The Night Watcher

by Lutz, John

  “Yeah,” Stack said. “I was chasing…”

  “We figured,” Rica said.

  “My gun…I dropped it and I think it fired.”

  “It did,” Rica said. “The sound of the shot’s what brought us here. You killed a ninety-seven Chevy.”

  Stack raised himself up on his elbows.

  “Lie back down,” Fagin said. “We got an ambulance coming for you.”

  “No, no,” Stack said. “I don’t need an ambulance!”

  “You don’t know how much smoke you breathed in.”

  “I know I feel okay.”

  “Sure you do. But smoke inhalation’s no joke. Tell him to lie down, Rica.”

  Rica studied Stack, then shook her head no. “I don’t think so. It’s gotta be up to him.”

  “Jesus!” Fagin said. “Macho cops. Even you, Rica. He’s getting in an ambulance.”

  The fireman with the respirator stood up. Stack grabbed one of his legs and used it to pull himself to his knees, then managed to stand. Someone’s hand on his elbow helped him. “Listen, I’m okay. Really.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Fagin said. “You might need medical treatment. At least some observation.”

  “No,” Stack said. “I’m okay, damn it!”

  “Stubborn fucker!”

  “Listen, I can damn well do—”

  “Listen yourself!” Fagin said.

  “I’ll take him to my place,” Rica said.

  “Fine, if your place is Roosevelt Hospital.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on him and see he gets help if he runs into any problems. That’s a promise.”

  “Doctor Rica!…”

  “If he says he’s okay, I think he really is.”

  Fagin used his forearm to wipe soot from his face and looked at Stack with a mixture of disgust and concern. “Her place. That okay with you, Stack?”

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Ernest. Now get back to your fire where you belong.”

  “It’s under control,” Fagin said.

  Rica handed Stack the Police Special and he slipped it back in its shoulder holster.

  “So where’s the car?” Rica asked.

  He told her and they began walking unsteadily toward where the unmarked was parked, weaving a little, Stack leaning on Rica for support.

  Then he realized Fagin would be watching, so he straightened up and walked on his own.

  THIRTY-NINE

  When Stack awoke, his head was nestled between Rica’s bare breasts.

  This is okay, he thought groggily, remembering last night. Better than okay.

  Without moving, he let the gaze of his free eye roam around her bedroom and saw spare, lightly stained furniture he thought was Danish, white walls with only a few items hung on them, winter landscape prints to go with the Danish furniture. There were no drapes or curtains on the windows, only white, wooden horizontal slat blinds that were lowered and angled to keep the room dim. For privacy, Stack hoped. He remembered the floor being hardwood, cool on his bare feet until they came in contact with one of several woven throw rugs.

  He swallowed. He could still taste ashes, still smell the acrid burnt stench that had hung in the air last night. His throat seemed okay, though. Not sore, as he suspected it would be.

  “You okay?” Rica suddenly asked, her voice a little hoarse and sounding distant to Stack, who was listening with one ear.

  “Yeah. How’d you know I was awake?”

  “I felt you blink.”

  “Hmm.” Stack turned his head slightly and kissed her between the breasts, then on each nipple.

  “Glad I brought you home?” Rica asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re glad. Better than any old hospital. Besides, you weren’t that badly hurt or anything, just breathed in a little smoke.”

  Stack pulled away from her and put on a mock hurt look. “I could use a bit more sympathy and understanding, now that I’m here.”

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  Stack didn’t have to ask whom she meant. “No. Just a glance at someone in the night, half the time concealed by smoke.”

  “Might not even have been the Torcher.”

  “It was him,” Stack said. “He called me last night right after you did. To warn me about the fire.”

  “What? You’re serious?”

  “Serious.”

  “Same voice?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  She was quiet. Thinking. “Making sure,” she said, after a while.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Rica ran her tongue over her lips, then used her fingertips to brush strands of hair off her forehead and out of her eyes. “There’s what you’d expect in the burned-out apartment. The victim, Mark Drucker, was on the kitchen floor, looking like forgotten toast and bound with black cloth, same accelerant poured over him. No sprinkler system in the building, so no umbrella this time.”

