Fear the Night (4 page)

5

Jim Lu had a talent given by his ancestors. Even as a child in Dom Ning he could sketch likenesses of anything, but especially of people. He had never attended school beyond his basic education in China, and never had the benefit of an art class. But what he saw, he could draw. He could look into it, understand it, see what made it what it was; then he could recreate it.

He and a dozen others made their livings as sketch artists, working mostly in Times Square after the theater curtains dropped and people spilled out into the streets to walk to subway stops or their hotels or futilely wave for taxis. For twenty dollars Jim Lu or his fellow sketch artists would provide a charcoal likeness of any person who would pose for ten minutes. For an additional fifteen dollars they would provide a sturdy cardboard frame. This was illegal, of course, but when the police chased them they would simply open shop on some other busy corner, often just across the street. There was much for the police to tend to in the theater district when it was jammed with people, and simple sketch artists moved them only to cursory efforts.

This woman—Betty Ern was her name, and Jim Lu had elicited from her that she was from Iowa—was quite easy to capture in charcoal. She had thick black hair and dark eyes, and a receding chin that Jim Lu would give definition. He knew how to flatter his subjects, removing a few years here, adding cheekbone or eye width there, and still they would look like themselves.

He sat on his wooden folding chair before his easel, his back to the traffic, facing pedestrians streaming past beyond those who’d decided to pose or simply to observe. Jim Lu began with the left eye, as he always did, working carefully and slowly. Once he had Betty’s left eye perfectly, her brow and the side of her nose, he would work faster, enlarging, keying off the eye. Every living thing he drew, he began with its left eye. He thought sometimes that the soul must live there.

Betty Ern seemed a nice enough lady. Every twenty seconds or so she’d become embarrassed by his quick, appraising glances, and a smile would sneak onto her face. Her husband or boyfriend, a large man in a gray suit, stood off to the side and watched, trying not to seem too impatient to be going.

Jim Lu ignored the man, ignored the traffic teeming noisily behind him on Broadway, ignored the mass of humanity flowing along the sidewalk before him. Gray Suit edged toward the curb so he could see what Jim Lu was doing, then grinned at Betty.

“Not much there yet,” he said, “but what there is sure looks like you.”

Jim Lu smiled and nodded at the compliment he’d barely heard in his deep concentration.

Yet a part of his mind thought of Michelle, as it had more and more often lately. Michelle who so liked to give and receive oral sex. When he was finished here—

A pain erupted in his back, then in his chest and arms. His head must have jerked backward because he was staring up through the haze of light at faint stars that became fainter ...

Betty Ern heard the loud, echoing
crack!
and thought at first something had fallen from a building. But the artist, the little man with the neat dark beard and mustache, had slumped from his chair and crashed to the sidewalk with his easel. Betty stared numbly down at him, at the sketch paper on the pavement, at her single left eye staring back at her. Only her eye, but she knew it was her own.

She noticed specks of blood on it, around it.

Someone or something slapped her hard, high in the chest, just beneath her throat. She heard another of the loud, reverberating
cracks
and was aware that she’d fallen backward, aware of people surrounding her, arms supporting her upper body, screams off in the distance.
Where am I? What happened?
She tried to inhale but couldn’t, and the pain and panic carried her to cold dark spaces. Her last coherent thought was of the loud, reverberating noise she’d heard, like the screen door slamming on the farm where she grew up. It was a sound she’d loved. As a girl she always slammed the door going out ... coming home.

The next morning he read the front page of the
New York Post
and smiled. It hadn’t taken the media long to decide what to call him: “The Night Sniper.” That was fine. Nights were most convenient for him. And since the media were giving him the night, he accepted.

The Night Sniper.
Crisp and descriptive.

It would make wonderful headlines.

Repetto sat staring at the
Times
in the Bonaire Diner when Carrie placed his eggs, toast, and coffee before him.

“Hell of a thing last night in Times Square,” she said. “Must be a nut, this Night Sniper. World’s full of nuts, don’t you think?”

“Except for thee and me,” Repetto said, moving the folded newspaper aside to make room for his plate.

“Two people shot to death, and three injured in a traffic accident when all the cars tried to get outta there, bunch of people damn near trampled to death when they realized they were being shot at.” She topped off his coffee. “Musta been bedlam.”

“New York,” Repetto said sadly.

“Whatza difference?”

“People in Bedlam are certified insane.”

