"I'm getting out here. Just hang for a half hour, forty minutes."
"What're you going to do?"
"I'll go through the stores, get a cab to talk to Perone. Meet you back here. I'm sorry about this."
"No, it's cool. I'll get some breakfast."
Freddy pulled to a stop near one of the entrances to the mall. Nick asked, "You saw him at the restaurant, right? Kall?"
"Yeah, I remember him."
"If he comes up and wants to know about me--"
"--I'll tell him I can't talk. I'm waiting for his wife." Freddy winked.
Nick grinned and slapped the little man on the shoulder. He jumped out of the SUV and vanished into the mall.
There was no security--no human security--in the lobby of J&K Financial, only a mundane intercom. Nick pressed a button and announced himself.
A pause.
"Do you have an appointment?" a woman's voice asked.
"No. But I'd appreciate a chance to speak to Mr. Perone. It has to do with Algonquin Transportation."
Another pause. Longer.
The door lock buzzed with what Nick thought was a jarringly loud sound.
He stepped into a small elevator and on the third floor he entered a surprisingly nice office, given the neighborhood and the scruffy facade of the building. Jon Perone did okay for himself, it seemed. The receptionist was a beautiful woman with deep mocha skin.
Behind her two offices were visible through open doors. Both occupied by men, large men with short brownish hair. Their large torsos were encased in pressed dress shirts. One was lost in a phone call. The eyes of the other, in the near office, swiveled to Nick. The bigger of the two, he wore yellow suspenders over a pale-green shirt. His stare was cool.
The receptionist set down her landline. "Mr. Perone will see you now."
Nick thanked her. He walked inside the largest office in the suite, filled with books and spreadsheets and business documents, along with memorabilia and photos. Hundreds of photos. On the wall, on the desk, on the coffee table. A lot of them appeared to be of family.
Jon Perone rose. He wasn't a tall man and was solidly built. Like a column. Wearing a gray suit, white shirt and tie the color of the sea surrounding a Greek island. Black hair, slicked back. He'd cut himself shaving and Nick wondered if he used a straight razor. He seemed the sort who might. A gold bracelet encircled his right wrist.
"Mr. Carelli."
"Nick."
"I'm Jon. Have a seat."
Both men lowered themselves into supple leather chairs. Perone eyed him carefully.
"You mentioned Algonquin Transportation."
"I did. You've heard of it?"
"It's not in business anymore but I believe it was a private trucking company."
"That's right. It transported pharmaceuticals and cigarettes in unmarked semis for big brand manufacturers--unmarked because, of course, hijackers would target trucks with Philip Morris or Pfizer logos on them."
"I'm aware of that practice. What does that have to do with me?"
"Fifteen years ago an Algonquin semi carrying two million dollars' worth of prescription drugs was hijacked near a bridge over the Gowanus Canal."
"Was it?"
"You know it was. The hijacker stashed the drugs in a warehouse in Queens but before he could get back and fence them to his buyers he got busted. Somebody in a Brooklyn crew found out about the 'jacked merchandise and stole the whole shipment from the warehouse. It took me a while but I found out those guys worked for you."
"I don't know anything about that."
"No? Well, I do."
Perone said nothing for a moment. Then: "How're you so sure?"
"Because I was the hijacker." Nick let that sit for a minute. "Now. My take from the job was going to be seven hundred K. Which you robbed me of. Inflation and interest? Give me a million and we're square."
CHAPTER 42
Well, look at this." Mel Cooper was grinning, running a hand through his thinning hair.
Stepping into the parlor, moving slowly, Lon Sellitto nodded to those present. He'd been Rhyme's partner for some years when the criminalist was on the NYPD. Of recent, Sellitto had fed Rhyme consultancy work, helping Major Cases with forensics and other investigative services.
"Lon!" Pulaski was on his feet and pumping the detective's hand.
"All right, all right. Take it easy on an old man." In fact, Sellitto was comfortably lounging somewhere in middle age.
Thom, who'd let the officer in, said, "Anything for you, Lon?"
"Hell yes. If you baked it, I'm all over it."
The aide smiled. "Anyone else?"
The others declined.