  Stack worked himself away from her compact warm body onto cool sheets and propped himself up on an elbow. “How?—”

  “I was up earlier, made some phone calls.”

  “Earlier? What time is it?”

  “Almost ten.”

  “Jesus!” He sat up. “C’mon.”

  “Where?”

  “We got things to do. Then we’ll add the co-op board minutes from last night’s fire to our stack of material. See if we can get them without going to a judge. Then we’ve gotta get some uniforms talking to the neighbors, witnesses. Learn something about this Drucker guy—”

  “Stack?”

  “What?”

  “Wanna go again?”

  “It’s a thought.”

  By that afternoon they had most of what they needed. The police and FDNY reports confirmed Drucker’s death as another Torcher murder. And he fit the victim profile—a successful sort, fifty years old, divorced, a professor and teacher of Urban Analysis and Development at New York University. He’d been having a torrid love affair with one of the women in his Segmentation of Rich and Poor class, was well liked by most of his colleagues, served on various city development committees, and was a past member of his co-op board. Which board, whose members were stunned and saddened by Drucker’s death, readily turned over the minutes of two years’ worth of monthly meetings.

  Stack and Rica had already listened to O’Reilly’s expected harangue, toned down somewhat because O’Reilly himself was confounded and worn out by the Torcher murders and the crush of bureaucratic pressure from above. He’d expressed mild disappointment that Stack had discerned nothing new from the Torcher phone call, but only mild.

  Most of the afternoon was spent poring over board minutes.

  Finally Stack sat back and rubbed the nape of his neck, then extended his arms and stretched. He looked again at the reams of paper on his desk, then at Rica. “Here’s something,” he said. “Maybe.”

  Rica put down what she was reading, knuckled her eyes, and stared blearily across the desk at him.

  Stack wondered why he’d never noticed how beautiful and vulnerable she looked when she was exhausted. He shook off the thought. “Notice how often the name Myra Raven comes up in these minutes?”

  “Yeah. But what struck me isn’t that it appears all that often, but that it appears somewhere in the minutes of just about every board.”

  It gave Stack a kind of pride he hadn’t felt before when he realized she’d been half a step ahead of him.

  “But that’s not too surprising,” Rica said. “She’s a hotshot real estate agent, broker, whatever. Haven’t you heard of the Myra Raven Group?”

  “I seem to have,” Stack said. “Lots of newspaper ads, right?”

  “Right. She’s got the most successful agency in town, so it’s normal her name’d pop up at these board meetings.”

  “But how normal would it be,” Stack asked, “for her agency to have bought or sold property in virtually every one of the co-ops where the fires occurred? I mean, how much property could her agency t
urn?”

  Rica absently stroked her chin where Stack’s shoulder had rubbed it that morning, almost smiled, then got her mind back on the job. “I see what you mean, Stack. But”—she shrugged—“it still might signify nothing.”

  “We oughta talk to her and make sure. Put her on our list, at least. If nothing else, she should be a good source of general information about New York co-ops.”

  “Agreed,” Rica said. She clasped her hands together and leaned slightly forward, her voice lower. “Notice the way that prick Mathers has been looking at us most of the day?”

  “The Beave? No.”

  “He knows something. Knows about us. I can tell.”

  “I wouldn’t figure you’d care,” Stack said.

  “I don’t, except we better not give O’Reilly any more ammunition. He’s the kind of jerk that’d bring IA into it, or at least insist on knowing all the details himself.”

  “I don’t recall seeing Mathers in your bedroom with us last night or this morning,” Stack said. “So let him think whatever he wants. Let him tell O’Reilly whatever he wants.”

  “A he said, we said situation, huh?”

  “Exactly.”

  Rica smiled. “You don’t seem to have any regrets.”

  “I don’t,” Stack said. “In for a penny…”

  Rica guessed that might be a compliment. Anyway, she’d known what she was getting into and also had no regrets. “Stack—”

  The phone rang and he picked up.

