Night Victims

“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.

31

The insults, derision, humiliation! She’d pay; pay soon and in full!

In full!

He knew what she was doing and so did her viewers. That’s why she was doing it, to create more viewers, more fans. Playing the brave and dedicated journalist. Trying to lure him, to trap him, to kill him. Using him to boost her pathetic ratings. Nina Cunt!

The police, Horn, they’d be in on it, encouraging her, underestimating the Night Spider, the fearsome and fearful, the horrid and elegant. How could they know? How could they know what they were dealing with, how wrong Nina Count was about him? How it would all turn out? The small and the crawl shall inherit. .

There she was again on the TV screen, cold and deadly beautiful, blond as vanilla ice cream, the long shot, the pale legs.