The Twelfth Card (29 page)

His eyes boring into the right hand, staring.

Yes, no . . .

If he tried to move his finger and wasn’t able to, if he couldn’t even claim one of Dr. Sherman’s small victories in this exhausting battle he’d been fighting, he believed that it would be the end for him.

The dark thoughts would return, like a tide rolling higher and higher on the shore, and finally he’d call up a doctor once more—oh, but not Sherman. A very different doctor. The man from the Lethe Society, a euthanasia group. A few years ago
when he’d tried to end his life he hadn’t been as independent as he was now. There’d been fewer computers, no voice-activated ECU systems and phones. Ironically, now that his lifestyle was better, he was also more self-sufficient at killing himself. The doctor could help him rig some contraption to the ECU, and leave pills or a weapon nearby.

Of course, he had people in his life now, not like a few years ago. His suicide would be devastating to Sachs, yes, but death had always been an aspect of their love. With cop blood in her veins, she was often first through the door in a suspect takedown, even though she didn’t need to be. She’d been decorated for her courage in firefights, and she drove like hot lightning—some would even say she herself had a suicidal streak within her.

In Rhyme’s case, when they’d met—on a hard, hard case, a crucible of violence and death some years ago—he’d been very close to killing himself. Sachs understood this about him.

Thom too accepted it. (Rhyme had told the aide at the first interview, “I might not be around too much longer. Be sure to cash your paycheck as soon as you get it.”)

Still, he hated the thought of what his death would do to them, and the other people he knew. Not to mention the fact that crimes would go unsolved, victims would die, if he wasn’t on earth to practice the craft that was the essential part of his soul.

This
was why he’d been putting off the test. If he’d had no improvement it could be enough to push him over the edge.

Yes . . .

The card often foretells a surrendering to experience, ending a struggle, accepting what is.

 . . . or no?

When this card appears in your reading you must listen to your inner self.

And it was at this moment that Lincoln Rhyme made his decision: He would give up. He’d stop the exercises, would stop considering the spinal cord operation.

After all, if you don’t have hope, then hope can’t be destroyed. He’d made a good life for himself. His existence wasn’t perfect but it was tolerable. Lincoln Rhyme would accept his course, and he’d be content to be what Charles Singleton had rejected: a partial man, a three-fifths man.

Content, more or less.

Using his left ring finger, Rhyme turned his wheelchair around and drove back toward the bedroom just in time to meet Thom at the doorway.

“You ready for bed?” the aide asked.

“As a matter of fact,” Rhyme said cheerfully, “I am.”

W
EDNESDAY
, O
CTOBER
10

At 8
A.M
. Thompson Boyd retrieved his car from the alley garage near the bungalow in Astoria where he’d parked it yesterday after escaping from the Elizabeth Street safe house. He pulled the blue Buick into congested traffic, headed for the Queensborough Bridge and, once in Manhattan, made his way Uptown.

Recalling the address from the message on the voice mail, he drove into western Harlem and parked two blocks away from the Settles’ town house. He was armed with his .22 North American Arms pistol and his club and carting the shopping bag, which contained no decorating books today; inside was the device he’d made last night and he treated it very gingerly as he moved slowly down the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street casually several times, seeing people presumably headed for work, an equal mix of blacks and whites, many in business suits, on their way to work, and students heading to Columbia—bikes, backpacks, beards . . . . But he saw nothing threatening.

Thompson Boyd paused by the curb and studied the building the girl lived in.

There was a Crown Vic, parked several doors away from the apartment—smart of them not to flag it. Around the corner was a second unmarked car near a hydrant. Thompson thought he saw some motion on the apartment roof. Sniper? he wondered. Maybe not, but somebody was definitely
there, undoubtedly a cop. They were taking this case real serious.

Average Joe turned around and walked back to his average car, climbed in and started the engine. He’d have to be patient. It was too risky for an attempt here; he’d have to wait for the right opportunity. Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” started to play on the radio. He shut it off but continued to whistle the tune to himself, never missing a single note, never a fraction of a tone off pitch.

*   *   *

Her great-aunt had found something.

In Geneva’s apartment Roland Bell got a call from Lincoln Rhyme, who reported that Geneva’s father’s aunt, Lilly Hall, had found some boxes of old letters and souvenirs and artifacts in the storage space of the building where she was staying. She didn’t know if there was anything helpful—her eyes were hopeless—but the cartons were chockablock with papers. Did Geneva and the police want to look through them?

Rhyme had wanted to have everything picked up but the aunt said, no, she’d only give it to her great-niece in person. She didn’t trust anyone else.

“Police included?” Bell had asked Rhyme, who’d answered, “Police
especially
.”

Amelia Sachs had then broken into the conversation to offer what Bell realized was the real explanation: “I think she wants to see her niece.”

“Ah, yes’m. Got it.”

Not surprisingly Geneva was more than eager to go. Roland Bell truly preferred guarding nervous people, people who didn’t want to set foot on the concrete of New York City sidewalks, who liked to
curl up with computer games and long books. Put them in an interior room, no windows, no visitors, no roof access and order out Chinese or pizza every day.

But Geneva Settle was unlike anybody he’d ever guarded.

Mr. Goades, please . . . . I was a witness to a crime, and I’m being held by the police. It’s against my will and—

The detective arranged for two cars for security. There’d be Bell, Geneva and Pulaski in his Crown Vic. Luis Martinez and Barbe Lynch would be in their Chevy. A uniformed officer in another blue-and-white would remain parked near the Settles’ apartment while they were gone.

As he waited for the second squad car to show up, Bell asked if there’d been any more word from her parents. She said that they were at Heathrow now, awaiting the next flight.

