Fear the Night

64

It was working out for the Night Sniper. The platform at the Fifty-third and Third stop wasn’t as crowded as usual when the train broke into the light and began to slow. And he was on the last car. Usually the train eased to a halt so the middle cars were more or less centered at the stop. The last car was accessible, but most passengers, especially if the platform wasn’t packed with riders, simply entered the cars most convenient to them, the middle cars.

The Sniper remained in his seat and glanced at the dead woman with the book. When the train finally lurched to a complete stop, she was jostled and almost went sideways. But she remained upright. Even if passengers did enter the car, the Sniper would already have exited; by the time someone realized the woman was dead, he’d be long gone. Possibly she’d topple from her seat when the train accelerated, but it would take time and distance for anyone in the car to raise the alarm.

The car’s doors hissed open.

The Sniper rose from his seat and moved quickly to the open door, then stepped out onto the platform.

The air was fresher there, and the surrounding wider space gave him an unexpected feeling of vulnerability.

He sneaked a quick glance around. Passengers were filing out of and into the cars ahead, but so far no one had decided to break from the pack and hurry toward the last car.

As he was about to walk away, satisfied he’d completed an important part of his escape, the Sniper froze as he noticed a tall, stolid figure in a rumpled brown suit.

Repetto!

Facing three-quarters away from him, but it was surely Repetto. And he was slowly turning around.

Most of the exiting passengers were on the platform, and the crowd ahead closed ranks as everyone slowed to board the cars. The figure was suddenly no longer visible.

But the Sniper knew it hadn’t been his imagination. Repetto was here!

The Sniper’s options presented themselves in fractions of seconds. He calculated the odds.

If he returned to his seat and stayed on board, Repetto was sure to spot him as the train rolled past, picking up speed.

The lesser risk might be to stay off the train and walk away from Repetto, toward a flight of steps leading to a side street exit. If he acted now, other exiting passengers might shield him from view.

He had to make up his mind.

He walked. As he headed for the steps, he listened for any commotion behind him and watched the faces of those walking in the opposite direction. Everyone appeared calm enough, displaying only the normal anxiety that was part of riding New York subways.

Feeling better, the Sniper continued to walk, careful not to listen to the interior voice shouting for him to run, to flee for safety. It was fight or flight. And this was hardly the time or place to fight.

Then he heard another voice. An announcement on the public address system saying that beginning immediately, subway service would be temporarily suspended for a police action. The crowd groaned collectively, but they kept moving. They’d been through these things before and knew that service might resume within a few minutes. It wasn’t yet time to change their plans, to consider returning to the surface for alternate transportation.

The Sniper hunched his shoulders. Now it was almost impossible not to break into a run. His back was alive with nerves and tense muscles, bracing for a bullet. A bullet from Repetto. He walked on. He was almost to the concrete steps that led to the surface and the concealing night.

The station was too warm and he was perspiring heavily. So much so that a few of the people walking past glanced at him curiously. One woman even hesitated and seemed to consider asking if he was all right. But when she noticed his ragged clothes, what he was, what he wasn’t, she hurried on her way.

He made his legs move with great conscious effort, one step, the next, another. . The rifle beneath his coat was bumping his right leg painfully, and it was all he could do not to let it alter the rhythm of his gait and draw attention.

Almost to the stairs.

Almost to the cool, safe night.

Passing faces. . still the same. . Repetto close behind. .

Almost to the stairs.

Bobby was seated with his back against a steel support, facing the tracks so he wouldn’t be noticeable. He’d come to the Fifty-third and Third stop because it was one of the busiest, and he was desolate and broke. Because of the Night Sniper, there were fewer and fewer places in the city that were crowded after dark. The Sniper was bad for business, all right, from Wall Street all the way down to people like Bobby, who begged a meager living in the streets.

His illicit panhandling in the subway stop had netted him six dollars and seventy cents. Not much, but something. After ditching the stolen cell phone and giving up on trying to get the police to believe him, Bobby had walked most of the way across town. He was exhausted.

He heard the announcement about the subway system standing down for a police action. It didn’t matter much to him. There must have been some kind of emergency, a heart attack, a murder, some poor soul falling onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. He rested the back of his head against cool steel and sighed. None of it seemed worth worrying about now, or even thinking about. He had no plans beyond the moment.

That was when he happened to glance down the platform and see the homeless man he’d been following earlier that evening. The man who didn’t belong.

Bobby struggled to his feet and limped after him, his gaze fixed on the figure in the long tattered coat. The man wasn’t exactly hurrying, but he was still walking faster than anyone else on the platform.

Suddenly Bobby wondered if the man was real. Or even if he was real, was it the same man? After all, this time he’d only seen him from behind.

“Hey!”

