John Lutz - Fear the Night

Repetto and his team were still standing in front of the theater. It looked as if they were studying the message that had been taped beneath the theater seat. Repetto was holding what appeared to be a slip of paper while Meg was pointing to it and talking. When she was finished, Birdy Bellman began to speak. Repetto was the listener. It amused the Night Sniper to see them standing there discussing his message. If they only knew, they could simply walk half a block down and discuss it with the man in the dark beret and sunglasses. If they only knew.

Repetto refolded the message, then slipped it into what looked like a plastic folder-an evidence bag-and slid it into an inside pocket of his sport coat. When the coat flapped open, the Night Sniper got a brief view of a handgun in a tan leather shoulder holster.

The three detectives crossed the street toward a white Ford sedan, their unmarked car for the day. Detective Meg got in behind the steering wheel. Repetto sat up front on the passenger side, Bellman in the rear.

The Night Sniper watched as the car’s tailpipe emitted faint dancing fumes. A few seconds later it pulled away from the curb.

He had his own car parked nearby, but he made no attempt to follow. He’d come here to make sure they’d figured out the correct theater, that they were moving along the tracks he’d laid. Mission accomplished. Anyway, he knew where all three of the detectives lived, knew more about them than they dreamed. If he wanted them, he could find them.

Right now, he didn’t want to find them. He had other things to do.

He glanced at his watch and began walking down the block at a brisk pace. He had a luncheon engagement, and he didn’t want to be late.

Zoe’s apartment this time. Her new lover wasn’t only handsome, he somehow knew precisely what she wanted, and how much and when and where. She lay on her back, her bare legs clamped around his sweating body as he thrust into her again and again. Her arms were twisted over her head and somehow he managed to clasp both her wrists together with one powerful hand as he skillfully altered his rhythm and force so she remained on the edge of her third orgasm. Each time she almost climaxed he tightened his grip on her arms so the brief pain brought her back; then he slowly began to take her up again. The bedsprings sang as if in accompaniment to the internal crescendos of her body. Even as she lay there suffering so wonderfully, a part of her thought that he must have a lot of experience to be so good at this.

He drove into her harder and more determinedly, relentlessly, and she knew that this time he would let her reach the peak.

Afterward she was too exhausted to move. He released her limp arms, kissed her perspiring forehead, then unwound her legs from around him and rolled off to lie beside her. The ceiling fan played cool air over the length of her sweat-damp body. She felt empty. Spent. When she tried to speak, she was unable to find words. She turned to him, and as if expecting it, he kissed her lips, then the tip of her nose, and lay back. It was like a routine he’d practiced.

“You’re all right?” he asked.

“Better than,” she said, her breath still ragged.

He propped himself up on an elbow and gazed down at her. “You’re a wonderful creation, Zoe.” She felt his hand slide over her left breast, gently squeezing her nipple, then moving lower.

“I’m a creation that’s going to be late for work,” she told him with a weak smile, grasping his wrist.

He immediately withdrew his hand, knowing when not to pressure her. “Want to shower together?”

“I should say no, but I won’t.”

“That’s my Zoe.”

She was, of course, much later getting back to her office than she’d planned.

She also hadn’t planned on drinking a martini and two glasses of wine at lunch, then going to her apartment and getting her brains fucked out. The drinks they’d taken into the shower hadn’t helped, either. She was sure she no longer smelled of sex, and wasn’t tipsy enough for anyone to notice, but it wouldn’t hurt if she had about an hour alone in her private office to let the effects of the afternoon wear off.

After telling her assistant she wasn’t to be disturbed, especially not for phone calls, she closed her office door and went to her desk. She had to be especially wary of the phone, since she might unintentionally slur a word. Settling back in her leather desk chair, she sighed. Now she was getting sleepy. Great.

Resolution: No more love in the afternoon. It’s all too. . inebriating.

She caught herself smiling and felt a twinge of anger. What was she thinking? It made more sense to chastise herself. She covered her face with her hands, which were unexpectedly cool.

Damn, I didn’t want this to happen today. Where was my vaunted willpower? Am I sorry it happened? Of course not. Okay, then. You’ve been a big girl for a long while. Stop your bitching, Zoe. Self-recrimination is nothing if not self-defeating.

How does he do this to me?

Peeking through her fingertips, she saw a file folder on her desk that hadn’t been there when she left … over two hours ago.

She leaned forward and opened the folder. Repetto had sent her a copy of the latest Night Sniper theater note, as they’d agreed. It had been located in a theater called Candle in the Night. She picked up the note and read. The show will go on.

She smiled. Substitute “game” for “show.” He was taunting them now. The note was the kind of thing that must make Repetto furious. He was like so many of the old-time, hard-ass cops. Dinosaurs. Too proud for their own good.

But one thing about them was, they never gave up. Never. And when it came to focused and applied obsession, Repetto was their leader.

Zoe sat back in her comfortable leather desk chair and wondered if the Night Sniper truly understood that about Repetto. Repetto might seem primal, but he was locked onto his target like a heat-seeking missile, and the Night Sniper was burning hotter and hotter with his own detectable obsession.

She fell asleep wondering.

Some of the actors who played at Candle in the Night ate regularly at the diner on the corner. Like most actors, they’d had their hard times, and they knew homeless Joe DeLong and helped him out whenever they could. Joe had told them he’d been an actor himself long ago. He knew they didn’t believe him. But then they couldn’t completely dis- believe him.

Joe would do his panhandling across the street from the diner, a bit diagonally so the people in the window booths wouldn’t have to look at him whenever they glanced outside. At the same time, he wanted people to know he was there. Often, after the ten o’clock curtain for whatever was playing now at the theater, half a dozen of the actors, including Tiffany Taft, the star, would make their way to the diner for a late-night snack.

Tiffany was in her twenties, with bright blond hair and wide blue eyes to go with a gorgeous figure. Not scrawny like a model, but with lots of curves, the way Joe liked his women. Whenever he thought about women these days. He’d studied her on the blown-up photo on the show poster in front of the theater. He liked the sassy way she stood, with her knees locked and her rear end stuck out. He liked the way she pouted up her little mouth. There wasn’t much he didn’t like about Tiffany.

And she must like him, at least a little. She’d smiled at him once. And when she ate at the diner, he could count on her leaving a white takeout container on top of the trash receptacle on the corner.

After they’d all departed, Joe would pick up the takeout boxes left by the actors, but he was always careful to know which one was Tiffany’s. She sometimes left him almost complete portions. Once he’d even found a chocolate after-dinner mint in with some untouched pizza slices.