Night Victims

33

The Benadryl hadn’t worked tonight. Nina wondered if she might be building up a resistance.

Several hours ago she’d finally drifted into restless half sleep and fragmented dreams. Then she’d come fully awake, wishing it were morning.

It was 3:03 A.M., according to the clock by the bed.

She lay in the dimness and listened to the muted sounds of the city late at night. New York might never sleep, but tonight it was doing a better job than Nina at skirting sleep’s edges. Right now there was only the distant whisper of traffic, barely audible, almost like a faraway ocean that occasionally surged closer, then withdrew. Life and time, coming almost within reach.

Her pulse seemed to throb too strongly throughout her body. She could almost hear her blood coursing through her veins, could hear it pounding in her ears. The blue hammer, doctors called the pulse. Pounding madly on its muted anvil. The lump in her stomach took on weight.

Fear was a curious thing when it never went away, when it made its home in you. It might always be there, but you never got used to it. Not completely. It would lie almost dormant, then grab you from the inside when you least expected it, almost as if it had a sadistic sense of humor that was a reflection of your own.

A car horn honked blocks away outside, startling her. But only momentarily. Now she felt reassured. At least somebody was out there going about normal activities. On the way to see a lover, to go home from a night job, to burgle a business, to-

She told herself to go back to sleep, she was safe. Horn knew his business, and there were cops all over the place outside and in the building. Even that cute one, Detective Lyons, in her living room, almost right outside her bedroom door.

Staring up at the shadowed ceiling, Nina smiled. Maybe she could invite Lyons into her room and engage him in conversation. Maybe-

A slight sound close by, from a direction she couldn’t determine, made her heart leap. This wasn’t like the car horn, obviously far away.

At first she lay breathless, unmoving. Then she snaked out a long pale arm, opened the nightstand drawer, and withdrew the small, nickel-plated handgun Newsy had given her. It was surprisingly cool and heavy in her hand. Horn hadn’t wanted her to have a gun. He was afraid the wrong party might accidentally be shot.

Well, fuck Horn! Especially now! She thumbed off the gun’s safety.

Then her addled mind regained some function: Lyons! Lyons right in the next room, just on the other side of the door! In a situation like this, she was supposed to summon Lyons!

She tried to call out to him but made no sound. Terror was a steel claw at her throat. She could barely move. Nina never dreamed it would be this bad, that she’d be paralyzed like this.

Her hand trembling, she held the gun beneath the white top sheet, her finger curled around the trigger.

Her eyes strained to peer through the dimness at the rectangle of paler night that was her bedroom window.

She heard the soft rush of the bedroom door scraping on the carpet, opening behind her.

Lyons on the job! Thank God!

Nina tried to tell him she’d heard a sound, but she could only emit a strangled squeak. She chanced turning her head a fraction, looking away from the window.

Not Lyons in the doorway! Not Lyons!

A dark figure as tall as Lyons but thinner and more angular.

More nimble.

Quicker.

Before she could move an inch, before she could inhale to scream, it had crossed the room and was on her.

On the living room floor, Lyons felt warmth and wetness beneath him and knew this was serious, he was bleeding badly. He was on his back, his hands at his sides.

If he could only reach the gun in his shoulder holster. . fire a shot. . let them know. .

Slowly and laboriously, with all the effort he could muster, he raised his lower arm, then his elbow, and felt for the gun in its leather holster.

Not there. . Maybe to the left. . there. .

His fingertips moved exploringly on the coarse nap of the carpet and he knew his arm hadn’t risen at all.

A burning sensation at his throat, and he was having difficulty breathing.

He was inhaling but he wasn’t breathing.

The knowledge struck him with cold, numbing immensity. The recollection of his surprise, his throat being slit.

He wasn’t breathing!

The dimness grew darker until it became blackness and silence.

He died gazing at Nina Count’s open bedroom door.