The Night Watcher (13 page)

Otto Kreiger was executive vice president of the Belmire Tower co-op board. He ran the meetings with precision, fairness, and promptness. He told that to everyone who would listen. A tall man of great girth, he kept his balding head completely shaved and had grown a neatly trimmed and fierce goatee so he resembled an aging professional wrestler. Only his tiny wire-framed spectacles suggested a mean intelligence buried in all that aggressive bulk.

“This William Matoon,” Molly French of 32B said from halfway down the polished mahogany conference table Kreiger had purchased with board money, “I certainly can’t recommend him as a tenant.”

Several other board members began agreeing with French.

Kreiger pounded on the table with the
Robert’s Rules of Order
he used as a gavel, then stood up. The other board members were silent.

“He has a police record!” Lewis Adams of 4C blurted out. He particularly disliked Kreiger and couldn’t wait for his two year term on the board to expire. He, Adams, would walk away, for he knew when Kreiger’s term expired on the same date, Kreiger would run again for board president and would find whatever way necessary to win. Adams was intimidated by Kreiger and loathed him as well, and had had enough of the man, who reminded him very much of an overgrown boy who’d bullied him unmercifully forty years ago in prep school.

Kreiger glared at him until a few seconds of silence had passed, then spoke:

“Mr. Matoon has some things on the plus side of the ledger. He placed fifty percent down on his unit, so he can well afford to live here. He is single and without pets or loud hobbies or egregious habits. That is to say, he doesn’t record live drum music in his home or collect police sirens. And he owns his own investment firm.”

“That sounds good,” Adams said, “but what do we know about his investment firm other than the books he showed us that were probably cooked by his own accountant?”

“We know it earns him enough to live in the Belmire,” Kreiger pointed out. “In fact, Lewis, his annual income far exceeds yours.”

“Or he has a dishonest accountant,” Adams persisted.

“I should remind you, Lewis, that minutes are being taken here, and you might be putting the board in legal jeopardy with careless and groundless accusations concerning matters about which you and the rest of us can know nothing.”

“What we don’t know is irrelevant,” Molly French said calmly, “compared to what we do know—that Mr. Matoon has a police record.”

“Embezzlement, fifteen years ago. Mr. Matoon served his time and has apparently been a solid citizen since. Be charitable, Molly. This is the land of the second chance.”

“I was thinking of the child molestation charges.”

“Charges only,” Kreiger said. “Mr. Matoon was found innocent both times. This is also the land of the litigious. Children tell tales, and suspicious parents sue.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Haven’t we all made mistakes?”

“Like child molestation? No, we haven’t.”

“There you go acting the jury again, even though Mr. Matoon never went to court on those false charges. I was referring to the embezzlement charge.”

“He went to court on that one and lost,” Adams pointed out.

“I’d like to get through this matter,” Kreiger said, “so we can get on to other business.” He stared at Mr. Henries from 27C, who had been made aware that if William Matoon was approved as a resident, the money for more exercise equipment would be forthcoming from the general fund. Henries looked away. Mrs. Vendable of 43B didn’t look away; she was staring directly at Kreiger, reminding him he’d promised to see that the noise abatement rule would be followed so the lunatic in the unit next to hers would stop playing his stereo at top volume late into the night. That would be, to her way of thinking, her back being scratched in return. As with Mr. Henries, the tacit arrangement had been struck.

Kreiger forged on confidently. He wasn’t going to change French’s or Adams’s mind anyway. “I think we need to remember,” he said, “that we’re all human and make mistakes. Mr. Matoon has a spotless record going back years, and is now a respected businessman in the investment community. Are we so haughty that we can’t find it in ourselves to overlook past sins even as we’d like our own to be overlooked?”

“I never molested a kid,” Adams said.

“But you
are
out of order.” Kreiger glared at him for a good five seconds, then continued: “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t glom onto a few unsavory ancient episodes and use them to bury someone who’s trying to lead an exemplary life now. And here’s something else to consider. Mr. Matoon is more than qualified for residency here in every way other than his youthful scrapes with the law. And as I said, ours is a litigious society. We might well be liable if we turn him away as a neighbor.”

