Night Victims

30

Paula knew deep down it wasn’t really necessary to question Harry Linnert again, at this point. But then she knew a lot of things deep down, and there was nothing wrong with a cop playing a hunch.

She was parked across the street from his apartment building, and occasionally glanced at his windows, which were still dark. It was almost eleven o’clock and she’d checked the apartment twice since eight o’clock. So maybe he was out to dinner with friends, fellow architects or Rugby players.

She was about to give up and drive away when Linnert rounded the corner up the block and walked toward his building. He was wearing a tan waist-length jacket to protect from the mist and carrying a small bag of some sort by its handle.

Paula forgot to slump down; he caught sight of her, did a double take, then stepped off the curb and began crossing the street toward her.

Great! Terrific! Better think of some questions.

He leaned down and peered in through the window, which she lowered.

“Paula?” he said. “Officer Paula?”

“Detective Ramboquette,” she corrected.

He grinned. “Detective Ramboquette, I’m getting wet.” Bearing down on the et syllables and making it sound like a poem.

“Get in the car,” she said, making it sound damned official.

He settled in beside her and the windows immediately started to steam up. Two people in the car now, double the body heat, but still, Paula had to be impressed.

“More questions?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Am I still under suspicion?”

There was a hot, musky scent coming off him, one she thought she recognized. “Everybody’s under suspicion,” she told him. “Where are you coming from?”

“My gym. I’ve been working out. Trying to get the leg in shape.”

“You’ve been with a woman,” Paula said. “I can smell it on you.”

His jaw dropped with surprise, then he laughed. “I’ve been with a Nautilus machine. What you smell’s probably the old socks and jogging shoes in my bag.” He leaned toward her. “I can open the bag and prove it.”

“That’s not the way to respond to questions from the law,” she said.

“You want to come up to my apartment again and we’ll talk?”

“No.” Not again. Not yet, not yet. .

“You don’t usually get questioned by the law in a cozy unmarked police car with the windows all fogged up.” He glanced around. “You know, we could make out in here, Detective Ramboquette, and nobody would see us.”

“You’re part of an active homicide investigation,” she reminded him.

“Is that all that’s stopping us?”

She turned and looked him dead in the eye. “That’s all.”

That backed him up but not much. He was grinning widely, obviously pleased. “Do we really have to wait until the case is solved?”

“We do.”

“You’re damned serious about your job.”

“Yeah, I am.”

He leaned toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. She couldn’t turn away. Could barely make herself move. She was losing control of the situation here and didn’t like it.

There was a deafening high-pitched Whooop! that made him jerk backward and bang his head against the window.

“What the hell was that?” His eyes were wide.

“Siren,” she said. “For emergencies.”

She switched on the wipers to allow a view out of the car, and in. Two elderly women who were half a block away were standing and staring at the unmarked.

“Jesus, Paula.” Linnert rubbed his head where he’d bumped it, then he started to laugh.

“Get out of here,” she said.

“Now? Right now?”

“You betcha.”

He stirred, started to lean toward her again, then changed his mind and opened the door. He slid out of the car, still looking at her. When he’d gotten out, he didn’t straighten up. “That’s it?”

“No,” she said. “Don’t leave town.”

He laughed again and shut the door.

She drove away fast. Her heart was doing a wild dance.

Dumb, dumb, dumb! Definitely, a dumb thing to do!

But she wasn’t sorry.

This looked like it: the Home Away Diner.

Unimposing little place, Nina thought, as she observed it from across the street. Just another corner diner like a zillion others in Manhattan, windows with booths looking out on the street, menu taped on its tinted glass door, yellow and blue Plexiglas sign that bent around the corner, no doubt backlighted in the evening. A placard on an easel near the door advertised daily specials. It was the kind of place Seinfeld and his friends might use as a hangout.

As she waited for a break in the traffic so she could cross the street, Nina wondered if Horn knew what he was doing.

And do I know what I’m doing?

