Fear the Night n-5

by John Lutz

  For a few minutes he’d stood at the window, staring out at the edge of Central Park. A jogger passed on the trail beyond the low stone wall that marked the park’s perimeter. Another jogger. A Rollerblader. Then a woman walking a small child on a leash as if it were a dog.

  How can people do that to children?

  The apartment, he decided, was well suited to his needs.

  Now here he was, dressed in chinos and a pale blue shirt, brown walking shoes. The uniform of the forgettable.

  Not that it mattered. As before, no one had seen him as he made his way into the lobby, elevatored to the fifth floor, and entered the vacant apartment.

  He went to the window. Darkness was falling, but a nearby streetlight threw faint illumination along the park’s edge. The trail itself was barely visible and would be almost impossible to see with the naked eye within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.

  The Night Sniper carried a tiny flashlight, but there was no need for it. The apartment was bright enough for him to see as he removed the custom-made Feinwerkbau target rifle from his backpack and assembled it. Even wearing the thin latex gloves, he could assemble the rifle by feel, and needed no light. He’d once done exactly that in total darkness to amuse himself.

  He attached a magazine to the spare, deadly-looking rifle and made sure there was a round in the breech, then fitted the scope to the barrel. Placing the backpack against the wall where he’d be able to get to it quickly, he kneeled at the window that overlooked the park and raised it about six inches. Cooler evening air flowed into the warm apartment that had probably been closed up all day.

  After adjusting his body so he could remain kneeling comfortably and steadily for a while, he raised the rifle and sighted in on the trail in the park across the street.

  It was much darker now and there were fewer people on the path. Hardly anyone wanted to enter the park after nightfall, and who could blame them? There were dangerous people out there. Human predators.

  Two young men bopped past on the path, wearing gang-banger pants that looked about to be left behind as they talked to each other and waved their arms. One of them was carrying something that looked like a closed umbrella, though there was no rain in the forecast. A man and woman walked past in the opposite direction, moving fast. Half a block down, they climbed over the low stone wall and were out of the park.

  These were not the Night Sniper’s targets. Not worthy of his gift of death.

  There was another figure on the path. A man in dark slacks and a jacket, hands stuffed in pockets. Maybe looking for someone to mug.

  The Night Sniper waited, unmoving. When he saw his target, he’d know it.

  Ah! Here came another figure, jogging slowly through the shadows, almost at a walk. But this figure moved with a practiced, graceful motion. Interesting. Was this the one?

  He leaned forward and peered through the rifle’s infrared scope. A woman. She was young, slender, graceful, her long hair-a braid or ponytail-swaying with each step. Though she was laboring as if she might be in some sort of discomfort, there was a lithe elegance in her every shortened stride.

  This was the one. The chosen.

  He focused in on her, keeping the crosshairs trained on the thickest part of her figure, her torso. He knew the rifle would make noise, but it was doubtful that any other building occupants would suspect that what they heard was interior. And of course he counted on the echoing crack of the shot to add to the city’s fear factor. He wanted people to jump at even slight abrupt sounds that might mean death. What was lightning without thunder?

  Because of her graceful stride, the woman was moving faster than it first appeared. Darker shapes across the street, trees, would soon block his shot. If it was to be tonight, he had to make up his mind.

  He allowed for the faint breeze, calculated his lead, then squeezed the trigger. Thunder cracked and echoed among the tall buildings.

  Target down.

  For a few seconds the Night Sniper studied the prone figure through the powerful night scope. There was no movement.

  Time to leave.

  He recovered the ejected brass casing from the floor and slipped it into a pocket. Then he quickly broke down the rifle and jammed it into his backpack. Carrying the pack in his right hand, he was in the hall, then the elevator and lobby, in less than a minute. Still without being seen.

  There was no one in the lobby, but he didn’t want to take the chance of changing clothes here or in the restroom, as he’d thought he might. Instead, he casually walked outside, noticing that none of the hurrying, obviously uneasy people on the sidewalks had apparently yet been made aware of the woman’s body on the path.

  That made things easier.

  In the deep, dark doorway of a closed and boarded-up Chinese restaurant, the Night Sniper found the darkest point, then with practiced quickness and economy of motion removed his shirt and pants and stuffed them into the backpack, along with the disassembled rifle. He was wearing other clothes beneath them: baggy, filthy-looking pants and an oversize shirt with a torn collar and an unbuttoned cuff. One costume for another. He mussed his hair, put on his well-worn Yankees cap, then slipped his arms through his backpack’s straps and made his way back to the street.

  Now he was a shuffling, homeless soul making his way to the abandoned subway stop where he sought shelter. He looked not at all like the straight-arrow type who’d just exited the building down the street.

  A block away, he lengthened his stride. There was no need to hurry, but he did anyway. Though not so much that he’d attract attention.

  Bobby Mays was seated on his folded blanket, his chipped coffee cup before him, doing business a block off the park, when he heard the shot.

  From his years as a Philadelphia cop, he knew it was a gunshot. Rifle fire.

