Fear the Night n-5

by John Lutz

  Rapunzel will take a tumble.

  50

  Bobby spent the night in the Dismas Shelter in Lower Manhattan. Ordinarily he preferred the street, especially during those times of year when the weather was bearable. But with the rally uptown, he thought the entire borough would be too active, not only with the people who roamed the streets before and after the affair at Rockefeller Plaza, but with those who saw them as prey. With all the muggers, rapists, pickpockets, con men, car thieves, and various other criminal types on the prowl, the shelter was a safer place.

  The food was miserable but free-if you didn’t count the sermon-and the beds were little softer than park benches or subway seats. But once you warned away the crazies and resolved to sleep lightly, the shelters would do for a night or two.

  The coffee was free that morning in small Styrofoam cups. Bobby took his outside the shelter, sniffing cool morning air that smelled fresh after the dormitory scent of stale booze, vomit, and pine-scented disinfectant he’d just left. Sipping the strong black brew, he trudged two blocks across town, then uptown, putting distance between himself and others who’d ventured from the shelter at about the same time.

  No one had mentioned the news while Bobby was in the shelter. It was a place where life-changing events were smaller and more personal, and horizons nearer. When Bobby noticed a harried-looking business type dropping a folded Times in a trash basket, he stopped walking. He went to dig out the paper before it might become damp from discarded garbage, and saw for the first time the headlines proclaiming the mayor had been shot.

  There was no place nearby to sit down, so he leaned his back against a building and read, ignoring the glances of people hurrying past on the sidewalk.

  The mayor would live. That was good. The asshole Sniper had missed for the first time.

  Why?

  Too much security, Bobby figured. He knew a few things about being a sniper. It must have been necessary for the Night Sniper to set up and shoot from farther away than usual. And of course, if he’d set up too close to the Plaza, he’d have a harder time getting away after the shot.

  Bobby read that the police thought the Sniper might be using subway tunnels to get around. Even hiding out in subway stops that were permanently or temporarily closed. Bobby had spent his time down there. It was a rough place to live. The Sniper was one tough guy if he was using subway stops and tunnels for shelter and to travel on foot.

  It could be done, though, Bobby thought. It could be done. He recalled seeing the ragged man who didn’t fit his surroundings going down into a subway stop. Bobby had assumed the man wasn’t real, but now, considering what was in the paper, maybe he had been real.

  Bobby’s legs and feet were beginning to ache. He folded the paper and tucked it beneath his arm to read more carefully later, then pushed away from the building and stretched in the warm sun heating up the concrete.

  It took him about twenty minutes to get to Washington Square, where he found a bench, shooed away half a dozen lethargic pigeons, and sat down. Tired as he was, he didn’t lie down; he didn’t want to be chased. He sat leaning back with his eyes half closed, his face to the heat of the sun.

  After a while he felt stronger, but he was hungry. He’d have to scare up some food, or the money to buy some, pretty soon. He remained on the bench, but he kept his eyes open for someone throwing away anything edible-a doughnut or breakfast muffin or pizza slice. It was amazing how many students from NYU liked cold pizza for breakfast.

  So the ragged man is real.

  Bobby couldn’t get the man with the hurried gait and the worn-out backpack out of his mind.

  A girl about twenty, college girl probably, wearing a tight T-shirt and jeans that were slung low on her hips, walked past. Bobby’s gaze went with her. She had some kind of tattoo just above the crack of her ass. And she was talking on a cell phone.

  “Way, way wrong!” a female voice said nearby. This woman was wearing a business suit and carrying a leather case in one hand. Her other hand held a cell phone pressed to her ear. She ignored Bobby as she swished past on high heels. She was built better than the college girl and he wished she were the one wearing those jeans.

  He noticed that beyond the woman a man stood talking on a cell phone. Bobby settled back on his bench and studied the people around him in the square. It was amazing how many of them were talking on cell phones.

