John Lutz - Fear the Night

“Sure they do. Anyway, like you said, once a cop. .” Bobby glanced meaningfully at the incriminating box full of stolen wares.

Meander straightened up from the wall, somehow still slouching. “You fuckin’ threatenin’ me?”

“Just pointing out about how favors work between friends.” Bobby was threatening him and both men knew it. Bobby twisting an arm, working the street again. Bobby back on the Job. It felt good, throwing a scare into a booster like Meander. It felt right.

“Now, that the kinda deal a cop makes,” Meander said. “Do the favor or fuckin’ else. That what you’re sayin’, Bobby, my man? That what I’m hearin’?”

Bobby merely stared at him. Fixed him with the dead-eyed look that might mean anything, including explosive danger.

“Maybe I got a spare phone at that,” Meander said, squinting slightly as if for the first time bringing Bobby into focus. “Be an Amickson clamshell, ob- tained yesterday.”

“Never heard of an Amickson.”

“It be a good brand, made in North or South some country or other.”

“Does it work?”

Meander appeared internally injured. “Do it work ? Fuckin’-A right it work! Ain’t no Mo- torola or No- kia. Tha’s why it’s cheap, why we can do the deal. That an’ I got no way to charge up the motha.”

“Huh? You wanna sell me a dead phone with no way to charge the battery?”

“Dead? Ain’t dead, man. I say dead? Got some power left. Got a rabbit.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Battery indicator uses little rabbit icons. Five rabbits be fully charged. You got a whole rabbit left. Might last a few minutes, maybe an hour. Hell, you might be buyin’ half a dozen phone calls. Cheap at the price. Couldn’t sell it at such a discount, ‘cept it was dropped. I acquired it myself, an’ no sooner it hit the pavement, I put it right back together.”

“You mean you dropped it when you were running away from whoever you stole it from.”

Meander scratched his head. “That what I mean?”

“Anything else I should know about this phone?”

“Nothin’. Oh yeah, the six don’t work. Button don’t press no more.”

Bobby summoned up the phone number he might have to call. “That’ll be okay. Just the six not working?”

“Got my fuckin’ word. You a good customer, Bobby, so why’m I gonna piss you off?”

“Amusement?”

Meander chuckled. “Fuckin’ ’musement!” He turned and rummaged around in the box, then held up the phone for Bobby to see. Small, black, with blue buttons. It looked okay, though it wasn’t the clamshell flip type as Meander had said. Lying could become an addiction.

Bobby leaned closer and peered. The 6 looked like all the other buttons. The phone appeared not to have been dropped hard enough to damage the case or cause much interior damage. There were small red letters across the top. “Amickson,” Bobby read aloud. The script looked Gothic. The screen glowed and a small rabbit appeared in the upper left-hand corner. One of its ears appeared to be missing.

Meander did a tight little dance. “You want it or not? Gotta get off the stool, man. No more negotiation. I’m doin’ business here an’ the shit I sell’s of the highest quality. Tell the truth, you ain’t shoppin’ Cadillac, ’cause you one po motha. You want a phone be an off-brand, got no spare battery that’ll fit it, got no charger an’ jus’ a little charge, no number six button-price be ten dollars. An’ it’s guaranteed. It don’t work, you can bring it back.” Meander grinned. “Ain’t about to git your money back, though.”

Bobby fished the ten dollars-three crumpled bills and the rest in change-from his pocket and handed it over. “You’re all heart, Meander.”

“All head’s what I be. All business. Anyways, what difference it make? What party a loser like you gonna call? What you up to, Bobby? You talkin’ to Mars? Or maybe Ur- anus?”

“Maybe Mars,” Bobby said.

“Well, here’s your space phone.” He stuffed the money from Bobby in his pocket before handing over the phone. “Be the special of the day, price you paid. Now git on. I don’t want no homeless motha hangin’ round, be bad for business. I’m done with charity for today.”

“Charity? I thought you didn’t have a heart.”

“Huh? I say that?”

Bobby slipped the phone into the pocket that had carried the money to buy it, then nodded to Meander and moved away down the street.

Considering what the ten dollars might have bought, the phone could be a bargain.

If it worked when it was needed. If the rabbit didn’t die.

Lora was perched on the window seat, her back to Bank Street. Her shoulders were hunched, helping to add ten years to her age in the failing light, and her gaze was solemn.

She said, “This is driving me goddamned crazy, Vin.”

“Both of us,” Repetto said, pacing.

“Why don’t we go grab her by both arms and force her out of that apartment? That death trap?”

“That’d be against the law.”

“Then we break the fucking law!”

Repetto stopped pacing to face his wife squarely. “She’d go back. She can do that. She would do that.”

Lora lowered her gaze to the floor. “This is your decision, not mine.”

“It’s Amelia’s decision,” Repetto said. “If it was mine, it’d be the same as yours.”

After a long pause, Lora said, “You’re right.” She began shaking her head from side to side. “It’s just so damned hard to swallow.”

Repetto began pacing again, wondering if she really had swallowed it. Beyond her hunched form framed by the window, he watched night begin to fall.

Just from reading the papers it hadn’t been hard for Bobby to figure out the identity of the Sniper’s next intended victim. And to know from reading between the lines that Amelia Repetto might still be in town, refusing to be run off by fear.

If true, she was one gutsy young lady. Not stupid, from everything Bobby had read about her, so it must be courage.

Bobby had figured out her address easily from what they said about her neighborhood in the paper, and from the A. Repetto listed in the phone directory. Easy for him, easy for the Sniper. Bobby knew how the police would think, how they’d lay out their protection. He was walking the neighborhood of Amelia’s apartment, not getting too close, prowling the perimeter and gradually working his way inward. The lowering evening was cool enough to be comfortable, moonlit and without much of a breeze. A shooter’s night.

He touched the hard plastic of the cell phone in the pocket where he usually kept the handouts he’d garnered. He thought about the Sniper. And Amelia Repetto. So maybe this’ll be the night. Or maybe he’ll let her sweat awhile longer. Let everybody sweat.

Or maybe she wasn’t sweating. At twenty-one, he’d thought nothing could kill him. Amelia Repetto might still feel she was immortal.

All the more dangerous.

Bobby had a feeling about tonight. His rusty instincts from when he was a cop in Philly were working well and governing his actions, his plan.

He felt good tonight. Meander had been right with his “once a cop always one” remark. Even a dickhead like Meander had that one figured out.

Bobby was back even though he’d never really been away.

Tonight, every night, he was a cop.

“I know I shouldn’t call and tie up her line,” Lora said. “I’ll call her cell phone.”

She was on the cell phone now. With Repetto. He was in an unmarked vehicle half a block down from his house, where Lora was inside and on the phone, but she didn’t know that. A radio car would arrive soon to take his place. Lora had to have police protection, too. In case the Sniper’s stated intention to try for Amelia was a feint. Repetto and Lora hadn’t discussed that possibility, but he knew she must be aware of it.