  Rica listened to his succession of yeses, nos, and uhhuhs; then he promised the caller he’d be somewhere at four o’clock, half an hour away.

  When he hung up, he looked puzzled and interested at the same time. Rica knew the look, had seen it on Stack before, and on cats at the moment they became intrigued by mice.

  “Gertrude Kreiger,” he said. “Otto Kreiger’s widow. From the Belmire Tower fire. She wants to talk to us. She wouldn’t say about what over the phone.”

  “She say why not?”

  “No, but I can guess. She doesn’t trust us completely and thinks the conversation might be recorded. Doesn’t trust the police. Can you imagine?”

  “After last night,” Rica said, “I can imagine all sorts of things. In fact, I can’t stop imagining. You ever experience flashbacks after sex, Stack?”

  “She’s spooked,” Stack said, staring somewhere beyond Rica’s right shoulder.

  “Me?”

  “No. Gertrude Kreiger.” He stood up from his desk chair and made sure his shirt was tucked in tight and there were no twists in his shoulder holster strap. “Let’s go talk to her and find out why.”

  Chips had been so scared at first his bowels almost let loose. There he was on the news and in the papers. The old him, anyway. With his name right under the photo. He was suspected of being the Torcher. There was his picture right now on the TV, behind a cute blond news bunny looking serious and saying to call the phone number below if anyone had any information as to his whereabouts. Mirabella walked into the room and saw it.

  “Is that you?” she asked, stopping cold in her tracks.

  Chips was jumping around inside but kept it under control. He laughed. “Sure. I’m gonna set fire to this place soon as I finish my beer. Hell, Mirabella, the only thing I ever burned was a steak. It warms up outside, I’ll buy us a barbecue grill and show you.”

  She tilted her head to the side and looked more closely at the TV. “That’s something. That guy could be your twin brother, only with darker hair.”

  “You’re saying that because he’s got almost the same name.”

  “You’re shittin’ me!” She stared again at the TV. “My God! It does say he’s Lawrence Chips. It is you!”

  “C’mon, Mirabella. Look closer at that ugly dude. Shave off his beard and mustache and we wouldn’t look anything alike. You just saw his picture there on the screen and your subconscious read the name even if you didn’t.”

  She looked at the TV, at him, the TV, him. “But you’re—”

  “Anyway,” he said, “I was named plain old Larry on my birth certificate. My mother never would’ve called me Lawrence. Sounds too successful.”

  “You oughta go to the police and explain about it,” she said. “Somebody’s liable to see you right after they see a picture of that Lawrence guy and turn you in.” Was she really buying it? Chips wasn’t sure. He knew she wanted to believe him, so she probably believed him enough for now. He’d have to keep working on her, reinforcing his story just in case she was wavering.

  “I’ll think about it,” Chips said. “Or I could grow a beard and mustache like his, dye my hair brown and comb it—like I had it in California—like his, and we wouldn’t look nothing alike. Besides, my last name’s not really Chips. It’s Chiperella. I shortened it ’cause it sounded better. Your name really Mirabella?”

  “Maureen,” she admitted. “When I started as a dancer, I figured Mirabella was more exotic.”

  Chips grinned. “It is, baby, believe me.” He got up from the sofa and went to her, hugged her tightly, glad to see she didn’t try to pull away. “And you’re exotic, erotic, all that stuff.” He kissed her, feeling the hot wedge of her tongue playing over his lips like an eager flame. Maybe she didn’t need more convincing, but she was going to get it.

  It felt good to be putting one over on her. Putting one over on everyone. This being famous was dangerous, but he could see it would have its moments.

  Chips felt better after he’d convinced Mirabella he wasn’t the Torcher, and he relaxed somewhat. The truth was, he didn’t look at all like his old photograph, older and clean shaven as he was now, and with his natural blond hair. The beard and long mustache were kind of dorky, he decided. He was better off without them, was Larry Chiperella.

