The Twelfth Card

by Jeffery Deaver

  Of course, he had people in his life now, not like a few years ago. His suicide would be devastating to Sachs, yes, but death had always been an aspect of their love. With cop blood in her veins, she was often first through the door in a suspect takedown, even though she didn't need to be. She'd been decorated for her courage in firefights, and she drove like hot lightning--some would even say she herself had a suicidal streak within her.

  In Rhyme's case, when they'd met--on a hard, hard case, a crucible of violence and death some years ago--he'd been very close to killing himself. Sachs understood this about him.

  Thom too accepted it. (Rhyme had told the aide at the first interview, "I might not be around too much longer. Be sure to cash your paycheck as soon as you get it.")

  Still, he hated the thought of what his death would do to them, and the other people he knew. Not to mention the fact that crimes would go unsolved, victims would die, if he wasn't on earth to practice the craft that was the essential part of his soul.

  This was why he'd been putting off the test. If he'd had no improvement it could be enough to push him over the edge.

  Yes . . .

  The card often foretells a surrendering to experience, ending a struggle, accepting what is.

  . . . or no?

  When this card appears in your reading you must listen to your inner self.

  And it was at this moment that Lincoln Rhyme made his decision: He would give up. He'd stop the exercises, would stop considering the spinal cord operation.

  After all, if you don't have hope, then hope can't be destroyed. He'd made a good life for himself. His existence wasn't perfect but it was tolerable. Lincoln Rhyme would accept his course, and he'd be content to be what Charles Singleton had rejected: a partial man, a three-fifths man.

  Content, more or less.

  Using his left ring finger, Rhyme turned his wheelchair around and drove back toward the bedroom just in time to meet Thom at the doorway.

  "You ready for bed?" the aide asked.

  "As a matter of fact," Rhyme said cheerfully, "I am."

  III

  GALLOWS HEIGHTS

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10

  Chapter Twenty

  At 8 A.M. Thompson Boyd retrieved his car from the alley garage near the bungalow in Astoria where he'd parked it yesterday after escaping from the Elizabeth Street safe house. He pulled the blue Buick into congested traffic, headed for the Queensborough Bridge and, once in Manhattan, made his way Uptown.

  Recalling the address from the message on the voice mail, he drove into western Harlem and parked two blocks away from the Settles' town house. He was armed with his .22 North American Arms pistol and his club and carting the shopping bag, which contained no decorating books today; inside was the device he'd made last night and he treated it very gingerly as he moved slowly down the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street casually several times, seeing people presumably headed for work, an equal mix of blacks and whites, many in business suits, on their way to work, and students heading to Columbia--bikes, backpacks, beards . . . . But he saw nothing threatening.

  Thompson Boyd paused by the curb and studied the building the girl lived in.

  There was a Crown Vic, parked several doors away from the apartment--smart of them not to flag it. Around the corner was a second unmarked car near a hydrant. Thompson thought he saw some motion on the apartment roof. Sniper? he wondered. Maybe not, but somebody was definitely there, undoubtedly a cop. They were taking this case real serious.

  Average Joe turned around and walked back to his average car, climbed in and started the engine. He'd have to be patient. It was too risky for an attempt here; he'd have to wait for the right opportunity. Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" started to play on the radio. He shut it off but continued to whistle the tune to himself, never missing a single note, never a fraction of a tone off pitch.

  *

  Her great-aunt had found something.

  In Geneva's apartment Roland Bell got a call from Lincoln Rhyme, who reported that Geneva's father's aunt, Lilly Hall, had found some boxes of old letters and souvenirs and artifacts in the storage space of the building where she was staying. She didn't know if there was anything helpful--her eyes were hopeless--but the cartons were chockablock with papers. Did Geneva and the police want to look through them?

  Rhyme had wanted to have everything picked up but the aunt said, no, she'd only give it to her great-niece in person. She didn't trust anyone else.

  "Police included?" Bell had asked Rhyme, who'd answered, "Police especially."

