Murder by Candlelight (32 page)

In the course of the
contacts Z had with the psychologist, Z had found Dr. Calder to be
bright, something to be expected of a college professor. But also
... nice. As a for instance, the man had showed concern for Z's
problems with Susan; had gone out of his way to say he thought Z
was intelligent and that Z should further his education.
Should
try
college, if for no other reason than for Z to prove to
himself he was college material. What Calder's suggestions
indicated was that the prof was the sort of man who went out of his
way to be concerned about others, even a rough and tumble guy like
Z.

Reaching the side of Z's add-on apartment at
the back, Z pulled out his keys, when he did so, getting the
momentary chill he'd been having lately when entering his apartment
at night. Caused, he was sure, by knowing that the crook had broken
into Z's home.

Z had seen it on TV. That being burglarized
made people feel unsafe in their own home, an emotion he was now
feeling.

When Z had discovered the break-in, he'd
felt .... violated. That was the word he'd heard on a couple of TV
news programs. Violated.

Following the chill, Z
experienced a wave of ... anger.
Neither
emotion making any sense now
that the criminal was headed for the tall timber.

In control again, no longer needing to look
for a hair in the doorframe, Z fumbled his key in the lock. Turned
the bolt ....

To hear ... no click.

Learning the hard way
that, when something
seemed
wrong it generally was, Z backed away from the
door, at the same time, slipping to the side to put himself in the
deeper shadow of the third floor gable.

No ... click. Meaning .....?

That the door was already unlocked.

A careful search of Z's
memory told him he'd locked up when leaving for the office that
afternoon. He locked the apartment
every
time he left. Night and day.
Rain or shine. In sickness and in health. 'Til Death
....

The chill was back! With a vengeance! As
improbable as it seemed, there was now every possibility the thug
-- Cristoforo -- was not only still in the country, but also inside
Z's place, waiting to pay Z back for the disastrous "game" Z had
played with the crook's mind. Nor was there a doubt that Cristoforo
played for keeps. What had Johnny D said? That the punk's boss,
Minghetti, had been shot in places a man didn't want to hear
about?

Sweating. Z was sweating again.

And getting angry, a flush creeping up his
neck, into his cheeks!

How dare this punk break into Z's home! Not
only once, but twice!

Anger banishing fear, Z crouched low; padded
back to the door.

Still at a half-squat, Z rocked the door
handle.

Eased in the door.

With a quick leap, was inside!

Still keeping low, slipping to one side, Z
froze in the rectangular shadow pool beneath one of the silent air
conditioners.

Dark.

Though darker inside than the star-gleamed
backyard path, Z's eyes were already adjusting to the even greater
blackness, Z beginning to see ... shapes, the dark/light coming
through the open front door outlining lumps of furniture.

No artificial light inside. And there would
have been, even if someone prowling around was using the pinpoint
beam of a penlight.

Had Z come too late, the criminal here and
gone?

Reason told Z to hope that was true. On the
other hand, rising anger made him wish Cristoforo was still lurking
about.

Mentally, Z's mind lay in a twilight region
of dead calm, a state he entered before completely losing his
temper. A good feeling, really. The feeling of being ... God ...
about to right eternal wrong with a fork of divine fire!

From his crouched position under the window,
Z sniffed the air, detecting all the usual smells. Dry ashes from
the fireplace. Bread crusts in the firebox, toasted but not
entirely burned. Old furniture. Dust. ... And ... something
more.

Hard to define.

Ever since Z had regained his sense of
smell, he'd used it in his work, sometimes felt himself more
bloodhound than man.

Scent, but no ...
sound
in the apartment,
except the occasional creak of the old house in the nightfall
breeze.

A minute.

Two minutes.

Waiting long enough to
establish that nothing was likely to happen
to
him, Z began to inch forward,
slowly, silently; knowing every floorboard; avoiding those that
squeaked; creeping through the living room, a space too small for a
man to hide.

Past the firebox, no one in the small
kitchenette to the left.

Right, to enter the short hall.

If the intruder was still in the house, he
had to be either in the small bedroom -- in the closet or under the
bed -- or in the bath.

Hardly breathing, lowering himself to his
hands and knees, low as a stalking leopard, Z stuck his head into
the bedroom. Found the smell ... to be stronger.

Sweat.

Body odor.

Coming from ....

Raising his head, Z drew air into his
nostrils, delicately. Turned his head from side to side.

The scent was coming from ...... Z's
closet!

Creeping forward, edging past the side of
the bed, Z could tell, even in the sable black of that inner room,
that the closet door was open. Inside, hiding behind the clothes
hanging from the rod ....

With a roar, Z was up and lunging through
the clothes, colliding with a body standing back of them.

Enraged, losing control of mind and body, Z
hit with the force of a maddened rhino; had the man by the throat;
was pounding him senseless .....

* * * * *

Driving home in the Cavalier that night, all
Z could recollect was a blur of images: dragging the unconscious
man out of the closet; Z getting his case from its place of
concealment under the firebox.

Z remembered pulling the dynamite fuse from
the satchel, tying the man's arms with the fuse, gagging him.

Z had fleeting images of
how the man had frightened Susan; could recall cold anger at that
thought, anger and rock hard determination the man would never
do
that
again!

With effort, Z recalled the drive to the
Antioch Mall; how he'd parked away from the cars of late evening
shoppers.

All this came back to Z as he was driving
home.

Fragments of scenes flickering behind his
eyes, he found himself thinking of ... fireworks ........

As a child, Z had
blackouts when he'd gotten angry. On the rare occasion that his
rage blazed up these days,
still
had trouble remembering what he'd done when he'd
"lost it."

That's the way he'd gotten to know Susan.
Angered that Susan's ex was trying to gun her down, Z had thrown
himself at the little man, taking a bullet as a consequence. Later,
in the hospital, Z could barely recall that foolish charge.

