Fear the Night

26

The present

Late morning sunlight seemed to cleanse and purify Park Avenue, glinting off cars and striking silver rays from the buildings towering against a high blue sky. The green ribbon that was the broad avenue’s median looked mowed, trimmed, and freshly planted. New York might have been built yesterday.

Repetto was alone with Meg, driving along Park, Meg at the wheel, when he decided to bring up the subject.

“Do you know who Dwayne Easterbrook is?”

Meg skillfully passed a slow-moving van and slipped back into the stream of traffic. She smiled faintly, pleased by her driving ability. “Sounds familiar.”

“He’s a detective out of Homicide. Melbourne assigned him to help out with the disgruntled former city employee list.”

“And?” Traffic was slowing for the light at the Fifty-third Street intersection.

“He interviewed Alex Reyals yesterday. The former NYPD sharpshooter.”

They were approaching the intersection too fast. Meg braked hard and barely avoided missing the bumper of a cab in front of them that had already stopped for the red light.

“I already talked to Reyals,” she said.

“More than once, according to Easterbrook.”

“Reyals is a suspect.”

“Easterbrook said you talked to him several times.”

Meg stared straight ahead. “Fuck Easterbrook. Where’s he getting his information?”

“From Reyals.”

Meg knew what must have happened. Easterbrook was a good cop and had picked up vibes from Alex. Vibes that suggested there was something more than a cop-suspect relationship between Alex and Meg.

What really annoyed Meg was that part of her was pleased there was something in Alex for Easterbrook to home in on.

She turned her head so she was looking directly at Repetto. “I’ll say it once. There was nothing improper about my interviews with Alex Reyals.”

“You visited him three times in his apartment.”

“He lives in his apartment.”

“Meg-”

“There’s nothing improper going on.”

Horns began to blare. Engines raced.

“Light,” Repetto said.

“Huh?”

“The light changed.”

Meg goosed the car and it jerked away from a dead stop and almost ran up the back of the cab again. The cabby noticed this time. She saw him glaring at her in his rearview mirror as he increased the distance between the two vehicles.

After a couple of silent blocks: “You believe me?”

“Of course,” Repetto said.

And he did believe her, she was sure.

But this didn’t bode well. Damn it, this didn’t bode well!

“Captain-”

“Enough said, Meg.”

Repetto hadn’t asked her to stay away from Alex.

Here was Meg again, pressing the paint-clogged intercom button for Alex’s apartment, taking the elevator to Alex’s floor. Meg where she shouldn’t be. Meg sticking her neck out again. It was the kind of thing that often got Meg in trouble, and that she couldn’t stop doing.

Nothing improper. That was true. That was goddamn true, and still her ass was in a sling. Or sure felt like it was.

Alex was waiting for her with the door open, smiling when she walked toward him. He was in jeans and a blue Yankees T-shirt, and had a sharp-looking chisel in his right hand. There were tiny wood chips trapped in the hair on his muscular forearms. His smile faded when he noticed the expression on her face.

He stepped back and let her enter. “You okay?”

“Question is, are you?”

He was smiling again, amused by her anger even though he didn’t know what caused it. That was really annoying.

“You here to arrest me?” he asked.

“Just maybe. Why did you tell Easterbrook I’d been here to visit you three times?”

“Because he asked me how many times you’d been here. I couldn’t lie to him, Meg. I’m a suspect in a series of homicides.” A serious look crossed his face. “Easterbrook giving you trouble?”

“He mentioned his talk with you to Repetto.”

Alex thought about that for a few seconds. “He had no choice, Meg. Like I had no choice but to be honest with him. You know how lies are, like cockroaches. When there’s one, it always seems there are more.”

He was right and she knew it. And it was she who’d decided to keep coming here to his apartment. At least he hadn’t pointed that out to her. Lucky for him.

“I don’t blame you for being angry,” he said. “In fact. .”

Don’t say it.

He tucked the chisel in his belt and gently placed both his hands on her shoulders, probably getting wood chips on her blazer. She didn’t move when he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips.

This visit wasn’t turning out anything like she’d planned.

She kissed him back.

Hadn’t planned that, either.

She stepped away from him, and he lowered his arms in a way that suggested hopelessness.

“I’ve been working,” he said, smiling a certain way. “Want to come see what I’m doing?”

She stared at him for a long time, into his eyes.

“I’m getting the hell out of here,” she said.

He nodded. “I have to admit it’s the smart thing to do.”

She turned away from him and moved toward the door and opened it. Turned back. “Thanks.”

“For understanding your position?”

“For not telling me I’m beautiful when I’m angry.”

“I was thinking it.”

She slammed the door on the way out, thinking her visit had accomplished absolutely nothing.

Still, she was glad she’d come.

That was the problem.

A neatly folded fifty-dollar bill got the Night Sniper into the exclusive Club Cleo on the Upper West Side. He sat alone now at a small round table by a wooden rail separating seating from the spacious dance floor. The walls were oak paneled. The music was soft rock, sometimes even romantic ballads. Sinatra would have dug it. Long red drapes hung from the high ceiling, lending the illusion there were windows behind them. The lighting was soft and there were more tables in a gallery upstairs, from which customers could look down at the dance floor. Drug transactions and usage were discreet and not done in the restrooms, where there were attendants.

