Fear the Night n-5

by John Lutz

Joe had in his possession about a third of a bottle of Pheaser’s Phine Burgundy. Now and then he’d duck into a doorway and take a carefully controlled sip. He suspected that when the wine ran out, his luck for the day would run out at the same time. He didn’t want that to happen before the actors came out of the diner and left their takeout containers. He was hungry.

  So far, he wasn’t worried. The voices had predicted he’d be hungry. Joe laughed and spat on the sidewalk. That was an easy call. Sometimes he wished he could talk back to the voices and actually record their conversation and play it back over and over. But, if he wasn’t mistaken, something about that was against the law.

  It was almost midnight when the actors emerged from the diner. Joe had been seated on the second step of the dark doorway he would occasionally back into to take sips of wine. He didn’t move when they came out the diner door, talking and laughing. His heart fell when he saw no white containers. Most of the actors had on dark clothes, like people wore in New York, as if they were mourning, and if they’d had containers, he would have seen them.

  This wasn’t right! This was goddamned—

  There was a flash of white against Tiffany’s dark jacket.

  Yes! She was carrying a takeout container between her coat and her black purse. That was why Joe hadn’t seen it.

  When the cluster of actors reached the corner, then crossed without waiting for the traffic signal to change, Tiffany unobtrusively and daintily placed the container on top of the day’s trash in the wire receptacle.

  Joe stood trembling, waiting until the shadowy figures had disappeared in vaster darkness down the street; then he hurried toward the trash receptacle.

  It was going to be a good night after all.

  39

  2001

  After Verna’s departure, Dante applied himself all the harder. He focused on himself, on what he could and would do, and thought of the past as what it was-something that no longer existed. It was a delicate and protective attitude, but one he could maintain. If only he didn’t have bad dreams.

  He graduated magna cum laude from ASU in three years, then promptly earned his MBA from the Wharton School. Corporate recruiters saw him as prime cut. A month before his graduation from Wharton, he had a position secured as a bond analyst in the Chicago financial firm of Koch and Banks.

  Dante liked Chicago and was soon making a six-figure salary. Koch and Banks profited from his talents, and was generous in its bonuses and stock options. Investing was a game he found incredibly simple, and his own holdings grew exponentially. He wasn’t yet as rich as he wanted to be, but only because he hadn’t had time. For Dante, money wasn’t going to be a problem.

  At least once a month he returned to the Strong Ranch and saw Adam. His mentor and surrogate father couldn’t have been more proud of Dante, and was still providing a kind of permanent home both physically and spiritually. Though he lived in a luxurious Lakeside Drive penthouse apartment, the ranch remained Dante’s still point in the universe, where he could always retreat to and regenerate himself when life became difficult.

  On one of these visits, when Dante was temporarily escaping a bitter Chicago winter for the warmth of the Arizona sun, Strong seemed markedly older and unlike his usual self. During their stint at the target range, he’d missed almost a quarter of his shots.

  Their rifles propped in the crooks of their arms, the two men were walking side by side toward Strong’s dusty, three-year-old Ford pickup. It was a walk they’d taken together many times, and usually it soothed Dante’s soul. This was how he always saw Adam in his mind, striding tall and powerful alongside him, rifle or shotgun broken down and slung over his shoulder or, as today, cradled in the crook of an elbow. The Arizona heat, the sun, the dust he could feel when he licked his teeth, the vast expanse of sky stretching to distant mountain ranges, it was all part of why he came here. It was reassuring to Dante. It fed the soul.

  “You’re quiet, Adam,” Dante said, “even for you.”

  One, two, three paces before Strong spoke: “I suppose I should tell you things aren’t going well, Dante.”

  Feeling a cold dread, Dante glanced over at him but didn’t break stride. “Your health?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then whatever it is, it’s not serious.”

  “Oh, it’s serious, all right. Most of my money-the ranch’s money-was invested in Global Venue.”

