Chill of Night

21

Beam’s reply to the Justice Killer’s letter appeared in every New York newspaper. It was on the front page of the Post:

JK:

I’ve been busy and only just now have time to answer your letter. You are not my opponent, you are merely part of my job, as a roach would be part of an exterminator’s job. Deranged killers are parasites and are dealt with routinely in the city. When you are gone, another psychotic killer will occupy the police. That will be soon.

Capt. A. Beam

The Justice Killer set aside the Post on top of today’s Times and Daily News on the seat of the cab he was in. He was smiling. The cab jounced over a pothole and the driver’s eyes fixed momentarily on his passenger.

The Justice Killer’s smile disappeared. “They oughta fix those things,” he said of the pothole. “It’s a wonder this city’s cabs have got any suspension left at all.”

“They’ll fix ’em when we’re both dead and gone,” the driver said, eyes straight ahead now as he braked to turn the corner onto Park.

“I can hardly wait,” the Justice Killer said, barely concentrating on the small talk he was dishing out, still thinking about Beam’s letter.

Certainly the related news articles surrounding the letter were more frantic and hinted at more fear than the letter itself. Which, the Justice Killer knew, was how Beam had planned it. Beam was persuasively feigning nonchalance, pretending the Justice murders were nothing special and didn’t occupy his every waking thought as well as his dreams.

So the veteran cop said publicly that the killer is deranged. Psychotic. The Justice Killer knew that nothing could be further from the truth. It was precisely what he wanted the police to believe, to announce; it was their unintentional way of saying they had no inkling of what was in his mind.

Of course you don’t.

Of course you know I’m sane.

The seemingly dashed off reply to his letter was calculated to make the Justice Killer feel slighted. Angry.

But the tone of the letter was no surprise, and made the killer feel neither slighted nor angry. He felt gratified. Beam was living up to expectations. His reply was actually quite a good attempt, and it was a smart thing to release it to all the media.

But Beam and his detectives weren’t smart enough to guess their quarry’s next move. They thought in the usual channels and assumed he was a classic serial killer, that he was moved by compulsion and locked into patterns of thought and action.

Not at all. They didn’t know, for instance, that his list of potential victims had increased eleven-fold.

He smiled again. He couldn’t help it, and he’d scooted sideways on the seat so the cab driver couldn’t see him now in the rear-view mirror. A part of the Justice Killer’s mind was leisurely, almost lovingly, contemplating the identity of his next victim. A common juror rather than a foreperson. Which juror hadn’t been decided yet. That was all within the power of the Justice Killer. Only the Justice Killer. He felt a tightening in his groin and was surprised to find that he had an erection.

That isn’t what this is supposed to be about. Not primarily, anyway.

Think about baseball. He grinned inwardly. Damned Steinbrenner. All the money in the world and can’t buy a world championship. Now, the Mets…

The baseball diversion actually worked pretty well. Within a few blocks the bulge beneath his fly was gone.

The designated hitter. What a dumb-ass move that turned out to be.

He casually scanned Beam’s letter again beside him in the Post. It really was an admirable effort, deceptively simple.

It hadn’t the desired effect, but of course Beam couldn’t know that. He was probably reading all the papers, like his opponent, and smiling, like his opponent.

They were both pleased this morning. Beam would doubtless consider his published reply progress. And maybe it was, though in the wrong direction. Still, a move, progress.

Something, anyway. A countermove.

The Justice Killer had anticipated no less of Beam.

The Selig and Cohen cases were both colder than the victims, but Beam had manufactured an excuse to return by himself to the Village.

He stood perspiring in the doorway of a closed bookshop across the street and watched the entrance to Things Past. Nola was visible from time to time behind the collectibles and notices displayed in the window, a dark form beyond dark glass, moving gracefully. Or was Beam filling in the grace himself? Remembering? The truth was, it might even be another woman moving around inside the shop. A customer. Not Nola at all except in Beam’s mind.

Making a fool of myself…

The temperature was almost ninety, and he was starting to suffer from the heat. His legs were heavy, and now and then he felt a slight dizziness.

Getting too old for this kind of thing. For lots of things.

It had been almost half an hour since he’d seen anyone enter or leave the shop. He wondered if Nola made enough profit to stay in business. Some of the tiny specialty shops in the Village weren’t on solid financial ground in and of themselves. They were causes, or fixations, or playthings of the rich. Beam wondered if Nola had collected a lot of insurance money from Harry’s death. If Harry had life insurance, it might have paid big. Death by misadventure made for immense settlements for the beneficiaries. Maybe Nola was getting by financially that way; it sure didn’t look like the antique and collectible business was all that lucrative.

Finally Beam gave up. He had to talk to her.

