The Night Watcher (7 page)

Dinner was at Four Seasons, and on Myra. Billy Watkins accepted her generosity with solicitous charm. He was thirty-one, blond, looked like a college quarterback, and was getting tired of his job, though he liked Myra all right. She was one of the service’s richest and least-demanding clients, and as far as he knew he was the only escort she ever requested. And though she was a bit old, she wasn’t all that unattractive. Her body was still young enough.

Billy knew Myra liked him, too, but that she didn’t love him. He’d learned a great deal about women, and this one was tough and vulnerable at the same time, and wary of love. They understood each other without having expressed it in words—neither of them would ever really love again. It made Myra sad. It made Billy strong.

In her soft bed in her expensively furnished apartment, she was as usual almost insatiable. She’d started out on top, as she often did, then let him turn her onto her back and thrust deeper and harder. She would beg him to be rough with her, biting his bare chest and shoulder hard in an effort to urge him on. Her nails would dig into his back, and her heels would batter his thighs and buttocks. Myra could be hard work, but Billy didn’t mind. He’d dealt with more desperate and physical clients. Like the woman on East Fifty-fourth who would only fuck in the tile shower with the water almost hot enough to boil lobsters. Or the one—

“Ah, Christ, Billy!…”

Beneath him, Myra had climaxed again. He’d spent himself almost completely the first time, an hour ago, and hadn’t completely recovered enough to give her his best. But it had been good enough, which pleased Billy, though not as much as it had pleased Myra.

Raising his weight so it was supported on his knees and extended arms, he withdrew from her, careful not to hurt her as he rolled off her and onto his back. He lay there catching his breath. The ceiling fan above the bed was turning, the light fixture attached to it set on low. He bet the fixture, with its opaque delicate pink shade, cost a fortune.

It didn’t surprise him to hear Myra begin to cry. Sobbing softly, she came to him and he put his arm around her and held her close. Her bare body was cool against his, though they were both perspiring.

She was the only woman he’d ever known who cried almost every time after sex, as if the act brought forth memories or a reality too painful to confront. Someday maybe he’d ask her what it was all about, what it all meant.

Her sobs were contained and quiet, as if she was ashamed of them. Billy knew they would build to a soft crescendo, then trail off, and she would mutter things he couldn’t understand before she embraced her dreams and her breathing evened out. The same pattern, every time. People were captives of their pasts. He began stroking her damp hair and forehead softly, assuring her over and over that everything would be all right, that whatever they’d held at bay with their frantic coupling wasn’t worth their fear. They both knew he didn’t mean it, but they both wanted so much to believe.

Half an hour later, when Myra was asleep and snoring softly, he gently extricated himself from her and pulled the sheet up over her bare body so she wouldn’t catch a chill from the fan’s faint breeze. Then he worked his way over to the edge of the mattress and sat up, his toes digging into the plush carpet. From the street below, the sound of a car repeatedly blasting its horn was muffled and barely audible. This was one of Manhattan’s more desirable prewar high-rises, and the quietest apartment Billy had ever been in.

Almost silently, nude, he padded barefoot into the white-and-lavender-tile bathroom that was nearly as large as his bedroom. He stood before the commode and rolled and peeled a condom off himself, dropping it into the toilet’s blue-tinted water. Then he relieved himself, watching the color of the water change to something ugly.
Like my life.

He turned away as he flushed the toilet. It made a sound little louder than a whisper.

Maybe it was telling him in a hushed tone that life could change,
would
change, if you made it.

Myra had drunk quite a lot of wine at dinner, so she was sleeping soundly. Billy enjoyed these times after sex with her. It was almost as if they were a genuine devoted or resigned couple and he lived here and owned everything around him. As he had last time he’d been here, he decided that before showering he’d walk around and take inventory of his possessions—what might
be
his possessions, if he possessed Myra. He could pretend, couldn’t he? That was all life was, anyway, pretend. Anyone in his business would tell you.

He noticed Myra had rolled onto her right side, wrapping herself in the white sheet, and was still sleeping deeply as he left the bedroom.

The apartment’s living room was vast, carpeted in pale rose with a cream-colored soft leather sofa and matching chairs. There were steel or chromium-framed, modern oil paintings on the walls. Billy neither understood nor liked art that didn’t look like identifiable objects. These things were all splotches of color and irregular shapes. One of them was simply three different-sized dots on a solid gray background. There was one painting that wasn’t so bad, though. It looked like a nude woman seen from a lot of angles at once. He bet all the paintings were expensive, but if he owned them, he’d sell them, have them auctioned off at Sotheby’s or someplace. The furniture was obviously quality stuff, though some of it was old. Why the hell, if Myra could afford that massive glass and gold coffee table that looked like the continent of Australia, would she own something like that rickety wooden chair with the curlicued wood back? Well, if this were his place he’d keep the table and ditch the chair. The big whitewashed-looking cabinet that held the TV and stereo, he’d keep that. Maybe get it refinished, though.

