The Dead Reckoner : Volume Two: Urban Underworld

damn two headed penny. Then again, there was that side of her that wondered if this had anything to do with luck. Perhaps the Sorter, and Reginald Binder, were doing this to her on purpose for some reason.

  Cassandra said, “She's coming after him.”

  “Who?”

  “The bomber. She wants to destroy Mr. Binder's work. The Sorter says she's on her way to his residence now. He lives in suite 914 in the Millennium Towers on Seaport Boulevard.”

  “Near the federal courthouse transit stop.”

  “Yes, you're familiar with it?”

  Ruth started toward the end of the parking lot. Her quick walk broke into a run as she crossed the street.

  She said, “Cassandra, I'm on my way. Find my son and make sure he's safe.”

  “Yes detective.”

  “Jason Holland. Okay? Jason Holland. Tell him I'll call him in a few minutes.”

  “Yes detective.” she said, and hung up.

  Ruth looked up and saw the Millennium Towers, the very same building into which that woman with the nightgown and overcoat had gone. She entered the lobby and found an elevator. She pushed the button for the ninth floor, reminded of the time she sprinted to the top of the third floor of Edison Middle School while trying to avert another disaster. Nothing happened. It was a secure elevator. Access to the residence levels required a key of some kind. Ruth found the front desk and flashed her badge. The man there called for another employee, a kid really. I guess the guy's too good to help a cop, thought Ruth.

  He took her to the ninth floor. The door to suite 914 was ajar. Ruth dismissed the boy and retrieved her weapon. She went inside and found her suspect there. She had tossed her overcoat in the corner, along with her shoes. She was standing barefoot in her slip and considering what looked like a blood stain on the kitchen floor.

  Ruth wondered what had happened in here. The stain was recent. Boston was a big city and the seaport was about as far from the Brighton precinct as you could get. It was possible that the police had responded to an incident at Binder's residence without word of it getting to Ruth. She had started her day worrying about Jason and then went right to the courthouse. Despite these things, it was troubling that she hadn't heard the slightest murmur of whatever had happened here. And what did this mean for Binder's supposed trust? She knew she was walking into a trap, but she couldn't help it.

  Ruth said, “How did you get in here?”

  The other woman jumped and turned to find herself staring at the barrel of Ruth's sidearm.

  “I have a key.”

  The cop displayed her badge and explained who she was, but this did nothing to still the fear she saw. She could hardly expect it to. The woman looked at though she hadn't slept all night. Ruth shouldn't have been the apprehensive one. It was clear that her suspect was as poorly armed as she was clothed. What Ruth could not escape was the knowledge that the Sorter had sent her here. She had doubted its warning before and regretted it. Whether the Sorter predicted the future or caused it didn't matter much at this moment. It still knew the future, that was clear. This woman may have looked harmless, but she never would've guessed Norman Shaw to be dangerous either.

  Rather than place her sidearm, Ruth kept it trained and stepped closer.

  She said, “What happened here?”

  “Reggie made me shoot him.”

  See? She thought. Not so innocent.

  “Who?”

  “The man he blames for killing is wife.”

  “When? I mean, the man you shot, not the wife.”

  “This morning.”

  “Why are you here now?”

  The woman pointed across the room. There was a desk there and it looked as though someone had taken a hammer to it. Bits were ripped off it, with the drawers hanging loose like teeth in a fist fight.

  Ruth said, “You did this?”

  The woman held up her hands. They were torn along the finger tips and soaked in her own blood. She had ripped apart the furniture with her own hands. That didn't make Ruth feel any more at ease. Weapon or no weapon, this chick was a dangerous person. And there was something else. In one of those beaten hands there was a small, flat object. It looked like a memory stick.

  “I did it.” she said.

  She fell to the floor and sat on her knees. Ruth just stood there with her pistol still ready for business, unsure about what to do. Then she heard another voice.

  “Sergeant, explain to me what the hell you're doing.”

  Ruth turned and saw her boss, Lieutenant Keller. He stood with two uniformed officers from the state police. There was another plain clothes man that Ruth recognized as a state police detective. She stood there with her weapon and looking dumb as a cow. The Lieutenant came to within three feet of her and crossed his arms.

