The Steel Kiss

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Oh, Jesus. I know what you're going to say. You walk up the stairs before the game, into the stadium, and through the tunnel into the stands and there's the whole park in front of you like Saint Peter opened the gates."

  "The smell of everything. Wet concrete, popcorn, beer, the grass."

  "Fertilizer too, I think."

  "Never thought about that. Yeah, probably fertilizer. You know, Nicky Boy, maybe it won't be that hard to find this guy, J, and his lady... What's her name again?"

  "Nanci. With an i."

  "Nanci. Since you went in, there's this thing called data mining."

  "What's that?"

  "Let's just say you can do all the searching you need by sitting on your ass."

  "I've used Google."

  "That's a place to start. But there's more to it than that. There're services. You drop a few bills, they can find anything. I kid you not. A little bit of luck, you'll get his name, address, where he went to school, what kind of dog he has, how big Nanci's tits are and how long his dick is."

  "Seriously?"

  Freddy frowned. "Okay. Probably not the boobs and dick, but that's not impossible. The world has changed, my friend. The world has changed."

  FRIDAY IV

  THE PEOPLE'S GUARDIAN

  CHAPTER 26

  At 12:30 a.m., Abe Benkoff took a last sip of his brandy and clicked off the streaming Mad Men episode with ten minutes left to go. He liked the show--he worked in advertising, one of the biggies in Midtown, though on Park, not Madison--but without Ruth here, it wasn't as much fun to watch. He'd save the episode for when she returned from her mother's in Connecticut the day after tomorrow.

  Benkoff, fifty-eight, was sitting in his leather lounger in the couple's town house in Murray Hill. Many old buildings here but he and Ruth had found a three-bedroom co-op in a building that was only six years old. A motivated seller. That coincided with Abe's promotion to partner of WJ&K Worldwide, which meant a bonus. Which became the down payment. Still more than they could afford, technically. But with the kids gone, Ruth had said, "Go for it."

  And they had.

  Great for entertaining. And it was just a walk to his job and hers, at a publisher in Times Square.

  Abe and his wife had sunk tens of thousands into the decor and appliances, stainless steel, glass, ebony. State-of-the-art kitchen--a phrase that Abe would not let a copywriter slip into an ad, though it certainly did describe the room. Brushed-steel stove and oven and other accessories.

  Tonight, though, he'd cranked up nothing more than the microwave, zapping General Tso's Chicken from Hunan Host, up the street. Not so great in the calorie department but it had been a busy day, he'd gotten home late and didn't have the energy--or inclination--to whip up something healthy.

  Was General Tso from Hunan province? Benkoff wondered, rising stiffly from the chair and gathering the dishes. And if not, would he be offended that he was being honored by a restaurant with roots in a different locale from his own?

  Or was Hunan Host run by Taiwanese or Koreans or an enterprising couple from Laos?

  It's all in the marketing, as Abe Benkoff knew quite well, and Cambodian Star might raise a few questions and discourage diners. Or Pol Pot Express, he thought, both smiling and acknowledging his bad taste.

  The plates and glass and utensils he took to the kitchen, rinsed and stacked them in the dishwasher rack. Abe started to leave then paused and returned. Then rearranged the dishes and utensils the way Ruth would have wanted. They loaded the appliance differently. He believed he was right--sharp ends down--but that was a battle not worth fighting. It was like trying to convince a Dem to vote Republican or vice versa.

  After a shower, he donned pajamas and, snagging a book from above the toilet, he flopped into bed. There he set the alarm for six thirty, thinking about the health club. He laughed to himself and reset it for seven thirty. Benkoff opened to page thirty of the thriller, read five paragraphs, closed the book, doused the light and, rolling onto his side, fell asleep.

  Exactly forty minutes later Abe Benkoff gasped and sat up in bed.

  He was fully awake, sweating, gagging, from what was wafting through his bedroom.

  Gas!

  The room was filled with cooking gas! That rotten-egg stink. There was something wrong with the stove. Get the hell out! Call 911. But get out first.

  Holding his breath, he instinctively reached for the bedside lamp and clicked it on.

