Things Beyond Midnight (11 page)

Basically, Jimmie liked people, got along fine with them on a casual basis. He hated no one. (Except his parents, but they were long dead and something he did not think about anymore.) He was incapable of love or friendship, but felt no need for either. Jimmie depended only on himself; he had learned to do that from childhood. He was, therefore, a loner by choice, and made it a rule (Jimmie had many rules) never to date the same female twice, no matter how sexually appealing she might be. Man-woman relationships were a weakness, a form of dangerous self-indulgence he carefully avoided.

In sum, Jimmie Prescott didn’t need anyone. He had himself, his skills, his weapons and his targets. More than enough for a full, rich life. He did not drink or smoke. (Oh, a bit of vintage wine in a good restaurant was always welcome, but he had never been drunk in his life.) He jogged each day, morning and evening, and worked out twice a week in the local gym in whatever city he was visiting. A trim, healthy body was an absolute necessity in his specialized career. Jimmie left nothing to chance. He was not a gambler and took no joy in risk.

A few times things had been close: a roof door that had jammed shut in Detroit after a kill, forcing him to make a perilous between-buildings leap... an engine that died during a police chase in Portland, causing him to abandon his car... an intense struggle with an off-duty patrolman in Indianapolis who’d witnessed a shot. The fellow had been tough, and dispatching him was physically difficult; Jimmie finally snapped his neck—but it had been close.

He kept a neat, handwritten record of each shoot in his tooled-leather notebook: state, city, name of street, weather, time of day, sex, age and skin color of target. Under “Comments,” he would add pertinent facts, including the make and year of the stolen car he had driven, and the type of disguise he had utilized. Each item of clothing worn was listed. And if he experienced any problem in exiting the target area this would also be noted. Thus, each shoot was critically analyzed upon completion—as a football coach might dissect a game after it had been played.

The only random factor was the target. Pre-selection spoiled the freshness, the
purity
of the act. Jimmie liked to surprise himself Which shall it be: that young girl in red, laughing up at her boyfriend? The old newsman on the corner? The school kid skipping homeward with books under his arm? Or, perhaps, the beefy, bored truckdriver, sitting idly in his cab, waiting for the light to change?

Selection was always a big part of the challenge.

And
this
time...

A male. Strong looking. Well dressed. Businessman with a briefcase, in his late forties. Hair beginning to silver at the temples. He’d just left the drugstore; probably stopped there to pick up something for his wife. Maybe she’d called to remind him at lunch.

Moving toward the corner. Walking briskly.

Yes,
this
one. By all means, this one.

Range: three hundred yards.

Adjust sight focus.

Rifle stock tight against right shoulder.

Finger inside guard, poised at trigger.

Cheek firm against wooden gunstock; eye to rubber scopepiece.

Line crosshairs on target.

Steady breathing.

Tighten trigger finger slowly.

Fire!

The man dropped forward to the walk like a clubbed animal, dead before he struck the pavement. Someone screamed. A child began to cry. A man shouted.

Pleasant, familiar sounds to Jimmie Prescott.

Calmly, he took apart his weapon, cased it, then carefully dusted his trousers. (Rooftops were often grimy, and although he would soon discard the trousers he liked to present a neat, well-tailored appearance —but only when the disguise called for it. What a marvelous, ill-smelling bum he had become in New Orleans; he smiled thinly, thinking about how truly offensive he was on that occasion.)

He walked through the roof exit to the elevator.

Within ten minutes he had cleared central Baltimore—and booked the next flight to the West Coast.

Aboard the jet, he relaxed. In the soft, warm, humming interior of the airliner, he grew drowsy... closed his eyes.

And had The Dream again.

The Dream was the only disturbing element in Jimmie Prescott’s life. He invariably thought of it that way: The Dream. Never as
a
dream. Always about a large metropolitan city where chaos reigned—with buses running over babies in the street, and people falling down sewer holes and through plate glass store windows. Violent and disturbing. He was never threatened in The Dream, never personally involved in the chaos around him. Merely a mute witness to it.

He would tell himself, this was only
fantasy,
a thing deep inside his sleeping mind; it would go away once he awakened and then he could ignore it, put it out of his thoughts, bury it as he had buried the hatred for his father and mother.

Perhaps he had
other
dreams. Surely he did. But The Dream was the one he woke to, again and again, emerging from the chaos of the city with sweat on his cheeks and forehead, his breath tight and shallow in his chest, his heart thudding wildly.

