John Lutz - Fear the Night

“Because I’m a cop working an open homicide case. A lot of open homicide cases.”

“And I’m a suspect?”

“Back to that again, are we? I’m not worried about you being a suspect.”

“Then you’re worried about what would happen to your career if someone found out about us.”

“No. Well, yes. But that’s not all. It simply isn’t right. We’re goddamn adults, Alex. We can wait until this investigation is closed.”

“ You called me , Meg.”

“Because sometimes I’m stupid.”

“I don’t think so. But what if the investigation’s never closed? I’ve been a cop, Meg. I know how many unsolved homicides there are out there. How many nutcase killers are never caught. This sicko might stop killing people; then the news about him would taper off, something else newsworthy would happen, and that’d be that.”

“He isn’t going to stop. He can’t.”

“Because some profiler says so?”

“No. Because I say so. You don’t know all the details or you’d agree.”

The sigh again, like a rush of warm air in her ear. “Okay, Meg. But I’m glad you called. You don’t know how glad.”

“I hope as glad as I am. When this is over. .”

“Until then, do you want to have phone sex?”

“Alex!”

He was laughing.

“Phone sex wouldn’t be bad,” she said, “but I’m too busy.”

“Right after I met you, Meg, I bought a bottle of the best champagne I could find, and I’m keeping it iced up for as long as it takes until you’re back here with me. Until we’re together. Really together.”

“Alex-”

She heard a noise from the bedroom.

“I have to hang up,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“I understand. Call again when you can. Promise me.”

Meg didn’t answer, but quickly broke the connection and slipped the phone back into her purse.

The bedroom door opened and Amelia stood there. She was barefoot and her clothes were wrinkled from her time in bed. Her hairdo was flat on one side. Her eyes and forehead were reddened and she held the ice-filled compress in her right hand. She was squinting either from the comparatively bright light or because of pain, and had her head tilted back slightly as if from the weight of her long braid.

“Headache better?” Meg asked.

“Monstrous,” Amelia said. “I need more ice.”

Meg rose to get it for her.

An RMP car patrolled the blocks south of the Repetto apartment, while another drove regularly back and forth along the blocks to the north. All the while the precinct car regularly assigned to that area drove its usual routes, with the addition of several passes in front of the apartment containing Amelia Repetto and Meg. There were undercover cops borrowed from the Vice Enforcement Division at each end of the block, one hanging around the deli, the other in a parked cab that wasn’t really a cab. Inside the Repetto apartment with Amelia was Meg. Across the street in another, vacant apartment was Birdy, watching the street. Repetto oversaw it all, roaming the area in a five-year-old Dodge minivan borrowed from the Motor Transport Division. If anything suspicious occurred, more NYPD could be called in to seal off the area as quickly and completely as possible.

The life of the neighborhood had to go on with at least the outward appearance of normality. Though darkness had closed in and there were fewer people and vehicles on the streets than there would be without the Night Sniper threat hanging over the city, the area seemed no different essentially from any other New York neighborhood. Delivery vehicles made their stops with takeout food, taxis haunted the streets like restless yellow spirits, the homeless wandered, lovers strolled, late workers straggled home from their jobs.

Bumping along in the dirty white minivan that had been confiscated after a drug bust, Repetto knew it could all change in a moment. The trap was set.

He didn’t like to think about the bait.

Question was, how far could she trust Nancy Weaver?

Answer was, she didn’t know but had to find out.

Zoe sat at a corner table in P.J. Clark’s and waited nervously for Weaver. Before her was a glass of Guinness from which she’d taken exactly three sips. She desperately needed something to relax her, but she also desperately needed to have a clear head when Officer Weaver arrived.

It was Zoe who’d requested the meeting. Zoe who’d been unable to sleep since the night the mayor was shot. Zoe who’d gotten rotten drunk at home when she realized what must have happened. Her finger touched the cold beer glass. Only touched.

It was drink that had helped get her into this horrible mess. So easy to see now, when it was too late. But still she hadn’t learned.

She shouldn’t have ordered the Guinness. But she couldn’t climb on the wagon all at once. She goddamn needed something .

Maybe a bullet in the head, if she couldn’t convince Weaver to cooperate with her.

She almost did take a drink when she realized the idea didn’t seem so far-fetched.

Zoe hadn’t caught on at first when she learned the Sniper had fired at the mayor from a setback roof of the Marimont Hotel. She’d entered the same hotel shortly before the rifle shot. When the bullet had struck the mayor, she was cozily ensconced in the hotel’s plush restaurant, having her first cocktail.

A coincidence. One not necessarily worth mentioning.

Then, in a later report, she’d read the room number: 2233 . She actually almost fell out of her chair.

Zoe had known what it meant even before reasoning it out. Suite 2233 was where she and Otto (Everyone calls me Ott) Smith had gone after dinner and dancing in the hotel restaurant. It was where they’d made violent and passionate love. After their lovemaking he’d admitted to her his real name wasn’t Smith, but Eperrepinsi, an old Sicilian family name that became his German mother’s married name; he seldom used it because it was difficult to pronounce and confused people. There was also an old story about his grandfather being executed by the Mafia for conducting an affair with the don’s wife.

It seemed to amuse him, finally letting her in on his secret. Now she understood why.

She reached for the glass of beer with a trembling hand, then withdrew it. She was staring at the end of her career and the ruination of her life. What she needed wasn’t more alcohol-it was Weaver. Rather, Weaver’s understanding and cooperation. Zoe knew she’d better keep herself together for the most important conversation of her life.

Weaver had come through the bar and was standing at the restaurant entrance. She wasn’t in uniform-working plainclothes for the assignment she’d been given of finding and questioning competition target shooters. She looked businesslike in a blue skirt, white blouse, and sensible black shoes. Her hair was short and dark and purposely mussed in a spiky way that made her look devilish. From everything Zoe’d heard about her, she was devilish. Devilish and ambitious. Not so unlike Zoe. Zoe was counting on that.

Weaver saw her, smiled, and walked across the restaurant to the table. Male heads turned. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but there was something about her; men sensed a vitality in her that was unmistakably sexual.

By all accounts, Weaver made good use of it.

She sat down opposite Zoe, placed a dark purse on the table, and nodded, still with the smile.

“I’m glad you could come,” Zoe said. “Buy you a drink? Something to eat?”

“Diet Coke,” Weaver said, playing it safe and not drinking alcohol on duty. A hovering waiter heard her and hurried off to fill her order.

“How are you doing in your effort to track down target shooters in the area?” Zoe asked, after a few minutes of nervous small talk.