  Bobby shifted sideways so he could get on his hands and knees, then leaned against the building wall and started working his way to a standing position. He was stiff from sleeping in a doorway most of last night on his blanket, and he’d been panhandling where he was since early evening. His knee hurt where a punk on the prowl had kicked it out of meanness a week ago. His right shoulder ached where the pins had been put in after the accident. As long as his head didn’t hurt the way it often did, he didn’t mind the rest of the pain; it was something he’d learned to live with, and he knew that after he moved around for a while it would lessen.

  He snatched up the cup as he stood, so he wouldn’t have to bend over again, then glanced down at it-about five dollars. Not bad. He stuffed the money into the baggy side pocket of the ancient suit coat he’d found in curbside trash, then raised his face to the sky like an animal testing to pick up the scent. He was trying, as best he could, to determine at least the general direction of the echoing gunshot.

  Curious, and with nothing else to do, he hitched up his belt and began walking unsteadily in the direction of the report. People glanced at him and looked quickly away. No one blocked his path, or said excuse me as they stepped aside to let him pass. Bobby the invisible. Sometimes it seemed he was disappearing even from himself.

  When he reached Central Park West, he could see blue and red flashing lights several blocks down the street, on the side where the park was. The emergency lights might have something to do with the shot he’d heard-might have heard. But there were emergencies all the time in the city. He began moving in that direction.

  That’s when he looked across the street, and there was the homeless man he’d seen at Columbus Circle. Bobby remembered him for the same reason he’d noticed him in the first place. The man was, at a glance, one of the homeless, like Bobby. But a closer look revealed something not quite right about him. He didn’t fit. It was obvious to an ex-cop like Bobby, even if people only glanced at the ragged man and moved out of his way. No one wanted to disturb the man or attract his attention. People with nothing to lose could be dangerous.

  Traffic was heavy, so Bobby didn’t consider crossing the street toward the man. He studied
him from where he stood. The man’s clothes were ragged, stained, and ill-fitting, but they also seemed … clean? But mainly it was the way the man walked. Despite his humble clothing, his stride was purposeful and confident.

  Not right, Bobby thought. Not right at all. The homeless—

  Someone clinked a coin into the cup Bobby forgot he was carrying, startling him, and he lost sight of the man across the street.

  Not that it mattered. Bobby continued walking toward the flashing lights a few blocks down the street.

  When he reached the lights he saw that they belonged to an ambulance and two police cars. Something had happened in the park, on the other side of the low stone wall. Bobby could see uniformed cops standing around, a couple of plainclothes detectives. They had yellow crime scene ribbon strung in a crude rectangle. Bobby couldn’t see what was behind the low wall, what all the excitement was about.

  He thought about moving closer and finding out what was happening, then decided it might be a bad idea. For all he knew, somebody had been mugged by a homeless man. One with beard stubble, wild hair, long dirty fingernails, ragged and soiled clothes, and no known address.

  Who does that describe?

  Bobby decided he’d seen enough. Instead of satisfying his cop’s curiosity, he moved away and began walking back the way he’d come.

  He’d gone only half a dozen steps before he forgot why he’d walked this direction in the first place.

  A shot!

  That’s right; that was why. He’d heard gunfire. Somebody might have been shot.

  Well, that was happening lately, people being shot. Like most New Yorkers, Bobby had been following the Night Sniper case. He heard people talk about the shootings, and he’d been reading about them. Bobby read the papers.

  Slightly used papers, but he read them.

  The problem was, he often had trouble recalling what he’d read.

  This time the note police found taped to the theater seat read, You would be wise to consider another profession.

  “Where was this one found?” Zoe asked.

  She’d heard another note had been located. She was waiting for Repetto and his team in their dank precinct basement office, thinking there was no way to make the place more depressing, when they returned. Either she’d chosen not to sit or had risen when she heard them coming. Meg thought Zoe looked tired. Her eyes were puffy, and her long red hair was slightly tangled, as if she hadn’t finished brushing it out.

  “In an off-off-Broadway theater that used to be a produce warehouse,” Repetto said. He tossed a copy of the Night Sniper’s note on his desk for Zoe to read. The lab had the original. Nobody doubted that they’d learn nothing from it. “I’m getting tired of running around town just to find this asshole’s notes.”

  “The theater still smelled like produce,” Birdy said. “Potatoes, I think.”

  “That’s interesting,” Zoe said, slouched down in one of the chairs angled to face the desk.

  “Potatoes?” Meg asked.

  “No, that our guy would choose that kind of theater. What’s playing there?”

  “Something called A Child of his Time,” Repetto said. “The premise is that Rudyard Kipling was secretly Josephine Baker’s real father.” He glanced at Birdy and Meg. “Josephine Baker was-”

  “I know,” Meg interrupted. “A famous African-American beauty who danced in Paris in the twenties and thirties.”

  “The infamous banana dance,” Birdy said.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “She used to do a sexy dance wearing nothing but these bunches of bananas. The French liked it.”

  “Bananas. . a produce warehouse,” Meg said to Zoe. “Is that some way meaningful?”

  “I doubt it,” Zoe said. Her gaze wandered upward. Was that mold in the corner of the ceiling?