  He watched the woman in the business suit lower the phone from her ear and place it in her purse. She left the purse open as she strode from the square and began moving faster, flailing an arm in an attempt to hail a cab. A woman was seated about two benches down, reading a magazine, her purse beside her, a small leather case that probably contained a cell phone alongside the purse.

  Bobby was no thief. It wasn’t that he was so honest, more that he was stubborn. Despite his lowly position in life, he held on to his essential self. Or so he told his essential self. He drew lines. He didn’t cross them. He might be down on his luck, but he wouldn’t let circumstances make him a thief.

  But this was different, what he had in mind. This was one of those rare times when the end actually did justify the means.

  He knew he was going to steal a cell phone.

  Repetto immediately understood the meaning of the note. Another nursery tale: Rapunzel. The beautiful girl held captive by a witch in a tower. The girl who let her braided golden hair grow so long that her lover could climb it and join her.

  Only the witch had foreseen what would happen. The witch was in control.

  Repetto knew who Rapunzel was in the Sniper’s note, in his mind, in his sights: Amelia Rapetto.

  “You’ve got to move out of this apartment,” Repetto told his daughter, after showing her the note. “We can get you someplace safe.”

  Amelia didn’t stir from where she sat on the sofa. “It wouldn’t do any good. The Sniper might simply follow me. Or find out where I went. From what you say, and what I’ve read about him in the news, he might even have sources inside the police department.”

  Repetto couldn’t deny it. He was amazed that she didn’t seem frightened. Her features were so composed, so calm. He found himself proud of her, even if he wanted to grab her long braid and drag her out of this apartment. Maybe he’d do just that, to save her life.

  “I have a life to live, and I’m not going to let some sick killer decide how I’m going to live it. People aren’t like chess pieces he can move around anytime however he wants.”

  “Amelia-”

  “I’m twenty-one, Dad.”

  “Meaning I can’t make you move out, even for a while?”

  “Awhile?”

  “Until this killer is caught.”

  “That could be forever.”

  “We’re talking about your life, Amelia.”

  “Yes, my life. And I’m not going to let anyone dictate how I’m going to live it.”

  “I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to preserve your life. And the Night Sniper’s not trying to dictate how you live. He’s planning to end your life.”

  “If I’m the Rapunzel in the note.”

  “You don’t believe he means you?”

  She couldn’t lie. Absently her right hand touched her luxurious long braid, slung over her shoulder and falling almost to the waist of the faded Levis she wore without a belt. “I suppose he means me.”

  “Then you’ll get out?”

  “No.”

  Repetto felt like kicking a piece of furniture. Kids! Teenagers! No, Amelia was no longer a teenager, no longer a child. She was an adult making an adult decision, albeit a bad one. “You’re just like your mother.”

  “I’m like my father. Maybe I’ll even be a cop someday.”

  Here was something new. Repetto was thrown. The women in his life seemed to keep doing that to him.

  “Will you at least accept police protection?” he pleaded.

  “Of course,” Amelia said in an unemotional voice. “I’m not suicidal.”

 
“Could have fooled me.”

  “Then you are fooled. I want to live, just like anyone else. Any of the other victims.”

  He watched her throat work as she swallowed. A pale shadow seemed to move across her face, and for the first time he saw fear.

  But beneath the fear, the courage.

  He pulled her to him and hugged her tight.

  “I admit I’m afraid,” she said. “Okay?” As if she were admitting getting home past curfew.

  He kissed the top of her forehead. “Anyone would be. Will you at least not attend classes for a few days, stay here out of sight? For me and your mother?”

  “Of course. I don’t want to cause either of you any pain. And I really don’t want to die! I don’t! More than that, I don’t want you to think that’s what I want. It’s just that I’m an adult. I have to make my stand here or I might regret it for the rest of my life.” She stared up at him so much the way Lora did sometimes. “Please try to understand, Dad.”

  “I understand,” Repetto assured her. He knew she was wrong, that she wouldn’t always regret leaving, that this wasn’t her young life’s Waterloo. There would be plenty of other crises, other battles. He also knew he could never explain this to her so she’d believe it.

