The Eye: A Novel of Suspense

by Bill Pronzini

  “E.L.,” she said softly, “don’t let him do anything to you.”

  “Nobody’s going to do anything to me. Or you. Don’t worry.”

  “Do you really think you can find him before he—before anybody else gets hurt?”

  “I’m sure as hell going to try.” He sipped his coffee. “I’d feel better if you’d agree to move out of here until we do get him,” he said.

  “We went all through that last night. I swore off running a long time ago, when I found myself on my own. I live here, E.L. If I run from here, I run from part of myself.”

  “Christ, don’t get philosophical on me,” he said. “This is an apartment in Manhattan, nothing more——”

  “Damn it, E.L., I’m not talking about this place, any place, and you know it. What I’m not going to run from is my fear. If you don’t understand that …”

  E.L. raised his hand and then lowered it gently, requesting calm. “Take it easy. I do understand.”

  “Then don’t ask me again to leave.”

  “All right. But don’t you take this lightly; meet me halfway. Lock your door when I leave. Don’t go out today and don’t open the door for anybody but me or another policeman. And don’t answer the phone. If I want to call you I’ll let it ring three times, hang up, then call back.”

  She nodded. “If that’s what you want. I have work to do, so it won’t be a problem today. But I can’t stay a prisoner here forever.”

  “You won’t have to, believe me.”

  He finished his coffee, pushed his chair back and stood. “I’d better go now,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. And I’ll either stay here with you again tonight or see to it that another officer does.”

  Jennifer managed a small smile. “I’d prefer you, E.L. It would be too much trouble breaking in another cop.”

  She went with him to the door. He kissed her, and she held onto him for a moment, her body tight against his, while he stroked her hair. “Remember what I told you,” he said, and a few seconds later he was gone.

  After setting the locks, she returned to the kitchen and poured more hot coffee into her cup. She was a solitary person and she had always liked being alone, but now the apartment seemed empty, full of small odd sounds, vaguely oppressive. E.L. occupied a lot of space, she thought, so that his absence left a kind of vacuum. And it wasn’t just physical space that he occupied, either; it was also space inside her. The image of his strong, gentle face lay vivid in her mind.

  She wondered, with a sense of awe, if she were falling in love with him.

  8:20 A.M. — BETH OXMAN

  Beth knew long before E.L. finally called her—though she couldn’t say how—that he had spent the night with another woman.

  They had been polite at the precinct when she’d phoned earlier and asked for her husband, saying that he wasn’t available at the moment but would be back soon. Lieutenant Manders himself had told her that. She disliked Manders intensely and expected him to lie. What would he have said if she’d asked him point-blank why E.L. hadn’t come home last night? Why he hadn’t even called to explain his absence? But then, those questions would have prompted another lie, of course. Only another lie.

  And now the phone had rung, and it was E.L. She’d known it would be, just as she knew he’d been unfaithful to her. Another of her headaches flared as soon as she heard his voice from the receiver.

  “I meant to call you,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  That was a laugh, Beth thought. A lie and a laugh and not very original. He’d made it impossible for her to respond sexually to him at home, so he’d been out rutting with one of the sluts he ran across almost daily in his work. Yes, she was certain of it now.

  She tried to keep her voice calm, but it was vibrant with her fury. “You never spent the night away from home before without phoning. It’s the least a policeman’s wife can expect, a simple phone call.”

  “You’re right, I should have called …”

  “You were with another woman, weren’t you.”

  A pause. “Beth, not over the phone …”

  The resignation, the weariness in his voice added fuel to her anger. His guilt was so obvious. “How else, damn you! You’re not here to talk to in person.” She realized she was gripping the receiver so tightly that her fingers ached, and she forced herself to relax her arms, her upper body. Tension was the worst thing for her; Dr. Hardin had told her, had warned her about the effects of stress. But it was E.L. who was causing her tension, causing all her problems. Why should she suffer all day today, waiting for him? Hadn’t she, in one way or another, been waiting for him all her married life? “I don’t want to wait until tonight to discuss this, E.L.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be home tonight, either.”

  She felt her throat tighten. “Your work, I suppose,” she said acidly.

  “Yes. You know how serious this case is——”

  “You can’t fool me,” she said. “You never could.”

  “Beth …”

  She hung up on him. She hadn’t really planned it; her right arm snapped downward in a paroxysm of anger and slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

  Beth sat for a long time on the bench near the phone, trembling, watching her fingers flexing and unflexing as if there were solid matter in her hands which she was slowly pulverizing. He hadn’t actually denied being with another woman, so he had been. She knew him well enough to be sure of that. And she hated him now as she had never hated him, with a force like hell’s own fury.

  She stood suddenly—a reflex action, like slamming down the receiver minutes before. Not this time, she told herself. Not this time. She had put up with E.L.’s insensitivity and ingratitude for too many years. This was the final indignity.

  She walked into the bathroom, stood before the washbasin and ran cold water over her wrists as Dr. Hardin had instructed her to do when she became flushed and overwrought. It helped; she was aware of the slowing of her heart. She could think more clearly now.

