The Eye: A Novel of Suspense (29 page)

How, then?
How?
The perp wasn’t omniscient. And he couldn’t see through walls.

Or could he?

Something stirred in Oxman’s mind, a budding revelation. And all at once he was no longer staring blindly through the window; he was seeing what lay outside, he was seeing the window itself.

Windows were walls, too; you
could
see through windows.

The psycho kept talking about the Eye, God’s Eye. But not as if he meant his own eye; as if it were something else, some independent instrument.

Jesus, binoculars? Was he out there somewhere with binoculars?

Oxman studied what lay beyond the windows—and the idea collapsed. There was no place out there where a man could set up with a pair of binoculars, no hiding places. This apartment was on the third floor; a man couldn’t see into it clearly from ground level even if he had a place to hide. And if he’d tried to climb one of the trees, somebody would have seen him; Riverside Drive and the park were crawling with people, with police officers.

Any location beyond the park was too great a distance for binoculars, even the high-powered variety, to be of much use. And there weren’t any vantage points out there, either. Just the West Side Highway and the river and then the high-rise apartment buildings on the Jersey shore …

Those buildings
, he thought suddenly.
Those high-rise buildings?

But they were more than two miles distant; nobody in an apartment over there could see this far away. Not with binoculars, not with anything short of——

The Eye.

A telescope?

A goddamn
telescope?

Oxman spun away from the window. It was a wild idea, it was grasping at straws—and yet it was possible, it explained how the psycho could have known about the sex with Jennifer, how he’d recognized Ullman as an impostor, why he felt so bloody sure of himself. It put the whole pattern together. It explained everything.

Ullman was staring at him again. “Ox, what is it?”

He shook his head at her. Which building? Which apartment out of hundreds? It would take too long to bring the Jersey cops into it, to start a building by building canvass; and if the perp
was
over there, that sort of search was liable to alert him so that they’d never find the Eye or him. But there was another way to check out those buildings. A way to do the checking from this side that might, just might, pinpoint the location of a telescope.

Oxman ran to the telephone, hauled it on its long cord to the kitchen door, out of sight of the windows, and put in an urgent call to the Two-four.

1:30 P.M. — ART TOBIN

Willie Lorsec didn’t live in the rooming house at 1107.

Lorsec’s name wasn’t on any of the mailboxes and when Tobin talked to the landlady she verified the fact that he wasn’t one of her lodgers. She had never heard of him. Neither had two other residents of the building Tobin spoke to.

Back out on the sidewalk, Tobin wondered if Elliot Leroy had misheard the address Lorsec gave him, or copied down the wrong number. But that wasn’t likely; Elliot Leroy was too thorough and too careful to make that kind of mistake. Which meant that Lorsec had given a false address. Not that that necessarily meant anything. False addresses were an everyday fact of life for certain types of people in the city, and so was sidestepping unpleasant visits from the police.

Still, it made Tobin want all the more to talk to Willie Lorsec.

He checked the mailboxes in all of the other buildings on the block. None of the names was Willie Lorsec. He went back across the avenue and canvassed the mailboxes there. No Lorsec. He talked to half a dozen residents at random; some of them had seen Lorsec in the neighborhood, some of them had spoken to him, but none of them knew where he lived. Tobin cursed silently when he had finished. He was growing weary of this bullshit.

On West End Avenue, he found a public phone that hadn’t yet been vandalized and called the precinct. Lieutenant Manders wasn’t in. Tobin relayed what he had to one of the other detectives on duty, Birnbaum, and asked him to run a routine background check on Willie Lorsec, junk dealer. Then he dialed the number of Jennifer Crane’s apartment, but the line was busy. He debated going up there, decided not to waste the time. He could check in with Elliot Leroy later.

He sighed and went to continue his search.

3:45 P.M. — E.L. OXMAN

“Telescope?” Manders said. “Jesus Christ, Ox, is that what this is all about?”

He had just come into the Harbor Squad offices at Battery Basin, where Oxman was waiting with Deputy Inspector Hoffman of the Marine Division and Lieutenant Jack Roberts from the Police Photo Lab. Manders looked rumpled, like a man who had just been mauled by a pack of wolves; he had spent most of the afternoon in conference with the commissioner and sundry other police brass. Oxman hadn’t been able to get in touch with him as a result, so he had gotten his authorization from Captain Burnham. Manders had received the message to come here, but he hadn’t been told the details. Few people had been told; the operation was being kept under tight wraps so the media wouldn’t get wind of it.

