Behind him, a dozen or more feet away, something scurried. He knew it was rats, more than one. So far they hadn't bothered him, although once, during the night while he slept, he was awakened by a single rat running past him.
He had bolted up, immediately awake and breathing hard, seeing Becky and his mother bleeding, dying.
I'm twelve years old, he told himself. Things like this shouldn't happen to a kid. Then he remembered the television images of the dying people of Africa, the near skeletons that once were children and were now large-headed, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, blank-staring soon-to-be corpses. One of the sandwiches in the cooler near him might be able to save a child in Niger, but Jacob knew this was not a realistic possibility. Jacob lived in a hell no child should have to endure, but there were others whose hell was even deeper and darker than Jacob's. He kept telling himself this, rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around himself.
Something, someone moved, not a rat in the tunnel, but someone on the other side of the wall. The wooden floors of the room creaked with almost every footstep.
Kyle's coming back, Jacob thought, taking the pillow in his arms, not for protection but for comfort.
Then Jacob heard another sound on the other side of the wall, a sound he couldn't make out, like… a dog sniffing.
Why would Kyle bring a dog here?
The news shop owner wanted to cooperate. He longed to cooperate. He sweated to cooperate with Flack.
The shop was small. So was the Korean man behind the counter, who knew he was sweating but was afraid to wipe his neck and brow, afraid the determined-looking policeman might think him guilty of something. In North Korea, Sak Pyon had lost most of his family by the 1980s. His mother, his brother, his oldest son, all of whom committed the crime of insufficient enthusiasm for Communism, at least in the minds of the five men in loose brown uniforms who came to his home just before sunrise on a day almost as hot as this one.
The five men, all barely men at all, had let Pyon, his wife and his daughter live to tend the rice field. But Pyon and what remained of his family knew they would be back, would almost certainly kill them. Pyon, his wife and his daughter had trekked through boggy fields of sickly rice and forests of skeleton trees and skirted villages, expecting to be shot from behind as traitors. After six weeks, moving only at night, they had made it to the forty-eighth parallel, crawled past the North Korean guards and almost been shot by the South Korean guards as they crossed the border.
It took four years working at the American embassy to finally be granted political asylum in the United States.
"Videotape," said Flack, pointing up at a camera aimed at them and waking Pyon from his reverie.
"They don't work," said Pyon. "They just have a battery that powers the green light you see. Too much money to get real ones. Don't need them."
He had only a slight accent.
"And if you get robbed or shot?"
"I become less able to provide for my family," said Pyon. "And if I'm shot, I have insurance if I am not killed."
Pyon glanced at his watch. It was one of his two golf days. His wife would be in soon to relieve him so he could take the train to Queens and go to the golf course, where his clubs sat in a locker he rented. Golf was his meditation, an exercise in skill and precision. It was about losing oneself in the stroke and, at the end, finding a great satisfaction if a stroke or two could be cut from the last outing's score.
"What about catching the robbers?" asked Flack with resignation.
"They will no longer have my merchandise or money," Pyon said, hoping the sweat wasn't streaming down his face as he imagined it was.
"What about them paying for shooting you?"
"It does me and my family no good," said Pyon. "And I have insurance. I abandoned vengeance when I was in Korea."
"Okay," said Flack with a sigh. "Did you recognize the man?"
"Never saw him before," said Pyon.
Flack neither believed nor disbelieved him. He had dealt with Asian refugees before. They were very good at lying. They had been taught how to do it in the hells of places like North Korea and Laos.
"So you couldn't identify him?" asked Flack.
"Yes."
"Yes you could or yes you couldn't?" Flack said, calling on his reserves of patience.
Flack hadn't had much sleep in the last twenty-four hours. To be precise, he had slept for approximately two hours and forty-eight minutes.
"Yes, I could," said Pyon, no longer able to maintain control.
He pulled a large, crumpled white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face and neck. Flack took his own already moist handkerchief out and did the same.
"It's almost a hundred and four degrees out there," said Flack, pocketing his handkerchief.
Pyon nodded.
"If you like," said Pyon. "I could draw a picture of the man. I've been taking art courses."
Flack smiled and said, "I'd like you to draw a picture of the man."
"Now?" asked Pyon.
Pyon was trying hard to be cooperative, or at least appear to be.
"Now would be perfect," said Flack. "You want to lock up for a while? I'll take you someplace air-conditioned for a sandwich and coffee."
"Scrambled eggs and Dr Pepper," said Pyon. "Ginsberg's is just around the corner."
Aiden had been right.
"Yes," said Jane Parsons, looking at the packet Aiden had handed her. "Trees have DNA. It's been used a few times as forensic evidence. Landmark case by a professor at Purdue University. It held up in court."
Aiden smiled.
"You think this might be from a piece of furniture?" asked Jane.
"A piece of furniture made out of bloodwood," said Aiden.
"I'll check the DNA. Tannic acid levels should be precisely the same in both specimens regardless of the type of tree we're talking about. The same is true of arsenic levels."
"Arsenic is in trees?" asked Aiden.
"Before it became illegal to do so," said Jane, "arsenic was liberally sprayed on trees and furniture to protect them. Magnesium levels should also be the same in both sources. It's going to take a little time."
"How much time?" asked Aiden.
"This is a very small sample. Three days, maybe only two," said Jane. "I'll need a sample of whatever you want me to compare it with as soon as possible."
"I'll get it," Aiden said. "Then you'll have to work fast. In three days, he may kill again."
"I'll need approval from Mac to move this to the top," said Jane.
"I'll get that too," Aiden said.
She made the call to Mac. It was after dark, but she was sure he wouldn't mind. He didn't. He gave her permission to move to the top of the testing chain. She handed the phone to Jane who said, "Yes?"
That was all she said. The call took no more than a few seconds.
"There was something wrong with the connection," Jane said with a sigh as Aiden put her phone away.
"He was whispering," Aiden said.
The next question that either could have asked of the other was 'Why?' but neither did.
Aiden strode to the door and out. It was getting late but she knew Arvin Bloom and his wife lived above his shop and she was reasonably certain they went out very little, if at all. The shambling pale Bloom had a languid, sedentary look.
Aiden knew there were some holes in her theory. First, the killer was left-handed. Bloom was right-handed. Second, if Bloom had an alibi for the murder of Joel Besser, she had a major problem. Third, both killings had looked like the work of a professional- two small-pattern shots to the back of the head. A pro who was also some kind of religious nut, or a professional pretending to be. They had run a background check on Arvin Bloom. He seemed a very unlikely hit man.