Bogus Bravest sex attack suspect Peter Braunstein is fiendishly playing a “cat-and-mouse game” with police, who fear he may lash out and assault another woman, sources said yesterday.
“We think he’s enjoying this,” one police source said nearly a week into a massive city manhunt for the super-smart but allegedly sicko journalist. “He likes the control. It’s like a cat-and-mouse game for him.”
Grim-faced sources added that they believe the twisted suspect – a former Women’s Wear Daily columnist who was last seen checking out of a Midtown budget hotel – is still lurking in the city.
Security has been tightened at Fairchild Publications’ West 34th Street offices, which also house Details, Jane, W, Brides and a half-dozen other popular magazines.
Guards milled among staffers, at times stationing themselves outside the women’s bathrooms.
Employees admitted that they have been afraid to answer their phones – and some have even taken to bunking with pals.
“I suppose it’s bad to play into the fear – it’s probably exactly what Peter wants – but he is so crazy you can’t help but be frightened,” one worker said.
Police said they are particularly worried about a former lover whom he still viciously blames for helping to get him convicted of a menacing rap in 2002.
The woman is in hiding outside the city at a safe location, police said.
But there are no assurances that the publicity-mad writer won’t launch a random attack on the street if he gets desperate enough – or simply craves more attention, sources said.
Teams of cops yesterday descended on everywhere from Times Square to the Port Authority and area airports to try to hunt him down.
Authorities said one advantage that the brilliant Braunstein may have is that several years ago, he began surreptitiously videotaping how police officers amassed at public demonstrations and then scrutinized their operations.
One of the sites he focused on may have been at the United Nations, they said.
While sources said it’s not clear what prompted the sex-attack suspect to launch the tapings, it’s obvious how valuable they may have become to him to now elude detectives – and possibly ultimately prepare for his standoff with cops once they catch up to him.
Braunstein, 41, is suspected in the twisted sex attack on a female fashion-industry worker in Chelsea on Halloween.
Cops believe that in the meticulously planned attack, the perp posed as a fireman and set blazes in the woman’s apartment building to eventually slip into her pad and then molest her.
But it is still unclear why the woman was chosen as a victim, sources said.
She is now living with a friend in the city, one neighborhood source said.
She will never return to the apartment, the source said, adding she has a new job and may be shortly leaving the country on assignment for a month.
Cops said they believe Braunstein has plenty of cash on him to survive for a while.
The manager of the Super 8 hotel on West 46th Street – where cops say Braunstein fled to after the alleged attack – told The Post that the jittery journalist paid in cash for a $129 room with a queen-size bed.
Manager V.S. Rajam said the suspected perp checked into the hotel at 11:30 a.m. last Tuesday and checked out at 1:30 p.m. the next day.
He flashed his U.S. passport – which cops said he got only days before the assault – as identification, Rajam said.
The suspect was seen entering the hotel sporting a beige leather jacket and carrying an oversized duffel bag.
He kept looking over his shoulder – and nervously checking the lobby TV – as the clerk checked him in, Rajam said, based on security video footage of the hotel.
“He was in a real hurry” to get upstairs, one worker said.
He only briefly left the hotel twice, made no phone calls from it and had no visitors, Rajam said.
He also left his room impeccably clean, the manager said.
Braunstein’s dad, Alberto, said yesterday he was worried for his son.
“I don’t want this to have a tragic ending,” he said.
But he said it may be a while before anyone catches him.
“He’s a nonconformist, he’s extremely clever, has a great imagination and can survive even with no money,” the dad said.
Additional reporting by Jeane MacIntosh, Marianne Garvey, Brad Hamilton and Dan Kadison
murray.weiss@nypost.com