Night Victims n-3

by John Lutz

  Lonely, was the answer. Right now, I feel goddamned lonely.

  He realized he hadn’t been lonely in years. Really lonely. The kind of lonely that grabs at your guts and makes you afraid to look into yourself.

  He also had to admit he was feeling too sorry for himself. If there was any emotion Horn hated it was self-pity. It robbed you of everything worthwhile. It made you vulnerable.

  He mentally castigated himself for falling into such a funk. Don’t be such an asshole. You’ve got a life to live. A job to do.

  A job. .

  He tried to concentrate on the Mandle case: how the murderous bastard had escaped, what a capable killer he must be. A man trained to kill in the service of his country now killing in the service of his psychosis.

  Was it a psychosis? Or was Mandle simply evil? The truth was that Horn had never much bothered himself about the distinction. His job, his calling, was to stop people like Aaron Mandle, to remove them from society. The world didn’t set itself right. For everyone who broke things material or human and upset the balance, someone had to repair and restore and realign. Horn wasn’t only working for the city; he was working for the victims. Justice was not an abstract to Thomas Horn.

  Illness or malevolence or both, whatever fueled his intent, Mandle was certainly doing evil. And if he wasn’t found again and stopped, the evil would resume. That was enough motivation for Horn, enough reason to live and to rouse himself and confront each fresh new morning.

  Or so he told himself.

  He snuffed out what was left of his cigar, drained the last quarter inch of his drink, and trudged upstairs to bed.

  Sleeping alone was nothing new. Because of the hours a cop kept and the hours a hospital administrator kept, Horn and Anne had often slept alone.

  But going to bed alone wasn’t the same thing as going to bed lonely.

  Getting up early wasn’t the same thing as waking up early, either. Horn had been awake for hours before finally climbing out of bed when dawn light began filtering into the room.

  He put on a robe, stepped into comfortable lined leather slippers, and went down to the kitchen. After getting the

  Braun coffeemaker clucking and gurgling, he padded into the foyer, expecting to hear Anne’s footfall upstairs or see a note from her on the hall table explaining where she’d gone. When she’d return.

  Not gonna happen! Stop messing with your own mind!

  Time to step outside and get the morning paper, if no one had stolen it. He knew that by the time he stepped back inside there’d be at least a faint scent of fresh coffee in the brownstone. He’d have a cup at the kitchen table while he scanned the news. Then he’d shower, dress, and walk down to the Home Away for a proper breakfast.

  When he opened the door, he wasn’t surprised not to find a paper on the concrete stoop or within sight on the sidewalk.

  But there was something on the porch. A chess piece. A plastic red knight about four inches tall.

  Horn thought it was interesting the way it had been placed on the porch, tucked up against the inside of the wrought-iron railing so it couldn’t be seen from the street. Someone would have to walk up on the stoop and then turn almost all the way around in order to spot it. Or open the door and look out.

  He bent over, picked up the piece, and examined it. Nothing unusual. Cheap plastic from a mold. The red knight was from the sort of set that could be bought at just about any store that sold games.

  Horn carried the chess knight into the house and placed it on the kitchen table. He poured a too strong, half cup of coffee, then sat down at the table and looked at the knight, wondering what it might mean. Almost surely someone had placed it on the porch deliberately where he-or Anne-would notice it when leaving the brownstone.

  Horn sipped and thought, while the bitterness of lukewarm coffee displaced the stale aftertaste of last night’s cigar. Some trade.

  The thing about the knight, he mused, was that it was the only chess piece capable of moving above other pieces. It could drop straight down to capture an opponent’s piece.

  Did that really mean something? Was he making too much of this? Had some homeless person or wandering kid simply found the chess knight on the sidewalk and placed it out of harm’s way on the stoop, thinking it might belong to whoever lived in the brownstone? A thoughtful gesture. Such things could happen in New York. Along with the brusequeness, mayhem, and murder, such things could happen.

  The phone rang.

  Setting down his cup, Horn twisted his body and stretched out his left arm to lift the receiver on the kitchen extension. He glanced at the microwave clock as he put plastic to ear and said hello, wondering who’d be calling him at 6:45 in the morning.

  It was Anne.

  She was screaming.

  39

  When Horn finally got Anne calmed down enough to be coherent, she told him over the phone that someone had been in her apartment.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I called, didn’t I?” Fear was becoming anger. But plenty of fear remained vibrant in her voice.

  Horn fought down his initial alarm. Like him, Anne wasn’t used to living alone, and she was in a precarious mental state due to the hospital lawsuit, and the loss of her marriage and job. Who could blame her for overreacting to whatever it was that had scared her?

  “How do you know someone’s been there?”

  “Things aren’t the same as when I went to bed last night.”

  It was a sublet apartment on East 54th Street; most of the furniture and incidentals belonged to the regular tenant. “A new place, Anne. Maybe you’re not sure yet where everything belongs.” Maybe you made a mistake, leaving. Maybe you belong here.