  Dante stopped and stood still. Global Venue was a publicly traded capital management firm that controlled the resources of major clients, including some of the country’s largest pension funds. Global had hedged its clients’ billions of dollars in investments with complex money rate plays, and in an ironic, and illegal, round-robin sequence, with some of Global’s own stock. The company was under federal investigation. Most of its major clients had left, and Global stock had plunged almost 90 percent and would soon be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

  “You mean Global Venue was investing some of your money for you?” Dante asked.

  “Not exactly. I figured I wasn’t smart enough to place my eggs in different baskets myself, so I thought it’d be simplest to buy GV stock. When the trouble started with the government, the accusations and indictments, I kept thinking the stock would stop falling, that I could recoup at least some of my losses. This was one of the biggest companies in the world, Dante. It was about to become one of the Dow Thirty.”

  Dante rested a hand on his rifle’s warm walnut stock and shook his head sadly. “I don’t need to tell you, you can’t sell was about to.”

  Adam looked off to the left where a turkey vulture circled in the blue void beyond the ranch house. “They’re right when they say the hardest thing about investing’s knowing when to sell.”

  “I. . we never talked about it, Adam. I knew about your wealth and assumed you were a sophisticated investor, or that what you had was in a trust.”

  “I took it out of the trust some years ago, when I saw so many people I knew getting rich overnight on tech stocks. Thought I could build up some wealth and put it in the ranch. Even managed to do that some. You notice the new dam and culvert to divert water when the arroyo floods?”

  Dante had noticed. He figured the object was to eventually create a lake. “You had tech stocks when the bubble burst?”

  “Quite a few of the biggest losers. Peanuts compared to Global Venue stock, though. I’m ashamed to tell you what percentage of my holdings were in that single stock, in a company I thought was internally diversified enough to protect me.”

  “You’re not the only one who made that miscalculation about Global. Lots of smart people rode it up and rode it all the way down. Do you still own the stock?”

  “Yeah. Most of it. For what it’s worth.”

  Dante knew it was worth about five dollars per share and falling. A little over a year ago, Global Venue’s stock price had been over eighty dollars per share.

  “I’ve been selling my shares off a little at a time to keep the ranch going. We’ve got eleven kids here now, and three more on the way.” Strong quit staring at the distant vulture and looked at Dante. “You think there’s any chance the stock’ll come back?”

  Dante shifted his weight in the hot sun, not wanting to answer. “It won’t come back. Global’s going down for corporate malfeasance. When the regulators and lawyers are finished with it, some board members will be sent to prison and the government’s gonna dismantle the company. If you hang on to the stock, you might receive par value.”

  “Next to nothing.”

  “About a dime a share. That’s if there’s anything left after bondholders and preferred stockholders take their meager cuts. My guess is none of you is going to get even the dime.”

  “So I should get out?”

  Dante smiled sadly. “You should.” He felt a dark remorse move through him, and an ugly guilt. He’d been paying so much attention to his own affairs, he’d never discussed Adam’s with him. It had seemed like two different worlds, Chicago and the
ranch. Dante had always assumed Adam was well invested, that he’d brought the same common sense and prudence to managing his wealth as he exhibited in every other facet of his life. Dante should have known better. He’d learned that when it came to money, people weren’t always in character. He could have prevented this.

  “Even after I sell,” Strong said, “I’ll be down to my last hundred thousand.”

  “That’s something.”

  “Not much. The ranch is an investment that eats hay, as they say in this part of the country. And the bank’s pressuring me on some loan payments. I’m afraid I’m not good for more than a few more months.”

  “Months?”

  Strong could only swallow. He looked back toward where the buzzard had been circling. There was only empty sky.

  “We can’t let that happen, Adam!”

  “I wish to God I knew how to prevent it.”

  “You’ve taken the first step, Adam. You confided in me.”

