The Night Watcher

by Lutz, John

  Like the night she couldn’t find him and finally went out onto the porch, and there he was, sitting in the dark on the top step, lighting match after match from a book of paper matches from the Claybar. He was staring at each of them as if hypnotized until they almost burned his fingers, before flipping them out into the dark. They looked like miniature shooting stars arcing out toward the concrete walk leading to the driveway.

  When she tried to talk to him, he seemed barely aware she was there. Preoccupation again, she thought. He’d mentioned without realizing it one time that he was from California, so maybe he needed his space. Mirabella didn’t know how long he’d been sitting out there, but in the morning she found at least a hundred bent and burned matches lying there on the cracked walk like lifeless cremated worms.

  That was her Chips, unpredictable. He sure made life interesting and sometimes a little scary, like unknown territory. That was what got her more involved with him than she’d first planned, and what kept her interested. Always something to make you wonder.

  Tonight was another example. She got up after he was asleep and walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water, because there was no glass in the bathroom. And there was something orange-colored splashed around and dried on the bottom of the sink.

  She touched it with her finger and tasted it. Orange juice. But she was sure there was none in the refrigerator.

  She opened the refrigerator to make sure. No orange juice. So where did he get the juice and where was the rest of it? And why had he poured some of it in the sink, probably down the drain deliberately? What was going on here? Was this guy with the CIA or something, or maybe just a secret screwdriver drinker?

  She drank her water, then turned the faucet back on and used the stream of water and her glass to wash the residue of orange juice down the drain. Then she went back to bed and decided not to ask Chips about the orange juice. This was partly because she was for some reason afraid to ask, and partly because she somehow knew she wasn’t ready for the answer. She grinned into the darkness. What the fuck was he doing with orange juice?

  It would be interesting to bide her time and find out. He was good at sex and games when he wanted to be, and he didn’t put her down or beat her, and he had that unsolved puzzle quality about him. The only other man she’d known with that same kind of quiet, unreadable way about him had been a good guy and steady; then one night he’d snapped and beaten two men to death with a Derek Jeter model baseball bat.

  She couldn’t imagine Chips doing anything like that. There didn’t seem to be any sort of violent undercurrent about him, as there’d been with the Derek Jeter fan.

  She would ride with this guy for a while.

  See where it went.

  Orange juice.

  O’Reilly had wanted to see Stack alone in his office.

  So here Stack sat, staring at the backdrop of plaques and photos and commendations that were mostly Vandervoort’s, and waiting for O’Reilly to finish writing whatever it was that was so important on his desk. The office was too warm. And it was dim because the heat caused the window to fog up, blocking the light. The air was still and smelled like O’Reilly’s cologne or aftershave. Stack waited patiently for his boss to finish his busy act and get to what he wanted. Stack had work to do.

  Finally O’Reilly capped his ridiculously expensive pen, peeled off his reading glasses, and crossed his arms on the desk as he leaned forward to address Stack. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “I thought maybe crime had taken a holiday.”

  “Wouldn’t it be loverly?” O’Reilly said, ignoring the sarcasm. “I called you in here to talk about something personal.”

  The hair on the nape of Stack’s neck stirred. He was in no mood for what he knew was coming. He waited for O’Reilly to say it.

  “Rica.”

  “A top-notch homicide detective,” Stack said, playing hard to get.

  “How do you feel about her?” O’Reilly asked.

  “I just said.”

  O’Reilly uncrossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. Now he rested both hands on the desk as if he were about to drum his fingers. Only he didn’t. “C’mon, Stack, you know what I mean. But if you don’t, I’ll give you some clues. Everybody in Mobile Response and most of the precinct cops know what’s going on, or think they do. Which is that you’re playing the meat trombone with Rica.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Stack trying to believe what he was hearing.

  “Simple. That you’re porking Rica.”

  Stack felt his face flush in the warm office. The idiot O’Reilly would take it for embarrassment, not knowing Stack was tempted to fly across the desk and grab him by the throat. He said simply, “They’re wrong.”

  “Not that most of them wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Blame or no blame,” Stack said, “it’s all the same to me.”

  O’Reilly flashed a nasty, knowing grin that made Stack even madder. “Aw, don’t get coy with me. You’re going through a divorce, spending all that time with Rica, who’s so obviously wrapped up in you that she might spontaneously combust. You telling me you’ve never noticed?”

  “No,” Stack said, “I’m telling you we don’t sleep together.”

  O’Reilly looked dumbfounded. “Why not? Oh, maybe the strain of your divorce and all.”

  “We don’t sleep together because we’re both professionals,” Stack said. “We do the job instead of each other.”

  O’Reilly laughed. “Stack, have you ever looked at Rica? The woman is made for recreational sex.”

  “You called me in here to ask if I was fucking her,” Stack said, not realizing he’d stood up and was glaring down at O’Reilly. “I’ve answered you.”

  “You’ve goddamn lied to me.”

  Stack took a step toward O’Reilly, who for the first time seemed to realize he was maybe going too far here. “You can see it any way you want,” Stack said. “You asked your question. You got your answer. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I want you two to quit making it so obvious.”

