Hour 23 of 45

SHORT-BARREL, PROBABLY COLT OR SMITTIE or Dago knockoff, not fired recently. Or oiled.

I smell rust.

And what does a rusty gun tell us, Soldier?

Plenty, sir.

Stephen Kall lifted his hands.

The high, unsteady voice said, “Drop your gun over there. And your walkie-talkie.”

Walkie-talkie?

“Come on, do it. I’ll blow your brains out.” The voice crackled with desperation. He sniffled wetly.

Soldier, do professionals threaten?

Sir, they do not. This man is an amateur. Should we immobilize him?

Not yet. He still represents a threat.

Sir, yessir.

Stephen dropped his gun on a cardboard box.

“Where…? Come on, where’s your radio?”

“I don’t have a radio,” Stephen said.

“Turn around. And don’t try anything.”

Stephen eased around and found himself looking at a skinny man with darting eyes. He was filthy and looked sick. His nose ran and his eyes were an alarming red. His thick brown hair was matted. And he stank. Homeless, probably. A wino, his stepfather would have called him. Or a hophead.

The old battered snub-nose Colt was thrust forward at Stephen’s belly and the hammer was back. It wouldn’t take much for the cams to slip, especially if it was old. Stephen smiled a benign smile. He didn’t move a muscle. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Where’s your radio?” the man blurted.

“I don’t have a radio.”

The man nervously patted his captive’s chest. Stephen could have killed him easily – the man’s attention kept wandering. He felt the skittering fingers glide over his body, probing. Finally the man stepped back. “Where’s your partner?”

“Who?”

“Don’t give me any shit. You know.”

Suddenly cringey again. Wormy… Something was wrong. “I really don’t know what you mean.”

“The cop who was just here.”

“Cop?” Stephen whispered. “In this building?”

The man’s rheumy eyes flickered with uncertainty. “Yeah. Aren’t you his partner?”

Stephen walked to the window and looked out.

“Hold it. I’ll shoot.”

“Point that someplace else,” Stephen commanded, glancing over his shoulder. No longer worried about slipping cams. He was beginning to see the extent of his mistake. He felt sick to his stomach.

The man’s voice cracked as he threatened, “Stop. Right there. I fucking mean it.”

“Are they in the alley too?” Stephen asked calmly.

A moment of confused silence. “You really aren’t a cop?”

“Are they in the alley too?” Stephen repeated firmly.

The man looked uneasily around the room. “A bunch of them were a while ago. They’re the ones put those trash bags there. I don’t know ’bout now.”

Stephen stared into the alley. The trash bags… They’d been left there to lure me out. False cover.

“If you signal anybody, I swear -”

“Oh, be quiet.” Stephen scanned the alley slowly, patient as a boa, and finally he saw a faint shadow on the cobblestones – behind a Dumpster. It moved an inch or two.

And on top of the building behind the safe house – on the elevator tower – he saw a ripple of shadow. They were too good to let their gun muzzles show but not good enough to think about blocking the light reflecting upward from the standing water that covered the roof of the building.

Jesus, Lord… Somehow Lincoln the Fucking Worm had known that Stephen wouldn’t buy the setup about the Twentieth Precinct. They’d been expecting him here all along. Lincoln had even figured out his strategy – that Stephen would try to get through the alley from this very building.

The face in the window…

Stephen suddenly had the absurd idea that it had been Lincoln the Worm in Alexandria, Virginia, standing in the window, lit with rosy light, looking at him. He couldn’t have been the one, of course. Still, that impossibility didn’t stop the cringey, pukey nausea from unfurling in Stephen’s gut.

The chocked door, the open window, and the fluttering curtain… a fucking welcome mat. And the alley: a perfect kill zone.

The only thing that had saved him was his instinct.

Lincoln the Worm had set him up.

Who the hell is he?

Rage boiled him. A wave of heat swept over his body. If they were expecting him they’d be following S &S procedures – search and surveillance. Which meant the cop this little shit had seen would be coming back soon to check this room. Stephen spun around to the thin man. “When was the last time the cop checked in here?”

The man’s apprehensive eyes flickered, then blossomed with fear.

“Answer me,” Stephen snapped, despite the black bore of the Colt pointed at him.

“Ten minutes ago.”

“What kind of weapon does he have?”

“I don’t know. I guess one of those fancy ones. Like a machine gun.”

“Who are you?” Stephen asked.

“I don’t have to answer your fucking questions,” the man said defiantly. He wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. And made the mistake of doing this with his gun hand. In a flash Stephen lifted the gun away from him and shoved the little man to the floor.

“No! Don’t hurt me.”

“Shut up,” Stephen barked. Instinctively he opened the little Colt to see how many rounds were in the cylinder. There were none. “It’s empty?” he asked, incredulous.

The man shrugged. “I -”

“You were threatening me with an unloaded weapon?”

“Well… See, if they catch you and it’s not loaded, they don’t put you away for as long.”

Stephen didn’t understand the point. He thought he might just kill the man for the stupidity of carrying an unloaded gun. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just go away and leave me alone,” the man whimpered, struggling to climb to his feet.

Stephen dropped the Colt into his pocket then snagged his Beretta and trained it at the man’s head. “What are you doing here?”

He wiped his face again. “There’re doctors’ offices upstairs. And nobody’s here on Sunday so I hit ’em for, you know, samples.”

“Samples?”

“Doctors get all these free samples of drugs and shit and there’s no record, so you can steal as much as you want and nobody knows. Percodan, Fiorinal, diet pills, stuff like that.”

But Stephen wasn’t listening. He felt the chill of the Worm again. Lincoln was very close.

“Hey, you all right?” the man asked, looking at Stephen’s face.

Oddly, the worms went away.

“What’s your name?” Stephen asked.

“Jodie. Well, Joe D’Oforio. But everybody, like, calls me Jodie. What’s yours?”

Stephen didn’t answer. Staring out the window. Another shadow moved on top of the building behind the safe house.

“Okay, Jodie. Listen up. You want to make some money?”

“Well?” Rhyme asked impatiently. “What’s going on?”

“He’s still in the building to the east of the safe house. He hasn’t gone into the alley yet,” Sellitto reported.

“Why not? He has to. There’s no reason for him not to. What’s the problem?”

“They’re checking every floor. He’s not in the office we thought he’d go for.”

The one with the open window. Damn! Rhyme had debated about leaving the window open, letting the curtain blow in and out, tempting him. But it was too obvious. The Dancer’d become suspicious.

“Everybody’s loaded and locked?” Rhyme asked.