The Coffin Dancer

arthritis . . .
    “Here. Here’s a dozen demmies. Take ’em and go!”
    “A dozen. And I ain’ gotta pay you?” He brayed a laugh. “A dozen?”
    Approaching the top of the stairs.
    She could almost peer into the station itself. She was ready to shoot. He moves any direction more than six inches, girl, take him out. Forget the rules. Three head shots. Pop, pop, pop. Forget the chest. Forget—
    Suddenly the stairs vanished.
    “Ugh.” A grunt from deep in her throat as she fell.
    The step she’d placed her foot on was a trap. The riser had been removed and the step rested only on two shoe boxes. They collapsed under her weight and the concrete slab pitched downward, sending her backward down the stairs. The Glock flew from her hand and as she started to shout, “Ten-thirteen!” she realized that the cord linking her headset to her Motorola had been yanked out of the radio.
    Sachs fell with a thud onto the concrete-and-steel landing. Her head slammed into a pole supporting the handrail. She rolled onto her stomach, stunned.
    “Oh, great,” the white guy’s voice muttered from the top of the stairs.
    “Who the fuck that?” the black voice asked.
    She lifted her head and caught a glimpse of two men standing at the top of the stairs, gazing down at her.
    “Shit,” the black man muttered. “Fuck. What the fuck goin’ on here?”
    The white guy snagged a baseball bat and started down the stairs.
    I’m dead, she thought. I’m dead.
    The switchblade rested in her pocket. It took every ounce of energy to get her right arm out from underneath her. She rolled onto her back, fishing for the knife. But it was too late. He stepped on her arm, pinning it to the ground, and he gazed down at her.
    Oh, man, Rhyme, blew it bad. Wish we’d had a better farewell night . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .
    She lifted her hands defensively to deflect the blow to her head, glanced for her Glock. It was too far away.
    With a tendony hand tough as a bird claw, the small man pulled the knife from her pocket. He tossed it away.
    Then he stood and gripped the club.
    Pop, she spoke to her deceased father, How bad d’I blow this one? How many rules d’I break? Recalling that he’d told her all it took to get killed on the street was a one-second lapse.
    “Now, you’re gonna tell me what you’re doing here,” he muttered, swinging the club absently, as if he couldn’t decide what to break first. “Who the hell’re you?”
    “Her name’s Mizz Amelia Sachs,” said the homelessguy, suddenly sounding a lot less homeless. He stepped off the bottom stair and moved up to the white guy quickly, pulling the bat away. “And unless I’m most mistaken, she’s come here to bust your little ass, my friend. Just like me.” Sachs squinted to see the homeless guy straighten up and turn into Fred Dellray. He was pointing a very large Sig-Sauer automatic pistol at the astonished man.
    “You’re a cop?” he sputtered.
    “FBI.”
    “Shit!” he spat out, closing his eyes in disgust. “This is just my fucking luck.”
    “Nup,” Dellray said. “Luck didn’t have a bitsy thing to do with it. Now, I’m gonna cuff you and you’re gonna let me. You don’t, you gonna hurt for months and months. We all together on that?”

    “How’d you do it, Fred?”
    “’Seasy,” the lanky FBI agent said to Sachs as they stood in front of the deserted subway station. He still was dressed homeless and was filthy with the mud he’d smeared on his face and hands to simulate weeks of living on the street. “Rhyme was tellin’ me ’bout the Dancer’s friend being a junkie and living downtown in the subways, knew just where I hadta come. Bought a bag of empties and talked to who I knew I oughta talk to. Just ’bout got di-rections t’his livin’ room.” He nodded toward the subway. They glanced at a squad car, where Jodie sat, cuffed and miserable, in the backseat.
    “Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing?”
    Dellray’s answer was a laugh and Sachs knew the question was pointless; undercover cops rarely told anyone—fellow cops included, and especially supervisors—what they were doing. Nick, her ex, had been undercover, too, and there’d been a hell of a lot he hadn’t told her.
    She massaged her side where she’d fallen. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and the medics said she ought to have X rays. Sachs reached up and squeezed Dellray’s biceps. She felt uneasy receiving gratitude—she was truly