The Night Crew

by John Sandford

  She looked at herself again in the mirror, a slender, darkhaired, beat-up elf in a pair of blue Jockeys for Her . . .

  The guy was just trying to corner her, control her, possess her . . .

  She stretched, stuck out an arm, twisted: hurt a little bit, but not that much. Looked at herself in the mirror again, and suddenly the anger came back, and she tottered with it, put her hands on the counter and closed her eyes, trying to keep her balance. She snarled again: she wanted to kill something . . .

  Let the feeling ebb . . . Brushed her teeth, stood in the shower for ten minutes, steaming out, then pulled on a robe and went back down the stairs.

  Harper was sprawled on the couch, looking at the TV, which he hadn’t bothered to turn on. He was barefoot, tired.

  ‘‘Hey, Jake,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Yeah?’’

  ‘‘We were gonna go to BJ’s tonight.’’

  ‘‘We’re never gonna get there,’’ he said, shaking his head. ‘‘We’re cursed.’’

  ‘‘Tomorrow,’’ she said.

  He nodded: ‘‘How’re you feeling?’’

  ‘‘I gotta get some sleep: I’m wrecked.’’

  ‘‘So go to bed: I got it covered down here.’’

  ‘‘I wanted to tell you . . . When you told me this afternoon that if I didn’t know why you were hanging around, I must have my head up my ass . . .’’

  ‘‘Yeah?’’

  ‘‘Maybe I do, sometimes,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m nervous about relationship stuff. But before the driving range thing . . . I was sort of planning to take you upstairs tonight.’’

  He thought about that for a second, and a pleased look crossed his face. ‘‘That would have been nice.’’

  ‘‘I’m still gonna do it, if you’re around,’’ she said. ‘‘But today—today was a little too much.’’

  ‘‘I know. I will be around.’’

  Back upstairs, she crawled under the quilt her mother made, and before she drifted away, thought about Jake: she liked him, a lot. She even liked watching him hit golf balls.

  On the darker side, she thought about the scene in Louis’ living room, when they looked at the tape.

  What did she do for a living? What was she becoming? And why wasn’t she more frightened? She was frightened— but above that, she was angry, and in some dark way, interested. My God , she thought: this is a good story. Gotta get right on it .

  She was supposed to be a musician, a classical pianist— but whatever anyone might think about the night crew, it was apparent from the Jacob tapes that they were very, very good at what they did. Watched a man dying, never lost the frame.

  And she ran the crew. She was better on the street, she thought, than she was at the piano.

  Then she was gone, asleep, a killer back in the dark drapes of her dreams; and with it, a hard little diamond of anger.

  She was gonna get him.

  seventeen

  The two-faced man was covered with blood—his own blood—running down his face and arms. He licked at it, and the blood was both sweet and salty on his tongue; but his face was on fire.

  The wounds hurt, but didn’t really matter: what mattered was the failure. The explosion of his dreams.

  Anna didn’t want him.

  And he’d run like a chicken.

  He’d felt real fear: Anna had come after him like a madwoman, and he thought for a moment that she’d pull him down. If the others had gotten there, they would have lynched him.

  The humiliation hurt worse than the bite—although the bite hurt badly enough. He gagged in pain, pressed the palm of his hand to his cheek.

  Still. He would heal. But the memory of thrashing up the hill, being chased by this small woman . . . that memory wouldn’t go away. He’d remember that forever.

  He’d gone to her expecting recognition. He’d eliminated the others. Hadn’t that proven something? Didn’t that give him some rights? He’d expected resistance, but then, he thought, she’d see the fire, feel the steel, and she’d come with him.

  She’d slept with other men. He didn’t like it, but he accepted it. He also knew that the others didn’t love her: they simply used her. Jason O’Brien, Sean MacAllister, her driver, Creek. Users. Takers.

  He’d gone to her; virtually begged her . . .

  He flashed back to the sex: he’d bent her over the car, had been plucking at her pants, and suddenly, from the friction of the contact, the excitement, he’d ejaculated.

