Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"Not much," she said. She explained that the man had had no identification on him – only some cash, about $900, extra ammo for his weapon, cigarettes and a lighter. "Oh, and a knife, which had traces of blood on it."

Cooper had already ordered the typing test on the blood. But Rhyme knew it would match Jerry Tang's or Jimmy Mah's.

AFIS results came back on the prints from the Blazer and from the dead man. All negative.

Sonny Li pointed to a Polaroid of the face of the corpse. "Hey, I got it right, Loaban. His face – check it out. He's Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uighur. A minority, like I telling you, remember?"

"I remember, Sonny," Rhyme said to him. "Call our friend from the tong – Cai. Tell him that we think the gang is of those minorities you mentioned, Sonny. Might help him narrow things down." Then he asked, "Ballistics?"

"The Ghost was still using his Model 51," Sachs said.

Li offered, "I'm saying, very solid-rock gun."

"I found some nine-millimeter casings too." She held the evidence bag up. "But no distinctive ejection marks. Probably a new Beretta, SIG Sauer, Smittie or Colt."

"And the dead guy's weapon?"

"I processed it," she explained. "His prints only. It was an old Walther PPK. Seven-point-six-five."

"Where is it?" Rhyme studied the evidence bag and saw no sign of the weapon.

A look passed between Sachs and Sonny Li – a look decidedly not for Detective Lon Sellitto. She said, "I think the feds have it."

"Ah."

Li looked away from Rhyme and he knew immediately that Sachs had slipped the Chinese cop the weapon after she was through processing it.

Well, good for him, the criminalist thought. If not for the Chinese detective, then Deng, Sachs and the Wus' daughter might've been killed tonight. Let him have some protection.

Sachs gave Cooper the serial number of the Walther and he ran it through the firearms database. "Zip," he said. "Made in the 1960s. Probably's been stolen a dozen times since then."

Sellitto called, "Just got through to a senior VP at Arnold Textile. Woke him up but he was pretty cooperative, considering. That particular carpeting is for commercial sale only – original developers and installers – and it's the top of their line. He gave me a list of twelve big developers in the area who buy directly from the manufacturer and twenty-six distributors who market to installers and subcontractors."

"Hell," Rhyme said. It would be a marathon of canvassing to find the addresses of buildings where Lustre-Rite had been installed. He said, "Get somebody on it."

Sellitto said, "I'll have 'em start waking people up. Fuck – I'm awake; why the hell shouldn't the rest of the world be?" He made a call to the Big Building to line up some detectives to help and faxed the list downtown to them.

Then Rhyme's private line rang and he answered it.

"Lincoln?" a woman's voice asked through the speakerphone.

He was thrilled to hear the caller's voice. "Dr. Weaver."

Rhyme's neurosurgeon, who'd be performing the operation next week.

"I know it's late. Am I interrupting anything? You busy?"

"Not a thing," Rhyme said and ignored Thom's exaggerated glance at the whiteboard, which attested to the fact that he was somewhat occupied at the moment.

"I've got the details for the surgery. Manhattan Hospital. Week from Friday at 10 A.M. Neurosurgery pre-op. Third floor."

"Excellent," he replied.

Thom jotted the information down and Rhyme and the doctor said good night.

"You going to doctor, Loaban?"

"Yes," he said.

"About…" The Chinese cop couldn't seem to think of a way to summarize Rhyme's condition and he waved toward his body.

"That's right."

Sachs said nothing, just stared at the sheet of instructions that Dr. Weaver had dictated to Thom. Rhyme knew that she would prefer he not have the operation. Most of the successes with the technique had occurred with patients whose injuries were far less severe than Rhymes, those with the damage much lower on the spinal cord, at the lumbar or thoracic level. The surgery, as she'd told him, would probably produce no discernible benefit and was risky – it might even make him worse. And, given his lung impairment, it was possible that he could die on the table. But Sachs understood how important it was to him and was going to support him.

"So," she finally said, a stoic smile on her face, "we'll make sure we nail the Ghost before next Friday."

Rhyme noticed that Thom had been studying him closely.

"What?" the criminalist snapped.

The aide took Rhyme's blood pressure. "Too high. And you don't look good."

"Well, thank you very much," he snapped back, "but I don't think my appearance has anything to do -"

"It's quitting time," the aide said firmly. And he wasn't speaking to his boss.

Sellitto and Cooper also voted to call it a night.

"Mutiny," Rhyme muttered.

"No," Thom retorted. "Common sense."

Sellitto made a call to check on the Wus and John Sung. The family was now in the NYPD safehouse in the Murray Hill section of New York. John Sung had declined Sachs's invitation to join them, afraid that it would remind him too much of the many Chinese security bureau facilities he'd been detained in as a dissident. Instead, Sellitto added another cop to the team guarding him. All of the protective officers reported that the immigrants were safe.

Rhyme said to Sachs, "You taking those herbs with you? I hope you are. They stink."

"I was going to leave them as air freshener but if you don't like them…" She leaned close. "How are you feeling? You look pale."

"Just tired," he said. Which was the truth. Oddly tired. He supposed he should be concerned about it but he believed his exhaustion was nothing more than the demands of the case, which had been consuming him for days. But the fatigue was something that he knew he should pay attention to – did it indicate anything more serious? One of the major problems plaguing SCI patients, of course, isn't just paralysis. There are related problems because the nerves aren't responding – lung impairment and resulting infections – but perhaps the worst problem is the absence of pain. You have no early warning system of pain from cancer, say, which Rhymes own father had died of – as had Sachs's. He remembered that his dad had first learned of the disease after he'd gone to the doctor complaining about stomach pain.

"Good night," Mel Cooper called.

"Wan an," Li called.

"Whatever," Sellitto grumbled and walked into the corridor.

"Sonny," Rhyme said. "You'll stay here tonight."

"Not got other place to go, Loaban. Sure."

"Thom'll make up a room. I'll be upstairs, taking care of a few things. Come up and visit if you feel like it. Give me twenty minutes."

Li nodded then turned back to the whiteboard.

"I'll take you up," Sachs said. Rhyme wheeled into the tiny elevator that ran between the first and second floors, formerly a closet. She joined him and closed the door. Rhyme glanced at her face. It was thoughtful but in a way that didn't have to do with the case, he sensed.

"Anything you want to talk about, Sachs?"

Without answering, she closed the elevator door and pressed the UP button.

GHOSTKILL

Easton , Long Island,

Crime Scene

• Two immigrants killed on beach; shot in back.

• One immigrant wounded – Dr. John Sung.

• "Bangshou" (assistant) on board; identity unknown.

• Assistant confirmed as drowned body found near site where Dragon sank.

• Ten immigrants escape: seven adults (one elderly, one injured woman), two children, one infant. Steal church van.

• Blood samples sent to lab for typing.

• Injured woman is AB negative. Requesting more information about her blood.