Fear the Night Read Free

cigars.”
    “I allow myself one every few days. The doctors said it’s okay as long as I don’t inhale.”
    “Sure they did.”
    “Other than that, I don’t smoke. For Lora.”
    “She make you lighten up?”
    Repetto didn’t bother to answer.
    “So it’s true what they say about life after you retire and you’re home with the wife.”
    “What do they say?”
    “She takes over the company.”
    “Yeah, that’s true. She’s been a cop’s wife over twenty years, Lou. If she doesn’t want me to smell up the house with cigar smoke, I won’t. She deserves to be spoiled.”
    “She doesn’t want you dying of lung cancer.”
    “That, too.”
    Melbourne focused his flesh-padded gray eyes on Repetto. “How’d you and Lora manage it, staying married all this time, you doing the kinda work we do?”
    Repetto had to give it some thought. “I don’t know for sure. Maybe somewhere along the line we learned how to stay out of each other’s way.”
    “That’s an unsatisfactory answer,” Melbourne said with a touch of bitterness. Twice-divorced Melbourne.
    “Lora’s at a meeting with a client,” Repetto said. “You wanna come back to my den and we can smoke some cigars?”
    Melbourne cocked his head to the side. “You won’t get in any trouble?”
    Repetto laughed and stood up. “I haven’t had a smoke in two days. Haul your ass outta that sofa and come with me.” He didn’t tell Melbourne the den was the only place he smoked in the house, and he had to make sure there was plenty of ventilation.
    Repetto’s den was large, carpeted in deep red with thick red drapes, a quiet room, considering it was at street level. There were commendations on the walls, a mounted trout Repetto had caught in Vermont, and several signed and framed publicity photos of Broadway stars.
    Repetto walked over to his desk and opened a small mahogany humidor near the green-shaded lamp. He gave Melbourne a Venezuelan cigar and a cutter, then chose a domestic brand for himself. Before lighting the cigar, he went over and opened a window, letting in some dampness and cool night air. Within a few seconds he could feel cross ventilation from the already cracked window on the adjacent wall stir the hairs on his bare forearms.
    When he returned to sit in his black leather desk chair, Melbourne had already seated himself in one of the upholstered chairs angled toward the desk and lighted his cigar.
    Repetto settled down behind his oversize cherry-wood desk. “You mentioned you were on duty.”
    “Sort of. Here to ask you about something.”
    Repetto smiled. “Am I a suspect?”
    “I don’t believe you lead an exciting enough life now to get in any trouble.” Melbourne puffed on his cigar. “This is great. Cuban?”
    “Aren’t those illegal?”
    “A rhetorical question, I’m sure.” Melbourne might have winked. He knew Repetto favored and could obtain Cuban cigars. He took another draw and seemed to roll the smoke around in his mouth before exhaling. “What exactly do you do these days?”
    “Lora and I go to the theater, dine out with friends, plan on doing some traveling. Things we never had time to do when I was on the job.”
    “Sounds nice, actually. You always had it good for a cop.”
    Repetto was getting the idea Melbourne was hesitant to bring up whatever he’d come to discuss. “Get to it, Lou.”
    “I’m asking you back to the NYPD, or at least to work for us.”
    Repetto didn’t hesitate. “Nope. Lora wouldn’t stand for it.”
    “You’d please her before me?”
    “I don’t sleep with you.”
    “You wanna hear the deal?”
    “No.”
    “Okay, here it is. Last night a guy named Martin Akim was shot to death outside his shop in the theater district.”
    “Marty Akim? Watches?”
    “The very Marty.”
    “Holdup?”
    “No. Shot from a distance. Relatively small-caliber bullet, misshapen by bone and the wall it hit after tumbling through Akim. People heard the shot, but the way sound echoes around all