Carol O'Connell - Mallory's Oracle

"Yeah, right. What about all the SEC documents from Markowitz's side of the bulletin board? All the background checks? He got that from me, not from any of your damn street people. And who gave you the seance connection? I didn't have to pressure a pimp or roll a sick junkie to get any of it."

True, Mallory was the best source Markowitz had ever had.

"Coffey can't use the stock-market material," he said. "If he calls the SEC into this too early, we'll all be up to our tails in feds. He won't let go of Lou's murder, not to them. He wants to keep it in the family, you know?"

"I know."

"But you and I need an understanding about Redwing. You could get killed pulling a stunt like this – "

"I'm not a rookie – "

"When it comes to fieldwork, you are. Markowitz screwed up, that's a fact. And you're following him into the same hole, running a surveillance with no backup."

He was talking to the air. She was staring at the screen of her computer. "So what kind of setup does Redwing have? Is she stealing money by computer hacking?"

"She wouldn't know how. Redwing is an adequate technician. She can run a computer program, but she could never design one. The past few days I've watched her scanning message centers. She's waiting for something. I'm guessing they use different message centers every time she talks to whoever's running the scam. That gives me at least one player above Redwing's level."

He looked down at the screen of her laptop computer. "Okay, what're we looking at?"

"The same thing Redwing's looking at. It's an electronic bulletin-board system. Anyone in the world with a telephone can log on and leave a message. The one she's lifting off the board is in code. Kid's stuff. I'll break it down in another minute."

Riker looked back to the old man's window. Whatever Redwing was into, it didn't pay well. Not that the interior of one apartment was a sure indication of a bad neighborhood. And it wasn't the rats dancing on the garbage-can lid; he'd seen them uptown and down. But the condoms on the sidewalk told him it was a hooker block. The next block over might be straight middle-class working stiffs. That was New York. Turn any corner and the atmosphere changed. On the next street over, a storefront window displayed toys; on this block it was adult books and peepshows.

"I like this," said Mallory. "I like it a lot. She's not picking up background checks on victims. She's gathering stock information on mergers and takeovers. If this is non-public, if it doesn't tally with SEC filings, it's insider trading."

"Mallory, can you break this into simple English? I'm not a stocks-and-bonds kinda guy. I guess you didn't know that."

"Your niece works for a law firm, right?"

"Gloria, yeah. She's a paralegal."

"Let's say Gloria is working up the contract for a merger between two companies. She has a little lead time before the paperwork on the merger is filed with the SEC. Now she knows the stock will go up in value the minute the merger is made public. Suppose Gloria gives that information to a friend before it goes public? The friend makes a fortune on stock purchases and gives your niece a cut of the profits. The original stockholders are cheated because they've sold their shares to Gloria's friend, and sold them for a song. The feds really hate that."

"It's like a rigged horse-race?"

"You got it. You see these numbers and letters?" She pointed to the first column of type on the screen. "These are stocks. I'm guessing they're identified by current market quotations. I'll have to check the paper when we get back. The numbers following the stock IDs are purchase orders. It doesn't fit with any seance scam. She's into something too big for any one person. A medium-size bank couldn't handle these transactions."

"Suppose we get a warrant to pick up her computer?"

"No good without a direct link to the player who feeds her the information. She has a legal loophole. This bulletin board qualifies as public access, same as printing stock information in a newspaper. Now that's smart, very smart, and not Redwing's idea. You're looking for somebody with a brain, access to trading activity and organizational skills."

"Coffey's gonna love this."

"Yeah, right. Tell him it's a gift from the rookie. So, what have you got for me?"

"Kid, I gave you my wad," he said, and that was the truth. She turned away from him, not believing in him anymore.

Margot held the switchblade in her hand as she listened to the phone ringing endlessly, twenty, thirty times. She knew how to wait. He would answer. The switchblade had been cleaned for the tenth time and the blade gleamed, throwing its light on the walls. No answer. She continued to wait. It was what she did best. She had waited years for the man with the dancing knife. She looked down at the blade as it caught the light in a sliver of metal.

She had decided to keep the switchblade. The blood had been boiled away on the stove. It was safe. She would keep it. It might bring her luck. It hadn't been so lucky when it tumbled to the desk in the bank, but that was before she killed the bogeyman. Maybe she'd take it back to the bank. What was she going to do about the bank? Henry would know.

The phone continued to ring.

Maybe Henry would let her use his lawyer to get the advance money. Maybe she would just go back with the knife in her pocket. She was luckier today. A tourist had put a dollar bill in her cup and now there was enough in the cup for a slice of pizza and a subway token. It had amazed her how easily money could be had when one looked as she did and smelled as she did.

Thirty minutes later, she rounded the corner to Avenue C in that section of the East Village called Alphabet City. It was also called the war zone. This was where the law was not. And so it startled her to see a cop on the sidewalk talking to another cop in the car parked in front of her building.

So, the banker had turned her in. Bastard. She would get the little twit for that.

She turned around and headed back to the subway, picking a cup from a trash can as she walked along the sidewalk. Don't run, she told herself, running is a dead give-away. She panhandled her way down the street in the security that no one, cop or civilian, looked into the face of poverty if they didn't have to.

The VCR was set to loop endlessly, and so, Markowitz danced through the night. Mallory fell asleep to the lullabies of the Fifties, and he rock'n'rolled into her dreams. The dancing detective held Mallory in his arms. She was unconscious, and he was trying desperately to wake her. The dream ended with the dip. He bowed her body down until she lay upon the floor at the base of the cork wall. He was yelling at her. What was he saying? Why couldn't she understand?

She woke, lifting her head from the desk, eyes slowly adjusting to the images on the video. Markowitz danced off with young Helen, twirling away from the camera's eye, leaving Mallory alone in the dark. Her hands slowly rose above her head, curled into fists and came back to the desk as hammers.

Why had they left her all alone?

Was it night? Was it day? Margot read the time off the passenger's watch but there was no way to know if it was eleven in the morning or eleven at night. How long had she been asleep, rolling along on the subway line, back and forth, uptown and down. The subway-car door opened and a passenger got on.

She watched him, her eyes doing a slow roll as he took the seat opposite hers. She stared at his mouth. It was distinctive in its cruelty, a harsh line that dipped low and mean on either side. She was not likely to forget it, ever. That mouth, that cruel twisted mouth. She had dreams about that mouth and the dancing knife. The train stopped. The man got off, and she followed after him from a small distance. It was him. He was the one. She followed him into the tunnel leading up to the next level. The knife danced out of her pocket. The blade clicked into the light.