  He held her tighter and waited until her sobs had quieted and her body had stopped shaking. The longer he held her the more he hated the idea of her staying here, in this street-level apartment. He wished Dal were still alive. He wished—

  Fuck it! Dal was dead, and Repetto wanted Amelia to remain alive.

  “I’ll have Birdy and Meg guard you in shifts, along with some uniforms outside.”

  She nodded. The admission of fear had at least made her that compliant.

  “Follow their instructions,” Repetto told her. “In the meantime, if you insist on staying here, don’t go near the windows, and of course make sure everything stays locked. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “I’ll call Birdy, then talk to Melbourne and get things set up. While we’re waiting for your angels to arrive, I’ll make sure the apartment’s sealed tight.”

  “Angels?”

  “The ones with guns who’ll be protecting you.”

  “I’ll try hard to believe in angels,” Amelia told him. She almost managed to smile. “Better guns than wings.”

  Repetto already had his cell phone out and was contacting Birdy. He explained the situation and told Birdy he couldn’t rule out another change of tactics by the Night Sniper. Maybe he’d start killing at close range, indoors, during daylight hours, with a handgun. Nothing seemed beyond him. Repetto told Birdy to stay inside the apartment with Amelia, not even to go out for food.

  “This is my daughter,” he reminded Birdy.

  “Then-if you don’t mind my asking-why don’t you get her out of there?”

  “I would if I could and be sure she wouldn’t return. She considers this her date with destiny. Leaving isn’t what she wants. And she reminds me she’s twenty-one.”

  “Ah, they do keep reminding you when that happens, whenever the shit gets deep. The good ones, anyway. Her father’s daughter.”

  “Goddamned right.”

  Repetto told Birdy he could have food delivered, or help himself to whatever was in the refrigerator.

  He was to eat with his 9mm beside his plate.

  51

  “Look at this,” Meg said.

  She was standing at the window of a high suite in the Marimont Hotel, pointing outside to the roof of a setback in the tall building.

  Repetto looked. He saw shorter buildings beyond the parapet, and blue sky beyond buildings off in the distance.

  “I mean look at the roof,” Meg said, noticing where he was staring.

  At first Repetto didn’t see it. Then he noticed an irregularity in the tar and gravel roof, something small protruding. Another, identical object. Four in all, arranged as if marking the corners of a rectangle.

  “So what are they?” he asked.

  “We’re not sure. One of the uniforms noticed them and told me about them. He came up here to check the windows, to make sure they didn’t provide a view of the plaza and podium even though they’re three blocks away.”

  “Be a hell of a shot,” Repetto said, “even if the mayor was visible from here.”

  “C’mon out on the roof,” Meg said. She grinned when he didn’t reply immediately. “It’s only a three-foot drop.”

  She opened the window, gracefully sat on the sill, then swiveled to step outside. Repetto followed, bumping his head on the window frame.

  Meg led him to the four objects on the roof. Repetto stooped low and saw that they were metal painted a dull black so they weren’t very visible. Stubby, hollowed, and rectangular. Brackets of some kind.

  He looked up and squinted in the direction of Rockefeller Plaza. The podium and lectern hadn’t been disassembled. From where he squatted, it appeared that part of the podium and about half the lectern were visible, but he couldn’t be sure from this distance. But they were what he was looking at; he could see them far beyond the corner of a building two blocks away.

  “An impossible shot,” he said. “Even if the Sniper got it just right and barely cleared that building corner, he’d have to be unbelievably accurate.”

  “And lucky,” Meg said. “But he wasn’t lucky all the way. The mayor is still alive.”

  Repetto straightened up and stared at her. Then he glanced back at the building on which they stood. The window they’d exited was the only one that looked out on the setback’s roof, and only blank brick wall towered above. Where he and Meg stood, they were invisible from anyone else in the Marimont or from the surrounding shorter buildings. A perfect sniper’s nest. One that had to have been carefully scouted by an expert.

