Chill of Night

by John Lutz

  Someone had clued in the police. Two radio cars arrived, their flashing roof-bar lights creating red and blue ghosts everywhere. Beam heard sirens in the distance, getting closer.

  “Time for us to leave,” Beam said. “I don’t want any media to recognize me.”

  They wandered into the gathering dusk, an anonymous couple in the most anonymous of cities. The chanting had grown in volume and intensity: “Free Adelaide! Free Adelaide!” Beam tried to block it out as he and Nola angled toward the low stone wall running along Central Park West.

  He climbed over the wide stones, then helped Nola.

  They were out of the park now, suddenly among tall buildings, and bright, heavy traffic flowing along a busy avenue. Most of the vehicles had their lights on. The scent of leaves and grass had given way to that of exhaust fumes.

  A bus rumbled past, accelerating to beat the traffic signal. When the sound of its engine had faded, Beam and Nola could still hear the chanting wafting from the park.

  “A hundred or so people,” Beam said, “but on cable news tonight they’ll look like a thousand.”

  “That young woman’s got this city under her thumb,” Nola said. She sounded secretly pleased.

  Maybe not so secretly.

  They crossed the street, moving away from the park, and strolled toward the corner. A man and woman holding hands walked toward them. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt; she had on red shorts, a white blouse, and sandals. They walked as if they were in no kind of hurry. The woman smiled and nodded as they passed. Beam thought the man looked a little like Harry Lima, but he didn’t mention it.

  Without breaking stride, Nola moved closer to Beam.

  “I think it’s time,” she said.

  Her tone was matter of fact, but that was Nola.

  He knew what she meant and didn’t ask if she was sure.

  They made love in Nola’s apartment, in Nola’s bed beneath a cracked ceiling and the creaking sounds of the upstairs tenant pacing. Nola was tentative at first, but when he entered her she moaned and bucked upward and upward beneath him. Then she met his gaze and very calmly dug her nails into his back, marking him, making him hers alone. And she gave herself back to him in ways that made it clear she was his.

  They lay quietly together afterward, each aware that the world had changed. Both hoped the change was for the better. Both knew that now what they thought made little difference; there was no going back for either of them.

  A powerful current held them and would keep them. The fascist tool and his lover.

  49

  “Did you anticipate this?” da Vinci asked.

  “Not so soon,” Beam admitted, “and not so many.”

  They were in da Vinci’s stifling office, looking at tapes of the Free Adelaide demonstrations that had occurred throughout the city last night. The overhead fixture was off, as was da Vinci’s desk lamp. The office door was closed, and the blinds were adjusted tight to admit as little light as possible. It was as if da Vinci had prepared the office for a movie screening. Beam noticed that the small TV that usually sat on top of the DVD player on one of the file cabinets had been replaced by a much larger one; which came in handy, because several demonstrations were being shown simultaneously in split screen shots. As it turned out, the demonstration in Central Park had been the smallest.

  “So what’s your advice now?” da Vinci asked, using the remote to switch off the TV just as a camera zoomed in on a demonstrator frantically waving a FREE ADELAIDE! sign.

  “Sit tight,” Beam said.

  “Where I’m sitting,” da Vinci said, “it’s getting tighter and tighter.” As if moved by his words, he stood up and opened the blinds. Light reclaimed the office, accompanied by harsh reality.

  “The Adelaide fuss might blow over.”

  “Yeah. Like a tornado.”

  Beam took another tack. “We’re canvassing all the jewelry stores and custom manufacturers. The Justice Killer might have made a mistake with that ring.”

  “I suspect it’s pretty much a waste of time,” da Vinci said, sitting back down behind his desk. “I think this business with the ring is just another diversion. Our killer’s too smart to have dropped such a big shiny clue into your lap unless he thought it might send you off in the wrong direction.”

  “He did it because he hates me,” Beam said. “We’re getting close to him, and he knows it. It’s tight where he’s sitting, too.”

