The Coffin Dancer

by Jeffery Deaver

  When they'd arrested Joe D'Oforio and flung him into the back of a car, he'd told them that the Dancer had left only ten minutes before, climbing down the stairs and vanishing along a spur line. Jodie--the mutt's nickname--didn't know which direction he'd gone, only that he'd disappeared suddenly with his gun and his backpack. Haumann and Dellray sent their troopers to scour the station, the tracks, and the nearby City Hall station. They were now waiting for the results of the sweep.

  "Come on . . . "

  Ten minutes later a SWAT officer pushed through the doorway. Sachs and Dellray both looked at him hopefully. But he shook his head. "Lost his prints a hundred feet down the tracks. Don't have a clue where he went."

  Sachs sighed and reluctantly relayed the message to Rhyme and asked if she should do a search of the tracks and the nearby station.

  He took the news as acerbically as she'd guessed he would. "Damnit," the criminalist muttered. "No, just the station itself. Pointless to grid the rest. Shit, how does he do it? It's like he's got some kind of fucking second sight."

  "Well," she said, "at least we've got a witness."

  And regretted immediately that she'd said that.

  "Witness?" Rhyme spat out. "A witness? I don't need witnesses. I need evidence! Well, get him down here anyway. Let's hear what he has to say. But, Sachs, I want that station swept like you've never swept a scene before. You hear me? Are you there, Sachs? Do you hear me?"

  . . . Chapter Twenty-five

  Hour 25 of 45

  "And what do we have here?" Rhyme asked, giving a soft puff into the Storm Arrow control straw to scoot forward.

  "An itsy piece of garbage," offered Fred Dellray, cleaned up and back in uniform--if you could call an Irish green suit a uniform. "Uh, uh, uh. Don't say a word. Not till we ask fo' it." He turned his alarming stare on Jodie.

  "You fooled me!"

  "Quiet, you little skel."

  Rhyme wasn't pleased that Dellray had gone out on his own, but that was the nature of undercover work, and even if the criminalist didn't understand it exactly he couldn't dispute that--as the agent's skills just proved--it could get results.

  Besides, he'd saved Amelia Sachs's hide.

  She'd be here soon. The medics had taken her to the emergency room for a rib X ray. She was bruised from the fall down the stairs, but nothing was broken. He'd been dismayed to learn that his talk the other night had had no effect; she'd gone into the subway after the Dancer alone.

  Damn it, he thought, she's as pigheaded as me.

  "I wasn't going to hurt anybody," Jodie protested.

  "Hard o' hearing? I said don't say a word."

  "I didn't know who she was!"

  "No," Dellray said, "that pretty silver badge of hers didn't give nuthin' away." Then remembered he didn't want to hear from the man.

  Sellitto walked up close and bent over Jodie. "Tell us some more about your friend."

  "I'm not his friend. He kidnapped me. I was in that building on Thirty-fifth because--"

  "Because you were boosting pills. We know, we know."

  Jodie blinked. "How'd you--"

  "But we don't care about that. Not yet, at least. Keep going."

  "I thought he was a cop but then he said he was there to kill some people. I thought he was going to kill me too. He needed to escape so he told me to stand still and I did, and this cop or somebody came to the door and he stabbed him--"

  "And killed him," Dellray spat out.

  Jodie sighed and looked miserable. "I didn't know he was going to kill him. I thought he was just going to knock him out or something."

  "Well, asshole," Dellray spat out, "he did kill him. Killed him dead as a rock."

  Sellitto looked over the evidence bags from the subway, containing scuzzy porn magazines, hundreds of pills, clothes. A new cellular phone. A stack of money. He turned his attention back to Jodie. "Keep going."

  "He said he'd pay me to get him out of there and I led him through this tunnel to the subway. How'd you find me, man?" He looked at Dellray.

  "'Cause you were skipping 'long the street hawking your be-bops to everybody you came across. I even knew your name. Jee-sus, you are a mutt. I oughta squeeze your neck till you're blue."

  "You can't hurt me," he said, struggling to be defiant. "I have rights."

  "Who hired him?" Sellitto asked Jodie. "He mention the name Hansen?"

