The Night Watcher

by Lutz, John

  That was when he smelled the fumes. Something like gasoline.

  He didn’t hear any backup coming, but he knew that with a possible burglary-in-progress they’d be driving without lights or sirens. They might be close. Might even be out there.

  He moved toward the doorway and felt for hinges but found none. So the door, now missing, had opened away from his side. Which meant the wall switch should be just around the corner from where he was standing. If he found and flipped that switch, he’d be standing in darkness, and whoever might be back in the storeroom would be illuminated.

  A plan. A fuckin’ plan…

  Blainer held his breath as he slowly snaked his arm around in the darkness, felt rough plaster, then the smooth plastic of a switch plate. A toggle switch. His heart started a wild hammering but his mind was calm. It was almost as if he were standing off to one side watching what was happening here.

  Freeze! I always wanted to yell Freeze!

  He flipped the switch up, then kept his silhouette slim as possible as he hugged the side of the doorway and aimed his 9mm into the storeroom, peering over the barrel where the curtain was pushed away.

  “Freeze, you bastard!”

  Holy shit! He was looking at a guy on the floor with his head in a pool of blood. Then, suddenly, he was aware of someone else in the storeroom, looking at him!

  In an instant Blainer saw the trapped, frightened expression on the man’s face, the gun in his hand. The guy was…Yeah, Chips! That Larry Chips everybody was so hot on finding!

  The gun in the man’s hand rose and flame leaped from its barrel.

  The bullet nicked the door frame, then Blainer’s shoulder, sending him backward to a sitting position on the floor. The blast of the shot seemed to slow time. Blainer ignored the ringing in his ears and looked around. There was his gun, lying by his right leg. He was reaching for it when Chips burst from behind the storeroom curtain, tearing it off its moorings, and dashed past him.

  Real time again! The curtain had landed on Blainer. He hurled it away from his face, found his gun, and got off a shot at Chips just as he was yanking open the street door and actually leaping outside. Heard Chips yelp. He knew he’d hit him!

  When Blainer tried to stand up and give chase, he put his weight on his right arm, and the pain went through it like a lightning strike and dropped him back down. For a moment he thought he might have been shot a second time.

  He lay writhing and cursing, then tried again, more slowly and carefully, to get to his feet.

  He managed, but he knew it was way too late. Unless he’d hit Chips where it would slow him down, he’d be blocks away and gaining speed.

  Blainer staggered to a display of big suitcases in the middle of the shop and sat down on one, bending over and holding his shoulder just below where it was bleeding. He was afraid to touch the actual wound.

  He heard a faint metallic squeal outside and the shuuush of rubber on concrete. A car pulling rapidly to the curb.

  A stolid figure appeared in the doorway, off to the side, gun drawn. Blainer recognized the dark clothing, the paraphernalia dangling from the figure’s belt, the uniform cap. He caught the glint of a badge. Backup had arrived.

  “It’s clear,” Blainer said. “C’mon in.”

  The patrol car cop played a narrow flashlight beam over Blainer, then stepped inside and found a light to turn on.

  “Smells like gas in here,” he said. A young guy, stocky and with only dark bristle between his cap and ears, looking not at all afraid. “O-leen, I mean.”

  “Better not touch anything else,” Blainer said. “There’s a homicide victim on the floor in back. Dead, I mean.”

  “The owner?”

  “That’d be my guess.”

  “How ’bout the perp?”

  “Alive but long gone. Maybe with a bullet in him.”

  The cop saw for the first time that Blainer’s shoulder was bleeding. “I’ll call for the paramedics,” he said. “Then I’ll notify Homicide, get the yellow tape, and establish a crime scene.”

  It already is a crime scene, unless you plan on committing another one. But Blainer didn’t voice his thoughts. Young cops!