  Da Vinci gave a humorless chuckle. “I talked to Helen the profiler about that. She doesn’t think he hates you. Says he hates himself, knows he’s sabotaging himself because subconsciously he yearns to be caught. It’s like a disease that grows in most serial killers, she says. The killing he’s done is beginning to haunt him.”

  “What do you think?” Beam asked.

  “I think she doesn’t know diddly.”

  A uniformed assistant knocked, then entered the office with a tray on which was a glass coffeepot, two mugs, and a folded newspaper. A stolid, attractive woman devoid of makeup, she placed the tray near the motorcycle sculpture on the desk. Her unblinking eyes, the stiffness of her cheeks, suggested she wasn’t crazy about this part of her job.

  Da Vinci absently thanked her as she left and closed the door behind her. The inner sanctum was sealed and inviolate again.

  Da Vinci laid the folded Post on his desk where Beam could reach it, then began pouring coffee into the mugs. Both men were prepared to drink their coffee black, which was fortunate, because there was no cream or sugar on the tray. Was their absence an expression of disdain from the annoyed assistant? Another rebellious woman in da Vinci’s world?

  “You seen the papers yet this morning?” da Vinci asked, as he poured.

  Beam said he hadn’t, then reached for the folded paper, as he was sure da Vinci intended.

  “Page five,” da Vinci said.

  “I know,” Beam said. “I see the teaser on the front page.” He drew his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on.

  On page five of the paper there was a transcript of an exclusive interview with Melanie Taylor.

  As Beam scanned it, da Vinci said, “She’s changed her mind. Now she thinks Cold Cat killed his wife.”

  “I can believe it,” Beam said, “but why was she dumb enough to say it?”

  “You read between the lines, you can tell some asshole journalist conned her. She probably thought she was talking off the record, maybe not to a journalist at all.”

  “Still, she said it. She must not have realized what it meant. Maybe she doesn’t yet. Though when she sees this she’s gonna be mad as hell.”

  Da Vinci handed Beam his coffee. Beam accepted it with one hand, tossing the Post back on the desk with the other.

  “Somebody else who’s gonna be mad is the Justice Killer,” da Vinci said. “He figures to go after her. Helen says its almost a cinch Melanie will be next. I have to concur.”

  “We’ve got to give Melanie protection.”

  “She’s already got it, even though she might not have read the paper yet and know she needs it.” Da Vinci sipped his coffee and made a face, as if he’d encountered something unexpectedly distasteful.

  It made Beam hesitant to try his coffee.

  “We’ve got Melanie’s apartment staked out and there’ll be a tail on her,” da Vinci continued. “We don’t have unlimited resources, so it takes some police presence away from Cold Cat. Seems the move to make, though, since Melanie all but painted a target on her ass. But I’ve gotta tell you, if the Justice Killer could get to Dudman, with all his high-priced professional security, I’ve gotta bet on him to nail this airhead Melanie.”

  “Helen the profiler quote you any odds on that?” Beam asked, thinking da Vinci and Helen seemed to have been discussing things together a lot lately.

  Da Vinci nodded. “She said it was about ninety percent he’d make the kill.”

  “You, I, and the profiler agree,” Beam said. “What’s the world coming to?”

/>   “You don’t want me to answer that,” da Vinci said.

  Beam forgot and sampled his coffee. It was bitter.

  Melanie wasn’t going in to work this morning. She simply couldn’t. It was as if the throngs of people on the streets, the commuters packed into the subway, and her colleagues at work would all know, would somehow be able to see it on her like a telltale external bruise. The callousness of Richard’s—Cold Cat’s—continued refusal even to speak to her was like a slap in the face that wouldn’t stop stinging.

