City of Windows--A Novel

by Robert Pobi

  Lucas and Whitaker followed Dominguez into the heart of the prison, navigating its arteries through sally ports, riveted steel doors, and a dozen barred portals that opened up onto yet more hallway bathed in harsh whites generated by a mile of conduit-connected overhead fluorescent fixtures. Dominguez explained that they were using the service, maintenance, and transport passages.

  Whitaker walked in step beside him, and he realized that his initial judgment on her still held. Besides looking like she spiked her kombucha with cartridges, she was professional and generally not very nosy—both top-tenners.

  After a few moments of silence, Dominguez said, “Afghanistan?”

  “No.”

  “Iraq?”

  Lucas wanted to ignore him but decided he would be of the persistent variety, so he simply gave him another curt, “No.”

  “Gonna tell me?”

  “No.”

  After a few more moments of silence, Dominguez changed his approach. “What’s the Doctor stand for?” he asked. “You some kinda coroner? ’Cause we got a doctor here.”

  “Astrophysicist.”

  “A scientist?”

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “I can’t see my work being relevant in prison guard circles.”

  “I’m not a prison guard, I’m a corrections officer.”

  “People who install air conditioners are air conditioner installers, not refrigeration engineers; people who work at the checkout are cashiers, not sales associates. There’s nothing wrong with language being succinct. Guarding prisoners makes you a prison guard.”

  “What would you do if I called you science guy?”

  “You’re a prison guard; I’d expect it from you.” Which effectively ended conversation.

  Whitaker eased up beside Lucas and whispered, “Remember what I said about being invited to parties? Well, that wasn’t what I meant about being nicer.”

  A hundred paces later, Grover Graves came into view, waiting for them on the other side of a sally port, hands on hips, an overcompensating intensity in his posture.

  Graves nodded a hello as they buzzed through. “Dr. Page, Agent Whitaker.” He looked down at his watch. “You made good time.” Then he nodded at some unknown point through the walls up ahead, no doubt in the direction of the dead. “The tactical squad captain was killed during a drill. They thought it was an accidental discharge by one of their men, but when they got him inside, the doctor realized that the victim was shot from behind, meaning from outside the prison. They have the body downstairs for now, but—” He checked the big Seiko on his wrist. “It will be heading off to the morgue in a few minutes. You need to see it?”

  Lucas shook his head; his specialty was geometry, not dead people. “Where was he shot?” he asked, half expecting Graves to say, In the head.

  “Catwalk outside. The scene was scrubbed by the storm before we got here. The forensics team wasn’t able to grab blood spatter from the snow; it’s a mess out there, so we don’t really know where exactly the victim was standing when he died.”

  “What can you tell me in the way of details?”

  “Six-foot-one man in a one-and-a-quarter-inch heel standing on a walkway that is twenty-five feet six inches above grade; fifty-seven feet three inches above sea level. Large-caliber round hit him at the base of the skull. His head is too much of a mess to figure out specifics, at least until we get him to the medical examiner, but even then, I don’t think we’ll get much.” He held out the tablet, showing Lucas an image of what used to be a man’s head but now looked like a sea creature that had depressurized on its ascent from the ocean floor.

  Lucas turned away. “Anyone find the round?”

  “We’re working on that.”

  Three minutes later, Lucas stepped out of the guard tower onto the catwalk where Lupino had spent his last few moments as a living, breathing human being. The snow was coming down in full IMAX 3-D with the wind off the bay adding a little extra misery to the equation. Across the water, LaGuardia was an animated scale diorama. Planes, baggage carriers, deicers, snowplows, passenger buses, runway maintenance vehicles, and all manner of transport motored about in an improvised dance focused on the simple goal of keeping people moving.

  The forensics team combed the yard below, searching for the round with the slow, deliberate actions of grazing farm animals. Everything from metal detectors to density scanners were being utilized, and the sections that had already been searched were being shoveled clear, the snow going into plastic bins that they would go through later if they didn’t find the round on the first sweep.

  The bureau’s trajectory tech was set up on the walkway, the same guy from the night before on Park. Like everyone else Kehoe kept around, he knew what he was doing. Only problem was, you couldn’t string a sniper shot like you could a handgun shot. A crime-scene mannequin was set up where Lupino had likely stood when his clock had stopped, and Kehoe’s man was calmly scrolling through the settings for the electro-optical range finder set up on a tripod beside the dummy. Snow frosted the mannequin. He nodded a hello that wasn’t returned.

  The first two victims had kept moving after they died, one in a rolling automobile, the other in the cable car. But Lupino had flopped over the railing, basically dropping where he had stood, which should have provided all the data they needed to reverse engineer the bullet’s trajectory. Except they had moved the body, and the snow coming down had wiped out Lupino’s footprints, so figuring out exactly where he had been standing was impossible. And the snow had mixed with the blood spatter, absorbing it and turning it into a pink slush that told them nothing but Lupino’s blood type.

