“Thank you.”
They disconnected.
“So, cuffs off?”
“Writing a book doesn’t make you not-the-Locksmith. Give me an alibi for one of the intrusions.” She gave him the dates and times of the Talese and the Noelle break-ins.
“Home, I’m sure. You can call my wife. We just had twins and I’m up with them a lot at night. And there’s a doorman.”
Sachs got the number and called. The conversation she had with the woman was pretty much what she’d expected. The wife confirmed his presence, with the duet of crying in the background lending credence. Sachs did most of the talking, largely reassuring the woman that her husband was not in any trouble or danger.
She disconnected. “Turn around.”
Freed, he rubbed his wrists as she re-holstered the chrome cuffs and looked around. He smiled coyly. “So I’m guessing this isn’t too far from Averell Whittaker’s place, where he’s hiding.”
Sachs scoffed, flagging that his effort was a waste of time. “I only came this way, to the warehouse, so we could have this little chat.”
“Can I interview you for my book?”
“No.”
“Do you ever say, ‘Yes’? Or, ‘I’d be happy to help you out’?”
“Neither.”
“Might raise your profile.”
Considering that profile upping was the last thing she wanted to do — in light of the edict that Lincoln Rhyme was forbidden from investigating cases — she hit him with another negative.
“On deep background. No names. Can you tell me what Whittaker said about his niece trying to kill him?”
“Have a good day, Gibbons.”
As he started away, a thought occurred. She said, “Wait.”
He turned, his face wary, as if expecting to see the blade again.
“Have you been tailing Joanna and Martin Kemp?”
“That’s right. Checking out their haunts, stores they go to, banks, lawyers, friends.”
“In the past week, did either of them go to what looked like a warehouse or storeroom or workshop?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Where?”
“Lower East Side. One of the old tenement neighborhoods.”
There wasn’t much left of the ramshackle Manhattan. Hell’s Kitchen in West Midtown was gone. Harlem was redeveloped. The railyards were now all underground, the surrounding residential and industrial clutter bulldozed away and the ’hoods turned into glitz. But there were still pockets of tattered buildings — one and two stories — south and east, where immigrants had settled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Interesting, she reflected, this was one neighborhood that Kemp had not mentioned when asked about places Kitt was thinking of for a workshop.
“Who was there?”
“I didn’t see. Joanna picked up a bag and dropped something off. I just saw the hand and then the door closed.”
If it was the Locksmith’s workshop, Joanna was probably picking up Annabelle’s or Carrie’s underwear and the knives to implicate Kitt.
“You have an address?”
Now he was coy. It was a what-can-you-do-for-me look. “If I had an exclusive or access to records, something...”
“Okay, I’ve got a good story for you, Gibbons.”
“Yeah?” His eyes were eager.
“I’ll even give you the headline: ‘Reporter Does the Right Thing.’”
“In this business, you always have to give it a try.” He shrugged. “Argyle Street, Lower East Side. I don’t know the number but the building had a name. Something about baking supplies.”
Well, that didn’t end well.
I’m in my workshop in the Sebastiano building, I’ve called up a TV station on my computer. It’s one of the traditional stations, not WMG, Whittaker’s outlet. I suspect I wouldn’t get an accurate account of the arrest of Joanna and her fiancé for attempting to murder her family members on that channel.
I’m packing up, suitcases, boxes. I won’t be able to stay here much longer. Joanna will eventually sell me out in exchange for a reduced sentence. But I have a little time; she’ll be a hard negotiator.
Glancing occasionally at the computer, I note that some of the unanswered questions that arose in apartment 2019 are now being explained: Joanna had planned the murders to gain control of the Whittaker Media empire. And the man she was setting up to be the Locksmith was none other than her own cousin, Kitteridge Whittaker, a handsome young man, with the face of a crusading politician.
Since he isn’t in fact the perpetrator, that means, the anchor-woman says in anchor-speak, that the real Locksmith is still at large.
Which hardly needs to be said, but then I don’t know the average IQ of the audience.
Yet the Shakespearean soap opera of the Whittaker family is of less interest to the viewing audience than the fact that Joanna is Verum.
This is taking the bulk of airtime.
There have already been incidents. Her supporters aren’t happy she’s been arrested. Arson, broken windows, graffiti.
I see a sign: Free Verum now!
One talking head speculates that she wanted control of her uncle’s company because she hoped to use Whittaker’s media outlets as a bullhorn in spreading her messages.
Another one offers that she grew disgusted by her capitalist upbringing and, like a true revolutionary, wanted to undermine the System, “with a capital ‘S.’”
I actually laugh out loud. They have no idea that she whipped up Verum simply for the ego and the money.
A woman in an ugly knit hat and stained coat chants: “Free her now! Free her now! We’ve said our prayers and we’re prepared!”
If I were truly God, and could moderate the content of humankind, I would delete this crone with a single keystroke.
The newscast ends with the comment that the police do not yet have any leads as to the identity of the Locksmith.
Back to work. Sadly I’m not going to get the full half million, but that’s all right. The 200K plus my substantial savings and my inheritance is enough for a fresh start. A nice workshop/apartment — decked out with that new chair I’ve been looking forward to. We content moderators know a lot about the dark web. I can create a new identity for myself in a week.
And get down to doing what I was born to do.
72
The setup was this:
One sniper and her spotter, across the street from the Locksmith’s suspected workshop, the old Sebastiano Bakery Supply building.
One surveillance team in a battered florist delivery van with eyes and ears on the place.
One four-person dynamic entry team south, one north, each a half block from the front door. They were inside, respectively, a plumbing repair truck and an unmarked but highly battered white van, not unlike the one that played a two-ton prop in Sachs’s dramatic film debut earlier, directed by undercover cop Aaron Douglass.
And out of sight, ambulances and a squadron of uniforms. A fire truck too, given the Locksmith’s attempt at destroying the evidence in the Sandleman Building.
Sachs spoke into her cell phone. “We’re on location, Rhyme.”
“Any sign of him?”
“Nothing. Windows’re shuttered. Only one functioning door in and out, the front. The delivery entrance, in the back. It’s been bolted shut. There’ll be a small cellar with a coal chute. That door’s been sealed too.” She was looking over a photo from the Department of Buildings that showed the layout of the place. New York City records were very much as old as New York City. “Thinking if he spots us he could rabbit through adjoining basements, but he’d have to break through the walls — no adjoining doors. They’re brick and sandstone. Anyway, we have eyes on the neighboring structures too.”