The Twelfth Card (43 page)

As he looked over the place, though, he realized something was nagging.

What?

Looking over the kitchen, the hallway, the desk. What was odd? Something was wrong.

Then it occurred to him:

Transistor radio?

Did they even make those anymore? Well, if they did, you hardly ever saw ’em, with all the fancier players available for cheap: boom boxes, CD players, MP3s.

Shit. It’s a booby trap, an explosive device! And it’s sitting right next to a big jar of clear liquid, with a glass stopper in the top, which Sellitto knew from science class was what you used to store acid in.

“Christ!”

How long did he have before it detonated? A minute, two?

Sellitto lunged forward and grabbed the radio, stepped to the bathroom, setting it in the sink.

One of the tactical officers asked, “What’s—?”

“We’ve got an IED! Clear the apartment!” the detective shouted, ripping off his gas mask.

“Get the fuck out!” the officer cried.

Sellitto ignored him. When people make improvised
explosive devices they never worry about obscuring fingerprints or other clues because once the devices blow up, most evidence is destroyed. They knew Boyd’s identity, of course, but there could be some trace or other prints on the device that might lead to the person hiring him or his accomplice.

“Call the Bomb Squad,” somebody transmitted.

“Shut up. I’m busy.”

There was an on/off switch on the radio but he didn’t trust that to deactivate the explosive charge. Cringing, the detective worked the black plastic back off the radio.

How long, how long?

What’s a reasonable time for Boyd to get into his apartment and disarm the trap?

As he popped the back off and bent down, Sellitto found himself staring at a half stick of dynamite—not a plastic explosive but plenty powerful enough to blow off his hand and blind him. There was no display. It’s only in the movies that bombs have easy-to-read digital timers that count down to zero. Real bombs are detonated by tiny microprocessor timing chips without displays. Sellitto held the dynamite itself in place with a fingernail—to keep from obliterating any prints. He started to work the blasting cap out of the explosive.

Wondering how sophisticated the unsub had been (serious bomb makers use secondary detonators to take out people like Sellitto who were fucking around with their handiwork), he pulled the blasting cap out of the dynamite.

No secondary detonators, or any—

The explosion, a huge ringing bang, echoed through the bathroom, reverberating off the tile.

“What was that?” Bo Haumann called. “Somebody shooting? We have gunshots? All units report.”

“Explosion in the bathroom of the subject’s unit,” somebody called. “Medics to the scene, EMS to the scene!”

“Negative, negative. Everybody take it easy.” Sellitto was running his burned fingers under cold water. “I just need a Band-Aid.”

“That you, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah. It was the blasting cap went off. Boyd had a booby trap rigged to take out the evidence. I saved most of it . . . . ” He pressed his hand into his armpit and squeezed. “Fuck, that stings.”

“How big a device?” Haumann asked.

Sellitto glanced at the desk in the other room. “Big enough to blow the shit out of what looks like a gallon jar of sulfuric acid, I’d guess. And I see some jars of powder, probably cyanide. It would’ve taken out most of the evidence—and anybody who was nearby.”

Several of the ESU officers glanced with gratitude toward Sellitto. One said, “Man, this’s one perp I wanna take down personally.”

Haumann, ever the voice of a detached cop, asked matter-of-factly, “Status of unsub?”

“No sign. Heat on the infrared was a fridge, TV and sunlight on furniture, looks like,” one cop transmitted.

Sellitto looked over the room and then radioed, “Got an idea, Bo.”

“Go ahead.”

“Let’s fix the door fast. Leave me and a couple other guys inside, clear everybody else off the streets. He might be back soon. We’ll get him then.”

“Roger, Lon. I like it. Let’s get moving. Who knows carpentry?”

“I’ll do it,” Sellitto said. “One of my hobbies. Just get me some tools. And what kind of fucking entry
team is this? Doesn’t anybody have a goddamn Band-Aid?”

*   *   *

Down the street from Boyd’s apartment, Amelia Sachs was listening to the transmitted exchanges about the kick-in. It seemed that her plan for Sellitto might’ve worked—even better than she’d hoped. She wasn’t exactly sure what had happened but it was clear that he’d done something ballsy and she heard some newfound confidence in his voice.