He walked over and glanced into the kitchen. Lots of white wood cabinets, big sink with a gray marble countertop, steel refrigerator and stove that looked like they came out of some restaurant. Well, piss on the kitchen. Who needed it? He and Myra would eat out every meal.

It wouldn’t be so bad actually being married to old Myra. Billy might even have angled for it if she weren’t so damned smart. Only when she was asleep, like now, did he hold any real advantage over her. Women were wily and indirect and usually doing more than one thing and thinking more than one thing at a time. And if it came right down to it, they wouldn’t play fair. They were more difficult to read and deal with than men, who were usually pretty much transparent and direct, more honest. Still, Billy liked women even though they could be tricky. Especially Myra could be tricky. Not for the first time, Billy cautioned himself to be careful.

He took another turn around the living room, then the second bedroom, running his fingertips lightly over objects that could be or should be his own if only life were more fair. The third bedroom, Myra’s home office, he didn’t go into. Didn’t even try the knob. He knew the door would be locked.

Billy glanced at the polished mahogany clock with its gold dial on the mantel. It was way past midnight.

He padded back into the bathroom and showered, then rubbed himself dry with a soft towel that was warm from being draped over a heated brass rack. His hair was short and dried quickly. He combed it, shot it with Myra’s hair spray, then used Myra’s roll-on deodorant.

Back in the dim bedroom, he found his clothes and put them on. It wasn’t the best thing for his health, to go outside in the cold right after a warm shower, but it was an occupational hazard this time of year, and Billy had built up immunities. Besides, his thick Armani coat, out of style this season but still warm, was hanging in the closet in Myra’s foyer.

After fastening his blazer button, he went to the bed and leaned over Myra. He kissed her on the forehead, once, twice, to be sure she was somewhat awake.

“Good night, Myra. You were wonderful, as always.”

She managed a smile, then turned her face back to the pillow, muffling her words. “Nigh’…Billy.”

He felt lonely, almost as if he were leaving his own home and wife, as he walked from the bedroom and the sleeping woman behind him. In the entry hall he shrugged into his coat and turned up its black leather collar.

Glancing at his reflection in the gold-framed mirror, he smiled handsomely, blatantly admiring his boyish blond looks, telling himself the world wasn’t always shitty. This had been a good night but he didn’t yet know
how
good.

Myra paid the service direct or had used a charge card, but he knew there would be an envelope for him on the marble-topped credenza.

Next to the door.

On the forty-seventh floor of the Whitlock Building on West Fiftieth, six-year-old Eden Wilson rolled over in her sleep and moaned. She didn’t quite wake up, and if she had, she wouldn’t have known what awakened her. Something was penetrating even her deep sleep, making her uneasy. Something was different.

Her mother and father, Roy and Edith Wilson, slept soundly in the next room, unaware of any changes in their co-op apartment. They didn’t realize their unit shared an air-conditioning duct with the adjacent apartment. The two halves of the vent were separated only by a thin vertical section of sheet metal, and between the units the heated metal had popped its tapping screws and pulled away from the sides of the duct. That allowed smoke from the apartment next door to find its way into the Wilson unit.

Then flame.

Only a tiny flame at first. Almost like a hesitant scout exploring in advance of a larger and more dangerous force.

That flickering red force soon arrived and traveled along a wallpaper border that had a bunny-and-flower pattern. As the flames worked their way around a smoke alarm whose batteries had run down, pieces of the wallpaper border curled and dropped burning onto the synthetic fiber carpet.

Eden sighed and rolled over in her sleep as a cinder glowed brighter among carpet fibers and began spreading its pulsating redness in a rapidly enlarging circle.

The glowing circle became flames at its circumference, and the flames grew. They grew tall enough to reach the kicked-off bedsheet draped to a few inches above the floor. The taste of material emboldened the fire and it spread along the stitched seam edging. The growing ring of flames on the carpet had reached the closed hollow-core wood door, thin particleboard sheets braced inside only with cardboard tubing. Flames devoured the adhesive along the edges of the door and began working on the particle wood and the enameled door frame.

At the foot of Eden’s bed, the flames worked higher toward the box springs and mattress. They found a blond doll balanced on the corner of the mattress and enveloped it. The doll melted, contorting as if in play death, and dropped onto the floor.

Eden awoke and sat bolt upright in bed, gazing around her in wonder. Then she drew up her legs, clutching her knees, and began to scream.

In the next room her mother and father were choking, lost in a suffocating pall of black smoke, trying to crawl in the direction of the door, unable to find even each other.

