Fear the Night

“Sort of. Here to ask you about something.”

Repetto smiled. “Am I a suspect?”

“I don’t believe you lead an exciting enough life now to get in any trouble.” Melbourne puffed on his cigar. “This is great. Cuban?”

“Aren’t those illegal?”

“A rhetorical question, I’m sure.” Melbourne might have winked. He knew Repetto favored and could obtain Cuban cigars. He took another draw and seemed to roll the smoke around in his mouth before exhaling. “What exactly do you do these days?”

“Lora and I go to the theater, dine out with friends, plan on doing some traveling. Things we never had time to do when I was on the job.”

“Sounds nice, actually. You always had it good for a cop.”

Repetto was getting the idea Melbourne was hesitant to bring up whatever he’d come to discuss. “Get to it, Lou.”

“I’m asking you back to the NYPD, or at least to work for us.”

Repetto didn’t hesitate. “Nope. Lora wouldn’t stand for it.”

“You’d please her before me?”

“I don’t sleep with you.”

“You wanna hear the deal?”

“No.”

“Okay, here it is. Last night a guy named Martin Akim was shot to death outside his shop in the theater district.”

“Marty Akim? Watches?”

“The very Marty.”

“Holdup?”

“No. Shot from a distance. Relatively small-caliber bullet, misshapen by bone and the wall it hit after tumbling through Akim. People heard the shot, but the way sound echoes around all those tall buildings and concrete and glass, nobody knows where it came from. Far away, though, not close by.”

“Stray shot, maybe.” Like the one that caught me in the lung.

“We don’t think so.”

“A sniper?”

“Yeah. Here’s the thing. Akim wasn’t the first victim. He was the third in the last six weeks. The first was a sales rep from Cincinnati, in town on business. The second a prostitute down in the Village.”

Repetto leaned back in his chair and drew on his cigar, then exhaled and watched the smoke drift toward the ceiling and make a slow turn toward the open window.

“A serial killer. Your specialty, Vin.”

“Was.”

“Not that you need the money, but we’d like to put you back on the payroll while you track down this sicko.”

Repetto sat forward and looked directly at Melbourne, then removed the cigar from his mouth. “I wasn’t the only competent homicide detective in the department.”

“You were sure as hell the best.”

“And now somebody else is. I’m sorry, Lou, the answer’s no.”

Melbourne stood up. He walked slowly over and looked at Repetto’s commendations, then stood staring at the mounted trout. “You catch this thing?”

“Yeah. Only kinda thing I’m gonna catch from now on.”

“This killer’s been in contact with us. He’s bursting with ego and thinks he’s smarter than we are.”

“Don’t they all think that?”

“Some of them are smarter.”

“A few. The ones we never heard of.”

“Vin-”

“Talk to me and not to the fish, okay?”

Melbourne turned to face him. “I didn’t come here on my own. I was asked.” He looked at his cigar now and not at Repetto. “He asked me. Told me, actually.”

“He?”

“The killer. He musta seen all the publicity about you when you stepped down. How you were like a combination bloodhound and avenging angel when it came to tracking serial killers. He wants you on the case. He said you were the only one of us who was a worthy adversary.”

Repetto stared dumbfounded at Melbourne, then laughed. “Cease the bullshit, Lou. The answer’s still no.”

“You think I’m kidding?”

“I don’t care if you are. I don’t dance just because some maniac plays a tune. And I know you don’t either.”

Melbourne removed the cigar from his mouth. “This one’s different, Vin. If you’d heard him on the phone. .”

“The answer’s still no. I mean it. I’m not some pro athlete that can be talked into thinking he might have a little more gas in his tank. I’m retired.”

“You might get winded a little easier and be a little grayer, but you’re not suited for retirement. You’re gonna go crazy without the job.” Melbourne pointed with the cigar. “You’re gonna rot.”

“I’m rotting happily. I told you my situation. I’m not gonna double-cross Lora to work on one more case. Put Delmore on it.”

“The killer laughed at Delmore. Called him up and laughed at him. He wants you, Vin. Only you.”

“ ‘Only You.’ Isn’t that a song?”

“Your song. Yours and the killer’s.”

Repetto knew what Melbourne meant. When Repetto was thirteen years old in Philadelphia his mother had been murdered by a serial killer. It was what had made an older Repetto join the police force, then become a homicide detective. His mother had divorced his dad, a Philadelphia cop, and had custody of him, so Repetto was the one who’d found her in her bedroom when he came home from school. She was lying nude on the bed with her legs spread incredibly wide. There was the blood on the wall, his mother’s blood, the bloody numeral 6 indicating she was the killer’s sixth victim, the blood pooled beneath her body, the blood on her pale flesh and between her thighs.

With his father gone, Repetto was the man of the house. He should have protected his mother. Somehow. Should have been there. Somehow. Even at thirteen he knew it wasn’t logical, but guilt still wrapped itself around his heart. Somehow, he was partly to blame for his mother’s death. He couldn’t get the image of all that blood, her blood, out of his mind.

He remembered the word it had brought to his lips. Not Mother or Mommy or an expression of rage. Simply, Blood.

Almost a year passed before he again spoke that or any other word. His father had died in a robbery shoot- out only a month after the death of his mother. For the young Repetto it was like being struck by speeding trains coming and going, and being left to die alone.

Two of his aunts took him in and brought him back to being human again, raised him with kindness and love, saved him. Mar and Mol, short for Marilyn and Molly. Mol had died ten years ago. Mar was still alive, and would be in town for Repetto and Lora’s daughter Amelia’s twenty-first birthday next week.

Mar and Mol, the blood … So long ago and still so vivid.

Repetto swallowed. He thought he’d gotten past this kind of reaction, the thing that had made him stalk serial killers in a way that was legendary in the NYPD. The reason why Melbourne was sitting across from him now.

“Jesus, Lou!” Repetto said. “So this guy doesn’t get what he wants. He’ll get over his disappointment.”

“He’s not gonna quit, Vin. Not this one.”

“I didn’t say he was gonna quit. Delmore can shut him down.”