  “I’m not an idiot, Thomas! It isn’t only that items seem to have been moved about. There are things that weren’t here when I went to bed.” Her voice broke and he thought she was about to lose control again. But she remained calm. “Some things on my dresser. To think someone was right here while I was sleeping a few feet away, unaware. Christ, it gives me the chills!”

  But he knew how strong she was. What had set her off so! Rattled her so that she was screaming when she phoned?

  “What was it you found on your dresser, Anne?”

  “I. . I’m not sure. Yes, I am. It looks like a tooth with. . maybe part of the gum still attached.”

  “A tooth? You certain?”

  “I think that’s what it is.”

  “Maybe from the previous tenant.”

  “Sure, Thomas. That happens all the time, somebody moves out and leaves a tooth.” Sarcasm. Good.

  “Could be there was a pet there and it’s a dog’s tooth. Does it look like an animal tooth?”

  “Well. . I guess it could be.”

  “What else, Anne? Stay with what’s on the dresser.”

  “Something not so disturbing. A little black figurine.”

  “What kind of figurine?”

  “Cheap, plastic. The neck and head of a horse.”

  Horn went cold. “A chess piece?”

  “Now that I hear you say it, yes, it could be. It probably is a chess knight. I suppose that’s something I overlooked last night. I should have known what it was right away.” She sounded peeved, as if he’d accused her of doing something wrong. “The previous tenant might have played chess and the piece got separated from the rest of the set. Something like that. Bounced under the bed and the janitorial service found it, and when the maid reached for it she slipped and struck her mouth on the bed frame and a tooth-”

  “Anne.”

  She recognized something in his voice and fell silent.

  “So you’re cool enough to be sarcastic,” Horn said.

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But damn it, Thomas!. .”

  “Are you on the cell phone?”

  “Yes. The phone service in the apartment hasn’t been switched over yet.”

  “Is there a window in the bedroom?”

  “Of course.”

  “G
o to it.” He waited only a few seconds.

  “I’m there.”

  “Is the window locked?”

  “Yes. Just as I left it last night.”

  “Don’t just glance at it. Look more closely. At the glass near the lock.”

  “Oh, fuck! Thomas?”

  “The glass is cut away so the lock could be worked from outside. Right?”

  “That’s right. But. .”

  “Be calm and listen, Anne. Please.”

  He heard her sigh, hoped it wasn’t a sob. Then: “I’m okay. What now?”

  “Lock the bedroom door and stay inside until you hear the police or the voice of someone you know.”

  “Thomas!”

  “Will you do that?”

  “Of course!”

  “Someone will be there soon, I promise. I’m going to hang up now so I can make phone calls while I dress and drive.”

  “Thomas, hurry!”

  “I’m stepping into my pants. I won’t be the first one there, but I won’t be far behind.”

  He called 911 before leaving his house and was out of the building and in his car within five minutes, driving fast and recklessly and one-handed while making his other calls. First, the governing precinct, to light a fire under their collective ass, then Paula. She could phone Bickerstaff.

  When Paula had hung up, Horn called the precinct house again to make sure they were on the move. Thinking there might be something to that law against simultaneously driving and using a cell phone in New York. The drivers blasting their horns at him, gesticulating and shouting insults as he sped past or cut them off, sure were in favor of it.

  By the time Horn reached Anne’s building and got up to her apartment on the twenty-ninth floor, it was crowded and buzzing with activity. His first impression as he approached the open door was that a party was going on there. His wife’s new apartment and she was throwing a party and he wasn’t invited. Jesus, what an inane, self-involved thought.

  He walked in past the open door. Strange apartment. Modern furniture except for what Anne had contributed. Some things were familiar, most not. Did Anne really live here? He knew almost everyone at the party: Paula, Bickerstaff, a hulking plainclothes detective named Ellison; Johansen, one of several techs swarming the place, vacuuming for hairs and particulate matter; two uniforms, one of whom Horn knew though he couldn’t recall his name. He was a big guy with a deep scar on his face. It bothered Horn that he seemed to have lost some ability to put name to face. Advancing age?

  Bullshit!

  Anne saw him and came to him. “Thanks, Thomas.” At first she appeared ready to hug him, then stepped back, merely touching his arm.

  “You back to your usual self?” he asked.

  She managed a smile that was a little weak at the corners. “Pretty close. Thanks in large measure to you.”

  Beyond Anne, Horn saw Paula standing in a doorway. She nodded and beckoned to him.

  He left Anne talking to the patrolman with the scar, made his way toward Paula, and saw that the doorway led to the bedroom. Paula moved aside so he could enter.

  A woman from the ME’s office was hunched over the dresser, picking up something with tweezers and preparing to drop it into a clear plastic evidence bag. She was young, almost a kid. Straight blond hair, blue eyes, no makeup because she didn’t need it. Looked like a cheerleader his daughter had known years ago in junior high. But she carried herself and did her work with a kind of confidence Horn liked.

  He moved closer. She knew who he was and didn’t object, even inched over to make room for him. He looked down at a pointed white tooth with gray matter dangling from it.

  “Tell me that’s an animal’s tooth,” he said.