She saw her opportunity and hurried across the street as fast as possible. Her high heels were in her oversized leather purse; she was wearing her Nikes. Still, she almost wasn’t fast enough. A horn blared and a taxi she hadn’t noticed pulled away from the curb and had to skid to a stop rather than hit her.

The driver rolled down his window. “Better get a guide dog, lady!”

Nina gave him the finger and went on her way.

“Hey! Ain’t you that TV newswoman?”

“I am,” Nina said, smiling and not looking back.

“Fuck you, anyway!”

New York.

As she entered the Home Away, she saw scrawled on the placard that tonight’s special was going to be veal parmesan, including roll and salad. Something to know, she thought, in case she was abducted by a motorcycle gang and dumped nearby.

At least it was cool in the diner. There were a few customers, despite the fact that it was the restaurant business void between lunch and dinner. An elderly couple sat in a window booth drinking milkshakes. A guy who looked like a bum was slouched on a stool at the end of the counter, sipping what appeared to be cola with a straw in it. Maybe too drunk to realize he wasn’t in a bar.

A man who looked like he was from the Middle East was perched on a high stool behind the counter, thumbing through a Sports Illustrated. He stood up when Nina walked in.

“Whatever he’s drinking,” she said, motioning with her head toward the homeless type using the straw.

The counterman smiled, put down his magazine, and went to the glasses and taps behind the counter.

Nina saw Horn sitting in a back booth. There was a woman with him, a fortyish, slender brunette, nice looking in a classy way, wearing a white blouse and what looked like Levis. White slip-on sandals showed beneath the booth’s table. The waitress on her day off. The waitress-psychologist. Jesus!

Horn had told her about the woman-Marla, was her name. He’d wanted Marla to be in on this because basically it was her idea. At least she’d given Horn the idea. What was going on here? Was Horn stepping out on that stuck-up blond wife of his? Screwing the waitress? Naughty, naughty, Horn! Lucky waitress!

With misgivings, Nina paid for her Pepsi and walked back to join them.

Toward the rear of the diner the mingled scents of lunch were still in the air: pastrami and overfried onions, maybe a spicy mustard somebody had spilled. After introductions, Nina sat down. Horn and Marla were on one side of the booth, Nina across from them. A souvenir American flag was tacked to the wall behind the counter. On the wall to Nina’s left was a large, framed black-and-white aerial photo of the Statue of Liberty. That was about it for motif.

Horn explained the plan. It was simple. Beginning with tonight’s six o’clock newscast, Nina, with occasional advice from Marla, was to step up her campaign of denigrating the Night Spider, heavier on direct insult and humiliation. Then she’d go about her business as usual, driving home after work, maybe stopping for a late snack as she often did, renting a video movie at Hollywoodland near her building, then spending the evening in her apartment and going to bed at her usual time.

The difference was she’d be protected, surreptitiously, by an army of NYPD undercover cops.

The difference was a world-class serial killer was going to try for her.

The difference was, she’d be bait.

“Bait,” she said, thinking aloud.

“That’s what you wanted,” Horn told her.

Nina forced a nervous smile. “I can’t deny it.”

“Are you having second thoughts?” Marla asked.

“Sure. Wouldn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t have had first thoughts, myself.”

“I’ll play the victim looking for victimizer,” Nina said. “I finish what I start.”

“Are you looking for a victimizer?” Marla asked, calm dark eyes fixed on Nina.

Nina laughed. Mind your own business, bitch. “Not hardly. Though I understand that’s how the Night Spider might see me. That is, if I’m playing the role well. The unattainable, therefore, more desirable. The haughty who thinks she’s superior. The eternal brat who needs a harsh lesson. The challenge.”

Marla was nodding. “You do understand.”

“Maybe not everything,” Nina said. “I haven’t spent a lot of time around serial killers. Not intimate time, anyway.”