  But to be on the safe side, from then on whenever he left the house he made sure he wore a baseball cap and a pair of dark-framed glasses with clear lenses. The cap was a Yankees one with a cheap adjustable plastic strap in back so it fit any size. The glasses were display frames he’d pocketed in the optical department at Wal-Mart in a mall in New Jersey. He’d used a little nail clipper to snip the plastic cord that attached the price tag, then wore the glasses as he walked from the store.

  When he left the mall and got to where he’d left Mirabella’s old Neon parked, he slid in behind the steering wheel. The clear glasses he removed and slipped into his shirt pocket beneath his jacket. Then he put on the sunglasses he’d found in the glove compartment and always wore when he drove.

  After leaving the mall, he crossed over into Manhattan and cruised around for a while, battling the stacked-up traffic they had in this city that no matter what anyone said was worse than out in LA.

  As he tried to make a left onto Third Avenue, a city trash truck almost flattened him, unsettling his nerves. While he was thinking about that, trying to calm down, he pulled out just before a traffic light changed and a cab roared up within inches of the Neon and the driver blasted his horn. Chips jerked so violently at the sudden noise that the top of his head hit the little car’s roof. The cab driver, who looked like some kind of Arab, glared at him, leaned his head out the cab’s rolled down window, and shouted angrily at Chips in some foreign language.

  Chips cranked down the Neon’s window and raised a middle finger for the cabbie to see. “I remember what you did to the World Trade Center, you fucker!”

  “My name’s McGregor, you idiot!” the cabbie said with a thick Scottish brogue.

  “Yeah, so’s mine.”

  The cabbie studied him through narrowed dark eyes, then accelerated around the front of the Neon so the cab’s tires screeched. The slush-splattered taxi sped away and barely made the light at the next intersection.

  Somewhat mollified by how he’d managed the confrontation, Chips turned a corner. There was less traffic here. He pulled to the side and studied his tourist map a few minutes, then drove slowly past the address, the building he was looking for.

  He circled the block and
went past the building two more times, fixing the image in his mind, the surrounding neighborhood of shops and small eateries, the brownstones tucked away like bashful old maids between newer, taller buildings. The image was important. It gave him a sense of the whole thing and made strategizing much easier. Before breaking into any place, he had to know the neighborhood and the building from the outside, and he had to know the floor plan. That way you couldn’t get tripped up by an unexpected sleeper in a bedroom, or a dog that was perfectly nice until you riled it just by being there. Some territorial thing a lot of pooches had.

  One time when he didn’t know there’d be a dog, this mangy little poodle thing, much ornerier than you’d expect and with jaws that didn’t want to release their grip, had snarled and come at Chips from the shadows beneath a chair. Chips, prepared, had tossed a wad of uncooked ground beef to the dog.

  The dog had wolfed down the beef in one gulp without slowing down and kept coming at him, then dug its teeth into the flesh at the back of his ankle. Teeth like needles. “Stop!” he’d yelled, frantically shaking his leg to try throwing the dog off. Damned thing thought it was a pit bull. “Halt! Sit! Stay! Lie down!”

  The dog had been untrained and the scar was still there.

  Since the dog episode, Chips always wanted an image fixed and clear in his mind before going in. He knew the unexpected happened, like ferocious five-pound poodles, like triple sevens in a slot machine. You had to be prepared for the bad, the good, anything. So he wanted an image and, if possible, a floor plan.

  Together, they provided an escape route.

  FORTY

  Mirabella wondered if Chips thought she was stupid. How could she possibly believe him when he denied he was the Lawrence (Larry) Chips the newspapers and TV said was wanted for questioning in the Torcher killings? A different guy with the same name? Uh, sure! He was just Larry on his birth certificate, anyway, not Lawrence. And the old photo of the other Chips in the paper and on TV didn’t even look much like him. Yeah, that all made sense—if you had no sense.

  Was he kidding? Mirabella wondered. Did he really think that just because the Chips in the news photo had a brown hairdo, a beard, and a mustache, she wouldn’t recognize him as the same man? The guy looked like her Chips dressed up for some kind of gag photo.