  EMT got there five minutes after the first homicide detectives, and were about to load Blainer into an ambulance, when a big guy walked up and asked if it would be okay if they talked for a minute or two before the drive to the hospital. Blainer knew who the guy was: Stack. He’d heard about Stack. Everybody had heard. Blainer had already been told the shoulder wound wasn’t serious, so he waved away the paramedics with his good arm and told Stack what had happened.

  “Any doubt in your mind it was Chips?” Stack asked, when Blainer was finished.

  “None whatsoever. I read the bulletins, studied the picture that’s been all over the news. Like the bulletin says, he’d shaved off his facial hair from how it was in the photo. And he was wearing a blue baseball cap. Yankees, I think. Fuckin’ shame.”

  “You sure you winged him?”

  “Had to have. I heard him give out a yell, and I think there was a hitch in his gait.”

  “You sure about the hitch?”

  “No. Sure about the yell, though.” The female detective with Stack—Rica, he’d called her—had gone inside the store. Sexy little bundle with a great rack. Blainer was glad he could think of such matters; it meant he couldn’t be hurt bad, didn’t it? Now she was back.

  “There’s a fair amount of blood just inside the door,” she said. “Chips might have been hit solid.”

  Stack clutched Blainer’s good shoulder and gave it an approving squeeze, then nodded to the waiting paramedics.

  “The place smells like gasoline inside,” Rica said. “There was accelerant splashed all over the storeroom, especially on the dead man’s clothes. Chips was about to set the place on fire.”

  “Yeah,” Stack said, watching the red and white ambulance carrying Blainer make a U-turn, then head down Lexington with its lights flashing. “It’s what he does, sets fires.”

  “And shoots people,” Rica said, remembering the LA homicide warrant.

  “And shoots people,” Stack agreed.

  Etta and Dani sat across from each other in a dim booth near the back of Shebob’s in the Village. Etta was sipping a daiquiri and Dani was working on a Heineken dark. Etta was worried. Dani had phoned and suggested they meet here tonight, hinting there was something they needed to discuss. This, Etta had thought, hanging up the phone, was the way affairs ended.

  It was much too warm in Shebob’s, and Etta didn’t really feel like drinking. What she wanted to do was leave and walk the short distance to Dani’s apartment.

  “I guess there’s a reason you wanted to meet here instead of at your place,” she said apprehensively to Dani.

  Dani smiled at her. “Are you afraid of the reason?”

  “Yes. Should I be?”

  “I’m the one who’s afraid, Etta.”

  “You?”

  “I’m afraid for you. That something’s going to happen to you.”

  Etta was mystified. “What would happen to me?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.” Dani reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

  Dani’s hand was cold from gripping the glass of beer. Etta didn’t like the way this was going. “But what do you want me to do? How can I reassure you?”

  “By quitting your job. Resigning as Leland Brand’s advisor.”

  Etta was astounded. This she hadn’t expected. “You think something bad might happen to me in my work? But why?”

  That was one Dani couldn’t answer. If Etta knew she’d called the police on the basis of pillow talk Etta hadn’t even been aware of, that would be the end for the two of them together. Time to be assertive, which always worked with Etta. “I can’t and won’t tell you. But let me put it this way, I am telling you to quit.”

  “Brand won’t make it without me,” Etta said.

  “Maybe that’s the idea.”

  “Whatever you mig
ht think about him,” Etta said, “it really doesn’t matter. Politics is nothing more than power finding its comparative levels. Inside that structure are good people and bad people, but the end result is always the same. The good people just suffer more and find different rationalizations to get to the same point. It doesn’t make any difference in the long run if I’m working for a saint or for somebody like Leland Brand.”

  “That’s a cynical point of view.”

  “I’m in a cynical business. I didn’t make it that way.”

  “I don’t care about any of that. Quit the bastard, Etta.” Etta began gnawing her lower lip, trying to understand this unexpected development. Then she had to ask. “Or?…”

  Dani tossed back the rest of her beer and looked hard at her. “You work it out.”

  Five minutes later they were walking together through the cold night, toward Dani’s apartment.

