The Bone Collector

said he’d front me the money for the fine but I’d have to pay him back. With interest. But you know what else he told me? He said he would’ve tanned my hide for running a red light or reckless driving. But going fast he understood. He told me, ‘I know how you feel, honey. When you move they can’t getcha.’ ” Sachs said to Rhyme, “If I couldn’t drive, if I couldn’t move, then maybe I’d do it too. Kill myself.”
    “I used to walk everywhere,” Rhyme said. “I never did drive much. Haven’t owned a car in twenty years. What kind do you have?”
    “Nothing a snooty Manhattanite like you’d drive. A Chevy. Camaro. It was my father’s.”
    “Who gave you the drill press? For working on cars, I assume?”
    She nodded. “And a torque wrench. And spark-gap set. And my first set of ratcheting sockets—my thirteenth-birthday present.” Laughing softly. “That Chevy, it’s a wobbly-knob car. You know what that is? An American car. The radio and vents and light switches are all loose and cheesy. But the suspension’s like a rock, it’s light as an egg crate and I’ll take on a BMW any day.”
    “And I’ll bet you have.”
    “Once or twice.”
    “Cars are status in the crip world,” Rhyme explained. “We’d sit—or lie—around the ward in rehab and talk about what we could get out of our insurance companies. Wheelchair vans were the top of the heap. Next are hand-control cars. Which wouldn’t do me any good of course.” He squinted, testing his supple memory. “I haven’t been in a car in years. I can’t remember the last time.”
    “Got an idea,” Sachs said suddenly. “Before your friend—Dr. Berger—comes back, let me take you for a ride. Or is that a problem? Sitting up? You were saying that wheelchairs don’t work for you.”
    “Well, no, wheelchairs’re a problem. But a car? I think that’d be okay.” He laughed. “A hundred and sixty-eight? Miles per hour?”
    “That was a special day,” Sachs said, nodding at the memory. “Good conditions. And no highway patrol.”
    The phone buzzed and Rhyme answered it himself. It was Lon Sellitto.
    “We got S&S on all the target churches in Harlem. Dellray’s in charge of that—man’s become a true believer, Lincoln. You wouldn’t recognize him. Oh, and I’ve got thirty portables and a ton of UN security cruising for any other churches we might’ve missed. If he doesn’t show up, we’re going to do a sweep of all of them at seven-thirty. Just in case he snuck in without us seeing him. I think we’re going to nail him, Linc,” the detective said, suspiciously enthusiastic for a New York City homicide cop.
    “Okay, Lon, I’ll send Amelia up to your CP around eight.”
    They hung up.
    Thom knocked on the door before coming into the room.
    As if he’d catch us in a compromising position, Rhyme laughed to himself.
    “No more excuses,” he said testily. “Bed. Now.”
    It was after 3:00 a.m. and Rhyme had left exhaustion far behind long ago. He was floating somewhere else. Above his body. He wondered if he’d start to hallucinate.
    “Yes, Mother,” he said. “Officer Sachs’s staying over, Thom. Could you get her a blanket, please?”
    “What did you say?” Thom turned to face him.
    “A blanket.”
    “No, after that,” the aide said. “That word?”
    “I don’t know. ‘Please’?”
    Thom’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Are you allright? You want me to get Pete Taylor back here? The head of Columbia-Presbyterian? The surgeon general?”
    “See how this son of a bitch torments me?” Rhyme said to Sachs. “He never knows how close he comes to getting fired.”
    “A wake-up call for when?”
    “Six-thirty should be fine,” Rhyme said.
    When he was gone, Rhyme asked, “Hey, Sachs, you like music?”
    “Love it.”
    “What kind?”
    “Oldies, doo-wop, Motown . . . How ’bout you? You seem like a classical kind of guy.”
    “See that closet there?”
    “This one?”
    “No, no, the other one. To the right. Open it up.”
    She did and gasped in amazement. The closet was a small room filled with close to a thousand CDs.
    “It’s like Tower Records.”
    “That stereo, see it on the shelf?”
    She ran her hand over the dusty black Harmon Kardon.
    “It cost more than my first car,” Rhyme said. “I don’t use it anymore.”
    “Why not?”
    He didn’t answer but said instead, “Put something on. Is it plugged in? It is? Good. Pick something.”
    A moment later she stepped out of