CHAPTER 51
PAULING AND REACHER trooped back through the chocolate shop and were back on the street before eight-thirty in the morning. They were back in Pauling’s office on West 4th before nine.
“We need Brewer now,” Reacher said. “And Patti Joseph.”
“Brewer’s still asleep,” Pauling said. “He works late.”
“Today he’s going to work early. He’s going to get his ass in gear. Because we need a definitive ID on that body from the Hudson River.”
“Taylor?”
“We need to know for certain it’s Taylor. I’m sure Patti has got a photograph of him. I bet she’s got a photograph of everyone who ever went in or out of the Dakota. If she gave a good clear shot to Brewer he could head for the morgue and make the ID for us.”
“Patti’s not our best buddy here. She wants to take Lane down, not help him.”
“We’re not helping him. You know that.”
“I’m not sure Patti sees the difference.”
“All we want is one lousy photograph. She can go that far.”
So Pauling called Patti Joseph. Patti confirmed that she had a file of photographs of all Lane’s men stretching back through the four years that she had occupied the Majestic apartment. At first she was reluctant to grant access to it. But then she saw that a positive ID of Taylor’s body would put some kind of pressure on Lane, either directly or indirectly. So she agreed to pick out the best full-frontal and put it aside for Brewer to collect. Then Pauling called Brewer and woke him up. He was bad-tempered about it but he agreed to pick up the picture. There was an element of self-interest there, too. ID on an as-yet-unexplained DOA would net him some NYPD Brownie points.
“Now what?” Pauling asked.
“Breakfast,” Reacher said.
“Do we have time? Lane is expecting a name today.”
“Today lasts until midnight.”
“What after breakfast?”
“Maybe you’ll want to take a shower.”
“I’m OK. That basement wasn’t too bad.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the basement. I figured we might take coffee and croissants back to your place. Last time we were there we both ended up taking showers.”
Pauling said, “I see.”
“Only if you want to.”
“I know a great croissant shop.”
Two hours later Reacher was drying his hair with a borrowed towel and trying to decide whether or not to back a hunch. In general he wasn’t a big fan of hunches. Too often they were just wild-assed guesses that wasted time and led nowhere. But in the absence of news from Brewer he had time to waste and nowhere to go anyway. Pauling came out of the bedroom looking spectacular. Shoes, stockings, tight skirt, silk blouse, all in black. Brushed hair, light makeup. Great eyes, open, frank, intelligent.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Eleven-thirteen,” he said. “Give or take.”
“Sometime you’re going to have to explain how you do that.”
“If I ever figure it out you’ll be the first to know.”
“Long breakfast,” she said. “But fun.”
“For me, too.”
“What next?”
“We could do lunch.”
“I’m not hungry yet.”
“We could skip the eating part.”
She smiled.
“Seriously,” she said. “We have things to do.”
“Can we go back to your office? There’s something I want to check.”
Barrow Street was quiet but West 4th was busy with the front end of the city’s lunch break envelope. The sidewalks were packed. Reacher and Pauling had to go with the flow, slower than they would have liked. But there was no alternative. Pedestrian traffic gridlocks just the same as automotive traffic. A five-minute walk took ten. The street door below Pauling’s office was already unlocked. Other tenants were open for business and had been for hours. Reacher followed Pauling up the stairs and she used her keys and they stepped into her waiting room. He walked ahead of her into the back office where the bookshelves and the computer were.
“What do you want to check?” she asked.
“The phone book first,” he said. “T for Taylor.”
She hauled the white pages off the shelf and opened it on the desk. There were plenty of Taylors listed. It was a reasonably common name.
She asked, “Initial?”
“No idea,” he said. “Work off the street addresses. Look for private individuals in the West Village.”
Pauling used an optimistic realtor’s definition of the target area and made pencil check marks in the phone book’s margins. She ended up with seven possibilities. West 8th Street, Bank, Perry, Sullivan, West 12th, Hudson, and Waverly Place.
Reacher said, “Start with Hudson Street. Check the city directory and find out what block that address is on.”