  Amelia Sachs had then broken into the conversation to offer what Bell realized was the real explanation: "I think she wants to see her niece."

  "Ah, yes'm. Got it."

  Not surprisingly Geneva was more than eager to go. Roland Bell truly preferred guarding nervous people, people who didn't want to set foot on the concrete of New York City sidewalks, who liked to curl up with computer games and long books. Put them in an interior room, no windows, no visitors, no roof access and order out Chinese or pizza every day.

  But Geneva Settle was unlike anybody he'd ever guarded.

  Mr. Goades, please . . . . I was a witness to a crime, and I'm being held by the police. It's against my will and--

  The detective arranged for two cars for security. There'd be Bell, Geneva and Pulaski in his Crown Vic. Luis Martinez and Barbe Lynch would be in their Chevy. A uniformed officer in another blue-and-white would remain parked near the Settles' apartment while they were gone.

  As he waited for the second squad car to show up, Bell asked if there'd been any more word from her parents. She said that they were at Heathrow now, awaiting the next flight.

  Bell, a father of two boys, had some opinions about parents who left their daughter in the care of an uncle while they traipsed off to Europe. (This uncle in particular. No lunch money for the girl? That was a tough row.) Even though Bell was a single father with a demanding job, he still made his boys breakfast in the morning, packed them lunch and made supper most nights, however lame and starchy the meals might be ("Atkins" was not a word to be found in the Roland Bell encyclopedia of cuisine).

  But his job was to keep Geneva Settle alive, not comment on parents who weren't much skilled at child-rearing. He now put aside thoughts of personal matters and stepped outside, hand near his Beretta, scanning the facades and windows and rooftops of nearby buildings and cars, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  The relief squad car pulled up outside and parked, while Martinez and Lynch climbed into the Chevrolet, around the corner from Geneva's apartment.

  Into his Handi-Talkie, Bell said, "Clear. Bring her out."

  Pulaski appeared, hustling Geneva into the Crown Victoria. He jumped in beside her, and Bell took the driver's seat. In tandem, the two cars sped across town and eventually arrived at an old tenement east of Fifth Avenue, in el barrio.

  The majority of this area was Puerto Rican and Dominican, but other Latin nationalities lived here too, those from Haiti, Bolivia, Ecuador, Jamaica, Central America--both black and nonblack. There were also pockets of new immigrants, legal and otherwise, from Senegal, Liberia and the Central African nations. Most of the hate crimes here weren't white versus Hispanic or black; they were American-born versus immigrant, of whatever race or nationality. The way of the world, Bell reflected sadly.

  The detective now parked where Geneva indicated and he waited until the other officers climbed out of the squad car behind them and checked out the street. A thumbs-up from Luis Martinez and together they hustled Geneva inside.

  The building was shabby, the lobby smelling of beer and sour meat. Geneva seemed embarrassed about the condition of the place. As at the school she again suggested the detective wait outside, but it was half-hearted, as if she expected his response, "Prob'ly better I go with you."

  On the second floor she knocked and an elderly voice asked, "Who there?"

  "Geneva. I'm here to see Auntie Lilly."

&nbs
p; Two chains rattled and two deadbolts were undone. The door opened. A slight woman in a faded dress looked at Bell cautiously.

  "Morning, Mrs. Watkins," the girl said.

  "Hi, honey. She's in the living room." Another uncertain glance at the detective.

  "This's a friend of mine."

  "He yo' friend?"

  "That's right," Geneva told her.

  The woman's face suggested that she didn't approve of the girl spending time in the company of a man three times her age, even if he was a policeman.

  "Roland Bell, ma'am." He showed his ID.

  "Lilly said there was something about the police," she said uneasily. Bell continued to smile and said nothing more. The woman repeated, "Well, she's in the living room."

  Geneva's great-aunt, a frail, elderly woman in a pink dress, was staring at the television through large, thick glasses. She looked over at the girl and her face broke into a smile. "Geneva, darling. How are you? And who's this?"

  "Roland Bell, ma'am. Pleased to meet you."

