and almost impossible to distinguish from his real hair. He was tanned, smoothly shaved, and carried the faint scent of cologne.
He took the elevator to the lobby, to make sure nothing he should know about was occurring.
Everything seemed normal, considering the news was out that the mayor had been shot. People were clustered in small knots and talking to each other, some of them standing and staring at a TV screen in the lounge. Outside, beyond the hotel’s bank of tinted glass doors, two valets stood beneath the awning talking to half a dozen teenage girls, while a third valet was trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab.
He’d managed to hail two cabs, and the girls were piling in, when the Night Sniper pressed the Up button.
As he waited for the elevator that had just descended to empty out, an attractive, midtwenties woman, escorted by an older man, glanced at him appraisingly and smiled as she walked past. He smiled back, used to being noticed by women. She glanced back at him as two businessman types stepped into the elevator, and one of them held the door so it wouldn’t close until a woman who might have been an airline attendant made it inside. Moving into the elevator, the Night Sniper saw that she not only had the sort of folded hanging bag used by flight attendants, but there was an American Airlines employee’s tag on it. She thanked the man who’d held the door, then noticed the Night Sniper paying attention to her and smiled at him. “I was checking out and remembered I left something in my room,” she said, as if he’d asked her a question. “I’m a flight attendant. Gotta get to LaGuardia. Not that there’ll be anything flying out for a while, after what just happened.”
He merely nodded, not wanting to be remembered by the woman if she was asked about him later.
“What just happened?” one of the business types asked.
“The mayor was shot while he was giving a speech.”
“That rally thing?” the man asked.
The woman nodded.
“Damn! The mayor of New York … He dead?”
“Dunno.” She glanced at her watch.
“Your room near the elevator?” the man asked. “We can hold it here for you while you get whatever it is you forgot.”
“Thanks, but don’t do that. It’ll take me a while, and I might make a phone call.”
She got off on the tenth floor. The businessmen-if that’s what they were-got off on the twelfth. As they strode together down the hall, they were talking about the mayor being shot, wondering out loud if he’d been killed.
Natural enough, the Night Sniper thought. He was wondering the same thing.
But there would be time to learn the mayor’s condition. The connection had been made, the bullet sent true to its target. Despite the difficulty of the shot, he was reasonably sure the mayor was dead.
He rode the elevator all the way up to the hotel’s Pot-O-Gold Room, for dining and dancing with the woman he’d arranged to meet there.
He was confident of how the rest of the evening would go. The mood in the Pot-O-Gold Room would be subdued at first, but the pianist and cabaret singer who’d been performing there for years would manage to lift spirits. The food would be delicious, the wine at least acceptable, and when the singer finished his set, his four- piece backup band would play soft music.
The Sniper and his companion would sip champagne and dance and stay late and have a grand time.
Zoe would get a little drunk.
The Night Sniper wouldn’t.
49
Captain Lou Murchison was standing back beyond the podium where the press couldn’t get to him. Even from this distance he looked as if he’d just been sentenced to be hanged. The cops around him were keeping their distance; they knew what Murchison had and didn’t want to catch it.
Melbourne sat in one of the radio cars behind the wheel. Repetto was beside him, Meg and Birdy in the back. Meg didn’t much like it, sitting back where the suspects rode.
The least of her troubles.
“Looks like the mayor’s got a slim chance,” Melbourne said. “Bullet entered his side and missed the heart. It’s still in a lung. Nicked an artery, and they’re trying to stop internal bleeding. Touch and go.” He was staring out the windshield at the stragglers who were left after the Plaza was cleared, at the techs and plainclothes detectives milling around up on the podium. “Fuckin’ mess!”
“Murchison did what he could,” Repetto said. The car’s police radio was on low, like background conversation in a restaurant, only more abrupt and with the occasional crackle of static.
“Fuck Murchison.”
Repetto knew that pretty much summed up what was left of Murchison’s career.
“What about the subways?” Melbourne asked.
“Locked down tight as soon as the shot sounded. The Sniper would have had a hard time using the subways to get out of the area.”
“He didn’t have to go underground,” Melbourne said. “The way all hell broke loose and there were people running every which way, he could have simply joined the crowd.”
“Could have,” Repetto said, “but I doubt he’d have counted on it ahead of time.”
Melbourne was staring at Murchison again. “Murchison was supposed to prevent this, or at least nail the bastard that did it right after.”
Repetto said nothing, simply sat watching two of the plainclothes detectives on the podium stare up and around, trying to figure out where the shot might have originated. They might as well have been figuring the odds on rain.
“Ball’s in your court now, Vin,” Melbourne said. The threat was implicit. Repetto could become the next Murchison.
“I’ve already got the uniforms you gave me canvassing the surrounding buildings.”
“And doesn’t that sound familiar?”
“I need more people,” Repetto said. “Maybe more than you can give me.”
“For this I can supply warm bodies.”
“We’ll keep on the surrounding buildings, even the ones we had covered before the mayor’s speech. Also question the NYPD sharpshooters stationed around, see if they spotted anything unusual. If we don’t find anything tonight, tomorrow when it’s light out, we’ll use the extra uniforms to widen the circle of our investigation to take in even the unlikely places the Sniper might have been when he squeezed the trigger.”
“I thought we had everything covered that was on a line from the lectern and within range. That’s what Murchison assured me.”
Repetto wished Melbourne would get off Murchison. “Maybe the Sniper’s even more of a marksman than we thought.”
“If he can shoot through solid walls, he is.”
“We’ve been looking into former SWAT snipers and ex-military types. Professionals. Possibly we should be looking at amateurs.”
“Amateurs?” Melbourne looked first disbelieving, then nauseated. Or maybe it was the reflected alternating red and blue light from outside the car.
“Competition shooters,” Repetto explained. “Olympic athletes. They might be better shots even than the SWAT or military snipers. We got any present or former Olympic-caliber target shooters in the area?”
“We’ll sure as hell find out,” Melbourne said. “If we have anybody left tomorrow who’s not out examining buildings for blocks around.”
Repetto thought about suggesting Melbourne set Murchison to the task.
Meg came hyperalert, knowing Repetto was looking for suggestions. Or volunteers.