“There are laws protecting co-op boards and you know it,” Molly French said.

Kreiger looked at her with an expression of strained tolerance. “If we had the time, I could wear you down citing examples when the fine points of the law were no excuse when it came to a jury or a lenient judge. I wouldn’t look to the law to protect us in what many would see as a heartless and unnecessary shunning of a fellow citizen. And politically we are in the midst of what some commentators call class warfare. Snobbery, real or imagined, is paying a heavy price these days in court, whether or not the law is on its side.”

“Jury nullification,” chimed in Mrs. Vendable.

“I move that we vote on the matter,” said Mr. Henries.

Kreiger and Mrs. Vendable seconded the motion together.

William Matoon was approved for Belmire Tower residency by one vote.

Expenditures for the exercise equipment were less of a problem. Stronger enforcement of the noise abatement rule was unanimous.

After the meeting, Otto Kreiger went up to his fifty-seventh-floor unit and had a glass of a chocolate high-protein drink while he sat at the dining room table leafing through a catalogue of exercise equipment. He was aware he’d been gradually breaking down the motorized treadmills with his bulk, and one or both machines would have to be replaced soon regardless of how the board had voted.

Kreiger flipped pages to the back of the catalog, where the heavy-duty equipment was listed. If the board objected to paying more for industrial-strength treadmills, he would be generous and pay part of the difference from his own pocket. An act of generosity he could remind everyone of later.

Bruni L’Farceur rode the elevator to her fifty-seventh-floor co-op in the Flanders Building on the Upper East Side. As she walked along the plushly carpeted hall to her apartment door, she reflected with a sense of satisfaction that art was one hell of a business.

What it took was an acceptance of the fact that art patrons wanted to be, yearned to be, convinced of a new artist’s talent and sales potential. Once someone like Bruni found the proper proportions of metaphysics, commerce, and bullshit, the rest naturally followed. The rest being a luxury condo on the East Side, a juicy stock and bond portfolio, and
real
art to hang on her own walls.
Objets d’art,
sexual playmates, tangible currency, cars or boats, rare this or rare that owned by no one else, stuff, things. That was quite simply what it was all about, and the sooner learned the better.

She keyed her apartment door and went inside, feeling as she always did when returning home that hush of isolation and altitude, of distance from the daily fray. Here, among what she most valued, she renewed herself.

After hanging her coat in the entry hall closet, she removed her boots so she wouldn’t track anything on the carpet, then padded in nylon-clad feet toward her bedroom.

On the way there, she stopped. Something wasn’t quite right. She stared at her prized Pollock mounted on the wall, lost for a second in its colorful multilayered complexity. Bruni wasn’t at all frightened, not here, but still…She glanced around. Everything seemed to be in order, from her Rodin reproductions to her genuine Seurat.

No, wait…

The entry to the kitchen. There seemed an inordinate amount of light streaming from the doorway, as if the kitchen were illuminated with Kleig lights, like the time
New York Style
had taped a TV spot here.

Curious, she padded toward the kitchen and stood in the doorway.

It was immediately apparent what had happened. The taupe sheer curtains that softened the light were gone from the window. Fallen, perhaps.

Bruni stepped all the way into the kitchen and was surprised to see something—the curtains!—wadded and soaking in all four of her sinks. As if they were being washed. They must have fallen straight down.

This is absolutely absurd! But won’t the explanation make a great story? Mil will be first to hear, then others before Mil has a chance to repeat.

Must get them out of the water, though…

What on earth? An umbrella, leaning there against the cooking island. Now who—

Bruni never finished her thought. She neither saw nor heard the descent of the brass reproduction of Rodin’s
The Kiss
as it arced through the air and struck her behind the right ear.

Bruni smelled something. Was there a car about? Where on earth was she? Why couldn’t she move? She must call Mil. Yes, Mil. She must wake up from this dream and walk in the real world.

