Fear the Night

the park, when he heard the shot.

From his years as a Philadelphia cop, he knew it was a gunshot. Rifle fire.

Bobby shifted sideways so he could get on his hands and knees, then leaned against the building wall and started working his way to a standing position. He was stiff from sleeping in a doorway most of last night on his blanket, and he’d been panhandling where he was since early evening. His knee hurt where a punk on the prowl had kicked it out of meanness a week ago. His right shoulder ached where the pins had been put in after the accident. As long as his head didn’t hurt the way it often did, he didn’t mind the rest of the pain; it was something he’d learned to live with, and he knew that after he moved around for a while it would lessen.

He snatched up the cup as he stood, so he wouldn’t have to bend over again, then glanced down at it-about five dollars. Not bad. He stuffed the money into the baggy side pocket of the ancient suit coat he’d found in curbside trash, then raised his face to the sky like an animal testing to pick up the scent. He was trying, as best he could, to determine at least the general direction of the echoing gunshot.

Curious, and with nothing else to do, he hitched up his belt and began walking unsteadily in the direction of the report. People glanced at him and looked quickly away. No one blocked his path, or said excuse me as they stepped aside to let him pass. Bobby the invisible. Sometimes it seemed he was disappearing even from himself.

When he reached Central Park West, he could see blue and red flashing lights several blocks down the street, on the side where the park was. The emergency lights might have something to do with the shot he’d heard-might have heard. But there were emergencies all the time in the city. He began moving in that direction.

That’s when he looked across the street, and there was the homeless man he’d seen at Columbus Circle. Bobby remembered him for the same reason he’d noticed him in the first place. The man was, at a glance, one of the homeless, like Bobby. But a closer look revealed something not quite right about him. He didn’t fit. It was obvious to an ex-cop like Bobby, even if people only glanced at the ragged man and moved out of his way. No one wanted to disturb the man or attract his attention. People with nothing to lose could be dangerous.

Traffic was heavy, so Bobby didn’t consider crossing the street toward the man. He studied him from where he stood. The man’s clothes were ragged, stained, and ill-fitting, but they also seemed … clean? But mainly it was the way the man walked. Despite his humble clothing, his stride was purposeful and confident.

Not right, Bobby thought. Not right at all. The homeless-

Someone clinked a coin into the cup Bobby forgot he was carrying, startling him, and he lost sight of the man across the street.

Not that it mattered. Bobby continued walking toward the flashing lights a few blocks down the street.

When he reached the lights he saw that they belonged to an ambulance and two police cars. Something had happened in the park, on the other side of the low stone wall. Bobby could see uniformed cops standing around, a couple of plainclothes detectives. They had yellow crime scene ribbon strung in a crude rectangle. Bobby couldn’t see what was behind the low wall, what all the excitement was about.

He thought about moving closer and finding out what was happening, then decided it might be a bad idea. For all he knew, somebody had been mugged by a homeless man. One with beard stubble, wild hair, long dirty fingernails, ragged and soiled clothes, and no known address.

Who does that describe?

Bobby decided he’d seen enough. Instead of satisfying his cop’s curiosity, he moved away and began walking back the way he’d come.

He’d gone only half a dozen steps before he forgot why he’d walked this direction in the first place.

A shot!

That’s right; that was why. He’d heard gunfire. Somebody might have been shot.

Well, that was happening lately, people being shot. Like most New Yorkers, Bobby had been following the Night Sniper case. He heard people talk about the shootings, and he’d been reading about them. Bobby read the papers.

Slightly used papers, but he read them.

The problem was, he often had trouble recalling what he’d read.

This time the note police found taped to the theater seat read, You would be wise to consider another profession.

“Where was this one found?” Zoe asked.

She’d heard another note had been located. She was waiting for Repetto and his team in their dank precinct basement office, thinking there was no way to make the place more depressing, when they returned. Either she’d chosen not to sit or had risen when she heard them coming. Meg thought Zoe looked tired. Her eyes were puffy, and her long red hair was slightly tangled, as if she hadn’t finished brushing it out.

“In an off-off-Broadway theater that used to be a produce warehouse,” Repetto said. He tossed a copy of the Night Sniper’s note on his desk for Zoe to read. The lab had the original. Nobody doubted that they’d learn nothing from it. “I’m getting tired of running around town just to find this asshole’s notes.”

“The theater still smelled like produce,” Birdy said. “Potatoes, I think.”

“That’s interesting,” Zoe said, slouched down in one of the chairs angled to face the desk.

“Potatoes?” Meg asked.

“No, that our guy would choose that kind of theater. What’s playing there?”

“Something called A Child of his Time,” Repetto said. “The premise is that Rudyard Kipling was secretly Josephine Baker’s real father.” He glanced at Birdy and Meg. “Josephine Baker was-”

“I know,” Meg interrupted. “A famous African-American beauty who danced in Paris in the twenties and thirties.”

“The infamous banana dance,” Birdy said.

Everyone looked at him.

“She used to do a sexy dance wearing nothing but these bunches of bananas. The French liked it.”

“Bananas. . a produce warehouse,” Meg said to Zoe. “Is that some way meaningful?”

“I doubt it,” Zoe said. Her gaze wandered upward. Was that mold in the corner of the ceiling?

“It smelled like potatoes anyway,” Birdy said. He sat down in the chair next to Zoe’s and began to fidget.

“Maybe the Night Sniper has more than one reason for making us figure out where he’s hidden his notes,” Zoe said.

“I thought we’d settled on game playing,” Repetto said. He sat down behind the desk, at eye level now with Zoe. “He’d rather aggravate us than simply mail the note instead of the clue.”

“He might also want to keep us-us being the NYPD-busy searching theaters instead of searching for him.”

Repetto thought that over and nodded. “It wouldn’t be so stupid. A lot of good police work hasn’t been done because personnel was walking up and down aisles, examining theater seats.”

“Maybe there’s a third reason,” Zoe said. “Maybe the play titles have some kind of significance.”

Repetto sat forward, picked up a pen, and wrote down the titles in the order in which their corresponding notes were found.

“The plays are all for or about children, or have children or a child in the titles,” he said.

“Or as cast members,” Meg said.

Repetto asked her how she knew that.

“I made it a point to read all but the last play. They’re published and sold at bookstores, or the producers will turn them over if you ask in an official capacity.”

“Wonderful!” Zoe said. As if Meg were her prize student.

Repetto knew he should have thought to get the scripts. “That’s good work,” he said.

Birdy stopped playing an invisible piano on his knees and nodded. “Kudos to my partner.”

“Maybe coincidence, though,” Repetto said. “There are children in a lot of plays.”

“And our guy hasn’t killed a child,” Birdy pointed out.

“Yet,” Meg said.

Zoe shook her head. “No, our sniper isn’t a child killer. They’re a breed apart.” She looked at Repetto. “And you told me once what cops thought of coincidence.”