Night Victims

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This one was tall and had red hair. How it must confuse the police that his victims were of no particular type, or no particular type they could perceive, anyway. Even he couldn’t predict which would be the chosen one, so how could they? It was as if he sent out trailing threads of the mind that were extremely sensitive to willing victims-and there was something in these women that made them want to be his. He could feel the tremors of connection, and he knew that on some level they could feel them. But they didn’t understand until it was too late, until he was on them and they realized that their destiny and his destiny were locked together. When he saw them on the street, on a bus or subway train, in a restaurant, or through a window, he knew everything in their futures was his will because, on a whim, he could take away their futures.

Over time he followed and watched them, wrapped them secretly and softly in layers of knowledge that would make the consummation of their affair sweet and inevitable. Eventually. . eventually. . Everything would be revealed to them and to him through their pain, through their passage. Through their pain.

It was necessary for them. For him.

Seeing the tall, fiery redhead walking angrily toward them prompted people on Third Avenue to move out of Neva Taylor’s way.

She was plenty pissed off. Handleman, the asshole account executive at Massmann Container, had made it clear that if she wanted to grow their advertising arrangement, she might consider sleeping with him.

He’d been shrewd, saying nothing, doing nothing, that could in any way be actionable if she were to formally complain. And of course if she did accuse him of sexual blackmail, he’d simply and successfully deny it. Even Neva had to admit it would be wrong to prosecute a man without sufficient proof of wrongdoing.

This left her helpless.

On the other hand, she hadn’t been so much as touched by the creep. And she still had the account.

That was small solace at the moment, as she strode past the Citigroup Building Barnes and Noble; across the intersection, while staring down a cabdriver about to make a right turn; and past a shop, where she might normally pause to look in the window.

She barely saw or heard the people around her as she relived in her mind the humiliating and infuriating events of an hour ago. The unctuous Handleman, with his transparent verbal fencing, trying to back her up, trying to draw blood. It was as if he knew that if she weakened, he’d have her. He understood women like her, he was implying. He knew better than she what she really wanted, and they both knew what that was. And she could have it and gain much on the side.

Neva stopped and stood still. She drew a deep breath and held it while people walking in the opposite direction stared.

Then she exhaled and made herself walk more slowly, made herself think as well as feel.

Handleman’s desk had been cluttered with framed photos of his family, an overweight wife and three or four chubby kids who looked too much like Handleman. Neva considered a counteroffensive. She might intimate to Handleman that if he persisted in his subtle but unmistakable advances, she’d take their little dance outside the business world and into his personal life, make trouble for him with his family.

Jesus! What am I thinking?

She put any idea of a counteroffensive out of her mind. If Handleman kept it up she’d tell her boss, who’d believe her but probably couldn’t do anything about the matter, either. Then, if necessary, she’d force the issue, get Handleman to discuss it. Neva knew this about herself: There was no kind of trouble she’d ever been in that she hadn’t been able to deal with and, at times, turn to her advantage.

She stopped at the next intersection to stand and wait for the traffic signal to change. Around her the city roared and played out lives. Cars and trucks on Third Avenue blasted their horns. Tires hummed on hot concrete. Sidewalks trembled with the rushing of subway trains beneath. The air was full of dozens of smells and noises and conversations and exhaust fumes, and Neva loved it.

When she’d arrived here from Cincinnati five years ago, she’d somehow known that this city was hers on a plate. The tempo and tumult of Manhattan made some people nervous, but from the very first day, Neva found it all strangely soothing.

It was working on her that way now.

Maybe she’d have a better sense tomorrow afternoon of where the Handleman dilemma was going, when she had another meeting with him scheduled.

Also attending the meeting would be his superiors at Massmann Container. They didn’t figure to be leeches like Handleman, and she could size them up, see who might help her if Handleman forged ahead despite her warning signals and tried to get physical. Probably she could figure out who at the meeting disliked Handleman.

Surely somebody else saw through him as she did. And she couldn’t be the first woman he’d tried to pressure.

When Neva reached the Weldon Tower, she was still irritated by this development in what had promised to be a smooth and profitable contract agreement with Massmann Container.

The doorman, whose name she’d found out was Bill, nodded and smiled at her automatically as he held open the door for her, then did a kind of double take. What must her face look like, she wondered, after the dark thoughts she’d been harboring. She said hello and smiled back at Bill, noticeably melting him, as she entered the lobby and made her way to the elevators.

Don’t be such a worrier, she told herself as she stepped into an elevator that had been at lobby level. She pressed the forty button harder than was necessary. You can handle a creep like Handleman. You’re a lot brighter than he is. Hell, you’re even in Mensa. Maybe if you can’t deal with a problem like this, you don’t deserve the Massmann account.

After entering her apartment she carefully locked the door, then kicked off her high-heeled Guccis and walked into the kitchen. She used the ice maker to dump some cubes into a glass, ran some tap water over them, then padded back into the living room to sit on the sofa, sip, and cool down.

She was exhausted, not only from a difficult day’s work but from her simmering anger after her meeting with Handle-man. Sometimes Neva wondered if it was all worth it, if maybe she should accept one of the almost annual proposals of marriage she received and settle down with a husband in the ‘burbs, mow the lawn, and raise some kids. Sometimes she wondered; not often.

In one way or another, every man she met turned out to be a disappointment. She was sure there was one somewhere out there who was compatible with her, who was her equal and saw life as she did, as a challenge. He didn’t have to be rich or handsome; he only had to understand her. To be able, at times, to master her? If ever she met a man like that, she might reshuffle her priorities. Such men were not like public conveyances that came along every so often and pulled to the curb for you. Neva was, in a secret, private part of her mind-sometimes secret even from herself-waiting for such a man, would know him when he arrived in her life. And then. .

There’ll be a time for that kind of living, she told herself. Take life in sequence, that was her plan. And always she had a plan.

Tired as she was, Neva decided not to go out this evening. She’d phone down to the deli she’d discovered two blocks over and have them deliver some of their spicy chicken with rolls and slaw. She was sure she had a wine that would be good with such a meal. After a leisurely dinner alone she’d have some more wine while she watched the Yankees game on television until she was deliciously sleepy.

Bedtime then, probably about the seventh inning. This had been a stressful, tiring day. If necessary, she’d go in to work late tomorrow morning in order to get a good night’s sleep.

Neva wanted to be at her best tomorrow.

That was, after all, what she was about-her tomorrows.

In the darkness, Horn lay silently in bed beside Anne and listened to her breathing, knowing she was awake. He’d met with Rollie Larkin that evening to brief him on the status of the Night Spider case. Rollie had been polite and understanding, but they both knew that, so far, Horn had failed.

The Night Spider was still operating, victims were stacking up, the media were turning up the heat, and the pols were increasing pressure from above. “Dealing with the pressure’s my job,” Rollie’d told Horn, “but you could make it a hell of a lot easier by getting a solid lead on this bastard.” Rollie’s unsubtle way of urging Horn to do