Fear the Night

40

The present

Joe DeLong waited until Tiffany and the rest of the Candle in the Night cast members had clambered into two cabs that had arrived outside the diner.

The cab’s taillights flared red, then drew close together and disappeared as the vehicles turned the corner. Joe stepped out of the shadows. The street seemed so silent and empty after the cabs’ departure. It was no surprise. Even Joe, who never watched TV news and seldom read a newspaper or magazine, knew why the streets were less crowded than usual after dark. He’d heard snatches of conversation, and sometimes Tiffany left a folded newspaper with the takeout box, knowing Joe could use it to insulate his thin clothing if the night grew cool. Even if you only used newspaper to wrap fish or help stay warm, it was difficult not to have read at least something about the Night Sniper.

Joe waited for his hip to stop aching from standing so long in the dark doorway; then he shuffled along the sidewalk in the direction the cabs had gone. He’d seen Tiffany leave the group outside the diner and walk down to the corner where the trash receptacle sat near the traffic signal. He knew where she was going; she’d often done this before for him. He’d watched as she placed a takeout container on top of the day’s refuse before hurrying back to the others.

And there was the takeout box, one of the square flat kind, resting right on top of the trash that filled half the wire container. He reached down and lifted the white foam box, surprised by its weight.

When he opened it, he smiled. Inside were two large slices of pizza, the thick-crusted kind with sausage and mushrooms. They were still warm. Joe had been hungry; now the aroma of the pizza made him ravenous.

He moved away from the brightly lit corner, wolfing down the pizza as he walked, then sat on the concrete steps of a boarded-up shop halfway down the block and licked his fingers before starting on the cloverleaf roll that was in the box with the pizza. If only he had something to drink, a cold beer, life would be perfect for a while. That was all other people had, Joe knew, a perfect moment now and then in an imperfect world.

It wasn’t so late that he couldn’t walk to where there were more people, then set up on the sidewalk and wait for contributions. Or maybe he could use the ethnic approach, walk up to someone who was obviously Jewish or Asian or Hispanic and plead for enough money to buy chicken soup or chop suey or a burrito. Of course, what Joe would buy was a bottle. Beer if it was all he could afford, wine if he got lucky.

He was about to stand up and set out for brighter, busier streets when the voices began. They were trying to tell him something, but it was as if they were speaking another language. It was a language Joe knew, if only he could focus his thoughts.

He decided to make his way to the Aal Commerce Building and sit beneath its tower.

Maybe there he could understand the voices.

The Night Sniper decided not to interrupt the beggar’s last meal. Besides, where the Sniper was set up to fire the fatal shot, it would be better if the target came closer. For several nights the Sniper had observed the beggar and knew his habits. When the destitute man had eaten his fill and did get up to go elsewhere, the odds were he’d move in this direction, toward the waiting rifle. And if he did happen to set out in the other direction, the shot would be only slightly more difficult. A second bullet might be necessary.

The beggar set aside the white takeout box and sat with his head bowed, as if listening to something. Then he stood up slowly, as he always did, and waited for the stiffness in his body to abate, as he always did, and began walking.

With the odds. With fate.

Toward death.

The Night Sniper steadied the rifle and sighted through the night scope at the slowly approaching figure on the dark street below. The night was still, and the target was walking so slowly and at such a slight angle, it was almost unnecessary to lead him.

The Sniper was patient. He’d sense when the moment arrived, when his finger should tighten ever so slightly on the trigger, almost of its own volition.

Patience. . patience …

Once he sighted in, the moment always arrived.

The voices were louder, urgent, a cacophony so frantic it was almost a buzzing. Joe still couldn’t make out what they were saying, but somehow he knew it was important. The pizza and bread had made him dry, and he tried not to think about how thirsty he was as he listened to the voices. The message, the answer, was so nearly understandable beneath the buzzing.

There! Something. .

He paused and bowed his head, listening, listening. .

Tiffany was in the back of the cab that stopped five blocks from Candle in the Night to drop off Yancy, where he lived with his uncle who wasn’t really his uncle. John Straithorn, the producer and theater manager, actually lived closer to the theater than Yancy, but he’d arranged for the cab’s route so he’d be alone with Tiffany. Tiffany had listened to his circuitous instructions to the driver and pretended not to notice.

As soon as Yancy was inside his building, and the cab made a sharp U-turn to drive back the way it had come, Straithorn kissed Tiffany on the ear. As she turned her head away, she smiled. She knew what was in his mind. He had only a short time to convince her she shouldn’t go home, but should spend the night with him in his apartment. While the cab was bouncing over potholes and accelerating to make traffic lights, he’d be working desperately to make the deadline.

She knew he’d make it.

The cab was only a block away from Straithorn’s loft, and Tiffany was locked in a frantic kiss with Straithorn, when the lovers heard a sharp, echoing report over the roar and rattle of the cab.

Neither paid it the slightest attention.

On the cruel streets of New York, Joe DeLong had somehow survived frostbite, beatings, near starvation, the voices of madness, and episodes of violence with real or imagined enemies.

The beggar man didn’t survive the bullet fired by the Night Sniper.