  He remembered that without pleasure; because he also remembered running frantically across the parking lot, his penis protruding from his pants, wobbling around like a crazed-comic compass pointer, leading him into the brush.

  He’d managed to tuck himself back inside before he hit the thorn trees, or he’d really have been hurt.

  Had she seen that? Were she and her bodyguard off somewhere, laughing about it?

  He closed his eyes: Of course they were. He could feel it.

  And quick as that, love turned to hate; as it had with his teacher, Mrs. Garner. As it had with a kitten that scratched . . .

  He’d have to get her, now. He’d have to erase her.

  The inner and outer faces agreed.

  She didn’t want him? Okay.

  First, he’d show her what fear was. He’d frighten her worse than she had frightened him.

  He licked at the blood on his arm.

  Then he’d cut her to pieces.

  Anna Batory was a dead woman walking.

  eighteen

  One of the dreams, something unpleasant, woke her; the diamond of anger was there, like a pebble in her shoe. Unlike a pebble, she cherished it, nurtured it, willed it to grow . . .

  The clock glowed at her in the near-dark: six in the morning. She rolled over, tried to sleep, failed. Giving up, she swiveled to drop her feet on the floor—and needles of pain shot through her shoulders and ribs. She said, ‘‘Ooo,’’ silently, rolled her arms, then cautiously stood up. Her legs hurt, especially along the inside of her thighs; and she could feel the strain in her butt, where the big muscles connected to her pelvis, in her shoulders, and in her ribs. Her head itched: not thinking, she reached up to scratch, and felt the stitches.

  Jeez. The guy had done a number on her.

  She went to the bathroom, read the label on an ibuprofen that warned against taking more than two, took four, steamed herself out in the shower again, and, as an afterthought—a Harper thought?—shaved her legs. The hot water felt good, and as it poured down on her neck and back, she thought about what had happened so far.

  Jacob was connected to Jason only through coincidence: Jason’s dealer hadn’t sold to Jacob Harper, and was apparently hostile to the people who had. So what did that leave?

  The white-haired man? The white-haired man who’d run from them at the hospital was out of keeping with last night’s attack, and the attack on Creek—so much so that she nearly dismissed him as part of the problem: she didn’t know what was going on there, but the white-haired man simply did not fit.

  Last night’s attacker had been young and strong. Younger than she was, she thought. He liked cologne, and though he was stronger than she was, he wasn’t nearly as strong as Jake. What else? He’d been coming to court her? Could that be right? He’d tried to talk to her . . .

  She finished showering, tiptoed around the bedroom getting dressed, found her running shoes and a pair of socks and carried them downstairs. She wouldn’t be running, but the shoes were quiet. She went to the front door and saw that Harper had piled Coke cans next to it. She unstacked them quietly, unlocked the door, looked out, spotted the paper, reached out and grabbed it. Relocked the door, feeling virtuous.

  She ate cold cereal with milk, read the comics, pulled on a pair of socks, got a yellow legal pad and a No. 2 pencil from her office, sat at the kitchen table and tried to untangle the maze . . .

  White-haired guy. Dead end.

  Courting her. He must’ve met her; he expected her to know him—but ma
ybe not by name or face; maybe he expected only a kind of cosmic connection. Something he said hinted at that; that they were fated together.

  And that fit with the killings, and the attack on Creek: if Anna was at the center of a sex triangle, a three-way, or even a four-way, maybe he’d concluded that he had to eliminate his competitors.

  He must’ve heard the story—which meant that anyone who knew all of them—Jason, Sean, Creek and herself— was a possibility. And that was not many people. On the other hand, anyone who knew them at all knew that she wasn’t sleeping with either Jason or Sean: the idea was ludicrous. They might suspect Creek, because they worked so closely together . . . but Creek was the last one attacked. Why? Because he was the most dangerous? The hardest to get at?

  Huh. They really needed to get to BJ’s.

  She was still struggling with the list when Harper bumbled out of the guest room, unshaven, wearing last night’s pants and a t-shirt.

  ‘‘How are you?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Creaky,’’ she said.

  ‘‘I’m gonna get cleaned up, then we gotta run up to my place so I can get some clothes.’’

