favored and could obtain Cuban cigars. He took another draw and seemed to roll the smoke around in his mouth before exhaling. “What exactly do you do these days?”
“Lora and I go to the theater, dine out with friends, plan on doing some traveling. Things we never had time to do when I was on the job.”
“Sounds nice, actually. You always had it good for a cop.”
Repetto was getting the idea Melbourne was hesitant to bring up whatever he’d come to discuss. “Get to it, Lou.”
“I’m asking you back to the NYPD, or at least to work for us.”
Repetto didn’t hesitate. “Nope. Lora wouldn’t stand for it.”
“You’d please her before me?”
“I don’t sleep with you.”
“You wanna hear the deal?”
“No.”
“Okay, here it is. Last night a guy named Martin Akim was shot to death outside his shop in the theater district.”
“Marty Akim? Watches?”
“The very Marty.”
“Holdup?”
“No. Shot from a distance. Relatively small-caliber bullet, misshapen by bone and the wall it hit after tumbling through Akim. People heard the shot, but the way sound echoes around all those tall buildings and concrete and glass, nobody knows where it came from. Far away, though, not close by.”
“Stray shot, maybe.” Like the one that caught me in the lung.
“We don’t think so.”
“A sniper?”
“Yeah. Here’s the thing. Akim wasn’t the first victim. He was the third in the last six weeks. The first was a sales rep from Cincinnati, in town on business. The second a prostitute down in the Village.”
Repetto leaned back in his chair and drew on his cigar, then exhaled and watched the smoke drift toward the ceiling and make a slow turn toward the open window.
“A serial killer. Your specialty, Vin.”
“Was.”
“Not that you need the money, but we’d like to put you back on the payroll while you track down this sicko.”
Repetto sat forward and looked directly at Melbourne, then removed the cigar from his mouth. “I wasn’t the only competent homicide detective in the department.”
“You were sure as hell the best.”
“And now somebody else is. I’m sorry, Lou, the answer’s no.”
Melbourne stood up. He walked slowly over and looked at Repetto’s commendations, then stood staring at the mounted trout. “You catch this thing?”
“Yeah. Only kinda thing I’m gonna catch from now on.”
“This killer’s been in contact with us. He’s bursting with ego and thinks he’s smarter than we are.”
“Don’t they all think that?”
“Some of them are smarter.”
“A few. The ones we never heard of.”
“Vin-”
“Talk to me and not to the fish, okay?”
Melbourne turned to face him. “I didn’t come here on my own. I was asked.” He looked at his cigar now and not at Repetto. “He asked me. Told me, actually.”