Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

Kevin shook his head and Cait said, “What?”

“We can’t call the police.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? This man is going to hurt a young girl, badly, maybe he’s going to kill her. We have to do something to stop him!”

“How?”

“Excuse me?”

“How are we going to stop him? Do you know who he is, or even where he is? Do you know who the girl is? Do you know where he’s taking her? Do you know—”

“Okay, okay,” she interrupted. “You’ve made your point. We don’t have any specific information. Why can’t we just call them and at least alert them to the fact there’s a homicidal maniac roaming the streets of their city?”

“Because they’re not going to pay any attention to you, that’s why.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Unless you have a name or a location, the Boston police are going to listen to you, politely at first, then not so politely if you go on for too long, and when you’re done, they’re going to send you on your way—or hang up, if you call—and blow you off. They will assume you’re just some lonely nut job desperate for a little attention.”

She stared up at him, her face drawn and pale, and he said, as gently as he could, “This is a big city, Cait. The cops here deal with crazies every single day. If you start telling them about Flickers and seeing things in your head, you’re going to be just another crazy to them. There’s nothing we can do unless you have more information.”

“But that poor girl…”

“I know, but maybe it’s not as bad as you think. Maybe you misinterpreted what you saw. Maybe it’s a case of some bored married couple playacting, trying to spice up their lives a little by pretending to be a hooker and a john.”

Cait shook her head. By now the resulting nausea didn’t surprise her. “I didn’t misinterpret anything. This was no kinky married couple. This man was evil, and he was ruthless. He was an animal, a predator stalking his prey, and he is going to hurt her, maybe kill her.”

Kevin sat on the bed next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You know, if you’re still planning on getting up early tomorrow—I mean, today—we should really get some rest. You look like hell.”

Cait laughed in spite of herself. “Thanks for the compliment. How do you always know the just-right thing to say to a girl?”

“It’s a gift.”

She crawled under the covers, still dressed in her jeans and T-shirt. She had been tired when they arrived, thanks to the red-eye flight from Tampa. Now she was beyond exhausted, she felt as though she had been run over by a truck. A truck being driven by a homicidal lunatic.

Kevin was right, of course. If they were going accomplish anything in the morning, rest was critical. But how was she supposed to sleep after experiencing that terrible Flicker? Cait Connelly was thirty years old and had been dealing with Flickers for as long as she could remember. They had long since gotten to the point where she viewed them as nothing more than an annoyance, a small part of her personality that she had learned to live with, like some people live with migraines or the occasional terrifying nightmare.

But tonight’s Flicker was different than anything she had ever experienced. This wasn’t a mental image of an old lady forgetting to bring her checkbook on her twice-weekly trips to the grocery store. This was a blackness so complete it was stifling, a thirst for violence and depravity that dwarfed anything Cait had ever imagined.

This was true evil.

How can I sleep after experiencing something like that? Cait wondered. She knew she would lie awake all night, tossing and turning, listening to Kevin snoring softly beside her, jealous of him for not having to experience the Flickers, for not having to feel the rage and corruption of a monster somewhere in this city who was even now doing twisted things to a helpless young woman.

But she didn’t stay awake all night. Her head hit the pillow and within minutes she was asleep. And she didn’t dream at all.

Getting the girl into his third-floor apartment unseen was simple. The back of the old tenement’s ground floor had at one time—a century ago or more—housed some sort of business enterprise. Perhaps a bakery, or maybe a small shoe repair shop. A service entrance had been built on the back corner with a narrow hallway running behind the first-floor apartments to a seldom-used secondary staircase providing access to the second and third floors.

The service entrance had of course been locked up years ago, but those locks had been removed at the same time, and with as little difficulty as the locks on the front door. With access in the front of the building, there was no reason for any of the itinerants and vagrants using the location as a flophouse to bother traipsing down the trash-littered alley on the north side, risking being mugged for their booze or drugs, just to enter from the rear when they would end up in exactly the same place.

By the time the schoolgirl—“My name is Rae Ann,” she told Milo in a frightened voice—discovered what Milo knew she had suspected all along, that he was not your typical horny man anxious for a quickie, it was much too late. She had followed him down the sidewalk and around a corner, where she quickly learned the ugly truth: there was no car. There was also no streetlight—he had conveniently smashed it out—and the area was deserted.

Milo pulled a freshly sharpened carving knife out of his pocket, the stainless steel blade dripping water in the steady drizzle. Rae Ann had backed up a step or two in fear and confusion and he covered that distance before she could react further, wrapping an arm around her waist like some arduous suitor. He placed the tip of the wicked-looking knife lightly against her throat, just under her jawline.

“I—I don’t have any money on me,” she stammered. “Big Daddy—he’s my pimp—he took it just before you saw me. If I had any cash, I would give it to you, all of it, I promise, but I don’t have any.”

Milo smiled. The dangerous part was over and he was in his element now, completely at ease and under control. “I’m not after money. If it was money I wanted, I wouldn’t have chosen the newest girl on the block to play with. I would have grabbed someone with more experience.” He was excited, aroused as always by the prospect of impending humiliation and torture, and he pressed his crotch against her butt.

“Is it sex, then? I’ll give you a freebie if you want. I’m not supposed to, Big Daddy will kick my ass if he finds out, but I’ll do it for you. What do you like, baby?”

“Right now I’d like you to shut your mouth and come with me. We’re going to take a short walk and if you scream or cry or make so much as one second’s eye contact with anyone, anyone at all, the last thing you will ever feel will be me cutting open your chest and ripping your heart out with my bare hands. Do you understand me?” Despite the fact that Milo was whispering—or maybe because of it—the implied menace inherent in his words was real and terrifying.

They walked the seven blocks to Milo’s building in silence. He draped his right arm casually around her shoulders like a possessive boyfriend, the knife held in his left hand, pressed against the leg of his jeans. Rae Ann walked with her head down, subservient. Milo knew she was afraid even to look around for fear her kidnapper would misinterpret the action and begin stabbing and slicing her. He could feel her shivering and shaking under his arm, the terror building inside her but the fear transparent to anyone besides the man causing it.

They shuffled along slowly, Milo in no hurry. At last they reached his block. Through various rounds of urban redevelopment conducted over the last half-century, this neighborhood had been unaffected, steadfastly ignored by politicians and do-gooders alike. It resembled a war zone, a United States version of Baghdad after a suicide bombing. Burned-out apartment houses stood empty and silent, graffiti covering every square inch, dandelions fighting grimly for life, growing through gaping holes in the sidewalk, the cement smashed and gutted and crumbling.