Antun, the man they all know as Halem, wipes sweat from his brow. His thoughts are on the station. It’s not just the busiest stop in the New York City Subway system; it’s one of the most hectic places on earth. GCS has more than a hundred tracks and covers almost fifty acres of land. On a quiet day three-quarters of a million people pass through it. A bomb will cause unbelievable loss of life.
He has to stop the attack.
Even if that means getting killed in the process.
38
Mitzi lowers the window of the Taurus as they head out to Sophie Hudson’s apartment in North Bethesda. ‘You sure you left the bodies at the morgue, and they ain’t buried somewhere beneath your car trash?’
‘Very funny.’ Irish flips down the lid on the glove box. ‘There’s cologne in there; squirt it around and shut up.’
‘What an offer.’ Mitzi picks out a dubious green bottle of a scent she’s never heard of and sprays it. ‘Oh my God! I think I prefer the hidden corpse.’ She puts the bottle back.
‘Paid ten dollars for that.’
‘You should have arrested them for robbery.’
He smiles. For someone like Mitzi Fallon, he could maybe buy sixty-dollar cologne and get his shit together. Shame she’s just blowing through his life. Shame he has a life that just gets blown through. ‘I think Sophie Hudson’s holding back on me. I tell you that already?’
‘You did. You told me at the airport.’
He jabs a finger against his temple. ‘Got to the age when I can’t remember half of what I’ve said. Better to say it twice than not at all.’
‘Anything you can put your finger on?’
‘No. That’s the problem. It’s just a hunch.’ He drives lazily. Hands flopped together on the top of the wheel. ‘I was thinking, maybe you should see her on your own. Could be that woman-to-woman you’ll get something I wouldn’t.’
Mitzi gives him the once-over. He’s scruffy as hell and stinks of booze but beneath all that waste there’s a bright cop trying to come up for air. ‘I’ll give it a shot.’
Ten minutes later, Irish pulls over and kills the engine. ‘It’s that brownstone. Eighth floor, apartment 802.’ He slides his seat back and reclines it. ‘I’m gonna grab a little rest. See if I can sleep off this flu.’
She opens the passenger side and steps out to the sidewalk. ‘Women get flu, they simply struggle on; men get it, they have to sleep it off. Healthiest thing you could do is clean up this dumpster.’ She slams the door and looks around.
The street is clean and quiet. A few trees have grown mature around the old brownstone building, a patch of grass has got a path worn across the corner and there are a couple of benches where no doubt old folks sit during the day and kids congregate at night.
She takes the stairs, not the elevator and uses the time to run the details of the case through her head.
Sophie opens her apartment door on the first knock, but keeps it chained.
Mitzi shows her FBI badge. ‘I’m working your boss’s murder. Need to ask you some questions.’
‘I already talked to Lieutenant Fitzgerald.’
‘I know. Now you need to talk to me.’ She puts a finger on the chain. ‘Take it off, please?’
Sophie’s eyes show resignation. The door closes and re-opens without the chain.
‘Thanks.’ As she walks in Mitzi asks, ‘How you feeling? I’m told you’re sick.’
‘Getting better.’ Sophie is in her old university hoodie with blue jeans, pink socks and no shoes. She motions reluctantly to the sofa. ‘You want a drink or something?’
‘No I’m good.’ Mitzi sits and flips out a notebook. ‘Let’s do this quick.’
‘Sure.’ She settles opposite her. ‘Like I said, I went through it all with Lieutenant Fitzgerald. I’ve told him everything I know.’
‘I suspect not.’ She studies the landscape of the girl’s face, the tension in her cheeks, and the tightness around her mouth. ‘You ever done word-association tests?’
She frowns. ‘No.’
‘Okay, it goes like this: I say something and you answer with the first thing that comes into your head. From your answer, I’ll know whether you’re a liar or just a sick kid whose door I shouldn’t have knocked on.’ Mitzi clicks the top on her pen. ‘Here we go — word one: murder…’
The store assistant doesn’t answer.
Mitzi repeats herself. ‘Murder, Sophie.Murder…’
‘Mr Goldman?’
‘Good.’
Mitzi lets her hang. She leans forward, challengingly. ‘Hiding.’
Sophie’s pupils dilate. Her skin glows pink. ‘This is stupid. I’m not—’
‘Don’t!’ Mitzi holds up a traffic cop palm. ‘You don’t want to know what I’ve done to people who lie to my face.’
The silence returns.
Mitzi puts the pen and paper down. ‘Okay, game over. You got from sick kid to lying little bitch in two questions. Not a record, but still impressive.’ She takes her shield out and places it next to her. ‘The FBI didn’t send me here to play games, honey — they want me to charge someone with your boss’s murder. So, what happens now is I phone for a warrant, we toss this place and then charge you with suspicion—’
‘All right.’ Sophie rubs a hand nervously across her mouth and gets shakily to her feet. ‘I need to bring something from the bedroom.’
Mitzi stands too. She’s not in the business of sitting like an idiot while a suspect makes a run for it or, worse still, picks up something that happens to be loaded.
She follows her to the bedroom and as Sophie reaches for a drawer beneath a vanity mirror, she un-holsters her gun. ‘Do that real slow, so I don’t have a momentary lapse of judgement and blow your freakin’ head off.’
The girl looks terrified. Her hands shake as she pulls a small USB stick from beneath a tangle of underwear and holds it out. ‘This is all I was getting.’
Mitzi takes it and holsters the gun. She looks down at the tiny eight-gigabyte memory stick in the palm of her hand. ‘What’s on it and how did you get it?’
Sophie wanders back to the lounge. ‘I couldn’t make sense of it. Mr Goldman was given it by someone he was doing business with — I don’t know who. He tried it in the work PC and it came out as a jumble of letters and numbers. He gave it to me to try to make sense of.’
‘And what was wrong? Was it formatted for Mac or something?’
‘No. It really was just letters and numbers.’
‘Like what? A recipe for alphabet soup?’
‘Just like a jumble. The only thing I could make out was writing on the side of the stick. Someone’s scratched “CODE X”.’
Mitzi holds the minuscule USB between thumb and forefinger. ‘So why lie about this?’
She shrugs guiltily. ‘I’m a store clerk — and an out-of-work one now. I figured it might bring me some money in the future.’
‘How?’
‘I thought I might sell it to a newspaper.’
‘Classy gal. Make a buck on your dead boss. Anything else you took or you’re forgetting to tell us?’
‘No.’ Sophie twists a strand of her hair to settle her nerves. ‘You gonna charge me with something?’
‘Not for now. Being scared of having no work ain’t a misdemeanour, else we’d be jailing half the country. But wise up, honey: lying to cops is. You’re lucky, you get a pass this time, but if I have to come back, then we’ll be playing a different game with a different ending.’
39