Horn took a sip of coffee. “You won’t see us, but you’ll be as safe as possible. Even in your bedroom. Especially in your bedroom. The more unaware of us you are, the better. Nothing in your actions will tip off anyone that you’re being guarded. If he goes for you, he won’t get you.”

“Can you promise me that, Horn?”

He shook his head slowly. “You know I can’t.”

“All right. So we understand each other. We all know that sometimes the fish steals the bait.”

“Not this time,” Horn said. “Not if I can help it.”

“That’s all I ask,” Nina said.

Marla pushed aside her coffee cup and saucer and leaned toward Nina. “When you talk about him on the air, question his manhood, suggest he can’t find sex any other way, or that he’s impotent so he has to use a knife. Cowardly’s effective, too, with this kind of asshole. Make it clear you think he’s a coward, and that everyone else-all your viewers-think he’s yellow. And don’t hesitate to say he’s mentally ill. Use the word sick as often as possible.”

“I know how to get to him,” Nina said.

“But keep it as a mind-set so your words come naturally,” Marla said. “Don’t script it or make it too obvious. Remember, you’re trying to seduce him. You’re weaving a web.”

“Like his webs,” Nina said.

“Very much so.” Marla and Horn exchanged glances.

They both liked the web analogy. And Nina thought there might be something else in that glance. She was always looking for changes in relationships, chinks in armor, potential leverage.

“If everything’s done right,” Marla said, “this killer will try for you. He can’t ignore a dare.”

“Everything on my end will be done right,” Nina said.

“In a way, your job’s easy,” Horn told her. “Simply lean harder on the Night Spider and live your usual life.”

“There’s a distinction between simply and easy,” Nina said. She looked at Marla. “You were a psychologist?”

“Yes. A psychoanalyst.”

“It shows.”

“Now and then. Like old scars.”

Nina didn’t ask her why she was waiting tables instead of overcharging an endless line of neurotics by the hour. Nina would find out in her own time and way. Scars were part of her business. You had to find them in order to pick at old wounds. “Interesting work, psychoanalysis.”

“It can be too interesting.”

“That why you gave it up? It became too interesting?”

“Too personal.”

“Maybe after this you’ll have a career as a profiler.” Nina rotated her right wrist and glanced at the oversized watch she never wore on the air. “I’ve gotta go invent some news.”

“And make some,” Horn said.

“One way or the other, huh?”

“Not the other, Nina. And you don’t have to do this.”

“You know I have to finish doing it, Horn.” She smiled. “Or finish getting you to finish it.”

“You set it up that way, Nina. Practicing to deceive.”

“Jesus! Poetry from a homicide cop! That’s what I find fascinating about you, Horn.” She stood up from the booth and looked down at Marla. “Webs again, hey?”

“Hey,” Marla said.

“Men.”

“Men,” Marla agreed.

She and Horn watched Nina stride from the diner, tall even in her sneakers, hips switching and long arms swinging with each stride. Arie, the guy behind the counter, lowered his Sports Illustrated and looked. The homeless type at the counter even turned his shaggy head to watch her passing.

“Think she’ll actually go through with it?” Horn asked.

“She’ll do it,” Marla said. “Risk has already become dare.”

“And?”

“Nina can’t ignore a dare, either.”

“Um,” Horn said. Webs again.

“It’s fucking crazy,” Newsy said, when Nina told him about her meeting with Horn and Marla.

“Lots of news is,” Nina said. “Your job’ll be to have everything set up so we have tape for a breaking news segment. We’ll be the only outlet in the city with tape.”

“What? You want me to make sure there’s tape of that psycho stabbing you to death?”

“Only if he stabs me to death. But that’s not in the plan. You can set up in the building across the street and tape him lowering himself from the roof, using his glass cutter, and raising my bedroom window and climbing inside.”

“You really think the police will let him get that far?”

