The Night Crew

Chapter 25

The two-faced man was dressed in a light Lycra full-length windsurfer's suit, pitch-black from the neckline to the black Nike gym shoes. With a nylon stocking over his head, he was a shadow.

He moved slowly, carefully, letting his body feel the way through the dark. He had a bum bag wrapped around his ribs, a rope wrapped around his waist, and the pistol under his arm.

Moving like a snake, sliding the last few inches toward the unsuspecting mouse.

A

He closed on the back porch. He'd been there before, but this time, she wasn't home. There was no one inside to hear him. unless the cops had set something up. Unlikely, but possible, and the possibility added to the intensity of the approach.

He sat in the shadow of the porch for five minutes, listening. And he heard voices, coming down from above, with a little music that he couldn't place. Old music, the kind you hear late at night when you're driving out in the desert. People on a porch, he thought, in the next house. He measured the unexcited voices, then slowly, carefully unhooked the bum bag, unzipped it, took out the screwdriver and the roll of duct tape.

He knew from the last time where the lock was. He pla

But when he got to his knees on the porch, he found a piece of plywood covering the window. He tested it with the screwdriver. The plywood moved. Huh. More pressureand when he pried hard enough, he could feel the wood give.

He dropped the duct tape and worked the screwdriver around the perimeter of the plywood plug. After a minute, the top and left edges were free. He worked on the bottom edge, then pushed his hand through the slot and it opened like a little door.

He stopped to listen again, then reached inside. He had to stretch, to go in all the way to his shoulder, but the deadbolt was there and he flipped the handle; the door opened easily.

Inside, he listened again, then pressed the plywood window plug roughly into place. He used the penlight to navigate across the kitchen, followed the light down the hall, around the little office, then up the stairs to the bedroom.

The bedroom smelled of her: her perfume, or just her body.

He listened, then probed the bedroom. Went through the chest of drawers, through the closets, looked at photographs in a grass basket, dug through a trunk, through a jewelry, smelled her perfume, dabbed some of it on his throat.

Stretched out on her bed; turned his face into her pillow.

Hated her; but still loved her, too, he thought.

He was still there, on the bed, when she got back.

Felt a finger of panic: then remembered the closet.

Crept into it, made himself small, in the back, with the shoes, behind the hanging lengths of the hippie dresses.

Took the gun out, placed the long, cool length of it against his face.

Heard voices: she was with a man. The bodyguard.

He'd wait until he was gone, and take her.

End her.

And if the bodyguard stayed?

He worked it out: Take the bodyguard first. No warning, just step up and do it.

Then her.

He tried to control his breathing, but found it difficult.

Hate/sex/death/darkness. The odor of Chanel. The silken feel of her dresses on his face.

He waited.

Chapter 26

Louis found the kid's nameCharles McKinley. An address was listed in the university directory, but when Louis called it, the phone had been disco

'Student,' Louis said to A

'We need an address,' A

'It won't hurt to take a look at Clark while we're waiting,' Harper said. 'If Louis says the kid's not in the directory, then it'll take a while to find him.'

A

Harper pulled away from the curb and headed down the hill, into the campus, silent, knowing that she was working through it. She stared out the window at the passing landscape and wondered why the idea of surveillance worried her so much.

She turned the question in her mind until she arrived at the nexus: If we get back together, I'll have to tell him. And if I tell him, I'll be admitting that I thought he might be this killer. But only if we get back together, and we won't. But if we do.

The thoughts tumbled over each other, always ru

A barefoot man in a ragged winter coat, the kind people wore in Mi

'That's where the trouble started,' A

'What?'

'That's where we picked up the woman who took us into the animal rights thing. we were right down there at the medical center.'

'Maybe the kid's up there, McKinley,' Harper suggested. 'You want to run in? We've still got a little time.'

She thought about it for a second. Anything seemed preferable to looking for Clark: 'Sure.'

'I'll waittake the gun,' Harper said.

A

'Can I help you?'

'I'm trying to find Charles McKinley. He works up in the animal labs.'

'He's not here tonight,' the guard said, talking through the crack. 'He's been off since last week.'

''Cause of the animal rights thing?'

'Yup. He's been all over the TV. He was on the "Today" show, even.'

'Great,' A

'I couldn't tell you if I did know,' the guard said. 'But I don't, anyway.'

'Got a phone number?'

'I don't think so. I could look, I guess.'

'Thanks, I'd appreciate it.'

The guard pulled the door closed and went back to his desk, rummaged around for a while, and came back, shaking his head. 'Nothing there. Best thing to do is call tomorrow morning. Somebody might know. Buthe's a student.'

'Nothing?' Harper asked.

'He's not there.'

They drove the next two blocks in silence, dumped the car in a parking garage and walked toward the music building.

'I hate this,' A

'Where's he most likely to come out?'

She thought about it, and again got caught in the memories: playing with Clark, exploring the building, playing every instrument they could find. They spent several nights in the place, even made love on a library table, when neither one of them would back off the dare.

'Right out the front,' she said, reluctantly. 'He used to always try to park in the Number Two parking structure, it's just down the block.'

'So let's find a place to sit,' Harper said. He was being stubborn about it. He could have offered to break it off, to concentrate on the kid. He could have accepted A