A few minutes later an older, incredibly thin woman with short gray hair smiled as she jogged past Candy. A small brown dog with a bushy tail ran effortlessly at her side, without a leash.
Then Candy was alone on the path.
Through the trees to her right she could glimpse traffic streaming past, and she knew she could easily leave the park. She could walk out through the trees and use the twenty-dollar bill in her shoe pouch for cab fare.
But shin splints or not, she hated to waste a workout. And she had only a mile or so to travel before she arrived again at the Seventy-second Street entrance to the park.
Candy Trupiano finished whatever she started. That was important to her. It was how she saw herself.
It was how she wanted to continue seeing herself.
Slowly, carefully, she began jogging again, increasing her speed in small measures.
There was pain in both legs, a slight ache that wouldn’t go away, but she thought she could monitor and control it.
She’d make it to Seventy-second Street, because until she got there, she’d make Seventy-second Street the focus of her existence.
Candy was determined to live her life in such a way that there wasn’t room for debilitating pain or uncertainty. She was convinced that if she finished what she began, good things were sure to follow.
The Night Sniper had no problem with the lock.
This was the second time he’d visited the vacant apartment. The first time, it took him a while to slip the latch on the knob lock with a piece of thin plastic. He’d used a knife to shave the door slightly so that now even a credit card could be inserted between door and frame and used to unlock the door. Fortunately, the dead bolt above the doorknob hadn’t been thrown on his first visit. He’d jammed paper wadding into the keyhole with a penknife to make sure it wouldn’t be locked tonight. The auxiliary inside locks, of course, were unfastened, including a flimsy brass chain lock, because the tiny efficiency apartment was vacant.
He’d searched the real estate classified ads for quite a while before coming across this apartment:
For a few minutes he’d stood at the window, staring out at the edge of Central Park. A jogger passed on the trail beyond the low stone wall that marked the park’s perimeter. Another jogger. A Rollerblader. Then a woman walking a small child on a leash as if it were a dog.
The apartment, he decided, was well suited to his needs.
Now here he was, dressed in chinos and a pale blue shirt, brown walking shoes. The uniform of the forgettable.
Not that it mattered. As before, no one had seen him as he made his way into the lobby, elevatored to the fifth floor, and entered the vacant apartment.
He went to the window. Darkness was falling, but a nearby streetlight threw faint illumination along the park’s edge. The trail itself was barely visible and would be almost impossible to see with the naked eye within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.
The Night Sniper carried a tiny flashlight, but there was no need for it. The apartment was bright enough for him to see as he removed the custom-made Feinwerkbau target rifle from his backpack and assembled it. Even wearing the thin latex gloves, he could assemble the rifle by feel, and needed no light. He’d once done exactly that in total darkness to amuse himself.
He attached a magazine to the spare, deadly-looking rifle and made sure there was a round in the breech, then fitted the scope to the barrel. Placing the backpack against the wall where he’d be able to get to it quickly, he kneeled at the window that overlooked the park and raised it about six inches. Cooler evening air flowed into the warm apartment that had probably been closed up all day.
After adjusting his body so he could remain kneeling comfortably and steadily for a while, he raised the rifle and sighted in on the trail in the park across the street.
It was much darker now and there were fewer people on the path. Hardly anyone wanted to enter the park after nightfall, and who could blame them? There were dangerous people out there. Human predators.
Two young men bopped past on the path, wearing gang-banger pants that looked about to be left behind as they talked to each other and waved their arms. One of them was carrying something that looked like a closed umbrella, though there was no rain in the forecast. A man and woman walked past in the opposite direction, moving fast. Half a block down, they climbed over the low stone wall and were out of the park.
These were not the Night Sniper’s targets. Not worthy of his gift of death.
There was another figure on the path. A man in dark slacks and a jacket, hands stuffed in pockets. Maybe looking for someone to mug.
The Night Sniper waited, unmoving. When he saw his target, he’d know it.
Ah! Here came another figure, jogging slowly through the shadows, almost at a walk. But this figure moved with a practiced, graceful motion. Interesting. Was this the one?
He leaned forward and peered through the rifle’s infrared scope. A woman. She was young, slender, graceful, her long hair-a braid or ponytail-swaying with each step. Though she was laboring as if she might be in some sort of discomfort, there was a lithe elegance in her every shortened stride.
This was the one. The chosen.
He focused in on her, keeping the crosshairs trained on the thickest part of her figure, her torso. He knew the rifle would make noise, but it was doubtful that any other building occupants would suspect that what they heard was interior. And of course he counted on the echoing crack of the shot to add to the city’s fear factor. He wanted people to jump at even slight abrupt sounds that might mean death. What was lightning without thunder?
Because of her graceful stride, the woman was moving faster than it first appeared. Darker shapes across the street, trees, would soon block his shot. If it was to be tonight, he had to make up his mind.
He allowed for the faint breeze, calculated his lead, then squeezed the trigger. Thunder cracked and echoed among the tall buildings.
Target down.
For a few seconds the Night Sniper studied the prone figure through the powerful night scope. There was no movement.
Time to leave.
He recovered the ejected brass casing from the floor and slipped it into a pocket. Then he quickly broke down the rifle and jammed it into his backpack. Carrying the pack in his right hand, he was in the hall, then the elevator and lobby, in less than a minute. Still without being seen.
There was no one in the lobby, but he didn’t want to take the chance of changing clothes here or in the restroom, as he’d thought he might. Instead, he casually walked outside, noticing that none of the hurrying, obviously uneasy people on the sidewalks had apparently yet been made aware of the woman’s body on the path.
That made things easier.
In the deep, dark doorway of a closed and boarded-up Chinese restaurant, the Night Sniper found the darkest point, then with practiced quickness and economy of motion removed his shirt and pants and stuffed them into the backpack, along with the disassembled rifle. He was wearing other clothes beneath them: baggy, filthy-looking pants and an oversize shirt with a torn collar and an unbuttoned cuff. One costume for another. He mussed his hair, put on his well-worn Yankees cap, then slipped his arms through his backpack’s straps and made his way back to the street.
Now he was a shuffling, homeless soul making his way to the abandoned subway stop where he sought shelter. He looked not at all like the straight-arrow type who’d just exited the building down the street.
A block away, he lengthened his stride. There was no need to hurry, but he did anyway. Though not so much that he’d attract attention.
Bobby Mays was seated on his folded blanket, his chipped coffee cup before him, doing business a block off
