Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window

There’s another item for my collection, of course, but I’ll get to the tape recorder later. It’s not as great a find as it could be, since Myra 9834’s throaty screams while I detached the fingernail had to be muted by duct tape (I was worried about passersby). Still, everything in a collection can’t be a crown jewel; you need the mundane to make the special soar.

I then wander through my Closet, depositing the treasures in the appropriate places.

It looks bigger from the outside…

As of today, I have 7,403 newspapers, 3,234 magazines ( National Geographic s being the cornerstone, of course), 4,235 matchbooks…and, for-going the numbers: coat hangers, kitchen utensils, lunch boxes, soda pop bottles, empty cereal boxes, scissors, shaving gear, shoe horns and trees, buttons, cuff links boxes, combs, wristwatches, clothes, tools useful and tools long outmoded. Phonograph records in colors, records in black. Bottles, toys, jam jars, candles and holders, candy dishes, weapons. It goes on and on and on.

The Closet consists of, what else? Sixteen galleries, like a museum’s, ranging from those holding cheerful toys (though that Howdy Doody is pretty damn scary) to rooms of some things that I treasure but most people would find, oh, unpleasant. Hair and nail clippings and some shriveled mementoes from various transactions. Like this afternoon’s. I deposit Myra 9834’s fingernail in a prominent spot. And while this would normally give me enough pleasure to make me hard again, now the moment is dark and spoiled.

I hate Them so much…

With quivering hands I close the cigar box, taking no pleasure from my treasures at the moment.

Hate hate hate…

Back at the computer, I’m reflecting: Maybe there’s no threat. Maybe it’s just an odd set of coincidences that led Them to DeLeon 6832’s house.

But I can’t take any chances.

The problem: The risk that my treasures will be taken from me, which is consuming me now.

The solution: To do what I started in Brooklyn. To fight back. To eliminate any threats.

What most sixteens, including my pursuers, don’t understand and what puts Them at a pathetic disadvantage is this: I believe in the immutable truth that there is absolutely nothing morally wrong with taking a life. Because I know that there is eternal existence completely independent of these bags of skin and organ we cart around temporarily. I have proof: Just look at the trove of data about your life, built up from the moment you’re born. It’s all permanent, stored in a thousand places, copied, backed up, invisible and indestructible. After the body goes, as all bodies must, the data survive forever.

And if that’s not the definition of an immortal soul, I don’t know what is.

The bedroom was quiet.

Rhyme had sent Thom home to spend Sunday night with Peter Hoddins, the caregiver’s longtime partner. Rhyme gave the aide a lot of crap. He couldn’t help that and sometimes he felt bad about it. But he tried to compensate and when Amelia Sachs was staying with him, as tonight, he shooed Thom off. The young man needed more of a life outside the town house here, taking care of a feisty old crip.

Rhyme heard tinkering in the bathroom. The sounds of a woman getting ready for bed. Clinks of glass and snaps of plastic lids, aerosol hisses, water running, fragrances escaping on humid bathroom air.

He liked moments like these. They reminded him of his life in the Before.

Which in turn brought to mind the pictures downstairs in the laboratory. Beside the one of Lincoln in his tracksuit was another, in black and white. It showed two men wearing suits on their lanky frames, in their twenties, standing side by side. Their arms hung straight, as if they were wondering whether to embrace.

Rhyme’s father and uncle.

He thought often of Uncle Henry. His father not so much. This had been true throughout his life. Oh, there was nothing objectionable about Teddy Rhyme. The younger of the two siblings was simply retiring, often shy. He loved his nine-to-five job crunching numbers in various labs, loved to read, which he did every evening while lounging in a thick, well-worn armchair, while his wife, Anne, sewed or watched TV. Teddy favored history, especially the American Civil War, an interest that, Rhyme supposed, was the source of his own given name.

The boy and his father coexisted pleasantly, though Rhyme recalled many awkward silences present when father and son were alone. What troubles also engages. What challenges you makes you feel alive. And Teddy never troubled or challenged.

Uncle Henry did, though. In spades.

You couldn’t be in the same room with him for more than a few minutes without his attention turning to you like a searchlight. Then came the jokes, the trivia, recent family news. And always the questions-some asked because he was genuinely curious to learn. Most, though, asked as a call to debate with you. Oh, how Henry Rhyme loved intellectual jousting. You might cringe, you might blush, you might grow furious. But you’d also burn with pride at one of the rare compliments he offered because you knew you’d earned it. No false praise or unwarranted encouragement ever slipped from Uncle Henry’s lips.

“You’re close. Think harder! You’ve got it in you. Einstein had done all his important work when he was just a little older than you.”

If you got it right, you were blessed with a raised eyebrow of approval, tantamount to winning the Westinghouse Science Fair prize. But all too often your arguments were fallacious, your premises straw, your criticisms emotional, your facts skewed… At issue, though, wasn’t his victory over you; his only goal was arriving at the truth and making sure you understood the route. Once he’d diced your argument to fine chop, and made sure you saw why, the matter was over.

So you understand where you went wrong? You calculated the temperature with an incorrect set of assumptions. Exactly! Now, let’s make some calls-get some people together and go see the White Sox on Saturday. I need a ballpark hot dog and we sure as hell won’t be able to buy one at Comiskey Park in October.

Lincoln had enjoyed the intellectual sparring, often driving all the way to Hyde Park to sit in on his uncle’s seminars or informal discussion groups at the university; in fact, he had gone more frequently than Arthur, who was usually busy with other activities.

If his uncle were still alive, he’d undoubtedly stroll into Rhyme’s room now without a glance at his motionless body, point at the gas chromatograph and blurt, “Why are you still running that piece of crap?” Then settling down across from the evidence whiteboards, he’d start questioning Rhyme about his handling of the 522 case.

Yes, but is it logical for this individual to behave in this manner? State your givens once more for me.

He thought back to the night he’d recalled earlier: the Christmas Eve of his senior year in high school, at his uncle’s house in Evanston. Present were Henry and Paula and their children, Robert, Arthur and Marie; Teddy and Anne with Lincoln; some aunts and uncles, other cousins. A neighbor or two.

Lincoln and Arthur had spent much of the evening playing pool downstairs and talking about plans for the next fall and college. Lincoln’s heart was set on M.I.T. Arthur, too, planned to go there. They were both confident of admission and that night were debating rooming together in a dorm or finding an off-campus apartment (male camaraderie versus a babe lair).

The family then assembled at the massive table in his uncle’s dining room, Lake Michigan churning nearby, the wind hissing through bare, gray branches in the backyard. Henry presided over the table the way he presided over his class, in charge and aware, a faint smile below quick eyes taking in all the conversations around him. He’d tell jokes and anecdotes and ask about his guests’ lives. He was interested, curious-and sometimes manipulative. “So, Marie, now that we’re all here, tell us about that fellowship at Georgetown. I think we agreed it’d be excellent for you. And Jerry can come visit on weekends in that fancy new car of his. By the way, when’s the deadline for the application? Coming up, I seem to recall.”