Sellitto was a Cliffs Notes version of himself, having been sidelined for a long time thanks to a perp who'd poisoned him. He'd nearly died and had undergone a great deal of treatment and therapy. He had dropped, Rhyme guessed, forty pounds over the past year. His thinning hair was graying. With his lithe new physique he looked even more rumpled than usual. The clothes didn't fit and some of the newly emptied skin was baggy too.
Sellitto walked farther into the room, eyes on Juliette Archer. "What is this..." His voice faded.
Rhyme--and Archer--laughed. "You can say it."
"I..."
Archer cocked her head. "A wheelchair showroom?"
Sellitto, blushing one of the few blushes Rhyme had ever seen on his cheeks, said, "I was gonna say convention. But yours is funnier."
Rhyme introduced them.
She said, "I'm an intern."
Sellitto cut a glance toward Rhyme. "You? Are a mentor? Jesus, Juliette, good luck with that."
Sachs hugged Sellitto. She and Rhyme saw the detective and his girlfriend Rachel with some frequency but, now that Rhyme wasn't doing criminal work and Sellitto had been on medical leave, they hadn't worked together for a long time.
"Ah." His eyes glowed as Thom brought a tray of Danish into the parlor. Sellitto scarfed. Thom handed him a coffee.
"Thanks."
"You don't want sugar? Right?"
"Yeah, I do. A couple." Sellitto's idea of losing weight had been to choose black coffee to accompany the doughnuts. Now slim, he was indulging.
The Major Cases detective looked over the parlor with a critical eye, half the equipment covered with plastic. The dozen whiteboards, turned against a far wall. "Jesus, I take a break and everything goes to hell." Then he smiled. "And you, Amelia, heard about your big-game hunting, escalators in BK malls."
"What exactly do you hear? I got the incident report to the team on time."
"All good," the detective added. "They're holding you up as Miss Ingenuity. And better'n good. Madino's got cred--he just got tapped for a spot at One PP--so you've got a power hitter rooting for you."
Rhyme said sourly, "Fans root for hitters, Lon, not the other way around."
"Jesus. Did kids in school regularly beat the crap out of you, Mr. Hand-Up-First-With-The-Right-Answer?"
"Let's get caught up later on irrelevant issues, shall we? Lon, you were saying, big picture?"
"I read what you sent."
Sellitto was the expert Rhyme had uploaded the Unsub 40 case file to. He smiled to himself at the man's laconic response.
Yah, yah. Tomorrow...
"First, this is one sick fuck."
Accurate but irrelevant. Rhyme said with subdued impatience, "Lon?"
"So. What we have. He's got this thing for products, for consumer products that we bring into our houses and turn on us. Now, my take? He's agendizing in two ways."
"What did you say?" Rhyme started, reflexively.
"I'm fucking with you, Linc. Couldn't resist. Been months without you breaking my balls with a grammar lesson. Pardon my French." Directed at Archer.
She smiled.
Sellitto continued: "Okay. He's got two agendas. Using the controller things to make a statement or to target rich people who buy expensive shit or whatever. That's his weapon of choice. Fucked up but there it is. Agenda two
: self-defense. He needs to stop people who're after him. I.e., us. Well, you. He's been at the scenes to type in the code to work the controller, right?"
"Right," Archer said. "You can hack into the cloud server from anywhere in the world. But he seems to want to be close. We think he may have some moral element--making sure he doesn't hurt kids or maybe poorer folks who don't spend lots of money on indulgent products."
"Or," Sachs said, "he gets turned on by watching."
"Well, that means he might've stayed around to see who was after him. The Evidence Collection Team, you--Amelia and Ron."
"I was at a scene too," Rhyme said. "When he destroyed the office of the man who taught him how to hack the controllers." He grimaced. "And he saw Evers Whitmore there."
"He on the force?" Sellitto asked.
"No, a lawyer. I was working with him--the civil case, the escalator accident. Before we knew it was a homicide."
Sellitto sipped coffee, then added another sugar. "Wouldn't be hard for your unsub to ID him. And you, you're too public, Linc. Easy to track you down and all your little chickies. I'd get protective details on everybody. I can handle that."
