Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

He wiped his face again. “There’re doctors’ offices upstairs. And nobody’s here on Sunday so I hit ’em for, you know, samples.”

“Samples?”

“Doctors get all these free samples of drugs and shit and there’s no record, so you can steal as much as you want and nobody knows. Percodan, Fiorinal, diet pills, stuff like that.”

But Stephen wasn’t listening. He felt the chill of the Worm again. Lincoln was very close.

“Hey, you all right?” the man asked, looking at Stephen’s face.

Oddly, the worms went away.

“What’s your name?” Stephen asked.

“Jodie. Well, Joe D’Oforio. But everybody, like, calls me Jodie. What’s yours?”

Stephen didn’t answer. Staring out the window. Another shadow moved on top of the building behind the safe house.

“Okay, Jodie. Listen up. You want to make some money?”

“Well?” Rhyme asked impatiently. “What’s going on?”

“He’s still in the building to the east of the safe house. He hasn’t gone into the alley yet,” Sellitto reported.

“Why not? He has to. There’s no reason for him not to. What’s the problem?”

“They’re checking every floor. He’s not in the office we thought he’d go for.”

The one with the open window. Damn! Rhyme had debated about leaving the window open, letting the curtain blow in and out, tempting him. But it was too obvious. The Dancer’d become suspicious.

“Everybody’s loaded and locked?” Rhyme asked.

“Of course. Relax.”

But he couldn’t relax. Rhyme hadn’t known exactly how the Dancer would try his assault on the safe house. He’d been sure, though, it would be through the alley. He’d hoped that the trash bags and Dumpsters would lull him into thinking there was enough cover to make his approach from that direction. Dellray’s agents and Haumann’s 32-E teams were surrounding the alley, in the office building itself, and on the buildings around the safe house. Sachs was with Haumann, Sellitto, and Dellray in a fake UPS van parked up the block from the safe house.

Rhyme had been temporarily fooled by the feint with the supposed gas truck bomb. That the Dancer would drop a tool at a crime scene was improbable but somewhat credible. But then Rhyme grew suspicious about the quantity of detonating cord residue on the clippers. It suggested that the Dancer had smeared the blade with explosive to make sure the police thought he’d try an assault on the precinct house with a bomb. He decided that, no, the Dancer hadn’t been losing his touch – as he and Sachs had originally thought. Being spotted surveiling his intended route of attack and then leaving a guard alive so that the man could call the police and tell them about the theft of the truck – those were intentional.

The final gram tipping the scales, though, was physical evidence. Ammonia bound to a paper fiber. There are only two sources for that combination – old architectural blueprints and land plat maps, which were reproduced by large-sheet ammonia printers. Rhyme had had Sellitto call Police Plaza and ask about break-ins at architectural firms or the county deeds office. A report came back that the recorder’s office had been broken into. Rhyme asked them to check East Thirty-fifth Street, amazing the city guards, who reported that, yes, those plats were missing.

Though how the Dancer’d found out that Percey and Brit were at the safe house and what its address was remained a mystery.

Five minutes ago two ESU officers had found a broken window on the first floor of the office building. The Dancer’d shunned the open front door but had still moved in for the assault on the safe house through the alley just as Rhyme had predicted. But something had spooked him. He was loose in the building and they had no idea where. A poisonous snake in a dark room. Where was he, what was he planning?

Too many ways to die…

“He wouldn’t wait,” Rhyme muttered. “It’s too risky.” He was growing frantic.

An agent called in, “Nothing on the first floor. We’re still making our rounds.”

Five minutes passed. Guards checked in with negative reports but all Rhyme really heard was the static rustling in his headset.

Jodie answered, “Who doesn’t wanna make money? But I don’t know doing what.”

“Help me get out of here.”

“I mean, what’re you doing here? Are they looking for you?”

Stephen looked the sad little man up and down. A loser, but not crazy or stupid. Stephen decided it was best tactically to be honest. Besides, the man’d be dead in a few hours anyway.

He said, “I’ve come here to kill somebody.”

“Whoa. Like, are you in the Mafia or something? Who’re you gonna kill?”

“Jodie, be quiet. We’re in a tough situation here.”

“ We? I didn’t do anything.”

“Except you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Stephen said. “And that’s too bad, but you’re in the same situation I am because they want me and they aren’t going to believe you’re not with me. Now, you gonna help me or not? All I’ve got time for is yes or no.”

Jodie tried not to look scared, but his eyes betrayed him.

“Yes. Or. No.”

“I don’t want to get hurt.”

“If you’re on my side you’ll never get hurt. One thing I’m good at is making sure who gets hurt and who doesn’t.”

“And you’ll pay me? Money? Not a check.”

Stephen had to laugh. “Not a check. No. Cash.”

The jelly beans of eyes were considering something. “How much?”

The little crud was negotiating.

“Five thousand.”

The fear remained in the eyes but it was pushed aside by shock. “For real? You’re not shitting me?”

“No.”

“What if I get you out and you kill me so you don’t have to pay?”

Stephen laughed again. “I’m getting paid a lot more than that. Five’s nothing to me. Anyway, if we get out of here I could use your help again.”

“I -”

A sound in the distance. Footsteps coming closer.

It was the S &S cop, looking for him.

Just one, Stephen could tell, listening to the steps. Made sense. They’d be expecting him to go for the first-floor office with the open window, where Lincoln the Worm would’ve stationed most of the troopers.

Stephen replaced the pistol in his book bag and pulled out his knife. “You going to help me?”

A no-brainer, of course. If Jodie didn’t help he’d be dead in sixty seconds. And he knew it.

“Okay.” He extended his hand.

Stephen ignored it and asked, “How do we get out?”

“See those cinder blocks there? You can pull ’ em out. See, there? It leads to an old tunnel. There’re these delivery tunnels going underneath the city. Nobody knows about them.”

“There are?” Stephen wished he’d known about them before.

“I can get us to the subway. That’s where I live. This old subway station.”

It was two years since Stephen had worked with a partner. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t killed the man.

Jodie started toward the concrete blocks.

“No,” Stephen whispered. “Here’s what I want you to do. You stand against that wall. There.” He pointed to a wall opposite the doorway.

“But he’ll see me. He checks in here with his flashlight and I’ll be the first thing he’ll see!”

“Just stand there and put your hands up.”

“He’ll shoot me,” Jodie whimpered.

“No, he won’t. You’ve got to trust me.”

“But…” His eyes darted toward the door. He wiped his face.

Is this man going to buckle, Soldier?

That is a risk, sir, but I’ve considered the odds and I think he won’t. This is a man who wants money badly.