The shout had hurt Bobby’s throat. He coughed and tried again. “Hey! Hey, bro!”

But the man hadn’t heard him over the repetitious public address announcement about the subway system being temporarily shut down.

Or had he heard? He was walking faster now.

He was running.

Bobby began to run after him. The hurrying man wasn’t going to escape. Not this time.

The Night Sniper heard the voice calling behind him. He couldn’t be sure if it was meant for him.

Even as he made up his mind that he was close enough to the exit to make a run for it, he was sprinting. His right arm held the concealed rifle tight to his body, while his left swung to keep his balance and to intimidate or knock aside anyone blocking his way. He pushed past a man strolling and reading a paper, elbowed aside a woman walking with her head down and dragging a small suitcase on wheels.

He was going to make it. He was sure now he was going to make it!

At first he didn’t notice the uniformed cop who came down the steps and was striding toward him.

When he did see him, there was no question in the Night Sniper’s mind. No hesitation.

He smoothly swung the rifle out from beneath his coat, aimed, and fired at the blue uniform.

Repetto heard the shot and whirled toward its source. At the crack of the rifle, everyone on the platform had dropped low or run for cover, so there was nothing to obstruct his view of a uniformed cop lurching along and pointing toward a hunched, hurrying figure in ragged clothes, a long coat and worn baseball cap. The cop stumbled and fell. The hurrying, hunched figure turned, and Repetto saw the rifle swinging up from beneath the coat to point at him.

A bullet snapped past Repetto’s ear as he struggled to unholster his revolver. His hands, his fingers, felt clumsy and insensitive. He seemed to be in a different, slower time frame than the man with the rifle.

Another shot-not as loud.

The wounded cop was sitting up, firing his 9mm at the Sniper. The gun was bucking in his hand.

Suddenly realizing he was in a cross fire, the Sniper leaped from the platform onto the tracks and sprinted toward the adjacent platform for trains running the opposite direction.

A play of light and press of wind, and Repetto realized a train was roaring in from that direction on momentum, trying to make its last stop as the system shut down.

He realized it was a break for the Sniper. If he made it to the opposite platform, he’d be on the other side of the incoming train and could make his getaway.

And he was going to make it.

Not only that, he was on a lower plane now and Repetto couldn’t get a bead on him through the people lying and kneeling on the platform. Both he and the wounded cop had stopped shooting. There was no choice. Repetto had completely lost sight of the Sniper now.

The bastard was going to make it!

The Sniper knew he had it timed. As he bolted to cross in front of the oncoming train, he paused and turned to send a final bullet in the direction of Repetto, so he’d duck his head and not make a lucky shot with a handgun from that distance.

Simple risk management. How he’d survived for so long and would continue to survive and taunt his pursuers.

The rifle cracked. No chance of actually hitting Repetto, but that wasn’t the purpose of the shot. The Sniper saw Repetto lower his handgun and duck, as if on cue.

No, on cue. It was the Sniper directing this scene.

Seeing Repetto, seeing the oncoming train, seeing everything, he spun back around, lowering the rifle, and took a few confident strides, knowing his timing was perfect.

“You! Hey, bro!”

The voice again. Not a cop. Not “Hey, bro!”

The Sniper turned his head and saw a ragged homeless man. A freak, an outcast, but someone vaguely and achingly familiar.

“Hey, bro! Brother!”

Brother? Who was he?

The man raised an arm, and at first the Sniper thought he might be aiming a gun at him. But the man’s hand was empty. He simply stretched out his arm and spread his fingers wide, as if trying to reach across time and distance and touch him. As if trying to make any kind of human contact.

He did touch something.

The Sniper felt it in his heart, in his core.

Quickly he recovered from his surprise and regained his stride to cross in front of the oncoming train.

But he knew his timing wasn’t so precise now.

Repetto saw the Sniper twist his torso to get off a quick shot in his direction. He ducked instinctively, then raised his head in time to see the Sniper almost freeze and stop running.

The moment froze with him. Then the Sniper lowered his rifle, tucked in his chin, and sprinted hard to cross in front of the train.

But he seemed to be the one in a different, slower time frame now.

The decelerating train struck him squarely and he halfway disappeared beneath it.

Steel wheels, and something else, screamed on the rails as the train dragged what was left of the Night Sniper past Repetto, past Bobby, and another hundred yards down the tracks.

Repetto strode faster and faster toward the front of the stopped train, stepping around or over people who were just beginning to sense the end of danger and starting to rise. The dead Sniper was acting as a vortex, drawing everyone to converge at the same point. Even the wounded cop had made it to his feet and was trudging in that direction.

Everyone was moving that way except for a raggedly dressed man limping slowly in the opposite direction, toward the exit to the street.

Repetto noticed him and dismissed him from his mind.

He no longer mattered.