She acknowledged the message about the plan to pull everybody off the street and wait for Boyd to return, then she added that she was going to warn the last residents across the street from the safe house and, after that, she’d join the others on the stake-out. She knocked on the front door and told the woman who answered to stay away from the front of the house until she heard it was safe to come out. There was a police action going on across the street.

The woman’s eyes were wide. “Is it dangerous?”

Sachs gave her the standard line: We’re just being cautious, nothing to be alarmed about and so on. Noncommittal, reassuring. Half of being a cop is public relations. Sometimes it’s
most
of being a cop. Sachs added that she’d seen some children’s toys in the woman’s yard. Were they home now?

It was then that Sachs saw a man emerge from an alleyway up the street. He was walking slowly in the direction of the apartment, head down, wearing a hat and a long overcoat. She couldn’t see his face.

The woman was saying in a concerned voice, “It’s just my boyfriend and me here now. The children are at school. They usually walk home but should we go pick them up?”

“Ma’am, that man there, across the street?”

She stepped forward and glanced. “Him?”

“Do you know him?”

“Sure. He lives in that building right there.”

“What’s his name?”

“Larry Tang.”

“Oh, he’s Chinese?”

“I guess. Or Japanese or something.”

Sachs relaxed.

“
He’
s not involved in anything, is he?” the woman asked.

“No, he’s not. About your children, it probably would be best to—”

Oh, Jesus . . .

Looking past the woman, Amelia Sachs stared into a bedroom of the bungalow, which was in the process of being renovated. On the wall were some painted cartoon characters. One was from Winnie-the-Pooh—the character Tigger.

The orange shade of the paint was identical to the samples she’d found near Geneva’s aunt’s place in Harlem. Bright orange.

Then she glanced at the floor in the entry hall. On a square of newspapers was an old pair of shoes. Light brown. She could just see the label inside. They were Bass. About size 11.

Amelia Sachs understood suddenly that the boyfriend that the woman had referred to was Thompson Boyd and the apartment across the street wasn’t his residence but was another of his safe houses. The reason it was empty at the moment, of course, was that he was somewhere in this very house.

Amelia Sachs, thinking: Get the woman outside. Her eyes aren’t guilty. She’s not part of it.

Thinking: Of course Boyd’s armed.

Thinking: And I just traded my Glock for a fucking six-shooter.

Get her out of here. Fast.

Sachs’s hand was easing toward her waistband, where Sellitto’s tiny pistol rested. “Oh, one more thing, ma’am,” she said calmly. “I saw a van up the street. I wonder if you could tell me whose it is.”

What was that noise? Sachs wondered. Something from within the house. Metallic. But not like a weapon, a faint clatter.

“A van?”

“Yeah, you can’t see it from here. It’s behind that tree.” Sachs stepped back, gesturing her forward. “Could you step outside and take a look, please? It’d be a big help.”

The woman, though, stayed where she was, in the entryway, glancing to her right. Toward where the sound had come from. “Honey?” She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

The clattering, Sachs understood suddenly, had been venetian blinds. Boyd had heard the exchange with his girlfriend and had looked out the window. He’d seen an ESU officer or squad car near his safe house.

“It’s really important,” Sachs tried. “If you could just . . . ”

But the woman froze, her eyes wide.

“No! Tom! What’re you—?”

“Ma’am, come over here!” Sachs shouted, drawing the Smith & Wesson. “Now! You’re in danger!”

“What’re you doing with that? Tom!” She backed away from Boyd but remained in the corridor, a rabbit in headlights. “No!”

“Get down!” Sachs said in a ragged whisper, dropping into a crouch and moving forward into the house.

“Boyd, listen to me,” Sachs shouted. “If you’ve got a weapon, drop it. Throw it out where I can see it. Then get on the floor. I mean now! There’re dozens of officers outside!”

Silence, except for the woman’s sobbing.

Sachs executed a fast feint, looking low around the corner to the left. She caught a glimpse of the man, his face calm, a large, black pistol in his hand. Not the North American .22 magnum, but an automatic, which would have stopping-power bullets and a clip capacity of fifteen rounds or so. She ducked back to cover. Boyd’d been expecting her to present higher and the two slugs he fired missed her, though only by inches, blowing plaster and wood splinters into the air. The brunette was screaming with every breath, scrabbling away, looking from Sachs back to where Boyd was. “No, no, no!”