“Sure. They don’t want to arrest some guy who can say he was just out practicing mountain climbing. If he doesn’t actually enter my bedroom, they don’t have much of a case. You know how it goes when a pack of publicity-hungry defense lawyers makes over a suspect. By the time the trial’s over the guy’ll be acquitted and have his own talk show.”

“You’re taking a hell of a chance, Nina.”

“Not if the NYPD does its job.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I’ve gotta get to makeup now, do the session for that promo. We set for the six o’clock?”

“Just about. Nina, listen, I’m gonna give you a gun. It’s a little thirty-two semiautomatic, a lady’s gun. Will you take it?”

“Sure. Then you can stop worrying.”

“I’ll worry, Nina. I’ll worry.”

And he would. Because they were friends, he’d worry about her. And he’d worry about what would happen to the newscast if something happened to her.

He’d worry about his job. Unemployment. About his life.

Murder was like a stone plunked in a pond, and Newsy Winthrop could see a ripple the size of a wave bearing down on him.

Psychotic. Impotent. Cowardly. Sick scum. Loathsome. Mental case. Sociopath. Yellow. Unmanly. Insecure. Ill. Ineffectual. Sexually stunted. Unbalanced.

What that bitch had said about him! Who did she think she was? What was her right? What could she know? How dare the evil cunt!

The Night Spider watched the six o’clock news’s final cut to commercial, then used the remote to switch off the television. He was mashing down his finger so hard on the power button, it suddenly occurred to him the black plastic case might crack. With an effort, he relaxed his fingers and set the remote aside.

He sat alone in the silence and listened to his heartbeat. Loathing Nina Count. Nina Cunt! Knowing she’d say the same things about him tonight on her eleven o’clock newscast.

It wasn’t fair, the way she misused the airwaves, filled them with her poisonous words like stinging darts. And what did she really know about him? She knew about his soft center, she said. Twice, she’d referred to his soft center.

What soft center?

She’d keep talking about him, to him. That was how women like that were, taunting him, thinking he was helpless to act. In her corrupt self-absorption, she assumed there was no way to stop her from talking about him to the world.

To the world!

He sat alone in the silence and hid his disfigured face in his hands.

He sat alone in the silence and sobbed.

Horn had finished giving instructions to the dozen cops besides Paula and Bickerstaff whom Rollie Larkin had put at his disposal.

“It’s going to be difficult and time-consuming to find the Night Spider,” Horn had told Larkin in his office earlier that afternoon. “Nina Count started out a fool, but she’s given us the one strong hand we’ve had to play. We need to play it all the way.”

Larkin had leaned back and puffed on the El Laquita Especial Horn had given him as an obvious bribe. “And if anything happens to Nina Count’s precious ass, it will be all our asses.”

“That’s how it is,” Horn admitted.

“You’re already pensioned off,” Larkin said. “Out of it.”

“I’ve thought of that. You have the most to lose, Rollie.”

“Other than Nina Count.”

“Goes without saying. But we might catch a killer.”

Another long puff on the cigar. Larkin’s office was getting cloudy. “Talking head, set of boobs and legs, but I guess we have to give her that she’s got some balls.”

“She’s counting on us having some, too.”

“You’re such a bastard, Horn.”

“Can be. Yes.”

Larkin had carefully propped the cigar in the ashtray on the corner of his desk. “Go ahead and bet your hand, Horn. Raise the stakes.”

“I didn’t figure you’d let us down, Rollie.”

“And spare me the bullshit,” Larkin added.

He was picking up the cigar again as Horn left the office and headed for clear air. In the outer office, Larkin’s uniformed assistant had a little electric fan spinning on her desk to dissipate smoke. She glanced over at Horn and held her nose as he passed.

Horn smiled. Everybody in the office had balls.

When everyone knew their role and had left the precinct conference room, Horn went to see Royce Sales. Then he called a friend on the FDNY and drove south to the docks.

He wanted everything done right, so he didn’t rush. He didn’t waste time, either. Time was running out for the Night Spider or for Nina Count.