"Go on out," Stephen said. "Tell him you'll give him something if he goes along with you. Just have him go through the trash or something across the street from the safe house, while you're watching the traffic. It'll be perfect."
Jodie looked at him. "You mean now? Just go talk to him?"
"Yeah. Now. Tell him."
"You want him to come in?"
"No, I don't want him to see me. Just go talk to him."
"Well . . . Okay." Jodie pried the front door open. "What if he stabs me or something?"
"Look at him. He's almost dead. You could beat the crap out of him with one hand."
"Looks like he has AIDS."
"Go on."
"What if he touches--"
"Go!"
Jodie took a deep breath then stepped outside. "Hey, keep it down," he said to the man. "What the hell you want?"
Stephen watched the Negro look over Jodie with his crazed eyes. "Word up you selling shit, man. I got money. I got sixty bucks. I need pills. Look, I'm sick."
"Whatta you want?"
"Whatchu got, man?"
"Reds, bennies, dexies, yellow jackets, demmies."
"Yeah, demmies're good shit, man. I pay you. Fuck. I got money. I'm hurting inside. Got beat up. Where my money?" He slapped his pockets several times before realizing he was clutching the precious twenties in his left hand.
"But," Jodie said, "you gotta do something for me first."
"Yeah, whatta I gotta do that? You wanna blow job?"
"No," Jodie snapped, horrified. "I want you to help me go through some trash."
"Why I gotta do that shit?"
"Picking some cans."
"Cans?" the man roared, scratching his nose compulsively. "The fuck you need a nickel for? I just give away a hunnerd cans find out where yo' ass be. Fuck cans. I pay you money, man."
"I give you the demmies for free, only you gotta help me get some bottles."
"Free?" The man didn't seem to understand this. "You mean, free like I don't gotta pay?"
"Yeah."
The Negro looked around as if he was trying to find somebody to explain this.
"Wait here," Jodie said.
"Where I gotta look for bottles?"
"Just wait . . . "
"Where?" he demanded.
Jodie stepped back inside. He said to Stephen, "He's gonna do it."
"Good job." Stephen smiled.
Jodie grinned back. He started to turn back to the door but Stephen said, "Hey."
The little man paused.
Stephen blurted suddenly, "It's good I met you."
"I'm glad I met you too." Jodie hesitated for a minute. "Partner." He stuck his hand out.
"Partner," Stephen echoed. He had a fierce urge to take his glove off, so he could feel Jodie's skin on his. But he didn't.
Craftsmanship had to come first.
. . . Chapter Twenty-four
Hour 25 of 45
The debate was feverish.
"I think you're wrong, Lincoln," Lon Sellitto said. "We gotta move 'em. He'll hit the safe house again, we leave 'em there."
They weren't the only ones considering the dilemma. Prosecutor Reg Eliopolos hadn't checked in--not yet--but Thomas Perkins, the FBI special agent in charge of the Manhattan office, was here in person, representing the federal side of the debate. Rhyme wished Dellray were here--and Sachs too, though she was with the joint city/federal tactical force searching abandoned subway locations. So far they hadn't found any trace of the Dancer or his compatriot.
"I'm being completely proactive in my take on the situation," said earnest Perkins. "We have other facilities." He was appalled that it had taken the Dancer only eight hours to find out where the witnesses were being held and to get within five yards of the disguised fire door of the safe house. "Better facilities," he added quickly. "I think we should expedite immediate transferal. I've gotten a heads-up from high levels. Washington itself. They want the witnesses immunized."
Meaning, Rhyme assumed, move 'em and move 'em now.
"No," the criminalist said adamantly. "We have to leave them where they are."
"Prioritizing the variables," Perkins said, "I think the answer's pretty clear. Move them."
But Rhyme said, "He'll come after them wherever they are, a new safe house or the existing one. We know the turf there, we know something about his approach. We've got good ambush coverage."
"That's a good point," Sellitto conceded.
"It'll also throw him off stride."
"How so?" Perkins asked.
"He's debating right now too, you know."
"He is?"
