Fear the Night

by John Lutz

  A juicier target than either Lora or Amelia Repetto.

  He switched off the TV and went into his combination office and collection room. With the practiced ease of a surgeon, he slipped thin, flesh-colored rubber gloves on his hands. From a cabinet beneath a bookshelf he got out the ancient Royal typewriter he’d bought at a roadside antique shop in New Jersey for twenty-five dollars. He’d made minor repairs on the manual typewriter himself, then bought a ribbon at an office supply store and fed it onto one of the old reels. The typewriter worked fine and was perfect for his purpose. Let the police trace the typeface of a fifty-year-old machine in the century of technology.

  No point in wasting time. He placed the typewriter on his desk and got an envelope and sheet of paper from a bottom drawer. He addressed the envelope, then rolled the paper onto the machine’s platen.

  The note he typed was brief:

  Game changed. Stakes Higher.

  When the paper was folded and sealed in the envelope, he placed the envelope in an inside pocket of one of his blue blazers. He removed the gloves from his hands and stuffed them into a side pocket.

  After shrugging into the blazer, he lightly tapped its pockets to make sure nothing had fallen out.

  Then he left to buy a theater ticket.

  45

  “Game changed,” Meg said. She dropped the copy of the latest Night Sniper theater note back on Repetto’s desk in their precinct basement headquarters. It caught a draft and almost slid off the back of the desk. “Do we all agree on what he means by that?”

  “Next target’s gotta be the mayor,” Birdy said. He was perched on the desk corner, absently working one foot as if trying to shake something from his sole. “Why the idiot had to announce when and where he was gonna be is beyond sound reason.”

  Repetto was standing over by the window, blowing on his coffee and waiting for it to cool. He shrugged. “It’s what mayors do.”

  “Man’s got the brain of a piss ant,” Birdy said.

  Meg grinned. She kind of liked the mayor, who wasn’t pure politician. “Are you politically motivated, Birdy?”

  Birdy snorted, stopped with the foot, and began pumping his leg nervously. “I got enough trouble motivating myself to make it through the day.”

  The air conditioner clicked on and a cool breeze wafted from the vents near the ceiling, bringing with it the scent of the booking area above: stale perspiration mixed with desperation. Repetto thought there really might be a smell of fear, and that it lingered.

  “We all know the next line of the nursery rhyme,” Meg said. “Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. That schedule of victims seems to have been abandoned. What the mayor did accomplish is to take a lot of pressure off doctors.”

  “There are scads of doctors,” Birdy said, “only one mayor. No brain.”

  “I stayed up late last night,” Meg said.

  Birdy winked at her. “That mean you’re gonna be short with us?”

  “It means I was busy.” She’d been waiting to tell what she’d figured out, knowing it would top whatever the amorous and ambitious Weaver had done lately.

  Birdy started pumping his leg faster and grinned. “You gonna tell us about your love life, Meg?”

  Odd thing for him to say if they were having a secret affair, Repetto thought. Maybe not. Probably not. He looked at Meg, waiting.

  “I checked all the Sniper crime scenes,” she said. “Wanted to make sure of something. For each murder, the most likely area of the shot’s origin has been worked out. In each of those areas is a permanently or temporarily closed subway stop.”

  Birdy stopped his leg and stared at her. She knew he hadn’t reasoned out where she was going.

  It took Repetto a few seconds; then he smiled at her like a proud father.

  “The muddy footprint on a dry night,” he said. “In the apartment after the restaurant shooting near the park. Lee Nasad.”

  “Right. I didn’t want to say anything until I had all the facts. I obtained a sample of mud from the closed, partly renovated subway stop in that neighborhood yesterday and dropped it by the lab. Then I got confirmation this morning. It matches the mud left by the Sniper’s shoe.” Take that, Weaver.

  Birdy stood up from the desk corner. He was chewing on his lower lip, turning over in his mind what Meg had done. He stopped chewing and looked at her admiringly. “I like it, Meg.”

