The Eye: A Novel of Suspense

by Bill Pronzini

  Oh, he talked about leaving his frump and moving in with her, marrying her, but that was just talk. She’d heard that kind of talk before. He didn’t have any money and neither did she, not enough to support both of them. And he was afraid of Vern too. He probably didn’t love her; she couldn’t remember him ever saying he did, not even once. Just sex for him, she supposed, although she was pretty sure he did care for her at least a little bit. That was the way men were.

  But it was all right. It was such terrific sex, and they had fun together in other ways, and she was learning all kinds of things about art and the intellectual side of life. So what if he didn’t love her? So what if she decided she didn’t love him? You had to live for the moment, you had to enjoy yourself the best way you could, for as long as you could. It was just all right the way it was.

  Getting a cab on Saturday nights could be a problem, but she was lucky tonight. One was just letting off a fare when she came out of the restaurant, and she hurried over and slid inside before anybody else could beat her to it. She let out a sigh as she leaned back against the seat. Boy, she couldn’t remember being this pooped. That Wally. Four times today—four times! No wonder she was so tired. Between Wally and the madhouse tonight, she didn’t have a single ounce of energy left.

  She stretched her legs, wiggling to get them into a comfortable position. Last night she’d watched the meter, fretting because of the cost, but tonight she didn’t; she closed her eyes instead. She knew what the ride would cost—two and a half dollars, plus that damned fifty-cent surcharge the city had granted some taxi companies on evening fares. No tip; she couldn’t afford a tip. Well, at least her own tips had been good at the restaurant, better than usual on Saturdays. Anyway, it sure relieved her mind not to have to walk down Ninety-eighth while there was a maniac on the loose shooting people. It made her shiver every time she thought about it.

  The ride home took less than ten minutes. Cindy’s eyes were open when the cab drifted around the corner from Riverside Drive, and she sat up on the seat to scan the sidewalks on both sides of Ninety-eighth. They were deserted. That was also a relief; another sigh came out of her as the driver pulled up in front of her building.

  She squinted through the sheet of protective plexiglas that bisected the cab, looking at the meter. The amount was the same she had paid last night. She opened her purse, took three dollar bills from her wallet, and put them into the little try in the plexiglas. The driver muttered something when he scooped it out, but she didn’t hear what it was. Probably grousing about the lack of a tip. Well, that was his problem. If it wasn’t for that fifty-cent surcharge, she might have given him a quarter.

  She scanned the sidewalk again before she opened the door. Still nobody around. Then she found her keycase, got the front-door key ready. When she stepped onto the sidewalk she slammed the door quickly and hurried up the stoop, looking both ways as she did. Behind her, she heard the cab’s gears mesh and the sound of it gliding off.

  Bending a little, because it was dark on the stoop, she fumbled the key nervously, before she managed to slot it. Three seconds later she was inside and the door was shut behind her. Whew, she thought, home at last. The light in the lobby was dim, too dim, she thought. She’d have to talk to the super about that, get him to put in a bulb with more watts or whatever it was. A brighter bulb on the stairs too; there were too many shadows over there. She only lived on the second floor, but she wasn’t going to walk up those dark stairs, not if she could help it. She started across to the elevator instead.

  She had taken four steps when the man came out of the shadows underneath the staircase.

  Cindy heard him before she saw him, the scrape of his shoe on the floor. Sudden terror made her wheel in that direction, and when she did her eyes bulged at the looming shape of him—and the gun, oh God the gun exposed in his hand. She opened her mouth to scream, but he was on her too fast; he clapped his free hand over her mouth, used his body to shove her back into the wall. The hard muzzle of the gun jabbed painfully into her stomach, took away her breath, then gouged the skin between her breasts.

  “Slut,” he said. “Whore. Death to the wicked and the unclean.”

  She wet herself. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream, there was only the warm wetness flowing out of her and down her legs, only the terror—

  “Whore,” he said again, and pulled the trigger.

  11:32 P.M. — JACK KENNEBANK

  Cats, Kennebank thought disgustedly. Goddamn stray cats.

