The Burning Wire (Lincoln Rhyme 9)

FRED DELLRAY WAS walking down a street in the East Village, past a row of gardenias, past a gourmet coffee shop, past a clothing store.

My, my . . . Was that $325 for a shirt? Without a suit, tie and pair of shoes attached?

He continued past storefronts in which sat complicated espresso machines and overpriced art and the sorts of glittery shoes that a girl would lose at 4 a.m. en route from one hazy downtown club to another.

Thinking how the Village had changed in the years since he'd started being an agent.

Change . . .

Used to be a carnival, used to be crazy, used to be gaudy and loud, laughter and madness, lovers entwined or shrieking or floating sullenly down the busy sidewalks . . . all the time, all the time. Twenty-four hours. Now this portion of the East Village had the formula and sound track of a homogenized sitcom.

Man, had this place changed. And it wasn't just the money, not just the preoccupied eyes of the professionals who lived here now, cardboard coffee cups replacing chipped porcelain . . .

No, that wasn't what Dellray kept seeing.

What he saw was everybody on fucking cell phones. Talking, texting . . . and, Jesus our Savior in heaven, here were two tourists right in front of him using GPS to find a restaurant!

In the East fucking Village.

Cloud zone . . .

Everywhere, more evidence that the world, even this world--Dellray's world--was now Tucker McDaniel's. Back in the day, Dellray would play dress-up here, looking homeless, pimp, dealer. He was good at pimp, loved the colored shirts, purple and green. Not because he worked vice, which wasn't a federal crime, but because he knew how to fit.

The chameleon.

He fit in places like this. And that meant people talked to him.

But now, hell, there were more people on phones than there weren't. And every one of those phones--depending on the inclination of the federal magistrate--could be tapped into and give up information that it would have taken Dellray days to get. And even if they weren't tapped, there apparently were still ways to get that information, or some of it.

Out of the air, out of clouds.

But maybe he was just overly sensitive, he told himself, using a word that had rarely figured in the psyche of Fred Dellray. Ahead of him he saw Carmella's--the old establishment that may very well have been a whorehouse a long time ago and was presently an island of tradition here. He walked inside and sat down at a rickety table. He ordered a regular coffee, noting that, yes, espresso and cappuccino and latte were on the menu, but of course, they always had been. Long before Starbucks.

God bless Carmella.

And around him, of the ten people here--he counted--only two were on cell phones.

This was the world of Mama behind the cash register, her pretty-boy sons waiting tables and even now, midafternoon, customers twirling pasta, glistening orange not supermarket red. And sipping from small hemispheres of wineglasses. The whole place filled with animated talk, punctuating gestures.

This filled him with comfort. He believed that he was doing this the right way. He believed in William Brent's reassurance. He was about to receive some value, something for the dubious one hundred thousand dollars. Only a tenuous lead, but it would be enough. That was something else about Street Dellray. He'd been able to weave cloth from the tiny threads his CIs delivered, usually they themselves oblivious to the value of what they'd found.

A single hard fact that would lead to Galt. Or to the site of the next attack. Or to the elusive Justice For.

And he was well aware that fact, that find, that save . . . they'd vindicate him too, Dellray, the old-school street agent, far, far from the cloud zone.

Dellray sipped the coffee and snuck a glance at his watch. Exactly 3 p.m. He had never known William Brent to be late, even by sixty seconds. ("Not efficient," the CI had said of being either early or tardy.)

Forty-five minutes later, without as much as a phone call from Brent, a grim-faced Fred Dellray checked his messages once more on the cold phone. Nothing. He tried Brent's for the sixth time. Still straight to the robotic voice telling him to leave a message.

Dellray gave it ten minutes longer, tried once more, then called in a big favor from a buddy of his at one of the mobile providers and learned that the battery had been removed from Brent's phone. The only reason to do that was to prevent tracing, of course.

A young couple approached and asked if Dellray was using the other chair at his table. The responsive glance must have been pretty intimidating because they retreated instantly and the boyfriend didn't even try for a moment of chivalric bravado.

Brent's gone.

I've been robbed and he's gone.

Replaying the man's confidence, his reassurance.