Night Victims by John Lutz

Author:John Lutz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2011-12-20T07:37:55+00:00

Might have been.

Marla drew a deep breath, then sighed and straightened up from where she’d been leaning back against the table.

“Think it’ll ever stop raining?”

28

The windshield wipers made a regular, rhythmic thump-ing sound that would have reminded Paula of sex if she’d let it. She sat in the unmarked and peered through the fogged-up windshield at the West Village building where the next to last name on her list, a former SSF trooper named Harold Linnert, resided. According to the list given to Horn by Kray, Linnert was fifteen months out of the army, single, and thirty-seven years old.

He lived in a brownstone that reminded Paula a little of Horn’s, only it wasn’t as well kept. The red front door needed paint and the geraniums in the window boxes were dead, though live ferns hung down in long green tendrils that directed twisting rivulets of rainwater. On the foundation wall behind a row of blue plastic trash cans was some elaborate but indecipherable graffiti sprayed on with faded black paint.

When she’d left the car and reached the brownstone’s stoop, Paula saw that the building had been made into a duplex. H. Linnert was on the second floor. Paula pushed the buzzer button and stood waiting beneath her umbrella, 208

John Lutz

watching rainwater run from it and puddle on the concrete near a rubber doormat.

A tinny voice from the intercom said something she couldn’t understand. She identified herself as the police, playing by the rules.

A buzzer like a Louisiana locust grated and she pushed open the door.

A small foyer with a door to the left, steep wooden stairs straight ahead. The walls in the foyer and stairwell were a glossy green enamel that could be wiped down. The damp-ness made them smell as if they’d just been painted. Music was on too loud in one of the units, a Gershwin show tune Paula couldn’t place.

She closed her umbrella and trudged up the steps, listening to them creak. No sneaking up on Mr. Linnert. Gershwin had been playing in the downstairs unit and faded to silence halfway up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, a handsome man with mussed black hair stood waiting for her. He was wearing pleated brown pants and a gray T-shirt. Even standing still he pro-jected a kind of effortless grace, as if he’d just completed a dance step and was poised for another. Paula thought if he had a physical flaw it was that his ears stuck out too far. He had lots of muscle, a waist smaller than hers, and he was smiling.

“I’ll take that,” he said.

At first she didn’t understand what he meant. Then she handed him her wet and folded umbrella. He stepped aside and let her in, placing the umbrella in a stand made from an old metal milk can. He moved with easy precision. Not a drop from the umbrella got on the waxed hardwood floor.

The living room she found herself in was orderly and surprisingly well furnished. Lots of prints—in the sofa, chairs, wallpaper, even lampshades.

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