The Stone Monkey

office. “We had a report that he was talking to Rhyme. Then he vanished again.”
    “Okay.” Peabody tried to figure out what this meant.
    Behind Peabody and Webley were two armed INS agents on either side of the Ghost, whose handcuffs kept clinking as he sipped his Starbucks coffee. The snake-head, at least, seemed untroubled by the talk of problems. “Keep going,” Peabody said into the phone.
    “We were keeping an eye on Coe, like you said. ’Cause we weren’t sure if he’d try to do harm to the subject.”
    Do harm to the subject  . . . What a fucked-up way to talk, Peabody thought.
    “And?”
    “Well, we can’t find him. Or Rhyme either.”
    “He’s in a wheelchair. How hard is it to keep track of him?” Doughy Peabody was drenched. The storm had passed and, though the skies were still overcast, the temperature was in the high 80s. And the government van had government air-conditioning.
    “There was no surveillance order,” the ASAC reminded calmly. “We had to handle it . . . informally.” His equanimity, Peabody realized, put the FBI agent in control of the situation and he reminded himself to try to gin up some more power.
    Bureaucracy was such a bitch.
    “What’s your situational assessment?” Peabody asked. Thinking: How’s that for jargon, you asshole?
    “You know Coe’s had a top-of-the-deck priority to get the Ghost himself.”
    “True. And?”
    “Rhyme’s the best forensic detective cop in the country. We’ve been sniffing the thought that he and Coe’re planning to take out the Ghost.”
    How do you sniff a thought? Peabody wondered. “How do you mean?”
    “With Rhyme’s grip on forensics they might’ve come up with some way to make it impossible to convict Coe. Manipulate the evidence somehow.”
    “What?” Peabody scoffed. “Ridiculous. Rhyme wouldn’t do that.”
    These words now brought some emotion to Webley. He frowned.
    “Why not?” the ASAC continued. “Ever since his accident he’s not the most stable person in the world. He’s always had this issue about killing himself. And it sounds like he got pretty close to that Chinese cop. Maybe when the Ghost shot Li it pushed him over the edge.”
    This sounded crazy, but who knew? Peabody caught people trying to sneak into the country illegally and sent them back home. He didn’t know the workings of the criminal mind. In fact he had no experience with psychology whatsoever, except resentfully paying his ex-wife’s shrink bills.
    As for Coe, well, he definitely was unstable enough to try to cap the Ghost’s ass. He’d already tried to take him out—at the Wus’ apartment on Canal Street.
    “What’s Dellray say?” Peabody asked.
    “He’s operational in the field at this time. He’s not returning calls.”
    “Doesn’t he work for you?”
    “Dellray pretty much works for Dellray,” said the ASAC.
    “What’re you suggesting we do?” Peabody asked, using his wrinkled tan jacket to wipe his face.
    “Do you think Coe’s following you?”
    Peabody glanced around him at the billion cars on the Van Wyck Expressway. “Like I could fucking tell,” he answered, giving up entirely on the language of high-level government.
    “If he’s going to make a move it’ll have to be at the airport. Tell your people to look out for him. I’ll tell Port Authority security too.”
    “I just don’t see it happening.”
    “Thanks for the assessment, Harold. But then again it was Rhyme who collared the prick in the first place. Not you.” The line went dead.
    Peabody turned around and studied the Ghost, who asked, “What was that about?”
    “Nothing.” Peabody asked one of the agents, “We have body armor in the back?”
    “Naw,” one answered. Then: “Well, I’m in a vest.”
    “Me too,” said the other agent.
    The tone of their voices said that they weren’t about to give them up.
    Nor would Peabody ask his agents to do so. If Coe made a move on the Ghost and he was successful, well, that was just the way it was. He and Rhyme would have to take the consequences.
    He leaned forward and snapped at the driver, “Can’t you do anything about the goddamn air-conditioning?”
    •   •   •
    The shackles binding his wrists felt light as silk.
    They would come off as soon as he was at the doorway of the airliner that would carry him back home from the Beautiful Country and, because he knew that, the metal restraints had already ceased to exist.
    Walking down the international