John Lutz - Fear the Night

“Screw it!” Candy said, and continued dressing for her regular run.

She was young and strong and trained in hand-to-hand combat. There was no reason she should be afraid of the dark or anyone it might conceal. And she sure as hell had a perfect right to jog in the park-her park-whatever the hour.

When she was dressed to run, she tied back her long dark hair in a ponytail, then went into the kitchen and got a plastic bottle of water to sling in a holster at her waist. She went through the living room, then out into the hall, locking her apartment door behind her. Bending gracefully from the waist, she slid her apartment key into a small, Velcro-flapped pouch attached to her right shoelace. The pouch also contained a tightly folded twenty-dollar bill and a slip of paper with her name and address on it. She would have money in an emergency, and she could be identified, if anything happened to her. An oxygen deficiency or low blood sugar crisis might cause her to lose consciousness for a while.

It was wrong to be afraid, she thought, but right to be careful, as she jogged through lengthening shadows the three blocks to the park entrance.

Not far away, at Columbus Circle, Bobby Mays sat on a folded blanket with a chipped coffee cup before him. He hadn’t eaten since wolfing down half a doughnut this morning, but that wasn’t what was bothering him. He was plenty used to being hungry, and if he got hungry enough he could make his way to one of the shelters and take his chances on being assaulted or robbed in his sleep, in exchange for a genuine meal.

What Bobby needed was his medicine, his Xanax-that was what was working now. Working better than the rest of his meds, anyway. He glanced down at the few bills and change in the chipped cup. Not enough for his purposes. Not yet.

He didn’t want to go to illegal drugs, and the last thing he wanted to become was an alky. But now and then he smoked a joint, or found what was left of a bottle and had to drink it. It turned off the pain machine for a brief period.

It would be dark soon. He examined the cup’s contents more closely-three one-dollar bills, two dimes, and a couple of quarters. Not nearly enough to get his prescription filled.

Bobby was afraid that if he had the opportunity, he might forget about begging enough money to pay for the Xanax and steal some of it. From a hospital, pharmacy, doctor’s office, anywhere. That would be a last resort, and just thinking about it bothered him, because in another life, in another city, he’d been a cop, and a good one.

He’d been a husband and father, too.

Maybe not such a good husband or father, because he’d been driving when the accident happened. He’d gotten his family killed. He killed his family. His family-

Margie dead beside him with her mouth and eyes so wide, little Midge swimming in blood without a-

Staring at him, but that was impossible.

Don’t think about this! Don’t go there! Stay away!

Impossible.

The oil dripping. The blood? He couldn’t be sure. Dripping and ticking as if it were meting out time, only time had run out.

Not his time, though. That wasn’t fair to anyone.

What the fuck’s fair got to do with it? Fair’s in another world, on another planet. Not where I am.

“You oughta think about it, Bobby. Work it out so you can understand.”

My voice?

He rubbed his forearm across his eyes. Gotta think about it.

No!

He tried to shake his mind loose from that trap but couldn’t quite do it. He was stuck there again, as he was so often, while being eaten away from the inside. Guilt was like acid. It was more like acid than acid. Drip. . drip. . drip. .

A coin clinked in the cup and he automatically muttered a thank-you.

New York, not Philadelphia. What the fuck was I thinking about?

The man who’d spared the change didn’t look back.

When people did look at Bobby-which, as any of the homeless would tell you, was rare, the homeless being invisible-they sometimes remarked on how young and handsome he was, and how presentable he’d be if he cleaned up, on what a shame it was, a young man like that. Ruined. No more. He knew by their eyes what they were thinking, that he was no longer human.

That was how it felt to Bobby to be homeless. He was other than human now. And it was what he deserved.

Bobby worked his way to a kneeling position on his blanket, then managed to stand, the bunched blanket in one hand, the chipped collection cup in the other. He didn’t have enough money for the Xanax, or for a joint he could buy-thought he could buy-to help him through the coming night. He realized he didn’t know where to go to buy the joint, though he remembered who he should see. He had a cop’s memory for faces, just not times anymore, whole days.

Sometimes yesterdays simply didn’t exist for Bobby. The head injury from the car accident, the headaches that came with memories, the guilt, the guilt. All of that was real and never went away for good.

“Jesus!” he said softly.

But he’d tried Jesus and hadn’t found the answer. He thought there might not be an answer.

No yesterday for Bobby. No help for tonight. Enough money for a subway card, though. He could get it from one of the machines and ride the lines, steal some sleep, and hope none of the violent ones would steal what little he had, or kill him because he had so little and was a disappointment.

He took a few shuffling steps, then stopped.

There was something about the man on the other side of the street, another of the homeless, judging by his clothes-his ragged long coat too warm for the weather, his faded backpack that probably held all he owned-and his demeanor.

There’s a word I haven’t used in a long time. Demeanor. .

Demeanor!

That was what was wrong. The man on the opposite sidewalk looked like one of the homeless, one of Bobby’s lost brotherhood, only he didn’t look like one. Bobby had been a Philadelphia cop long enough to be brought up short when something didn’t look quite right. And this guy-he was gone now, turned a corner-was walking too fast, with a stride too confident. As if he had some place to go.

None of the homeless had some place to go.

Well, the man was gone.

If he’d ever really been there.

Bobby was beginning to wonder. Some of the things that had happened to him lately made him wonder. It could be the man hadn’t been real.

Forgetting the man, Bobby ambled slowly and painfully toward the subway stop up the street. People passing in the opposite direction glanced at him, through him, this shambling young man with the shock of unruly curly hair, the five-day-old beard, the dirt-stained face and lost eyes. Sometimes people whispered, making sympathetic or cruel remarks. Bobby continued on his way, not paying attention to them, not hearing them, not remembering if he had heard them. Bobby with yesterdays too slippery to grasp, losing his todays. Tomorrow was his birthday, but he wasn’t at all aware of it. Bobby didn’t know what month it was, much less what day.

He’d be thirty-one years old.

Repetto and Lora were in Mama Roma’s, having salad and house Chablis while they waited for their pasta. The dinner crowd was at its peak, and every table was occupied. The aromas of the kitchen, dominated by garlic, were in the air.

Lora sipped her wine, then stared over the rim of her glass at Repetto. “You look pensive. What are you thinking?”

“How we used to eat here with Dal.”

Lora finished her wine in one swallow. “That’s what I was thinking. Zoe says she’s learning more about him all the time.”

Repetto knew that by him , Lora didn’t mean Dal. He pushed away his irritation. He didn’t come here to grieve Dal, or to think about the Night Sniper. “Either that or she’s learning more about somebody she’s invented who doesn’t exist.”