The Broken Window

coincidence: I find the exact spot where Captain Malloy’s screams hit a crescendo. It chills even me.
    •   •   •
    He awoke from an uneasy sleep filled with bumpy nightmares. His throat hurt from the garrote, inside and out, though the stinging was worse in his mouth—from the dryness.
    Arthur Rhyme glanced around at the dingy, windowless hospital room. Well, a cell in an infirmary inside the Tombs. No different from his own cell orthat terrible common room where he’d almost been murdered.
    A male nurse or orderly came into the room, examined an empty bed and wrote something down.
    “Excuse me,” Arthur rasped. “Can I see a doctor?”
    The man looked his way—a large African American. Arthur felt a surge of panic, thinking this was Antwon Johnson, who’d stolen a uniform and snuck in here to finish what he’d started. . . .
    But, no, it was somebody else. Still, the eyes were just as cold and they spent no more time regarding Arthur Rhyme than they would glancing at a spill on the floor. He left without a word.
    A half hour passed, Arthur dipping into and out of waking.
    Then the door opened again and he glanced up, startled, as another patient was brought in. He’d had appendicitis, Arthur deduced. The operation was over and he was recovering. An orderly got him into bed. He handed the man a glass. “Don’ drink it. Rinse ’n’ spit.”
    The man drank.
    “No, I’m tellin’ you—”
    He threw up.
    “Fuck.” The orderly tossed a handful of paper towels at him and left.
    Arthur’s fellow patient fell asleep, clutching the towels.
    It was then that Arthur looked out the window in the door. Two men stood outside, one Latino, one black. The latter squinted, staring directly at him, then whispered something to the other, who briefly looked too.
    Something about their posture and expressions told Arthur their interest wasn’t mere curiosity—seeing the con who’d been saved by Mick, the tweaker.
    No, they were memorizing his face. Why?
    Did they want to kill him too?
    Another surge of panic. Was it only a matter of time until they were successful?
    He closed his eyes but then decided he shouldn’t sleep. He didn’t dare. They’d move on him when he was asleep, they’d move on him if he closed his eyes, they’d move on him if he didn’t pay complete attention to everything, everyone, every minute.
    And now his agony was complete. Judy had said that Lincoln might have found something that could prove his innocence. She didn’t know what, and so Arthur had no way to judge if his cousin was simply being optimistic, or if he’d discovered some concrete proof that he’d been wrongly arrested. He was furious at this ambiguous hope. Before he’d talked to Judy, Arthur Rhyme had resigned himself to a living hell and an impending death.
    I’m doin’ you a favor, man. Fuck, you’d do yourself in a month or two anyway. . . . Now jus’ stop fightin’ it. . . .
    But now, realizing that freedom might be attainable, resignation blossomed into panic. He saw in front of him some hope that could be taken away.
    His heart began its manic thudding again.
    He grabbed the call button. Pushed it once. Then again.
    No response. A moment later another pair of eyes appeared in the window. But they weren’t a doctor’s.Was it one of the cons he’d seen before? He couldn’t tell. The man was looking directly at him.
    Struggling to control the fear that trickled down his spine like electricity, he pressed the call button again, then held it down.
    Still no response.
    The eyes in the window blinked once, then vanished.

Chapter Thirty-seven
    “Metadata.”
    On speakerphone Rodney Szarnek, in the NYPD computer lab, was explaining to Lincoln Rhyme how 522 most likely had learned that the “expert” was in fact an undercover cop.
    Sachs, standing nearby, with her arms crossed and fingers picking at her sleeve, reminded him of what she’d learned from Calvin Geddes of Privacy Now. “That’s data about data. Embedded in documents.”
    “Right,” Szarnek confirmed, hearing her comment. “He probably saw that we’d created the C.V. last night.”
    “Shit,” Rhyme murmured. Well, you can’t think of everything. Then: But you have to when you’re up against the man who knows everything. And now the plan, which potentially could have netted him, had been wasted. The second time they’d failed.
    And worse, they’d tipped their hand. Just like they ’d learned about his suicide ploy,