Jeffery Deaver - The Coffin Dancer

“No,” the Dancer said. “I don’t get scared.” Suddenly he nodded, as if he’d finally noticed something that had been nagging him. “Ah, listening carefully, are you? Trying to peg the accent?”

Rhyme had been.

“But, see, it changes. Mountain… Connecticut… Plains southern and swamp southern… Mizzura. Kayntuckeh. Why’re you interrogating me? You’re Crime Scene. I’m caught. Time for beddy-bye. End of story. Say, I like chess. I love chess. You ever play, Lincoln?”

He’d used to like it. He and Claire Trilling had played quite a bit. Thom had been after him to play on the computer and had bought him a good chess program, installed it. Rhyme had never loaded it. “I haven’t played for a long time.”

“You and I’ll have to play a game of chess sometime. You’d be a good man to play against… You want to know a mistake some players make?”

“What’s that?” Rhyme felt the man’s hot gaze. He was suddenly uneasy.

“They get curious about their opponents. They try to learn things about their personal life. Things that aren’t useful . Where they’re from, where they were born, who their siblings are.”

“Is that right?”

“That may satisfy an itch, but it confuses them. It can be dangerous. See, the game is all on the board, Lincoln. It’s all on the board.” A lopsided smile. “You can’t accept not knowing anything about me, can you?”

No, Rhyme thought, I can’t.

The Dancer continued. “Well, what exactly do you want? An address? A high school yearbook? How about a clue? ‘Rosebud.’ How’s that? I’m surprised at you, Lincoln. You’re a criminalist – the best I’ve ever seen. And here you are right now on some kind of pathetic sentimental journey. Well, who am I? The headless horseman. Beelzebub. I’m Queen Mab. I’m ‘them’ as in ‘Look out for them; they’re after you.’ I’m not your proverbial worst nightmare because nightmares aren’t real and I am more real than anybody wants to admit. I’m a craftsman. I’m a businessman. You won’t get my name, rank, or serial number. I don’t play according to the Geneva convention.”

Rhyme could say nothing.

There was a knock on the door.

The transport had arrived.

“Can you take the shackles off my feet?” the Dancer asked the two officers in a pathetic voice, his good eye blinking and tearful. “Oh, please. I hurt so much. And it’s so hard to walk.”

One of the guards looked at him sympathetically then at Rhyme, who said matter-of-factly, “You loosen so much as one restraint and you’ll lose your job and never work in this city again.”

The trooper stared at Rhyme for a moment, then nodded at his partner. The Dancer laughed. “Not a problem,” he said, his eye on Rhyme. “Just a factor.”

The guards gripped him by his good arm and lifted him to his feet. He was dwarfed by the two tall men as they led him to the door. He looked back.

“Lincoln?”

“Yes?”

“You’re going to miss me. Without me, you’ll be bored.” His single eye burned into Rhyme’s. “Without me, you’re going to die.”

An hour later the heavy footsteps announced the arrival of Lon Sellitto. He was accompanied by Sachs and Dellray.

Rhyme knew immediately there was trouble. For a moment he wondered if the Dancer had escaped.

But that wasn’t the problem.

Sachs sighed.

Sellitto gave Dellray a look. The agent’s lean face grimaced.

“Okay, tell me,” Rhyme snapped.

Sachs delivered the news. “The duffel bags. PERT’s been through ’em.”

“Guess what was inside,” Sellitto said.

Rhyme sighed, exhausted, and not in the mood for games. “Detonators, plutonium, and Jimmy Hoffa’s body.”

Sachs said, “A bunch of Westchester County Yellow Pages and five pounds of rocks.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing, Lincoln. Zip.”

“You’re sure they were phone books, not encrypted business records?”

“Bureau cryptology looked ’em over good,” Dellray said. “Fuckin’ off-the-shelf Yellow Pages. And the rocks’re nothin’. Just added ’em to make it sink.”

“They’re gonna release Hansen’s fat ass,” Sellitto muttered darkly. “They’re doin’ the paperwork right now. They’re not even presenting it to the grand jury. All those people died for nothing.”

“Tell him the rest,” Sachs added.

“Eliopolos is on his way here now,” Sellitto said. “He’s got paper.”

“A warrant?” Rhyme asked shortly. “For what?”

“Oh. Like he said. To arrest you.”

REGINALD ELIOPOLOS APPEARED AT THE DOORWAY, backed up by two large agents.

Rhyme had thought of the attorney as middle aged. But in the daylight he seemed to be in his early thirties. The agents were young too and dressed as well as he was, but they reminded Rhyme of pissed-off longshoremen.

What exactly did he need them for? Against a man flat on his back?

“Well, Lincoln, I guess you didn’t believe me when I said there’d be repercussions. Uh-huh. You didn’t believe me.”

“What the fuck’re you bitchin’ about, Reggie?” Sellitto asked. “We caught him.”

“Uh-huh… uh-huh. I’ll tell you what I’m” – he lifted his hands and made imaginary quotation marks in the air – “bitchin’ for. The case against Hansen is kaput. No evidence in the duffel bags.”

“That’s not our fault,” Sachs said. “We kept your witness alive. And caught Hansen’s hired killer.”

“Ah,” Rhyme said, “but there’s more to it than that, right, Reggie?”

The assistant U.S. attorney gazed at him coldly.

Rhyme continued, “See, Jodie – I mean, the Dancer – is the only chance they have to make a case against Hansen now. Or that’s what he thinks. But Dancer’ll never dime a client.”

“Oh, that a fact? Well, you don’t know him as well as you think you do. I just had a long talk with him. He was more than willing to implicate Hansen. Except now he’s stonewalling. Thanks to you.”

“Me?” Rhyme asked.

“He said you threatened him. During that little unauthorized meeting you had a few hours ago. Uh-huh. Heads are going to roll because of that. Rest assured.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rhyme spat out, laughing bitterly. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? Let me guess… you told him that you’d arrest me, right? And he’d agree to testify if you did.”

The pendulum swing of Eliopolos’s eyes told Rhyme that this was exactly what happened.

“Don’t you get it?”

But Eliopolos didn’t get a thing.

Rhyme said, “Don’t you think he’d like to get me in detention, maybe fifty, sixty feet from where he is?”

“Rhyme,” Sachs said, frowning with concern.

“What’re you talking about?” the attorney said.

“He wants to kill me, Reggie. That’s his point. I’m the only man who’s ever stopped him. He can’t very well go back to work knowing I’m out there.”

“But he’s not going anywhere. Ever.”

Uh-huh.

Rhyme said, “After I’m dead he’ll recant. He’ll never testify against Hansen. And what’re you going to pressure him with? Threaten him with the needle? He won’t care. He’s not afraid of anything. Not a single thing.”

What was nagging? Rhyme wondered. Something seemed wrong here. Very wrong.

He decided it was the phone books…

Phone books and rocks.

Rhyme was lost in thought, staring at the evidence chart on the wall. He heard a jingle, glanced up. One of the agents with Eliopolos actually pulled out his handcuffs and was proceeding toward the Clinitron. Rhyme laughed to himself. Better shackle the old feet. Might run away.