  “It smelled like potatoes anyway,” Birdy said. He sat down in the chair next to Zoe’s and began to fidget.

  “Maybe the Night Sniper has more than one reason for making us figure out where he’s hidden his notes,” Zoe said.

  “I thought we’d settled on game playing,” Repetto said. He sat down behind the desk, at eye level now with Zoe. “He’d rather aggravate us than simply mail the note instead of the clue.”

  “He might also want to keep us-us being the NYPD-busy searching theaters instead of searching for him.”

  Repetto thought that over and nodded. “It wouldn’t be so stupid. A lot of good police work hasn’t been done because personnel was walking up and down aisles, examining theater seats.”

  “Maybe there’s a third reason,” Zoe said. “Maybe the play titles have some kind of significance.”

  Repetto sat forward, picked up a pen, and wrote down the titles in the order in which their corresponding notes were found.

  “The plays are all for or about children, or have children or a child in the titles,” he said.

  “Or as cast members,” Meg said.

  Repetto asked her how she knew that.

  “I made it a point to read all but the last play. They’re published and sold at bookstores, or the producers will turn them over if you ask in an official capacity.”

  “Wonderful!” Zoe said. As if Meg were her prize student.

  Repetto knew he should have thought to get the scripts. “That’s good work,” he said.

  Birdy stopped playing an invisible piano on his knees and nodded. “Kudos to my partner.”

  “Maybe coincidence, though,” Repetto said. “There are children in a lot of plays.”

  “And our guy hasn’t killed a child,” Birdy pointed out.

  “Yet,” Meg said.

  Zoe shook her head. “No, our sniper isn’t a child killer. They’re a breed apart.” She looked at Repetto. “And you told me once what cops thought of coincidence.”

  Meg shrugged. “So what’s it all mean?”

  “That’s for you guys to detect,” Zoe said, standing up from her chair.

  “It means something more than game playing’s going on,” Repetto said.

  “Not necessarily,” Zoe said. “But it might mean the game’s more complicated and difficult than we first thought. And maybe we’ll have to play harder.”

  When Zoe was gone, Repetto turned to Meg and Birdy. “She’s right. We can start by trying to find out more about the Candy Trupiano shooting.”

  “It was pretty much the same as the others,” Meg said. “Single shot fired from a distance. Admirable accuracy. And she was killed by an odd-size bullet.”

  “Nobody at the publishing company where she worked thinks the victim had any enemies,” Birdy said, “only friends. You know how it goes. People get killed and achieve sainthood for a while before anybody says nasty things about them.”

  “Such a cynic,” Meg said, but it annoyed her, and kind of scared her, to think he might have something there.

  “We’ll hit the neighborhood again where she was shot,” Repetto said. “Also around where she lived. Talk to her neighbors, or the doormen or shopkeepers who might have been in position to witness the shooting.”

  “Word is she jogged regularly in the park,” Meg said. “Maybe some of the other joggers knew her.”

  “I dunno,” Birdy said. “People don’t tend to strike up conversations when they’re out of breath.”

  “At least the ones who are still jogging might have the balls to speak up if they do know anything helpful.”

  “She has a good point,” Repetto said.

  “The city’s getting more shook,” Birdy said. “People scared of sudden loud noises. The mayor’s catching hell from talk show hosts and TV-news dickheads.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Meg said.

  “Police are catching hell, too,” Birdy said. “And people got a right to be scared.”

  Repetto knew that whether they had a right or not, they were scared.

  Candy Trupiano had been shot at 8:17 PM. The earliest the Night Sniper had claimed a victim, the media had pointed out.

  Begin
ning that night, after 8:30 every night, there would be noticeably fewer people on the streets of Manhattan.

  22

  Alex Reyals came to the door this time wearing faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and in his stocking feet. He needed a shave, so his dark beard seemed almost as long as his buzz-cut hair. He smelled not unpleasantly of turpentine and raw wood.

  “Been upstairs in your workshop?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Yeah, but it’s nothing that can’t wait.” He moved back so she could enter.

  The apartment was neat and clean today, squared up in a way that reminded Meg of military quarters. Definitely the place could use the application of some simple decorating basics. Meg thought Repetto’s wife, Lora, should see this. Lora understood interior decorating and would know a man lived here alone and devoid of color sense.

  On the other hand, Alex must have some sense of color and design. He was more than a simple craftsman and furniture maker; he was an artist. She glanced again at the example of his work in the apartment, the massive, multilayered desk.

  “It’s mahogany,” he said, noticing where she was looking. “Inlaid with teak.”

  “It looks futuristic,” she said, of the desk’s sharply angled planes, “and yet it doesn’t.”

  “It’s the present,” Alex said. “Stuck right in the middle of now.”

  “Waxed slippery and full of angles?”

  “Aren’t you perceptive?”

  “My job.”

  “Sit down,” he invited, motioning toward the sofa. “Want some coffee?”

  “Kind of late for coffee.”

  “I drink it all day long.”

  She declined the coffee, but she sat. “Speaking of my job, I’m interested in where you were two nights ago.”

  He rubbed his unshaven chin. Meg could hear the friction. “I was here.”