Night Victims

23

Neva was having her dream again, the one where she was gently swaddled and drifting warmly through a dark void. Floating, turning, turning. . Someone, something, touching her lightly, caressingly. Prenatal memory. ?

I must be waking up, to wonder that. .

And she couldn’t breathe!

She quickly sucked in air through her nose, her sleep-fogged mind whirling before she realized something had been clamped over her mouth. She was lying on her back. Awake!

Her eyes flew open and she tried to sit straight up in bed.

Her head and upper back rose a few inches off the mattress, straining her stomach muscles, and she flopped back down.

She couldn’t move! Not her arms or legs or even her fingers, which were pressed firmly to her thighs!

Cold fear closed tightly around her. She was wrapped in fear.

There was a movement of air across her face, and she realized the window must be open. She was sure she’d closed it, since the night was warm and the air-conditioning was working. Again she tried to move, tried to call out. She could only emit a muffled moan, and her internal silent screams built an unbearable pressure that swelled painfully in her throat and lungs.

A faint noise. The floor creaked softly. Something dark, huge, and spindly moved in the dimness. Neva had read the papers, watched TV news. She knew now what was happening. She knew!

The cold paralysis of fear turned to horror, then panic. Neva’s lithe, powerful body, shrouded tightly in her bed-sheets, stiffened and began to vibrate.

The thing in her room moved swiftly around a chair and came toward her. The mattress sagged; bedsprings sang. Neva opened her eyes wide and tried to crane her neck to see but could make out only a large, shadowy form at the foot of the bed. Fear caused her to lose control, and a wet warmth spread rapidly inside the taut sheets. Humiliation touched on her terror.

Then there was weight on her. Heavy, but she could breathe.

Dark eyes stared into hers, reflecting what faint light was in the room. The eyes fixed her in a gaze that oddly mixed compassion with cruelty. Neva and her attacker were alone now, was the unmistakable message in the unblinking stare. Only the two of them in the world. Everything was under complete control, but not hers. Certainly not hers. No one to help or hear or care. She was trapped, held suspended and motionless, while around her time and events continued to flow. No longer did any of it have anything to do with her. For her, everything had been decided. It was now pointless to hope.

Nothing of mercy in those eyes.

Hoarse, ragged breathing.

The real pain began. .

When Paula swerved the unmarked toward the curb to park across the street from the Home Away the next morning, she saw Horn standing outside, motioning with his long arms.

Paula realized he wanted her and Bickerstaff to stay in the car. She eased closer to the curb but left the engine idling as Horn timed the traffic and jogged across the street toward them. Running pretty well for a retired guy, she thought.

Paula lowered the window, letting warm morning air tumble in.

“We’ve got another Spider murder,” Horn said. “Weldon Tower on the East Side, last night. We hurry, we’ll be early on the scene.”

Bickerstaff stretched out an arm to unlock the car’s street-side back door, and Horn slid into the car. Paula checked the outside mirror for traffic, then tromped the accelerator and they were away. “Use the siren?” she asked.

“Too early,” Horn said. “It’ll give me a headache.”

“I’ve already got one,” Bickerstaff said.

“Just drive like hell,” Horn said.

The car swerved and slowed, and then abruptly shot forward around a van that was trying to turn a corner. A ballpoint pen tucked beneath the passenger-side visor slid out and bounced off the dashboard. Bickerstaff grabbed for it but missed, and it fell to the floor. He didn’t try to retrieve it.

“You look rough this morning, Paula,” Horn said from the backseat. He’d been observing her reflection in the rearview mirror and noticed the bags under her eyes.

“Stakeout till late,” she explained, taking a corner too fast and ignoring a pedestrian in a business suit who’d had to skid to a sudden stop in his wing tips. She didn’t let up as they flashed past a line of parked cars. There was a ticking sound, as if they’d nicked somebody’s outside mirror. Look rough, huh? Let’s see if I can get the guy in the backseat to pray.

“Maybe it’ll pay off,” Horn told her, sounding as excited as if he were sitting in that big leather chair of his.

“For God’s sake!” Bickerstaff said. “Slow down, Paula! This isn’t a suicide run!”

Some satisfaction.