Rhyme ordered the computer to print out Whitmore's address and phone. Sellitto reminded him that he had Cooper's and Sachs's personal information and he'd get a detail to their residences. Archer said it was unlikely she was at risk but Rhyme was emphatic. "I want somebody at your brother's anyway. Unlikely doesn't mean impossible. From now on, we all have to assume we're in his sights."
On the agenda for today: The People's Guardian has more mischief planned.
And a beautiful day for it too.
I've spent some time with Alicia, comforting her. She's off to do some work (she's a bookkeeper, a sort-of accountant, though I couldn't tell you where she works or exactly what she does. Fact is, she's not excited about it and therefore I'm not either. We're not a typical couple; our lives do not, of course, completely coincide). I'm enjoying first one then a second breakfast sandwich at the window of my apartment in Chelsea. Tasty, full of salt. My blood pressure is so low that a doctor asked jokingly during a checkup if I was still alive. I smiled, though it was not really funny coming from a medico. I was inclined to crack his skull but I didn't.
I chew the second sandwich down fast and get ready to go out.
Not quite ready for PG's full-on assault, though; I have an errand first.
New outfit today--no cap for a change, my blond crew cut is there for the world to see. A running suit, navy blue, stripes along the legs. My shoes. Nothing to do about them. I need a special size. My feet are long, like my fingers, the way my skinny body is tall. The condition is Marfan syndrome.
Hey, Vern, sack of bones...
Hey, Bean Boy...
Can't reason with people, can't say: Wasn't my choice. Can't say, God blinked. Or He played a joke. Doesn't work to point out that Abraham Lincoln was one of us. Doesn't work to say what's the big deal?
So you let it go, the taunts. The punches. The pictures slipped in your locker.
Until you choose not to let it go. Red's partner, this Lincoln Rhyme, his body's betrayed him and he copes. A productive member of society. Good for him. I'm taking a different path.
Backpack over my shoulder, I head out onto the street, radiant on this glorious spring day. Funny how beauty blossoms to fill the world when you're on a mission.
So. I go west toward the river and the closer I get to the gray Hudson the farther back in time I go. Chelsea east and central, near me, is apartments and boutiques and chic and New York Times-reviewed restaurants. To the far west it's industrial--like it was in the 1800s, I imagine. I see the building I'm looking for. I pause, pull on cloth gloves and on the prepaid I make a call.
"Everest Graphics," a voice answers.
"Yes, Edwin Boyle, please. It's an emergency."
"Oh. Hold on."
Three minutes, three solid minutes, I wait. How long would it be if this weren't an emergency--which it isn't but never mind.
"Hello, this is Edwin Boyle. Who's this?"
"Detective Peter Falk. NYPD." Not so much into TV, no, but I loved Columbo.
"Oh. What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry to report your apartment's been broken into."
"No! What happened? Druggies? Those kids hanging out on the street?"
"We don't know, sir. We'd like you take a look and tell us what's missing. How soon can you be here?"
"Ten minutes. I'm not that far away... How did you know I work here?"
I'm prepared. "Found some business cards on the floor of your place. It was ransacked."
Such a great word.
"Okay. I'll be right there. I'm leaving now."
I disconnect and examine the sidewalk. Other companies and commercial operations squat here. One pathetic ad agency, striving to be cool. Sidewalks pretty deserted. I step into the loading dock of an abandoned warehouse. It's no more than three minutes before a figure steams past, sixty-ish Edwin Boyle, eyes forward, concern on his face.
Stepping forward fast, I grab his collar and yank him into the shadows of the loading dock.
"Oh, Jesus..." He turns toward me, eyes wide. "You! From up the hall! What the hell?"
We're neighbors, two apartments away, or three, though we don't say much to each other. Just a nod hello occasionally.
I don't say anything now. What's the point? No quips, no chance for last words. People can get snaky at times like that. I just bury the round end of the ball-peen hammer in Edwin's temple. Like with Todd Williams while we were on our way to have a drink commemorating our joint venture in making the world safe from smart products too smart for our own good.
Crack, crack.
Bone separates. Blood appears.
On the ground, he's squirming, eyes unfocused. Pull the hammer out--it's not easy--and do the same thing again. And again.
