Meg hadn’t been in here before. She tried not to look at what seemed to be a collection of photos of nude women but for cowboy boots and hats on the wall near the bar. They seemed to be spinning lariats. The server, a slim young woman somehow feminine in boots, baggy jeans, studded leather vest, and a butch haircut, poured three cups of coffee, left a small metal pitcher of cream, then withdrew.
When she was out of earshot, Repetto said, “Let’s go over what we have on Vito Mestieri.”
Meg sipped her coffee. Birdy seemed to have nothing to say, so she led. “Central fact is he’s dead. Ballistics says the bullet’s misshapen from bouncing around his rib cage, so they can’t get a match on it.”
“Not that it would match anyway,” Birdy said. “Different gun for each victim. Our guy must have an arsenal.”
“Gun nut,” Meg said.
“Which is why we’re gonna start checking out gun merchants and collectors,” Repetto said.
“We’re still trying to find out where the shooter fired from, but it looks pretty hopeless. He knows the sound of the shot will echo and be impossible to trace.”
The baggy-jeaned server paused walking past their table and asked if anyone needed anything, looking at Meg.
Meg said maybe later.
Birdy winked at her.
Meg didn’t like what must be going on in his mind. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed the photos of the scantily clad cowpunchers. Or that he was gentleman enough not to mention them. The man seldom disappointed.
“Suppose he knows it enough to choose firing sites where he’ll get the most echoing effect,” Repetto said. “Let’s put ourselves in his head and check out buildings and rooftops surrounded by a lot of hard surfaces.”
“That’s just about every building in New York,” Birdy said dismally.
“Some more than others,” Meg said, sticking up for Repetto as if he needed it. Birdy began nervously pumping a knee, making the table vibrate. Were they ganging up on him?
“Mestieri would be the first,” he said.
Repetto and Meg looked at him.
“The first victim in the game,” Birdy said. “Since the Night Sniper said the game was beginning.”
“He’s right,” Repetto said. “The previous murders were prelude.”
“Warming up,” Birdy said, as if Meg needed explanation. “Like practice golf swings. Now it’s for real.”
“It was real for the people who got shot before Vito Mestieri,” Meg said.
Birdy stopped with the knee and nodded. “Yeah, but to our shooter the earlier victims were just a way to get Repetto into the game. Even Bricker. Especially Bricker.”
Meg gave him a cautioning look, considering Repetto’s expression at the mention of Dal Bricker. Birdy shouldn’t have gone there. He might catch hell now.
But the hardness in Repetto’s expression had nothing to do with Birdy’s insensitivity; it was about the Night Sniper.
“He made a mistake when he killed Dal,” Repetto said in a soft, easy voice.
Which gave Meg more of a chill than if his rage had shown on his face.
They were back out on the street, walking toward the car, when Birdy grinned over at Meg and said, “Whoopee ti yi yo.”
When they drove to their precinct basement office to check for any developments, and to pick up another city car so they could split up to check out gun dealers and collectors, they were surprised to find Assistant Chief Melbourne waiting for them.
Melbourne had arranged for the office, which was cramped and glum. The walls were pale green and the single window was narrow and at ground level, splattered with mud so it was difficult to see out and allowed only dim light in to relieve somewhat the relentless fluorescent glare of the cheap ceiling fixtures. The furniture and file cabinets were dented gray steel. A computer on the desk looked as if it had been upgraded over and over and was a technology basket case. Maps of all five boroughs, departmental notices with curling corners, a case chart, were pinned directly to the soft wallboard that covered concrete. The office was damp and smelled like a swamp. A patch of mold a few inches square grew in a corner of the ceiling. On one wall was a framed photo of former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik in uniform, looking stolid and sincere and indestructible.
Melbourne was behind Repetto’s desk, seated in Repetto’s chair. Bulky as he was, he didn’t fill the chair the way Repetto did.
“You wanna know what we know,” Repetto said.
“That,” Melbourne said, “and I want you to know about this.”
Repetto saw that Melbourne was talking about a sheet of white typing paper on the desk.
“This is a copy,” Melbourne said. “Lab’s got the original and the envelope, but already they’re saying nothing’s coming out of them. Same cheap stationery, same postmark, same typewriter. That’s about it.”
At first Repetto thought the copy paper was blank, but when he leaned closer he saw the brief message:
“That’s it?” he asked.
Melbourne nodded. “An apartment number, would be my guess. Our sniper wants you trying to find where he shot from, because he knows all that’ll happen is we’ll get more frustrated. That’s his game.”
“There’s that word again,” Meg said. “Game.”
“Here’s something else,” Melbourne said. He reached into a pocket and laid a small cassette on the desk. “Tape of the killer’s phone calls. Voice sounds disguised. None of these calls were traced to any phone that meant anything.”
“Male or female voice?”
“Can’t say for sure, but probably male. These calls won’t tell you much more than I told you about them.”
Repetto picked up the cassette and carried it to a recorder on top of one of the file cabinets. “Does this relic work?”
“Sure,” Melbourne said. “Sometimes the job calls for relics.”
Repetto ignored him and inserted the cassette into the old recorder.
The voice was disguised, as Melbourne had said, and was most likely male. There was something in it that created a cold spot on the back of Meg’s neck. Especially the last thing the killer said:
“I want Repetto and Repetto only. A man is judged by the quality of his enemies, and Repetto is to be my opponent. Repetto, Repetto, Repetto. I repeato, Repetto.”
“Jesus!” Meg said. “He has a sense of humor.”
“Most born killers do,” Melbourne said. “They’d just as soon see somebody die as see them slip on a banana peel. Same thing to them.”
“He seems to have switched from phone calls to notes now that Repetto’s on the case,” Birdy said.
Melbourne nodded. “His game, his rules.”
“So far,” Repetto said.
“Only so many apartment seven-Fs the killer could have fired from and hit Mestieri,” Melbourne said, turning his attention again to the note. “Thing to do is check them out.”
Repetto nodded, putting aside for the moment the canvassing of gun dealers and collectors.
“How many uniforms can you give us?” he asked Melbourne.
“Five. And they’re already down on the Lower East Side doing their jobs. They need you to supervise them.”
Repetto doubted it. The hunt for the Night Sniper wasn’t the kind of case that prompted standing around jerking off when there was work to be done.
Melbourne gave a wheeze and heaved himself up out of Repetto’s chair. “You want your desk?”
“Not now,” Repetto said, on his way back out the door. “You fly it for a while.”
Meg and Birdy followed, not glancing back at Melbourne.
Two apartment 7-Fs were found that provided clear shots to where Vito Mestieri had fallen with a sniper’s bullet in him. One was owned by an eighty-year-old retired woman who needed an oxygen bottle to breathe and
