John Lutz - Night Victims

When she’d arrived here from Cincinnati five years ago, she’d somehow known that this city was hers on a plate. The tempo and tumult of Manhattan made some people nervous, but from the very first day, Neva found it all strangely soothing.

It was working on her that way now.

Maybe she’d have a better sense tomorrow afternoon of where the Handleman dilemma was going, when she had another meeting with him scheduled.

Also attending the meeting would be his superiors at Massmann Container. They didn’t figure to be leeches like Handleman, and she could size them up, see who might help her if Handleman forged ahead despite her warning signals and tried to get physical. Probably she could figure out who at the meeting disliked Handleman.

Surely somebody else saw through him as she did. And she couldn’t be the first woman he’d tried to pressure.

When Neva reached the Weldon Tower, she was still irritated by this development in what had promised to be a smooth and profitable contract agreement with Massmann Container.

The doorman, whose name she’d found out was Bill, nodded and smiled at her automatically as he held open the door for her, then did a kind of double take. What must her face look like, she wondered, after the dark thoughts she’d been harboring. She said hello and smiled back at Bill, noticeably melting him, as she entered the lobby and made her way to the elevators.

Don’t be such a worrier, she told herself as she stepped into an elevator that had been at lobby level. She pressed the forty button harder than was necessary. You can handle a creep like Handleman. You’re a lot brighter than he is. Hell, you’re even in Mensa. Maybe if you can’t deal with a problem like this, you don’t deserve the Massmann account.

After entering her apartment she carefully locked the door, then kicked off her high-heeled Guccis and walked into the kitchen. She used the ice maker to dump some cubes into a glass, ran some tap water over them, then padded back into the living room to sit on the sofa, sip, and cool down.

She was exhausted, not only from a difficult day’s work but from her simmering anger after her meeting with Handle-man. Sometimes Neva wondered if it was all worth it, if maybe she should accept one of the almost annual proposals of marriage she received and settle down with a husband in the ‘burbs, mow the lawn, and raise some kids. Sometimes she wondered; not often.

In one way or another, every man she met turned out to be a disappointment. She was sure there was one somewhere out there who was compatible with her, who was her equal and saw life as she did, as a challenge. He didn’t have to be rich or handsome; he only had to understand her. To be able, at times, to master her? If ever she met a man like that, she might reshuffle her priorities. Such men were not like public conveyances that came along every so often and pulled to the curb for you. Neva was, in a secret, private part of her mind-sometimes secret even from herself-waiting for such a man, would know him when he arrived in her life. And then. .

There’ll be a time for that kind of living, she told herself. Take life in sequence, that was her plan. And always she had a plan.

Tired as she was, Neva decided not to go out this evening. She’d phone down to the deli she’d discovered two blocks over and have them deliver some of their spicy chicken with rolls and slaw. She was sure she had a wine that would be good with such a meal. After a leisurely dinner alone she’d have some more wine while she watched the Yankees game on television until she was deliciously sleepy.

Bedtime then, probably about the seventh inning. This had been a stressful, tiring day. If necessary, she’d go in to work late tomorrow morning in order to get a good night’s sleep.

Neva wanted to be at her best tomorrow.

That was, after all, what she was about-her tomorrows.

In the darkness, Horn lay silently in bed beside Anne and listened to her breathing, knowing she was awake. He’d met with Rollie Larkin that evening to brief him on the status of the Night Spider case. Rollie had been polite and understanding, but they both knew that, so far, Horn had failed.

The Night Spider was still operating, victims were stacking up, the media were turning up the heat, and the pols were increasing pressure from above. “Dealing with the pressure’s my job,” Rollie’d told Horn, “but you could make it a hell of a lot easier by getting a solid lead on this bastard.” Rollie’s unsubtle way of urging Horn to do his job. At the same time he was reminding Horn the pressure didn’t stop with Assistant Chief of Police Roland Larkin.

“You checked out Luke Altman?” Horn asked.

“Yeah. It was pretty much like checking out Casper the Ghost. The Luke Altmans in our computer banks, as well as the Fed’s, didn’t pan out to be anyone who could be your spook.”

“He didn’t say he was CIA,” Horn reminded Larkin.

“If he had, he wouldn’t be CIA, we can assume.”

“More assumption,” Horn said. “There’s too much of it in this case. I’ll be glad when we get beyond the point of assumptions.”

“To when a jury assumes the bastard’s guilty.”

Horn smiled. “For now, I guess we have to figure Altman is CIA, and his purpose was to assure me the agency had or was investigating any such secret Special Forces unit and would deal with the killer if they found him there.”

“If the Night Spider is a member of the military,” Rollie said, “my guess is he’ll meet with an accident. Maybe die a hero.”

“And if he’s a former member?”

Rollie gave the cold grin Horn recalled from their earlier days in the department, when they were street cops. “Then he’s ours.”

The meeting had run long, and by the time Horn arrived home, Anne was already in bed. He’d undressed quietly, crawled into bed beside her, and listened to her shallow, irregular breathing. Not the deep, rhythmic breathing of sleep. Yet she’d said nothing to him.

“You awake?” he asked softly. Seeing if she’d pretend sleep.

“Yes.” She didn’t move, lying curled on her side facing away from him.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Yes. I’m in bed, it’s nighttime, and I’m not asleep.”

“Something more?”

She sighed and turned over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling in the dim light. “The Vine family’s filed suit against the hospital, naming almost everyone involved in their son’s operation, including me.”

Horn had expected this and been afraid of it. “How’d you learn?”

“Finlay told me.”

“He named in the suit?”

“No. And I think the hospital’s plan is to contain the damage to Radiology, which means I could be the scapegoat.”

“Sounds that way.” Being honest. “What do the hospital’s attorneys think?”

“They’re still studying the charges. The family’s already turned down a proposed settlement, and a reasonable one- if there can be such a thing if your four-year-old son’s been placed in a vegetative state.”

“So the hospital will probably fight it out in court.”

“They’d like not to. The publicity would be brutal. And the family’s never going to accept. They don’t really want money. They want revenge.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s what I’d want.” The sheets rustled as she half turned on her pillow to face him. “Thomas, I can’t help feeling guilty about what happened to that child.”

“Sure. But you’re not guilty of anything.”

“I’m in charge of Radiology. It happened on my watch, as the politicians say.”

“But what happened to the boy wasn’t radiological. The hospital should be able to establish that in court.”