The squirms stop.
I look onto the street. No pedestrians. A few cars but we were deep in obscuring shadow.
I drag poor Edwin to a supply cabinet of the abandoned warehouse's abandoned loading dock and open the warped plywood door. Muscle him inside. Then crouch down and get his phone. It's passcode-protected but that doesn't matter. I recognize it from last night. Alicia and I were making love on the couch, beside the fish tank. I glanced up at the security monitor and saw Edwin, returning home drunk, like most nights, outside my door, recording us. Didn't tell her, didn't say anything. It would upset her, a woman whose resting state is upset.
But I knew I'd have to crack Edwin's bones for what he did. Just knew it. Not that there was any evidence that could be used to track me down. Just because doing that--recording us--was cruel. It was the act of a Shopper.
And that was reason enough for the man to die. Wish it had been with more nociceptive pain but you can't have everything.
Crack the bones of his mobile too--can't take the battery out very easily on these models--and I'll dispose of it later.
I notice a few intrigued rats nearby. Cautious but sniffy. Nice way to eliminate evidence, it occurs to me, hungry rodents, digesting trace evidence from the corpse.
Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I inhale deeply. Air is a bit ripe, this part of town. But invigorating.
A good day...
And soon to get better. It's time for the main event.
"Stand up," Jon Perone said, smoothing his jet-black hair. Was a bottle involved? Probably.
Nick knew the drill. Pulled up his shirt and spun around slowly. Then dropped his pants too. And underwear. Perone glanced down. Impressed, dismayed? A lot of men were.
Nick buttoned and zipped and tucked.
"Shut your phone off. And battery out."
Nick did this too. Set them on Perone's desk.
He glanced at the door. The man in suspenders was there. Nick wondered how long he'd been present.
"It's okay, Ralph. He's clean."
Nick stared into Ralph's eyes until the man turned and left the room. Back to Peron
e. "Just to connect the dots, Jon. A friend of mine tracked down a friend of yours--Norman Ring, presently guest of the state, doing five to eight up in Hillside. He earned himself serious time because he agreed to keep quiet when he could've rolled over on you. I've got enough, though, to put you two together."
"Jesus, man. Fuck." Perone's complexion, ruddy from weekend golf and vacationing, Nick guessed, grew ruddier yet under the painted hair.
"It's all in a letter to my lawyer, to be opened in the event of my getting fucked. You know the rest of it, right? So let's not get indignant here. Or blustery. Or trigger-happy. Let's just talk business. Didn't you ever wonder where the merch you stole came from?"
"Algonquin?" Perone was calmer now. "I kept waiting for somebody to come out of the woodwork. But nobody did. What was I gonna do, take out an ad? Found: two million bucks' worth of Oxy and Perc and propofol. Call this number."
"No harm done. But time for my money."
"You didn't need to come on like the fucking Godfather."
Nick screwed up his face. "All respect, Jon. What happened to the owner of the warehouse where I stored the shit? Stan Redman?"
Perone hesitated. "Accident. Construction site."
"I heard you buried him alive after he tried to move the merch himself."
"I don't recall any such occurrence."
Nick shot him a wry glance. "Now the money. I earned it. I need it."
"I'll go six."
"We're not negotiating, Jon. Even you went to the hardest-ass fence in the city, you cleared fifty-five points. That's over a million. And I'll bet you didn't. You're not a discount kind of guy at all. You sold it on the street. You probably walked away with three M. Pure profit."
Perone shrugged. The equivalent of: Yeah, pretty much.
"So here's the deal. I want a million. And I want paperwork shows it as a loan--from a company that can't be traced to you or anybody with a record. Only we have a side agreement, written, that the debt's forgiven. I'll worry about the IRS if it comes to that."
Perone's grimace was more reluctant admiration. "Any other fucking thing you want, Nick?"
"As a matter of fact, yeah, there is. The Algonquin 'jacking, the Gowanus? I want you to put the word out on the street that it wasn't me did it. It was my brother. Donnie."
"Your brother? You're diming him out?"
"He's dead. He won't give a shit."
"Whatever people hear on the street, nobody's reversing a conviction."