Fear the Night

48

By 7:30 PM, the area around Rockefeller Plaza was teeming with over twenty thousand people. Various speakers found their way to the podium: various rights advocates, councilmen, and other city officials spoke briefly to demonstrate their confidence and courage, some of them unconsciously slouching as if to make themselves smaller targets. One of them, a councilman from Brooklyn, actually dived to the plank floor when a nearby balloon popped; then he managed to rise and toe the floor as if he’d slipped on a protruding nail or a wrinkle in the green outdoor carpet. Not a few in the crowd had reacted the same way, so he was greeted with only sporadic boos or laughter.

The speakers appeared not only live but on four large digital TV screens raised and angled so everyone could see who was at the massed microphones. News channel trucks, local and national, were parked as near as possible to the podium, some of them with their large tower antennae raised high above the masses. Now and then someone emerged from the crowd to invade the small area roped off for the trucks, cameras, and crews, then mug or go into a wave-and-smile routine.

“They’re acting like it’s a St. Patrick’s Day rally,” Meg said to Repetto. They were standing on Forty-ninth Street with a view of the Plaza.

“They know there’s only one true target,” Repetto said. “I wonder how many of them are here hoping the mayor is shot.”

“Plenty,” Meg said. “It’s the way people’s minds work.”

“Some people, anyway.”

“You sound less cynical than I am,” Meg said.

“I am, Meg. Haven’t you noticed?” He smiled at her. “On the other hand, you seem more. . contented lately.”

She stared at him. What the hell did Repetto mean by that, with a kind of smirk she’d seen on men before?

By the time she’d decided to ask him, he was speaking into his cell phone and had moved away into the crowd.

At 8:30 one of the mayor’s aides began to introduce him. The crowd’s mood changed. Those farthest back pressed forward. Those nearest the podium massed closer to it.

The aide, a pol Repetto knew as one of those who gave the NYPD the most heat from City Hall, made a grand gesture and raised his hands high to lead the applause. The crowd roared, some riding the shoulders of others and obscuring Meg’s view. She focused on one of the wall-sized screens and saw a small, gray-haired figure in an immaculately tailored dark blue suit stride toward the podium. The crowd noise became deafening.

The mayor grinned wide and raised a hand high with his fingers in the victory sign, then made a damping, downward motion with both hands so the noise might subside enough for him to begin his speech.

It took several minutes for the crowd to become orderly enough that he might be heard.

Almost three blocks away, on the setback roof of the Marimont Hotel, the Night Sniper crouched behind the rifle set by vises in its rigid aluminum frame. The frame was mounted firmly and immovably to the blacktop and gravel roofing material and the planking beneath it. The frame, the rifle with its night scope and flash suppresser, composed a virtual one-piece unit that was as steady as the building itself.

The Sniper, peering intently through the telescopic sight, saw and heard nothing other than the figure of the mayor at the lectern and the distant roar of the crowd. He hadn’t counted on the oversize TV screens, but fortunately they didn’t block his incredibly narrow field of fire.

Motionless as the lethal creation he’d attached to the roof, he waited for the moment he knew would be his. He wanted to read the mayor’s body language, to feel, to know, that the mayor wouldn’t move suddenly and avoid his fate.

Even from this distance he could feel it; he was inside the mayor’s mind. Hunter and prey were one, and the bullet would travel the arc of connection between them as surely as if it were on tracks.

The metal frame and vises held the rifle firmly. His eye was less than an inch from the scope. The only part of the rifle he touched, ever so lightly, was the trigger.

Elated by the turnout and crowd enthusiasm, the mayor raised both hands high and then lowered them palms-out. There was something like silence from the boisterous crowd.

He placed both palms on the lectern and glanced at his notes, leaning slightly forward to be closer to the microphones:

“Citizens of New York. This night we lay claim. . ”

He lapsed into silence and looked around as if astounded, then slumped over the lectern and slid to the floor. His notes fluttered down around him like white birds in the night as the echoing report of the rifle reverberated along the avenues. Women began to scream.

Meg saw the mayor’s security rush forward. Several of them stood over the fallen mayor and desperately scanned the surrounding buildings. It was impossible to know which way to look for the source of the shot.

The aide who’d introduced the mayor was suddenly at the microphones. “Ladies and gentlemen, please stay calm. All of you, damn it! We’ve got an emergency here!”

Buffeted by the crowd, Meg saw the TV screens above the podium go blank. She tried to call Repetto on her cell phone but it was knocked from her hand. A big man in a yellow shirt elbowed her aside and she punched him in the ribs.

Be professional!

She gave up trying to retrieve the cell phone; it was probably trampled flat anyway. Instead, she began fighting her way through the crowd toward the podium, not sure what she’d do when she got there. She could hear sirens wailing in the distance now, converging on the Plaza from every direction.

Why didn’t they plan for this? It was sure to happen. They should have had an ambulance waiting nearby.

