The Steel Kiss

Because I’m learning all I can about Red, Amelia Sachs, detective third-grade with the New York City Police Department.

I almost solved the problem of her earlier. Almost cracked her skull to splinters. I was following her near the White Castle, hand in my backpack, on the lovely hammer handle, smooth as a girl’s ankle. Moving close. When some other man showed up, who knew her. A cop, I had a feeling, one who worked for her, it seemed. Little white boy, skinny as me, okay, not quite, and shorter but he looked like trouble. He would have a gun and radio, of course.

I settled for getting Red’s license plate from that sexy car of hers.

All the helpful information I’m learning about her is pretty neat. Daughter of a cop, partner of a cop—well, former cop. Lincoln Rhyme, a famous guy. Disabled, which is what they call it, I’ve learned. In a wheelchair. So we have something in common. I’m not disabled exactly. But people look at me the way they look at him, I imagine.

Typing and typing hard. My fingers are long and big, my hands are strong. I break keyboards once every six months or more. And that’s not even when I’m angry.

Type, read, jot notes.

More and more about Red. Cases she’s closed. Shooting competitions she’s won (I’m keeping that in mind, believe me).

Now I am growing angry…  Yes, you can buy White Castle burgers at grocery stores. I will do that. But it’s not the same as going into the place, the tile, the smell of grease and onions. I remember going to one near where we grew up. A cousin, Lindy, was visiting from Seattle. Middle schooler, like me. I’d never been out with girl before and I pretended she wasn’t a relative and I imagined kissing her and her kissing me. Went to lunch at White Castle. Gave her a present, for her shiny blond hair, to keep it dry: a clear plastic rain scarf, all folded up tight like a road map in a little pouch, deep blue and embroidered in a Chinese design. Lindy laughed. Kissed my cheek.

A good day.

That was White Castle to me. And Red has taken it away.

Mad, mad…

I come to a decision. But then: It’s not a decision if you don’t decide. I have no choice in the matter. As if on cue, the door buzzer blares. I jump at the sound. Save the file on the computer, slip the hard copies away. I click the intercom.

“Vernon, it’s me?” Alicia says/asks.

“Come on up.”

“You’re sure it’s okay?”

My heart is slamming, at the prospected of what’s coming. For some reason I glance back at the Toy Room door. I say into the intercom box, “Yes.”

Two minutes, here she is, outside the door. I check the camera. She’s alone (not brought here at gunpoint by Red, which I actually imagine happening). I let her in and close and lock the door. I think involuntarily of a stone closing onto a crypt.

No turning back.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Not really.”

I was, not any longer. Considering what’s about to happen.

I stat to reach for her jacket, then remember, and let her hang it up. Tonight she’s in her thick schoolteacher blouse, high neck. She looks at the darting fish.

Red and black and silver.

The question is a knob, throbbing prominently in my brain, right where I would crack the bone of someone I wanted to kill.

And I think: Do I really want to do this?

My anger at Red oozes out to my skin and burns.

Yes, I do.

“What?” Alicia asks, looking at me with that wariness in her eyes. Must have said the word aloud.

“Come with me.”

“Uhm. Are you all right, Vernon?”

“Fine,” I whisper. “This way.”

We walk to the door of the Toy Room. She looks at the complicated lock. I know she’s seen it. And is curious. What would he want to hide? she’d be wondering. What’s in the den, the lair, the crypt? Of course she doesn’t say a word.

“Close your eyes.”

A hesitation now.

I ask, “Do you trust me?”

She doesn’t. But what can she do? She closes her eyes. I grip her hand. Mine is trembling. She hesitates and then grips back. Sweat mixes.

Then I’m guiding her through the door, the halogens shooting off the steel blades and blinding me. Not her. True to her word, Alicia keeps her eyes closed.

* * *

Lincoln Rhyme, lying in bed, near midnight, hoping for sleep.

He’d spent the last hour reflecting on Frommer v. Midwest Conveyance. Whitmore had called and in his somber, well, dull, voice reported that he’d discovered no other potential defendants. Attorney Holbrook was right. The cleaning crews could not possibly have done anything to cause the access panel to open, and the attorney’s private eye had tracked down the crew that had dismantled the escalator for the Department of Investigations. The worker had confirmed that the door covering the access panel switch had indeed been closed and locked, confirming what Sachs had learned: that no one could, accidentally or on purpose, have opened the panel and caused the accident.

So the case was officially dead.

Now Rhyme’s thoughts eased to Amelia Sachs.