The Night Spider had returned. He couldn’t stay away. He wanted to see Thomas Horn, the man the beautiful Nina Count obviously worshipped. She’d predicted it wouldn’t be long before Horn would rid the city of the Night Spider. Inevitably, Nina said, Horn would locate this malicious and dangerous psychotic and stamp the useless life out of him.

Dangerous is the operative word, the Night Spider had felt like telling her. Had even contemplated calling the TV station and actually telling her.

But mightn’t that be precisely what she wanted? Ratings. Television personalities fed on ratings and didn’t seem to care where they came from or how. Nina Count, Nina Cunt, was no exception. Nina, with her long legs and pithy insults. As if she understood him in the slightest.

Everyone was a psychologist these days. Everyone knew from a mere few facts what everyone else was thinking, as if people could be read like books of simple prose. Psychoanalysis for Dummies.

He replayed in his mind part of last night’s Nina Count newscast. A mental case like most serial killers. . sick individual. . pathetic subhuman. . afraid of women. . afraid of her!

Not likely, thought the Night Spider.

He was not like most serial killers.

Nor was he afraid of Thomas Horn.

As Paula turned the corner of Neva Taylor’s block, she had to hit the brakes hard to keep from running up the back of a white Saturn sedan with a dented trunk, which was moving slower than the rest of the traffic.

“Idiot!” Bickerstaff said. “Kinda asshole causes accidents.”

“Too bad we’re not Traffic, we could ticket him,” Paula said, forcing herself to be patient.

She saw two police cruisers angled in at the curb in front of the building and steered toward them. There was a uniformed cop keeping people from gathering near the entrance, but a knot of onlookers stood about fifty feet down the sidewalk, talking and pointing and wondering what was happening.

“Looks like the public just caught on to this one,” Bickerstaff said. “Media vultures will be here next. Nina Count.”

Horn paused getting out of the car. “Why Nina Count in particular?” Horn asked.

Bickerstaff looked surprised. “You must not have caught the news last night. She went off on a riff, got all emotional, put you on a pedestal, and then called the Night Spider every insulting thing she could think of but larva.”

“Taunting him,” Horn said.

“And how. And it looks like she’s trying to set up a mano a mano showdown.”

Horn smiled. “That would be nice.”

“Any way we can arrest the dumb bitch?”

“That would be nice,” Horn said again.

“Maybe it’s really possible,” Paula suggested. “She’s interfering in a homicide investigation.”

“And half the TV audience in New York watches and sympathizes with her,” Horn said.

“Try and get her fired,” Bickerstaff said to Paula, “and she’ll get a couple hundred e-mail marriage proposals and you’ll be eating doughnuts in the Bronx.”

“Let’s go meet the victim,” Horn said. “Do our job and let Nina worry about hers.”

“Maybe we can get there before Harry Potter,” Paula said, working the door handle and climbing out of the car. Both men looked at her quizzically but said nothing. Paula could be a puzzle.

The Weldon Tower rose over forty floors above its phony Greek Revival lower facade. It had a glass entrance so darkly tinted it was a mirror, a doorman who looked like a general in the army of some small country more given to ceremony than war, and bulky concrete planters that held a variety of colorful blooms, none of which grew taller than six inches. The wide sidewalk in front of the building was wet; it had been hosed off recently, probably before the more important business upstairs was discovered.

As the doorman pulled open one of the mirrored glass panels for them, Horn hesitated. “You two go on,” he said to Paula and Bickerstaff. “I’ll stay down here for a while and scan whoever shows up.”

Bickerstaff knew what he meant. Sometimes when a crime scene was fresh, the perp couldn’t resist becoming one of the spectators. There could be an irresistible temptation for such a sicko to return and see what he had wrought. And maybe he’d do something to attract suspicion or give himself away. Bickerstaff recalled stories about a pyromaniac who was apprehended while having an orgasm at the scene of a fire he’d set. Wasn’t sure if he believed them, but he’d heard them.