  She gave him a slight nod to acknowledge the compliment. “I bet our Sniper’s using deserted subway tunnels for shelter and to get around the city unseen.”

  “Which would explain why we button up a crime scene area minutes after the shot, and he’s gone,” Birdy said.

  “Uh-huh. Poof, like that.”

  Repetto was facing away from them now, staring at the slender bar of sunlight fighting its way in through the narrow, ground-level window. “Maybe something’s turned,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe for once we can get out ahead of this bastard.”

  “It’d make a nice change,” Birdy said.

  “I’ll pass on this information to Murchison,” Repetto said, still staring at the light as if fascinated by it.

  “Who’s he?” Birdy asked.

  “Captain Lou Murchison. He’s going to be in charge of TBTC security.”

  “Take Back The City rally?”

  “Yeah. It’s already got an acronym.”

  “No stopping it now,” Birdy said.

  “Murchison’ll notify the mayor’s personal security so they and the NYPD can coordinate efforts.”

  “Maybe the mayor will change his mind,” Meg said.

  “No mind,” Birdy said.

  “Something else,” Meg said. “Two blocks from Rockefeller Center there’s a subway stop closed for future renovations.”

  Repetto turned back around. Birdy returned to perch on the desk and started pumping his leg again, faster and faster. He noticed what he was doing. Kicked the desk once, hard.

  “Closed subway stop could be good or bad,” Repetto said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Meg told him.

  “Bad,” Birdy said.

  A doughnut bag! That was good. Bobby wondered why so many people often threw away doughnut bags with one or two doughnuts still in them. Bought more than they could eat, maybe. Or calorie guilt caught up with them and they left a doughnut or two to reassure themselves they were still on their diets.

  Bobby didn’t care. He reached farther down into the trash receptacle and pulled the crumpled white bag out from beneath a warped and water-stained old paperback somebody had thrown away. He glanced at the title: Six Rules for Sensational Sex. Self-help. Fuckin’ joke.

  He ignored the book but did remove one of several discarded newspapers in the wire basket. This one, a Post, was barely used, as if whoever had thrown it away merely glanced at the headlines, then discarded it.

  With the folded paper tucked beneath his arm, he opened the doughnut bag. Half a powdered jelly. Okay, that’d do.

  Bobby shuffled down the block until he came to the doorway of an import shop that had its steel shutters down over the windows. He sat back so his lower legs wouldn’t be out on the sidewalk where he might trip somebody, then bit into the doughnut. Great. Still fresh.

  It took him only a few seconds to down what was left of the doughnut. After swiping his hands together to brush away the sugar, he licked a stubborn glob of jelly from a knuckle, then leaned back against the shop door and unfolded the Post.

  “Shit!” he said, loud enough that a guy in a dark business suit walking past turned his head and gave him a look.

  Right there on the front page was more news about the Take Back The City rally, under the headline NEW YORKERS FIGHT BACK. Thousands were expected to attend.

  Thousands of targets, Bobby thought. No, one target, really. TBTC, as it had come to be known, had seemed to Bobby a bad idea from the beginning. Somebody should have talked to the mayor and made him see reason. He was taunting the Night Sniper, the deadliest killer the city had seen in year
s, and a real sicko. Bobby was no profiler, but there was no doubt in his mind a guy like the Sniper couldn’t pass up a challenge like this one.

  Across the street, a young woman hurrying toward a bus stop casually left behind a plastic water bottle on a display window ledge. Even from this distance Bobby could see that it was almost half-full.

  He was thirsty, after the doughnut.

  He stood up and stuffed the crumpled, empty doughnut bag into his hip pocket to be thrown away later. (Bobby was neat; didn’t foul up his city.) The newspaper he refolded and tucked beneath his arm. He’d read it later in the park.

  When there was a break in traffic, he crossed the street to get the water bottle, still thinking about the TBTC mass of humanity that was going to be in Rockefeller Center. A wonderful place to die.

  The mayor had balls. Bobby had to give him that. Maybe Bobby would even register so he could vote for him in the next election, if they were both still alive.