  He froze, his fingers gripping the switch Are you out of your mind? But the light didn't, as he'd thought in a moment of icy panic, set the gas off and blow the apartment to pieces. He didn't know what might do that but apparently a lightbulb wasn't sufficient. Hand shaking, he shut the bulb out before it got hotter.

  Okay, he thought, stumbling to his feet, the danger's not explosions--not yet. But you're going to suffocate if you don't get out. Now. He pulled his robe on, feeling dizzy. He dropped to his knees and breathed slowly. Still the stink, sure, but it wasn't as bad lower, near the floor. Whatever was in natural gas, it seemed to be lighter than air and at the ground level he could breathe all right. He inhaled several times and then rose.

  Clutching his phone, he made his way through the darkened apartment, picking his route thanks to the ample illumination from outside, washing through the ten-foot-high windows, unobstructed by curtains. His wife insisted on this and, though he didn't care much for the glare and the lack of privacy, he silently thanked her for it now. He was sure that if there'd been curtains he might've stumbled in the dark, knocking over a lamp or some furniture, metal against stone... producing a spark that would ignite the gas.

  Benkoff made it down the hall to the living room.

  The smell was growing stronger. What the hell had happened? A broken pipe? Just his place or the entire floor? Or the whole building? He remembered the story of an apartment in Brooklyn where a gas main explosion had leveled the five-story structure, killing six people.

  His head was growing lighter and lighter. Would he faint before he got to the front door? He had to pass the kitchen, where the gas probably was coming from. The fumes would be greatest there. Maybe he could open one of the windows in the den--he was just outside the doorway--and suck in more air.

  No, just keep going. Most important, get out!

  And resist making a phone call to the fire department now. The phone might ignite the gas. Just keep going. Fast, fast.

  Dizzier, dizzier.

  Whatever happened, he was so very glad that Ruth wasn't home. Pure luck that she'd decided to stay in Connecticut after her business meetings.

  Thank you for that, he thought to a generic god. Abe Benkoff hadn't been to temple in twenty years. A lapse that would end next Friday, he decided--if he got out of here.

  Then into the hallway and staggering toward the front door. He stumbled once, dropped the phone, snagged it and began to crawl again. He'd get outside, slam the door, behind him. Hit the fire alarm, warning the other tenants, and dial 911.

  Twenty feet, ten.

  The fumes weren't so bad here in the front hallway of the apartment, some distance from the stove. Five feet to safety.

  A man of words and numbers, a man at home in the rarefied world of offices, Benkoff now became a soldier, thinking only of survival. I'm going to make it. Goddamn it, I am.

  CHAPTER 27

  Lincoln Rhyme was awakened by his humming phone.

  The clock: 6:17 a.m.

  "Answer" was the groggy command to the unit. "Yes?" Directed to the caller.

  "Rhyme, another one."

  He asked Amelia Sachs, "Unsub Forty?"

  "Right."

  "What happened?"

  "Murray Hill. Gas explosion. Looks like he sabotaged a stove--one of the products on the list Rodney found."

  "And the vic was on the second list, the purchasers?"

  "Right. Put a new kitchen in a couple of years ago. Purchase information was in the data."

  Rhyme pressed his attendant button, to summ
on Thom.

  Sachs continued, "Victim is Abe Benkoff, fifty-eight, advertising executive." She paused a moment. "Rhyme, he burned to death. Ron's pulling the vic's vitals. I'm going to get down there now, run the scene."

  They disconnected. Rhyme called Mel Cooper, summoning him back to the town house in anticipation of analyzing what Sachs would find at Benkoff's.

  Thom arrived for the morning routine and in ten minutes Rhyme was downstairs, in the parlor. He turned his chair at an oblique angle and eased toward the evidence charts, looking over the findings from the past crime scenes, concerned that there might have been something they'd missed--he'd missed--that could have let them anticipate this attack.

  Murray Hill...

  A fancy stove...

  Gas explosion...

  It was always a long shot, making an educated guess from the evidence in past crimes as to where the perp might strike in the future. In essence, doing so was dependent on the unsub's visiting scenes to plan a crime, accidentally picking up evidence there and then depositing it at another scene, where it was discovered. Most serial killers or multiple doers weren't so helpful.