Then she saw the dark figure looming above her, heard the rasp, and saw the spark.

Realization became fire became pain that was so excruciating it was art. For a brief moment it was art!

Billy Watkins, sweating as if he’d just staggered out of a sauna, lay in Myra Raven’s bed beside Myra. Like Billy, she was still breathing hard. The covers were thrown back, the ceiling fan was on, and both of them were nude before God and glistening wet from their efforts to get into hell.

She stirred beside him, sighed, and reached over to gently touch his forearm that lay near her hip.

“You were something, Myra,” he said, his mind doing slows turns like the fan blades above.

“Aren’t I usually, Billy?”

He grinned, looking over and making sure she saw him. “Not usually—always! But this time you were so…I guess you’d say
needy.”

“Insatiable, you mean?”

“Yeah. Like you wanted something nobody could give you.”

“Not even you, Billy?” Teasing him now, but in a sad kind of way. That’s what she was tonight, sad.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“You helped immensely. You always do.”

“You’re a puzzle, Myra.”

“Women always are, Billy. You of all people should know.”

“I do, Myra. But I don’t think of you as I do the others. You know you’re special to me.” That ceiling fan, white with the gold trim and the gold-scalloped blades, he wondered what it cost.

“You getting cold?” Myra asked.

“Not hardly, so soon after you. But you have goose bumps.” He sat up effortlessly, the muscles of his flat stomach tensing, and reached down and covered her with the silk sheet.

“I needed comfort tonight, Billy. You gave it to me.”

“That’s why I’m here, Myra, what I want to do.”

“You treat me so nice, Billy.” Her voice was still husky from recent sex, her words still slightly slurred from the scotch-on-the-rocks she’d downed one right after the other before they came into the bedroom. Billy didn’t agree with her about how puzzling women were; he knew women. This was one with a sorrow she couldn’t drown. That was obvious and simple enough, even if the sorrow wasn’t.

“I like treating you nice,” Billy told her. “You bring that out in men.”

“Not all men. Not most men.”

“This man.” He tucked the top edge of the sheet beneath her chin. “You okay now?”

“Okay as can be.”

He lay on his back silently beside her, watching the rotating fan blades. Getting a little bit cool himself from the breeze, but it felt good. He knew that later they would probably take a warm shower together. She might want to go again. Billy thought that would be fine; he had it in him and he had no place better to be. Anyway, it was his fucking job. It was his job, fucking.

Beside him, Myra began snoring lightly. After about five minutes of listening to her, he slowly swiveled on his hip, sat up, and stood gradually so as not to disturb her. He curled his bare toes into the deep pile of the expensive carpet. He loved doing that when he was in her apartment. He felt good, almost rested now, but he had to take a piss. Walking softly, he made his way out to the hall and the main bathroom. He figured if he used the bath off the bedroom, he might wake Myra. He didn’t want to do that just yet.

Once inside the bathroom, he stood as he often did and took in the luxury he so longed for and that was so beyond him right now. But someday he’d have a bathroom like this, all the marble, the walk-in shower almost the size of his bedroom, the long vanity with its gold-framed mirrors. There was a phone by the commode, and another by the sunken bathtub with its Jacuzzi setup. It was a large Jacuzzi. He recalled making love to Myra in it the second time he was with her.

That had been a few years ago. Aware that time was undermining him, Billy studied his blond handsomeness in the mirror. He could still pass for a California surfer who’d somehow wandered to Manhattan and just gotten off the bus at Port Authority, but not on close examination. The artificially tanned flesh was beginning to crinkle at the corners of his eyes, and he knew that beneath his tousled blond curls, his hairline was receding. A man couldn’t do this kind of work forever. He had to grab his opportunities when they were within reach.

He stood at the commode with his fists on his hips and relieved himself, then pressed a gold button on the toilet tank. As always, he was impressed. You could hardly hear the damn thing flush.