  "He didn't say." Jodie's voice quavered. "Look, I only agreed to help him 'cause I knew he'd kill me if I didn't. I wasn't going to do it." He turned to Dellray. "He wanted me to get you to help. But soon as he left I wanted you to leave. I was going to the police and telling them. I was. He's a scary guy. I'm afraid of him!"

  "Fred?" Rhyme asked.

  "Yeah, yeah," the agent conceded, "he did have a change of tune. Wanted me gone. Didn't say anything about going to the police, though."

  "Where's he going? What were you supposed to do?"

  "I was supposed to go through the trash bins in front of that town house and watch the cars. He told me to look for a man and a woman getting into a car and leaving. I was supposed to tell him what kind of car. I was going to call on that phone there. Then he was going to follow."

  "You were right, Lincoln," Sellitto said. "About keeping them in the safe house. He's going for a transport hit."

  Jodie continued, "I was going to come to you--"

  "Man, you're useless when you lie. Don't you have any dignity?"

  "Look, I was going to," he said, calmer now. He smiled. "I figured there was a reward."

  Rhyme glanced at the greedy eyes and tended to believe him. He looked at Sellitto, who nodded in agreement.

  "You cooperate now," Sellitto grumbled, "and we might just keep your ass out of jail. I don't know about money. Maybe."

  "I've never hurt anybody. I wouldn't. I--"

  "Cool that tongue," Dellray said. "We all together on that?"

  Jodie rolled his eyes.

  "Together?" the agent whispered maliciously.

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

  Sellitto said, "We've got to move fast here. When were you supposed to be at the town house?"

  "At twelve-thirty."

  They had fifty minutes left.

  "What kind of car's he driving?"

  "I don't know."

  "What's he look like?"

  "In his early, mid-thirties, I guess. Not tall. But he was strong. Man, he had muscles. Crew-cut black hair. Round face. Look, I'll do one of those drawings . . . The police sketch thing."

  "Did he give you a name? Anything? Where he's from?"

  "I don't know. He has kind of a southern accent. Oh, and one thing--he said he wears gloves all the time because he's got a record."

  Rhyme asked, "Where and for what?"

  "I don't know where. But it's for manslaughter. He said he killed this guy in his town. When he was a teenager."

  "What else?" Dellray barked.

  "Look," Jodie said, crossing his arms and looking up at the agent, "I've done some bad shit but I've never hurt anybody in my life. This guy kidnaps me and he's got all these guns and is one crazy fucked-up guy and I was scared to death. I think you woulda done the same thing I did. So I'm not putting up with this crap anymore. You want to arrest me, do it and, like, take me to detention. But I'm not gonna say anything else. Okay?"

  Dellray's gangly face suddenly broke into a grin. "Well, the rock cracks."

  Amelia Sachs appeared in the doorway and she walked in, glancing at Jodie.

  "Tell them!" he said. "I didn't hurt you. Tell 'em."

  She looked at him the way you'd look at a wad of used chewing gum. "He was going to brain me with a Louisville Slugger."

  "Not so, not so!"

  "You okay, Sachs?"

  "Another bruise is all. On my back. Bookends."

  Sellitto, Sachs, and Dellray huddled with Rhyme, who told Sachs what Jodie'd reported.

  The detective asked Rhyme in a whisper, "We believe him?"

  "Little skel," Dellray m
uttered. "But I gotta say I think he's telling the God-ugly truth."

  Sachs nodded too. "I guess. But I think we have to keep him on a tight leash, whatever we do."

  Sellitto agreed. "Oh, we'll keep him close."

  Rhyme reluctantly agreed too. It seemed impossible to get ahead of the Dancer without this man's help. He'd been adamant about keeping Percey and Hale in the safe house but in fact he hadn't known that the Dancer was going for a transport hit. He was only leaning toward that conclusion. He might easily have decided to move Percey and Hale and they might have been killed as they drove to the new safe house.

  The tension gripped his jaw.

  "How do you think we should handle it, Lincoln?" Sellitto asked.

  This was tactical, not evidentiary. Rhyme looked at Dellray, who tugged his unlit cigarette out from behind his ear and smelled it for a moment. He finally said, "Have the mutt make the call and try to get whatever dope he can from the Dancer. We'll set up a decoy car, send the Dancer after it. Have it full of our folks. Stop it fast, sandwich him in with a couple unmarkeds, and take him down."