Pauling laid the directory over the phone book and slid it down until the top edge of the directory’s jacket underlined the Taylor on Hudson Street. Then she flipped pages and traced the street number to a specific location on a specific block.
She looked up.
“It’s exactly halfway between Clarkson and Leroy,” she said.
Reacher said nothing.
“What’s going on here?”
“Your best guess?”
“The guy with no tongue knew Taylor? Lived with him? Was working with him? Killed him?”
Reacher said nothing.
“Wait,” Pauling said. “Taylor was the inside man, wasn’t he? He stole the valet keys. He stopped the car outside Bloomingdale’s exactly where the other guy wanted him to. You were always worried about the initial takedown. That’s the only way it could have worked.”
Reacher said nothing.
Pauling asked, “Was it really Taylor in the river?”
“We’ll know that as soon as Brewer calls.”
“The boat basin is a long way north of downtown. And downtown is where all the action seems to be.”
“The Hudson is tidal all the way to the Tappan Zee. Technically it’s an estuary, not a river. A floater could drift north as much as south.”
“What exactly is going on here?”
“We’re sweating the details and we’re working the clues. That’s what’s going on here. We’re doing it the hard way. One step at a time. Next step, we go visit the Taylor residence.”
“Now?”
“It’s as good a time as any.”
“Will we get in?”
“Do bears shit in the woods?”
Pauling took a sheet of paper and copied G. Taylor and the address from the phone book. Said, “I wonder what the G stands for.”
“He was British, don’t forget,” Reacher said. “Could be Geoffrey with a G. Or Gerald. Or Gareth or Glynn. Or Gervaise or Godfrey or Galahad.”
They walked. The noon heat raised sour smells from the milk in dumped lattes in trash cans and gutters. Panel trucks and taxis jammed the streets. Drivers hit their horns in anticipation of potential fractional delays. Second-story air conditioners dripped condensation like fat raindrops. Vendors hawked fake watches and umbrellas and cell phone accessories. The city, in full tumult. Reacher liked New York more than most places. He liked the casual indifference of it all and the frantic hustle and the total anonymity.
Hudson Street between Clarkson and Leroy had buildings on the west side and James J. Walker Park on the east. Taylor’s number matched a brick cube sixteen stories high. It had a plain entrance but a decent lobby. Reacher could see one lone guy behind a long desk. No separate doorman out on the sidewalk. Which made it easier. One guy was always easier than two. No witnesses.
“Approach?” Pauling asked.
“The easy way,” Reacher said. “The direct approach.”
They pulled the street door and stepped inside. The lobby had dark burr veneers and brushed metal accents. A granite floor. Up to the minute décor, a lot of minutes ago. Reacher walked straight to the desk and the guy behind it looked up and Reacher pointed to Pauling.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “This lady will give you four hundred bucks if you let us into Mr. G. Taylor’s apartment.”
The easy way. The direct approach. Concierges are human. And it was a well-chosen sum. Four hundred was a slightly unusual number. It wasn’t glib or run of the mill. It didn’t go in one ear and out the other. It commanded attention. It was big enough to feel like serious cash. And in Reacher’s experience it created an irresistible temptation to bargain upward toward five hundred. And in Reacher’s experience once that temptation had taken hold the battle was won. Like prostitution. Once the principle was established, all that was left was the price.
The desk guy glanced left, glanced right. Saw nobody.
No witnesses. Easier.
“Alone?” the desk guy asked.
“I don’t mind,” Reacher said. “Come with us. Send a handyman.”
The guy paused. Said, “OK, I’ll send a handyman.”
But you’ll keep the cash for yourself, Reacher thought.
“Five hundred,” the guy said.
Reacher said, “Deal.”
Pauling opened her purse and her wallet and licked her thumb and counted off five hundred-dollar bills. Folded them around her index finger and slipped them across the desk.
