“Okay, then,” he said, and left the room quickly, closing the door behind him.
Rizzo folded his arms across his chest and looked at Jurgens.
“So, Carl,” he said in a pleasant conversational tone. “Got any idea why we dropped by to see you?”
The man flushed slightly and avoided eye contact. “No,” he said flatly. “I don’t.”
Priscilla, to the man’s right, said, “Why don’t you tell us where you were on Monday night? Around nine o’clock.”
The man glanced nervously at her, then swung his eyes to Rizzo.
“Sounds like a reasonable question, Carl,” Rizzo said. “Why don’t you answer her?”
Jurgens looked back at Priscilla, a sheen of perspiration glistening on his forehead. He cleared his throat before answering. “Monday? Monday night?” he asked.
Priscilla nodded. “Yeah. Monday night. Columbus Day. ’Bout nine o’clock.”
Jurgens nodded. “Yeah, okay. Monday, Monday night at nine… I was home. With my wife.”
Rizzo eased away from the boxes, unfolding his arms. “Is that right, Carl? Home with the wife?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gaining strength. “You can ask her. She’ll tell you.”
Rizzo nodded. “I bet she will, Carl. I bet she will. But you know, your wife might not be gettin’ the whole picture. She may not know that legally, the only right she has is she can’t be forced to testify against you. But she can be charged as an accessory after the fact if she lies to cover for you.”
Jurgens’s flush deepened. “Accessory to what?” he said. “Cover for what?”
Rizzo glanced at Priscilla. She looked quickly to Jurgens, saw the anger stirring. Discreetly, she slipped her cuffs from where they were tucked in her belt at the small of her back.
Rizzo stepped in closer to Jurgens. “Turn around,” he said, his voice deep and threatening. “You’re under arrest.”
Priscilla moved quickly, cuffing first Jurgens’s right hand, then twisting it to meet his left wrist. She snapped on the second cuff, deftly adjusting its grip. Rizzo ran his hands rapidly over Jurgens’s body, keeping his own left leg angled inward to protect his groin.
Jurgens blinked in disbelief, straining against the Smith & Wesson handcuffs.
“Under arrest? What the fuck for?” he stammered.
Rizzo reached a hand into Jurgens’s front pants pocket, extracting a six-inch folding knife with a scarred bone handle.
“Two counts of attempted murder, second degree, two counts criminal use of a firearm, two felony counts assault, one misdemeanor count.” Now Rizzo gave a slight smile. “And what ever else the college boy A.D.A. can find in his penal code Cliff notes.”
Jurgens compressed his lips. “I want a fuckin’ lawyer,” he said. “A lawyer!”
Priscilla took the knife from Rizzo. “Okay, Carl,” she said. “We heard you.”
“What’s that?” Rizzo asked Jurgens, indicating the knife.
The man’s eyes darted to the weapon. “That’s my pocket knife,” he said. “I’m a sportsman.”
Rizzo nodded his head. “Yeah, Carl,” he said, taking the man by the arm and turning toward the door. “We already figured that out.”
As they walked him out, Priscilla began Jurgens’s Miranda warning. “You have the right…”
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS ASTONISHING, REALLY. After all the fear, apprehension, and doubt, all the painful reflection.
The man grunted with satisfaction. Killing, as it had turned out, came easily to him. It was the simple enactment of a well-conceived plan, oddly not unlike any other plan, financial or professional, for instance, one faced as one’s life progressed.
He looked down at the lifeless mass collapsed at his feet. How strange, he thought, that he had never before realized his capacity.
Imagine, to have lived a lifetime within the confines of his own consciousness and not have been aware of such a rich and useful resource-the ability to kill without remorse, without misguided sympathy, without the inconvenience of weakness or moral dilemma.
The man’s satisfaction deepened, and he sighed. It was a relief, really. Now he knew, knew without question, that he was capable of doing it, and what’s more, doing it so very easily.
Thank the devil, he thought, for there remained one more murder to commit.
One more act of self-preservation.
He turned to leave the small, sad basement apartment.
As he stepped out onto the rain-swept, darkened streets of Brooklyn, he scanned his surroundings.
His next murder, his next per for mance, would be in a far more splendid setting. One so more fitting for a man of his position.
JOE RIZZO sat bolt upright in bed, perspiration covering his body, the ghostly musty odor of the old Plymouth radio car distinct and sour in his nostrils, a guttural yelp escaping his throat.
He glanced quickly around the darkened room, saw the red digital alarm on the night table: 6:12 a.m.
His heart racing, Rizzo turned in the darkness toward Jennifer. His sudden, violent movement had awoken her, and he saw her reaching for the bedside lamp to switch it on.
“Joe?” she said. “Joe? Are you okay?”
Rizzo, breathing deeply, willing his heartbeat to slow, extended a gentle hand to his wife.
“Yeah,” he said, more breathlessly than he would have liked. “Yeah, hon, fine. Just a dream. Shut the light, Jen, go back to sleep.”
Jennifer sat up, glancing at the clock. “It’s okay,” she said, studying the near feral, yet bewildered look in his eyes. “I have to get up soon anyway.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again, gently.
Rizzo ran a hand through his hair and managed a smile. He tossed the bedcovers back, away from his body, allowing the cool air of the room to touch his damp skin.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just a friggin’ dream, that’s all.”
Jennifer’s dark eyes reflected warmly in the bedside lighting.
“A dream?” she said. “Looks more like a nightmare to me.” Now she squinted, peering at him more closely.
“Was it that dream, Joe?” she asked, her tone neutral.
Rizzo nodded, using his T-shirt sleeve to clear sweat from his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. Then after a moment, he shook his head in disbelief. “Can you imagine this? With all I’ve seen over the years? The dead babies, the dozens of murders, the burned corpses, the shooting vics, every goddamned thing. All of that, never a nightmare. But that one kid, that one poor kid, still haunting me after all these years.” He shook his head again. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Jennifer shifted her body, facing him more directly.
“Well,” she said, rubbing gently at the knot of muscle in his powerful shoulder. “Like I’ve said before, you were just a kid yourself. Probably the same age she was. And you had just started on the force. An experience like that can stay with you.”
Rizzo reached to his night table for a Nicorette packet. “Yeah,” he said, tearing at the cellophane. “But still. Twenty-seven years later, almost. Enough already.”
Jennifer nodded, unsure of what else to say. “Well, it’s over now. Try to relax.”
Later, as he lay in bed listening to Jennifer’s shower hiss from the master bath, he replayed that long-ago day in his mind for the thousandth time.
It had been his very first morning tour, in the old Seventy-fifth Precinct, on the Brooklyn-Queens border. It was a Sunday morning, just past seven a.m., less than an hour remaining on the tour. His training officer, a twenty-year veteran who had harbored no ambition beyond a sector car patrol, had parked the Plymouth on a wooded, deserted stretch of ser vice road lying north of the Belt Parkway. The cop, Sonny Carusso, sat asleep behind the wheel. “Cooping,” the old-timers had called it back in those days.