Bell, a father of two boys, had some opinions about parents who left their daughter in the care of an uncle while they traipsed off to Europe. (This uncle in particular. No lunch money for the girl? That was a tough row.) Even though Bell was a single father with a demanding job, he still made his boys breakfast in the morning, packed them lunch and made supper most nights, however lame and starchy the meals might be (“Atkins” was not a word to be found in the Roland Bell encyclopedia of cuisine).

But his job was to keep Geneva Settle alive, not comment on parents who weren’t much skilled at child-rearing. He now put aside thoughts of personal matters and stepped outside, hand near his Beretta, scanning the facades and windows and rooftops of nearby buildings and cars, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

The relief squad car pulled up outside and parked,
while Martinez and Lynch climbed into the Chevrolet, around the corner from Geneva’s apartment.

Into his Handi-Talkie, Bell said, “Clear. Bring her out.”

Pulaski appeared, hustling Geneva into the Crown Victoria. He jumped in beside her, and Bell took the driver’s seat. In tandem, the two cars sped across town and eventually arrived at an old tenement east of Fifth Avenue, in
el barrio
.

The majority of this area was Puerto Rican and Dominican, but other Latin nationalities lived here too, those from Haiti, Bolivia, Ecuador, Jamaica, Central America—both black and nonblack. There were also pockets of new immigrants, legal and otherwise, from Senegal, Liberia and the Central African nations. Most of the hate crimes here weren’t white versus Hispanic or black; they were American-born versus immigrant, of whatever race or nationality. The way of the world, Bell reflected sadly.

The detective now parked where Geneva indicated and he waited until the other officers climbed out of the squad car behind them and checked out the street. A thumbs-up from Luis Martinez and together they hustled Geneva inside.

The building was shabby, the lobby smelling of beer and sour meat. Geneva seemed embarrassed about the condition of the place. As at the school she again suggested the detective wait outside, but it was half-hearted, as if she expected his response, “Prob’ly better I go with you.”

On the second floor she knocked and an elderly voice asked, “Who there?”

“Geneva. I’m here to see Auntie Lilly.”

Two chains rattled and two deadbolts were undone. The door opened. A slight woman in a faded dress looked at Bell cautiously.

“Morning, Mrs. Watkins,” the girl said.

“Hi, honey. She’s in the living room.” Another uncertain glance at the detective.

“This’s a friend of mine.”

“He yo’ friend?”

“That’s right,” Geneva told her.

The woman’s face suggested that she didn’t approve of the girl spending time in the company of a man three times her age, even if he was a policeman.

“Roland Bell, ma’am.” He showed his ID.

“Lilly said there was something about the police,” she said uneasily. Bell continued to smile and said nothing more. The woman repeated, “Well, she’s in the living room.”

Geneva’s great-aunt, a frail, elderly woman in a pink dress, was staring at the television through large, thick glasses. She looked over at the girl and her face broke into a smile. “Geneva, darling. How are you? And who’s this?”

“Roland Bell, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Lilly Hall. You’re the one interested in Charles?”

“That’s right.”

“I wish I knew more. I told Geneva everything I know ’bout him. Got hisself that farm, then got arrested. That was all I heard. Didn’t even know if he went to jail or not.”

“Looks like he did, Auntie. We don’t know what happened after that. That’s what we want to find out.”

On the stained floral wallpaper behind her were three photographs: Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy and the famous picture of Jackie Kennedy in mourning with young John John and Caroline beside her.

“There’s the boxes right there.” The woman nodded
toward three large cartons of papers and dusty books and wooden and plastic objects. They sat in front of a coffee table whose leg had been broken and duct-taped together. Geneva stooped and looked through the largest box.

Lilly watched her. After a moment the woman said, “I feel him sometime.”

“You . . .?” Bell asked.

“Ou’ kin, Charles. I feel him. Like the other haints.”

Haint . . .
Bell knew the word from North Carolina. An old black term for ghost.

“He restless, I’m feeling,” the great-aunt said.

“I don’t know about that,” her grandniece said with a smile.

No, Bell thought, Geneva hardly seemed like the sort who’d believe in ghosts or anything supernatural. The detective, though, wasn’t so sure. He said, “Well, maybe what we’re doing here’ll bring him some rest.”

“You know,” the woman said, pushing her thick glasses higher on her nose, “you
that
interested in Charles, there some other relations of ou’s round the country. You ’member yo’ father’s cousin in Madison? And his wife, Ruby? I could call him an’ ask. Or Genna-Louise in Memphis. Or I
would,
only I don’t have no phone of my own.” A glance at the old Princess model sitting on a TV table near the kitchen, her grim expression evidence of past disputes with the woman she was staying with. The great-aunt added, “And phone cards, they be so expensive.”

“
We
could call, Auntie.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind talking to some of ’em. Been a while. Miss having family around.”

Bell dug into his jeans pocket. “Ma’am, since this
is something Geneva and I’re working on together, let me get you a phone card.”

“No.” This was from Geneva. “I’ll do it.”

“You don’t—”

“I’ve got it,” she said firmly, and Bell put the money away. She gave the woman a twenty.

The great-aunt looked reverently at the bill, said, “I’ma get me that card and call today.”

Geneva said, “If you find out anything, call us again at that number you called before.”

“Why’s the police all interested in Charles? Man musta died a hundred years ago, at least.”

Geneva caught Bell’s eye and shook her head; the woman hadn’t heard that Geneva was in danger, and the niece wanted to keep it that way. Through her Coke-bottle lenses the woman didn’t catch the look. Geneva said, “They’re helping me prove he didn’t commit that crime he was accused of.”