  “This is a nightmare,” Captain Louis Murchison said to Repetto. He was a tall man with the slimness of youth and steel-gray hair. Repetto had seen him around over the years, usually in uniform. Today he had on a well-tailored gray suit and looked more like a Wall Street baron than a cop. “We don’t have enough people to cover every rooftop and window the Sniper can use for cover.”

  The two men stood on Forty-ninth Street, adjacent to Rockefeller Plaza, and surveyed the surrounding neighborhood. Repetto saw that Murchison was right; this was one of the busiest areas of Manhattan and was vertically developed. There were possible shooting points from overlooking buildings even blocks away, taller than the buildings between them and the Plaza.

  “I’ve got something that might help,” Repetto said, and told Murchison what Meg had figured out about the Sniper using closed tunnels and stops in the subway system to move around town.

  “Interesting,” Murchison said. “He can get in and out of the crime scene fast and unseen, and it minimizes the risk of him carrying a rifle both directions.”

  “Whatever weapon he’s using,” Repetto said, “it probably breaks down. Target rifles often do, for travel.”

  “So he can kill somebody, then carry away the damned weapon in his pocket.”

  “They don’t break down quite that far,” Repetto said. “But maybe some of them fit in a shopping bag or attaché case.”

  Murchison stared down thoughtfully at the pavement between his feet. “I wonder how many closed subway stops there are.”

  “At present, permanently and temporarily, fifteen,” Repetto said. “I checked with the Transit Bureau.”

  “You ask them how many miles of track there are?”

  “No,” Repetto admitted.

  “Damn near 240. My brother-in-law used to work for Port Authority told me that a while back. There’s another city underneath this one, Repetto. Our sniper has plenty of room to roam.”

  “Still,” Repetto said, “knowing where he roams makes it easier.”

  “Yeah,” Murchison said despondently, “we might be standing only a few hundred miles from him right now.”

  Repetto decided not to point out to Murchison about miles as the crow flies, and that the crow didn’t fly underground. The subway system was laced with a crisscross pattern of tracks. They might be standing on top of the Sniper right now.

  Murchison slipped his hands in his pockets and glanced up again at the surrounding buildings. “Our sniper roams high, too. Planning and preparation go into everything he does. He might be watching us right now.”

  “Makes me glad I’m not the mayor.”

  “If they’d take my advice,” Murchison said, “this rally would be canceled. But the mayor won’t hear of it.”

  “Maybe he figures he’s in too far to back out.”

  “No, not him. He wants to do this. And not only for political reasons. He takes it as a personal affront, what the Sniper’s been doing to his city.”

  “So do I,” Repetto said.

  Murchison looked at him to be sure he was serious.

  Repetto was.

  “You and the mayor,” Murchison said with mock disgust.

  “You too,” Repetto said.

  “Yeah, maybe. But I go only so far. Gotta give Hizoner credit for guts.”

  “Gets my vote.”

  Murchison turned and motioned toward Rockefeller Plaza, where a restaurant was serving outdoor diners in the sunken area where the ice rink was during the winter months. It was also where the city’s official Christmas tree would be displayed later in the year.

  “We’re gonna set up a podium down there in the Plaza,” Murchison said. “Make the speakers, including the mayor, tougher targets below ground level.”

  “Good idea. But probably not enough.”

  “Probably not, but thanks to your man—”

  “Woman. Detective Meg Doyle.”

  Murchison nodded. “I’ll remember the name. What we’ll do is pull some people off the immediate area to cover the subway stops in the neighborhood. Have them look for anything suspicious, especially if it involves somebody possibly carrying a rifle—even one that’s disassembled.”

  Repetto said he thought that was a good idea. He also knew the long odds against results, in a city where everyone schlepped everything.

  “You’ll be in charge of subway stop security,” Murchison told him. “I’ll clear it with Melbourne.”

  Repetto was surprised but didn’t argue. Daunting as the assignment might be, it was one he wanted. His city. His and the mayor’s.