As Bickerstaff and Paula entered the building, Horn moved away and tried to look unlike a cop. He buttoned his suitcoat so the breeze wouldn’t flap it open and make visible his holstered revolver. Usually he wore the gun in a belt holster at the small of his back, but he didn’t like sitting in a wooden booth or riding in a car with it that way. Not only was it uncomfortable, but he didn’t like the remote prospect of the gun firing accidentally and shooting off the end of his spine.

An ambulance showed up, without lights or siren, braked sharply, then angled backward into the curb. Then came the ME, who parked directly in front of the entrance and placed a medical examiner placard in his windshield, just in case anybody might not know there was a homicide in the building.

Horn looked away from the ME in case he might be recognized and greeted. Then he sauntered along the sidewalk, farther away from the entrance, wishing he had an attache case like most of the executive types striding past. Maybe he could play the tourist. It occurred to him there might be something that looked like a camera, or maybe even a real camera, in the unmarked.

As he strolled casually toward the car, he saw that a crowd had gathered on the opposite side of the street. Traffic was slowing down as it passed the building: gawkers on foot and on wheels.

Might need a uniform out here to move things along.

Horn was ten feet away from the car when he noticed a white Saturn sedan with a dented trunk easing along the opposite curb. The car Paula had to brake for to avoid hitting. At least its second time around the block. The driver was alone in the Saturn, wearing a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. Though it was a warm morning he had his shirt collar turned up so only a small part of his face was visible.

But it was when he glanced over at Horn that there was a definite reaction. Dark eyes beneath the cap’s bill widened then focused sharply. Horn actually felt a chill.

This could mean nothing, he told himself, deliberately not changing pace as he strode toward the car. The Saturn driver might simply be a guy on his way to work who couldn’t tear himself away from breaking news. But there was recognition in those eyes. Fear and hate. So maybe it was someone who recognized Horn, someone he’d helped put away. More than two decades in Horn’s job and you had enemies.

He should reach the unmarked about the time the Saturn got to the intersection, then he’d get into the car casually, in case he was being observed in a rearview mirror. He’d watch carefully to see if the Saturn turned the corner.

Don’t rush. . Walk slowly, slowly. . Should be time to catch up and follow. .

And he was at the unmarked, fumbling for the door handle while he observed the Saturn from the corner of his vision.

The handle slipped from his grip, bending back a fingernail.

The car was locked, and Paula had the keys.

He saw me!

The Night Spider fought the impulse to tromp on the Saturn’s accelerator and screech away, try to outrun trouble.

But he knew that wouldn’t help. He might have been seen, and, undeniably, something had passed between him and Horn, whom he’d immediately recognized from seeing all those photos Nina Cunt had featured on her nightly newscast that was almost completely about Horn. And about the Night Spider. What she said about me! What she called me!

A check in the rearview mirror, without the slightest head movement, revealed Horn trying to open the door of a parked car. No doubt it was an unmarked police car.

The Saturn was at the intersection. The Night Spider waited a few seconds for a cab to get out of the way, then made a right turn. Just before the street scene behind slid from the mirror, he was sure he saw Horn’s head tilt slightly. Watching to see which way I turn!

Traffic was heavy in this direction, too. A bedlam of sun-warmed steel that yearned to roar and run. Blaring horns, frustrated shouting. Noise and exhaust fumes. Goddamn city’s a madhouse!

The Night Spider eased the Saturn into the faster lane, which, in Manhattan, meant traffic moving forward in twenty-foot increments instead of ten.

Horn has the same kind of traffic! Won’t use the light or siren!

Another lurch forward. Halfway down the block now.

Heart hasn’t pounded this hard in years!

Horn decided to follow on foot. Traffic was slow enough he should be able to catch up with the bogged-down Saturn. At least get close enough to see a license plate number.

He began running in the direction the Saturn had gone, not making very good time in his expensive black dress shoes, not made for speed. Leather soles. As Horn veered around a woman pushing a wire cart stuffed full of plastic grocery bags, he skidded and almost fell.

“Excuse you!” the woman shouted after him.

Horn ignored her and gained speed, lengthening his stride, starting to feel a stitch of pain in his right side. Old retired fucker, thinking you can still sprint. . He kept his gaze fixed on the intersection where the Saturn had turned.

The Night Spider moved his hand to blast the horn, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to call attention to himself.

Why the hell aren’t we moving?

