John Lutz - Fear the Night

He lay listening to his heartbeat, the occasional noises from the street far below, and the faint sounds of Mary Maureen dressing behind the bathroom door.

Then the door opened on darkness except for the illumination of the dim night-light. She’d switched off the light above the mirror beforehand, not wanting to wake him. He lay with his eyes open, knowing he was in shadow, and observed her move silently across the room, then go out without looking back.

A minute later he heard the soft sounds of the door to the hall opening and closing.

He switched on the lamp by the bed and sat up.

Other than thrown-back sheets, and impressions in the mattress and pillow, there was no sign that the woman had been in bed with him. He climbed out of bed nude and went into the bathroom. No note, no message in lipstick on the mirror. Nothing. He padded quickly, barefoot, into the living room.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The woman had simply left quietly, sneakily.

He wondered if he’d satisfied her. She’d seemed to enjoy everything they’d done. She’d stroked his face as he was fucking her, moaned unintelligible vows. Her passion had been real and transforming.

But she had left him in the night.

He knew what must have happened. She’d seen him for what he’d been, for what he was, the ugliness so near the surface , the differentness.

Some things are indelible, he thought.

Some things are forever.

He cupped his face in both hands, squeezing until it hurt, and he began to sob.

Over an hour passed before he stood up and trudged back to bed. But exhausted as he was, he couldn’t sleep. He climbed out of bed and began to pace, drank a glass of milk, paced some more. Tried to read. Tried to watch television. Paced.

Cleaned his rifles.

A problem. The shot was impossible from the roof, so the Night Sniper decided on another course of action.

The entire top two floors of the Edmont Arms Apartments were being renovated, and a series of terraces were created as the building stair-stepped down. The terrace of one of the top-floor apartments under construction allowed the Sniper to move out another ten feet toward the sidewalk. He wouldn’t be seen there, and the building’s roof could be reached without risking having to break into the apartment.

He simply took the fire stairs to the roof, then lowered himself with a rope down to the terrace. When it was time for him to go, he would simply force open one of the French doors leading inside from the terrace, and leave through the apartment’s door.

He hadn’t been noticed several nights ago when he visited the prospective sniper’s nest to make sure it would be adequate. It was no problem entering the building; one simply had to wait until the lackadaisical doorman was otherwise occupied, smoking or gossiping, then slip in through the tinted glass doors. Doormen paid a great deal of attention to people arriving, but they paid less attention to anyone leaving a building. And they had to see them leave, in order to recall them. The problem was that in leaving, there was no way to know where the doorman would be, or what he would be doing-or what he’d see and remember.

The Night Sniper had experienced no problem entering the building either time, or making his way to the roof, then the terrace. Leaving meant running a slight risk, but it would take days to determine the source of the shot, if it ever were determined. The Night Sniper knew that was all he needed, days, before the police talked to the doorman. If the doorman had happened to notice him leaving, by then memory and description would be questionable. Eyewitnesses were unreliable even under the best of circumstances.

A large bird flapped silently past off to his left, startling him. High for a pigeon, he thought. Maybe it had been a falcon. The Night Sniper knew there were falcons living among the ledges of New York’s tall buildings. The city was a man-made, ideal environment for predators.

He sat down, getting comfortable, then assumed shooting position, using his knee to support his right elbow and steady the rifle. Feeling the high, cool breeze on his back and bare arms, he sighted through his rifle’s night scope. Even from the terrace parapet, this would be a difficult shot from a cross street, vectoring across a triangle at a corner of Central Park, and partially blocked by tree limbs. It might be an impossible shot if the target weren’t seated and still.

It would require patience, waiting for the precise moment, when the shot was not only possible, but couldn’t miss: the confluence of breeze and action and time, when he knew where the bullet would end its flight. The Night Sniper was an observer of people. He knew that in groups of four or fewer there was always a time when conversation flagged, when sound and motion ceased, if only momentarily. A tableau. In that brief moment, the only thing alive with vibrant motion would be the bullet that raced to its target even before the sound of the shot.

The tableau would end in death.

The Night Sniper leaned back, glanced at his watch, then slipped a single round into the rifle’s breech.

And waited.

The evening was ideal for dining outdoors. The maitre d’ showed Lee and Marta to a table near the decorative wrought-iron rail that separated the restaurant’s dining area from the rest of the wide sidewalk.

Fortunately they had reservations. Every one of the round, cloth-covered tables was occupied. As Lee and Marta sat down at the table and a waiter took their drink orders, Lee glanced inside through a window and saw that the restaurant’s interior was less crowded. Only about half the inside tables were in use, and there were fewer than a dozen people at the bar.

But Lee decided it was too pleasant out here to go inside. There was only the slightest breeze. The mild temperature, the soft light from candles burning in the center of each table, the scent of spices, the contented buzz of conversation, was all very seducing. Lee thought that with this kind of ambience, how could anyone not like the food?

Lee Nasad and Marta Kim had made the date two days ago to meet here at Peru North. They were uncommonly busy people, and the location was convenient for both of them. Besides, Marta wanted to try the new Peruvian restaurant everyone at Kolb Research Hospital, where she worked as a forensic medical technician, was raving about.

Though they were casually dressed-Lee in tan pleated pants and a black blazer over a dark pullover shirt, Marta in jeans and a white blouse-and gave no outward appearance of great success, this was a couple about to enjoy the pinnacle of accomplishment.

Their respective climbs had been difficult.

Lee Nasad’s mother was born in Jamaica, making him a first-generation American. A delicate child, and still on the small side, he’d fought his way out of a tough neighborhood in Newark and attended school on grants and scholarships. He earned his MBA from Harvard and made good use of it. Recently he was promoted to financial stocks analyst at Cornog and Stoneman Investments. Lee had always enjoyed writing, and after two failed attempts to break into print, he seemed to have reached out from the carousel of chance and grabbed the golden ring. Where the Money Is, his book on the coming boom in financial stocks, was published six months ago, at approximately the same time his lone and much-derided call for a 20 percent increase in stock prices, led by financials, came to pass.

Lee guested on one financial talk show after another, and his book was on several best-seller lists. The entire experience hadn’t yet sunk in. All of a sudden he was a financial genius, or so people thought. Genius or not, his bloated royalty check arrived from his literary agent last month. He was twenty-eight, rich, and fully invested.