SAMPSON AND I arrived in New York City around nine o’clock in the morning. I vividly remembered an old Stevie Wonder tune about getting off the bus in New York for the first time. The mixture of hopes and fears and expectations most people associate with the city seems a universal reaction.

As we climbed the steep stone steps from the underground tracks in Penn Station, I had an insight about the case. If it was right, it would definitely tie Soneji to both train-station massacres.

“I might have something on Soneji,” I told Sampson as we approached the bright lights gleaming at the top of the stairs. He turned his head toward me but kept on climbing.

“I’m not going to guess, Alex, because my mind doesn’t ever go where yours does.” Then he mumbled, “Thank the Lord and Savior Jesus for that. Addlehead brother.”

“You trying to keep me amused?” I asked him. I could hear music coming from the main terminal now-it sounded like Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

“Actually, I’m trying not to let the fact that Gary Soneji is on this current mad-ass rampage upset my equilibrium or otherwise depress the hell out of me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“When Soneji was at Lorton Prison, and I interviewed him, he always talked about how his stepmother kept him in the cellar of their house. He was obsessed about it.”

Sampson’s head bobbed. “Knowing Gary as we do, I can’t completely blame the poor woman.”

“She would keep him down there for hours at a time, sometimes a whole day, if his father happened to be away from home. She kept the lights off, but he learned to hide candles. He would read by candlelight about kidnappers, rapists, mass murderers, all the other bad boys.”

“And so, Dr. Freud? These mass killers were his boyhood role models?”

“Something like that. Gary told me that when he was in the cellar, he would fantasize about committing murders and other atrocities-as soon as he was let out. His idée fixe was that release from the cellar would give him back his freedom and power. He’d sit in the cellar obsessing on what he was going to do as soon as he got out. You happen to notice any cellarlike locations around here? Or maybe at Union Station?”

Sampson showed his teeth, which are large and very white, and can give you the impression that he likes you maybe more than he does. “The train tunnels represent the cellar of Gary ’s childhood house, right? When he gets out of the tunnels, all hell breaks loose. He finally takes his revenge on the world.”

“I think that’s part of what’s going on,” I said. “But it’s never that simple with Gary. It’s a start anyway.”

We had reached the main level of Penn Station. This was probably how it had been when Soneji arrived here the night before. More and more I was thinking that the NYPD had it right. Soneji could definitely be the Penn Station killer, too.

I saw a mob of travelers lingering beneath the flipping numbers of the Train Departures board. I could almost see Gary Soneji standing where I was now, taking it all in-released from the cellar to be the Bad Boy again! Still wanting to do famous crimes and succeeding beyond his craziest dreams.

“Dr. Cross, I presume.”

I heard my name as Sampson and I wandered into the brightly lit waiting area of the station. A bearded man with a gold ear stud was smiling at his small joke. He extended his hand.

“I’m Detective Manning Goldman. Good of you to come. Gary Soneji was here yesterday.” He said it with absolute certainty.

SAMPSON AND I shook hands with Goldman and also his partner, a younger detective who appeared to defer to Goldman. Manning Goldman wore a bright blue sport shirt with three of the buttons undone. He had on a ribbed undershirt that exposed silver and reddish gold chest hairs sprouting toward his chin. His partner was dressed from head to toe in black. Talk about your odd couples, but I still preferred Oscar and Felix.

Goldman started in on what he knew about the Penn Station stabbings. The New York detective was high energy, a rapid-fire talker. He used his hands constantly, and appeared confident about his abilities and opinions. The fact that he’d called us in on his case was proof of that. He wasn’t threatened by us.

“We know that the killer came up the stairs at track ten here, just like the two of you just did. We’ve talked to three witnesses who may have seen him on the Metroliner from Washington,” Goldman explained. His swarthy, dark-haired partner never said a word. “And yet, we don’t have a good ID of him-each witness gave a different description-which doesn’t make any sense to me. You have any ideas on that one?”

“If it’s Soneji, he’s good with makeup and disguises. He enjoys fooling people, especially the police. Do you know where he got on the train?” I asked.

Goldman consulted a black leather notebook. “The stops for that particular train were D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Princeton Junction, and New York. We assumed he got on in D.C.”

I glanced at Sampson, then back at the NYPD detectives. “Soneji used to live in Wilmington with his wife and little girl. He was originally from the Princeton area.”

“That’s information we didn’t have,” Goldman said. I couldn’t help noticing that he was talking only to me, as if Sampson and Groza weren’t even there. It was peculiar, and made it uncomfortable for the rest of us.

“Get me a schedule for yesterday’s Metroliner, the one that arrived at five-ten. I want to double-check the stops,” he barked at Groza. The younger detective skulked off to do Goldman’s bidding.

“We heard there were three stabbings, three deaths?” Sampson finally spoke. I knew that he’d been sizing up Goldman. He’d probably come to the conclusion that the detective was a New York asshole of the first order.

“That’s what it says on the front pages of all the daily newspapers,” Goldman cracked out of the side of his mouth. It was a nasty remark, delivered curtly.

“The reason I was asking-” Sampson started to say, still keeping his cool.

Goldman cut him off with a rude swipe of the hand. “Let me show you the sites of the stabbings.” He turned his attention back to me. “Maybe it will jog something else you know about Soneji.”

“Detective Sampson asked you a question,” I said.

“Yeah, but it was a pointless question. I don’t have time for PC crap or pointless questions. Like I said, let’s move on. Soneji is on the loose in my town.”

“You know much about knives? You cover a lot of stabbings?” Sampson asked. I could tell that he was starting to lose it. He towered over Manning Goldman. Actually, both of us did.

“Yeah, I’ve covered quite a few stabbings,” Goldman said. “I also know where you’re going. It’s extremely unlikely for Soneji to kill three out of three with a knife. Well, the knife he used had a double serpentine blade, extremely sharp. He cut each victim like some surgeon from NYU Medical Center. Oh yeah, he tipped the knife with potassium cyanide. Kill you in under a minute. I was getting to that.”

Sampson backed off. The mention of poison on the knife was news to us. John knew we needed to hear what Goldman had to say. We couldn’t let this get personal here in New York. Not yet anyway.

“Soneji have any history with knives?” Goldman asked. He was talking to me again. “Poisons?”

I understood that he wanted to pump me, to use me. I didn’t have a problem with it. Give and take is as good as it gets on most multijurisdictional cases.

“Knives? He once killed an FBI agent with a knife. Poisons? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised. He also shot an assortment of handguns and rifles while he was growing up. Soneji likes to kill, Detective Goldman. He’s a quick study, so he could have picked it up. Guns and knives, and poisons, too.”