God Told Me To Read online

  A busy street. A young sniper wantonly slaughters fourteen people and then quietly walks to his own death . . .

  In a neighborhood supermarket a mild-mannered mechanic picks up a knife and begins randomly slaying defenseless customers . . .

  In a quiet, comfortable apartment, a happily married man calmly murders his wife and two children . . .

  The crimes have no motives. The killers have no connection. But in each case their explanation is the same:

  Only Lt. Detective Peter Nicholas has reason to think differently—and it’s the most terrifying reason of all . . .

  THE ROAD TO HELL IS

  PAVED WITH . . . MURDER

  Lt. Detective Peter Nicholas is deeply religious and a damn good cop. But he’s different from the others on the force and he knows it, just as he knows he’s finding out things about the wave of bizarre slaughters too easily . . . as if pieces of information are being left specifically to lead him on . . . as if whoever or whatever is turning ordinary people into heinous killers is waiting for him . . .

  But Lt. Detective Peter Nicholas doesn’t know that he’s headed for a confrontation preordained from beyond . . . a confrontation dedicated to the darkest evil ever conceived by man—or ever challenged by God . . .

  GOD TOLD ME TO

  Starring

  TONY LoBIANCO • SANDY DENNIS

  SYLVIA SIDNEY • SAM LEVENE

  ROBERT DRIVAS • MIKE KELLIN

  RICHARD LYNCH

  Guest Star DEBORAH RAFFIN

  Music by FRANK CORDELL

  Written, Produced and Directed by

  LARRY COHEN

  A LARCO PRODUCTION

  A LARRY COHEN FILM

  A NEW WORLD PICTURES RELEASE

  Copyright © 1976 by Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Canada.

  ISBN 0-345-25213-6

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition: December 1976

  And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.

  Ezekiel 6:16

  ONE

  A fine spring day. The sort of day that makes New Yorkers forget the ills of their city and fall in love with it once again. Clear, not so warm as to be uncomfortable, with a light breeze that swept the air clean.

  No one noticed the young man who emerged that afternoon from the Fifty-seventh Street crosstown bus at the Madison Avenue stop. There was no reason to notice him. He had the perfectly normal appearance of a youth in his late teens. His hair was the fashionable length for his age, his casual clothing was not out of the ordinary. He carried an oblong package of medium size, but in this neighborhood of exclusive shops, a youth carrying a package is hardly an unfamiliar sight.

  He stood at the corner and waited patiently until the traffic cop gave him and his fellow pedestrians the signal to cross. Fifty-seventh is one of the wider streets in Manhattan. He crossed it at the same slightly rapid pace as those around him.

  He walked two blocks up Madison Avenue, going north with the cars that clog this one-way avenue during the business hours on weekdays. He passed a number of banks, specialty shops, an art gallery. The sidewalk was crowded. When he accidentally bumped an elderly woman with his package, he took a moment to apologize. He paused a moment in front of the Georg Jensen window. He considered going inside and buying something to send to his mother. He realized there wasn’t time and walked a bit farther.

  He entered a building and he took the elevator to the top floor. He walked along the corridor until he found the stairwell which led to the roof.

  He looked about the roof. He spotted the water tower and thought it would make a fine vantage.

  Before climbing the tower, he broke open his package. It contained a rifle disassembled into two pieces. Attached to the barrel was a telescopic sight. He quickly put together the two pieces. He took bullets from his pocket and loaded. He hooked a strap to the barrel and the stock, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and climbed the tower.

  The sloping roof of the tower was not suitable. He crawled along the edge of the circular roof until he was opposite the ladder, and was able to reach out and touch the adjoining building. Though he was more than forty stories above the ground, the adjoining building rose higher. He looked down and saw that if he lowered himself onto one of the supporting abutments of the tower he would be in a good place. It would offer a clear view of the avenue, while both the adjoining building and the tower itself would offer protection.

  After making himself comfortable as possible in his position, he took the rifle from his shoulder. He sighted through the scope, twisted a focus knob, sighted again. Even through the scope the people below looked very small. He’d had the rifle only a short while and did not consider himself a good shot. He aimed at one of the tiny, distant figures and slowly squeezed the trigger.

  Within minutes he had killed seventeen people.

  Detective Lieutenant Peter Nicholas didn’t like watching himself on television. He was a highly decorated officer. His achievements occasionally forced him to face the cameras, and the few times he had watched himself on videotape he was embarrassed. When he came home from work this evening and Casey had told him that all the early news broadcasts had run features on him, Nicholas responded with, “Thank God I missed seeing them.”

  Casey kissed him then, and said, “Thank God you’re alive.”

  She had questions written all over her face, concerned and worried questions which Nicholas knew no broadcast could have answered, but he had not wanted to discuss the matter. He smiled at her, held her at arm’s distance, and tried for a lightness of tone as he said, “And to whom is my little atheist giving thanks for my life?”

  They had lived together long enough for each to recognize the other’s moods. She, too, attempted a light tone.

  “If you don’t feel like talking, Peter, we won’t talk. I’ll simply trot to the refrigerator and gather a beer for my lord and master.”