  It would be different this time, she thought. She would be the one making the decisions, controlling her own life. When E.L. finally did come home—if he ever would—he would find her gone.

  Beth gazed up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she made her decision, looked into the tortured depths of her eyes. And she knew that this time she meant it. Something in her had stretched and broken, and a part of her life was over.

  She stood leaning with both hands on the washbasin; now she was completely calm, with the same sense of loss and acceptance that she’d felt long ago at her father’s funeral. She would go to her mother’s. Her mother understood how she’d suffered with E.L. Her mother would——

  A flash of pain struck behind her eyes, without warning. She straightened, waiting with clenched jaws for the full force of the headache to assail her. Only it didn’t, not yet. Slowly, carefully, as if balancing something fragile on her head, she walked from the bathroom and back out to the front room. She would call Dr. Hardin, explain to him that she was in the midst of a crisis. He would tell her what to do.

  Halfway to the phone, she stopped and lifted a hand to her forehead. The pain had vanished as quickly as it had come; the headache hadn’t taken hold. Always they started this way, and always once they started they struck with full and debilitating force. But not this time. Why?

  Did freedom from E.L. mean freedom from the pain she’d so long endured?

  She glanced again, lingeringly, at the telephone, weighing whether or not she should call Dr. Hardin. She had an appointment with him for tomorrow, she remembered. She could discuss things with him then, get a refill for her prescription if she needed it and if he felt it was necessary.

  She hurried back into the bedroom and began to pack.

  8:45 A.M. — E.L. OXMAN

  Oxman was preoccupied as he entered the Two-four, trying to frame in his mind the words he would speak to Manders. They were difficult words, but they had to be said; it was his d
uty to tell the lieutenant about the phone call last night, about the psycho’s threat against him. And he also had a responsibility to Jennifer, to protect her, to keep her safe; he cared for her more than he was ready to admit just now. So there had never been any real question in his mind of what he must do, no matter the consequences to his career and his personal life. It was only a matter of summoning his resolve and facing the music.

  He had already done that once, with the phone call to Beth from a public booth near Ninety-eighth Street, and it had been easier than he’d anticipated. Beth already suspected the truth, had divined it through some wifely intuition; and the fact was, he simply didn’t care. The marriage was over, had been over for a long time. The severing of the final threads was only a formality; he was sure Beth understood that as well as he did, now.

  Lost in thought, Oxman didn’t notice Drake raise a cautioning hand as he passed by the muster desk, or hear him call out. He went upstairs without counting the steps, and he was five paces inside the squadroom before he realized that it was much more crowded than usual, before he heard Manders’ voice droning in a significantly official tone. Too late, Oxman saw the TV minicamera. And Manders and several milling members of the media saw him.

  The shoulder-mounted minicam turned its round blank eye toward Oxman. A newsman from one of the local TV stations called out his name. Shit, Oxman thought. But there was nothing he could do now except to put on an official face of his own and let the vultures descend; he’d already lost his chance to avoid them.

  There were at least a dozen media people in the squadroom. Oxman recognized some of them: Charlack from the Times, Barry from the Post, handsome David Nicely from WCTV. Even Barbara Marchetti from The Village Voice was there.

  “The lieutenant says you’re working several avenues of investigation on the West Ninety-eighth Street homicides,” Nicely said, edging his way closer. Microphones were thrust at Oxman from every angle. “Are you making any real headway, Detective Oxman?”

  “We think so, yes.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “I’m sorry, no. Not without possibly acting in a way detrimental to the investigation.”

  “Do you personally think the killer will strike again?” Barbara Marchetti asked.

  “I think he’ll try.”

  “How can you stop him? He picks his victims at random, doesn’t he?”

  “It would seem so. But we’ve taken certain preventive measures.”

  “What are they?” somebody asked.

  Stupid bastard, Oxman thought. What the hell kind of a question is that? But he said, “I can’t tell you that, for obvious reasons.”

  Charlack asked, “What do you think this psycho’s motive is? Have you got any leads along those lines?”

  Oxman glanced over at Manders, who gave him an almost imperceptible headshake. That meant he hadn’t told the media about yesterday’s phone call; the god-complex angle was pure sensationalism, and there wasn’t any benefit in letting the media spread it around.

  “We have some theories as to motive, yes,” Oxman said, “but I’d rather not discuss them at this time.”

  “Do you have any suspects so far?”

  “No, but we expect that situation to change shortly.” He was sweating from the hot glaring lights for the TV minicams. He wondered how long Manders had been putting up with this.

  “Is there a sex element involved?” a woman asked.

  God, Oxman thought. He said, “We don’t believe so, no.”

  There were more questions, a rush of them, most of the same mindless ilk as the one about a sex element. Oxman fought them off manfully, sweating all the while, until Manders finally came to his rescue.

  “That’s all for now, ladies and gentlemen,” the lieutenant told them. “You already have my statement and the written statement from Captain Burnham, and we’ve got work to do here. You’ll be notified if there are any new developments.”

  He began ushering everyone to the door, none too gently. One of the men carrying a minicam stumbled and almost fell. “Jesus, get off my feet!” someone else said. And then they were gone, and Manders came back and steered Oxman into his office and shut the door.

