John Abbott - Scimitar

He had started his search by limiting it to New York City and by further restricting it to felony arrests over the past five years. Those arrests would of course include murders, since homicide was a felony as every schoolboy and schoolgirl in this city knew from watching television and movies and — in some instances — from having committed one or two themselves, murders. The same way that every kid in this city, from the third grade on up, knew that a kilo was the equivalent of two point two pounds. Never mind any other mathematical formulas; they could be failing algebra and geometry or even elementary-school arithmetic, but they all knew for sure that a kilo of cocaine or heroin was two point two pounds of the shit.

Which is why Santorini suspected he should try spelling scimitar with an s-c , stranger things were possible.

Bingo! Right off the bat, he came up with more scimitars than he could shake a sword at.

There were two street gangs in Brooklyn named Scimitar. One of them was the Scimitar S.A.C., which letters stood for Social and Athletic Club, like fun. The other was just plain Scimitar, but the computer indicated the gang was now defunct; Santorini wondered if the Scimitar S.A.C. had taken over the name of the gang that had preceded it in time and exceeded it in reputation. Both gangs, past and present, tattooed these funny little swords on their right hands, on the ball of flesh where thumb joined index finger.

There was also a street gang in the Bronx that called itself Scimitar Psychos, but they preferred tattooing the Persian sword on the forearm — except for the gang’s female members. The debs called themselves Scimitar Psycho Bytches, and they preferred to tattoo the little curved sword — well, well, well — on the upper slope of the breast, where the tattoo would be visible in a bikini, a halter top, or even a low-cut blouse. But the computer indicated that the oldest of the Bytches was only nineteen, scratch Gillian Holmes and Angela Cartwright, or whatever their square handles were.

Santorini kept scrolling.

A guy named Curtis Langdon had slain three nurses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn four years ago and had carved onto their cheeks a mark that faintly resembled a curved sword. The newspaper had taken to calling him the Scimitar Killer. According to the computer, though, Langdon was languishing upstate at Attica, where he was doing life plus ninety-nine.

A woman named Alice Hermann had drowned her six-day-old infant in the bathtub of her apartment in a Queens housing project a year and a half ago. Among the physical characteristics identifying her was a tattoo on her left arm showing a heart pierced by a curving sword. Well, who the hell knew? Except that she, too, was doing time in the Women’s Division of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

There were several other men and women with similar sword-in-heart tattoos... that was the trouble with such a wide search... and a man with a scar that resembled a curved sword or scimitar... and a remarkable number of men and women alike who had birthmarks shaped like curved swords or scimitars... and...

Santorini leaned closer to the screen.

In Manhattan, three years ago, a terrorist group named Simsir had claimed credit for planting an explosive device that detonated in the Iraqi airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy airport. One of the group had eventually been arrested, convicted of arson and reckless endangerment, and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He had escaped last fall and had not surfaced again. His name was Mustapha Hayiz and he was listed as an Iranian national.

In Persian, the word simsir meant scimitar.

Sonny walked past Bergdorf Goodman on the corner of Fifty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue and paused to look in the corner window, where a plastic blond mannequin, dressed in crisp white and black, looked coolly indifferent to the sweltering heat beyond the plate glass. He himself was wearing a tan tropical suit, matching shirt and tie, and brown loafers. Under his arm, he carried a brown leather Mark Cross portfolio with a gold-plated clasp. He looked at his watch: 1:23. He had made his appointment for 1:30.

He turned the corner onto Fifty-eighth, walked partway up the street, almost to the Fine Arts theater, and then crossed Fifty-eighth and walked past the fountain and small park outside the Plaza. Huge flags, only one of them American, hung limply over the entrance doors to the hotel. A dozen or more limousines were parked outside, their windows down, their chauffeurs looking pained by the heat. A doorman, uniformed in white trimmed with gold braid, hailed a taxi for a woman who waited at the top of the steps under the merciful shade of the hotel marquee.

Sonny glanced at her as he walked by and pushed his way through the revolving doors. Following the directions he’d received on the telephone, he walked past the Palm Court and to the left, and then went straight ahead and up a flight of carpeted steps to the mezzanine level, following the signs to the Terrace Room. His appointment was with a woman named Karin Lubenthal in the Catering Department. He had told her on the phone that he wished to make reception and banquet arrangements for his sister’s wedding next June.

The wooden sign was painted white, edged with gold, trimmed with a double scallop at all four corners, and fastened to the wall with a pair of brass fleurettes. It read:

The receptionist just beyond the door was a woman in her late twenties, wearing a wispy red summer dress, her dark hair cut in bangs on her forehead. A laminated identification tag was clipped prominently to the sash of the dress.

“I’m Mr. Morris,” he said. “I have a one-thirty appointment with Miss Lubenthal.”

“Yes, sir, please have a seat,” the woman said. “I’ll let her know you’re here.”

He sat in an upholstered straight-backed chair on the wall perpendicular to the desk. There were several brochures on the table beside the chair. One of them was titled Wedding, Plaza Style . It showed on its all-pink cover a bride all in white. The other was larger — some six by twelve inches, he reckoned — and was simply titled The Plaza , in elegant gold script lettering against a background that looked like marble. He was opening the first brochure when the receptionist said, “She’ll be with you in a moment, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then, conversationally, “Do you all wear those tags?”

“Pardon?” she said.

“The ID tag. It is an ID tag, isn’t it?”

“Oh. Yes, sir. All hotel employees are required to wear them.”

“Why’s that?” he said, studying the tag more closely now.

“Well, for security,” she said. “We don’t want unauthorized people wandering around the halls.”

“I would guess not.”

“For security, that’s all,” she said, and shrugged.

A redheaded woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties came down the corridor, stopped several feet from where Sonny was sitting, smiled, and said, “Mr. Morris?”

He stood up at once and extended his hand.

“Yes,” he said. “How do you do?”

“Karin Lubenthal,” she said, and took his hand.

“Where’s your tag?” he asked.

“What?” she said, puzzled.

“Your ID tag.”

“Oh. In my desk drawer,” she said, still puzzled.

“Only checking,” he said, and smiled.

“I just finished telling him we all have to wear them,” the receptionist said.

“Well, don’t report me,” Karin said, and winked at her. “Won’t you come with me?” she asked Sonny, and then led him down a carpeted corridor to the office’s inner recesses. She was wearing a pleated white skirt and a navy blue blazer. She looked altogether nautical, and quite patriotic if you counted her red hair.