A rat?
No, an ordinary squirrel.
The Night Prowler aimed, fired, and the squirrel leaped into the air violently as if electrified, then dropped to the trash pile dead.
Blood makes the difference! Shooting for real. The blood!
He walked over and looked down at the gray and the red that was the squirrel, the glimpse of white that was the purity of bone. Most of the animal’s head was missing.
Fate was no longer something to fear. Neither was time. Death was an ally. The Night Prowler’s luck had changed.
And Quinn’s.
“Bad luck, I’m afraid,” said the voice in Jubal Day’s ear.
Jubal was in the living room, on his cell phone. He’d just returned from reading for the role in West Side Buddies at a small studio on West Forty-fourth Street. He and the producer and Jubal’s agent had gone out for drinks afterward. There were two more auditions to be held, they said, two more candidates for the role. If neither of them made the grade, then Jubal looked good for the part. His world was opening before him. His career was about to be launched big time. If only-
“Jubal, did you hear?”
The caller was Don Henson, the director of As Thy Love Thyself, in Chicago.
“Yeah, Don, so what’s going on?”
“Astin’s come down with some kind of bug that’s got him flat on his back with a hundred and three temperature. We’re lucky the theater’s black tonight, but we have to have you back here.”
“How soon?”
“Yesterday. Tonight. Early tomorrow morning at the latest. We’ve made some revisions, and you’re going to have to run through them before going on tomorrow evening.”
Jubal’s mind was bouncing around in his skull. Would it hurt his chances for the TV series if he cut and ran out of New York? Probably not. He’d already read for the part, and it was doubtful they’d want him back for another reading.
Unless one of the other two candidates for the role came through big and made the decision difficult.
“Jubal, you’re all we’ve got, my man. No troops in reserve. You’ve gotta do this!”
“I will, Don. Don’t sweat it. I still have time to catch a flight out tonight.”
“You’re a prince, Jubal. I owe you a piece of the kingdom.”
“Careful, Don, I might claim it one of these days.”
“Hey, that’s how it works.”
“When it works. I’ll be at the theater tomorrow morning, I promise.”
“Early?”
“Before you get there, Don.”
“I doubt it. I don’t do much sleeping lately.”
“You can sleep well tonight,” Jubal said, and hung up.
Now what?
Claire was in the kitchen puttering around, trying to decide if she was hungry. She wasn’t going to like Jubal dropping in for a few days, then streaking back to Chicago. Jubal didn’t like it himself.
But then there was Dalia.
Jubal realized he had something to do before he told Claire he was packing and leaving within an hour. While she was busy in the kitchen, he went into the bedroom so he could retrieve the necklace he’d bought for Dalia. He’d concealed it well by taping it to the outside of the back of one of the dresser drawers. The drawer would have to be completely removed before the necklace was visible.
He was reaching to remove the drawer when-
“Jubal.”
Claire’s voice spun him around.
She was standing in the doorway, smiling. “Scare you?”
Almost to death. “No, not at all.” He grinned. “I was just about to start packing.”
Her smile disappeared. “For what?”
He told her about Henson’s phone call.
“What about West Side Buddies?”
“I don’t think it should make any difference.”
Claire looked disappointed, even for some reason afraid.
He tried to lighten the mood. “I don’t feel like cabbing back to the airport and jumping on a plane again, but it’s nice to be needed.”
She came to him, moving more heavily in her pregnancy, and kissed him on the lips. “Now more than ever.” When she pulled away, she said, “How soon do you have to leave?”
“Within an hour at most. I’ll grab something to eat at the airport.” He extended his hands, palms out, a gesture he’d practiced before a mirror: Nothing I can do about this, and I’d move heaven and earth if I could change it. “I’m really and deeply sorry about this, hon.”
“I know,” she said, biting her lower lip but not crying, not crying. “I’ll help you pack.”
Jubal decided Dalia would have to wait for her necklace.
There was no choice, as with so much else in this world. Women. The way they got beneath your skin and into your blood; they ran like a chemical in your veins.
Women were a problem.
“You’re telling me,” Harley Renz said the next evening on the phone to Quinn, “that you’ve got nada times nada.”
“So far,” Quinn admitted. He was sitting in the heat on the bench inside the Eighty-sixth Street entrance to the park, waiting for Pearl and Fedderman. The bench was in the shade, but that didn’t help much, hot and muggy as it was today. “We’re not a helluva lot closer than we were last week.”
“Last week when you were shot at?”
Renz rubbing it in. “That week,” Quinn said. He’d been there awhile and wondered if his rear end might be welded to the hard slats of the bench.
“Listen, Quinn, my sources tell me there’s another TV feature on Anna Caruso in the works, this one by Kay Kemper. She’s making this her story.”
“Anna Caruso’s?”
“Kay Kemper’s. She cares not at all about Anna except that the kid means ratings. You mighta noticed, local news in this city is a competitive business. The thing is, whenever Anna’s sweet young face appears on television, you look more and more like the villain in the piece. Especially with your rugged bad looks. Especially now that the rumor is you’re a serial child molester. There are voices telling me to yank you off the streets, Quinn.”
“Arrest me?”
“Of course not. Not without proof. But lots of people in the department and at City Hall would like to see you run over by a cab and no longer be a problem. Pressure keeps building, Quinn, on me, on you-”
“And on the Night Prowler. He’d love to see you take me off the case. He’s probably the one who planted the child molestation story with Kay Kemper.”
“Maybe. But don’t bet against Egan.”
“Point. Where we going with this, Harley?”
“Nowhere, faster and faster. That’s the fucking problem. It’s a matter of days, and you’re gonna be gone. I’ve got no choice, Quinn. I talk to you and you keep coming up blank.”
“Speaking of blank,” Quinn said, “did you ever get a lead on Dr. Maxwell’s patient David Blank?”
“Nothing. The guy doesn’t exist.”
“You’ve come up blank.”
“That’s cute, but-”
“You’d think the Night Prowler would have broken under pressure by now, wouldn’t you? He’s been at it a long time with us on his heels.”
“He’s one of the toughest,” Renz said.