  Oxman sank into one of the chairs, wiped his damp forehead with his handkerchief. “Those bastards are relentless,” he said.

  “Now you know what I’ve been going through. Ladies and gentlemen, my ass! They’d all love for me to keel over dead right in front of them to add spice to the story.” Manders sat down behind his desk and glared across at Oxman. “You didn’t shave this morning. I like that. Gave the media the impression you were up all night tracking.”

  “I didn’t shave because I didn’t go home last night,” Oxman said. “I spent the night in Jennifer Crane’s apartment.”

  “I know.”

  Oxman frowned. “You know?”

  “Tolluto saw you go into her building a little before eight last night. Your car was still parked there when he toured the neighborhood at midnight. The relief from the Six-seven phoned in about an hour ago that you’d finally left the building.” Manders shrugged. “It didn’t take much detective work on my part to figure out where you’d spent the night.”

  Oxman nodded silently, glad now that he’d decided to confide in Manders. Lieutenant Smiley wouldn’t have liked it if he’d come up with a lie, or if he hadn’t said anything at all. And Oxman was also glad Tolluto was that alert; it was some small comfort to think of him undercover in the neighborhood, doing his job, with Jennifer there alone.

  “You sleep with her, Ox?” Manders asked in a neutral voice.

  “Yeah.” Then, a bit defensively, “You want reasons, excuses, an hour by hour account?”

  “None of those things.”

  “I’m not the first cop to sleep with someone involved in a case,” Oxman said. Which was a stupid remark; he knew that as soon as he said it. He wouldn’t be the first cop to take a bribe, either. Or to go berserk and shoot up the precinct house.

  “You wouldn’t be the first cop never to make Detective First Grade, Ox.” That was more to the point. Manders shrugged, shook his jowly features sadly. “What I ought to do,” he said, “is report you to Internal Affairs right away. That’s what the book calls for.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet. Outside of your job, it’s none of my business. But as it pertains to the case …”

  “It isn’t going to affect my investigation,” Oxman said.

  “No? Internal Affairs would probably think otherwise. In fact, they’d probably suspend you.”

  “Do you want me off the case, Lieutenant?”

  Manders sighed. He started to light a cigarette, decided against it, and ground it unlit into the ashtray on his desk. “No,” he said, “that’s not what I want. If I can count on you.”

  “You can.”

  “All right. Just make sure you low-key this affair, if that’s what it is. Or was it a one-night stand?”

  “It wasn’t a one-night stand,” Oxman said.

  “I didn’t think it was. You’re not the type. Well, Tolluto won’t say anything; neither will anybody else on the force if they get wind of it. But I don’t want the goddamn media to find out. If that happens, it’s out of my hands. Understood?”

  “Understood.” Oxman shifted on his chair. “There’s something else you’ve got to know about last night,” he said. “I got an anonymous phone call while I was with Jennifer Crane.”

  Manders raised his head. “The guy with the god-complex?”

  “Yeah. He somehow knew what went on between Jennifer and me. I don’t know how he could have known, but he did.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  Oxman related the conversation verbatim from memory. Manders grunted and said, “Why do you figure he called you?”

  “Two reasons. The first is that, in his eyes, I committed a sin last night. He wanted me to know he knows about it.”

  “Yo
u think he actually believes he’s God?”

  “Oh, he believes it. Which makes him all the more dangerous.”

  “An ego thing like that,” Manders said, “usually builds and builds until the perp secretly wants to be caught and stopped.”

  “Not with this one,” Oxman said. “It’s an ego trip, just as you say, but he hasn’t reached the point of wanting us to know all about him.”

  “Then what’s his second reason for the call?”

  “What we talked about yesterday. I think he feels I’m interfering in his bailiwick, that he sees me as the leader of the forces against him. A kind of anti-Christ.”

  Manders chewed on his lower lip. “If you’re right, Ox, then that means he’s liable to go after you next.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think he’s ready for that yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s taunting me, exercising what he thinks is his greater power, telling me he’s invincible and that he’ll get me before I can get him.”

  “So you figure he’ll pick another target first?”

  “Yes. And I’m afraid it might be Jennifer Crane, because of her involvement with me.”

  “Makes sense,” Manders agreed. “Or at least it could. So how do you want to play it?”

  “First of all, I think we ought to have Jennifer’s apartment dusted for prints; the psycho could be someone she knows, someone who’s visited her. And I want her place swept for bugs, too—he could have planted some sort of listening device in there days or even weeks or months ago. That would explain how he knew what went on last night.”

  “I’ll go along with that,” Manders said. “What else?”

  “I want to start living on that block full-time,” Oxman told him. “That way, if he does decide to come after me I’ll be available to him.”

  Manders scowled. “You’re not thinking of moving in with Jennifer Crane, are you?”

  “That’s just what I’m thinking. We’ve got to protect her, Lieutenant; I’m the one who put her into this situation, so it’s up to me. Besides, with me in her apartment it’ll provoke the bastard because it’ll look like I’m taunting him. It might push him into making a try for me, into making a mistake that’ll put him right in our hands.”