At the washbasin, when he was running water on his hands, he noticed among the scented soap dishes, candles, and woven basket of guest towels, a flat silver cigarette lighter. After drying his hands on one of the towels, he picked up the lighter and flipped open its lid. Billy knew quality when he saw it, and this was it. Silver plated over brass, probably, heavy for its size, and with an inlaid design on the lid that looked like real gold. There was no personal engraving on the lighter, which meant it couldn’t be easily traced. Myra didn’t smoke, so what was it doing in her bathroom? Maybe to light the scented candles, for later.

He was standing there considering stealing the lighter when Myra’s voice, coming from directly behind him, startled him.

“Billy?”

He jumped and almost dropped the lighter into the marble basin, catching it just in time with his left hand. “Jesus, Myra!”

She smiled. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Thought it might be shower time.” Reaching for a washcloth, she seemed to notice for the first time the lighter in his hand, and raised her eyes to match his gaze. He hoped he didn’t look guilty because of what he’d been thinking. He wasn’t actually going to steal the lighter, anyway.

“I thought I might light some of these candles for us,” he said, congratulating himself for thinking fast.

“That’s why the lighter was in here,” Myra said. “I was going to light them.”

“I figured. I knew you didn’t smoke.” He held the lighter up near the fixture over the mirror. “Nice lighter. You don’t see many like this anymore. Mostly throwaway plastic Bics, that kinda thing.”

“Going the way of fountain pens,” she said. “It used to belong to my husband.”

“Husband? Myra, you’re not—”

“A long time ago, Billy. He’s been gone for years and years. Would it bother you if I were still married?”

Hit her with the boyish grin. Still boyish enough. “Truth?”

“Certainly.”

“It wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Not where you’re concerned.”

She studied him for a while, then smiled, came to him, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

“I’ll start the shower,” she told him. “You light the candles.”

“Great idea.”

He watched her reflection in the mirror, a bony, graceful woman, like one of those whippet dogs, as she walked into the tile shower and turned on warm needles of water. Then he moved some candles out from near the soap dishes and guest towels and flipped open the lid of the silver lighter.

It worked the first time.

Stack and Rica stood with Ernest Fagin inside the door of Bruni L’Farceur’s apartment. The smell of charred wood and roasted flesh was in the air, eerily incongruous with the eggshell-white walls and their symmetrical display of artwork, the statuary and museumlike quality of the rest of the co-op.

“Looks like an extension of MOMA,” Rica said.

Fagin nodded. He looked exhausted and a lock of straight dark hair dangled over his left eye. “I’m told a lot of this stuff is original, and even the copies are worth a mint. The only damage is in the kitchen. Wanna peek?”

Stack and Rica glanced at each other. Neither really wanted a peek. This case was wearing them down in body and mind. There was a saturation point for all the char and gore here, a time when the nerves recoiled, for everyone but the killer.

Without answering, they followed Fagin into the kitchen.

Everything here was different from the rest of the apartment. The walls and ceiling were charred and water stained, the stench was overwhelming, and in the center of the ceramic tile floor, resting in about an inch of water, was the blackened corpse of a woman assumed to be Bruni L’Farceur. She glistened darkly, raw as a peeled grape, still moist from the sprinkler system. What was left of her jaw was agape, one cheek completely burned away to reveal blackened molars in a horrible grin. She was arched backward, though she didn’t appear to have been hog-tied. Her arms were folded and bound together behind her with what looked like the remnants of strips of cloth. It was also obvious that her legs had been tightly bound together.

“Like the others,” Stack said.

Rica moved a hesitant step closer to the corpse. “No gag this time.”

“There was one,” Fagin said. “Duct tape would be my guess. I removed what was left of it to feel inside her mouth. What was left of it. There was soot on the roof of her mouth. She was alive for a while after she was set on fire, breathing in the smoke of her own body burning.”

“Dear God,” Stack said.

Fagin shook his head sadly. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Rica nudged Stack and pointed. He looked and saw a black umbrella half folded in a corner.

