“Oh.”
“Anyway, for photo shoots or short movies for TV scenes, there’s always the two-sided tape. The stuff works pretty well. And if you don’t like it, you can always do what this guy probably does . . . did—grow your hair long at the sides and comb it back over your ears.”
The artist put together another screen image of the Gremlin, this time without the hard hat.
“Look like the same guy?” he asked Louie.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t mistake him. Of course, some people do look different with and without caps or hats.”
“But would you feel confident picking this guy out of a lineup?”
“Sure. Unless he’s got a twin brother.”
“Louie,” Madge said, “don’t make things more complicated than they are.”
“So let’s make some final adjustments,” the artist said. “You never saw this guy’s hairline, right?”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t bald. He had sideburns, anyway.”
The artist used the mouse to create sideburns on the screen image. He paused and looked at Louie.
“A little longer,” Louie said. “There. Just right.”
“We can put out images with different hairlines,” Helen said.
“Good idea,” the artist said. He created several renderings, finishing with one that left the killer bald except for a bush of hair around his ears.
“I wish we could have one of him smiling,” Helen said.
The artist shook his head. “I’d have to see him smile to do that.” He looked at Louie. “Did he smile when you were with him?”
“Not once. He was all business.”
“Which you shouldn’t be all the time,” Madge said. “Remember you are not well.”
They thanked Little Louie and left him with Madge. Not a bad situation, if you didn’t count Louie’s nightmares and broken bones.
As they were walking toward where their cars were parked, the artist said, “I’d like to draw that woman.”
“You guys,” Helen said, “for the kind of drawing you’re talking about, you’d have to use a crayon so the other ten-year-olds would understand it.”
“A crayon,” the artist said, “would melt.”
37
An hour later, Renz called Quinn on his desk phone. “No doubt about it,” Renz said, when Quinn had picked up the bulky plastic receiver that fit hand and ear so well. “The crane falling was murder. There were traces of hydrofluoric acid found at the breaking points of the steel cables. It ate through the cables until enough strands popped that they finally broke apart under all that weight. That overloaded the stress on the other cables, then a small bomb separated the crane from the building and down it came. The thing is, whoever was responsible had to have some basic knowledge of how that crane was put together. How the damned thing worked.”
“Just like he knew about elevators,” Quinn said. “Was this the same kind of acid used on the elevator cables?”
“Yeah. The base was hydroflouride, along with nitric acid. A devil’s brew, according to the techs. If you want to tote it around, you’ll need a special container. Most likely it was outta the same lab.”
“Do the techs think our killer is a chemist?” Quinn asked.
“Not in any major way. But you don’t have to be a chemist or engineering genius to know how to destroy something. Common sense goes a long way. To know how to build up is to know how to tear down.”
“But we’re not necessarily looking for a scientist or engineer.”
“That’s right,” Renz said. “Matter of fact, most of the info you need, you can find on the Internet.”
Quinn doubted if that would be reassuring to the public.
“The Internet and DNA,” Renz said. “One helps find them, and the other helps prove them guilty. Life gets harder and harder for the bad guys.”
“Can’t get hard enough.”
“That’s what my ex-wife used to say.”
“The crane cables are right out where anyone can see them,” Quinn pointed out. “Or get to them, depending on the position of the crane.”
“It gets better and better,” Renz said bitterly. “Where do psychos like the Gremlin learn this crap?”
“Like the artist told us,” Quinn said, “there’s plenty of information on the Internet.” The main air conditioner in Q&A wasn’t quite keeping up with the heat, and his clothes were stuck to him. There was some not-quite-cold-enough diet cola in the little fridge by the coffeemaker, but he chose not to have gas.
“The Internet is a school for crime,” Renz agreed.
“And the students get their advanced degrees in prison.”
“It shouldn’t be like that.”
“Nobody’s figured out a better way.”
“I know one.”
“I didn’t hear that,” Quinn said.
“The Gremlin. I really hate that little bastard!”
“We’ll find him, Harley.”
“Will we? They never found Jack the Ripper.”
“They might have, if he’d ever been listed in the FBI database.”
“Speaking of data . . .”
Quinn brought him up to date on the Little Louie and Madge interview.
“This is a mass murderer,” Renz said, when Quinn was finished talking and reading aloud. As if Quinn needed reminding.
“We’ve got a reliable eyewitness that puts him at the scene of the crane collapse,” Quinn said. “And we’re working out a digital image that’ll be as good as a photo, if it isn’t already.”
“We’ve got everything but the criminal.”
“I wouldn’t express it that way to the media,” Quinn said.
“So can I tell the press predators what you just told me? When I step outta here, they’re gonna be on me like a pack of mad dogs.”
Quinn tried to imagine that but couldn’t. Renz would surely have even larger mad dogs protecting him.
“I would tell the media only what I wanted them to know, Harley. At this point, we’re using them instead of the other way around.”
Renz seemed to like that observation. Quinn wasn’t so sure it was true, but at least it gave the illusion of progress.
“We clear on everything?” Renz asked. “Or do you have any questions that won’t be wasting my time?”
Quinn said, “I didn’t know you had an ex-wife.”
Renz hung up.
38
The next morning Quinn slept in and Pearl left the brownstone around seven o’clock to open the Q&A offices. The team of Sal and Harold were coming in early to prepare for an interview with the SBL Properties crane operator. He’d given his statement half a dozen times. Another wouldn’t hurt.
So far there had been only the occasional small contradiction. The crane hadn’t responded as usual to its controls. Quinn had heard that the operator was a redheaded guy named Perry, who looked about fourteen until a second look revealed he was about forty. He was still jumpy, and blamed himself for the crashing and carnage.
Of course, unless he was connected in some way to the acid that had melted some of the crane’s cables, or to the shaped charge, he had no reason to feel guilt.
Quinn poured himself a cup of coffee and went out to the tiny secluded courtyard behind the brownstone. There was a small green metal table there, and three green metal chairs. They were rust-free and weatherproof as long as Quinn painted them every spring.
Randall, the bulldog that lived next door, began to bark up a storm, until he heard Quinn’s voice and decided to be quiet.
One of these days, Quinn thought, Randall would be correct in his desperate prognosis of a catastrophe. Those were the odds, anyway. This kind of dog couldn’t be wrong all the time.
After Quinn used a paper towel to wipe down the table and one of the chairs, he spread open the two newspapers
Pearl had left for him, the Times and the Post. Despite them being already read by Pearl, and maybe by Jody, they were folded in reasonably neat fashion. He used another paper towel, folded in quarters, as a makeshift coaster for his coffee cup.