John Lutz - Chill of Night

Nell walked leisurely along the crowded sidewalk, pushing the two-wheeled cart ahead of her. It looked as if there might be a wire attached to something in her right ear. Listening to music? Well, she was supposed to be unconcerned. To have assumed that the Justice Killer had put her out of his mind, out of the game, and she was safe.

She’s turning in a pretty good performance, acting the unknowing bait. Even swishing her hips more than usual in case I might be watching. Those tight jeans are for me. That ass-

Nell stopped and raised a hand to adjust her earpiece. Probably not listening to music at all.

Justice watched her smile slightly, then bob her head as if in time to music. Nice touch.

She placed both hands on the cart again and resumed walking.

On the other side of the street, he followed.

Beam screwed the lid back on his nearly empty thermos and laid it on the seat next to him. He was parked near Nell’s apartment in the white minivan. The evening was warm, so the motor was running and the air conditioner working away. He was parked on the other side of the street, facing away from Nell’s building, but had its entrance under observation in the van’s oversized left outside mirror.

Nell should be back soon.

A siren yodeled several times a few blocks away, making Beam squirm in the van’s scuffed leather seat. The confiscated vehicle didn’t have a police radio; Beam used his two-way: “This is Beam. What was the siren?”

“Ten fifty-three on Eighth Avenue,” a voice said. Police code for a vehicle accident. Could be a simple fender bender.

More sirens. Sounded like emergency vehicles.

“Code ten forty-five,” explained the voice, before Beam could ask. An accident with injuries. An ambulance was needed.

“’Kay,” said Beam, and got off the two-way.

New York being New York, he thought. Nothing to do with Nell.

He knew that officers Havers and Broome, borrowed from an SNE, a street narcotics enforcement unit, were posing as a tourist couple with a camera, keeping a tight tail on Nell. They had two-ways and backup mobile phones and would notify Beam if anything out of the ordinary was happening.

Beam sat up straighter. There was Nell in the van mirror, pushing a wire cart along the sidewalk.

He watched as she turned around and, moving backward, pulled the overloaded cart up the three steps to her building’s foyer. The wide door, flanked by stone columns, opened, closed, and she was inside.

Safe at home.

Beam knew better, but he breathed easier.

A car’s headlights flared in the mirror and momentarily blinded him. When the lights went out, he saw that a drab brown Chevy sedan had parked behind him, a vehicle as inconspicuous as the van.

Looper, here to take over until Beam returned at midnight. Excellent. Beam couldn’t get the coffee taste from his mouth, and he had to take a piss.

He went back to the two-way: “All yours, Loop.”

“She in?”

“Tucked away and secure, probably for the evening.”

“No hot date?”

“Not unless it’s the one we’re trying to arrange.”

Beam decided to take a turn around the block before driving to his apartment, brushing his teeth, and trying to get some sleep. Looper would call him if anything developed.

He twisted the key in the ignition, and the starter grated, startling him. Jesus! He’d forgotten the van’s old engine was already running.

His back ached as he put the transmission in drive and the vehicle jerked away from the curb, leaving Looper in the parked Chevy behind. Beam realized his legs were stiff from sitting in one position for almost two hours.

He was ready to be relieved.

The changing of the guard down in the street hadn’t escaped his attention. He watched the white minivan turn the corner and disappear. From up here, the brown Chevy looked unoccupied, like any other parked car.

The police were good at their job.

Three o’clock in the morning. That would be entry time. Most of the cops he knew agreed that three a.m. was the optimum time for housebreaking if anyone was home and sleeping. That was when sleep was deepest, when dreams were firmly in charge, when things tended to happen.

He knew how to get on the roof of Nell’s building from the fire escape of the taller building beside it. The top two floors of that building were vacant and being rehabbed. He’d scouted them, gained entry, and found a sturdy two-by-eight plank, part of a painter’s scaffold, that would act as a bridge from fire escape to roof. In his dark clothing, he’d be difficult to spot from below even if someone happened to be looking directly at him. A shadow that moved. That would be him-a shadow that moved in the night.

There were ways to enter Nell’s building from the roof. And there were ways to leave, to reverse his procedure, get clear of the area, and not be seen. This was a game he understood and was good at.

While the police were watching Nell’s building, they weren’t as careful about watching this one. He’d gained entrance in late morning, made his way to the uninhabited floor where construction had been halted until inspections were made and permits were issued, and made himself comfortable amid plastic paint buckets and plaster dust. Lots of plaster dust. One of his biggest problems was not to sneeze and possibly draw attention to himself.

Seated on a folded tarpaulin, his back against a sheet of wall board, he occasionally nibbled a stale sandwich and sipped warm bottled water. He waited.

Patiently.

Three o’clock. That was what most cops said. He’d even heard one say it recently on a TV cop show. Called it magic time.

Truth and fiction…Weren’t they running together these days?

Three o’clock in the morning.

When things happened.

Nell knew that the streets below, succumbing to the slower tempo of the night, were virtually crawling with NYPD. Beam was watching from somewhere outside, directing the operation. Uniformed cops were in the building, one stationed at the end of the hall outside her door. They came and went with some regularity. Undercovers were stationed around the block. Be they homeless, or drunken late-night revelers, or lovestruck couples strolling holding hands, they were out there, ready to become cops. A uniform was stationed in the super’s apartment, off the lobby. Looper was nearby, cruising the neighborhood in an unmarked car. They all knew who and what they were hunting. They knew the danger.

As did Nell. She kept her nine-millimeter Glock in the nightstand drawer within easy reach, a round in the chamber, safety on.

After brushing her teeth and changing into her sleep shirt, she watched the late news on TV, then checked to make sure the apartment’s door and windows were locked, the drapes closed.

Bedtime. Part of her regular life. Just like a normal person not worried about a madman bent on killing her at the earliest opportunity.

But she didn’t switch on the bedroom air conditioner. The night wasn’t so warm that she couldn’t do without it, and she didn’t want its background noise covering some other, more ominous sound.

She climbed into bed and read a New Yorker for a while, hoping for some help from the cartoons. But her sense of humor had deserted her.

A crossword puzzle in this morning’s paper was a valuable distraction. It managed to frustrate her, which was better than being terrified. And when finally she did figure out a ten-letter word for hypnotized, she was tired enough to sleep.

Deliberately keeping her movements economical and balanced, so as not to jar herself all the way awake, she put down the folded paper, then her pencil, and managed to switch off the lamp and fall back onto the bed.