  Stack leaned over with both fists on the desk. “It’s only obvious to some fuckhead who thinks that way because he can’t understand why we wouldn’t be clawing at each other in the backseat of the unmarked. You know why he thinks that way? Because that’s what he’d be doing.”

  “This fuckhead,” O’Reilly said, dead-eyed and cool now. “He got a name?”

  “You name him.”

  Stack started toward the door. It was one direction or the other now, and toward O’Reilly meant a breakdown of self-control; then there’d be an IA investigation, disciplinary action, and possibly the end of Stack’s career. O’Reilly knew that and knew Stack knew it. He was deliberately baiting Stack now.

  “Keep in mind,” O’Reilly said, “I won’t have two of my officers hammering each other while on duty. And I won’t have this kind of talk about them, which both of us knows is true, continuing on my watch.”

  Stack turned around. “Or?” His voice was tight, and he saw O’Reilly blink, having second thoughts. Maybe professionalism and a regard for regulations wouldn’t restrain Stack. Stack with the bad-ass reputation that O’Reilly did know was true because he’d seen the bodies.

  “There’s no or about it,” O’Reilly said. He had his balls again and was staring hard at Stack.

  Stack returned the stare for a while, then slowly turned his back on O’Reilly and went out the door. His throat was dry and his heart was banging away, but he had himself under control.

  “If it ain’t true,” O’Reilly said behind him, “what you need’s a shit-pot full of Viagra.”

  Stack made a mental note to send Vandervoort a Get Well Soon card.

  Victoria Pike settled into a sagging, overstuffed chair and propped her aching feet up on a hassock. Her apartment had seemed a great idea when she’d bought it last summer, and now she was pretty much stuck with it. Her financial history was such that it would be all but impossible for
her to obtain another mortgage loan, so even if this place was drafty in the winter and sometimes assaulted by what seemed like legions of cockroaches when the weather was warm, here she would stay for the foreseeable future.

  She figured at least she wasn’t flat broke. Her job at the restaurant was tolerable, and the way she’d found to receive an occasional windfall wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever done. This wasn’t prostitution, which in her college years she’d once considered. This wasn’t some of the things she’d done for drugs.

  She was a graying woman in her forties who looked like one in her fifties. Her figure was still reasonably trim but her eyes were defeated, her features drawn, and her complexion spotty. She’d never figured out what caused the damned brown spots here and there on her face and neck, like liver spots on the very old.

  Some life had returned to her legs. She made herself climb up out of the chair, then trudged into the kitchen and removed a frozen chicken teriyaki dinner from the microwave. Carefully, so as not to burn her fingers, she peeled back the cellophane over the plastic tray and examined its contents. The dinner looked done, but when she prodded the chicken breast with her finger it was still cold in the middle. She slid the tray back in the microwave and set the timer for a minute and a half. She could have eaten cheaper at work, and the food was better, but by now she was tired of it.

  Victoria hadn’t always been a waitress in a restaurant that couldn’t figure out what kind of food it served. Not too many years ago she’d been a stock analyst at Voss, Bauer and Murray, a large Wall Street brokerage firm. That was before her looks had left her and she’d been a favorite guest on the financial channels, where she’d confidently explained the machinations of the markets and dispensed advice.

  But she’d misread her computer model and made a call for the market to rise, just before the tech stock bubble burst. She’d stubbornly continued her buy recommendation for months, even as tech stocks plunged and dragged virtually every kind of stock down with them. Finally Voss, Bauer and Murray had bought out her contract, and she was unemployed.

  It wasn’t her first mistake. Back in ’97 she’d misinterpreted the market’s direction and cost another brokerage firm’s clients millions. She’d been fired then, too, just like after the tech stock massacre a few years ago.

  The tech wreck caught her at a particularly bad time. She’d just come off a horrible love affair that had turned violent. Again. So many of the men she loved eventually came to abuse her psychologically and physically. Did she know that going in? Was there a pattern? Her analyst had said yes to both questions. Before she could no longer afford to pay him. At which point he said nothing, refusing even to speak with her on the phone.

  Victoria had always been a drinker, but after her health coverage lapsed and she could no longer afford analysis, she developed a closer relationship with the bottle. Gin, wine, beer…it made little difference to her. It was the oblivion at the bottom of the bottle that attracted her. If she hadn’t been totally unemployable before on the Street, she was now. Word of her drinking problem had circulated like a major stock split rumor.

  This time the rumor was true enough, Victoria had to admit.

  With a great deal of willpower and an effort that left her limp and scared, she’d managed to give up alcohol. Only to discover cocaine.

  Kicking hard drugs was the toughest thing she’d ever done. But she did it, and hadn’t had a drink, a snort, or a smoke in over a year.

  Now she worked hard hours in a job where hardly anyone knew about her past, about how far she’d fallen. After work she spent most of her time in her apartment, sleeping, watching TV, or in a melancholy stupor simply staring off into memory, sorting through the past and searching for something that attracted and frightened her.

  At least at work she could lose herself in her labors. Actually forget for a while.

  It wasn’t much of a job, and it didn’t pay well except on unusually heavy nights. But it was a living and it was a life.