“Are you all right?” a passenger across the aisle was asking him. “Shall I call somebody?”

“I’m fine,” said Jimmie, sitting up straight. “No problem.”

“You look kinda shaky.”

“No,
I’m
fine. But thank you for your concern.”

And he put The Dream away once again, as a gun is put away in its case.

In Los Angeles, having studied the city quite thoroughly, Jimmie took a cab directly into Hollywood. The fare was steep, but money was never an issue in Jimmies life; he paid well for services rendered, with no regrets.

He got off at Highland, on Hollywood Boulevard, and walked toward the Chinese Theater.

He wanted two things: food and sexual satisfaction.

First, he would select an attractive female, take her to dinner and then to his motel room (he’d booked one from the airport) where he would have sex. Jimmie never called it lovemaking, a
silly
word. It was always just sex, plain and simple and quickly over. He was capable of arousing a woman if he chose to do so, of bringing her to full passion and release, but he seldom bothered. His performance was always an act; the ritual bored him. Only the result counted.

He disliked prostitutes and seldom selected one. Too jaded. Too worldly. And never to be trusted. Given time, and his natural charm, he was usually able to pick up an out-of-town girl, impress her with an excellent and very expensive meal at a posh restaurant, and guide her firmly into bed.

This night, in Hollywood, the seduction was easily accomplished.

Jimmie spotted a supple, soft-faced girl in the forecourt of the Chinese. She was wandering from one celebrity footprint to another, leaning to examine a particular signature in the cement.

As she bent forward, her breasts flowed full, pressing against the soft linen dress she wore—and Jimmie told himself, she’s the one tor tonight. A young, awestruck out-of-towner. Perfect.

He moved toward her.

“I just
love
European food,” said Janet.

“That’s good,” said Jimmie Prescott. “I rather fancy it myself.”

She smiled at him across the table, a glowing all-American girl from Ohio named Janet Louise Lakeley. They were sitting in a small, very chic French restaurant off La Cienega, with soft lighting and open-country decor.

“I can’t read a word of this,” Janet said when the menu was handed to her. “I thought they always had the food listed in English, too, like movie subtitles.”

“Some places don’t,” said Jimmie quietly. “I’ll order for us both. You’ll be pleased. The sole is excellent here.”

“Oh, I love fish,” she said. “I could eat a ton of fish.”

He pressed her hand. “That’s nice.”

“My head is swimming. I shouldn’t have had that Scotch on an empty stomach,” she said. “Are we having wine with dinner?”

“Of course,” said Jimmie.

“I don’t know anything about wine,” she told him, “but I love champagne. That’s wine, isn’t it?”

He smiled with a faint upcurve of his thin lips.

“Trust me,” he said. “You’ll enjoy what I select.”

“I’m sure I will.”

The food was ordered and served—and Jimmie was pleased to see that his tastes had, once again, proven sound. The meal was superb, the wine was bracing and the girl was sexually stimulating. Essentially brainless, but that didn’t really matter to Jimmie. She was what he wanted.

Then she began to talk about the sniper killings.

“Forty people in just a year and two months,” she said. “And all gunned down by the same madman. Aren’t they ever going to catch him?”

“The actual target total is forty-one,” he corrected her. “And what makes you so sure the sniper is a male? Could be a woman.”

She shook her head. “Whoever heard of a woman sniper?”

“There have been many,” said Jimmie. “In Russia today there are several hundred trained female snipers. Some European governments have traditionally utilized females in this capacity.”

“I don’t mean women
soldiers
,” she said. “I mean your nutso shoot-’em-in-the-street sniper. Always guys. Every time. Like that kid in Texas that shot all the people from the tower.”

“Apparently you’ve never heard of Francine Stearn.”

“Nope. Who was she?”

“Probably the most famous female sniper. Killed a dozen schoolchildren in Pittsburgh one weekend in late July, 1970. One shot each. To the head. She was a very accurate shootist.”

“Never heard of her.”

“After she was captured,
Esquire
did a rather probing psychological profile on her.”

“Well, I really don’t read a lot,” she admitted. “Except Gothic romances. I just can’t get
enough
of those.” She giggled. “Guess you could say I’m addicted.”

“I’m not familiar with the genre.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “I know this sniper is a guy.”

“
How
do you know?”

“Female intuition. I trust it. It never fails me. And it tells me that the Phantom Sniper is a man.”

He was amused. “What else does it tell you?”

“That he’s probably messed up in the head. Maybe beaten as a kid. Something like that. He’s
got
to be a nutcase.”