Club Cleo wasn’t exactly for people on the way up. It was more for those who were clinging near the summit, a very private way station on the way up, or down, the steep mountain of success.

Connections could be made here. More than once, the Night Sniper had made them.

An exotically beautiful woman, dressed as a jockey in silks that were the brown and red colors of Club Cleo, took his drink order, and he watched the rhythmic switch of her hips beneath taut silk as she walked away. A riding crop was tucked in her belt.

The band was playing something by Duke Ellington. A raven-haired woman in an emerald-green dress was dancing with a short balding man in an expensive-looking suit. When the dance partners separated for a few seconds, the Night Sniper saw that the man’s dark maroon tie matched the handkerchief barely peeking from his suit coat’s breast pocket. Subdued elegance. The Night Sniper approved.

He was wearing his blue Armani suit, Gambino Italian loafers, and sipping sixteen-year-old Lagavulin scotch. On his wrist was an antique Patek Philippe watch that kept precise time. His neatly knotted blue tie was pure silk and cost 120 dollars. His dark hair was medium-length and impeccably styled. Only the most discerning eye would notice it was a wig.

The Ellington number was over. The Night Sniper saw the woman with the lustrous black hair talk briefly to the balding man, then turn smiling and walk away. The man seemed disappointed as he returned to a table on the far side of the dance floor and sat down with three other men. They all glanced over at the woman, who sat alone at a small table not far from the Night Sniper’s.

The black-haired woman, Mary Maureen Kopler, recently of Atlanta, had just finished her third martini. Maybe that was why she didn’t notice anything special about the man seated at the nearby table, watching her, other than that he was flawlessly groomed and almost too handsome, with kind dark eyes and smooth, tanned skin. When he turned away from her, he displayed a profile that belonged in a museum of Roman artifacts.

She thought he was interesting, even if he did seem the type that spent hours getting together an outfit every morning in order to achieve male perfection. He was almost, but not quite, beautiful enough to appear feminine. Mr. Metrosexual. Maybe he was some kind of model. She’d met such men before. Often they were rich. She looked in his direction without moving her head, then waited until he glanced at her. Even before there was eye contact, she lowered her gaze and looked away.

It was enough. She knew it would be. The men who frequented Club Cleo were aware of life’s subtleties. That was why she came here.

Drawing a deep breath, staying outwardly oblivious, she waited.

She saw the slight shift of light and shadow and knew he was there even before he spoke:

“Mind if I sit with you for a moment?”

Good start. Simple and direct. Nicely modulated voice. Educated. Mary Maureen preferred not to waste her time with simpletons.

She looked up as if noticing him for the first time. Gave him a smile, ever so slight. “Are you selling something?”

“Other than the obvious?”

Widen the smile. “I will say you’re honest. Go ahead and sit.” For more than a moment.

She liked this man. He looked clean, smelled clean, and was incredibly handsome. Of course, he’d eventually reveal himself to be too good to be true. Like the rest of them.

But right now, what wasn’t there to like?

She was even more beautiful close up, he thought, as he sat gracefully in the chair across from her. “Your accent is charming. Louisiana?”

“Georgia. Atlanta. Well, just outside Atlanta, really. Rome.”

“I’ve been there.”

“Not hardly.”

Not hardly? She was playing it folksy, he knew. Trying to snag him with her southern manner.

“You’re probably thinking of the other Rome,” she said. “The big one.”

“No. That one’s full of Italians now.”

She giggled but kept it controlled, not wanting to come across as an airhead.

“I know my Romes,” he said. “I’ve been in Rome, Georgia. What are we drinking?”

“I’m having martinis.”

“Then so am I.” He turned and motioned to one of the servers.

This was working well, he thought. She’d already had too much to drink. He could smell it on her breath, see it in her labored eye movement and body language, now that he was close to her.

The woman dressed as a jockey brought the martinis. He tipped her lavishly, knowing his southern belle was watching, probably contemplating his gross income and sexual potential.

Within five minutes the Night Sniper knew he could have this woman. And he knew their relationship would be brief. He didn’t completely understand what attracted women to him in the first place. Maybe it was a beauty-and-the-beast allure. She had to see beneath his skin, what he was; nothing like that could ever be made completely invisible or was ever completely gone. But women were attracted to him; it was undeniable.

He sipped his martini and watched her sip hers. The woman would leave Club Cleo with him and they’d spend the night together where she lived or in his luxury condo. A one-nighter, whether she wanted it that way or not.

They chatted easily for another fifteen minutes, exchanging smiles and tentative touches across the table. He noticed the slight slur that had worked its way into her musical drawl. She squeezed his hand hard and gazed soulfully at him as if she owned him. No, as if she wanted him to own her.

I’m not buying, only renting.

Halfway through their drinks, they left together.

In the back of his mind he knew that someday she’d discover the true identify of the man she’d lain with, and the knowledge thrilled him even more than what he knew was to follow when they reached their destination.