As he began to eat, he stole glances at the paper. A sketch artist and a tourist from Iowa, both dead. A teenage girl in a limo killed when a cab collided with it near the shooting. More injuries from traffic accidents. A child almost trampled to death on the sidewalk.

Repetto felt an anger growing in him that supplanted his appetite.

It didn’t help when his cell phone chirped.

He dug the phone from the pocket of his jacket folded on the seat beside him. “Repetto,” he said, swallowing a bite of egg.

“It’s Lou Melbourne here.”

“It’s breakfast here.”

“I figured that’s where you’d be. Don’t you usually read the paper while you’re abusing your arteries?”

“I was doing just that. Front page. Times Square last night.”

“The Night Sniper phoned us last night after it happened, Vin. I gave him your answer. He didn’t like it.”

Repetto knew where Melbourne was going with the conversation. “It isn’t my fault those two people were shot last night. It’s entirely the fault of the asshole who squeezed the trigger.”

“Sure. But does
he
see it that way?”

“He’s insane,” Repetto pointed out. “We don’t know how he sees it, and it might not make sense to us if we did know.”

“You’re the expert with serial killers, Vin, but we both know they follow their own weird logic. It’s why they kill. It’s why they get caught.”

Repetto sipped coffee. “I’m not personally responsible for any of that.”

“We agree. But folks in the mayor’s office are in a tizzy. So’s the commissioner, and so’s the chief of department, my boss.”

“You don’t sound in a tizzy.”

“It’s my job not to, but I’m all tizzied up inside. Two people shot to death; then the killer called and said you had a few days to think over my offer—his offer, really—then he’d kill two more. He said for me to tell you their deaths would be on your conscience.”

“Anything else he tell you?”

“He said he had plenty of bullets.”

Repetto said nothing. He sipped his coffee. He didn’t like the way his heartbeat had picked up. The way his blood was racing. The cold rage in the core of him.

“I can hire you as an official consultant and give you two good detectives full-time until the Sniper is nailed,” Melbourne said. “You won’t be officially out of retirement, so you can still draw your pension and keep your promise to Lora.”

“Isn’t that a difference without a distinction?”

“That’s the kind of bullshit we hear every day in court, Vin, and it floats there but not here. You do this thing for us, for the city, and you won’t be bothered again. Travel, go to all the Broadway shows you want, eat well, drink well, rot the rest of your life away happy. That’s fine. But we both know before God, you’re the only one who can do this thing.”

“Lou—”

“Okay, the one who can do it best.”

“Lou—”

“Do this for me as an old friend. Ask Lora again. After last night, things have changed. She’ll see that, I’m sure.”

“Did the chief ask you to call me?”

“The mayor asked.”

Repetto didn’t know whether to believe him. Melbourne could be deceptive, relentless, and remarkably persuasive. That was why he’d been promoted over so many cops with more seniority. Why he’d be chief of department someday, and possibly even commissioner if he didn’t stumble over his own ambition like so many before him. Melbourne wouldn’t lie to Repetto directly, because he was too wily to have to lie
,
but he could massage the truth until it sighed and surrendered to him.

The bare facts were out there. The Night Sniper had killed twice because he didn’t like Repetto’s answer. If Repetto didn’t change his answer, two more people would die, and soon. Maybe he’d kill more people anyway, but those two, like the two last night, would be Repetto’s responsibility. That was the way the Night Sniper thought.

The way Repetto thought.

“I’ll talk to Lora,” he said.

“Thanks, Vin. You’re gonna prevent a lotta blood being shed.” Repetto had never heard Melbourne sound more sincere. “I’m gonna hang up now before you change your mind.”

And Melbourne was gone.

Repetto killed his cell phone and sat for a moment staring at it.
Blood ...

He took his time with his coffee, reading the rest of the paper casually, until he got to page two of the front section and his name jumped out at him. Someone had leaked the reason why the Night Sniper had claimed his last two victims, and what he wanted. There it was in the
Times
, the paper of record.

He wanted Repetto.

6

Repetto wanted a piece of cake. He hadn’t realized it had been so long since lunch, and he and Lora had cabbed to the Upper West Side where their daughter, Amelia, had an apartment that she subleased so cheap she didn’t mind taking the subway five or six days a week down to NYU, where she was a senior in prelaw.

Amelia was a slender girl with her mother’s fine features, luminous smile, and thick blond hair. She was proud of her golden hair and wore it combed back and in a long braid that hung to her waist. Today she was twenty-one, and celebrating with her family and best friends. Besides Repetto and Lora, there were Mar, older and grayer than when she and her partner Mel had healed and raised a teenage Repetto; Dal; and a girl named Peggy that Amelia knew from college. A small group, but close.