  ‘‘All right, and I want to get up in the hills and try out the gun. It’s been a while.’’

  He looked at her for a moment, then said, ‘‘Best thing you could do is go back to your dad’s place for a visit. This guy is freaking out: he’ll be dead meat in two weeks, whether you’re here or not.’’

  ‘‘If I believed that, I might go, but I’m looking at the cops and I’m not seeing much. So . . . I’m gonna stay.’’

  He sighed, scratched his prickly face: ‘‘All right. You can shoot out back of my place.’’

  ‘‘Really?’’ Didn’t sound like the valley.

  • • •

  And it wasn’t. He lived on a dirt road off Mulholland Highway, halfway down a hill a few miles west of Topanga. Anna laughed when she saw the place, a rambling collection of white-stucco blocks with deep green eaves and red-tiled roof, something that a skilled hippie might have put together in the sixties.

  ‘‘What?’’ he asked, when she laughed. His eyes crinkled, amused, at the sound of her.

  ‘‘It’s great,’’ she said. ‘‘How much land?’’

  ‘‘Twenty acres.’’

  She was amazed: ‘‘How can you afford it?’’

  ‘‘Bought it fifteen years ago,’’ he said. ‘‘Built it a few pieces at a time.’’

  ‘‘You built it?’’ Amazed again.

  ‘‘Yup. Took some classes at the vo-tech on block-work; made friends with a guy who had some heavy equipment, helped him build his place.’’

  He stopped in a gravel patch in front of the garage. As they got out, a car passed on the road at the bottom of the hill, honked twice, and Harper waved. ‘‘Widow-lady neighbor,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Hmm,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Attractive, rich . . .’’

  ‘‘Blonde, and got the big, you know . . .’’

  ‘‘Ears . . .’’

  ‘‘Exactly the word I was groping for.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, grope,’’ she said.

  The house was cool inside, and a little dim after the glare of the sun on the semi-desert; it was bachelor-neat, the neatness of a man who’d lived alone for a long time, and learned to take care of a house; not precise, not tidy, but most things in their own places, less a couple of socks next to the couch, a couple of beer cans on a table next to a couch that faced an oversized television.

  ‘‘Gotta get some clothes.’’ He fished a half-dozen golf shirts out of a drier, plugged in an iron. ‘‘There’s a gully out back, if you want to take a look,’’ he said. ‘‘Take some beer cans out . . . watch out for snakes.’’

  She’d brought a box of cartridges with her; and with the pistol in her jacket pocket, and a half-dozen empty beer cans in a sack, crunched through the short dry weeds behind the house, fifty yards out to the mouth of the gully. She found a spot where she could prop the cans against the dirt gullywall, put them down, and backed off about eight paces.

  ‘‘All right,’’ she said. She had the gun out, barrel down, and she said, ‘‘One,’’ and the gun was up, the heel of her right hand cupped in her left, and she fired a single shot.

  The gun bucked, and the muzzle blast was like a slap on the side of the head; her ears rang like a distant phone. Damn; forgot her earmuffs. But the slug had bitten into the dirt not four inches from the target can. Not too bad.

  She looked around, finally walked back to the house and got some Kleenex, ripped off enough to make marble-sized wads, and pushed them into her ears as she walked back out.

  The Kleenex helped, and now she started running through the routine she’d been taught in her gun classes: two shots, one-two. Then three, one-two-three. At twenty feet, she’d hit the target can with one shot out of every four or five. That was fine, the cans were just aiming points: hearts. While she missed with the other shots, she was always close—inside a man’s chest. She moved closer, and the number of hits went up. Eventually, she was shooting from six feet, hitting the cans almost every time.

  She didn’t see Harper coming, but she felt him, turned, took one of the Kleenex wads out of her ears and said, ‘‘ ’Bout done.’’

  ‘‘You’re not bad,’’ he said. He was wearing a fresh blue golf shirt and faded jeans.

  ‘‘Always had guns around,’’ she said. ‘‘Out in the country. Want to try?’’

  ‘‘Nope. But let me see a quick two-tap.’’