  "I'm Lilly Hall. You're the one interested in Charles?"

  "That's right."

  "I wish I knew more. I told Geneva everything I know 'bout him. Got hisself that farm, then got arrested. That was all I heard. Didn't even know if he went to jail or not."

  "Looks like he did, Auntie. We don't know what happened after that. That's what we want to find out."

  On the stained floral wallpaper behind her were three photographs: Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy and the famous picture of Jackie Kennedy in mourning with young John John and Caroline beside her.

  "There's the boxes right there." The woman nodded toward three large cartons of papers and dusty books and wooden and plastic objects. They sat in front of a coffee table whose leg had been broken and duct-taped together. Geneva stooped and looked through the largest box.

  Lilly watched her. After a moment the woman said, "I feel him sometime."

  "You . . .?" Bell asked.

  "Ou' kin, Charles. I feel him. Like the other haints."

  Haint . . . Bell knew the word from North Carolina. An old black term for ghost.

  "He restless, I'm feeling," the great-aunt said.

  "I don't know about that," her grandniece said with a smile.

  No, Bell thought, Geneva hardly seemed like the sort who'd believe in ghosts or anything supernatural. The detective, though, wasn't so sure. He said, "Well, maybe what we're doing here'll bring him some rest."

  "You know," the woman said, pushing her thick glasses higher on her nose, "you that interested in Charles, there some other relations of ou's round the country. You 'member yo' father's cousin in Madison? And his wife, Ruby? I could call him an' ask. Or Genna-Louise in Memphis. Or I would, only I don't have no phone of my own." A glance at the old Princess model sitting on a TV table near the kitchen, her grim expression evidence of past disputes with the woman she was staying with. The great-aunt added, "And phone cards, they be so expensive."

  "We could call, Auntie."

  "Oh, I wouldn't mind talking to some of 'em. Been a while. Miss having family around."

  Bell dug into his jeans pocket. "Ma'am, since this is something Geneva and I're working on together, let me get you a phone card."

  "No." This was from Geneva. "I'll do it."

  "You don't--"

  "I've got it," she said firmly, and Bell put the money away. She gave the woman a twenty.

  The great-aunt looked reverently at the bill, said, "I'ma get me that card and call today."

  Geneva said, "If you find out anything, call us again at that number you called before."

  "Why's the police all interested in Charles? Man musta died a hundred years ago, at least."

  Geneva caught Bell's eye and shook her head; the woman hadn't heard that Geneva was in danger, and the niece wanted to keep it that way. Through her Coke-bottle lenses the woman didn't catch the look. Geneva said, "They're helping me prove he didn't commit that crime he was accused of."

  "Are they now? After all them years?"

  Bell wasn't sure the woman exactly believed her niece. The detective's own aunt, about this woman's age, was sharp as a needle. Nothing got by her.

  But Lilly said, "Be right nice of y'all. Bella, let's make these folk some coffee. And cocoa for Geneva. I remember that's what she likes."

  As Roland Bell looked out carefully through a space between the drawn curtains, Geneva started through the box once again.

  *

  On this Harlem street:

  Two boys tried to outdo each other at skateboarding down the tall banister of a brownstone, flaunting the laws both of gravity and of truancy.

  A black woman stood on a porch, watering some spectacular red geraniums that the recent frost hadn't killed.

  A squirrel buried, or dug up, something in the largest plot of dirt nearby: a five-by-four-foot rectangle dusted with yellow grass, in the middle of which rested the carcass of a washing machine.

  And on East 123rd Street, near the Iglesia Adventista Church, with the soaring approach to the Triborough Bridge in the background, three police officers looked diligently out over a shabby brownstone and the surrounding streets. Two--a man and a woman--were in plain clothes; the cop in the alley was in uniform. He marched up and down the alley like a recruit on guard duty.

  These observations were made by Thompson Boyd, who'd followed Geneva Settle and her guards here and was now standing in a boarded-up building across the street and several doors west. He peered through the cracks in a defaced billboard advertising home equity loans.