  But Unsub 40 had such a curious agenda and wielded such an odd weapon that it seemed he would have to do some homework a day or two or even more ahead of time to make sure he'd succeed with the murder.

  Benkoff's death, he thought grimly, might be the opposite of the Baxter case, the scam artist whose death led to Rhyme's retirement. There Rhyme had had too much evidence and had parsed it too carefully. Perhaps in the Unsub 40 situation he'd missed some clue in prior scenes that might have pointed to Abe Benkoff's apartment as the site of a future attack. And he experienced that unnerving hollowness he'd felt when he learned of the businessman's death. The uneasiness and, okay, guilt that had prompted his decision to end his career as a criminal forensic investigator.

  This validated that decision. He couldn't wait for this case to be done with. And he could get back to his life in the civil world--he smiled at the double-duty word--once more.

  His phone hummed again.

  Glancing at caller ID.

  "Hello?"

  "I saw the news," Juliette Archer said. "The fire in Murray Hill. Stove malfunctioned. Was that our boy?"

  "Looks like it. I was just about to call you. You free?"

  "Actually, I'm on my way."

  Thinking about pain.

  Breakfast in bed, just after waking, in Chelsea. I ate one sandwich--bologna, very underrated nowadays--and now am having another.

  Six fifty a.m.

  I'm tired after all the work last night. I tried to sleep in but couldn't. Way too excited.

  Pain...

  Because of my recent endeavors, I've studied the subject. I've learned there are various types. Neuropathic, for instance, is when a nerve is struck or impinged upon (hitting your funny bone--oh, yeah, nothing funny 'bout that, is there?). Not necessarily excruciating. More twitchy and irritating.

  Then there's psychogenic, or somatoform, pain. This comes from environmental factors and stress and some physiologic stimuli. Migraines, for instance.

  But the most common in our daily life is called nociceptive. Fancy word, I think, for when you miss the nail with your hammer and squoosh your thumb instead. A couple of fine categories of nociceptive give connoisseurs like myself much to work with. I think of Todd Williams: blunt trauma impact. Or rending with a razor saw (I used that not long before). Another: Alicia's radius bone sprouting through her flesh as her husband, dull from whisky, twisted and pulled.

  And then there's thermal nociceptive pain. Cold, yes. But the worst is heat, of course. Freezing numbs. Fire makes you scream and scream and scream.

  I had a pretty good view of my victim's last few minutes. I was watching him the whole time, from across the street, the roof terrace of a not-very-secure five-story walk-up. It was easy to see him through the large windows. Waking up, idiotically turning on the light on the bedside table--worried me there. Wasn't sure at that point if there was enough gas in the place to do what I hoped.

  But a moment later he was walking toward the door, then crawling.

  At that point I was sure there was enough gas and--feeling a bit perverse--I flicked the switch when he was only a yard or two from the door, safety well within his grasp.

  Except it hadn't been, of course.

  A simple command through the cloud and the CookSmart Deluxe stove came to life. Eleven thousand dollars buys you a very responsive appliance.

  And my victim turned into a shadow in the flames, twitching and staggering, and staggering still when the smoke enshrouded him, though I caught a glimpse of him rolling onto his back, quivering, and turning pugilistic with hands and legs up. I lost sight and the smoke flowed and flowed and flowed.

  At least he got a few good meals out of the fancy oven.

  The job done, I left and came back here, filled with robust satisfaction, for a bit of sleep.

  The People's Guardian will write another missive to the press later, reminding them that excessive consumerism is a bad thing. Blah, blah, blah. You don't have to be too articulate and clever with your manifestos after you burn someone to death. Object lessons teach best.

  I roll from bed and, in my pajamas, sit groggy on the bedside, think of the busy day ahead.

  I have plans for another poor Shopper.

  Nociceptive pain...

  There are plans for Red too. I know now all I need to about her habits, I think. It should be good. It certainly will be enjoyable to me, what I have planned.

  I have some time, so I go into the Toy Room.

