John Lutz - Night Victims

“Don’t call him. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. We’ll get you into the cabin even if we have to force a lock or break a window. We’ll explain it to your brother later; he’ll understand.”

“Jim’s in Philadelphia. And he’d never tell anyone where I was.”

“He would if they started snipping off his fingers.”

Anne looked ill. “Jesus, Thomas. . Can I go to my apartment and pick up some clothes?”

“Of course. Paula and Bickerstaff will drive you. Then they’ll take you to the cabin after making sure nobody’s following. Do you have your Ladysmith thirty-eight here, or at your apartment?”

“Neither. I left it. I didn’t want to live with guns anymore.”

“Swing by the brownstone and get it,” Horn said to Bickerstaff. “She’s qualified and can shoot both eyes out of a gnat.”

This seemed a bad idea to Paula: maybe the gnat had to be sitting still: maybe one of the cops guarding Anne would be mistaken for a gnat.

Anne started to hoist the big valise down from the desk, but Bickerstaff hastily stepped forward and took it from her. He wheezed and was obviously surprised by its weight.

“When you leave the brownstone,” Horn said to Bicker-staff, “give me a call.”

He watched them leave, Anne walking between Paula and Bickerstaff, who was leaning sideways, the heavy valise bumping against his knee with every step.

When they were gone Horn talked to the security cops at the hospital, then called Lieutenant Burton to arrange for re-assignments.

Then he took an elevator to a floor where he knew there was a large waiting area with public phones in insulated stalls, where people had privacy to inform friends and family of joyous or tragic news. Either way, they could shed tears without anyone watching.

The carpeted area lined with sofas and chairs was almost unoccupied. No one was near the phones, and the TV mounted on the wall was showing a muted Law and Order rerun with Jerry Orbach as Detective Lenny Briscoe. Horn’s favorite.

He used one of the phones to call Victor Kray at the Rion Hotel.

“There’s news?” Kray asked, when Horn had identified himself.

“The news is your list of SSF members was incomplete. You left off Joe Vine.”

“What’s Vine got to do with Mandle?”

“Why did you leave him off the list?”

“Ah, a question in answer to a question.”

“Cop stuff,” Horn said. “We also demand answers that aren’t questions.”

“I knew Vine lived in the area, and I learned about his family situation. His son’s in a coma and might not recover. He has money problems. In fact, I think he’s suing a hospital, or is being sued. I liked Joe. He was one of our best. I was sure he was above suspicion. Still am. I simply didn’t want to involve him in this and add to his problems.”

“He’s suing the hospital where my wife works,” Horn said. “He’s suing my wife personally.”

Kray was silent while he processed the information. Then: “Where is this conversation going, Horn?”

Horn told him what he thought. After escaping from the police van, Mandle contacted his old SSF buddy Joe Vine and asked for help. Vine helped him by killing him with one of the guns Mandle took off the dead guards. Then, as the Night Spider, Vine could continue Mandle’s string of killings, and Anne Horn, wife of the Night Spider’s public nemesis, would be considered another Spider victim. Vine would never be suspected of executing the woman he held responsible for his son’s permanent near-death state. If Mandle’s body were never found, or if enough time passed to make it possible to ascertain only an approximate date of death, Mandle would be blamed for Vine’s killings as well as his own crimes.

“That doesn’t sound like the Joe Vine I knew,” Kray said. “Are you sure Mandle is dead?”

“I saw the corpse’s right foot.”

“Oh. . Christ!” What sounded almost like a sob came over the phone. It was strangely shocking to imagine Kray as its source, like a tear shed from Mount Rushmore.

“I’m not accustomed to telling people I’m sorry,” Kray said. “That’s not often done in my line of work. Maybe not in yours, either. But I am sorry, Horn. If there’s any way I can make it up to you, anything I can do. .”

“Tell me about Vine. Is he as capable as Mandle?”

“Almost. Not as adept a climber. He’s an explosives expert and a skilled sniper and knife fighter.”

“Great.”

“He didn’t like killing as much as Mandle,” Kray said. His tone of voice suggested that was something Horn needed to know.

Horn imagined Vine dutifully stabbing four women over and over to emulate Mandle’s murders, then bashing in their heads to make sure they were dead and couldn’t identify him.

He likes killing well enough.

So Mandle had waited around for his victims to suffer and bleed out, but Vine wasn’t having as much fun and wanted to leave the party early. Horn didn’t see that as much of a distinction.

“If I can help. .” Kray offered again, a plea for forgiveness.

“I’ll let you know,” Horn said, and hung up.

As he stood and turned away from the phone, he saw that Law and Order on the waiting-room TV had been interrupted for a news flash. The condemned building on the Lower East Side where Mandle’s body was found filled the screen except for the crawl at the bottom:

NIGHT SPIDER SQUASHED? IT’S REPORTED THAT LESS THAN AN HOUR AGO POLICE FOUND. .

Horn thought of Newsy and everyone like Newsy only worse. And the people who supplied their information. Damned leaks!

His cell phone chirped and he yanked it from his pocket. Oughta get a belt clip.

It was Larkin. “A SWAT unit’s on the way to Vine’s apartment,” he said. “You wanna be there for the collar or whatever?”

“You know it. I’m at Kincaid Memorial, but it won’t take me long.”

“I’ll see you there,” Larkin said. “Just make sure you don’t arrive before we do.”

As he hurried from the waiting area, Horn glanced over and saw that Law and Order was back on above the crawl. Lenny, questioning a suspect in the interrogation room, gave his patented hopeless smile and weary shrug. The world kept turning, the truth would seep out, justice would find its way to the surface. It was in the script and took about an hour.

The apartment building had been quietly evacuated. SWAT leader Sergeant Lou Marcus led half his team down the narrow hall, while a lanky blond man Horn had heard addressed as Newman led more of the team up the fire stairs in back.

Marcus and three other SWAT members had come up in the elevator. It would take Newman longer in back, so their timing had to be right. There was no telling what was inside the Vine apartment, so there was no more communication over the two ways that might be overheard. The working assumption was that no one inside the apartment knew it was just them and the SWAT team in the building. When Newman and his men were positioned at the back door, the door would be taken down and a diversion device would be fired into the apartment.

Diversion device was bureaucratese for a flash-bang grenade that would be harmless but made an ungodly amount of noise when detonated. This was designed to do two things: for a few seconds, freeze with shock whoever was inside the apartment, and cause their attention to be focused toward the rear of the apartment and sound of the explosion.

During this brief suspension of time, Marcus’s part of the team would batter down the front door and stream inside.

When the stun grenade went off, everyone had precious few seconds to operate in with comparative safety. So all hell would break loose. While SWAT members were invading the apartment from both ends, NYPD uniforms would be entering the building and pounding up the stairs, as reinforcements arrived by car. Five, maybe ten seconds, while the element of surprise applied.