“Tough day, huh?” asked the blind man.
“They’re all tough.”
“Tell me about it. But at least you got that door unstuck for me. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” said Fisher. “Here’s a question for you: Why would someone who lived in Inwood want a copy of a community newspaper from Chelsea?”
“See how the other half lives,” said Brown. He found this funny and laughed.
Fisher sipped his beer.
“Or he used to live there,” said Brown.
Fisher jumped up. “Thanks for the beer.”
“You leavin’?”
“Gotta go find the newspaper office,” said Fisher.
Chapter 10
Three of the apartments listed in the Gazette had been rented, one by a woman and the other two by young men. Fisher concentrated on the men first, spending a good deal of Thursday and much of Friday morning ruling them out as Faud Daraghmeh.
This would have been relatively easy had he been able to see them at any point; the first renter turned out to be a six six weight lifter from Wisconsin seeking fame and fortune as an actor in New York. The other was a Buddhist monk, shaved head and all.
Which left, at least as far as this straw was concerned, the woman. The landlord hadn’t given Fisher a name, and in fact had just rudely hung up when Fisher tried to get more details. Fisher went over to the apartment two blocks south of the Fashion Institute and realized that he should have come here first: The name taped on the mailbox was Fama Ahmed Ali. The apartment was on the third floor of a large building; there was no way for one person to watch it without camping directly outside the door, where he could be seen.
“No stakeout,” said Macklin. “We don’t have the personnel.”
“You can’t get NYPD to do it?”
“They have their hands full. Not only do they have the Final Four, but there’s a big session going on at the UN right through the weekend. The President’s coming up Monday. This is huge, even for New York.”
“Get me a search warrant, then.”
“A search warrant?”
“If I go knocking on the door and it is Faud Daraghmeh or his sister or whatever, they’ll start flushing the evidence as soon as I leave.”
“We’re not even close to reasonable grounds here, Andy.”
“You’re telling me in all New York City, there’s not one judge who’d give you a search warrant?”
“Jeez.”
“What if we got an anonymous tip that Fama Ahmed Ali was plotting to kill the President.”
“You can’t do that, Andy! Christ.”
“Just asking a theoretical question.”
“I’ll see if I can get a warrant. Don’t call in a threat. Don’t. Don’t.”
“Now, would I do that?”
A set of stairs sat at the end of the hallway on the third floor. Fisher had propped open one of the heavy glass and wrought-iron doors, which let him hear but not see what was happening in the hallway; he came down the steps a few times as the elevator stopped on the floor, but in the three hours he spent there, no one went in or out of the apartment. Finally, Macklin called: He’d managed to get the search warrant and even two NYPD officers to help in the search.
“Just two?” said Fisher, leaning back on the staircase. The steps were made of marble, though at some point someone had painted them with a very thick paint, then recoated them for good measure. The paint had peeled back to the sides of the steps but was still fairly thick on the risers. This seemed to be some object lesson in fashion, pretension, and perhaps utility, though Fisher couldn’t quite figure what it was.
“Is there someone inside the apartment?” Macklin asked.
“I don’t know,” said Fisher. He glanced at his watch; it was nearly five. “Not much use hanging around, though. Let’s hit the place now.”
Macklin couldn’t get into the city until seven, and so they set up the raid for seven forty-five.
Raid was a bit of an overstatement. With the two cops guarding the fire escape and Macklin and another Homeland Security agent behind him, Fisher banged on the door and told the occupants to open up. When no one answered, he used the key supplied by the landlord’s rental agent, pushing the door open.
He jumped back just in time: A homemade bomb exploded in the interior of the hallway, sending shrapnel flying through the apartment.
Chapter 11
“I need to find a place to live,” Howe told her.
“There are hundreds of real estate agents in this area.”
“Yeah, but you already know what I want.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah.”
She sat back in her seat, then pulled the keys from the corner of her desk.
Howe followed her out to the lot. He pulled his seat belt on, watching her silently.
“There’s a good condo development two miles from the highway. It’s solid, not too fancy.”
“Show me that house again, the one you liked.”
Her faced reddened but she said nothing. As she pulled up near it, he saw there were two cars in the driveway; another Realtor was showing the place.
“So, why did you get mad at me the other night?” he asked as she turned off the car.
“I wasn’t mad. At first. Then I got mad.”
“Because I drink beer with spaghetti.”
“No. Because… I don’t know. You took it for granted.”
“What?”
“Kissing me like that.”
“Kissing you? I thought after what we’d been through that—”
“That what?”
What had he thought? That he liked her, that he owed her, that he wanted her.
But he seemed unable to say any of those things.
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” Howe told her.
She put her car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
“Where are you going?”
“This isn’t your kind of house. You think it’s too fancy.”
“Yeah, but you like it.”
“You’re the one who’s buying. Or renting. Which one is it?”
“I can buy,” said Howe. “They made a ridiculous offer and I took the job yesterday.”
“You don’t think you deserve it, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” he said.
“Well, you do.”
“How do you know?”
“You just do.” She turned the car around the circle at the end of the cul-de-sac. As they started back up the hill, the people were coming out of the house.
“Let’s go take a look again,” said Howe. “What the hell? You like showing it, and I’m not doing anything.”
She didn’t smile, but the way she turned her head told him somehow she would stop.
Chapter 12
Fisher sat with the bomb squad people as they sent a small robot rover into the apartment to look for more bombs. The rover looked a bit like a Martian lander, and the photos it sent back to the laptop were every bit as sketchy. The herring-bone-pattern linoleum drove the automated video controls nuts, and the operators had a hard time making sure there were no more trip wires or similar devices in place. But at least the man at the laptop was free with his Camels.
The bomb squad moved in with full-gear even after the rover’s search came up empty. Fisher gave them a few minutes, then went inside.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” said one of the officers in a mattress suit near the door.