  And they were dealing with an expert.

  Still, so far away . .

  Repetto breathed in the high, clean air above the traffic-clogged street. They were high enough that not even much sound reached them from below. “You’re thinking the brackets were used to support a tripod or something to steady the rifle.”

  “Something steadier than a tripod. There are four brackets. Some kind of brace might have fit into them, and after the shooting, the Sniper disassembled it and took it with him.”

  Repetto squinted again toward the Plaza and held his hand in saluting position over his eyes to shield them from the sun. “It still doesn’t seem possible, Meg. Did you ask anyone from the hotel what those brackets were?”

  “I described them downstairs to some of the maintenance crew. Nobody seems to know what they are. No one could come up with any possible use for them.”

  Repetto folded his arms and stared toward the Plaza. “You’re theorizing that the Sniper broke into this suite-”

  “Or got a key somehow. I examined the lock, and there’s no sign it’s been forced. He didn’t lower himself from the roof above. The hotel restaurant’s up there, the Pot-O-Gold.”

  “So he must have sneaked into the suite somehow and gained access to this roof. If it were two blocks closer to the podium, it would have been a perfect place to shoot from, but then it would have been checked out and covered by us.”

  “That might be exactly what appealed to him. It would have been written off as a threat. And this far away, it would’ve been easy for him to slip out of the hotel and disappear after firing the shot.”

  “But how could he be sure we wrote it off? Simply the seeming impossibility of the shot?”

  “That, or maybe he has a contact in the NYPD.”

  Always possible, Repetto knew. “Suppose he did have a key, Meg? How could he know he wouldn’t open the door and be face-to-face with a guest?”

  “He might work for the hotel.”

  “It would have to be in a capacity where he could control who stayed in which room or suite. That’s the only way he could plan on this suite being unoccupied during the time he needed it. Did you check at the desk and see if anyone was staying in it at the time
the mayor was shot?”

  “Yes. It was registered to someone, but there’s no guarantee the guest was in the suite at that time. In a busy hotel like this, people come and go unnoticed.”

  “Has anybody stayed in the suite since the mayor was shot?”

  “No. It’s expensive and isn’t occupied as often as ordinary rooms.”

  Repetto shook his head. “Even if the Sniper did manage to get in here, then out on the roof and use something to help brace his rifle, it still looks like an impossible shot.”

  “The Sniper’s the sort who might enjoy the challenge.”

  “Now you sound like Zoe.”

  He was beginning to make Meg doubt. “Zoe’s not always wrong.” She was becoming argumentative, she knew, sounding petulant. But damn it. .

  Repetto went back inside, careful not to bump his head this time, and Meg followed.

  “Expensive suite, all right,” he said, looking around at the tasteful furniture and wall hangings. He could imagine celebrities and political dignitaries staying here.

  Repetto glanced at his image in a gold-framed mirror across the room and saw that his hair was mussed from the breeze out on the roof. He smoothed it back so he didn’t look so much like a wild old cop. It stuck back out. Stubborn as Meg.

  “Maybe the Night Sniper himself registered and stayed here,” he said, watching her in the mirror.

  She looked surprised, then grinned. “That I kinda doubt.”

  “Zoe would say he’d see it as a challenge, taunting us.”

  “We’d have his fingerprints.”

  “He’d be careful ahead of time, use only one or two rooms, then wipe them down carefully before going out on the roof to take his shot.”

  “He does wear rubber gloves,” Meg said.

  “Did the maid say the guest slept here?”

  Oops! “I didn’t ask. Didn’t imagine-”

  “We’re here,” Repetto said. “Let’s go find out.”

  It didn’t take them long to locate the maid who’d cleaned the suite that morning. She was a heavyset Hispanic woman with strong, beautiful features and graying hair. Fifteen pounds and years beyond being a beauty queen. In an accent that was pure Brooklyn she told them the bed had been slept in, probably by two people.