  The catwalk was at the outer perimeter of the complex but inside the final span of concertina wire. Beyond the razor fence, there was about two hundred yards of open terrain that ran to the rocky shoreline, the only feature interrupting the bare ribbon of land being a single plowed road near the water. There was nowhere to hide out there, not unless the shooter had lain buried in the snow, which made no kind of practical sense at all.

  Lucas scanned the far shoreline and the airport across the water, then pulled the Leupold scope from his pocket for a closer look. The circular field of view lit up in harsh blue light filled with the visual noise the falling snow added. The bright airport was overexposed compared to the dark shoreline, and Lucas saw nothing but an empty ribbon of land that could hide a thousand different dangers.

  He panned along the bank and was about to swing back when something below the bright canvas of the airport caught his eye. A pair of electric generators were removed from the hustle of the runways and the bustle of the maintenance roads, offset from the airport proper near a maintenance dock at the northwest corner of a runway that pointed straight at Rikers. The generators were each roughly the size of a school bus. And the narrow alley between them offered protection from the wind.

  “Put that away,” Lucas said to Kehoe’s man. “He fired from between those two generators.”

  38

  The Upper East Side

  The place had been dark for an hour now, which meant they should all be asleep. There was no guarantee, of course, but most people were so run-down from chasing the ever-receding American dream that their brains shorted out the minute they hit the Posturepedic. And if the stress was of the insomniac variety, there were all kinds of remedies, running the gamut from Seconal to Jack Daniel’s to OG Kush to whatever the fuck they used to pump into Michael Jackson’s veins.

  Detective Atchison checked his watch. “It’s been an hour.”

  Roberts grunted in what could have meant yes, no, or maybe and reached into the duffel on the floor in the backseat, lifting out a Colt M4 Commando. He passed the small carbine over the transmission hump to Atchison and took a second one out for himself.

  Both men checked their weapons, making sure the magazines were properly seated before chambering rounds.

  Atchison said, “Remember—everyone.” Then h
e climbed out of the Jeep.

  39

  LaGuardia Airport

  Beside Runway 13-31

  Lucas had to squint when he turned back to the airport over his shoulder. The lights were beyond blinding, and he wondered if he were actually feeling their heat from this distance. Then a gust of wind off the bay kissed his neck, and he realized that it was just hopeful projection.

  He turned back to the shoreline below, a snow-swept filigree of land that was sloshed over with ice that formed from water the wind threw against the break wall. Spending more than a few minutes out here was an exercise in masochism. Very few people could do it.

  Whitaker stood at his side, dialed into general Girl Friday mode, while Graves’s men went over the terrain with the patience of diamond hunters.

  The shot had definitely come from the space between the two massive generators. The spectrometers had picked up gunpowder residue on the snow, but it was minimal—in this weather, they had been lucky to find any trace evidence at all.

  Even a cursory glance at Lupino’s file gave Lucas everything he needed to make the judgment call; same general victimology. Lupino had been with the ATF for sixteen years before coming to the DOC a decade back. The file was by no means complete—that was still a few hours off as the bureau ran down all his postings—but it painted enough of a picture to see that he was the same basic phenotype as Hartke and Kavanagh.

  The wind walloped Lucas in the face with another blast of shivers, and his shoulders instinctively tightened. He realized that he was suddenly very hungry, Chinese food a few hours ago notwithstanding. Which led him to the next realization that his wife and kids were at home, dreaming Kodachrome dreams, while he stood out here on the LaGuardia peninsula freezing his parts off and thinking of food.

  Whitaker reached into her pocket and pulled out an apple. She held it up.

  He was about to ask her how she knew he was hungry, but he just let it go. “Thanks,” he said and took it from her gloved hand.

  They didn’t need him, not with three kills under this guy’s belt. They’d find him; there was no way they wouldn’t. It was what the bureau did. Period. Even if the people running the country wanted different results, fantasy would crumble when put up against reality.

  Just then, Graves’s body language changed, and he reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. He took off his glove, swiped his thumb across the screen, and cupped the phone to his ear, trying to block out the screech of the wind and jet engines in the background. He turned his back to the bay, to the wind tearing in. He yelled into his phone, and the call lasted no more than forty seconds. When he was done, he came over to Lucas and Whitaker.

  “They found the round, buried in a wall about eighty feet from where Lupino was standing when he got hit.” He pointed out over the water at the prison island across the East River. “Same caliber.”

  Lucas looked down at the apple in his hand, at the sticker from the orchard in California, and everything suddenly fell into place.

  “So now you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That his hate-on is specific, not general. Hartke, Kavanagh, and now Lupino were chosen for a reason. They’re not blind targets.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Lucas nodded at a jet taxiing down the runway. “Because he would have made a much bigger splash sighting down a 737 and taking out the pilot.” He pulled out his badge and held it out. “You don’t need me anymore.”

  “What the fuck is that?” Graves said.

  “Most people would be able to identify a badge.”

  Graves looked at him. “And most people wouldn’t be a sarcastic prick when it’s unnecessary.”

  “You’re right. But I’m still leaving.”