Rage like
Z's
could get you
killed!

Continuing to pilot
himself home through the street-lighted dark, forcing himself to
take deep breaths as a way to cool off, Z was
still
far from clear about what he'd
done.

Once, when Z's former wife had made him
angry, he'd stripped her naked and used an indelible marking pen to
write obscene suggestions on her body -- before throwing her out
into the night.

He shouldn't have done that.

Nor have burned Paula's clothes and mailed
the ashes to his ex-wife's mother.

Anger like that balanced a man on the knife
edge of insanity.

Stopped at the light at 72nd, little traffic
to distract him, Z recalled a plastic bag. A plastic bag of ...
white powder.

Turning left on 72nd, not wanting to go home
yet, headed for Oak, the word "drugs" came to mind, the greatest
evil of modern society.

Z didn't smoke.

He rarely drank.

He never took drugs.

Coming back to Z in a
flash was the knowledge that the man who'd broken in had done so to
plant drugs in Z's apartment. Z was clear about that now;
could
see
the
transparent plastic bag of white powder on the floor of the closet
where the man had been hiding.

The man was seeking revenge by planting
"controlled substances" in Z's apartment.

That (in additional to fear that the
criminal would menace Susan,) was what had caused Z's blackout.

In his mind's eye, Z could see his rage
taking hold ....

Like with Paula, Z had stripped the man
naked, going further to tie up the man's hands with dynamite fuse
.......

Again, Z saw the sparkle of fireworks in his
mind.

At the shopping center, pushing the man out
of the car, Z had lighted the fuse and let the man go.

The man was running. Running away. Naked.
The dynamite fuse sputtering fire in the dark.

Fireworks.

Z tried to concentrate.

Again, had a vision of the man running with
lit dynamite fuse tied around the man's wrists, a trailing end of
fuse stuck up the man's bare ass ...........

Stopped for the light at Oak, cross-traffic
streaming by, Z was shaking. Knowing what he'd done.

All he could do now was hope that the fuse
-- lit somewhere in the middle so that it sputtered two directions
-- had burned through the knot tying the man's hands before flaming
between the man's legs and up his ......

When the light turned green, Z pulled across
the four lanes of Oak, the road narrowing to two lanes, headed as
it was for the post office turn.

Striving for tranquility, Z tried to
emphasize what was positive about the situation. First and
foremost, that the man was unlikely to bother Susan again. Z might
go a little crazy when he lost it; be unable to remember exactly
what he'd done, but his actions -- even when unconscious -- got
results.

One more thing popped up
to puzzle him. Now that Z could remember ... more ... it seemed to
him that the man he'd found in the closet was a small, thin man,
certainly someone
other
than the gunman who'd picked Z's lock before.
Certainly not the thug, Cristoforo.

What had happened, then? ... Who was the
second man?

Z wished he knew.

More settled in his mind, hooking back, Z
recrossed Oak at 72nd. Drove down 72nd, then turned right, then
right again, finally to pull into his garage off the alley.

Safe. At last.

Up the back walk, Z entered his apartment to
find what he thought he would -- the furniture "rearranged." Chairs
knocked over.

Z could be violent when in a temper.

First straightening up the living room, Z
went to the bedroom closet to pick up the small "sandwich bag" of
white powder.

Cocaine.

Heroin.

Z had no idea what ... and no interest in
finding out.

For now, the safe thing for Z to do was put
both his case and the bag of powder in the hiding place under the
firebox.

The satchel put away, the apartment tidied
up, finding he was ... exhausted ... Z returned to the bedroom to
flop on the bed for what he hoped would be a long, dreamless sleep
......

* * * * *

It was the phone ringing that awakened him.
Struggling out of bed in the dark, limping into the living room,
sagging down on the divan, Z picked up the receiver.

Said, "Z," in a hoarse whisper.

Z's voice was weak. Thin. ... Z felt ...
sick. It was at times like these that Z wondered if his "temper"
was grounded in a physical condition.

Like epilepsy.

Epileptics blacked out, too. Maybe, Z was
... sick.

"So, where ya been?"

Teddy Newbold.

Z found himself shaken to be talking to a
cop, even a cop who was a friend. Z didn't need more trouble than
he had.

"I say, where ya been? I been calling."

"Out."

"Out? Well, I almost give up calling
entirely. And would have, if I hadn't been your friend from way
back."

"Yeah."

"And don't think I don't know about what you
did to the captain. Not your best idea, Z-boy. Blastin' the captain
on the radio like you did. Although, just between you and me,
that's what the bastard deserves."

Ted couldn't be calling from the station.
He'd never risk saying anything bad about Scherer where someone
might overhear him.

"You home?"

"Callin' from a pay phone.
I'm on assignment. Just stopped for a minute on my way, to call.
...
Again
!"

"Yeah?" Z was listening for the first time.
It must be something serious for Ted to be calling on his own
nickel.

"So I rang you up in the dead of night to
give you a piece of advice on the QT. Captain Scherer don't like
you."

Nothing new about that. "Yeah."

Leaning over, Z snapped on the small table
lamp beside the phone, straining to see his watch, found it was
only 8:30.

"Remember the new detective, name of Tabor?
Edwin Tabor?"

Most people named Edwin, were called Ed.
Calling the new man "Edwin" was just another indication Ted didn't
like him.

"Short. Fat as a lard bucket. Anyhow, Tabor
was hired to work narcotics, which we don't have much of
North-of-the-river. Like they got south in nigger town. In
addition, this Edwin is a suck-up from way back, brown-nosing the
captain like a bitch in heat. That means that if the captain don't
like big Bob Zapolska, Tabor don't like big Bob in spades.