"Let's see," Cooper said, head down.
But these hairs weren't feline. They were rodent. "Rat," Rhyme announced. "Rattus norvegicus. Your basic sewer rat."
"Keep going. What's in that bag, Sachs?" Rhyme asked like a hungry boy looking over chocolates in a candy store display case. "No, no. There. Yes, that one."
Inside the evidence bag was a square of paper towel smeared with a faint brown stain.
"I found that on the cinder block, the one he moved. I think it was on his hands. There were no prints but the pattern could've been made by a palm."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because I rubbed my hand in some dirt and pushed on another cinder block. The mark was the same."
That's my Amelia, he thought. For an instant his thoughts returned to last night--the two of them lying in bed together. He pushed the thought away.
"What is it, Mel?"
"Looks like it's grease. Impregnated with dust, dirt, fragments of wood, bits of organic material. Animal flesh, I think. All very old. And look there in the upper corner."
Rhyme examined some silvery flecks on his computer screen. "Metal. Ground or shaved off of something. Gas it. Let's find out for certain."
Cooper did.
"Petrochemical," he answered. "Crudely refined, no additives . . . There's iron with traces of manganese, silicon, and carbon."
"Wait," Rhyme called. "Any other elements--chromium, cobalt, copper, nickel, tungsten?"
"No."
Rhyme gazed at the ceiling. "The metal? It's old steel, made from pig iron in a Bessemer furnace. If it were modern it'd have some of those other materials in it."
"And here's something else. Coal tar."
"Creosote!" Rhyme cried. "I've got it. The Dancer's first big mistake. His partner's a walking road map."
"To where?" Sachs asked.
"To the subway. That grease is old, the steel's from old fixtures and tie spikes, the creosote's from the ties. Oh, and the fragment of tile is from a mosaic. A lot of the old stations were tiled--they had pictures of something that related to the neighborhood."
Sachs said, "Sure--the Astor Place station's got mosaics of the animals that John Jacob Astor traded."
"Grouted porcelain tile. So that's what the Dancer wanted him for. A place to hide out. The Dancer's friend's probably a homeless druggie living in an abandoned siding or tunnel or station somewhere."
Rhyme realized that everyone was looking at a man's shadow in the doorway. He stopped speaking.
"Dellray?" Sellitto said uncertainly.
The dark, somber face of Fred Dellray was focused out the window.
"What is it?" Rhyme asked.
"Innelman's what it is. They stitched him up. Three hundred stitches they gave him. But it was too late. Lost too much blood. He just died."
"I'm sorry," Sachs said.
The agent lifted his hands, long sticklike fingers raised like spikes.
Everyone in the room knew about Dellray's longtime partner--the one killed in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. And Rhyme thought too of Tony Panelli--'napped downtown a few days ago. Probably dead by now, the only clue to his whereabouts the grains of curious sand.