  Rhyme nodded reluctantly. He knew how dangerous a tactical assault on a city street would be. "Can we get him out of midtown?"

  "We could lead him over to the East River," Sellitto suggested. "There's plenty of room there for a takedown. Some of those old parking lots. We could make it look like we're transferring them to another van. Doin' a round-robin."

  They agreed this would be the least dangerous approach.

  Sellitto nodded toward Jodie, whispered, "He's diming the Coffin Dancer . . . what're we gonna give him? Gotta be good to make it worth his while."

  "Waive conspiracy and aiding and abetting," Rhyme said. "Give him some money."

  "Fuck," said Dellray, though he was known for his generosity with the undercover CIs who worked for him. But finally he nodded. "Hokay, hokay. We'll split the bill. Depending on how greedy the rodent is."

  Sellitto called him over.

  "All right, here's the deal. You help us, you make the call like he wanted and we get him, then we'll drop all charges and get you some reward money."

  "How much?" Jodie asked.

  "Yo, mutt, you're not in any way, shape, or form to negotiate here."

  "I need money for a drug rehab program. I need another ten thousand. Is there any way?"

  Sellitto looked at Dellray. "What's your snitch fund look like?"

  "We could go there," the agent said, "if you do halvsies. Yeah."

  "Really?" Jodie repressed a smile. "Then I'll do whatever you want."

  Rhyme, Sellitto, and Dellray hashed out a plan. They'd set up a command post on the top floor of the safe house, where Jodie would be with the cell phone. Percey and Brit would be on the main floor, with troopers protecting them. Jodie would call the Dancer and tell him that the couple had just gotten into a van and were leaving. The van would move slowly through traffic to a deserted parking lot on the East Side. The Dancer'd follow. They'd take him in the lot.

  All right, let's put it together, Sellitto said.

  "Wait," Rhyme ordered. They stopped and looked at him. "We're forgetting the most important part of all."

  "Which is?"

  "Amelia searched the scene at the subway. I want to analyze what she found. It might tell us how he's coming at us."

  "We know how he's coming at us, Linc," Sellitto said, nodding at Jodie.

  "Humor an old crip, will you? Now, Sachs, let's see what we've got."

  The Worm.

  Stephen was moving through alleys, riding on buses, dodging the cops he saw and the Worm he couldn't see.

  The Worm, watching him through every window on every street. The Worm, getting closer and closer.

  He thought about the Wife and the Friend, he thought about the job, about how many bullets he had left, about whether the targets would be wearing body armor, what range he would shoot from, whether this time he should use a suppressor or not.

  But these were automatic thoughts. He didn't control them any more than he controlled his breathing or heartbeat or the speed of the blood coursing through his body.

  What his conscious thoughts were consumed with was Jodie.

  What was there about him that was so fascinating?

  Stephen couldn't say for certain. Maybe it was the way he lived by himself and didn't seem to be lonely. Maybe the way he carried that little self-help book around with him and truly wanted to crawl out of the hole he was in. Or the way he hadn't balked when Stephen told him to stand in the doorway and risk getting shot.

  Stephen felt funny. He--

  You feel what, Soldier?

  Sir, I--

  Funny, Soldier? What the fuck does "funny" mean? You going soft on me?

  No sir, I am not.

  It wasn't too late to change the plans. There were still alternatives. Plenty of alternatives.

  Thinking about Jodie. About what he'd said to Stephen. Hell, maybe they could get coffee after the job was over.

  They could go to Starbucks. It would be like when he was talking to Sheila, only this would be real. And he wouldn't have to drink that pissy little tea but he'd have real coffee, double strong like the kind Stephen's mother made in the morning for his stepfather, water at a rolling boil for exactly sixty seconds, exactly two and three-quarters level tablespoons per cup, not a single black ground spilled anywhere.

  And was fishing or hunting totally out of the question?

  Or the campfire . . .

  He could tell Jodie to abort the mission. He could take the Wife and the Friend on his own.

  Abort, Soldier? What're you talking about?

  Sir, nothing, sir. I am considering all eventualities regarding the assault, as I have been instructed, sir.

