The Steel Kiss

“I’ve eaten already. Thanks.”

“Lincoln? What’s it going to be?”

Rhyme was wheeling closer to the escalator unit. “I don’t think any one piece would weigh more than a hundred pounds. Anybody could take it apart. But I suppose we should wait for—” His voice braked to a stop.

Thom was asking something once again.

Rhyme didn’t hear a word.

“Lincoln?…  What…  Well, that’s a fierce gaze. I was only asking what you wanted for breakfast.”

He ignored the aide and wheeled closer yet to the scaffolding and examined the deadly access panel and, below it, the switch and servo motor operating the latch.

“What is the number one rule in engineering?” he whispered.

“I have no idea. What do you want for breakfast?”

He continued, rhetorically, “The answer is efficiency. Designs should have no more components—”

Archer finished his sentence, more or less: “—than are necessary to perform the intended function.”

“Exactly!”

Thom said, “Fine, fine. Now. Pancakes, bagel, yogurt? All of the above?”

“Goddamn it.” Though directed at himself, not his aide.

“What is it, Lincoln?” Archer asked.

He’d made a mistake. And nothing infuriated Lincoln Rhyme more than that. He pivoted and sped his chair forward to the nearest computer, on which he summoned the close-up pictures that Mel Cooper had taken of the interior of the escalator. Yes, he was right.

How the hell had he missed it?

In fact, he hadn’t missed the critical fact at all. He’d noted, but unforgivably had not focused on, the very words he’d thought to himself:

The switch wire ended in a plug inserted into one of the outlets on the side of the servo unit inside…

One of the outlets.

He explained now to Archer: “Look at the servo motor operating the latch. Right side.”

“Ah,” she said, a hint of disgust in her voice, as well. “It has two outlets.”

“Right.”

“We saw that. We looked right at it.” Archer was shaking her head.

Rhyme scowled. “We sure did.”

There was no reason to have a second outlet in the motor unless something—another switch, presumably—was plugged into it.

Of course, this was true of the mock-up in front of them. What of the escalator actually involved in the accident? He posed this question to Archer.

She pointed out that Amelia Sachs had taken some pictures of that one, unofficially.

“Good.” He called them up.

Thom tried again, “Lincoln? Breakfast.”

“Later.”

“Now.”

“Anything. I don’t care.” He and Archer stared at the pictures. But they didn’t answer the question; the angles were wrong and there was too much blood inside the pit where the tragedy had occurred to see clearly.

“I wonder—a second switch,” Rhyme said in a soft voice.

Archer said, “Which malfunctioned. And, if we’re lucky, it’s made by a company other than Midwest Conveyance. A company with a lot of assets.”

He continued, “Where would it be? The other switch? Anything in the documentation?”

Nothing, she reported, after scrolling through what she’d downloaded. “How can we find out?”

“Here’s a thought. The mall in Brooklyn, where the accident happened? All the escalators would be the same, right?”

“I’d assume so.”

“How’s this? Whitmore hires a private eye—he must have a dozen he uses. The PI jams something into one of the escalator steps. Shuts it down.” Rhyme nodded. He liked this idea. “They’ll get a repair crew in right away. Whitmore’s man could stay close and take pictures inside when they get it open.”

Thom, who’d overheard, was frowning. “Seriously, Lincoln? You don’t think that crosses some line?”

Rhyme scowled. “What I’m thinking about is Sandy Frommer and her son.”

Juliette Archer said, “Before you do that, can I try something?”

He quite liked the idea of sabotage. But he said, “What do you suggest?”

* * *

“Hello?”

“Is this Attorney Holbrook?”

“Yes, who’s this?” the voice resonated from the speaker of Rhyme’s landline.

“My name is Juliette Archer. I work with the men you were Skyping with yesterday. Evers Whitmore. And Lincoln Rhyme.”

A moment of silence as the man recalled. “Oh, the case. The lawyer and the consultant. About the personal injury suit. Greg Frommer.”

“That’s right.”

“Yes, I think somebody mentioned your name. You’re a consultant too?”

Rhyme watched her face, narrow, her blue eyes focused on the floor. She was concentrating, and hard.

“I am.”

The man muttered, “Well, we’re still bankrupt. Nothing’s changed. Like I said, you want to file a motion to lift the stay, go ahead. The trustee’ll fight it, I doubt you’ll win, but feel free.”

“No, I’m calling about something else.” Archer had the same edgy tone in her voice that Rhyme recalled from when he’d sent her away from his town house, arriving for the first day of internship.

He wondered where she was going.

“And what’s that?” Holbrook asked.

“You were courteous enough to suggest we might pursue other defendants, though none of those worked out.”