Oxman said, “It may be a pipe dream, Lieutenant, but it all adds up. It’s the only possibility we’ve got that does add up.”

“Spell it out for me.”

Oxman did that. When he finished Manders was gnawing at his lower lip, his sad eyes thoughtful; he seemed torn between skepticism and hope. “Maybe,” he said, “just maybe. But how the hell do we check out all those buildings on the Jersey shore? There must be a few thousand apartments over there.”

“That’s where I come in,” Roberts said. “We’re going to photograph them.”

“Photograph?”

“Each building, using cameras with powerful telephoto lenses. One series of photographs from a patrol boat on the river; one series from a helicopter. Then we’ll do blowups.”

“So that’s what’s going on here.”

“Right. If there is a telescope, it has to be set up in a window or on a balcony. The men in the chopper, including one of my photogs, should be able to catch it on film or maybe even spot it.”

“If they can spot it, why bother with the photographs?” Manders asked.

“We need to pinpoint the exact location of the apartment,” Oxman said. “And we’ve got to be damned careful with that chopper. The psycho’s smart and he’s cunning. If he sees a helicopter hovering outside his building, all he has to do is turn that Eye of his on it and he’d see what was up; he’d be long gone before the Jersey cops could get to him. We can’t risk more than one pass with the chopper.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.” Manders turned to Deputy Inspector Hoffman. “Have the Jersey State Police been alerted, sir?”

“They have,” Hoffman told him. “They’re standing by.”

“When does the chopper go up?”

“We’ve got one ready to go right now. It’ll be in radio contact with the patrol boat.”

“I’d like to go along,” Manders said in dour tones, “but I’ve got to meet with the deputy mayor for a press conference at five o’clock.” He tugged at an earlobe, glancing at Oxman. “Wouldn’t it be better if you were in the chopper, Ox?”

“The psycho knows me,” Oxman answered. “Me being in that helicopter is another risk we can’t afford to take.”

Manders nodded. “You ready, then?”

“Boat’s waiting,” Hoffman said.

They went out and down the ramp to where the sleek, black-hulled police boat sat in the still water of the Basin. Manders squinted at the windowed pilothouse and asked Hoffman, “How does Ox keep out of sight? The psycho could see into this boat with a telescope just as easily as into the chopper.”

“Not with the curtains drawn,” Hoffman said.

Manders and the deputy inspector wished them luck, and Oxman and Roberts boarded and entered the pilothouse. The skipper’s name was Calder; they shook hands with him. Roberts unlimbered his photography gear and began setting up. Two minutes later, the patrol boat had backed out of its berth and they were chugging out of the Basin, into the sun-struck waters of the Hudson.

Oxman stared out through the windshield at the twin towers of the World Trade Center looming ahead. He was thinking that if he wasn’t right about this, the ball would be back in the psycho’s court. And more people were liable to die.

4:30 P.M. — ART TOBIN

Was everybody hiding from him?

The thought was in Tobin’s mind as he walked toward the pay phone on West End Avenue. Willie Lorsec seemed to have disappeared, maybe deliberately so he wouldn’t have to submit to police questioning. It wasn’t unusual for a junk dealer like Lorsec to have no permanent address; it could be he was making his home in the subways or parks or Grand Central Station or in the virtually dozens of other Manhattan haunts frequented by the dispossessed. Still, it irked Tobin that he hadn’t been able to find him. Even if Lorsec was clean, Tobin intended to roust him a little, put the fear of God into him, when he finally turned him up.

But right now Tobin had temporarily given up on Lorsec and was wondering where Elliot Leroy was. He’d checked at Jennifer Crane’s apartment, and Carla Ullman, still on duty there, had told him Oxman had left three hours ago; Elliot Leroy had come up with some kind of hunch, she said, called the Two-four privately, and then had split without telling her what was going on.

So what was the hunch? Tobin wondered. It wasn’t like Elliot Leroy to go traipsing off on his own like that, without leaving a message for his partner. Oxman was getting difficult in his advancing years; Tobin would point that out the next time he saw him.