  He was in the alley between 1277 and 1279, back near where it dead-ended at a high board fence. He’d been walking along the sidewalk out front, checking things out, making himself a target if anybody had any ideas, and he’d heard sounds in the alley. So he’d drawn his service .38 and made his way back here, nice and slow through the alley’s stink with all his senses sharpened. And it had turned out to be nothing more than a couple of raggedy-ass cats yowling at each other over a rat or something. He hated cats. He’d have liked nothing better than to put a bullet in one of the little bastards, do the city a favor.

  Reluctantly he slid the .38 back into its belt holster under his jacket and let himself relax in stages, until he felt loose again. Nothing going down so far, but it was still early. Probably too soon for the psycho to go on the prowl again, although you could never tell with psychos. Even so, there might be other shitheels roaming around on the block. Muggers, dope dealers, they were all over the streets on Saturday nights. With a little luck he would run across one of them, collar him and take him out of circulation.

  Artie Tobin had told him no arrests, no late-night hunting trips, but the hell with Artie Tobin. Calling him a hot dog, ordering him to go home and change his clothes and take a bath—it was goddamn degrading, that was what it was. He had nothing against blacks, he worked with blacks and drank with them and got along just fine, but Tobin was one of the uppity ones. Thought he knew everything, thought he could boss whites around just because he had seniority. The hell with him.

  Kennebank had gone home and changed his clothes and cleaned himself up, he’d done that much, but he was damned if he’d stay cooped up in that vacant apartment the lieutenant had set up for him. What could he do cooped up in there? What good was an undercover man if he only went out during the day and spent his nights keeping surveillance from an apartment window? The people on this block, the people it was his sworn duty to protect, were a lot better off with him out here where he could respond immediately.

  So he’d slept for a couple of hours after dinner, gotten restless and then come out at ten o’clock. And he’d stay out, patrolling the neighborhood, moving around the park, until at least two, maybe three, if nothing went down before that.

  Kennebank made his way back through the darkness toward the alley mouth. He was ten feet from it when he heard something—a flat popping sound, muffled, that came from somewhere inside 1279. Gunshot? Christ, it sounded like a gunshot! His body went taut again; without even thinking about it, he drew the .38 and broke into a run, holding the weapon down along his right leg.

  There was nobody anywhere near the front of 1279. Kennebank veered over to the stairs, pounded up them. Two steps from the top he saw the front door jerk open, the dark figure of a man come barreling out. He tried to sidestep, but the two of them were on a collision course; the man’s shoulder caught Kennebank in the chest, spun him off balance and into the doorjamb. The man let out a startled grunt and something jarred loose from his hand, made a series of metallic bumping sounds on the concrete stairs.

  Kennebank staggered, lost his footing and went down on his right hip. The man was three-quarters of the way down the stairs, frozen for an instant in profile, as if he wanted to come back for whatever he’d dropped. Kennebank still had possession of his .38; he scrambled around, up onto one knee, and threw his right arm out. Light from a streetlamp glinted off the weapon’s surface.

  “Hold it right there!” he yelled. “Police officer!”

/>   The man wheeled, jumped, and hit the sidewalk running.

  The street was still empty of pedestrians and traffic; Kennebank squeezed off a shot, heard it sing off the pavement at the man’s heels. Cursing, he heaved to his feet and plunged onto the stairs. Halfway down, he saw what it was the man had dropped: a small caliber automatic. He checked himself just long enough to scoop up the piece by its barrel, not taking his eyes off the running man, and jammed it into his jacket pocket as he charged down the remaining stairs two at a time.

  Lights were coming on in some of the flanking windows; faces peered out anxiously from behind curtains and drapes. But Kennebank’s attention was full on the fleeing figure ahead. The man had a fifty-yard lead, but he ran awkwardly, swaying like a drunk, darting looks over his shoulder. And he was heading across Riverside Drive, where there was nothing but the park and the Henry Hudson Parkway and then the river. With a sense of exhilaration, Kennebank knew he could catch him—would catch him, the son of a bitch.

