The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme 2)

"No," he gasped. "No . . . "

She cuffed him.

The Coffin Dancer gave a horrifying moan--which might have been from his pain but seemed to arise more out of unbearable loss and failure--and dropped his head to the ground.

He lay still. The trio stood around him, watching his blood soak the grass and innocent crocuses. Soon the heartrending call of the loons was lost in the whup whup whup of a helicopter skimming over the trees. Sachs noticed that Percey Clay's attention slipped immediately away from the man who'd caused her so much sorrow, and the flier watched in rapt attention as the cumbersome aircraft eased through the misty air and touched down lithely on the grass.

. . . Chapter Thirty-nine

"Ain't kosher, Lincoln. Can't do it."

Lon Sellitto was insistent.

But so was Lincoln Rhyme. "Give me a half hour with him."

"They're not comfy with it." Which really meant what the detective added: "They shit when I suggested it. You're civilian."

It was nearly ten on Monday morning. Percey's appearance before the grand jury had been postponed until tomorrow. The navy divers had found the duffel bags that Phillip Hansen had sunk deep in Long Island Sound. They were being raced to an FBI PERT team in the Federal Building downtown for analysis. Eliopolos had

delayed the grand jury to be able to present as much damning evidence against Hansen as possible.

"What're they worried about?" Rhyme asked petulantly. "It's not as if I can beat him up."

He thought about lowering his offer to twenty minutes. But that was a sign of weakness. And Lincoln Rhyme did not believe in showing weakness. So he said, "I caught him. I deserve a chance to talk to him."

And fell silent.

Blaine, his ex-wife, had told him in a moment of very uncharacteristic perception that Rhyme's eyes, dark as night, argued better than his words did. And so he stared at Sellitto until the detective sighed, then glanced at Dellray.

"Aw, give him a little time," the agent said. "What's it gonna hurt? Bring the billy-boy up here. And if he tries to run, hell, gimme a golden excuse for some target practice."

Sellitto said, "Oh, all right. I'll make the call. Only, don't fuck up this case."

The criminalist barely heard the words. His eyes turned toward the doorway, as if the Coffin Dancer were about to materialize magically.

He wouldn't have been surprised if that had happened.

"What's your real name? Is it really Joe or Jodie?"

"Ah, what's it matter? You caught me. You can call me what you want."

"How 'bout a first name?" Rhyme asked.

"How 'bout what you call me? The Dancer. I like that."

The small man examined Rhyme carefully with his good eye. If he was in pain from the wounds, or groggy from medication, he didn't show it. His left arm was in a shoulder cast but he still wore thick cuffs attached to a waist shackle. His feet were chained too.

"Whatever you like," Rhyme said pleasantly, and continued to study the man as if he were an unusual pollen spore picked up at a crime scene.

The Dancer smiled. Because of the damaged facial nerves and the bandages, his expression was grotesque. Tremors occasionally shook his body, and his fingers twitched; his broken shoulder rose and fell involuntarily. Rhyme had a curious feeling--that he himself was healthy and it was the prisoner who was the cripple.

In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

The Dancer smiled at him. "You're just dying to know, aren't you?" he asked Rhyme.

"Know what?"

"To know all . . . That's why you brought me here. You were lucky--catching me, I mean--but you don't really have a clue as to how I did it."