He crossed the street, jaywalking, went to the telephone kiosk, and dialed the precinct. The desk sergeant, Drake, didn’t know where Oxman was; no one did, he said. Tobin asked for Lieutenant Smiley, but Manders, too, had disappeared.

“Where
is
everybody?” Tobin asked rhetorically.

“You got me,” Drake said.

“Why didn’t Oxman or Manders leave a number where they could be reached?”

“Maybe they’re not near a phone,” Drake suggested. “Maybe they’re in transit.”

“Transit, my ass. If either of them checks in, tell him I called.”

“Sure, Artie. You want to leave a number where
you
can be reached?”

“No,” Tobin said. “Let them look for me for a while.”

An elderly, scowling woman had come behind him and was now glaring impatiently at Tobin. Her pushiness aggravated him; he decided she could damn well wait to use the phone. He pretended to make another brief call.

“I was talking to my stockbroker,” he said when he finally hung up and gave the woman a nasty smile. “The rich are jumping out of high windows all over Manhattan. The market is collapsing.”

“So’s my arches collapsing,” the woman said. “You took long enough on the phone. Ain’t you got no consideration?”

Fuck you, lady
, Tobin thought and walked away as she lurched for the phone. He was hot. He was irritated. This city and the people in it were a pain in the ass. He’d get out someday; he swore he would.

Where the hell was Elliot Leroy?

4:45 P.M. — E.L. OXMAN

In the cramped pilothouse of the Marine Division patrol boat, Oxman tried to ignore the suggestion of discomfort in his stomach as he listened to the choppy river waves slap at the hull. The small boat rolled and pitched more than he’d imagined it would in weather like this.

With the pilothouse curtains drawn, his only view was out through the tinted windscreen; about all he could see was the hazy sky scratched by a few high wispy clouds. Calder, the boat’s skipper, a weathered near-midget, expertly played the wheel and spoke only when necessary. Which suited Oxman. The last thing he wanted right now was small talk.

“Approaching Seventy-ninth Street,” Calder said without turning his head. He was hunched forward, peering at the Hudson’s shifting waters and the sparse river traffic.

Oxman didn’t say anything. It was Roberts, extending the aluminum legs of his camera tripod, who answered. “Okay. I’m almost ready.”

Oxman watched the wiry, square-featured photographer set up his Nikon on the tripod and affix to it a long telephoto lens equipped with a small supporting arm. “You going to be able to do this, Jack?” he asked. “Those buildings on the palisades are still pretty far away.” The damned things were like mountains, Oxman thought; you had to be almost on them before they became larger to the eye and seemed closer.

Roberts smiled a professional’s tolerant smile. “This is a two-hundred millimeter lens,” he said. “I could use one more powerful, but the boat isn’t the steadiest platform, and a three- or four-hundred millimeter lens would necessitate a slower shutter speed and we’d get some blur. This was there won’t be much depth of field, but we’ll have sharp definition when we make our blowups.”

“Fine,” Oxman said. He didn’t really grasp the technicalities; all he was interested in was a resolution to this case. He wanted the psycho nailed as much as he’d ever wanted anything, and he would have to depend on Roberts’ know-how without really understanding it.

The marine radio buzzed and a metallic voice sputtered something Oxman couldn’t understand. Then Calder’s gnarled hand was offering the microphone to him. “It’s the chopper,” he said. “Pilot’s name is Niebauer.”

Oxman accepted the microphone, bracing himself against the boat’s motion. He depressed the button and said, “Oxman here,” into the mike. He didn’t know the protocol of marine-air radio and he decided to play it straight without the NYPD code numbers.

When he let up on the button he could hear from the radio’s speaker the pulsing beat of the helicopter’s rotors. “We’re approaching the river now,” Niebauer said, his voice breaking up with the throb of the blades. “We’ll be passing over you in about a minute at five hundred feet. Any other instructions? Over.”

Oxman could hear the faint pulse of the rotors approaching outside now, not over the radio. He jabbed the transmit button. “No other instructions,” he said. “Just let us know if you spot anything. Over.”

“Will do. Over and out.”

Oxman handed the microphone back. Calder took it, saying, “We’re abreast of the Boat Basin now.”