  By the time the suspect reached the strip of park that bordered Riverside Drive, Kennebank had narrowed the gap between them to twenty-five yards. Then he saw the man stumble, lurch sideways and sprawl onto his side. Kennebank’s lips pulled in flat against his teeth. The chase was over now, there wasn’t any way the guy could get lost before Kennebank got to him.

  The suspect gained his feet again, stumbling. Kennebank was right behind him, and when he shouted, “Freeze!” the man looked back once, took three more uneven strides that brought him up near one of the park benches. And then he obeyed the command, leaned forward with one hand on the back of the bench. The heavy rasp of his breathing was audible above the hiss of traffic on the Parkway.

  Kennebank approached him, taking it slow and easy; he was hardly winded himself. Was this the psycho? If so, Christ, what a collar this would be! The biggest collar so far—a promotion for sure.

  “All right, buddy,” he said. “Move your legs back and spread ’em—”

  The man whirled instead, and there was a gun in his hand—another gun, he’d been carrying a second piece. Kennebank was so astonished that he hesitated for a fraction of a second, and that hesitation cost him everything. The gun flashed, he heard the roar at the same time he felt a sudden numbing impact in his chest. Then he was falling, and the trees and the dark sky whirled above him. He didn’t feel the ground when he hit it; he didn’t feel anything except the lingering vestiges of astonishment.

  A second piece, he thought dully, I didn’t figure that, it never even occurred to me.

  Hot dog, he thought. Hot dog.

  Then the dark sky seemed to collapse, and the blackness smothered him.

  PART 3

  SUNDAY

  SEPTEMBER 22

  1:15 A.M.

  E.L. OXMAN

  When Oxman neared West Ninety-eighth on Riverside Drive he saw the crazily parked patrol cars with their flashing red, yellow, and white dome lights, the portable kleig lights the men from the crime lab had set up over on the park strip, the officers prowling around, the knot of onlookers and media people being held at bay on the street. And there was more of the same on Ninety-eighth itself, in front of the corner building, 1279. He had approached such scenes often in his career as a policeman—too damned often. They were all oddly similar, like Greek tragedies. But this one was even grimmer than most, because it involved the shooting of a cop.

  Lieutenant Smiley had called him with the news a few minutes before midnight. “All hell just broke loose, Ox,” he’d said in a voice that trembled with rage. “That goddamn Ninety-eighth Street psycho just hit again—two shootings this time. One of the victims was Jack Kennebank.”

  “Jesus! Is he dead?”

  “No, but he’s in a bad way. The other victim wasn’t that lucky. Woman named Cindy Wilson. A woman, Ox. A woman and a cop.”

  Oxman had got the particulars from Manders, hung up the phone, and sat for a few seconds on the edge of the bed, massaging his sleep-gritty eyes. When he’d reached up to switch on his dim reading lamp Beth had whined beside him, “You have to go out, I suppose?”

  “Two more shootings on West Ninety-eighth Street,” he’d told her. “One of them was a policeman, an undercover officer named Jack Kennebank.”

  “Oh, God!” she’d said.

  He’d stood up and begun to dress hurriedly, knowing what was coming. As he slipped his pants on, Beth had started to complain that she couldn’t get back to sleep. As he was tying his shoes, she’d said she was getting a headache. By the time he put on his jacket, she’d been sitting up with her hands pressed to the sides of her head and harping at him for waking her and subjecting her to such unbearable agony.

  Oxman had left without saying good-bye. He wished he could feel sorry for her, but he found it impossible. The only people he could feel sorry for right now were the victims of that lunatic on West Ninety-eighth Street.

  He braked his car and pulled to the curb behind the angled shape of the meat wagon. Now he was part of this particular Greek tragedy. He got out and hurried up the dozen steps of 1279, to where a big uniformed patrolman was stationed to keep out everybody who wasn’t there on official business. Oxman knew the cop, an Irishman named Chaney, so he nodded and walked on past without flashing his shield.

  The murder had taken place in the lobby, near the elevator. The victim was still there, sprawled out inside the obligatory chalked outline; through the knot of police technicians around the body, Oxman could see Cindy Wilson’s waxy gray face and staring eyes, the blood drying on the front of her clothing. He turned away.