  FORTY-THREE

  Myra had been trembling when the cops left her yesterday afternoon. The cold lump of dread in her stomach had stayed with her the rest of the evening, and all day today. She hadn’t been treated with such disrespect for years. Wasn’t used to it, didn’t deserve it, didn’t like it.

  The female detective, that goddamned Rica Lopez, had misled her on the phone. From the moment Amy had shown the two detectives into her office—Lopez looking more like a Latin sexpot than a cop, Stack like some kind of shopworn movie hero who should be playing straight-arrow Harrison Ford roles—Myra knew it was going to be bad. She hadn’t imagined just how bad.

  After only a few general questions about New York real estate, there’d been a subtle but definite shift in the conversation. Everything Stack asked seemed to have a double meaning, and one Myra grasped seconds after it was too late. He was so reassuring, maturely handsome and polite, and seemed so innately kind, that the answers seemed to slip from her before she could weigh them. Lopez would stay out of it except to make a remark now and then that would keep Myra off balance. Then Stack would refer to Myra as “dear” and close in like a shark. They had a hell of an act, those two.

  Myra had been prepared to lie in answer to direct questions, but direct questions hadn’t been asked. Conversationally, between questions, Stack let it be known obliquely that there was a pattern to the murders, and Myra might be part of it. They’d given her a chance to tell them about the pattern herself, to incriminate herself. Of course she hadn’t. She couldn’t. But not to answer or mention the pattern of the murders was taking a chance. If they did see the entire design, knew what she must know, why would she not acknowledge that such a design existed? What could be motivating her other than guilt?

  She’d thought staying late at the office this evening, losing herself in her work, would help. But it hadn’t. All day her nerves had been getting progressively more raw. That grinding-away process had continued into the evening.

  As she entered her apartment, she tossed her purse down on the table by the door, then strode to the credenza and started to mix a martini. Then she changed her mind and poured herself a straight single malt scotch.

  After downing the drink, she felt slightly better. Calmer, anyway, but still devastated, as if she were being torn down brick by brick, pound of flesh by pound of flesh. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, the left one so hard it bounced off a wall and left a mark like a dark comma.

  The sudden action, along with the drink, temporarily lowered the pressure on her. She’d been angry and depressed, in a mindless funk far too long. That wasn’t her. Not her at all.

  Myra knew her mind was working better now; she could think her way through this, do what was necessary. She’d been doing that almost all her life, so why not this time?

  She strode into the bedroom and changed into jeans, a bulky gray cable-knit sweater, and jogging shoes. Then she walked into the bathroom to apply a cool washcloth to her forehead with one hand while she used the other to brush her teeth. The milk glass tumbler she used to rinse out her mouth was on the left of the washbasin’s marble vanity rather than the right, but she failed to notice.

  She replaced her toothbrush in its holder, then patted her forehead and set the cool washcloth aside, feeling at least somewhat renewed.

  One more scotch, despite the minty aftertaste of the toothpaste, so her nerves grew steadier while her mind still functioned. She sat on the living room sofa and sipped from a Waterford on-the-rocks glass while she gazed out the wide window at the lighted city. Here was where Myra did her best thinking, where she accepted reality and mapped her strategies in the war of life. Everything was coming to a head, that was for sure. She had to act. Myra was no fool. She knew they might be watching her, waiting for her to make the next move. Even so, after contemplating the future, weighing the risks, she simply had to act.

  She glanced at the mantel clock. Still early enough. Tonight. There was no reason to wait. It might be ruinous to wait. Why not tonight?

  Her building had a seldom-used side door anyone staking it out might not know about. Dressed as she would be, in her jeans, with a dark navy jacket and knit watch cap, even if they happened to see her leave, they might not recognize her. She wouldn’t be wearing anything that could be described as a disguise, but at a distance she’d look unlike her usual self, and she wouldn’t act in any way furtive. It was possible that she might slip past unnoticed if they were watching the building.