Rica awoke with the phone chirping in her ear. As she fought her way up out of sleep and reached for the receiver, she noticed the clock’s red LCD display: 3:21
P.M
.

Too early, she thought. Way too early. And too cold. The radiators weren’t clanking and wheezing, or doing much heating. She’d have a talk with the super again, tomorrow. Misery, she thought, licking her lips and propping herself up on one elbow. Misery. The caller better have a good reason to rouse her.

She thumbed the phone’s illuminated
on
button and pressed plastic to ear. Mumbled something even she didn’t understand.

“Rica?”

It was Stack. “Yeah. Me. Here. Half awake.”

“Make it the rest of the way,” Stack said. “We got another co-op fire, on East Fiftieth near Second Avenue. Forty-seventh floor.”

Awake now. “Jesus! The FDNY equipment can’t reach that high.”

“I’ll be by to pick you up outside your building.”

“Give me fifteen minutes,” Rica said.

“Make it ten. I’m on a cell phone and on the way.”

“Great,” Rica said. “I’ll have time to put on shoes.”

He was there in nine minutes. And she was waiting, Stack noticed with satisfaction, as he steered toward the curb. He worked the button that unlocked the doors and she slid into the seat beside him, huffing and shivering from the cold. She said nothing, staring straight ahead as she buckled her seat belt. She might be angry, or simply distracted, or not all the way awake. He had no way of knowing and decided not to push to find out.

Stack stomped the accelerator, pulling the car back out onto cold and vaporous streets that by Manhattan standards were almost deserted. He’d encountered no more than twenty or thirty vehicles, mostly cabs, all the way to Rica’s apartment. The city that never slept was catnapping. Stack didn’t use the cherry light or siren, but he took the corner fast, breaking through a mist of steam rising ghost-like from a subway grate.

“How’d you get the call?” Rica asked.

“Fagin, the FDNY guy.”

Rica remembered Fagin, young Abe Lincoln at the Dr. Lucette fire in the Bennick Tower. “He say anything about it?”

“Said it’s been burning quite a while, but he didn’t tell me what the exact situation was. We didn’t talk all that long. He was busy.”

“I’ll bet.”

A cab came out of nowhere, skidding to a stop just inches from slamming into the unmarked. A horn’s angry blast followed them.

“Prick was going too fast,” Rica said.

Stack smiled. He got out the cherry light, rolled down his window, and placed the light on the car roof. Then he kicked in the siren and cranked the window back up. Good Stack. Law and order personified.

“That cooled it off in here,” Rica said, tightening the scarf around her throat as if cold air were still blasting in. She wished she’d brushed her teeth. She felt as if she had a mouthful of moss and must have had breath like diesel exhaust.

Stack sped through the next intersection, letting the siren yodel that they were coming, they were going. He glanced over at Rica, who was wrestling something from one of the big pockets in her bulky coat.

He was surprised when she drew out a steel Thermos bottle.

Carefully, while he was on a straightaway, she unscrewed the black plastic cap and poured steaming coffee into it.

“We’ll have to use the same cup,” she said. “Intimate.” She handed the cap to him to sip from first.

Stack took a long pull, burning his tongue and not caring, then lowered the cup and smiled. “Thanks, Rica! That brought me all the way to life.”

“I’d make somebody a good wife,” she said.

“Somebody.”

He handed the plastic cup back to her, then tapped the brakes and turned the corner onto Second Avenue. Far down the street they could see a reddish glow in the night sky, as if a smaller sun were paying a nighttime visit.

“My God!” Rica said.

“Better drink your coffee now,” Stack told her, stomping the accelerator pedal so she was pressed back against the seat.

They flashed ID and walked among the haphazardly parked fire equipment and ambulances, careful to stay out of the way. An aerial ladder reached ineffectively up the side of the building, and a firefighter clung to it and held a hose, playing a stream of water almost straight up toward half a dozen fiery windows. Other streams of water, from street level, were trained on the floors beneath the fierce red glow that was at times trying to escape through heat-shattered glass. Stack guessed the idea was to try to keep the fire from working its way downward. At this point, not much could be done about upward. Several patrol cars were parked among the FDNY vehicles, and there were uniforms holding back a crowd that was probably mostly made up of tenants who’d fled the building. Stack motioned for Rica, and they walked over to where a uniform was standing near the front of one of the cars.

Stack and Rica identified themselves. At the mention of Stack’s name, the uniformed sergeant, whose name was Mosher, straightened his posture noticeably. He was a graying, portly man in his fifties, and he focused entirely on Stack as he gave an account of his recent actions and what he knew.

