The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

"It's in the office. After you." He extended his arm, covered with a multicolored tattoo of some Chinese writing, hundreds of characters long.

Sachs couldn't help but think, What could it possibly say that was worth the pain?

Not to mention how he's going to explain it to his grandkids.

CHAPTER 30

MAN, THE ALLEY ON A WARM AFTERNOON.

Gross.

New York City alleys had a kind of charm, you looked at it one way: They were sort of like history moved into the present day, like in a museum. The fronts of the apartments and--here in Little Italy--the shops changed every generation but the alleys were pretty much what they would've been a century ago. Decorated with faded metal and wooden signs giving delivery directions and warnings. Use Chocks for Your WAGON! The walls, brick and stone, were unpainted, unwashed, shabby. Uneven, improvised doors, loading docks, pipes that led nowhere and wires that you didn't dare touch.

And the air stank.

On hot days like this the kitchen helper hated taking the trash down to the Dumpster, shared with a couple of other restaurants, because the sushi place next door had dumped their garbage last night. No need to guess what this afternoon's atmosphere was like.

Fish.

Still, one thing he liked about the alley: the building above Java Hut. It had apparently been the home of somebody famous. The waiter Sanchez had told him it was some American writer. Mark Twin, he thought. The helper could read English okay and had told Sanchez he was going to find something that this Twin had written but he never got around to it.

He now made the drop, holding his breath, of course, and then turned back toward his deli. He noticed a car parked in the alley here, close to Java Hut, in fact. A reddish Ford Torino Cobra.

Sweet.

But gonna get towed.

The kitchen helper realized he was holding his breath still. He exhaled and then inhaled, wrinkling his nose. The smell actually stung.

Old fish. Warm fish.

He wondered if he was going to puke. But he headed to the car to check it out. He liked cars. His brother-in-law had been arrested for stealing a very nice BMW M3, one of the new ones. That took some doing. Anybody could steal an Accord. But only a man with balls could boost an M3. Not necessarily brains, however. Ramon was arrested exactly two hours and twenty minutes later. But you had to give him credit.

Oh, hey, check it out! This one had an NYPD placard on the dash. What kinda cop'd drive a car like this? Maybe--

At that moment a ball of flame and smoke erupted from the back door of Java Hut and the helper found himself flying backward. He tumbled into a stack of cardboard cartons outside the back of the Hair Cuttery. The helper rolled off the boxes and lay stunned on the oily, wet cobbles.

Jesus...

Smoke and fire flowed from the coffee shop.

The helper unholstered his mobile and forcibly pinched tears away.

He squinted to make out the keypad. But then he realized what would happen if he called, even anonymously.

Sir, what's your name, address, phone number and by the way do you have a driver's license or passport?

Or maybe a birth certificate? A green card?

Sir, we have your mobile number here...

He put the phone away.

Didn't matter anyway, he decided. Other people would have called by now. Besides, the explosion was so strong, there was no doubt there'd be no survivors inside and Mr. Mark Twin's town house would be a pile of smoldering rubble in a matter of minutes.

CHAPTER 31

THE VAN DROVE ALONG BAY STREET, then through downtown Nassau, past wood-clad stores and residences painted soft pink, yellow and green, the shades of the mint candy disks Lincoln Rhyme remembered from the Christmases of his youth.