  Murchison waved an arm in an encompassing gesture. “We’ll have the area around the Plaza flooded with uniformed and undercover cops. Spotters and SWAT snipers will be stationed strategically in, and on, surrounding buildings.”

  “The Sniper will be expecting that,” Repetto said.

  Murchison nodded agreement. “That’s why the subway information and your assignment are so important.”

  Repetto knew what Murchison meant, but Murchison went ahead and said it: “It’d be nice if we nailed the Sniper before he kills the mayor.”

  The object of the game, Repetto thought.

  The game.

  46

  The Night Sniper sat back from his typewriter and checked his letter to the New York Times. In it he complimented the mayor for his wisdom and fortitude in speaking at the upcoming TBTC rally. It was a time for strong leadership and the mayor was providing it. The city couldn’t let itself be held hostage by fear, and only someone with courage could break the chains of that fear through bold and definitive action. The mayor made the letter writer proud to be a New Yorker.

  The letter was unsigned.

  The Night Sniper doubted the Times would print such a letter from an anonymous source, but they’d count it in their pro and con survey. It would add weight, however slight, to the mayor’s political responsibility.

  It would contribute to maneuvering the mayor closer to the point of his death.

  The morning before the TBTC rally, the Night Sniper made his way on foot across town toward Rockefeller Center. He’d noticed a uniformed policeman stationed near the closed subway stop that provided access to a tunnel leading downtown. The subway tunnel was the route the Night Sniper had intended taking.

  He stood looking at the policeman, a young man with a seriousness and tenseness about him. As if he expected trouble and perhaps wanted it.

  Not willing to take a chance, the Night Sniper walked to his secondary entry point.

  No uniformed cop there, but a decidedly suspicious businessman seated on a nearby bench and pretending to read a magazine while sipping water from a plastic bottle. He looked, he felt, like an undercover cop. And if he wasn’t, what about the homeless man with the good haircut slouching near the corner?

  No problem, the Night Sniper told himself.

  But as he walked toward Midtown, he saw that other subway stops were staked out by the police. No mistaking it now; they must at least suspect he was using the subways for shelter and to m
ove about, especially the deserted tunnels and stations.

  This shouldn’t be a complete surprise. Repetto wasn’t a fool. That was why he’d been chosen.

  The Night Sniper walked on.

  He finally found a long-deserted stop his pursuers had overlooked, on East Fifty-ninth Street. The surface structure leading to the stairwell was razed, its rubble piled nearby. The entry to underground was shielded from sight by a raised plywood walkway, the access to the stairwell covered by a square steel plate. The construction walkway was flanked by four-by-eight plywood sheets propped on their sides and nailed tight to upright supports, so that only the upper bodies of passersby were visible.

  When no one was on the angled walkway, the homeless man with the backpack dropped down out of sight. The steel plate was screwed down, but was easy to pry up from the weathered wood walkway. He quickly slid the plate to the side, then lowered himself into the darkness beneath. Just as quickly, but with considerably more effort, he slid the plate back into place from below so it could be walked upon. In darkness, he began descending rusty steel rungs protruding from an old concrete wall that curved to remind him of a well.

  The last ten feet of the ladder was smooth steel, as the entry widened to twice its diameter. The ground below was muddy but with a firmness just below the surface.

  Standing at the base of the ladder, the Night Sniper could hear the muffled roar of subway trains. He got his small mag light from his backpack and shone the thin beam about.

  He knew where he was. In a tunnel with unused tracks leading to a stop near West Fifty-first Street—not far from Rockefeller Center.

  This was his world. He felt safer here. Heartened, he strode confidently into darkness, playing the flashlight beam ahead of him so he wouldn’t trip over something or twist an ankle on a piece of debris. The tunnel smelled musty and faintly of something rotting. A familiar and comforting smell.

  After a while, the unused tunnel veered left into the operational tunnel leading to the subway stop. Trains ran regularly along this route, so he had to stay alert.