The Steel Kiss

“When I was a kid. Stranger in a Strange Land. This alien comes to earth. Not like he’s invading or anything, shooting people with a ray gun. It wasn’t that kind of story. Anyway, this alien, he could change his sense of time. You go to the dentist, you speed things up and the visit goes by in seconds. You’re making love, you slow it down.” Freddy laughed. “I could use that, slow things down, I’m saying. Sometimes.”

“That was in the book?”

“Not the dentist or the sex. It was a classy book. Science fiction but classy.”

“Stranger—”

“—in a Strange Land.”

Nick liked the concept. “That’s just what it’s like, yeah. Everything speeding up now I’m out. Get freaked some. I read a lot inside. But never heard of that one. I’ll read it. Want a beer?”

Freddy was looking around the room. Nick had kept it as organized as his cell. Clean. Polished. Ordered. It was about as sparse as the cell too. He was going to borrow a car and go to Ikea. Inside, he’d dreamed about shopping there. Then Freddy glanced at his watch. “We should leave soon. But sure, one beer.” And he looked relieved that it seemed the serious conversation was on hold.

Nick got a couple of bottles of Budweiser. He church-keyed them, sat down and handed one over.

“You have booze inside?” Freddy asked.

“You could get ’shine. Expensive. Bad, real bad. Probably poison.”

“They call it moonshine?” Freddy asked. This seemed to tickle him.

“They did where I was. Most cons went for Oxy or Perc. Easy to smuggle in. Or just buy from a guard.”

“Stay away from them both.”

“I hear that. Got beat up once, some bullshit thing. Really hurt, broke a finger. Med center doc said he could get me a couple of pills. I said no. He was surprised. I think he wanted me to pay him.”

Judge Judy was harping about something. Nick shut the show off. “So who is this guy can help me out?” he asked.

“Name’s Stan Von. I don’t know him good. But he’s vouched for.”

“Von. What is he, German?”

Thinking of Amelia again.

“I don’t know. Maybe Jewish. Could still be German. Don’t know.”

“Where’re we meeting him?”

“Bay Ridge.”

“He’s got the names? J and Nanci?”

“I don’t know for sure. But he said what he’s got’ll point you in the right direction.”

“He’s not warranted, right?”

“Nope. I checked.”

“I can’t see him if he is.”

Freddy reassured, “He’s clean.”

“And no weapons.”

“I told him. Absolutely.”

Nick remembered life in prison and he remembered life on the streets. “So what’s he want out of this?”

“A meal.”

“A…  Is that like code or something?” Thinking: “M” for a thousand bucks. Or “M” for megabytes, as in a shitload of money.

Freddy shrugged. “Dinner is what it means.”

“That’s all?” Nick was surprised. “I was thinking five bills.”

“No, I’ve done his boss some favors. So, no cash involved. Anyway, some guys, doing something for somebody, they just want a meal. It’s more, I don’t know, intimate or something.” Nick shot him a look and Freddy chuckled. “No, not that kind of intimate. I just mean it’s more like a good thing they’re doing.” The amphibian guy chugged the last suds of his beer. “Or, who knows, maybe he’s just hungry.”

* * *

“It’s not bad. A bit of burn. I was under the line of fire.”

In Rhyme’s parlor, Sachs was responding to Rhyme’s question about her condition.

She displayed her left arm, where the steam from the microwave had kissed the skin, which was now slightly reddish. For the treatment—ointment, it seemed—she’d removed her blue-stone ring. She now remembered it, fished the jewelry from her pocket and reseated it gingerly. Flexed her fingers. And nodded. “Fine.” The bandage on her forearm was modest.

“So what happened?” Sachs asked. The question was directed toward Juliette Archer, who had, by voice command, just disconnected a phone call. They knew, of course, that the unsub had turned the microwave power way up but neither Rhyme nor Sachs had guessed how that could create a virtual bomb.

The intern replied, “The consumer products specialist at the microwave manufacturer.” Nodding at the phone. “He said it looks like our unsub used the DataWise to override the control panel and up the power exponentially. He said it would be a lot—probably by forty or fifty times. Whatever he was making, tea or coffee, was superheated. When he opened the door, the air was a lot colder and it vaporized the liquid inside and the moisture in the porcelain mug itself—all ceramic absorbs liquids to some extent. The mug exploded like a hand grenade.”

Archer nodded to the screen. “Even with microwaves that haven’t been tampered with you get the same effect, if you overheat something. But that takes time. Our unsub? He basically caused fifteen minutes of high-power radiation to happen in about sixty seconds.”

Rhyme had no idea such a ubiquitous device could be so dangerous.

Sachs’s phone hummed and she read a text. “He’s published another message.” A few keystrokes and an email appeared on the high-def monitor near them.