The Millionaires (31 page)

“It’s better than watching soaps,” DeSanctis said, pointing the thermal imager up the dark block.

“That’s not the point, ass-face. If she knows we’re watching, she’s less likely to—”

The chime of a doorbell blared through the laptop’s speakers. Gallo and DeSanctis shot up in their seats.

“She’s got a visitor,” DeSanctis said.

“Was that from downstairs?”

DeSanctis aimed the imager at the glass windows of the lobby. In the camera, a muddy dark green image of the lobby came into
focus. Green was cold; white was hot. But as he scanned between the buzzer area and the lobby, the only thing he saw were
two white rectangular starbursts along the ceiling. No people—just fluorescent lights. “No one’s down there.”

“Coming…!” Maggie shouted toward her door.

“How’d they get past us? Is there a back door?” Gallo shouted.

“Could be a neighbor,” DeSanctis pointed out.

“Who is it?” Maggie asked.

The answer was a mumble. Microphones didn’t work through doors.

“Just a minute…” Maggie said as she shut off the TV. Undoing the locks with one hand, she straightened her hair and her shirt
with the other.

“She’s making an impression,” DeSanctis whispered. “I’m betting a client.”

“At this time of ni—?”

“Sophie! So nice to see you,” Maggie sang as she opened the door. Over Maggie’s shoulder they saw a gray-haired woman wearing
a cable-knit brown cardigan, but no coat.

“Neighbor,” DeSanctis said.

“
Sophie
…” Gallo repeated. “She said
Sophie.
”

DeSanctis tore open the glove compartment and yanked out a stack of paper.
4190 Bedford Avenue—Residents—Real Property.

“Sophie… Sofia… Sonja…” Gallo suggested as DeSanctis frantically ran his finger down the printed list.

“I got a Sonia Coady in 3A and a Sofia Rostonov in 2F,” DeSanctis said.

“How have you been?” Sophie asked in a thick Russian accent.

“Rostonov it is.”

“Fine… just fine,” Maggie replied, inviting her inside.

“Watch her hands!” Gallo barked as Maggie reached out and touched Sophie’s shoulder.

“You think she’s passing something?” DeSanctis asked.

“She doesn’t have a choice. No fax, no e-mail, no cell phone—not even an electronic organizer—her only hope is getting something
from outside. I’m guessing a pager or something small that can do text-messaging.”

DeSanctis nodded. “You take mom; I got Sofia.” Crouching down toward the laptop, the two agents were silent. In the darkness,
their faces glowed with the pale light from the screen.

“I took almost an inch off all the sleeves—let me get them off the line…” Maggie said as she walked toward the kitchen window.
From his bird’s-eye view in the smoke detector, Gallo only saw her back, but he studied everything she touched. Hands at her
side. Opening the kitchen window. Pulling in the clothesline. Unhooking two women’s blouses and angling each onto a hanger.

“You put them out in this weather?” Sophie asked.

“The cold’s good for it—makes them crisper than the day you bought them.” Maggie hooked both hangers on one of the three coat
racks that lined the living room wall.

“Watch the money change…” Gallo warned.

“Uck, where’s my head?” Sophie began, searching for a purse that wasn’t there. “I left my…”

“No harm done,” Maggie said. Even in the pixelized digital image, Gallo could see her strained grin. “Bring it by whenever.
I’m not going anywhere.”

“Dammit!” Gallo shouted.

“You’re a nice person,” Sophie insisted. “You’re a nice person, and good things are going to happen for you.”

“Yeah,” Maggie said, glancing up toward the smoke detector. “I should be so lucky.”

* * * *

Shutting the door behind Sophie, Maggie took a silent breath and made her way back to the window in the kitchen. Along the
wall, the old radiator hiccuped with a sharp clang, but Maggie barely noticed it. She was too focused on everything else—her
sons… and Gallo… and even her routine. Especially her routine.

Jamming her palms under the top of the window frame, she gave it two hard pushes and finally forced it open. A blast of cold
air shoved its way inside, but again, Maggie didn’t care. With Sophie’s shirts gone, there was an open spot on the clothesline.
An open spot she couldn’t wait to fill.