  “It’s a human eyetooth,” said the assistant ME, who’d probably never been a cheerleader. “I’d guess it was knocked out, or maybe caught in material or something and ripped out. People get in fights sometimes, try to bite the other guy, and their teeth get snagged in a shirt or whatever. A violent motion and the tooth gets yanked.”

  “Have you ever actually seen that?”

  “Once. A bunch of teeth, all false. We got a good yuk out of it.”

  Horn pointed to the object in the delicate grasp of the tweezers. “So what’s that hanging from it?”

  “That’s part of the gum still attached.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. But we can all be positive after some concurring opinion and basic tests to confirm.”

  Horn saw the chess piece near the base of the dresser mirror. Black plastic. An opposing knight to the red one he’d found on the brownstone’s stoop this morning. Almost certainly it was from the same chess set.

  He walked over to the bedroom window. There was the brass lock that connected top and lower aluminum frames. It was set, but that was meaningless; behind it, a neat crescent of glass had been cut away and was prevented from falling by a strip of masking tape.

  There wasn’t any doubt now.

  Aaron Mandle had been here.

  Horn remembered the hateful diatribes in court. The dead-eyed, baleful stares. How Mandle must despise him! Must blame him for his capture and conviction.

  And now he wanted to punish Horn by making Anne one of his victims.

  Mandle wouldn’t know about their separation. He must be assuming Horn had moved Anne out of the brownstone and was hiding her here for her protection until the Night Spider was once again captured and imprisoned.

  And right now Mandle was moving freely and could take Anne whenever he chose. That was the message of last night. The chess knights, signifying that the game had begun. The opposing knight and the grisly souvenir, letting Anne-and Horn-know that Anne was alive only because the Night Spider didn’t yet want her. Her destiny was in his hands. The knowledge would be toxic, working inexorably inside her. She walked the earth knowing her free will meant nothing if it existed only at his discretion. She wasn’t free at all and never would be again. After last night, her every breath occurred only because he chose to let breathing continue.

  And it wouldn’t continue much longer.

  The Night Spider was toying with her, and showing his disdain for Horn.

  The intricate dance that would end in torture and slow death had begun.

  40

  “So you placed her under police protection?” Marla asked the next morning. Horn was waiting for Paula and Bickerstaff to arrive at the Home Away. She placed his plate of toasted corn muffins on the table. There was still some breakfast crowd in the diner, so their conversation had been sporadic.

  “As much as possible,” Horn said.

  “Anne should be moved out of that place.”

  “That’s exactly what she’s refused to do. She says she won’t be intimidated into living in terror.”

  “But she’s there almost all the time, isn’t she? I mean, she’s not working right now.”

  Horn took a bite of buttered muffin and nodded. Chewed and swallowed. “We’ve got her apartment building and the apartment itself under close watch. And when she goes out, she has a shadow. But there’s a limit to that kind of close scrutiny. The NYPD can’t afford to guard individual citizens forever.”

  “And Mandle’s waiting for it to stop.”

  “That would be my guess.”

  Horn finished one of his corn muffins and downed half a cup of coffee while Marla went to the front of the diner to wait on customers. He was hungry and exhausted. He’d caught only about an hour’s sleep this morning before the scheduled meeting at the diner. It was probably the same for Paula and Bickerstaff; he could hardly blame them for being late.

  When Marla returned, she topped off his coffee.

  “He won’t give up on her,” she said.

  “He should be thinking primarily of escape and going into hiding,” Horn said, “instead of drawing attention to himself.”

  “Should be. And in his position most men would be holed up somewhere and counting themselves lucky.”

  �
�What’s driving him?” Horn asked. He’d found Marla to be his wisest advisor in this case.

  “The usual. Revenge, compulsion. And ego.”

  “Ego?”

  “Anne’s the most difficult of his victims. He deliberately made her even more difficult by telegraphing he was going to kill her. She’s his ultimate challenge. In climbing terms, his Mount Everest. He sees her as a victory that can never be taken away from him, not even in death. Once Anne is dead, in the struggle with authority-with you-he’s triumphant.”

  “He’ll think he’s triumphant even if it means his death? Instead of life in some distant city or country under another identity?”

  Marla smiled. “You know the answer, Horn.”

  He nodded glumly. “Mandle would rather die a winner than live as a loser. He’ll try to make Anne his next victim.”

  “Not necessarily his next. And my guess is there’s a reason that nobody’s mentioned yet that explains his entry into Anne’s apartment. I don’t think he’s just letting you know he can have her whenever he decides to act. When it’s over, he wants you to know for sure he murdered her and it wasn’t the work of a copycat killer. That’s also the reason for the chess knights, to make you aware this is a game you and he are playing, and when Anne dies, he’s won.”

  “Winning is damned important to this fruitcake.”

  “Like Lombardi said. . ”

  “Yeah. What about the tooth on her dresser?”

  Before Marla could answer, the bell over the door jingled and Paula and Bickerstaff entered the diner. They both appeared tired, Bickerstaff especially. He was even more rumpled than usual and dragging his feet as he walked. This morning he looked like what he was, a man who should retire.

  When they’d settled into the booth and Marla had brought them coffee and taken their orders, Horn said, “What have we learned?”