“Our firebug,” Stack said. “No doubt about it.” He stepped toward the multiple sink basins and saw masses of something floating in them. “What’s this?”

“The curtains. Looks like they were taken down ahead of time so the fire wouldn’t spread after the Torcher left. Damage control.”

“You’re saying the killer wanted to contain the fire?”

“Uh-huh. That’s sure what it looks like. A guilty conscience after the Wickham Building fire?”

“Serial killers aren’t bothered by that,” Stack said.

“Maybe all the publicity warning about high-rise fires, all of Leland Brand’s ranting, has actually done some good,” Fagin suggested.

“A professional profiler would laugh if you told him that,” Rica said.

“There’s something else you oughta know about this one. It was reported soon after it started. An anonymous phone call. The voice was disguised. I heard the recording. Sounded like some guy with a mouthful of marbles talking in an echo chamber.”

“Then there’s no getting around it,” Stack said. “Whether because of guilt or some other reason, the Torcher didn’t want this fire to spread. Selectivity is being practiced here. The victim was to be the only one killed, which means murder and not the fire itself was the object.”

“I don’t buy that last part completely,” Fagin said. “I know the work of a firebug when I see it. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like something sexual, or somebody practicing a religion. Fire does that to some people. The idea might have been to kill only Bruni L’Farceur, but if the fire isn’t part of the compulsion, why doesn’t the killer just use a gun or knife?”

“I’m not saying the Torcher isn’t a pyromaniac,” Stack said. “I’m talking about motive. There’s some kind of profound and particular link between victim and killer. It’s that way in the killer’s mind, anyway. Or maybe it’s some kind of devious insurance scam, though we see no sign of it. Not yet, anyway.” Larry Chips’s game, Stack thought.

“It could be we’re seeing simple compassion here,” Fagin suggested. “I mean, for the other occupants, considering what happened last time when the flames took control.”

“Maybe,” Stack said. “But that would be unique in this kind of case. We’re almost always dealing with a sociopath unburdened by empathy and remorse.”

“There can always be an exception,” Fagin said.

“If serial killers ever do feel compassion, it’s only after the crime’s been committed, so it doesn’t stand in the way of their compulsion, their mission.”

“But we do agree there was an effort here to confine the fire to the kitchen.”

Both men looked at Rica, as if at the same time they’d just remembered she was there. “So what do you think?” Fagin asked.

Rica turned her head and spat off to the side, into a Kleenex she’d found folded in her pocket. It wouldn’t do to have her DNA floating around the place. She felt like spitting again but resisted the temptation. The sweet, burned stench was horrible and created a terrible taste along the edges of her tongue.

“Maybe the bastard’s an art lover,” she said.

The Torcher enjoyed in particular the restaurant on Second Avenue because the bar featured a fireplace. It was the large stone kind, and real wood was burned so that it crackled and sometimes made sparks fly to be drawn up the flu and into the cold night.

It intrigued the Torcher how, when you stopped to think about it, fire was everything to everyone. Always had been. Always would be. Of course few people stopped to think about it, but while they went about their business, there was the fire down in the boiler rooms of their buildings. Upstairs in their homes, while they were comfortably watching television or reading a book, there was the fire down in their basement furnaces, pulsing and living at the burning hearts of their lives. When they left their beds and stepped outside in the morning, there in the east was the fire blazing on the horizon and turning the clouds blood-red. Everything to everyone.

One of the waiters approached the fireplace with iron tongs to cast more fuel to the flames. The Torcher always liked to watch this procedure. At times, when a fresh log was thrown on the fire, insects would feel the heat and emerge from the log’s cracks and their hiding spaces beneath the rough bark, only to be consumed by the twisting, seeking flames.

There was no escaping the flames. Even when the great logs were burned down to a heap of glowing embers, the fire seemed only to be resting, waiting, catching its breath and testing the oxygen. It seemed to know living creatures. It seemed to know flesh and be drawn to it.

Sometimes the fire could be exquisite.