Page 132 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“Hell, yes.” They heard some more typing. “Okay, it’s on its way. Hey, I can’t thank you enough. Clearing a case with the wrong suspect’s worse than not clearing it at all.” His voice drew conspiratorial. “Listen, Detective, I don’t know how this thing with Lincoln Rhyme’s going to fall out, but don’t worry, I won’t say a word you’re the one second-guessing him.”

“Kind of you, Detective Kelly. He can be pretty difficult.”

“That’s what I hear.”

70

Something about his face.

Weaselly.

In his native language, he thought:E keqe.

Evil.

Trouble.

The doorman was watching the tall redhead stride from the lobby of Whittaker Tower—or the “Stronghold,” which was how all the doormen around here thought of it. She walked through the police barricade set up to keep reporters back, though there weren’t as many as on a typical day. The word had spread that Mr. Whittaker and his son had left town.

The sixty-five-year-old wore a long gray coat and matching hat. The epaulettes were a little too much, like a faded senior military commander on trial in the world court, but they’d come with the uniform, so there they were.

The Whittaker doorman, Frank, whom he saw about a hundred times a day, wore blue. Frank had joked about the Civil War. It tooka minute but he’d gotten it. Their uniforms, blue and gray. He was from Kosovo, and he knew there was only one civil conflict of note: the one in which your family was killed.

The redhead, who’d just departed the Whittaker building, was on her phone as she walked north on Park Avenue, oblivious to the world.

Oblivious to the weaselly man,e keqe, who followed her.

The doorman thought “trouble” because of the way the weasel had looked around, and, head down, slipped from the shadows where, it seemed, he’d been waiting for her.

He was slim, in a dark jacket and jeans, a backpack slung over his shoulder.

Coincidence?

Maybe, maybe not. When she crossed the street at a light, so did he, though not at the intersection. He dodged through traffic and wove between plants in the divider between the north and south lanes.

When Redhead got to the other side of the street, she kept going north.

Weasel Man did too. The doorman noticed that his hand was in his pocket.

Was she in danger?

When she turned east on 82nd, so did he.

Maybe he should call 911.

And tell them what?

That a man in dark clothing was following a woman in dark clothing on the Upper East Side of New York? He could tell the dispatcher about the man’s face. It too was dark. No, not a Black person. I mean, weaselly and evil.

The dispatcher would pause and ask if he could be more specific.

Ach, probably it was nothing, not worth a call, all that hassle.

Should he go and warn her himself? At this point it would mean a jog, and the ninety-kilo doorman certainly was not in the mood for that, not at this age, not with these bones.

Besides, he might lose his job if he did the good deed.

Fuck it.

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