  She set the half-empty glass aside, then stood up and went to the closet for her coat and hat. After putting them on, she decided gloves would be a good idea. Black leather dress gloves.

  Before leaving the apartment, she checked her image in the mirror. Middle-aged, trendy woman, lean and with some angles, harshly attractive in dark colors. Smart, cocky, determined. What I am, she told herself. What I am.

  She keyed the dead bolt when she left, locking in the demons of uncertainty and pessimism. Myra was out in the world and taking action. Doing something.

  It felt good to be doing something, even if it might be wrong.

  From across the street, the Torcher watched Myra Raven round the corner of the building and hurry away down the sidewalk. A silver lighter clicked, flame appeared, then quickly disappeared. Click! Again. Click! Myra probably hadn’t yet missed the lighter, and if she had, too bad. She didn’t really deserve it, anyway. And it didn’t make any difference now.

  How could Myra Raven think she wouldn’t be noticed, with her lean build even in her bulky coat, her almost masculine walk that bespoke authority? Like a marathon runner’s stride, every motion of every part of her body on the line of her direction, no wasted or hindering sideways movement. There was a deceptive speed to that purposeful, rhythmic walk. Myra Raven would get where she was going faster than she knew.

  Click!

  The Torcher emerged from the shadowed doorway and followed.

  The terror had grown in Myra. Stack and the bitch Rica wouldn’t stop with their one interview. They hadn’t been satisfied, that was for damn sure. They underestimated Myra if they thought she hadn’t seen through them. They’d never stop, neither one of them, ever.

  She should never have left proof, she thought, as she shivered in the cold and hurried from the subway stop toward her office building. There was no way to retain proof without also keeping records. Myra had to have records, had to know what transgressions had been committed so that if pressed in the future she could defend herself with facts. A precaution.

  One that had turned into potential evidence in a criminal trial. Dates and times and names and payments that were all cash transactions. They would coincide with other information. They would lead to more questions, if not by the law, then by the media. Myra knew she was something of a celebrity in New York, even though it was true she’d paid for the advertisements that made her so. Day after day there was her name in the media, there was her photograph every weekend in the real estate section of the Sunday Times. Her success, who she was, would make her a story, and a big one.

  More questions and answers, more i
nformation about Myra, further and further into the past, wider and wider into the more immediate. It wouldn’t simply be the questions about illegal cash transactions and real estate deals. Those questions would lead only to the destruction of the Myra Raven Group. The other questions would lead to Myra Ravinski, and to the destruction of Myra Raven.

  Myra reached her building and thought of sneaking into the garage, using her key to elevator up to her office floor and maybe not be noticed. But that would be a mistake. Why should she sneak? That was the way they wanted her to think and act, as if she were guilty of something. She used the number code on an outside keypad to activate the intercom and buzzer.

  When Barry, the night watchman, appeared on the other side of the glass doors, he squinted at her, then recognized her and smiled.

  He came through the inside doors, then crossed the tile foyer and unlocked the door alongside the row of frozen revolving doors.

  Barry was a large Hispanic man with a mane of white hair and a beautiful smile. He’d once mentioned to Myra that he had eight grandchildren. “Miz Raven! You forget something?”

  “Again,” she said, smiling apologetically. Though in truth she hadn’t returned to the building for a forgotten item in months. An anomaly. The police search for those and use them to good advantage. “And I got restless and thought I might catch up on some paperwork,” she added.

  “You ought to get you one of those little computers ’bout the size of your hand, do your paperwork on that at home. Technology.”

  Cover that earlier lie to Barry. The police will be checking. “I already have one of those, Barry. That’s what I forgot.” Tangled webs, tangled webs…

  “See,” Barry said, pressing the elevator’s UP button for her, “they need some kinda reminder technology to prevent that.”

  Less than five minutes later, Myra entered the Myra Raven Group offices and switched on the lights. She didn’t even bother removing her coat before striding directly to her office.