But then paranoia seeped in like water in the badly grouted basement of her Brooklyn town house and she pitched the unit into a sewer grate outside the smoking cave of Java Hut.
She found a Patrol officer and swapped her smallest bill, a ten, for four bucks' worth of change and called Police Plaza from a nearby pay phone, then was transferred.
"Sellitto."
"Lon."
"You think he was really listening?" he asked.
"I'm not taking any chances."
"Okay, fine with me. But it pisses me off. That was a new Android. Fucker. Now are you ready?"
She had pen in hand and a notepad balanced on the stained shelf under the phone. "Go ahead."
"The interpreter's name is Lydia Foster." He gave Sachs her address on Third Avenue. Her phone number too.
"How'd the canvassers find her?"
"Legwork," Sellitto explained. "Started at the top floor of that office building where Moreno picked her up and worked their way down twenty-nine stories. Naturally, they didn't get a hit till floor three, took 'em forever. She was working freelance, translating for a bank."
"I'm going to call her now." She added, "How the hell did he tap our lines, Lon? It isn't just anybody who can do that."
The older detective muttered, "This guy is too fucking connected."
"And he knows your number too now," she pointed out. "Watch your back."
He gave a gruff laugh. "That's a cliche Linc definitely wouldn't approve of."
His words made her miss Rhyme all the more.
"I'll let you know what I find," she said.
A few minutes later Sachs was speaking with Lydia Foster, explaining the purpose for the call.
"Ah, Mr. Moreno. Yes, I was very sad to hear that. I interpreted for him three times over the last year."
"Each time in New York?"
"That's right. The people he met with spoke pretty good English but he wanted to speak through me in their native languages. He thought he could get a better feel for them. I was supposed to tell him what I thought their attitudes were, in addition to the words."
"I talked to the driver who took you two around the city on May first. He said you had some general conversations with Mr. Moreno too."
"That's right. He was very social."
Sachs found her heart pounding a bit faster. The woman could be a well of information.
"You and he met how many people on the latest trip?"
"Four, I think. Some nonprofit organizations, run by Russians and some people out of Dubai, and at the Brazilian consulate. He also met somebody by himself. That man he was meeting spoke English and Spanish. He didn't need me so I waited at Starbucks downstairs in the office building."
Or maybe he didn't want you to hear the substance of that meeting.
"I'd like to come over and talk to you."
"Yes, anything I can do to help. I'm home for the day. I'll find all my transcripts for the job and organize them."
"You keep copies of everything?"