The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

Then from Frank: Dude. Epic in class today.

I'm like I can't say anything. What he means is Mrs. Rich's class. Calc. She called on me because I was looking out the window, which she does when somebody's looking out the window to embarrass them and without looking back I said g(1) = h(1) + 7 = [?]10.88222 + 7 = [?]3.88222.

Yeah, one of them says, Loved her face, Mrs. Bitch. You owned her, man.

Epic.

"See you 'round." From Sam. And they just walk away.

I don't get whaled on or spit on. Or told dick bod, skinny bean, all of that.

Nothing.

A good day. Today was a good day.

I pause the recorder and sip some water. Then ease down beside the pillow still holding Alicia's scent. I used to think I would date a blind woman. Tried, but couldn't find one. They don't use personals. Maybe it's too risky. Blind women wouldn't care about too tall, too skinny, long face, long fingers, long feet. Skinny worm freak. Skinny bean boy. Slim Jim. So, a blind woman was my plan. But didn't work out. I meet somebody occasionally. It works okay for what it is. Then it ends.

It always ends. It will end with Alicia too.

I think of the Toy Room.

Then I'm back to the diary, transcribing again, ten minutes, twenty.

The ups and downs of life, recorded forever. Just like my mementos on the shelves in the Toy Room: I remember the joy or sadness or anger surrounding each one.

Today was a good day.

WEDNESDAY II

THE INTERN

CHAPTER 6

Mr. Rhyme, an honor."

Not sure how to respond to that. A nod seemed appropriate. "Mr. Whitmore."

No nudge to first names. Rhyme had learned, however, that his was Evers.

The attorney might have been transplanted from the 1950s. He wore a dark-blue suit, gabardine, a white shirt whose collar and cuffs were starched to plastic. The tie, equally stiff, was the shade of blue that couldn't quite give up violet and was narrow as a ruler. A white rectangle peeked from the jacket's breast pocket.

Whitmore's face was long and pallid and so expressionless Rhyme thought for a moment that he had Bell's Palsy or some paralysis of the cranial nerves. Just as that conclusion was reached, though, his brow furrowed ever so slightly as he took in the parlor and its CSI accoutrements.

Rhyme realized that the man seemed to be waiting for an invitation to sit. Rhyme told him to do so and, smoothing his trousers and unbuttoning his jacket, Whitmore picked a chair close by and lowered himself onto it. Perfectly upright. He removed his glasses, cleaned the round lenses with a dark-blue cloth and replaced both, on nose and in pocket respectively.

Upon meeting Rhyme, visitors generally reacted in one of two ways. The majority were stricken nearly dumb, blushing, to be in the company of a man 90 percent of whose body was immobile. Others would joke and banter about his condition. This was tedious, though preferable to the former.

Some--Rhyme's partiality--upon meeting him would glance once or twice at his body, and move on, undoubtedly the same way they would assess potential in-laws: We'll withhold judgment till we get to the substance. This is what Whitmore now did.

"Do you know Amelia?" Rhyme asked.

"No. I've never met Detective Sachs. We have a mutual friend, a classmate of ours from high school. Brooklyn. Fellow attorney. She called Richard initially and asked him to consider the case but he doesn't do personal injury law. He gave her my number."

The narrowness of his face accentuated its pensive expression, and Rhyme was surprised to hear that he and Sachs were roughly the same age. He'd have thought Whitmore a half-dozen years older.

"When she called me about taking on a possible case and told me that you were free to be an expert witness, I was surprised."

Rhyme considered the time line implicit in his comment. Apparently Sachs had committed Rhyme to be a consultant before she'd confessed to him this was the reason she'd driven from the widow's house in Brooklyn to the parlor here last night.