Grabbing the damp white sheet that was draped over the nearby ironing board, she leaned outside the window, took a clothespin
from the pouch in her apron, and clipped the corner into place. Inch by inch, she scrolled the sheet out over the alley, slowly
pinning more of it to the line. At the edge, she pulled the sheet taut. A gust of wind did its best to send it flying, but
Maggie held it down with a tight fist. Just another normal night. All that was left was the hard part.

As the wind passed, she stuffed both hands back into the apron’s pouch. Her left hand felt around for a clothespin; her right
searched for something more. Within seconds, her fingers skimmed along the edge of the note she had written earlier in the
night. Careful to keep her back to the kitchen, she palmed the folded-up sheet of paper in her already shaking hand. Out of
the corner of her eye, she saw the faint glow in Gallo and DeSanctis’s car. It didn’t slow her down.

Fighting off tears, she clamped her jaw shut and planted her feet. Then, in one fluid motion, she leaned out the window, tucked
her right hand under the sheet, and clipped the note in place. Directly across the way, the window in the building next door
was dark—but Maggie could still make out the inky silhouette of Saundra Finkelstein. Hiding in the corner of her window, The
Fink carefully nodded. And for the third time since yesterday—under the glare of four digital videocameras, six voice-activated
microphones, two encrypted transmitters, and over fifty thousand dollars’ worth of the government’s best military-strength
surveillance equipment, Maggie Caruso tugged at the two-dollar clothesline and, under a cheap, overused, wet sheet, passed
a handwritten note to her next-door neighbor.

Y
ou can learn a lot about a man by going through his bathroom. A toothbrush with frazzled bristles… baking soda toothpaste…
no Q-Tips anywhere. You can even learn more than you want to know. Down on my knees under the sink, I snake my arm past the
rusted pipes and rummage through random, long-expired toiletries.

“What about the medicine chest?” Charlie asks, squeezing past me and hopping up on the edge of the bathtub.

“I already went through it.”

There’s a magnetic click as the medicine cabinet door opens. I lift up my head. Charlie’s picking it apart.

“I told you—I already went through it.”

“I know—just double-checking,” he says, quickly scanning the stash of brown prescription vials. “Lopressor for blood pressure,
Glyburide for diabetes, Lipitor for high cholesterol, Allopurinol for gout…”

“Charlie, what’re you doing?”

“What’s it look like, Hawkeye? I want to know what medication he was on.”

“What for?”

“Just to see—I want to find out who this guy was—get into his brain—see what he’s made of…”

The rambling goes on a beat too long. I give him another look. He quickly starts putting the brown vials back in place.

“Want to tell me what you’re really doing?” I ask.

“See, now you’re smoking too many Twinkies,” he says, forcing a laugh. “I’m telling you, I’m just looking for his—”

“You forgot your medication, didn’t you?”

“What’re you—?”

“The mexiletine—you haven’t been taking it.”

He rolls his eyes like a pouty teenager. “Can you please not overreact—this isn’t
General Hospital
…”

“Dammit, I knew something was—” I hear a noise in the hallway and cut myself off.

“Saved by the bella,” Charlie whispers.

“What’s going on?” Gillian asks, stopping by the door.

“Nothing,” Charlie says. “Just raiding your dad’s medicine chest. Didja know he’s got tampons in there?”

“Those’re mine, Einstein.”

“That’s what I meant… I meant, those’re yours.” Dancing around me, he slides out of the bathroom—but right now, my eyes are
on Gillian as she walks down the hallway.

“Careful, you’ve got some drool on your lip,” he whispers as he passes. “I mean, not that I blame you—with all that hippiechick
voodoo she’s got going, I’m getting all sweaty myself.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” I growl.

“I’m sure we will,” he says. “But if I were you, I’d slow down on buying her a corsage, and focus more on the problem at hand.”

* * * *

By seven o’clock, all we’ve got left are the kitchen, the garage, and the two hall closets. “I got the kitchen,” Gillian says.
That leaves the final two. Charlie grins at me. I squint right back. Only a fool would take the garage.