“We’re going to sing,” Dal said, after Lora had finished lighting the candles on a cake brought by Mar.

Amelia shot her great smile and shook her head, but the singing had already begun.

Repetto had a voice like a cracked foghorn, so he kept his volume down. He didn’t like the way Peggy was looking at Dal, who seemed to be paying no attention to her. Good. Maybe someday Dal and Amelia would see each other differently. Less like brother and sister. So Repetto and Lora hoped. But some things you couldn’t force. Repetto told himself to grow up at his late age. If Dal happened to prefer somebody like Peggy, who was a beautiful young brunette, then so be it. Some things were beyond a father’s control.

“What are you thinking, Dad?”

Repetto realized “Happy Birthday” was over. “Thinking you should make a wish.”

Amelia did, closing her eyes briefly, then pursing her lips and emitting two gusts of breath before all twenty-one candles were extinguished. Lora and Repetto exchanged a look, knowing they were both making their own wish. Mar saw them, grinned, and shook her head. Dal didn’t notice. Peggy appeared momentarily mystified.

“So what was the wish?” Dal asked.

“That she’d make it through law school,” Peggy said, giving Amelia’s long braid a playful tug.

While everyone was laughing, Mar made her way over to Repetto. She was in her eighties now, whipcord lean and wizened, but with carefully permed white hair and alert brown eyes. She looked like one of those people who might live forever. Repetto wished she could.

“You okay, Vin?” she asked. “You look sort of pensive.”

“A lot to think about, I guess.”

“Yeah, you always did think too much to be completely happy.”

“Is there such a thing as complete happiness?”

“Naw.” She patted his arm and moved away.

Dal came up to Repetto as the cake was being cut and drew him aside, until they were standing a few feet inside the kitchen.

“I can’t believe Mar came all the way from Philadelphia by train for this, at her age,” Dal said. “She’s a helluva lady.”

“You’ll never know.”

“Michaels tells me I should test up for lieutenant,” Dal said. “I’d be doing Street Narcotics Enforcement.”

“Running a unit?”

“Before long.”

“Not a bad career move.”

“I want the shortest route to make detective, like you are.”

“Were,” Repetto corrected.

Dal grinned. “Word’s around you’re getting the call to go after the Night Sniper.”

Repetto sighed. “The NYPD leaks like the
Titanic.
Got an underwater budget, too.”

“You considering it?”

“We’re opening gifts,” Lora called from the living room.

“The beer’s not in the fridge, you two,” Amelia shouted. “It’s out here in a cooler.”

Repetto and Dal laughed. “She’s got us figured,” Dal said.

“Always has,” Repetto said. “We’ll finish this talk tomorrow morning.”

Repetto hooked up with Dal Bricker the next morning where they often met, away from the apartment. Dal would leave the unmarked he was driving parked off Fourteenth Street, and they would stroll.

It was a clear morning, with the sun glancing warm off the buildings. The kind of morning Repetto liked most in New York. Night had been chased away. The sights and smells and sounds were as newly created. Anything might happen. City of promise.

“Lora told me about what Melbourne wants from you,” Dal said. He was a taller, heavier figure in the corner of Repetto’s vision. Walking next to someone larger was an unfamiliar sensation for Repetto.

“I figured she would. No secrets. What do you think?”

“I think it’s your call.”

“What if it wasn’t just my call, Dal? What if I asked for your advice?”

Bricker grinned as Repetto looked over at him: big, broad guy with curly black hair, looked like he should be a country-western star.
Why can’t Amelia see a future with this man? Maybe they’ve been too close—more than friends, less than lovers—and can only think of themselves more as siblings than as a man and woman who might feel a mutual attraction.

Sometimes it made Repetto ache when he thought how happy Dal and Amelia could be. Not that it mattered what he thought. It was just that people were so damned blind when it came to the future.

“I’m usually the one asking for advice,” Dal said.

“Not this time,” Repetto said.

Bricker took a deep, noisy breath. “What I think you should do is what Melbourne is asking.”

“You’ve given it some thought?”

“Lots, since I talked with Lora. Bottom line is, I figure you’ve got an obligation. I didn’t tell Lora that, but I’ve thought so from the start.”

“Well,” Repetto said, after a dozen more strides, “I asked you.”

“Lora’s gonna come around to your way of thinking anyway,” Bricker said.