The little Saturn sat still, hemmed in by a delivery truck on the left, a cab behind, and a dust-covered Lincoln ahead. Exhaust fumes from the Lincoln shimmied in the heat then disappeared like ghosts in front of the Saturn’s white hood. The seconds the traffic had been at a dead stop seemed like minutes!

Don’t panic. Horn’s sitting in the same traffic, blocks behind me.

The Lincoln’s brake lights went dark, its rear end dropped about six inches, and the big car shot forward.

Only to come to a halt again less than twenty feet down the street.

The Night Spider thought about edging around it, but there was no room. Not without going up on the sidewalk, which wouldn’t take him very far, as crowded as they were with people still heading for work. Kill about a dozen, then the car would come up against mass, would be stopped, and they’d be on him.

Don’t panic. Horn’s sitting in the same tra-

Or is he?

The Night Spider hadn’t actually seen Horn get into the car, only stand by the door. He might have noticed how slow the traffic was because of the gawkers near the Weldon Tower. The Nina Cunt was right that the man wasn’t stupid. He might have made his calculations, then decided he had a better chance of catching up with the Saturn on foot.

Might be running now like an aging football back, shoulders hunched, head down, knocking people aside, making time. . gaining ground!

Traffic was inching ahead again. The Night Spider veered the car slightly so its right front wheel was only a foot from the curb, then braked to a halt near a NO PARKING sign, obstructing traffic.

He switched off the engine, slid over the console to the passenger seat, then scrambled out the right-hand door onto the sidewalk.

“Hey, asshole!” the cabbie yelled behind him. “You gonna leave that there?”

The Night Spider ignored him and joined the throng of pedestrians striding past the stopped traffic. He sped up, but not too much. Just enough so that he was surrounded by people who’d been ahead of the white Saturn when he’d exited it.

Then he turned into the entrance to a used-books store.

Familiar musty smell. Only a few other customers.

He made his way to an aisle where he was alone. Poetry, Self-Help, Inspirational. With a quick glance around, he removed his flesh-colored latex gloves and stuffed them in a pocket. After counting to ten, he went back outside to the hot, crowded sidewalk.

No one seemed to be paying the slightest attention to him. Traffic still hadn’t moved enough that the cars he’d left stuck behind the Saturn had caught up. Behind him, from up the street, he heard horns honking but couldn’t be sure if it was because of the obstacle he’d left in the stream of traffic.

He sensed the tempo and walked faster, feeling safer. Still some danger, though. Wonderful!

Immersed in the hurried parade of flawed humanity, he blended. He walked toward the intersection at the same speed as other pedestrians. Turn this corner, then another, and he’d be lost in the crowded mad maze of the city.

Horn was almost winded. He was about to stop and bend over with his hands on his knees, when he saw the knot of people ahead and caught a glimpse of white fender.

He drew a deep breath and continued at a fast but unsteady walk, feeling his heart hammering as he wondered what Anne would think if he arrived on a gurney at Kincaid Memorial Emergency.

The white Saturn was parked in a traffic lane.

People were standing around staring at it, their hands on their hips, as if it might gain a mind of its own and move. Traffic had built up behind the Saturn, but drivers were grudgingly giving enough ground to let blocked cars get around the illegally parked vehicle.

When Horn reached the car, he paused for a few seconds while he tried to catch his breath, waiting for the ache in his side to let up. Then he flashed his shield and asked everyone to move on and not touch the Saturn. He used his cell phone to call in the plate number.

When the phone chirped ten minutes later, he was told the car was registered to C. Collins, address not far away on the East Side.

Horn didn’t even put the phone back in his pocket. He stood there holding it, his chest still heaving as his lungs worked to pull in oxygen. He knew what was coming next.

And it came. Another ten minutes and the cell phone chirped again.

The Saturn’s owner, an exotic dancer named Christina Collins, had slept late and hadn’t even realized her car was stolen until the police knocked on her door and gave her the bad news. She was terribly upset, Horn was told. She wondered if she’d ever get her car back.

Eventually she’d get it back, Horn thought. And he was sure nothing about it would be different. Not even new fingerprints.

He wondered if he’d ever get his breath back.