The Coffin Dancer

Should’ve guessed that the killer’d know where your rooms were. I could’ve put you in the basement, or someplace. And I could’ve shot better too.”
    Bell seemed so despondent that Percey could think of nothing to say. She rested her veiny hand on his forearm. He seemed thin, but he was really quite strong.
    He gave a soft laugh. “You wanta know something?”
    “What?”
    “This is the first time I’ve seen you looking halfway comfortable since I met you.”
    “Only place I feel really at home,” she said.
    “We’re going two hundred miles an hour a mile up in the air and you feel safe.” Bell sighed.
    “No, we’re going four hundred miles an hour, four miles up.”
    “Uh. Thanks for sharing that.”
    “There’s an old pilot’s saying,” Percey said. “ ‘Saint Peter doesn’t count the time spent flying, and he doubles the hours you spend on the ground.’ ”
    “Funny,” Bell said. “My uncle said something like that too. Only he used it talking about fishing. I’d vote for his version over yours any day. Nothing personal.”

 . . . Chapter Thirty-one
    Hour 33 of 45
    W orms . . .
    Stephen Kall, sweating, stood in a filthy bathroom in the back of a Cuban Chinese restaurant.
    Scrubbing to save his soul.
    Worms gnawing, worms eating, worms swarming . . .
    Clean ’em away . . . Clean them away!!!
    Soldier—
    Sir, I’m busy, sir.
    Sol—
    Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub.
    Lincoln the Worm is looking for me.
    Everywhere Lincoln the Worm looks, worms appear.
    Go away!!!
    The brush moved whisk, whisk, back and forth until his cuticles bled.
    Soldier, that blood is evidence. You can’t—
    Go away!!!
    He dried his hands then grabbed the Fender guitar case and the book bag, pushed into the restaurant.
    Soldier, your gloves—
    The alarmed patrons stared at his bloody hands, his crazed expression. “Worms,” he muttered in explanation to the entire restaurant, “fucking worms,” then burst outside onto the street.
    Hurrying down the sidewalk, calming. He was thinking about what he had to do. He had to kill Jodie, of course. Have to kill him have to kill him have to . . . Not because he was a traitor, but because he’d given away so much information—
    And why the fuck d’you do that, Soldier?
    —about himself to the man. And he had to kill Lincoln the Worm because . . . because the worms would get him if he didn’t.
    Have to kill have to have to have . . .
    Are you listening to me, Soldier? Are you?
    That was all there was left to do.
    Then he’d leave this city. Head back to West Virginia. Back to the hills.
    Lincoln, dead.
    Jodie, dead.
    Have to kill have to have to have to . . .
    Nothing more to keep him here.
    As for the Wife—he looked at his watch. Just after 7 P.M. Well, she was probably dead already.

    “’Sbulletproof.”
    “Against those bullets?” Jodie asked. “You said they blow up!”
    Dellray assured him it was effective. The vest was thick Kevlar on top of a steel sheet. It weighed forty-two pounds and Rhyme didn’t know a cop in the city who wore a vest like this, or ever would.
    “But what if he shoots my head?”
    “He wants me a lot more than he wants you,” Rhyme said.
    “And how’s he gonna know I’m staying here?”
    “How d’ya think, mutt?” Dellray snapped. “I’ma tell him.”
    The agent cinched up the little man tight in the vest and tossed him a windbreaker. He’d showered—after protesting—and had been given a set of clean clothes. The large navy blue jacket, covering the bulletproof vest, was a little lopsided but actually gave him a muscular physique. He caught sight of himself in the mirror—his scrubbed and newly attired self—and smiled for the first time since he’d been here.
    “Okay,” Sellitto said to two undercover officers, “take him downtown.”
    The officers ushered him out the door.
    After he’d left, Dellray looked at Rhyme, who nodded. The lanky agent sighed and flicked open his cell phone, placed a call to Hudson Air Charters, where another agent was waiting to pick up the phone. The fed’s tech group had found a remote tapon a relay box near the airport, clipped into the Hudson Air phone lines. The agents hadn’t removed it, though; in fact at Rhyme’s insistence they checked to make sure it was working and had replaced the weak batteries. The criminalist was relying on the device for the new trap.
    On the speakerphone, several rings then a click.
    “Agent Mondale,” came the