  Stephen climbed off the bus and slipped into the alley behind the fire station on Lexington. He rested the book bag behind a Dumpster, slipped his knife from the sheath under his jacket.

  Jodie. Joe D . . . .

  He pictured the thin arms again, the way the man had looked at him.

  I'm glad I met you too, partner.

  Then Stephen shivered suddenly. Like the time in Bosnia when he'd had to jump into a stream to avoid being caught by guerrillas. The month was March and the water just above freezing.

  He closed his eyes and pressed up against the brick wall, smelled the wet stone.

  Jodie was--

  Soldier, what the fuck is going on there?

  Sir, I--

  What?

  Sir, uhm . . .

  Spit it out. Now, Soldier!

  Sir, I have ascertained that the enemy was trying psychological warfare. His attempts have proved unsuccessful, sir. I am ready to proceed as planned.

  Very good, Soldier. But watch your fucking step.

  And Stephen realized, as he opened the back door to the firehouse and slipped inside, that there'd be no changing the plans now. This was a perfect setup and he couldn't waste it, particularly when there was a chance not only of killing the Wife and the Friend but of killing Lincoln the Worm and the redheaded woman cop too.

  Stephen glanced at his watch. Jodie would be in position in fifteen minutes. He'd call Stephen's phone. Stephen would answer and hear the man's high-pitched voice one last time.

  And he'd push the transmit button that would detonate the twelve ounces of RDX in Jodie's cell phone.

  Delegate . . . isolate . . . eliminate.

  He really had no choice.

  Besides, he thought, what would we ever have to talk about? What would we ever have to do after we'd finished our coffee?

  IV

  Monkey Skills

  [Falcons'] capacity for aerial acrobatics and foolery is matched only by the clowning of ravens, and they seem to fly for the pure hell of it.

  A Rage for Falcons,

  Stephen Bodio

  . . . Chapter Twenty-six

  Hour 26 of 45

  Waiting.

  Rhyme was now alone in his bed upstairs, listening into the S
pecial Ops frequency. He was dead tired. It was noon on Sunday and he'd had virtually no sleep. And he was exhausted from the most arduous effort of all--of trying to out-think the Dancer. It was taking its toll on his body.

  Cooper was downstairs in the lab, running tests to confirm Rhyme's conclusions about the Dancer's latest tactic. Everyone else was at the safe house, Amelia Sachs too. Once Rhyme, Sellitto, and Dellray had decided how to counter what they believed would be the Dancer's next effort to kill Percey Clay and Brit Hale, Thom had checked Rhyme's blood pressure and asserted his virtual parental authority and ordered his boss into bed, no arguments, reasonable or otherwise, accepted. They'd ridden up in the elevator, Rhyme oddly silent, uneasy, wondering if he'd guessed right again.

  "What's the matter?" Thom asked.

  "Nothing. Why?"

  "You're not complaining about anything. No grousing means something's wrong."

  "Ha. Very funny," Rhyme grumbled.

  After a sitting transfer to get him in bed, some bodily functions taken care of, Rhyme was now leaning back into his luxurious down pillow. Thom had slipped the voice recognition headset over his head and, despite his fatigue, Rhyme himself had gone through the steps of talking to the computer and having it patch into the Special Ops frequency.

  This system was an amazing invention. Yes, he'd downplayed it to Sellitto and Banks. Yes, he'd groused. But the device, more than any other of his aids, made him feel differently about himself. For years he'd been resigned to never leading a life that approached normal. Yet with this machine and software he did feel normal.

  He rolled his head in a circle and let it ease back into the pillow.

  Waiting. Trying not to think of the debacle with Sachs last night.

  Motion nearby. The falcon strutted into view. Rhyme saw a flash of white breast, then the bird turned his blue-gray back to Rhyme and looked out over Central Park. It was the male. The tiercel, he remembered Percey Clay telling him. Smaller and less ruthless than the female. He remembered something else about peregrines. They'd come back from the dead. Not too many years ago the entire population in eastern North America grew sterile from chemical pesticides and the birds nearly became extinct. Only through captive breeding efforts and control of pesticides had the creatures thrived.

  Back from the dead . . .

  The radio clattered. It was Amelia Sachs calling in. She sounded tense as she told him that everything was set up at the safe house.