The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

The nature of this place didn't help. Dim, musty, quiet. And there was no one else here, not at eight-fifteen on a Tuesday morning. The museum wasn't open yet--tourists were still asleep or having their breakfasts--but the library opened at eight. Geneva had been waiting here when they unlocked the doors, she'd been so eager to read the article. She now sat in a cubicle at the end of a large exhibit hall, where faceless mannequins wore nineteenth-century costumes and the walls were filled with paintings of men in bizarre hats, women in bonnets and horses with wack, skinny legs.

Another footstep. Then another pause.

Should she leave? Go hang with Dr. Barry, the librarian, until this creepy dude left?

And then the other visitor laughed.

Not a weird laugh, a fun laugh.

And he said, "Okay. I'll call you later."

A snap of a cell phone folding up. That's why he'd been pausing, just listening to the person on the other end of the line.

Told you not to worry, girl. People aren't dangerous when they laugh. They aren't dangerous when they say friendly things on cell phones. He'd been walking slowly because that's what people do when they're talking--even though what kind of rude claimer'd make a phone call in a library? Geneva turned back to the microfiche screen, wondering, You get away, Charles? Man, I hope so.

Yet he regained his footing and, rather than own up to his mischief, as a courageous man would do, continued his cowardly flight.

So much for objective reporting, she thought angrily.

For a time he evaded his pursuers. But escape was merely temporary. A Negro tradesman on a porch saw the freedman and implored him to stop, in the name of justice, asserting that he had heard of Mr. Singleton's crime and reproaching him for bringing dishonor upon all colored people throughout the nation. The citizen, one Walker Loakes, thereupon flung a brick at Mr. Singleton with the intent of knocking him down. However,

Charles dodges the heavy stone and turns to the man, shouting, "I am innocent. I did not do what the police say!"

Geneva's imagination had taken over and, inspired by the text, was writing the story once again.

But Loakes ignores the freedman's protests and runs into the street, calling to the police that the fugitive is headed for the docks.

His heart torn, his thoughts clinging to the image of Violet and their son, Joshua, the former slave continues his desperate run for freedom.

Sprinting, sprinting . . .

Behind him comes the gallop of mounted police. Ahead of him, other horsemen appear, led by a helmeted police officer brandishing a pistol. "Halt, halt where you are, Charles Singleton! I am Detective Captain William Simms. I've been searching for you for two days."

The freedman does as ordered. His broad shoulders slump, strong arms at his sides, chest heaving as he sucks in the humid, rancid air beside the Hudson River. Nearby is the tow boat office, and up and down the river he sees the spindles of sailing ship masts, hundreds of them, taunting him with their promise of freedom. He leans, gasping, against the large Swiftsure Express Company sign. Charles stares at the approaching officer as the clop, clop, clop of his horse's hooves resonate loudly on the cobblestones.

"Charles Singleton, you are under arrest for burglary. You will surrender to us or we will subdue you. Either way you will end up in shackles. Pick the first and you will suffer no pain. Pick the second, you will end up bloody. The choice is yours."

"I have been accused of a crime I did not commit!"

"I repeat: Surrender or die. Those are your only choices."

"No, sir, I have one other," Charles shouts. He resumes his flight--toward the dock.

"Stop or we will shoot!" Detective Simms calls.

But the freedman bounds over the railing of the pier like a horse taking a picket in a charge. He seems to hang in the air for a moment then cartwheels thirty feet into the murky waters of the Hudson River, muttering some words, perhaps a plea to Jesus, perhaps a declaration of love for his wife and child, though whatever they might be none of his pursuers can hear.

*

Fifty feet from the microfiche reader forty-one-year-old Thompson Boyd moved closer to the girl.

He pulled the stocking cap over his face, adjusted the eyeholes and opened the cylinder of his pistol to make sure it wasn't jammed. He'd checked it earlier but, in this job, you could never be too certain. He put the gun into his pocket and pulled the billy club out of a slit cut into his dark raincoat.

He was in the stacks of books in the costume exhibit hall, which separated him from the microfiche-reader tables. His latex-gloved fingers pressed his eyes, which had been stinging particularly sharply this morning. He blinked from the pain.

He looked around again, making sure the room was in fact deserted.

No guards were here, none downstairs either. No security cameras or sign-in sheets. All good. But there were some logistical problems. The big room was deathly quiet, and Thompson couldn't hide his approach to the girl. She'd know someone was in the room with her and might become edgy and alert.