  Strong smiled. “I always loved your grit, but not everything’s possible. And the last thing I’d do on earth is borrow money from you, Dante. Not that anything other than a financial transfusion from a small country would help.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to know what will help. You’re right, I’m doing well, but much of it’s in options that are locked up for the next few years. I don’t have the kind of money that would bail out the ranch. But I want to see your books, Adam. A financial statement. Everything.”

  “Dante-”

  “This is what I do, Adam. And nobody’s better at it. I want to help. I owe it to you, and we both know that’s a fact.”

  Strong stared hard at the ground, chewing the inside of his cheek. Then he reached out and clutched Dante’s shoulder and squeezed. “All right, Dante. Thank you. I won’t be proud.”

  “Bullshit!” Dante snapped. “You can be proud.”

  Dante had been prophetic. After months of negative publicity, then indictments and a long series of trials, Global Venue was dismantled. Shareholders of the common stock received nothing.

  Dante had reallocated the foundation’s investments, and was beginning to pump financial lifeblood back into the ranch, but no one could have planned for the events of September 11. The terrorist attacks, and the resultant reaction in the markets, devastated the rest of Adam Strong’s holdings.

  There was enough remaining to keep the ranch solvent awhile longer, but while most of the market gradually rebounded, Wall Street seemed to have turned against Adam. Even the skills of Dante Vanya couldn’t prevent foreclosure.

  Adam Strong was ruined. Dante could only watch, and bear some of the responsibility.

  40

  The present

  Joe DeLong waited until Tiffany and the rest of the Candle in the Night cast members had clambered into two cabs that had arrived outside the diner.

  The cab’s taillights flared red, then drew close together and disappeared as the vehicles turned the corner. Joe stepped out of the shadows. The street seemed so silent and empty after the cabs’ departure. It was no surprise. Even Joe, who never watched TV news and seldom read a newspaper or magazine, knew why the streets were less crowded than usual after dark. He’d heard snatches of conversation, and sometimes Tiffany left a folded newspaper with the takeout box, knowing Joe could use it to insulate his thin clothing if the night grew cool. Even if you only used newspaper to wrap fish or help stay warm, it was difficult not to have read at least something about the Night Sniper.

  Joe waited for his hip to stop aching from standing so long in the dark doorway; then he shuffled along the sidewalk in the direction the cabs had gone. He’d seen Tiffany leave the group outside the diner and walk down to the corner where the trash receptacle sat near the traffic signal. He knew where she was going; she’d often done this before for him. He’d watched as she placed a takeout container on top of the day’s refuse before hurrying back to the others.

  And there was the takeout box, one of the square flat kind, resting right on top of the trash that filled half the wire container. He reached down and lifted the white foam box, surprised by its weight.

  When he opened it, he smiled. Inside were two large slices of pizza, the thick-crusted kind with sausage and mushrooms. They were still warm. Joe had been hungry; now the aroma of the pizza made him ravenous.

  He moved away from the brightly lit corner, wolfing down the pizza as he walked, then sat on the concrete steps of a boarded-up shop halfway down the block and licked his fingers before starting on the cloverleaf roll that was in the box with the pizza. If only he had something to drink, a cold beer, life would be perfect for a while. That was all other people had, Joe knew, a perfect moment now and then in an imperfect world.

  It wasn’t so late that he couldn’t walk to where there were more people, then set up on the sidewalk and wait for contributions. Or maybe he could use the ethnic approach, walk up to someone who was obviously Jewish or Asian or Hispanic and plead for enough money to buy chicken soup or chop suey or a burrito. Of course, what Joe would buy was a bottle. Beer if it was all he could afford, wine if he got lucky.

  He was about to stand up and set out for brighter, busier streets when the voices began. They were trying to tell him something, but it was as if they were speaking another language. It was a language Joe knew, if only he could focus his thoughts.

  He decided to make his way to the Aal Commerce Building and sit beneath its tower.

  Maybe there he could understand the voices.

