Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window

“Well, it’s pretty odd. Irregular, you know. I understand your loyalty to your cousin-”

“I have a loyalty to the truth, Joe,” Rhyme said, not caring if he sounded pompous.

“Well…”

“I just need a couple of officers assigned to us. To look over the evidence in these cases again. Maybe do some legwork.”

“Oh, I see… Well, sorry, Lincoln. We just don’t have the resources. Not for something like this. But I’ll bring it up tomorrow with the deputy commissioner.”

“Actually, think we could call him now?”

Another hesitation. “No. He’s got something going on today.”

Brunch. Barbecue. A Sunday-matinee performance of Young Frankenstein or Spamalot.

“I’ll raise the issue tomorrow at the briefing. It’s a curious situation. But you won’t do anything until you hear from me. Or someone.”

“Of course not.”

They disconnected. Rhyme and Sachs were both silent for a few long seconds.

A curious situation…

Rhyme gazed at the whiteboard-on which sat the corpse of an investigation shot dead just as it had lurched to life.

Snapping the quiet, Sachs asked, “Wonder what Ron’s up to.”

“Let’s find out, why don’t we?” He gave her a genuine-and rare-smile.

She pulled out her phone, hit a speed dial number, then SPEAKER.

A youthful voice crackled, “Yes, ma’am, Detective.”

Sachs had been after young patrolman Ron Pulaski to call her Amelia for years but usually he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“You’re on speaker, Pulaski,” Rhyme warned.

“Yes, sir.”

And the “sir” bothered Rhyme, but he had no inclination to correct the young man now.

“How are you?” Pulaski asked.

“Does it matter?” Rhyme responded. “What’re you doing? Right now. And is it important?”

“Right now?”

“I think I just asked that.”

“Washing dishes. Jenny and I just had Sunday brunch with my brother and his wife. We went to the farmers’ market with the kids. It’s a blast. Do you and Detective Sachs ever get to-?”

“You’re at home then. And not doing anything.”

“Well. The dishes.”

“Leave ’em. Get over here.” Rhyme, a civilian, had no authority to order anybody in the NYPD, even traffic cops, to do anything.

But Sachs was a detective third-class; while she couldn’t order him to help them, she could formally request a shift in assignment. “We need you, Ron. And we might need you tomorrow too.”

Ron Pulaski worked regularly with Rhyme, Sachs and Sellitto. Rhyme had been amused to learn that his assignments for the quasi-celeb forensic detective elevated the status of the young officer within the department. He was sure that the supervisor would agree to hand over Pulaski for a few days-as long as he didn’t call Malloy or anyone else downtown and learn that the case wasn’t a case at all.

Pulaski gave Sachs the name of the commander at the precinct house. Then asked, “Oh, sir? Is Lieutenant Sellitto working on this one? Should I call and coordinate with him?”

“No,” blurted both Rhyme and Sachs.

A brief silence followed, then Pulaski said uncertainly, “Well, then, I guess I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just, can I dry the glasses first? Jenny hates water spots.”

Sundays are the best.

Because most Sundays I’m free to do what I love.

I collect things.

Everything you can imagine. If it appeals to me and I can get it into my backpack, or into my trunk, I’ll collect it. I’m not a pack rat like some people might say. Those rodents leave something in place of what they’ve taken. Once I find something, it’s mine. I never let go. Ever.

Sunday’s my favorite day. Because it’s the day of rest for the masses, the sixteens who call this amazing city home. Men, women, children, lawyers, artists, cyclists, cooks, thieves, wives and lovers (I collect DVDs too), politicians, joggers and curators…It’s amazing the number of things that sixteens do for enjoyment.

They roam like happy antelope through the city and the parks of New Jersey and Long Island and upstate New York.

And I’m free to hunt them.

Which is what I’m up to right now, having deflected all the other boring distractions of Sunday: brunch, movies and even an invitation to go play golf. Oh, and worship-always popular with the antelope, provided, of course, that a visit to church is followed by the aforementioned brunch or nine holes of smack-the-ball.

Hunting…

Right now I’m thinking of my most recent transaction, the memory tucked away in my mental collection-the transaction with young Alice Sanderson, 3895-0967-7524-3630, who was looking fine, very fine. Until the knife, of course.

Alice 3895 in that nice pink dress, accentuating her breasts, flirting at the hip (I also think of her as 38-26-36, but that’s a joke on my part). Pretty enough, perfume the scent of Asian flowers.

My plans for her had only partly to do with the Harvey Prescott painting that she was lucky enough to snatch off the market (or unlucky, as it turned out for her). Once I was sure she’d received the delivery, out would come the duct tape and I’d spend the next few hours with her in the bedroom. But she’d ruined it all. Just as I was coming up behind her she turned and gave that nightmare scream. I had no choice but to slice her neck like tomato skin, grab my beautiful Prescott and sneak out-through the window, so to speak.

No, I can’t stop thinking about pretty-enough Alice 3895, in a skimpy pink dress, her skin floral-scented like a tea house. So, bottom line, I need a woman.

Strolling along these sidewalks, glancing at the sixteens through my sunglasses. They, on the other hand, don’t really see me. As I intend; I groom myself to be invisible and there’s no place like Manhattan to be invisible.

I turn corners, slip along an alleyway, make a purchase-cash, of course-then plunge into a deserted area of the city, formerly industrial, becoming residential and commercial, near SoHo. Quiet here. That’s good. I want it peaceful for my transaction with Myra Weinburg, 9834-4452-6740-3418, a sixteen I’ve had my eye on for a while.

Myra 9834, I know you very well. The data have told me everything. (Ah, that debate again: data…plural or singular? Data has told or data have told ? Merriam-Webster’s assures us either is correct. By myself, I tend to be purist: data plural. But in public I try hard to treat the word as singular, like most of society, and hope I don’t slip up. Language is a river; it goes where it will and if you swim against that current you get noticed. And that, of course, is the last thing in the world I want.)

Now, the data on Myra 9834: She lives on Waverly Place, Greenwich Village, in a building the owner wants to sell as co-op units via an eviction plan. ( I know this, though the poor tenants don’t yet, and judging from incomes and credit histories, most of them are totally screwed.)

The beautiful, exotic, dark-haired Myra 9834 is a graduate of NYU and has worked in New York for several years at an advertising agency. Her mother’s still alive, but her father’s dead. Hit and run, the John Doe warrant still outstanding after all these years. Police don’t pull out the stops for crimes like that.

At the moment Myra 9834 is between boyfriends, and friendships must be problematic because her recent thirty-second birthday was marked with a single order of moo shu pork from Hunan Dynasty on West Fourth (not a bad choice) and a Caymus Conundrum white ($28 from overpriced Village Wines). A subsequent trip to Long Island on Saturday, coinciding with local travel by other family members and acquaintances and a large bill, with copious Brunello, at a Garden City restaurant of which Newsday speaks highly, made up for the solitary evening, I imagine.