“On three…” he challenges. “Two takes it.”

I grin this time—and tuck my right hand behind my back.

“One, two, three,
shoot
…” His rock beats scissors.

“
Shoot
…” My scissors beats paper.

“
Shoot
…” Rock beats scissors… again.

“
Damn!
” I say, annoyed.

“I’m telling you, you’re a sucker for those scissors…”

I turn my scissors into a middle finger and storm to the garage.

Smiling ear to ear, he pivots and heads up the hallway.

As I’m about to turn the corner, I spin around, ready to issue a double-or-nothing challenge. Charlie should be at the hall
closets. Instead, he’s at the closed door at the far end of the hall. Duckworth’s bedroom. The only place we haven’t been.
In truth, it shouldn’t matter—Gillian already said she went through it—but I know my brother better than that. I see the skulk
in his walk. He stares at the door like he’s got X-ray vision. After nine hours of picking through this dead man’s life, he
wants to know what’s inside.

“Where’re you going?” I ask.

He glances over his shoulder and gives me nothing but a mischievous arched eyebrow. With a twist of the doorknob, he disappears
into Duckworth’s bedroom. I stop right there, well aware of his reindeer game. It may’ve worked when I was ten, but I’m not
letting him goad me into this one. Turning back to the garage, I hear the bedroom door close behind me. I take a full three
steps before I once again stop. Who’m I kidding? Spinning back toward the bedroom, I rush toward the closed door.

“Charlie?” I whisper, knowing he won’t answer.

Sure enough, nothing comes back. Searching over my shoulder, I check the hallway just to be safe. All clear. Trying not to
make a sound, I twist the doorknob and step inside. As the door shuts behind me, the lights are off, but thanks to some cheap
vertical blinds on the window, the room still gets a bath of fading dusk light.

“Pretty spooky, huh?” Charlie asks. “Welcome to the sanctum sanctorum…”

It takes about four seconds for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, it’s clear why Gillian checked this room herself. Like
the living room and the office, Duckworth’s bedroom has the same unapologetic engineer’s fashion sense: a plain bed shoved
against the dingy off-white wall, an unpainted wood nightstand holding a ratty old alarm clock, and to make sure every single
piece seems randomly selected, an almond Formica dresser that looks like it was plucked from the back of a truck. But the
closer I look, the more I realize there’s something else: A cream-colored comforter softens the bed, a vase of burgundy eucalyptus
flourishes on top of the dresser, and in the corner, a Mondrian-styled painting leans against the wall, waiting to be hung.
This room may’ve started as Duckworth’s—but now it’s all Gillian’s. So this is where she lives. A pang of guilt swirls through
my gut. This is still her private space.

“C’mon, Charlie, let’s go…”

“Yeah… no… you’re absolutely right,” he says. “We’re only trusting her with our lives. Why would we ever want to learn anything
more about her?”

I go to grab his arm, but as always, he’s too fast. “I’m serious, Charlie.”

“So am I,” he says, sidestepping around me. Moving in further, he searches the floor, the bed, and the rest of the furniture,
hunting for context clues. Ten steps in, he stops, suddenly confused.

“What? What’s wrong?” I ask.

“You tell me. Where’s her life?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Her life, Ollie—clothes, photos, books, magazines—anything to fill in the picture. Take a look around. Besides the flowers
and the art, there’s nothing else out.”

“Maybe she likes to keep things neat.”

“Maybe,” he agrees. “Or maybe she’s—”

There’s a loud clunk as a door slams behind us. I spin around and realize it came from the hallway. Still, we know when we’ve
overstayed our welcome. I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand to check the time—and quickly cock my head to the side.
That’s not an alarm clock. It’s an old—

“Eight-track player!” Charlie blurts, already excited. But as he squints through the darkness of the room, he notices that
the slot that usually holds the 8-track looks a little wider than normal. At the edges, the silver-colored plastic is chipped
away. Like someone cut it open, or made it bigger. Curious, he moves in, squatting down in front of it.