But somebody at City Hall was ahead of Meg. Men and women were frantically clearing away the lectern and chairs on the podium, creating a large, flat platform. Blue uniforms and suited security surrounded the platform, moving back the crowd, sometimes not so gently.

Lights, a loud fluttering sound, and a helicopter dropped almost straight down from the night sky. Its skids settled perfectly on the stage that had become a landing pad, and within less than a minute the mayor, already on a stretcher, was transferred to the chopper through a wide side door.

Three blocks away, the Night Sniper saw the helicopter approach from beyond the Plaza and drop between tall buildings to land on the platform. Very efficient.

He removed the frame from its brackets and scooped gravel over them so they weren’t visible from inside the hotel.

The Sniper was back in his suite before he saw the helicopter, with what surely must be the mayor’s body, rise back into the dark sky above the bright haze of the city.

He was more excited than he’d anticipated as he broke down the frame and rifle, then fitted them in his Louis Vuitton bag.

There had been a change of plans. He was sure he hadn’t been spotted outside, and with the flash suppresser, even if someone had been looking in his direction from the distant podium, they wouldn’t have seen the muzzle flash. He felt safe at the hotel, at least for a while.

He began undressing, trying to stay calm. Jesus! This is something! His fingers were trembling as he fumbled at his belt buckle.

The mayor! This is something!

He heard a high-pitched giggle and was startled until he realized it was his own.

Not good! This wasn’t like him. He had to gain control of himself, of his actions, during the rest of the evening.

He worked his legs out of his jeans, then sat on the edge of the bed to change socks. He glanced at his watch. More time had elapsed than he’d thought, but he refused to make himself hurry. Every move was deliberate and economical.

Get hold of yourself, of your emotions. Not like you. Not like you. Get hold.

Jesus, this is something!

Twenty minutes later, the Night Sniper looked nothing like the homeless wretch he usually became immediately after claiming a victim. He was wearing a navy blue Armani suit with a subtle black weave, black Italian leather shoes, a white shirt with gold cuff links, and a maroon and black silk tie. His wig was neatly affixed and almost impossible to distinguish from his real hair. He was tanned, smoothly shaved, and carried the faint scent of cologne.

He took the elevator to the lobby, to make sure nothing he should know about was occurring.

Everything seemed normal, considering the news was out that the mayor had been shot. People were clustered in small knots and talking to each other, some of them standing and staring at a TV screen in the lounge. Outside, beyond the hotel’s bank of tinted glass doors, two valets stood beneath the awning talking to half a dozen teenage girls, while a third valet was trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab.

He’d managed to hail two cabs, and the girls were piling in, when the Night Sniper pressed the Up button.

As he waited for the elevator that had just descended to empty out, an attractive, midtwenties woman, escorted by an older man, glanced at him appraisingly and smiled as she walked past. He smiled back, used to being noticed by women. She glanced back at him as two businessman types stepped into the elevator, and one of them held the door so it wouldn’t close until a woman who might have been an airline attendant made it inside. Moving into the elevator, the Night Sniper saw that she not only had the sort of folded hanging bag used by flight attendants, but there was an American Airlines employee’s tag on it. She thanked the man who’d held the door, then noticed the Night Sniper paying attention to her and smiled at him. “I was checking out and remembered I left something in my room,” she said, as if he’d asked her a question. “I’m a flight attendant. Gotta get to LaGuardia. Not that there’ll be anything flying out for a while, after what just happened.”

He merely nodded, not wanting to be remembered by the woman if she was asked about him later.

“What just happened?” one of the business types asked.

“The mayor was shot while he was giving a speech.”

“That rally thing?” the man asked.

The woman nodded.

“Damn! The mayor of New York … He dead?”

“Dunno.” She glanced at her watch.

“Your room near the elevator?” the man asked. “We can hold it here for you while you get whatever it is you forgot.”

“Thanks, but don’t do that. It’ll take me a while, and I might make a phone call.”

She got off on the tenth floor. The businessmen-if that’s what they were-got off on the twelfth. As they strode together down the hall, they were talking about the mayor being shot, wondering out loud if he’d been killed.

Natural enough, the Night Sniper thought. He was wondering the same thing.

But there would be time to learn the mayor’s condition. The connection had been made, the bullet sent true to its target. Despite the difficulty of the shot, he was reasonably sure the mayor was dead.

He rode the elevator all the way up to the hotel’s Pot-O-Gold Room, for dining and dancing with the woman he’d arranged to meet there.

He was confident of how the rest of the evening would go. The mood in the Pot-O-Gold Room would be subdued at first, but the pianist and cabaret singer who’d been performing there for years would manage to lift spirits. The food would be delicious, the wine at least acceptable, and when the singer finished his set, his four-piece backup band would play soft music.

The Sniper and his companion would sip champagne and dance and stay late and have a grand time.

Zoe would get a little drunk.

The Night Sniper wouldn’t.