“
My way
? You think I
want
to tag on to this nutcase killer?”

“C’mon, Vin. You know damn well you do.”

“Ordinarily I’d agree with you. But there comes a time in every marriage . . .”

“Yeah. Like I said, it’s your call and yours only.” But that wasn’t the way Bricker was looking at Repetto. Damn kid always knew what was in his mind.

As if they were blood.

“I’ll talk again with Lora.”

“That’d be best.”

But Repetto knew he wouldn’t initiate the conversation. It would be better if she broached the subject, made the suggestion herself. He knew Lora, and Bricker knew both of them. There was no way Lora could hold Repetto to his word and watch him stay on the sidelines while the Night Sniper took more victims. That would, in a way, make her and Repetto responsible for the dead; they’d be the killer’s once-removed accomplices.

Dal was right; it was Repetto’s call. But Repetto was patient, confident of the decision Lora would soon make. She was a good woman, a brave woman with a nagging conscience.

“Got time to stop in at the deli?” Repetto asked. They’d gone around the block, and the unmarked Ford was visible beyond the corner deli. “I’m gonna pick up something for breakfast to take back to the apartment. You can join us.”

Dal thought about it. “Sounds good, but I really got no time to stop. I’ll get some fruit, maybe. Eat while I drive.”

They walked to the deli’s outside produce and flower stalls. Like the flowers, most of the fruit was flown in from sunnier climes where it thrived this time of year. Repetto preferred it in season, so he’d wait until Dal had chosen, then go inside with him to the register and buy something sweet and sinful in shrink-wrap to take back to the apartment.

“Peaches look best,” Dal said.

He braced his thighs against the wooden stall, leaning forward and stretching out his right arm so he could reach a large, ripe peach in the last row.

Repetto saw the bullet slam into the back of Dal’s head and heard its impact a moment before the rolling
crack!
of the rifle.

Bricker settled down on the peaches, his arm still extended, the fingers of his right hand straining forward. Repetto was aware of peaches forced over the edge of the stall, bouncing and rolling at his feet. Bricker’s head tilted to the side, as if he were trying to get more comfortable on his pillow of peaches, and the blood came. And came and came.

Repetto backed away, unable to stop staring at Bricker, at the blood on the peaches, the blood now trickling from the stall onto the sidewalk.

“Christ!” he heard someone say. “Looka all the blood! Fuckin’ flood!”

People were moving around Repetto. He could hear their soles shuffling on the pavement, see them like shadows at the corners of his vision. It was unreal. All so unreal.

“. . . guy’s clock has stopped ... dead . . .dead . . .”

“Get back. Please, you get back from him!” Kim’s voice. The deli’s owner. Kim knew Repetto and had come outside despite the possibility of another shot.

“Don’t matter, man. He’s dead. Looka the fuckin’ blood!”

Does there have to be so much blood?

“Watch where you step . . .”

“Get a cop!” a woman said.

Blood.

“Somebody inside’s calling the police.” Kim’s voice. “Somebody’s already calling.”

“Get a cop!” the woman insisted, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Get a cop.”

Repetto stood motionless except for his chest heaving with his rapid breathing. His face was pale stone. The people around him might have thought he was in shock, but he wasn’t. Not yet.

“I am a cop,” he said.

Well before sunrise, he awoke hot and heavily perspiring, lying on his back beside Lora. Repetto guessed she hadn’t been asleep, but had been crying since they’d gone to bed a few minutes past midnight.

For a moment he wondered why she was quietly sobbing; then the realization of yesterday collapsed in on him. He reached out gently with his left arm and pulled Lora to him, and she nestled her head against the base of his neck and continued to sob. Neither of them spoke. What had happened to Dal, to them, was black and ineffable.

After almost an hour, still welded together by grief, they fell asleep.

When the bedroom was slashed with morning light from the parted blinds, Repetto awoke as exhausted as he’d been last night. He carefully disentangled himself from Lora, who was still asleep. He thought about kissing her forehead, then decided against chancing that he might wake her. Instead he studied her as if she were a precious puzzle, loving her, knowing they needed each other now as never before. As quietly as possible, he climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom to shower.

With his left arm and hand he’d been gentle with Lora, but he became aware that the fingers of his right hand ached from having clutched the wadded sheet as he fell asleep, and perhaps as he slept.

When he was finished toweling dry, he stared at the man in the bathroom mirror.

Captain Vincent Albert Repetto stared back at him, the same as yesterday, yet unalterably changed.