Robert Tanenbaum - Resolved

"Yeah, you're right. Okay, check that aspect out, but low-key it, you know? So it doesn't get back to him. I mean the guy was on the job, he works for Radionics, all that police communications gear… there's probably not a lot of money in his life. Anything else?"

"The across the street neighbor, old retired guy, saw a white male exit the house around maybe eleven, give or take. Blue ball cap, white T-shirt, chinos, sneakers. Odds are it was our perp. Couldn't see the face, average height, husky build. Walked off."

"That's interesting. No car?"

"Not that our guy could see. You're thinking a bad license? He's afraid to drive?"

"Or he doesn't own a car. Or he parked around the block. You'll check that out. Expand the canvass. I'm not sure we've ever had a serial killer who didn't have wheels… except…"

Beale waited, but Raney was chewing on his lower lip and staring up at a corner of the ceiling.

"You got something, Loo?" Beale asked.

"Maybe. That serial I worked on, the perp used the subway. He was some kind of feeb, probably he couldn't drive at all, but thinking about it just now… it hit me that Mary Chalfonte was married to his brother. Do you know this story?"

"No, what story?"

"No, right, it's twenty years now; you were in junior high. This nut, this satanic sacrifice woman had two sons. One of them did the kidnappings of the victims, and the other one wasn't involved in that. He was just a regular lowlife murderer. I arrested him, as a matter of fact, with my old partner Pete Balducci. Completely unconnected crime. He killed a woman and her little boy, slashed them to pieces. A real con man, too. Felix Tighe. The fuckhead kept Mary locked up and chained to a bed. Beat her with a hanger, among other bad stuff. Anyway, around this time, when Felix was on the run, she managed to escape and go to the cops, and the main cop she wound up with was Rick Chalfonte. He helped her through all the horseshit, and after Felix went up for life, she divorced him and her and Rick got together. And now this."

"So… what, you like this Felix for this one? He can't be on the street?"

"Beale, I would fucking love Felix Tighe for this one. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to say it, he's dead. Died in prison just recently. But let me tell you, it's still a fucking weird coincidence. It gives me the chills."

"So, did you make your contact?" asked Rashid. "Sure, no problem," said Felix. He'd scored some meth after leaving Lucy and was feeling pretty good. "No prob-bob-lemo. She was eating out of my hand."

"Very good. Our friend contacted us today. I will tell him this when I return the message. He will be pleased. This operation is of great importance to him."

Felix looked at Rashid blankly, but smiling.

"Our friend in prison."

"Oh, yeah. What, he called you?"

"No, of course not. All our communication is through the lawyer Bascomb. The message is to launch the other operation now. Here you will help us."

"The other operation?"

"Yes. Come with me, I will show you."

Felix followed Rashid into the kitchen of the house and down the stairs to the basement. Barring the way was a heavy door closed by a large hasp and a combination padlock. Rashid opened it, holding the lock closely as he dialed so that Felix could not see the combination. When the door was opened, Rashid flipped a light switch and ushered Felix inside, closing the door behind him and throwing a bolt to lock it.

A long hanging fluorescent fixture cast its industrial glare over a substantial cement-walled basement room. Shop tables lined one wall, with pegboards on which hung a variety of tools, and there were racks of cardboard part bins neatly arranged below these. Industrial shelving lined the other walls, stocked with cardboard boxes, cans, and lengths of pipe. There was a pipe-cutting vise on a tripod and a complex-looking electrical meter on the shop table. Rashid picked up a length of three-inch pipe capped on both ends, rusty black except for a small toggle switch emerging from a hole drilled in one of the caps.

"Do you know what this is?" Rashid asked.

Felix looked around the shop and then at the cylinder. What else could it be? "A pipe bomb," he said.

"But sophisticated, a sophisticated bomb," said Rashid. "I will explain. You see this small switch? This is the arming switch. Pushed down, like now, the bomb is harmless. Up? I will show you." Rashid moved to the work bench, laid the bomb gently on it, and picked from one of the bins a J-shaped plastic tube, white, as thick as a ballpoint's barrel. It had a squarish lump on one end from which two wires emerged and another pair coming from the belly of the J. He shook it; a tiny rattle.

"That is a ball bearing in there. When the device is on safe, this electromagnet holds the ball bearing in a little shallow cup. When the arming switch is thrown, the magnet shuts off and the firing circuit turns on. Any movement then knocks the ball out of its cup. It slides down the tube and comes to rest between these two contacts, which connect to the firing circuit. The ball closes the circuit and the bomb goes off. This is for cars, you understand, or lean it against a door where the target will come in. Or leave it in a bag at a shop. It can't be moved, do you see?" He jiggled the little tube again.

Felix saw, and struggled to keep his face neutral and interested. Rashid's pedantic manner was getting on his nerves. He thought about hog-tying Rashid and ramming the bomb up his ass and flicking the switch. He played with the thought for a while as Rashid droned on about the other types of detonating devices he had at hand: radio-controlled, timers, spring detonators for package bombs. And the explosives: homemade RDX, ammonium nitrate, and acetone peroxide.

"The explosives are the hardest to get," Rashid explained. "With the recent events, the authorities are being very cautious. We have enough for small demonstrations, but we are still assembling material for our larger project. Here you will come in."

"Me? How?"

"Fertilizer purchases. Small lots in garden and farm supply stores in the area, not enough at one time to be suspicious. Someone who looks like you, an American, would not be suspected. Despite that their own people bomb very often, the Americans are crazy looking for Arabs. It is very amusing, do you not think?"

"Yeah, I'm laughing my ass. What's your larger project?"

Rashid smiled in that annoying smug way he had. "Need to know, need to know. You will be told at the proper time. Now we are ordered to plant one device. The target is a judge. Evan Horowitz."

"What did he do?"

"He condemned our friend to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, on the testimony of a lying traitor. It is impossible in any case for someone like ibn-Salemeh, an Arab patriot, to get a fair trial in New York with the Jews in control, but I think this action will demonstrate that we are not sheep to be slaughtered at their wish. So, here is what you will do: Horowitz keeps his car in an open lot behind the courthouse. You walk through the lot with several newspapers under your arm. You drop one, you stoop to pick it up."

Rashid retrieved the black pipe bomb. "In another newspaper you have one like this. You slip it out and attach it, under the car. It will have a magnet on it so it will stay. You throw the little switch and walk away. Do you think you can do this?"

"Uh, let me see if I get it," said Felix. "Do I throw the switch before or after I put it on the car?"

"After! After! It is the trembler detonation I showed you. If you throw the switch before…"

"Calm down, Rashid. I was joking, okay?"

Rashid frowned. Was it possible he was being made fun of? "This is not time for joking, Felix. I mean it."