Sachs called, “Throw your weapon down!”

“Tom, please! What’s going on?”

Sachs called to her, “Get down, miss!”

A long moment of complete silence. What was Boyd up to? It was as if he was debating what to do next.

Then he fired a single round.

The detective flinched. The bullet was wide,
though. It completely missed the wall where Sachs stood.

But, it turned out, Boyd hadn’t been aiming at her at all, and the slug did indeed hit its target.

The brunette was dropping to her knees, her hands on her thigh, which gushed blood. “Tom,” she whispered. “Why? . . . Oh, Tom.” She rolled onto her back and lay clutching her leg, gasping in pain.

Just like at the museum, Boyd had shot someone to distract the police, to give him a chance to get away. But this time it was his girlfriend.

Sachs heard the crack of glass as Boyd broke through a window to escape.

The woman kept whispering words Sachs couldn’t hear. She radioed Haumann about the woman’s condition and location, and he immediately sent medics and backup. Then she thought: But it’ll take a few minutes for EMS to get here. I
have
to save her. A tourniquet would slow the bleeding. I can save her life.

But then: No. He’s not getting away. She looked around the corner, low, fast, and saw Boyd drop out of the hall window into the side yard.

Sachs hesitated, looking back at the woman. She’d passed out, and her hand had fallen away from the terrible wound on her leg. Already, blood pooled under her torso.

Christ . . .

She started toward her. Then stopped. No. You know what you have to do. Amelia Sachs ran to the side window. She looked out, fast again, in case he was waiting for her. But, no, Boyd expected that she’d save the woman. Sachs saw him sprinting away from the apartment down the cobblestoned alley without a glance back.

She looked down. A six-foot drop to the ground. Her story about the pain from the fall she’d told to Sellitto twenty minutes ago was fake; the chronic pain wasn’t.

Oh, brother.

She scooted up onto the sill, clear of the broken glass, and swung her legs out, then pushed off. Trying to ease the shock of the landing, Sachs kept her knees bent. But it was a long drop and as she landed her left leg collapsed and she tumbled onto gravel and grass, crying out at the pain.

Breathing hard, she struggled to her feet and started off after Boyd, now with an honest limp slowing her up. God gets you for lying, she thought.

Shoving her way through a row of anemic bushes, Sachs broke from the yard into an alley that ran behind the houses and apartments. She looked right and left. No sign of him.

Then, a hundred feet ahead of her, she saw a large wooden door swing open. This was typical of older parts of New York—unheated, stand-alone garages lining alleys behind row and town houses. It made sense that Boyd would keep his car garaged; the Search and Surveillance team hadn’t found it anywhere on the surrounding blocks. Jogging forward as best she could, Sachs reported his location to the command post.

“Copy, Five Eight Eight Five. We’re on our way, K.”

Moving unsteadily over the cobblestones, she flipped open the cylinder of Sellitto’s Smittie and grimaced to see that he was among the more cautious gun owners; the cylinder beneath the hammer was empty.

Five shots.

Versus Boyd’s automatic with three times that
many and possibly a spare clip or two in his pocket.

Running to the mouth of the alley, she could hear an engine start and a second later the blue Buick backed out, the rear toward her. The alley was too narrow to make the turn in one motion, so Boyd had to stop, drive forward then back up again. This gave Sachs the chance to sprint to within sixty or seventy feet of the garage.

Boyd finished the maneuver and, with the garage door as a shield between him and Sachs, accelerated away fast.

Sachs dropped hard to the cobblestones and saw that the only target she had was under a narrow gap at the bottom of the garage door: the rear tires.

Prone, Sachs sighted on the right one.

It’s a rule in urban-combat shooting never to fire unless you “know your backdrop,” that is, where the bullet will end up if you miss your shot—or if it penetrates your target and continues on. As Boyd’s car peeled away from her, Sachs considered this protocol for a fraction of a second, then—thinking of Geneva Settle—came up with a rule of her own: This fucker’s not getting away.

The best she could do to control the shot was to aim low so that the bullet would ricochet upward and lodge in the car itself if she missed.