  She turned from him and as she started away, Nicholas gave her round, firm fanny an affectionate slap. He watched while she opened the refrigerator and bent over to reach for his beer. Her blond hair fell over her face, which when not lined with questions was smooth and delicate and youthful. Her slender body was in her favorite outfit, snug, faded blue jeans and T-shirt. Her breasts were not large but when she bent over she caused them to move with a sensuous rhythm against the fabric of her shirt. Nicholas felt the stirrings of sex. She was barefoot and Nicholas did not think how the soles of her feet must be black from walking their uncarpeted floor. Instead, he chose to think—probably wrongly, but it was nice to think—that the draft from the refrigerator was causing her nipples to rise and harden as they did when she and he made love.

  Nicholas went to the closet of their small apartment and hung up his jacket. He removed the holstered .38-caliber police special the department said he must carry twenty-four-hours a day and placed it on top of a bureau. Also on the bureau was a bronze incense burner shaped like a many-armed oriental goddess. Casey had brought this icon home the day after Nicholas tacked a small crucifix to the wall.

  He kicked off the heavy black thick-soled shoes worn by men in his profession, and he snapped of the single lamp that illuminated the room. The fading gray of twilight seeped through the windows and gave the room the color of fog and shadow. Nicholas made the room darker by adjusting the curtains.

  When Casey came to him with the beer, he took
the can and set it on the bureau. He pulled her into his arms and led her to their bed. She made a feeble protest, something about having to start a roast for dinner, but he pushed up her T-shirt and put his mouth to her breast.

  She was surprised by the force with which he took her. He wasn’t usually this passionate. Peter’s love-making was normally more tender and gentle and often there was a certain hesitancy in his touch. At times she had wanted more intensity from him, times when he caressed her as if she were a fragile, breakable doll instead of a woman. Now she felt his weight, his body moving against her with assurance, then he was moving inside her, a strong and quickening rhythm, and he kept his hands and mouth busy and she heard a sharp pleasureful sound escape her throat.

  The room was quite dark when they finished.

  After a moment Casey half sighed, half whispered, “That was nice.”

  She reached over to the nightstand near their bed and found a cigarette and matches. In the orange and yellow flicker of her match Nicholas saw her expression of peace and satisfaction.

  Suddenly, and with no apparent reason—the evening was warm—a shiver ran through Nicholas.

  Casey felt his trembling and said, “Don’t worry.”

  Her voice sounded distant, seemed to come from another room, and he reached for her hand.

  “Don’t worry, Peter. It’s the wrong time of month. My not using the diaphragm won’t make any difference.”

  She had misinterpreted his chill, though the possibility of her becoming pregnant always worried him.

  He squeezed her hand and tried for an explanation. “Must have been a draft.” And as he spoke, a wind chime that Casey had hung above their bed began to tinkle like a merry metallic laugh.

  Casey got up to go to the bathroom. When she left their bed, Nicholas, without realizing or even thinking about what he was doing, reached out and picked up the remote control of the TV set from the nightstand. He switched on a mid-evening newscast. And for the next three hours he stared at the television, switching from channel to channel, news show to news show.

  The first image he saw was that of Deputy Commissioner Hendriks:

  “. . . approximately 2:14 today a sniper utilizing a telescopic rifle opened fire on pedestrians on Madison Avenue between Fifty-seventh and Fifty-ninth Streets. His first victim, Alfred P. Majors of Kew Gardens, was killed instantly when a .22-caliber bullet passed through his temple. Fourteen other citizens were mortally wounded, including Officer Frances Donnelly, on traffic duty at Fifty-seventh and Madison. Names of the other victims are being withheld pending notification of their families. Due to the tie-up of traffic, police found it impossible to reach the homicides and emergency vehicles were unable to get through . . .”

  Nicholas paid little attention to Casey when she returned from the bathroom. She handed him the beer she had opened earlier. It was warm and flat but he shrugged off her offer to get him a fresh one.

  He switched to another channel.

  A woman, a plain middle-aged housewife, was making a statement from the porch of a suburban home. She was struggling without success to control herself, and near the end of her statement she collapsed against a man who came onto the screen and gestured angrily at the camera. Nicholas immediately realized that the woman was the sniper’s mother, around whom the newsmen had cruelly swarmed.

  He said to the TV, “Bastards.”

  “. . . I don’t believe my son had anything to do with this. He was a very good student. He was devoted to his entire family. I knew he sent away for a rifle but he was no good with it. Below average. I heard friends of his tease him about his poor shooting. He couldn’t possibly have killed all those people from that distance. There must’ve been a number of snipers on those roofs firing and the police are covering up . . .”

  Nicholas snapped the remote control. He felt pity for the poor woman. He could imagine her pain and confusion, but it wasn’t right for her to talk about covering up. Her son had shot seventeen people. She must accept that.

  He continued to snap the control until the dial returned to her.

  “. . . my son. That’s who they’re blaming it all on. Why? Why would he do such a thing? Why would anybody? Why did my boy have to die? Ask that cop. Nickerson, Nicholas? Ask him! My boy is de—go ask that cop!”