  Her bedroom smelled stale, and the sheet and pillow beneath her were damp with perspiration. Sleep had been impossible except in short stretches. She kept coming awake with her mind awhirl in a tempest of worries. Concerns that didn’t seem so important in the morning light, but in her dark bedroom had seemed of crisis proportions. It was her loneliness turning mean on her, as it sometimes did in unguarded moments. Or possibly the sugar in that milkshake last night before bedtime had given her an energy surge that prevented sleep. And of course there was caffeine in chocolate.

  She raised her head, prompting a stab of pain behind her eyes—the sugar again. The red numerals on her bedside clock read 8:02.

  After finally dozing off around 6 a.m., she’d overslept and would have been late for work even if she were planning on going in.

  It wasn’t too late to call in sick, though.

  She rolled onto her side and reached for the phone, then pecked out the familiar number of Regal Trucking. Waited while the phone rang on the other end of the connection.

  A recording. Voice mail. Past eight o’clock and no one was in the office yet, readying the trucks for the day’s run. Melanie was annoyed, then she almost smiled. They could hardly criticize her for being sick.

  She left a brief message, unconsciously making her voice husky, as if her throat were sore, then hung up.

  She replaced the receiver, then lay back and closed her eyes.

  Opened them.

  Now she was wide awake. She reached over for the remote, then plumped up her pillow and switched on the TV near the foot of the bed.

  She was astounded to see herself exiting the diner on First Avenue where she’d had dinner last night.

  She sat straight up in bed. The volume was set on mute, and she was too stunned to change it.

  Print began to scroll over the frozen image on the screen. Print within quotation marks. Familiar words.

  Her words.

  Her eye blurred with tears so she could no longer read them. Didn’t want to read them.

  Who…? How…?

  That bastard!

  He must have been wired, recording our conversation I assumed was casual and private. A journalist! Goddamned sneaky, lying journalist, taking advantage of my distress. Another man deceiving me, using me.

  Melanie hurled the remote at the TV and missed, but the impact when it bounced off the wall caused the volume to come on full blast. The bedroom vibrated under high-decibel assault.

  Melanie placed her palms over her ears, as if to warm them, pressing hard enough that her head felt squeezed in a vise. She scrunched her eyes shut against the pain.

  She felt like screaming.

  She thought she might actually scream.

  50

  St. Louis, 1993

  The roaring grew louder, time rushing past like wind.

  Justice stood staring at the headstone, thinking it must be somebody else’s name carved there, somebody with the same name as his wife’s.

  But he knew it wasn’t. April was down there, in the grave, in the dark.

  She needed him!

  He rose from sleep, hearing his harsh, agonized gasp, as if from somewhere outside himself.

  The bedroom was silent. His pillow was soaked with sweat. More awake now, more aware than he’d ever been, he felt his mind whirling out of control. He tried to steady it, tried to slow and organize his thoughts so they made sense. There was a bitterness at the back of his throat. He swallowed.

  Didn’t feel it.

  Didn’t hear it.

  His heart was a stone in his chest.

  He made himself open his eyes and turn his head on the pillow so he was looking at April.

  Of course she wasn’t there. She was still in his dream, in her grave.

  She’s succeeded.

  Finally, she’s ended it.

  He began to breathe hard through his nose, and he lay listening to the relentless, labored hissing.

  Air in, air out. Life.

  She ended it. She was gone.

  Nothing was the same. It would never be the same. Nothing.

  His thoughts that had scattered like startled crows now settled down to roost in the familiar bleak landscape. The sadness that weighed like iron encompassed him.

  And with the sadness came the rage. He blamed Davison, their son Will’s rapist and killer, for what had dealt the crushing blow to their lives. But he blamed the justice system for April’s depression and death, and for his own fury and misery.

  The justice system had let their son’s killer walk free. It had made it impossible for the bereaved parents to feel the finality of the book of justice closing, ending a sad chapter. They could never even begin the gradual ascent from a dark pit of grief and anger. The justice system had done nothing to keep them from sinking deeper and deeper into the pit, and finally April had reached the bottom, where the snakes waited.

  He held the justice system responsible.