  The Night Sniper decided not to interrupt the beggar’s last meal. Besides, where the Sniper was set up to fire the fatal shot, it would be better if the target came closer. For several nights the Sniper had observed the beggar and knew his habits. When the destitute man had eaten his fill and did get up to go elsewhere, the odds were he’d move in this direction, toward the waiting rifle. And if he did happen to set out in the other direction, the shot would be only slightly more difficult. A second bullet might be necessary.

  The beggar set aside the white takeout box and sat with his head bowed, as if listening to something. Then he stood up slowly, as he always did, and waited for the stiffness in his body to abate, as he always did, and began walking.

  With the odds. With fate.

  Toward death.

  The Night Sniper steadied the rifle and sighted through the night scope at the slowly approaching figure on the dark street below. The night was still, and the target was walking so slowly and at such a slight angle, it was almost unnecessary to lead him.

  The Sniper was patient. He’d sense when the moment arrived, when his finger should tighten ever so slightly on the trigger, almost of its own volition.

  Patience. . patience …

  Once he sighted in, the moment always arrived.

  The voices were louder, urgent, a cacophony so frantic it was almost a buzzing. Joe still couldn’t make out what they were saying, but somehow he knew it was important. The pizza and bread had made him dry, and he tried not to think about how thirsty he was as he listened to the voices. The message, the answer, was so nearly understandable beneath the buzzing.

  There! Something. .

  He paused and bowed his head, listening, listening. .

  Tiffany was in the back of the cab that stopped five blocks from Candle in the Night to drop off Yancy, where he lived with his uncle who wasn’t really his uncle. John Straithorn, the producer and theater manager, actually lived closer to the theater than Yancy, but he’d arranged for the cab’s route so he’d be alone with Tiffany. Tiffany had listened to his circuitous instructions to the driver and pretended not to notice.

  As soon as Yancy was inside his building, and the cab made a sharp U-turn to drive back the way it had come, Straithorn kissed Tiffany on the ear. As she turned her head away, she smiled. She knew what was in his mind. He had only a short time to convince her she shouldn’t go home, but should spend the night with him in his apartment. While the cab was bouncing over potholes and accelerating to make t
raffic lights, he’d be working desperately to make the deadline.

  She knew he’d make it.

  The cab was only a block away from Straithorn’s loft, and Tiffany was locked in a frantic kiss with Straithorn, when the lovers heard a sharp, echoing report over the roar and rattle of the cab.

  Neither paid it the slightest attention.

  On the cruel streets of New York, Joe DeLong had somehow survived frostbite, beatings, near starvation, the voices of madness, and episodes of violence with real or imagined enemies.

  The beggar man didn’t survive the bullet fired by the Night Sniper.

  41

  Meg watched the ambulance make its way to the end of the block and turn the corner. Driving slowly through the gray dawn, with emergency lights and siren muted, the vehicle was a somber sight. Across the street from the crime scene, a group of onlookers stood quietly like mourners. The police hadn’t yet identified the homeless man found shot to death on the sidewalk, but he was almost certainly a victim of the Night Sniper.

  “The beggar man,” Birdy said next to Meg.

  “Down on his luck as far as he could go,” Meg said.

  A ten-year-old but immaculate black Buick rounded the corner and parked in a loading zone. Repetto’s personal car that Lora usually drove. As Meg and Birdy watched, Repetto climbed out of the hulking car and straightened up as if his back hurt, then walked toward them. He had a long raincoat on today to guard against the forecast of showers, and with the gray light behind him he reminded Meg of one of those western movie gunfighters wearing a duster.

  “Looks like he just rode in on a horse,” Meg said.

  Birdy glanced at her. “Huh?”

  When Repetto got closer and his shirt and tie were visible, the effect was lost. Meg decided not to explain it to Birdy.

  Repetto nodded to them and looked over at the techs and ME departing the scene, then at the bloody concrete where the body had lain. A radio car was parked at the curb and a uniform was still standing guard near the crime scene tape that would soon be removed so the sidewalk could be hosed down.