  She nodded, put the wad of paper back in her ear, and did a quick two, one of the cans spinning away up the gully.

  ‘‘But it’s much easier when you’re shooting at a target, nothing’s moving, you’re not frightened, you’ve got no handicaps . . .’’

  ‘‘Yeah, yeah, they told us all that—and they also said, you gotta do what you can.’’

  ‘‘Go ahead and do another double-tap,’’ he said, moving up behind her. He put his hand flat against her shoulder blade.

  ‘‘Don’t push, I might shoot myself in the foot,’’ she said. ‘‘And I’ve only got one round left.’’

  ‘‘So shoot the one round, and don’t worry—I’m a highly trained veteran of police combat,’’ he said. ‘‘I know what I’m doing.’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ she said, doubtfully. ‘‘Say when.’’ ‘‘Take it slow, make an aimed shot . . . whenever you’re ready.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’ She squared herself to the target. ‘‘Ready?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  She focused on the cans, then lifted the gun. As she did, she tightened her legs, expecting a push, or a pull. Instead, he slipped both hands around her, catching her with a lifting motion just under her breasts, and at the same time, kissed her on the neck.

  Anna felt like she was coming out of her shoes—liked it— and at the same time, focused on the target and squeezed off the shot.

  ‘‘Jesus,’’ Harper groaned, reeling back, hands over his ears. ‘‘I think you blew my eardrums out.’’

  ‘‘That’s what you get,’’ she said, primly. She dumped the spent shells.

  ‘‘How much longer are you going to do this?’’

  ‘‘I’m done,’’ she said. ‘‘I could use a beer.’’

  As they walked back to the house, he said, ‘‘I don’t want to seem impolite, you know, but hanging around you for the last couple of days . . .’’

  ‘‘Yeah?’’

  ‘‘Anna . . . I’m getting fairly desperate.’’ His voice was convincing.

  ‘‘I think we can fix that,’’ she said. And she looked around, at the hillside, the house, the perfect blue sky, ‘‘And it’s such a nice day for it.’’

  And they did fix it, and more than once; but the second time they made love, as Harper began to lose himself in her . . . Anna looked up at the ceiling and saw the holes the bullets had punched in the gully-wall, and instead of thinking of the man with her then, she thought of the man last night.


  And she thought again, Gonna get you .

  nineteen

  Harper was driving, down the narrow canyon road, through the night, occasional snapshots of the L.A. lights ahead of them. He was not happy with the trip: he wanted to spend the evening at his house, but Anna was going hunting, with or without him.

  ‘‘BJ’s: that was the only time Jason and MacAllister were hooked into me, so the guy must’ve been at the party.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Harper said, shaking his head. ‘‘You don’t know how many times they told that story.’’

  ‘‘What’s the point of telling it if nobody sees the woman? It’s no big deal being in a three-way anymore, you can get one for fifty bucks down on the strip.’’

  ‘‘Really?’’ He pretended to perk up.

  She ignored it: ‘‘. . . so I figure what happened is, I show up at the party, ask around for him, he’s a little unhappy when I blow him off—he was really a mess, but he thought he could still do it, he needed the money—and so he starts spreading this story with his pal. Whoever it is saw me, and heard the story. Had to be.’’

  ‘‘Doesn’t have to be.’’

  She sighed: ‘‘Okay. Not technically: but that’s all I’ve got, and I’m going with it.’’

  The party box was running hard. Anna led the way up the narrow, smoke-filled stairway, the buzz-cut hulk at the door looking past her at Harper. When Harper looked up at him, he stepped out of sight into the party room, and a moment later stepped back out; Anna realized that a warning was now rippling through the room—Harper had been taken for a cop.

  The hulk was a redneck, a southern kid with a layer of hard fat in his face and under his Eat More Spam t-shirt. He nodded vaguely at Anna and said to Harper with a thin, sarcastic edge, ‘‘We’re checking IDs, officer.’’

  Harper smiled a cop smile at him and said, ‘‘I’m proud of you.’’

  ‘‘Have you got a warrant?’’

  Harper opened his mouth, but Anna cut in: ‘‘He’s not a cop. Not anymore.’’