The Kill Room

they hadn’t known each other before he picked her up.”
    “That’s not telling me much,” Sachs said.
    “You see, Detective, we learn things in this job. We learn human nature. Some things our clients do not want us to know, some things we do not want to know. We are to be invisible. But we are observant. We drive and we ask no questions except, ‘Where do you want to go, sir?’ And yet we see.”
    The esoterica on the Mystic Order of Limo Drivers was wearing and Sachs lifted an impatient eyebrow.
    He said in a soft voice, as if someone else were listening, “It was clear to me she was a…You understand?”
    “An escort?”
    “Voluptuous, you know.”
    “One does not necessarily mean the other.”
    “But then there was the money.”
    “Money.”
    “Much of our job is learning not to see things.”
    Brother . She sighed. “What money?”
    “I saw Mr. Moreno give her an envelope. The way they both handled it, I knew it contained money. And he said, ‘As we agreed.’”
    “And she said?”
    “‘Thank you.’”
    Sachs wondered what prim ADA Nance Laurel would think of her noble victim picking up a hooker in the middle of the day. “Did there seem to be any connection between this woman and the building? A particular office she worked in?”
    “She was in the lobby when we pulled up out front.”
    Sachs doubted the escort service would have a cover operation here. Maybe this Lydia worked as a temp or had another part-time job. She called Lon Sellitto and explained about the woman, describing her.
    “And voluptuous,” Tash Farada interjected.
    Sachs ignored him and gave the detective the address.
    Sellitto said, “I got that canvass team together—from Myers’s division. I’ll get ’em started on the building. See if anybody’s heard of a Lydia.”
    After they disconnected she asked Farada, “Where did they go from here?”
    “Downtown. Wall Street.”
    “Let’s go.”
    The man eased the Town Car into traffic. Speeding up, the big, spongy Lincoln wove through the congested traffic. If she had to be a prisoner in the passenger seat, at least she could take comfort that the driver wasn’t a plodder. She’d rather have a fender-bender than a hesitant ride. And in her opinion faster was safer.
    When you move…
    As they made their way downtown she asked, “Did you hear what they talked about, Mr. Moreno and Lydia?”
    “Yes, yes. But it wasn’t what I thought it would be, about her job, so to speak.”
    Voluptuous…
    “He talked much about politics. Lecturing in a way. Lydia, she was polite and asked questions but they were the questions you ask at a wedding or funeral when you’re a stranger. Questions you don’t care about the answers to. Small talk.”
    Sachs persisted. “Tell me what he said.”
    “Well, I remember he was angry with America. This I found troubling, offensive really. Perhaps he thought he could say these things in front of me because of my accent and I am of Middle Eastern descent. As if we had something in common. Now, I cried when the Trade Towers came down. I lost clients that day, who were my friends too. I love this country as a brother. Sometimes you are angry at your brother. Do you have?”
    He sped around a bus and two taxis.
    “No, I’m an only child.” Trying to be patient.
    “Well, at times you are angry with your brother but then you make up and all is well. That makes your love real. Because after all you’re joined by blood, forever. But Mr. Moreno wasn’t willing to forgive the country for what it had done to him.”
    “Done to him?”
    “Yes, do you know that story?”
    “No,” Sachs said, turning toward him. “Please tell me.”

CHAPTER 18
    I N ALL ENDEAVORS MISTAKES HAPPEN.
    You can’t let them affect you emotionally.
    You try to whip cream without chilling the bowl and beaters and you’re going to end up with butter.
    You and the tech department datamine the name of a client’s regular driver at a limo company and it turns out he was sick the one day you need to ask him about. And even removing a few careful strips of flesh couldn’t get the man lying in front of you to give up the substitute’s name. Which meant that he didn’t know.
    Silverskin…
    Jacob Swann reflected that he should have known this, should have prepared, and that gave him a dose of humble. You can’t make assumptions. The first rule to any good meal is prep. Get all the work done ahead of time, all the chopping, all the measuring, all the stock