The Watchmaker’s Hand

His security app told him that no one had breached either the cul-de-sac nor the safe house, which he entered. Closing the door, he shut off the security system, then walked into the bedroom, stripped off the outer garments he was wearing and hung them in the small closet. The suit jacket and trousers had been specially made and had neoprene linings. He was always careful when planting the acid but, of course, accidents happen, especially with such an unstable chemical.

In the minuscule bathroom, he opened the medicine cabinet door and removed the jar of Penotanyl, prescribed by the doctor who had done the cosmetic surgery. Unscrewing the top, he rubbed the white substance on his face from forehead to chin. The slicing and rearranging to alter him had been so extensive that the ointment was necessary to keep the skin from drying and cracking. Hale was a man of iron discipline, but even he found it hard to resist rubbing during the bouts of itching.

Another glance at the stranger in the mirror. Still startling.

He replaced the medicine and then dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt and a sweatshirt. His sidearm, a smaller Glock, a model 43, went into the holster inside his belt. No silencer for this weapon. In close combat, you want noise.

Logging on to his computer, he typed in a local news station’s URL. Hale was one person who did not regret the demise of print journalism. Oh, he read news voraciously. He had sixteen anonymous subscriptions — ranging from the New York Times to the Bulgarian State Daily — but he needed the immediacy of online editions.

Decorated NYPD Detective Killed on Lower East Side

The story reported that Andrew Raymond Gilligan, a sixteen-year veteran, had been shot gangland style. It was likely that the killer had been a mob enforcer, shooting Gilligan to stop an organized crime investigation he was working on. The police, though, had no suspects in mind.

“He was a good cop and a good man,” his brother, Mick Gilligan, 43, said. “He didn’t deserve this.”

He continued to scan several other sources and found nothing of the acid attack on Garry Helprin and his wife. Which meant they were dead. Their bodies would be discovered eventually; with luck, though, he’d be gone by then.

Hale closed out of the site. He brewed a cup of coffee and, after scanning the security monitors, sat back and sipped the hot beverage.

He reflected on the story about Gilligan’s death. It was illuminating. The theory that he’d been killed by an OC hit man was nonsense — a murder like that bought gang leaders far more trouble than it prevented. No, the story was floated as a smoke screen. And that meant that Lincoln and the others knew about the connection between Gilligan and him, and that Hale was the shooter.

This was unfortunate, but not unexpected.

He tried to anticipate what Lincoln would do with that connection.

That remained a mystery.

But Hale’s plan was unfolding quickly; he would finish up here and soon be gone.

More coffee. Drinking it slowly. Hale had an idea for a weight-loss program. The key thing to count? Not calories or carbs or fat, but time. The slower you ate, the fuller you felt and the less you took in. And you enjoyed the act of indulging longer. Another creative idea he would never put into practice. Every once in a rare while, he regretted striving for perfect anonymity.

His eyes were on the clepsydra that had so interested the late Andy Gilligan. The ancient Romans relied on sundials and obelisks for most of their timekeeping, but on overcast days and at night, they used hourglasses like this one.

Hale had once read a story about the emperor Caligula. A fascinating man, he was the world’s first Photoshopper, having a sculpture of his own head affixed to a statue of Jupiter. He was also completely mad, vindictive and paranoid. He got it into his demented head to kill a number of Jews who were not worshipping him with sufficient adulation. But an advisor convinced him that the clepsydra in his chambers was magic, and that it had transported him back in time. He’d already murdered hundreds in the Jewish community, so there was no need to kill any more.

Caligula believed the man and would spend hours playing with the timepiece, convinced that with it he could move back and forth in time.

As he sipped the coffee, finishing the cup, he let his thoughts wander away from imperial Rome — and away from Lincoln Rhyme.

A minute later he picked up an unused burner phone.

“No,” he told himself and set it down. He’d actually spoken aloud.

Then he lifted the unit once more and tapped in a number.

29

Driving north through Tribeca, Ron Pulaski was on the phone with an Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives supervisor.