"Oh, you bet," Rhyme said. "He's trying to figure out what we're going to do. If we decide to keep them where they are, he'll do one thing. If we move them--which I think is what he's guessing we'll do--he'll try for a transport hit. And however good security is on the road, it's always worse than fixed premises. No, we have to keep them where they are and be prepared for the next attempt. Anticipate it and be ready to move in. The last time--"
"The last time, an agent got killed."
Rhyme snapped back to the SAC, "If Innelman had had a backup, it would've gone different."
Perkins of the perfect suit was a self-protecting bureaucrat but he was reasonable. He nodded his concession.
But am I right? Rhyme wondered.
What is the Dancer thinking? Do I really know?
Oh, I can look over a silent bedroom or filthy alleyway and read perfectly the story that turned it into a crime scene. I can see, in the Rorschach of blood pasted to carpet and tile, how close the victim came to escaping or how little chance he had and what kind of death he died. I can look at the dust the killer leaves behind and know immediately where he comes from.
I can answer who, I can answer why.
But what's the Dancer going to do?
That I can guess at but I can't say for certain.
A figure appeared in the doorway, one of the officers from the front door. He handed Thom an envelope and stepped back to his guard post.
"What's that?" Rhyme eyed it carefully. He wasn't expecting any lab reports and he was all too conscious of the Dancer's predilection for bombs. The package was no more than a sheet of paper thick, however, and was from the FBI.
Thom opened it and read.
"It's from PERT. They tracked down a sand expert."
Rhyme explained to Perkins, "It's not for this case. It's about that agent who disappeared the other night."
"Tony?" the SAC asked. "We haven't had a single lead so far."
Rhyme glanced at the report.
Substance submitted for analysis is not technically sand. It is coral rubble from reef formations and contains spicules, cross sections of marine worm tubes, gastropod shells and foraminifers. Most likely source is the northern Caribbean: Cuba, the Bahamas.
Caribbean . . . Interesting. Well, he'd have to put the evidence on hold for the time being. After the Dancer was bagged and tagged he and Sachs would get back--
His headset crinkled.
"Rhyme, you there?" Sachs's voice snapped.
"Yes! Where are you, Sachs? What do you have?"
"We're outside an old subway station near City Hall. All boarded up. S&S says there's somebody inside. At least one, maybe two."
"Okay, Sachs," he said, heart racing at the thought they might be close to the Dancer. "Report back." Then he looked up at Sellitto and Perkins. "Looks like we may not have to decide about moving them from the safe house after all."
"They found him?" the detective asked.
But the criminalist--a scientist foremost--refused to give voice to his hopes. Afraid he might jinx the operation--well, jinx Sachs, he was thinking. He muttered, "Let's keep our fingers crossed."
Silently the ESU troops surrounded the subway station.
This was probably the place where the Dancer's new partner lived, Amelia Sachs concluded. S&S had found several locals who'd reported a druggie selling pills out of the place.
He was a slightly built man--in line with a size-eight shoe.
The station was, almost literally, a hole in the wall, supplanted years ago by the fancier City Hall stop a few blocks away.
The 32-E team went into position, while S&S began to set up their microphones and infrareds, and other officers cleared the street of traffic and the homeless men sitting on curbs or in doorways.
The commander moved Sachs away from the main entrance, out of the line of fire. They gave her the demeaning job of guarding a subway exit that had been barred and padlocked for years. She actually wondered if Rhyme had cut a deal with Haumann to keep her safe. Her anger from last night, in abeyance in their search for the Dancer, now bubbled up again.
Sachs nodded toward the rusty lock. "Hmm. He probably won't be getting out this way," she offered brightly.
"Gotta guard all entrances," the masked ESU officer muttered, missing or ignoring her sarcasm, and returned to his comrades.
Rain fell around her, a chill rain, dropping straight down from a dirty gray sky, tapping loudly on the refuse banked in front of the bars.
Was the Dancer inside? If so, there'd be a firefight. Absolutely. She couldn't imagine he'd give it up without a violent struggle.
And it infuriated her that she wouldn't be part of it.
You're a slick dick when you've got a rifle and a quarter mile of protection, she thought to the killer. But tell me, asshole, how're you with a handgun at close range? How'd you like to face me down? On her mantel at home were a dozen trophies of gold-plated shooters aiming pistols. (The gilt figures were all men, which for some reason tickled Amelia Sachs immensely.)