He patted sweat from his face with a folded handkerchief, then stepped out from the doorway and crossed the street diagonally, drawing a horn blast and an angry shout from a guy in a black van.

When he entered the shop, she was alone. No surprise.

The door that had tinkled a bell when he came in swung closed, and there was a heavy silence in the shop. It wasn’t much cooler inside, but for Beam the change in temperature felt drastic.

Nola was standing behind the counter near the register, staring at him. She had on a sleeveless red blouse. Her arms were tanned and smooth, like those of a much younger woman. Did she exercise regularly? Was she a jogger? Or was her physical beauty all hereditary? He wanted to know things about her. Everything. Harry had talked about her from time to time, but it was mostly sexual innuendo. Harry bragging, needling Beam.

“I was standing over there watching you,” Beam said, trying honesty as an approach.

She didn’t change expression. “I know. I saw you. Why did you come in?”

Not “Why were you watching me?”

She knows why.

She was staring at him unblinkingly, like an Indian princess misplaced in time in a Greenwich Village antique shop, waiting for an answer.

He gave her one, a peace offering: “I had to see you. I need for you to understand-to believe-I didn’t suspect Harry might be killed. I didn’t want him harmed.”

“Of course you didn’t. He was valuable to you. I understand that.”

“That’s true, about him being valuable. But it’s also true I underestimated the danger.”

“You risked my husband’s life. Are you trying to tell me you didn’t know that at the time?”

“Of course not. I mean, I knew there was risk. We all did. I didn’t want him-I didn’t think he’d be killed. It’s important that you know that.”

“You want forgiveness, you bastard.”

The heavy heat from outside seemed to have invaded the shop now. The back of Beam’s neck was perspiring.

“I want understanding,” Beam said. “Harry was a fence, Nola, and the truth is, so were you. There was enough evidence to bring charges against both of you.”

“Now you want thanks?”

“No. I want you to put away your grief and anger and live in the present.” He waved his arms. “Not with all this stuff from a past that’ll keep dragging you back.”

“My. How concerned you are for me.”

“Damn it, I am!”

“Why?”

“You’re Harry’s widow. And believe it or not, Harry was my friend.”

“You’re lying. Harry was your snitch. Friends and snitches are mutually exclusive.”

That wasn’t true, but in another way, it was. That was why Harry was dead.

Beam knew he’d feel at least somewhat better if she’d show some righteous rage, if she’d shout and throw something at him, instead of being so damned focused and reasonable. So damned…right.

“I want forgiveness,” he admitted.

She didn’t seem surprised that he’d blurted it out. Nothing would shake her composure. Warm as the stifling, cluttered shop full of yesterday was, she wasn’t perspiring. “Do you think you deserve forgiveness?”

“Yes. Maybe we all do.”

“This killer you’re hunting-does he deserve forgiveness?”

“No,” Beam said. “He’s different.”

“From you?”

Perspiration zigzagged down Beam’s back beneath his damp shirt, a persistent tickle that stopped when it reached his belt. “Yes.”

“So he doesn’t deserve forgiveness and you do?”

“Yes. And you need to forgive.”

Nola understood what he needed, and what she herself needed, but for now she wasn’t capable of giving or receiving. He should be able to see that in her, to stay away. He was making things worse.

“Captain Beam, you go to hell.”

In the face of her unwavering stare, he moved toward the front of the shop and opened the door. The bell above tinkled, as if announcing another round with the heat. Beam didn’t say goodbye to Nola. He went outside.

It was something like hell.

Tina drove the white Saab sedan out of the apartment building’s garage and stopped at the curb so Martin could get in on the passenger side. He’d been standing talking to Jerry the doorman about God knew what, and even before the car came to a complete stop, he was climbing in.

Taking it slow, not attracting attention, Tina leaned forward and waved to Jerry before pulling out into traffic. She’d wheeled Martin’s large black suitcase into the elevator and across the garage’s concrete floor, then wrestled it into the car’s trunk. If anybody was watching the building, she didn’t want them to know Martin was leaving for any extended time. They might be followed to the airport. The killer might want to strike before Martin could leave New York. The psycho might have some kind of fixation about that-about all his victims dying in New York. Serial killers were compulsive.

Yet in many ways they were unpredictable; their thought processes weren’t like ours.

What Tina did know was that such killers were moved by forces even they might not understand, making them to do some things over and over and in the same way. Like killing the same type of victim. Like jury forepersons. Like Martin. Repetition was the narcotic that lulled and then tripped them up, and eventually it should lead to the capture of the Justice Killer. But maybe not in time, if he had his sights set on Martin as his next victim. The killer had the edge. It took the police a while to catch on to repetition.

Tina goosed the Saab to merge with heavier traffic and headed for the tunnel. It wasn’t the only way to LaGuardia, but it was the route she always took without even thinking about it.

Repetition.