  Tobin was already on the scene, and so was Lieutenant Smiley. They were standing off to one side, grim-faced and angry-eyed. Oxman crossed over to join them.

  “Hello, Ox,” Tobin said gravely. No wry needling humor tonight; the shooting of Kennebank had knocked that right out of him. Tobin hadn’t liked Kennebank—not many people had, including Oxman—but Kennebank was a cop. And when somebody shot a cop, every other cop went dark inside for a little while.

  Oxman nodded to his partner. He asked Manders, “Any word on Kennebank yet?”

  “No. He’s still in surgery at St. Luke’s. Carletti’s over there standing by.”

  “Do we know what happened?”

  “Part of it,” Manders said. “The way it looks, Kennebank came on the scene here just after the killer shot Cindy Wilson, as he was leaving the building. Kennebank pursued the suspect, caught him over in the park and got himself blasted as he was making the arrest. His gun had been fired once—Kennebank’s, I mean. No sign he hit anyone.”

  Oxman rubbed his chin; the beard stubble there made a scraping sound. “Kennebank’s a hot dog, but he isn’t stupid. If he caught the man, how did he get himself shot?”

  “Looks like the perp had two guns,” Tobin said. “There was a thirty-two caliber Harrington & Richardson automatic in Kennebank’s pocket. Evidently the psycho dropped it on the stairs outside and Kennebank picked it up before he gave chase. It figures to be the weapon used to kill the Wilson woman and the other three victims. So Kennebank assumed the guy only had one piece, and he got careless.”

  “Christ,” Oxman said, “if that thirty-two belongs to the killer, then maybe it can be traced. It might even have his fingerprints on it.”

  “Yeah,” Manders said. “Lab’s got it now; we’ll know pretty soon. But don’t hold your breath, Ox. No matter how crazy this bastard is, he’s not dumb; packing a spare piece proves that. I don’t see him using a gun registered in his own name. And for all we know, he was wearing gloves tonight.”

  “Then nobody got a look at him except Kennebank?”

  “Not that we’ve been able to find so far. Several people saw him running away and Kennebank chasing him, but they were all inside their apartments looking out through the windows. All they saw was a dark figure in a coat and hat.”

  “Who was the first to reach Kennebank?”

  “First patrol car on the scene.”

  “Was he conscio
us?”

  “No. And he didn’t regain consciousness at any time before they took him into surgery at the hospital.” Manders lit a cigarette, expelled a violent cloud of smoke. “We’d better hope he makes it, that’s all. If he doesn’t, and if we don’t turn up anything on that thirty-two automatic, we’re right back where we started. Only with two more murders on our hands and the whole fucking city up in arms. As it is, you know what the media’s going to do with this, don’t you?”

  “I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Oxman said.

  “Yeah.”

  Oxman glanced over again at the sprawled body of Cindy Wilson. The photographer and the assistant M.E. were finished with it now and it was being ignored. There was something heart-tugging about all the men in the lobby milling about and talking, not even bothering to look anymore at the small, still form curled on the floor. She was inanimate now, something other than what she had been in this world, transformed with one bullet from animal to mineral in Twenty Questions games.

  He sighed and asked Manders, “Anything in here?”

  “No. No sign of a struggle; the bastard probably caught her by surprise. Walked right up to her and shoved the gun into her chest and blew her away. She didn’t even have time to scream.”

  “Random victim,” Oxman mused, “or was he after her specifically?”

  “Could be either way,” Tobin said. “She lived upstairs in two-C, worked nights as a waitress over on Columbus and usually got home about eleven thirty. The guy could have known her habits.”

  “How did he get into the building, I wonder.”

  Tobin shrugged. “Maybe he lives here. Or maybe he followed somebody else in earlier. Or rang somebody’s bell. Just one more thing we’ll have to try to run down.”

  “A woman,” Manders said. “I don’t like that at all. Bad enough this lunatic starts killing men, maybe cops, but now that he’s after women …” He shook his head in angry frustration.