Tomas likes the warehouse idea because warehouses are big and there will be someplace to hide even if he can’t escape all the way. The problem with the white room, aside from no windows, is not having a place to hide. There’s no under-the-bed because the bed is just a mattress on the floor. No closets, no alcoves. No bathroom or toilet, even—just a stinky plastic potty-chair thing like old people use when they can’t make it to the bathroom.

Tomas hates to use the potty-chair, but he doesn’t have any choice. It’s that or wet the bed. Or worse. But he doesn’t have to go now, so he doesn’t have to think about anything but the escape plan. Making it happen.

Except for the mattress and the TV, there’s nothing in the white room but a small dresser with two drawers, and the drawers are too small for a boy his size. He knows because yesterday—was it yesterday?—he tried to squeeze himself into one of the drawers. Thinking he can hide in the dresser drawer and then wait until they look and think he’s gone—where’s the kid!—then he’ll escape through the open door. Except he can’t fit in the drawer, no matter how hard he tries.

It’s the only time he’s ever wished he was small for his age. Not just small. If only he could shrink himself up to the size of an insect, like in that old movie he used to like when he was little, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Or even better, a cloak that made you invisible, like Harry Potter had.

But there were no invisible cloaks and no shrinking ray guns in the white room. Nothing but the mattress, the stinky potty-chair and the cheesy dresser. Just enough for a plan.

Tomas works the drawer out of the dresser. Carefully and silently. For the first time since his abduction—since he got the hit that won the game—he feels exhilarated.

For the moment he truly believes that his escape plan will work, just like in the movies.

Cutter has a plan, too. He’s not quite ready to put it into action because with this particular part of the plan, everything depends on timing. Not split-second, detonate-the-bomb timing. More like waiting for a piece of fruit to ripen and then biting into it at exactly the right moment.

Piece of very expensive fruit named Stanley Munk. Who is, at this very moment, pausing to look in a store window on West Fifty-first Street, in good old Manhattan. Trying to look like a casual shopper. Pathetic, really. Big important man, but when Stanley attempts to practice deception he reverts to adolescent behavior. Gets all cold and clammy, eyes darting around, palms sweating. Cutter doesn’t know about the sweaty palms for sure, never having shaken the man’s hands, but he was willing to bet they were sweating right now. Especially the hand that clutches the briefcase handle.

Cutter knows what Stanley has in the briefcase and how much it means to him. Thinks it’s a personal matter, his secret life, but he’s mistaken. Cutter knows what lurks in that briefcase, knows the sickness Munk has been hiding for years. Just as he knows where the Munkster is headed on this fine day. Disguised, or so he thinks, in jeans, Nikes, dark glasses and a Yankees baseball cap. For Stanley Munk, who favors designer Italian suits and handmade shoes, dressing down is a form of disguise. Not that it would fool anyone who was paying attention, who recognized Stanley’s cocky master-of-the-universe strut, or the ever-so-slight sneer of preening confidence that is his default expression.

Very important man, our Stanley. Holds the fate of hundreds, possibly thousands, in his clever, capable hands. Hasn’t a clue that he’s been selected to play an important role in Cutter’s master plan. No idea he’s a target of opportunity because of who he is and what he can do. His particular skills.

Rather than follow the target, which might get him noticed, Cutter heads up the street, double-parks a hundred feet or so beyond the entrance to the Clarion, a hotel whose entrance is scarcely wider than its set of bronze double doors. The Clarion has eight narrow floors and fifty-six narrow rooms. Not exactly a hot-sheet hotel, not on this particular block, but the management tends to be discreet, and unlike most midtown establishments, will accept cash without the security of a credit card.

Cutter has been inside the Clarion, checked the joint out, although not at one of the times when Stanley is present. He doubts the Munkster would have any reason to recognize him, but it never hurts to be careful. He and Stan are going to get reacquainted real soon, but not today. Not until the situation ripens.

When the time comes, he wants Stanley Munk so off balance, so drenched with fear and anxiety, that he can’t think straight.

Cutter adjusts the passenger-side mirror until he has the narrow hotel entrance in view. And there he is, clutching his precious briefcase, darting through the bronze doors. Where Cutter knows he will take a room under an assumed name, paying cash.

Thinks he’s being clever and careful, does Stanley. Living his secret life. Less than a dozen blocks from the penthouse where he plays the big shot, entertaining all his influential friends, living the good life, less than a dozen blocks to the dark side of his world. If only they knew what distinguished, successful Stanley was up to, what really squeezed his juice, they’d recoil in disgust.

Dark side is going to cost him, big-time.

Cutter slips the stolen Explorer into gear, glides to the intersection and waits patiently for the light as about a thousand pedestrians churn across. People complain about driving in the city but he doesn’t mind. All you have to do, take it one block at a time. Same deal with his master plan. Taken as a whole, it’s overwhelming, perhaps impossible. But take it one step at a time, it’s doable.

First secure the boy. Done.

Then the money for operating capital. Done.

Then silence Vargas. Done.

Then take over Stanley Munk’s life, make sure he’s totally under control, behaving predictably. Do that, cross all the t’s, dot all the i’s, it will all work out. The plan of action will all come together on the big day in Scarsdale. Has to. So long as he remains focused on the next step in the sequence, and doesn’t get distracted by the sheer audacity of what he’s attempting.

In ten minutes, fifteen at the most, he’ll be out of the city and heading north. Heading back to the white room. Ready for the next move.

25 the blur called bruce

“I doubt they’ll have anyone at the train station, but you never know,” says Maria Savalo. “Just be ready to duck down.”

At the wheel of her sleek new BMW 545i, my diminutive attorney has the confidence of Sally Ride piloting the space shuttle. She carefully removes her high heels and slips them into a special Manolo carry bag before starting the engine.

We’re going to pick up Shane, who has been released from his lengthy interview with homicide detectives. Ms. Savalo knows all about what happened in Queens, the body in the bathroom, my encounter with the man in the parking garage. On the latter, she has expressed some doubts.

“You say all he did was point his finger at you?”

“You had to be there,” I tell her. “It was him, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m sure you’re sure. But I’m a defense attorney, so I doubt everything, especially eyewitnesses.”

“Why would he do that if it wasn’t him?”

“In Queens? Are you serious? Guys point fingers at women all the time, whether they know them or not. There’s a perfectly plausible alternative theory. Woman shouts at a man in a parking garage. Thinks he’s someone she knows. Guy can’t really see who it is, so he roars up in his big bad car, takes a look and blows her a kiss.”