Night Victims

“Victim have a love life?”

“About what you’d expect. She was between rides.”

Horn spread butter on the uneaten half of his muffin, watching it melt in. “What is it about this murder, Rollie, other than the thirty-seven stab wounds?”

“The media haven’t tumbled to the fact yet, but it’s the third one like this in the last five months.”

“Ah!” Horn rested the knife on his plate. “Serial killer.”

“Uh-huh. Same guy for sure. He climbs the building and enters through the bedroom window. Then he winds the women up in their bedsheets like they’re wrapped in some kind of shroud. Does it so expertly it looks like they don’t even wake up all the way until he slaps a piece of duct tape over their mouths. Then he goes to work with the knife, all stab wounds, no slices, missing the vital organs. Victims finally give out from the pain, die of shock or blood loss.”

Horn was staring into his coffee cup. “You said he climbs the buildings?”

“Yeah. The women live on high floors, think they’re safe.

But our boy’s a hell of a climber. Uses a glass cutter to get to the hardware if a window’s locked.”

“Victims the same type?”

“They’re between twenty-five and forty-six years old. Attractive, well built but maybe a little on the chunky side. All were single. A call girl, a computer programmer, and a casting director, in that order.”

“Sexual penetration?”

“Not unless you count the knife, all over the body. Narrow blade, about ten inches long, with a very sharp point.”

“Unusual killer,” Horn said.

“And the time between the second and third murders is less than between the first and second.”

“And scales buildings.”

“Must.”

“You’ve got a problem,” Horn said. “To be honest,” Larkin said, “why I came here was to talk you into making it your problem.”

Her case. Paula knew this one was going to be something of a test, with Bickerstaff headed for retirement in Minnesota where he was going to ice-fish. Jesus! Ice-fish! From what he’d told Paula, that meant sitting all day shivering in front of a hole in the ice trying to catch a fish instead of pneumonia. Paula had never had the patience for any kind of fishing.

She watched the unmarked she’d just climbed out of turn the corner at the end of her block and disappear, leaving a faint wisp of ghostlike exhaust smoke in its wake. Then she entered her apartment building, checked her mail-bills, ads, bills, coupons, bills-and rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor where her one-bedroom apartment was at the end of the hall.

Not a bad place, she thought, as she fitted her key to the dead bolt lock. Secondhand furnishings, framed museum prints, and an old tile bathroom with yellowed porcelain and pipes that clanged but otherwise was in pretty good shape. Kitchen from hell, though the owner was supposed to replace everything in it soon. Sure. More than one burner on the stove would work then.

Paula tensed and stood still. Something was wrong-the dead bolt was already unlocked.

She raised her right hand and eased the door open a few inches, nervously touching the butt of her 9mm handgun beneath her blazer.

“You Ms. Rambo-cwet?” asked a male voice.

Paula pushed the door open the rest of the way.

A portly man with wild gray hair and a dead cigar in the corner of his mouth stood solidly in the middle of her living room. He’d left footprints on the carpet and was wearing dirty white coveralls. A large box-end wrench was stuck through one of many cloth loops on his coveralls, dangling at his waist as if it might be drawn as a gun.

“Rambocet,” Paula corrected. “Like “get” only with a hard C instead of a G.”

“If you say. I’m Ernie Flatt-regular F-of Flatt Contracting. The super let me in. I’m here workin’ on the kitchen.”

“Really?” Paula said, stepping all the way into the apartment and closing the door. “And I was thinking of working on dinner in the kitchen.” Heating water for tea to go with Thai takeout, anyway.

Ernie smiled around the stale stub of cigar that was stinking up the living room even though it wasn’t burning. Smoking the things had left his teeth a jagged jumble of yellow. “Oh, I don’t think you’d wanna do that. I got the water off.”

“Could you turn it back on?”

“Only if you want wet floors. I got the sink pretty much tore out.”

Paula walked over and looked into the small kitchen.

She almost gasped. The old porcelain sink was dangling sideways on the wall. There were dark holes where the leaky faucet and handles had protruded. Holes in the wall. Exposed plumbing. Layers of old paint and faded wallpaper, like an archaeological dig; a rose pattern could be seen where the wood cabinets had been removed. Plaster dust and dark slats of lath were scattered on the floor. Paula’s dishes, a mismatched service for six, were stacked precariously on the table, along with her used toaster and new Braun coffee brewer.

“God!” she said. “I wish somebody’d told me you were coming.”

“I ain’t God, and just be glad I came,” Ernie told her, holding his ground. “You realize how long a waitin’ list I got?”

New York, Paula thought. Everybody was always poised to turn the tables on you.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” she said, rolling with the punch.

Ernie smiled broadly, cigar stub twitching. They were friends. “I’ll be outta here in a week or so, things go right. And I’ll be workin’ days while you’re workin’ yourself. Whatddya do?”

“Do? Oh, I’m a cop.”

“No shit?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, being a cop.”

“No uniform, though.”

“Plainclothes. Detective.”

“Hey! Interesting!”

“It sure can be, Ernie.”

“Well, I was gettin’ my tools together. Just leavin’. I was gonna leave you a note, explainin’ that a bomb or somethin’ hadn’t gone off in your kitchen. I’ll be outta here in a few minutes.”

“How about if I want to take a shower?”

He cocked his head at her, speculating. Ho, brother! Then he understood. “Sure, sure. I left you water service in the bathroom. Just in the kitchen’s where I’ll be workin’. You’ll see when I’m done. You’ll love it.”

He waved, swaggered back into the kitchen, and Paula heard tools clanging around.

She barely had time to take another look at the mail she’d brought upstairs and throw away everything but the bills, when Ernie emerged from the kitchen lugging a large dented black toolbox.

“See you tomorrow,” Paula said.

“Yeah, if I’m still here when you get in from chasin’ the bad guys.” He paused with the hall door open. “I been listenin’ to you, and if you don’t mind my askin’. .”

“Cajun,” Paula said. “I’m from Louisiana.”

Ernie grinned, wagging the cigar stub in his mouth. “Didn’t sound like the Bronx.” He left and closed the door behind him.

Paula immediately walked over and locked it. People were something in this city. But then, people had been something in New Orleans.

She started to remove her shoes, then remembered the state of the kitchen and left them on. At the kitchen door, she was relieved to hear a soft but deep humming sound. Thank God, or Ernie, the refrigerator was still operating.