“Twelfth floor,” the concierge said. “Turn left, go to the door at the end on the right. The handyman will meet you there.” He pointed toward the elevator bank and picked up a walkie-talkie to summon the guy. Reacher and Pauling stepped over and pressed the up arrow. An elevator door slid open like it had been waiting for them.
“You owe me a lot of money,” Pauling said.
“I’m good for it,” Reacher said. “I’ll be rich tonight.”
“I hope the staff in my building are better than that.”
“Dream on. I was in and out of a lot of buildings, back in the day.”
“You had a bribery budget?”
“Huge. Before the peace dividend. That dropped a rock on a lot of budgets.”
The elevator car stopped on twelve and the door slid back. The corridor was part exposed brick and part white paint and the only lighting was supplied by television screens set waist-high behind glass. They were all glowing dim purple.
“Nice,” Pauling said.
Reacher said, “I like your place better.”
They turned left and found the end door on the right. It had an integrated box mounted eye-high with a peephole lens and an apartment number and a slot with a black tape sign that said Taylor. Northeast corner of the building. The corridor was still and quiet and smelled faintly of air freshener or carpet cleaner.
Reacher asked, “What is he paying for a place like this?”
“Rental?” Pauling said. She glanced at the distance between doors to judge the size of the apartments and said, “Small two-bedroom, maybe four grand a month. Maybe four and a quarter in a building like this.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Not when you make twenty-five.”
To their right the elevator bell dinged and a man in a green uniform and a tan tool belt stepped off. The handyman. He walked up and pulled a keyring from his pocket. Asked no questions. Just unlocked Taylor’s door and pushed it open and stood back.
Reacher went in first. The apartment felt empty. The air inside was hot and still. There was a foyer the size of a phone booth and then a stainless-steel kitchen on the left and a coat closet on the right. Living room dead ahead, two bedrooms side by side away to the left, one of them larger than the other. The kitchen and the living room were spotlessly clean and immaculately tidy. The décor was mid-century modern, restrained, tasteful, masculine. Dark wood floors, pale walls, thick wool rugs. There was a maple desk. An Eames lounge chair and an ottoman opposite a Florence Knoll sofa. A Le Corbusier chaise and a Noguchi coffee table. Stylish. Not cheap. Classic pieces. Reacher recognized them from pictures in magazines he had read. There was an original painting on the wall. An urban scene, busy, bright, vibrant, acrylic on canvas. There were lots of books, shelved neatly and alphabetically. A small television set. Lots of CDs and a quality music system dedicated to headphones only. No loudspeakers. A considerate guy. A good neighbor.
“Very elegant,” Pauling said.
“An Englishman in New York,” Reacher said. “Probably drank tea.”
The bigger bedroom was spare, almost monastic. White walls, a king bed, gray linens, an Italian desk light on a night table, more books, another painting by the same artist. The closet had a hanging rail and a wall of open shelves. The rail was full of suits and jackets and shirts and pants grouped precisely by season and color. Each garment was clean and pressed and ironed. Each hanger was exactly one inch from the next. The shelves were stacked with piles of T-shirts and underwear and socks. Each stack was exactly vertical and the same height as all the others. The bottom shelf held shoes. They were all solid English items like Reacher’s own, black and brown, shined like mirrors. They all had cedar shoe trees in them.
“This is amazing,” Pauling said. “I want to marry this guy.”
Reacher said nothing and moved on to the second bedroom. The second bedroom was where the money or the will or the enthusiasm had run out. It was a small plain undecorated space. It felt unused. It was dark and hot and damp. There was no lightbulb in the ceiling fixture. The room held nothing but two narrow iron beds. They had been pushed together. There were used sheets on them. Dented pillows. The window was covered with a width of black fabric. It had been duct-taped to the walls, across the top, across the bottom, down both sides. But the tape had been picked away on one side and a narrow rectangle of cloth had been folded back to provide a sliver of a view, or air, or ventilation.
“This is it,” Reacher said. “This is where Kate and Jade were hidden.”
“By who? The man who can’t talk?”
“Yes,” Reacher said. “The man who can’t talk hid them here.”