She stepped farther down the stairs, to the iron bars, then flattened against the wall.
Sachs, the criminalist, examined the squalid spot carefully, smelling garbage, rot, urine, the salty smell of the subway. She examined the bars and the chain and padlock. She peered inside the dim tunnel and could see nothing, hear nothing.
Where is he?
And what are the cops and agents doing? What's the delay?
She heard the answer a moment later in her earphone: they were waiting for backup. Haumann had decided to call in another twenty ESU officers and the second 32-E team.
No, no, no, she thought. That was all wrong! All the Dancer has to do is take one peek outside and see that not a single car or taxi or pedestrian is going by and he'll know instantly there's a tactical operation under way. There'll be a bloodbath . . . Don't they get it?
Sachs left the crime scene kit at the foot of the stairs and climbed back to street level. A few doors away was a drugstore. She went inside. She bought two large cans of butane and borrowed the storekeeper's awning rod--a five-foot-long piece of steel.
Back at the gated subway exit, Sachs slipped the awning rod through one of the chain links that was partially sawn through, and twisted until the chain was taut. She pulled on a Nomex glove and emptied the contents of the butane cans on the metal, watching it grow frosty from the freezing gas. (Amelia Sachs hadn't walked a beat along the Deuce--Forty-second Street at Times Square--for nothing; she knew enough about breaking and entering to take up a second line of work.)
When the second can was empty she gripped the rod in both hands and began to twist. The icy gas had made the metal very brittle. With a soft snap the link cracked in half. She caught the chain before it fell to the ground and set it quietly in a pile of leaves.
The hinges were wet with rainwater but she spit on them for good measure to keep them from squeaking and pushed inside, sweeping her Glock from its holster, thinking: I missed you at three hundred yards. I won't at thirty.
Rhyme wouldn't have approved of this, of course, but Rhyme didn't know. She thought momentarily about him, about last night, lying in his bed. But the image of his face vanished quickly. Like driving at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, her mission now left no time for ruing the disaster of her personal life.
She disappeared into the dim corridor, leapt over the ancient wooden turnstile, and started along the platform toward the station.
She heard the voices before she got more than twenty feet.
"I have to leave . . . understand . . . I'm saying? Go away."
White, male.
Was it the Dancer?
Heart slamming in her chest.
Breathe slow, she told herself. Shooting is breathing.
(But she hadn't been breathing slowly at the airport. She'd been gasping in fear.)
"Yo, whatchu sayin'?" Another voice. Black male. Something about it scared her. Something dangerous. "I can get money, I can. I can get a shitload a money. I got sixty, I tell you that? But I can get mo'. I can get as much's you want. I ha' me a good job. Fuckers took it away. I knew too much."
The weapon is merely an extension of your arm. Aim yourself, not the weapon.
(But she hadn't been aiming at all when she'd been at the airport. She'd been on her belly like a scared rabbit, shooting blind--the most pointless and dangerous of practices with a firearm.)
"You understand me? I changed my mind, okay? Let me . . . and just leave. I'll give . . . demmies."
"You ain' tole me where we goin'. Where this place we gotta look through? You tell me that first. Where? Tell me!"
"You're not going anywhere. I want you to go away."
Sachs started up the stairs slowly.
Thinking: Draw your target, check your background, squeeze three. Return to cover. Draw, squeeze three more if you have to. Cover. Don't get rattled.
(But she had been rattled at the airport. That terrible bullet snapping past her face . . .)
Forget it. Concentrate.
Up a few more stairs.
"An' now you sayin' I don't get 'em fo' free, right? Now you sayin' I gotta pay. You motherfuck!"
Stairs were the worst. Knees, her weak spot. Fucking arthritis . . .
"Here. Here's a dozen demmies. Take 'em and go!"
"A dozen. And I ain' gotta pay you?" He brayed a laugh. "A dozen?"
Approaching the top of the stairs.
