The Vanished Man

Chapter Two

"He's listening to music."

"I'm not listening to music. The music happens to be on. That's all."

"Music, huh?" Lon Sellitto muttered as he walked into Lincoln Rhyme's bedroom. "That's a coincidence."

"He's developed a taste for jazz," Thom explained to the paunchy detective. "Surprised me, I have to tell you."

"As I said," Lincoln Rhyme continued petulantly, "I'm working and the music happens to be playing in the background. What do you mean, coincidence?"

Nodding at the flat-screen monitor in front of Rhyme's Flexicair bed, the slim, young aide, dressed in a white shirt, tan slacks and solid purple tie, said, "No, he's not working. Unless staring at the same page for an hour is work. He wouldn't let me get away with work like that."

"Command, turn page." The computer recognized Rhyme's voice and obeyed his order, slapping a new page of Forensic Science Review onto the monitor. He asked Thom acerbically, "Say, you want to quiz me on what I've been staring at? The composition of the top five exotic toxins found in recent terrorist laboratories in Europe? And how 'bout we put some money on the answers?"

"No, we have other things to do," the aide replied, referring to the various bodily functions that caregivers must attend to several times a day when their patients are quadriplegics like Lincoln Rhyme.

"We'll get to that in a few minutes," the criminalist said, enjoying a particularly energetic trumpet riff.

"We'll get to that now. If you'll excuse us for a moment, Lon."

"Yeah, sure." Large, rumpled Sellitto stepped into the corridor outside the second-floor bedroom of Rhyme's Central Park West townhouse. He closed the door.

As Thom expertly performed his duties Lincoln Rhyme listened to the music and wondered: Coincidence?

Five minutes later Thom let Sellitto back into the bedroom. "Coffee?"

"Yeah. Could use some. Too fucking early to work on a Saturday."

The aide left.

"So, how do I look, Linc?" asked the pirouetting middle-aged detective, whose gray suit was typical of his wardrobe – made apparently from permanently wrinkled cloth.

"A fashion show?" Rhyme asked.

Coincidence?

Then his mind slipped back to the CD. How the hell does somebody play the trumpet so smoothly? How can you get that kind of sound from a metal instrument?

The detective continued: "I lost sixteen pounds. Rachel has me on a diet. Fat's the problem. You cut out fat, you'd be amazed how much weight you can lose."

"Fat, yes. I think we knew that, Lon. So…?" Meaning, get to the point.

"Gotta bizarre case. Found a body a half hour ago at a music school up the street from here. I'm case officer and we could use some help."

Music school. And I'm listening to music. That's a piss-poor coincidence.

Sellitto ran through some of the facts: student killed, the perp was nearly collared but he got away through some kind of trapdoor that nobody could find.

Music was mathematical. That much Rhyme, a scientist, could understand. It was logical, it was perfectly structured. It was also, he reflected, infinite. An unlimited number of tunes could be written. You could never be bored writing music. He wondered how one went about it. Rhyme believed he had no creativity.

He'd taken piano lessons when he was eleven or twelve but, even though he'd developed an enduring crush on Miss Osborne, the lessons themselves were a write-off. His fondest memories of the instrument were taking stroboscopic pictures of the resonating strings for a science-fair project.

"You with me, Linc?"

"A case, you were saying. Bizarre."

Sellitto gave more of the details, slowly corralling Rhyme's attention. "There's got to be some way outta the hall. But nobody from the school or our team can find it."

"How's the scene?"

"Still pretty virgin. Can we get Amelia to run it?"

Rhyme glanced at the clock. "She's tied up for another twenty minutes or so."

"That's not a problem," Sellitto said, patting his stomach as if he were searching for the lost weight. "I'll page her."

"Let's not distract her just yet."

"Why, what's she doing?"

"Oh, something dangerous," Rhyme said, concentrating once more on the silken voice of the trumpet. "What else?"

She smelled the wet brick of the tenement wall against her face.

Her palms sweated and, beneath the fiery red hair shoved up under her dusty issue hat, her scalp itched fiercely. Still, she remained completely motionless as a uniformed officer slipped up close beside her and planted his face against the brick too.

"Okay, here's the situation," the man said, nodding toward their right. He explained that just around the corner of the tenement was a vacant lot, in the middle of which was a getaway car that'd crashed a few minutes ago after a high-speed pursuit.

"Drivable?" Amelia Sachs asked.

"No. Hit a Dumpster and's out of commission. Three perps. They bailed but we got one in custody. One's in the car with some kind of Jesus-long hunting rifle. He wounded a patrolman."

"Condition?"

"Superficial."

"Pi

"No. Out of the perimeter. One building west of here."

She asked, "The third perp?"

The officer sighed. "Hell, he made it to the first floor of this building here."

Nodding toward the tenement they were hugging. "It's a barricade. He's got a hostage. Pregnant woman."

Sachs digested the flood of information as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, to ease the pain of the arthritis in her joints. Damn, that hurt.

She noticed her companion's name on his chest. "The hostage-taker's weapon, Wilkins?"

"Handgun. Unknown type."

"Where's our side?"

The young man pointed out two officers behind a wall at the back of the lot.

"Then two more in front of the building, containing the H-T."

"Anybody call ESU?"

"I don't know. I lost my handy-talkie when we started taking fire."

"You in armor?"

"Negative. I was doing traffic stops… What the hell're we going to do?"

She clicked her Motorola to a particular frequency and said, "Crime Scene Five Eight Eight Five to Supervisor."

A moment later: "This is Captain Seven Four. Go ahead."

"Ten-thirteen at a lot east of six-oh-five Delancey. Officer down. Need backup, EMS bus and ESU immediately. Two subjects, both armed. One with hostage; we'll need a negotiator."

"Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. Helicopter for observation?"

"Negative, Seven Four. One suspect has a high-powered rifle. And they're willing to target blues."

"We'll get backup there as soon as we can. But the Secret Service's closed up half of downtown 'cause the vice president's coming in from JFK. There'll be a delay. Handle the situation at your discretion. Out."

"Roger. Out."

Vice president, she thought. Just lost my vote.

Wilkins shook his head. "But we can't get a negotiator near the apartment. Not with the shooter still in the car."

"I'm working on that," Sachs replied.

She edged to the corner of the tenement again and glanced at the car, a cheap low-rider with its nose against a Dumpster, doors open revealing a thin man holding a rifle.

I'm working on that…

She shouted, "You in the car, you're surrounded. We're going to open fire if you don't drop your weapon. Do it now!"

He crouched and aimed in her direction. She ducked for cover. On her Motorola she called the two officers in the back of the lot. "Are there hostages in the car?"

"None."

"You're sure?"

"Positive" was the officer's reply. "We got a good look before he started shooting."