“My partner Vinny and I got the call about forty-five minutes ago. We got here, we could already hear the fire department sirens. Right away we learned from tenants in the lobby that the fire was on the forty-seventh floor. The elevators were working hard, carrying tenants down. Couple of other uniforms from the One-seven arrived, then the FDNY in force. After the elevators were made off-limits so nobody’d get trapped in them, we helped tenants use the fire stairs in back to leave the building; then we got into crowd control.”

“You One-seven?” Stack asked.

“From the One-nine, but we were close, so we got here in a hurry when we heard the call.”

Stack knew that many of the police personnel on the scene were from surrounding precincts. This fire was already a major disaster and might get worse in a hurry.

He gazed up where Sergeant Mosher had been looking. The building had a fancy stone facade that rose about five stories, then became drab brick. There were people in some of the upper-story windows, above the level of the fire.

“Not everybody got out,” Mosher said unnecessarily. “Some can’t leave because of the flames or smoke. A few refuse to leave, if you can believe it.”

“I can,” Stack said.

Rica, stamping her feet and blowing foggy breath, prodded Stack in the ribs. “Fagin.”

Stack thanked the sergeant, then turned to see the tall, angular Ernest Fagin making his way toward him, sidestepping equipment and dancing over thick networks of fire hose as if he’d run this obstacle course a hundred times before. Maybe he had. He was wearing boots and a long gray slicker with two broad yellow horizontal stripes but his head was bare. He said hello to Stack and nodded to Rica.

“You two get filled in?” he asked, shooting a glance at Sergeant Mosher.

“Not all the way,” Stack said.

“The fire’s still confined to the northwest corner of the building, but there’s no way we can get water or foam that high from street level.”

“What about the people trapped up there?”

“We can’t get an accurate count of how many there are. We’ve got a team working its way up the fire stairs, seeing if they can clear them and get everyone down safely, then move equipment up to the floor the fire’s on.”

“Standpipe hose?” Stack asked, remembering an earlier conversation with Fagin.

“We tried,” Fagin said. “The standpipe valve’s not working, but we think we can get it fixed.”

“Is there a chance?” Rica asked. “I mean, before a lot of people die?”

“Not much of one,” Fagin told her honestly, pulling a long face as he spoke. Rica thought she saw tears glistening in his eyes, though it might have been the acrid dark haze irritating them. “Do you think this is the work of your guy?” he said.

Rica shrugged. “No way to know yet.” She glanced up at the fiery show above. “If ever.”

“We can find out,” Fagin told her grimly. “We can put it back together enough that we can know.”

A large man wearing a FDNY captain’s emblem on his fire helmet appeared and waved Fagin over. With a backward glance, Fagin left Stack and Rica.

There was an increased flurry of activity, and several firefighters moved toward the side of the building.

“I feel useless,” Rica said.

“The best thing we can do,” Stack said, “is stay out of the way.”

An engine roared, and a loud air horn blasted as FDNY equipment began repositioning itself. Something was sure as hell going on.

Fagin jogged around a parked ambulance and came halfway to where Stack and Rica stood. He was wearing a fire helmet now. He grinned and pointed skyward, then made an upward walking motion with his forefinger and middle finger.

“They must have cleared the fire stairs,” Stack said, watching Fagin wave to them, then hurry back out of sight so he could get to work.

Standing across the street in the cold, Stack and Rica waited.

Within fifteen minutes more tenants began streaming from the Whitlock’s entrance. Most of them looked okay, though some were dazed and staggering. A few were on stretchers or being helped by fellow tenants or paramedics. Stack figured they must have been coming down the fire stairs while the FDNY was lugging equipment up. Which meant there was probably no guarantee the stairwell would remain clear enough of smoke or flames for passage. It wasn’t the first time Stack was glad he’d chosen the police and not the fire department as a career.

A familiar thrashing noise broke into his thoughts and grew louder, and he looked up to see two helicopters suspended above the building. He’d seen a movie once about a fire in a high-rise building, where the people trapped in the upper floors and on the roof were raised by rope or cable to hovering helicopters to escape the flames. It didn’t seem a practical idea even in the movie. He wondered if it was going to be tried here.

But the helicopters remained pretty much in place for a while, then tilted to the west and disappeared.

Almost an hour had passed when Fagin crossed the street to where Stack and Rica stood. His face was soot-blackened except for around his mouth and eyes, and he looked exhausted.

“We’re okay,” he said. “We got the beast under control. I think you two better come up with me, if you don’t mind climbing forty-seven flights of stairs.”

Stack and Rica stared at him.

He grinned in blackface. “Only kidding. We got the elevators working.”

As they walked with Fagin across the street to the Whitlock, the figure that had observed Myra Raven from Central Park now observed Stack and Rica.

The media had made no secret about who was in charge of investigating the co-op burning deaths. Detectives Benjamin Stack and Rica Lopez. It had been easy enough to find out a great deal about them.

And tonight, to get a look at them in person.