  He said, “I'm waiting.”

  All she could say in response was, “My son is in the Atlantic Mall.”

  “I know that and I know about the bomb threat.”

  “You didn't tell me.” She said this more to herself than to Keller.

  “Look at this woman. She's unarmed. What are you doing?”

  “We didn't I hear it from you.”

  “Sergeant.” said Keller. “Your connection with all of this compromises you.”

  Ruth replaced her service weapon in its holster. Her movements were slow, too slow. She wanted to move faster, but somehow her limbs wouldn't respond. Nothing was hers anymore, not even her own body.

  She said, “Why are you here?”

  “Word's come strait from the commissioner.” said Keller. “You are relieved of duty.”

  “The Sorter told you to come here.”

  Keller held up his phone.

  RUTH HOLLAND. POTENTIAL PSYCHOTIC RISK. DANGER FACTOR: HIGH

  He said, “I want you the hell out of my sight.”

  TWENTY

  The morning Jason's father died, Ruth drove her cruiser to the rail yard to find him. She went to Allston, a western neighborhood in the city hemmed in by the river and the Massachusetts Turnkpike. From Cambridge Street the road rose up to a point where she could look across an expanse of train tracks and on the far end see the crystal towers of downtown. These tracks formed the Beacon Park Railyard, a vast intersection of freight lines running across New England. Ruth turned her cruiser from the main thoroughfare onto a restricted access road and passed beneath the Turnpike. It was a portal to another world where human figures were hard to see among the locomotives that plugged down the lines.

  Ruth's research had discovered that Yancy operated some sort of road transfer operation, where trucks unloaded freight and fanned out across the metro area. It was mostly furniture and other home goods. The department suspected that Yancy swapped out various big ticket items for cheaper replicas, but this was something they had yet to prove. She weaved among the tracks, looking for Frank's car. She didn't know where inside this expansive territory Yancy did his dirty work, but she knew the name of his company and could look for the delivery trucks. She hoped she'd find Frank in time to talk him out of whatever nonsense he was up to.

  She spotted one of Yancy's gray trucks about a hundred yards away, near the edge of the yard. Nearby, a long platform lined a rail siding. A three story building made of dirty yellow bricks stood behind the truck. It was windowless except for a few big glass checkerboards on the top floor. Ruth pulled her cruiser behind a pair of parked switcher locomotives and came closed the distance on foot. As she approached the building, a folding garage door opened and Frank emerged, dressed in tactical gear and carrying an assault rifle.

  He saw her and said, “Ruth?”

  “I found the recording.” she said. “There's enough on there to bust Keller and Yancy.”

  “And me too. I need to do this.”

  “And what is this?” said Ruth.

  After considering for a few moments, Frank said “Fine, follow me.”

  The climbed onto the platfor
m behind the truck and Frank unlocked the truck's rear door. They went inside. On her left stood a stack of four black boxes, each about the size of a coffin. Or her right stood two of them.

  “Yancy's coming soon with the other two for here.” he said, pointing to the stack on the right.

  We walked over to them. The one on top was about waist height. There was a key pad on the top and Frank punched something in. One half of the top panel slide away, releasing a billow of cold steam. The interior looked as though it were filled with large blue colored ice packs secured with elastic straps. Frank removed the straps and pulled out the ice backs. There was a woman underneath there. She was unconscious and wearing a face mask. There was a sticker on forehead. A bar code, as you might find on a piece of produce. Despite the mask, Ruth recognized the face. It was the dancer Coolie had been watching when she'd confronted him at the club. Ruth backed away and removed her pistol from its holster. She pointed it at Frank as she walked onto the platform.

  Frank said, “They're alive.”

  “You tell me what the hell is going on right now.” said Ruth.

  “Most of these women are here illegally. Yancy sells their organs and they disappear.”

  “Yancy kills them?”

  “I don't know what happens to them.”

  Ruth glanced at the woman in the coffin once more. The stage wasn't the only place she remembered that face from. She had been in the list of numbers that Frank had shown her.

  “The names in your phone.” she said. “Oh my god, Frank. All those women?”

  “Yancy thinks I'm sleeping with them, but I've been forming a sort of