  He decided that he needed to clarify things so that there would be no misunderstanding. “You don’t need me on this. Not anymore. I have had enough, and I quit.”

  “Quit?”

  “Did I stutter?”

  “You can’t quit. Kehoe will—”

  “Kehoe will understand.” Lucas stared Graves down. “And let’s not pretend that you and I will miss one another. Just take this shit from me before I pitch it in the river.”

  Graves’s mouth pursed up, and he took an audible breath. “You can drop it by the office,” he said and stepped back in a combined effort to save face and be dismissive.

  Lucas didn’t bother arguing; he simply dropped the shield and walked away.

  When Whitaker followed, Graves called out, “And where are you going?” at her.

  She jabbed a finger at Lucas as she ran after him. “I’m his ride home.”

  Graves said something, but it was swallowed by the Led Zeppelin rumble of a jet taxiing by.

  40

  The Upper East Side

  Dingo woke up on the tufted leather chesterfield. It was late; the three iMacs were dark, which meant he had been out for at least two hours, the automatic sleep time for the machines. How had that happened? His iPod was still on, N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police” playing not nearly loud enough.

  With the deep freeze and storm, he had canceled his classes at the dojo, using the extra time to wade the drifts out in the science fiction landscape, taking photos. Dingo augmented his income by selling his work on online stock photo services. The market forced him to use his eye in a different way, an exercise that was slowly beginning to undo all the years spent in combat zones, framing war’s insane art.

  So he had come home, taken a hot bath to thaw out, and started postproduction. A few hours of staring at the screen required a beer, and the beer turned into supper, and after he ate, he needed a nap. And now it was … he checked the clock on the microwave across the little apartment above the garage: 2:11 a.m.

  In the old days, the love seat would have been too short to sleep on, but since the amputations, he took up a little less space. Not much in the way of an upgrade, but for this particular application, he was willing to take it.

  He reached down and picked his legs up off the carpet. He snapped the carbon blades home and yawned, tasting his breath of beer and Top Ramen. Dingo usually treated his body well—his view was that it was the only one he had—but once in a while he allowed himself a little booze and comfort carbs. Maybe a joint and bag of M&M’s. But most of the time, he walked the walk.

  He got up and stretched and for a brief second teetered on the edge of his balance—which happened sometimes after sleeping, as if his muscle memory reset and needed tweaking. What to do, what to do? Go back to work? Or go to bed? He yawned again, and the action drove home that he was now awake. And that he needed to brush his teeth. Or get another beer. After thinking through the options, he decided on another Modelo and headed for the fridge.

  It was dark out, but the snow that blanketed the city reflected the ambient light cast by the lamps in the alley, adding a softness to the scene. The world was somehow both bright and serene, the snow drifting lazily toward the ground ramping up the Christmas card effect, and though he had been out in it all day, the sight was still mesmerizing. Maybe grabbing his Leica and heading out into the storm was the thing to do. He loved the city, or at least the neighborhood, at night, and the abandoned streets might make for a good palette.

  He had looked out the window thousands of times, and his eye always framed the scene, an instinctive habit that work had hammered into his way of viewing the world. The back fence headed off at an angle, joining the neighbor’s garage twenty-three feet away, giving the image a nice strong line to build around. The alley was crisscrossed with drifts and ruts that gave the scene texture. And the footprints leading from the Jeep Grand Cherokee across the alley to the gate were—

  He ran to the back door, keeping to the carpet so his blades wouldn’t clack on the hardwood, and peered into the backyard.

  Two figures stood just under the balcony, but he couldn’t make out any detail in the shadows.

  What the fuck were they doing here? Were they Lucas’s new friends? Wer
e they with the FBI? Did Lucas know they were here? Were they supposed to be here? Where was Lucas?

  He was trying to decide what to do when they stepped from the shadows, dressed in the typical paramilitary garb that American outdoorsmen seemed to find stylish. But it wasn’t their clothing that made Dingo’s mind up for him; it was the assault rifles they carried.

  He wanted to call Erin—to warn her. But she might turn on a light and these two would up their timetable. As things were now, they were moving slowly.

  And if he called Lucas, what good would that do?

  Dingo dialed 911 without losing sight of them. They moved around the balcony and up the steps to the back door.

  The phone rang three times before the monotone voice of the police dispatcher answered. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “There are two men armed with semiautomatic weapons breaking into my neighbor’s house.”

  “What is your address, please?”

  Dingo gave her the address, repeating it.

  “With the weather conditions, it may take a while for—”

  “Tell them not to shoot the guy with the prosthetic legs—that’s me.” The adrenaline had bellowed into a furnace in his stomach, and he felt his core heating up. Erin was alone with the kids.

  “Sir, I need you to stay on the line—”

  The man working on the door got it open.

  And Dingo hung up.

  He pulled his hair back behind his ears and slipped on his Yankees cap. He locked the brim on backward, took a breath, whispered, “Fuck the police,” and pulled the massive Conan sword from the umbrella stand.