She could almost peer into the station itself. She was ready to shoot. He moves any direction more than six inches, girl, take him out. Forget the rules. Three head shots. Pop, pop, pop. Forget the chest. Forget--
Suddenly the stairs vanished.
"Ugh." A grunt from deep in her throat as she fell.
The step she'd placed her foot on was a trap. The riser had been removed and the step rested only on two shoe boxes. They collapsed under her weight and the concrete slab pitched downward, sending her backward down the stairs. The Glock flew from her hand and as she started to shout, "Ten-thirteen!" she realized that the cord linking her headset to her Motorola had been yanked out of the radio.
Sachs fell with a thud onto the concrete-and-steel landing. Her head slammed into a pole supporting the handrail. She rolled onto her stomach, stunned.
"Oh, great," the white guy's voice muttered from the top of the stairs.
"Who the fuck that?" the black voice asked.
She lifted her head and caught a glimpse of two men standing at the top of the stairs, gazing down at her.
"Shit," the black man muttered. "Fuck. What the fuck goin' on here?"
The white guy snagged a baseball bat and started down the stairs.
I'm dead, she thought. I'm dead.
The switchblade rested in her pocket. It took every ounce of energy to get her right arm out from underneath her. She rolled onto her back, fishing for the knife. But it was too late. He stepped on her arm, pinning it to the ground, and he gazed down at her.
Oh, man, Rhyme, blew it bad. Wish we'd had a better farewell night . . . I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . .
She lifted her hands defensively to deflect the blow to her head, glanced for her Glock. It was too far away.
With a tendony hand tough as a bird claw, the small man pulled the knife from her pocket. He tossed it away.
Then he stood and gripped the club.
Pop, she spoke to her de
ceased father, How bad d'I blow this one? How many rules d'I break? Recalling that he'd told her all it took to get killed on the street was a one-second lapse.
"Now, you're gonna tell me what you're doing here," he muttered, swinging the club absently, as if he couldn't decide what to break first. "Who the hell're you?"
"Her name's Mizz Amelia Sachs," said the homeless guy, suddenly sounding a lot less homeless. He stepped off the bottom stair and moved up to the white guy quickly, pulling the bat away. "And unless I'm most mistaken, she's come here to bust your little ass, my friend. Just like me." Sachs squinted to see the homeless guy straighten up and turn into Fred Dellray. He was pointing a very large Sig-Sauer automatic pistol at the astonished man.
"You're a cop?" he sputtered.
"FBI."
"Shit!" he spat out, closing his eyes in disgust. "This is just my fucking luck."
"Nup," Dellray said. "Luck didn't have a bitsy thing to do with it. Now, I'm gonna cuff you and you're gonna let me. You don't, you gonna hurt for months and months. We all together on that?"
"How'd you do it, Fred?"
"'Seasy," the lanky FBI agent said to Sachs as they stood in front of the deserted subway station. He still was dressed homeless and was filthy with the mud he'd smeared on his face and hands to simulate weeks of living on the street. "Rhyme was tellin' me 'bout the Dancer's friend being a junkie and living downtown in the subways, knew just where I hadta come. Bought a bag of empties and talked to who I knew I oughta talk to. Just 'bout got directions t'his livin' room." He nodded toward the subway. They glanced at a squad car, where Jodie sat, cuffed and miserable, in the backseat.
"Why didn't you tell us what you were doing?"
Dellray's answer was a laugh and Sachs knew the question was pointless; undercover cops rarely told anyone--fellow cops included, and especially supervisors--what they were doing. Nick, her ex, had been undercover, too, and there'd been a hell of a lot he hadn't told her.
She massaged her side where she'd fallen. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and the medics said she ought to have X rays. Sachs reached up and squeezed Dellray's biceps. She felt uneasy receiving gratitude--she was truly Lincoln Rhyme's protegee there--but she now had no problem saying, "You saved my life. My ass'd be capped now if it wasn't for you. What can I say?"
Dellray shrugged, deflecting the thanks, and bummed a cigarette from one of the uniformed cops standing in front of the station. He sniffed the Marlboro and slipped it behind his ear. He looked toward a blacked-out window in the station. "Please," he said to no one, sighing. "'Bout time we had some luck here."
The Coffin Dancer Page 22