  Nicholas’s voice was hollow and dry. “The kid was alone. I had nothing to do with his death. Nothing.”

  He faintly heard Casey say, “I know that, Peter.”

  He lost count of the beers he drank. Casey kept bringing him fresh ones. He swallowed them without tasting any flavor. At some point Casey insisted he come to the dinner table. He positioned the television so he could continue watching while he picked at his food.

  It was strange. Like seeing a movie he was a part of, as if a chunk of his life had been torn from him, cut and edited onto little strips of film, with the different scenes played and replayed in random order. His memories, his personal thoughts and feelings would also sometimes seem to focus on the screen. The TV was an old set—it had belonged to Casey before she and Nicholas began living together—and its tubes were weak. At times its black-and-white picture would blur, then streak into a stark contrast that clashed with the colors of his memory.

  The first picture he saw of himself was a still photograph which the department must have released to the media. The photo was at least five years old, taken when he was still in his twenties. His dark hair was shorter then, his eyebrows not quite so thick, his cheeks thinner. There was a quality about the photo he didn’t like. The photographer had given him an almost fragile appearance; one that no way looked like a cop’s face.

  He could bear listening to the voice-over for only a moment.

  “. . . Detective Lieutenant Peter Nicholas became the hero of the day when he courageously climbed the water tower of the besieged Haskell Publications Building and engaged the suspect in conver—”

  Then Hendriks was on the screen again.

  The Deputy Commissioner was more politician than cop, more used to facing a camera than to chasing a thief down a dark alley. He spoke as if he might have been delivering a luncheon address. He had one of those long lean faces quick to smile in public, but the lines that ran down from his mouth were tightly constricted and resembled knotted threads. In public he always used the long convoluted sentences of the professional, and after uttering one or two his tongue would dart out like a little serpent to circle his thin lips.

  “. . . At 2:24 P.M. the Police Helicopter Patrol, which had been alerted, pinpointed the sniper’s position as being perched between the water tower of the Haskell Publications Building at 6077 Madison and the overhanging wall of the building adjacent to Haskell’s. The sniper was thus protected by both wall and the tower, thereby making it impossible for any action to be taken by our choppers. We then realized that we would have to send a man up on the water tower to apprehend the sniper who still appeared to have a great deal of ammunition.”

  At first Nicholas didn’t recognize the picture of himself that filled the screen next. It had been taken even earlier than the previous photo, back when he was still in uniform. He looked like a kid. A wide-grinning, big-eyed kid. He was holding his cap in front of his chest, and the two things that stood out in the photo were his pure white gloves and round eyes. Eyes, he thought, that hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t yet experienced. He realized this was the picture snapped the day he graduated from the Police Academy. A picture which had been left behind when he had split up with his wife.

  He mumbled aloud, “My God, are they going to go out to the orphanage and dig up a baby picture.”

  He changed channels.

  Captain St. Clair appeared. Nicholas considered the captain one of the best men on the force. Always calm, never blew his cool, but reacted quickly and properly to any emergency. He backed his men all the way and never grabbed any credit from them. A solid cop. Unfortunately he tended to become awkward when he stood before the public.

  St. Clair n
ervously tugged an ear lobe. A slight stammer was in his voice.

  “. . . uh—don’t know why Nicholas volunteered. He’s always doing something . . . something like that. Uh, he maybe thinks he lives a charmed life. On the force oh just about, uh, sixteen years. Never been wounded. Don’t know how many citations and not even a scratch. That’s a record. Some sort of a record so he I guess thought he was least likely to take one—uh, get hurt. If it was me in his shoes, well I’d have to figure it about time my number came up.”

  Nicholas remembered what he had thought about while he climbed the rusty ladder to the water tower. Nothing at all about a number coming up. His first few steps he silently berated himself, I’m a lieutenant who’s supposed to supervise these operations—someday I’ll learn to follow procedure.

  The rungs of the tower ladder were badly corroded. Flecks of rust came loose under his touch. The wind was strong at this high altitude. It blew steadily but at varying speed, gusting between the surrounding buildings like the drafts in a canyon. Bits of rust whirled into his face. He squinted his eyes to narrow slits. A metal eave ran around the top of the tower. Nicholas remembered the wind whistling a shrill, almost siren sound along the eave. He was listening for shots. Or any other sound that would alert him to the sniper’s exact position. He heard a roaring. The police helicopter was circling near. It had been Nicholas’s hope to talk the sniper into surrendering and his first worry was that the copter was too close, that it might send the sniper into a dangerous panic. Then Nicholas began to worry about the copter getting caught in the wind. A strong gust could swoop up the light machine and toss it into a crashing spin. The pilot had no business flying at such a dangerously low altitude. Not for a moment did Nicholas worry about himself.

  He switched channels.

  A replay of the interview with the sniper’s mother. He didn’t want to hear her cover-up accusation again. He snapped the sound switch on the remote control and watched the silent film. Near the end, when the man again came on screen and gestured angrily at the camera, Nicholas wondered who he was. The father? A family friend? Did it matter?