The Steel Kiss

I pause the recorder and sip some water. Then ease down beside Alicia, still in bed. I used to think I would date a blind woman. Tried it out, but couldn’t find one. They don’t use personals. Maybe it’s too risky. Blind women wouldn’t care about too tall, too skinny, long face, long fingers, long feet. Skinny worm freak. Skinny bean boy. Slim Jim. So, a blind woman was my plan. But didn’t work out. I meet somebody occasionally. It works okay for what it is. Then it ends.

It always ends. It will end with Alicia too.

I think of the Toy Room.

Then I’m back to the diary, transcribing again, ten minutes, twenty.

The ups and downs of life, recorded forever. Just like my mementos on the shelves in the Toy Room: I remember the joy or sadness or anger surrounding each one.

Today was a good day.

WEDNESDAY II THE INTERN

CHAPTER 6

Mr. Rhyme, an honor.”

Not sure how to respond to that. A nod seemed appropriate. “Mr. Whitmore.”

No nudge to first names. Rhyme had learned, however, that his was Evers.

The attorney might have been transplanted from the 1950s. He wore a dark-blue suit, gabardine, a white shirt whose collar and cuffs were starched to plastic. The tie, equally stiff, was the shade of blue that couldn’t quite give up violet and was narrow as a ruler. A white rectangle peeked from the jacket’s breast pocket.

Whitmore’s face was long and pallid and so expressionless Rhyme thought for a moment that he had Bell’s Palsy or some paralysis of the cranial nerves. Just as that conclusion was reached, though, his brow furrowed ever so slightly as he took in the parlor and its CSI accoutrements.

Rhyme realized that the man seemed to be waiting for an invitation to sit. Rhyme told him to do so and, smoothing his trousers and unbuttoning his jacket, Whitmore picked a chair close by and lowered himself onto it. Perfectly upright. He removed his glasses, cleaned the round lenses with a dark-blue cloth and replaced both, on nose and in pocket respectively.

Upon meeting Rhyme, visitors generally reacted in one of two ways. The majority were stricken nearly dumb, blushing, to be in the company of a man 90 percent of whose body was immobile. Others would joke and banter about his condition. This was tedious, though preferable to the former.

Some—Rhyme’s partiality—upon meeting him would glance once or twice at his body, and move on, undoubtedly the same way they would assess potential in-laws: We’ll withhold judgment till we get to the substance. This is what Whitmore now did.

“Do you know Amelia?” Rhyme asked.

“No. I’ve never met Detective Sachs. We have a mutual friend, a classmate of ours from high school. Brooklyn. Fellow attorney. She called Richard initially and asked him to consider the case but he doesn’t do personal injury law. He gave her my number.”

The narrowness of his face accentuated its pensive expression, and Rhyme was surprised to hear that he and Sachs were roughly the same age. He’d have thought Whitmore a half-dozen years older.

“When she called me about taking on a possible case and told me that you were free to be an expert witness, I was surprised.”

Rhyme considered the time line implicit in his comment. Apparently Sachs had committed Rhyme to be a consultant before she’d confessed to him this was the reason she’d driven from the widow’s house in Brooklyn to the parlor here last night.

I came by to ask you something. I need a favor…

“But of course I’m pleased that you’re available. All wrongful death litigation involves thorny evidentiary matters. And I know that will be particularly true in this case. You have quite the reputation.” He looked around. “Is Detective Sachs here?”

“No, she’s downtown. Working a homicide case. But last night she told me about your client. Sandy, that’s her name?”

“The widow. Mrs. Frommer, yes. Sandy.”

“Her situation’s as bad as Amelia told me?”

“I don’t know what she told you.” A precise correction of Rhyme’s imprecision. He doubted Whitmore would be fun to share a beer with but he would be a good man to have as your counselor, especially when cross-examining the other side. “But I’ll confirm that Mrs. Frommer is facing some very difficult times. Her husband had no life insurance and he hadn’t worked full-time for some years. Mrs. Frommer works for a housecleaning service but only part-time. They’re in debt. Significant debt. They have some distant family but nobody is in a position to help much financially. One cousin can provide temporary shelter—in a garage. I’ve been practicing personal injury law for years and I can tell you that for many clients a recovery is a windfall; in Mrs. Frommer’s case, it’s a necessity.

“Now, Mr. Rhyme…  Excuse me, you were a captain on the police force, right? Should I call you that?”

“No, Lincoln is fine.”

“Now, I would like to tell you what our situation is.”

There was a robotic element to him. Not irritating. Just plain odd. Maybe juries liked it.