  Feeling his head begin to pound, as if usually did when he awoke like this at—he looked at the clock—3 a.m., he sat up in bed.

  For a while he sat motionless, listening to the mournful sounds of the house at night, of the night outside. Nothing around him but night.

  He held the justice system responsible.

  51

  New York, the present

  The Justice Killer sat at a table in the nave of a church of capitalism, the Citigroup Building, and sipped an egg cream as he watched people scurry past with their packages. Though he was indoors, the space was so vast it felt like outdoors.

  Some of the other tables outside the shops were occupied. A tourist couple sat at one nearby, ignoring the doughnuts they’d bought and amusing themselves studying photographs stored on a digital camera. They laughed and chattered, their heads close together. At another table, two old men played chess and ate sandwiches they’d brought from home, or at least from somewhere else, because the sandwiches had been contained in clear plastic bags that were now tucked beneath a corner of the chessboard. The stratospheric ceilings and hard marble provided a spacious, brittle chamber of sharp but subtle noises—sounds of bustle, commerce, action, hope, and desperation—the background music of New York.

  The Justice Killer sipped his egg cream through a straw and was amused. The news about Adelaide Starr was excellent, providing a young Joan of Arc to unknowingly champion his cause. And he was sure he’d tipped the odds more in his favor by increasingly observing his pursuers in their attempts to trace him. Always a good idea to keep close tabs on the enemy. It had even enabled him to go on the offensive.

  He knew about the growing relationship between his nemesis Beam and the woman in the antique shop, Nola Lima. A lovely, strangely restful woman was Nola, with her natural stillness, prominent cheekbones, and dark, knowing eyes. So graceful, with a purpose and economy to her movements that fascinated. If ever he did decide to kill purely for pleasure…

  Which of course he would not do.

  His research had given him the idea for the ring. Harry Lima’s gaudy, tasteless ring. He was sure the small, independent jeweler who made the duplicate ring in Canada wouldn’t be discovered by the police. The jeweler was, in fact, a former fence and wanted nothing to do with the law in any capacity. He’d found anonymity and refuge in the arms of our neighbor to the north. Real names hadn’t been exchanged. Even if the police did happen to locate the jeweler, he wouldn’t be able to recall exactly what his customer looked like. And it had been a cash deal�
�no paper trail.

  Beam was becoming even more involved with the woman, which was fine with the Justice Killer. Perhaps, at some point, he would teach Beam a lesson. But as of right now, things were going well. The idiot police profiler thought he was becoming unraveled, that the executions had taken their toll on him, but in truth he was in firmer control of himself and the situation than ever. He’d become a folk hero in New York, meting out justice to the system that denied it to the masses. The city was a safer place because of the Justice Killer. Adelaide Starr’s followers were telling anyone who’d listen.

  The police, Beam and his detectives, he’d sent on fools’ errands, such as the diversion of the ring. They were still wasting their valuable time with that. And they’d stepped up protection of Melanie Taylor. They’d be observing her constantly, waiting for an attempt on her life. She was, after all, the logical next victim.

  So let them utilize their resources to protect her. Let her live through her nights and be afraid during her days, even though protectors were massed around her. In the case of Cold Cat, JK would for the first time execute the acquitted but guilty defendant himself. Then, later, he might focus his attention on Melanie.

  It was a move Beam wouldn’t expect. That was the idea. It was Beam and the idiot profiler who thought there were overarching rules to be followed, a cosmic design they could discern and predict. Though he altered victims and methods, they thought the killer’s compulsion drove him to repeat, repeat, repeat, even if he couldn’t see the pattern.

  Not so!

  It would be the defendant, the murderer himself, the dangerous detritus of the system, who would die this time.

  The Justice Killer raised his cup of egg cream a few inches off the table and silently toasted himself.

  He and not Beam or the NYPD controlled the game.

  It wasn’t only a matter of strategy, or of pride.

  A free Cold Cat he could not abide.

  Or neglect.