  Victoria earned enough to get by if she disciplined herself and watched her pennies. Besides those pennies, she again had at least some money that stuck. Money of her own.

  Money.

  It was something Victoria Pike understood better than most people.

  Money was what made life smoother. It was what got your ticket punched for the next ride.

  Meanwhile, Victoria stayed clean with the law and worked, saving money. When she had enough, she’d know what to do with it, how to parlay it into a fortune.

  She would get her ticket punched again. She would take the roller coaster ride again. And maybe this time get off at the top.

  She knew it was probably only a dream, but it was one she desperately needed.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Otto Kreiger said good night to his wife, Gertrude, who left to attend the New York Macramé Museum board meeting, as she did the first Tuesday of every month. Every Wednesday it was Tai Chi classes, and every Friday it was Cooking with Claire. The last seemed a waste of time to Kreiger, because Gertrude was pretty much a stranger to their own kitchen. But maybe she took part in all these activities to get out of the apartment, maybe even to get away from him. Kreiger didn’t much care. He enjoyed his time alone, without Gertrude’s constant chatter and movement. Probably, he decided, she had all those planned activities and lessons simply because she couldn’t be still.

  And it wasn’t as if Gertrude and Otto Kreiger couldn’t afford them. Otto had made his pile, and now he was damn well going to enjoy life. There were plenty of ways for him to do that. Plenty of board memberships, golf games, poker nights. Winning, running things, coming out on top, that was what Otto Kreiger was all about. He knew it and made no apologies. Probably a woman like Gert, a beautiful redhead twenty years younger than Kreiger, stayed with him because he was a winner, had the spoils. Hell, she was part of the spoils and she knew it. Had to. She wasn’t that dumb. That was life, and so be it. Let Gert sign up for and join anything she wanted. Far as Kreiger was concerned, she could join the goddamn navy, as long as she came back a few times a week and spread her legs.

  Kreiger had just toweled off after taking a shower and wore only an oversize white terry cloth towel wrapped around his pink and ponderous body. He was going out in about an hour to play stud poker at his club, take some more money from those whining amateurs who supplied his pocket change. He’d wear his new gray sport coat with the leather elbow patches. His charcoal Armani pants with all the pleats. And gold cuff links, goddamnit! The ones with the diamonds set in them. Let the whiners know who might run them out of the game if the pot got worthwhile. Play with the big dog and you might get bit. Might get your damned throat ripped right out.

  It was almost like a premonition. Kreiger could feel luck running through him like a dark, magnetic force in his blood. Something beyond mere brain knowledge. His night, his might, his right. He knew it deep in himself, the way birds know there’s a south.

  He decided to work on a drink while he dressed, set the mood for the evening. As he walked from the bathroom, his bare feet left damp footprints on the plush carpet for the first half dozen steps. The footprints faded as he trod to a credenza and poured two fingers of Absolut into an on-the-rocks glass, then headed for the kitchen to get some ice.

  He remembered placing his bare left foot on the cool tile floor. That was when the kitchen ceiling swung down as if it were on hinges and slammed into the back of his head.

  What the hell is this?

  Otto Kreiger couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. His head ached and he was lying on his back on the kitchen floor. His arms were jammed behind him, causing his nude belly to bulge so he couldn’t see his feet. He couldn’t separate his legs, only bend them slightly.

  Somebody had sapped him as he was entering the kitchen, he realized, then tied him up. And tight!

  Kreiger tried again to move, but managed only to start a cramp in his side that he had to assuage by lying still and limp. Bastard who’d
done this to him knew what he was doing. A pro. By now had probably robbed him fucking blind! A faint admiration for whoever had the balls to do this to him crept into Kreiger’s mind, but that wouldn’t stop Kreiger from killing this joker if he ever found out who he was. Fuck with the bull, you get the horn.

  Jesus, he was cold! He hoped somebody would find him before Gert got home. Not only did he want to get warm, but he wanted to save himself the embarrassment of being found this way by his young wife. Also, he wanted to see what the bastard who’d hit him had stolen.

  Then with a start it occurred to him that he might not have been unconscious all that long. Whoever had sapped him might still be in the apartment. He tried to move his head but couldn’t. Rolled his eyes but could see only the ceiling and the top eighteen inches or so of the cabinets on the wall behind him. He lay still, listening.

  Yes! He heard something, a slight noise above—behind him! Someone was here with him!

  Not to help him! Not saying anything!

  Courage ran from Kreiger and he fought to control himself, wondering if he was urinating. For a moment he thought he might have a heart attack. Then he concentrated on lying very still. That might be his best strategy, be motionless and so unnoticeable. No, that was crazy! But whoever was there might think he’d lost consciousness. Whoever had broken in might even forget about him as he went around collecting loot. No sane thief wanted a murder charge!

  Then Kreiger realized he was colder than he should have been. It wasn’t just that he was nude and lying on a tile floor. There was something…Yes, he was wet, and not from the shower. He’d dried off from that. He was lying in a puddle. Not a warm one like urine. His body heat had warmed it slightly, but not even to room temperature. It was cool like alcohol. Or—