  The way I work when I build a miniature is to draw a blueprint first, though it's not blue. Then I focus on each part of the item I'm making. Legs, drawers, tops, frames--whatever it might be. And I go in order of the most difficult task to the easiest. Carving eighteenth-century legs, for instance, is so very hard. Spindly yet complex, with swells and knobs and sweeps, angular. I coax them out of blocks of wood. I smooth with the blade and sand carefully. Then comes assembly. The one I'm now holding is an Edwardian bed for an American Girl client, the father a lawyer in Minneapolis. I know because his check to my company includes the triplet "esq." after his name. I almost didn't do the job because Alicia told me of the trouble she had with lawyers after the situation with her husband. She was innocent of any wrongdoing; you'd think all would have gone well for her. But no. And it was the lawyers to thank. But I need to make a living and she wouldn't care, I don't think. Anyway, I didn't tell her.

  Peering through the magnifier, I ease the dowel joints together, knowing they'll fit since I've measured twice. A joke. The old expression. Actually I measure a dozen times before cutting.

  Furniture, as lessons for life.

  In an hour the bed is nearly done and I look at it for some time under the ring of light on the business side of the magnifier glass. I tend to want to do some more finishing work but restrain myself now. Many pieces are ruined because the artisan didn't know when to stop (a life lesson, I was saying). But I know when to stop. In a few days, after the varnish is long dried and rubbed smooth I will pack it up in bubble wrap and foam peanuts and ship it off.

  As I study the piece and make a few final touches I click on the tape recorder. I just listen now. I'll transcribe this entry of the diary later.

  Quite the interesting spring. Helped them with calc, though they were pretty smart, I was surprised, for athletes. Frank and Sam. Prejudice to say, like people say I'm really smart because I'm a beanpole and geekish which I'm not. I'm okay smart and math comes easy. Science. Computers. Not other things, though.

  And we are having pizza and soda at Sam's house and his father comes in and says hi to me and he's pretty nice. He asks if I like baseball, which I don't, of course, because my father sits and smokes and watches games hour after hour and doesn't talk to us. But because our father sits and smokes and watches games hour after hour, especially if it's St. Louis or Atlanta, I know enough about the game to sound
like I'm not an idiot (and I know how to throw a knuckleball, ha!!! Even if not very well!). And I can talk about some players. Some stats.

  Frank comes over and we start talking and Sam says let's have a graduation party, and at first I think this is a mistake that he's said this not thinking because I'm here, since I've never been invited to any party at the school, but the math club party and the computer club party, but they're not really parties. Also, I'm a junior. But Frank says that's cool, a party, and then turns to me and says I'll be in charge of the music, and that's it. Which means not only am I invited but I have an important thing to do.

  Music could be the most important part. I don't know--because, yeah, I've never been to a party before. But I'm going to do a good job.

  I click off the recorder, inspired to get cracking. I sit down at my computer, log into several virtual private networks serially, then head to Bulgaria and one of the Shitloadistans for a proxy.

  I sit back and close my eyes. Then, channeled by the People's Guardian, I begin to type.

  Nick Carelli's mobile hummed.

  His lawyer.

  When he'd gone into the system, caller ID was in its infancy. Now it was everywhere and, he'd decided, the most important thing invented in the past hundred years.

  "Hey, Sam."

  "Nick. How's it going? You adjusting well?"

  "As can be expected."

  "Sure. Well. I've got a place for you to check out. I've emailed the address and the deal sheet. It's preliminary so we'll still have a lot of due diligence to do. The place is out a way so the asking isn't going to give you a coronary. You get closer to the Heights and hipsters, there's better revenue but you couldn't afford it."

  "Great, man. Thanks. Hold on. I'll check it out now."

  Nick went online and noted the address--solid, working-class and striving neighborhood in BK--and the name of the owner. "Is he there now?" Nick was feeling the electric prods again. Impatience. He recalled Amelia's slogan: When you move they can't getcha...

  "Yeah. He's there. I just talked to his lawyer." Then Sam fell silent. "Listen, Nick, are you sure you want to do this?"

  "You gave me the lecture before."