  Curious that they'd brought the girl out into the open. Not by the book. But that was their problem.

  Thompson considered the logistics: He assumed this was a short trip--a hit-and-run, so to speak, with the Crown Victoria and the other car double-parked and no attempt made to hide them. He decided to move fast to take advantage of the situation. Hurrying out of the ruined building, via the back door, Thompson now circled the block, pausing only long enough to buy a pack of cigarettes in a bodega. Easing into the alley behind the tenement where Geneva now was, Thompson peered out. He carefully set the shopping bag on the asphalt and moved forward a few more feet. Hiding behind a pile of garbage bags, he watched the blond officer on his patrol in the alley. The killer began counting the young man's footsteps. One, two . . .

  At thirteen the officer reached the back of the building and turned around. He was covering a lot of ground in his guard detail; he must've been told to watch the entire alleyway, both front and back, and to keep an eye on the windows in the opposite building too.

  At twelve he reached the front sidewalk and turned, started back. One, two, three . . .

  It took twelve steps again to get to the rear of the building. He glanced around then paced his way to the front, stepping thirteen times.

  The next trip was eleven steps, then twelve.

  Not clockwork, but close enough. Thompson Boyd would have at least eleven steps to slip unseen to the rear of the building, while the boy's back was turned. He'd then have another eleven until he appeared at the rear again. He pulled the ski mask over his head.

  The officer now turned and headed toward the street once more.

  In an instant Thompson was out of cover and sprinting to the back of the apartment building, counting . . . three, four, five, six . . .

  Quiet on his Bass walking shoes, Thompson kept his eyes on the boy's back. The cop didn't look around. The killer reached the wall on eight, pressed against it, catching his breath; he turned toward the alleyway where the uniformed cop would soon be appearing.

  Eleven. The cop would have just reached the street and be turning and starting back. One, two, three . . .

  Thompson Boyd, slowing his breathing.

  Six, seven . . .

  Thompson Boyd, gripping the club in both hands.

  Nine, ten, eleven . . .

  Feet scraped on the gritty cobblestones.

  Thompson stepped quickly out of the alley,
swinging the club like a baseball bat, fast as a sidewinder striking. He noted the pure shock on the boy's face. He heard the whistling of the stick and the cop's gasp, which stopped at the same moment the club struck his forehead. The boy dropped to his knees, a gurgling sound coming from his throat. The killer then clocked the man on the crown of the head.

  The officer fell face forward to the filthy ground. Thompson dragged the quivering young man, still partly conscious, around the back of the building, where they couldn't be seen from the street.

  *

  At the sound of the gunshot, Roland Bell leapt to the window of the apartment, looked out carefully. He unbuttoned his jacket and grabbed his radio.

  He ignored Aunt Lilly's wide-eyed friend, who said, "Lord, what's going on?"

  The great-aunt herself stared silently at the huge gun on the detective's hip.

  "Bell," the detective said into the microphone. "What've we got?"

  Luis Martinez replied breathlessly, "Gunshot. Came from the back of the building, boss. Pulaski was there. Barbe's gone to check."

  "Pulaski," Bell called into his radio. "Respond."

  Nothing.

  "Pulaski!"

  "What's this about?" Lilly demanded, terrified. "Lord."

  Bell held up a finger. Into his radio: "Positions. Report."

  "I'm still on the front porch," Martinez responded. "Nothing from Barbe."

  "Move to the middle of the ground-floor corridor, keep your eye on the back door. That's the way I'd come in, I was him. But cover both entrances."

  "Roger."

  Bell turned to Geneva and the two elderly women. "We're leaving. Now."

  "But--"

  "Now, miss. I'll carry you if I have to but that'll put us more at risk."

  Barbe Lynch finally transmitted. "Pulaski's down." She called in a 10-13, officer needs assistance, and requested medics.

  "Back entrance intact?" he asked.

  Lynch answered, "Door's closed and locked. That's all I can tell you."

  "Stay in position, cover the back alley. I'm taking her out.