A short time later, Pulaski returned, with his typical voluminous notes. This boy writes down everything, Sachs reflected.

“So how’d it go?”

Pulaski was struggling to keep from grinning. “Okay, I guess.”

“You nailed it, hm?”

A shrug. “Well, the desk sergeant wasn’t going to let me in but I gave him this look, like what the hell’re you doing, stopping me. You want to call Police Plaza and tell ’em they’re not getting the form thanks to you? He backed right down. Surprised me.”

“Good job.” She tapped her fist to his, and she could see how pleased the young man was at his performance.

Sachs pulled away from the curb and they headed out of the East Village. When she thought they were far enough away from the house, she pulled over and they started comparing the two sets of figures.

After ten minutes they had the results. The quantities noted in the precinct log and the DA’s report were very close. Only about six or seven ounces of pot and four of cocaine were unaccounted for, over the entire year.

Pulaski said, “And none of the evidence logs looked doctored. I figured that might be something to look for too.”

So one motive—that the St. James crew and Creeley were selling drugs boosted from the 118th’s evidence locker—wasn’t in play. This small amount missing could’ve been lost because of crime scene testing or spillage or inaccurate logging at the scene.

But even if the cops weren’t stealing from the locker, they might still have been dealing, of course. Maybe the cops scored the drugs directly from a source. Or they were perped at a bust before they were logged into evidence. Or Creeley himself might’ve been the supplier.

Pulaski’s first undercover operation answered one question but others remained.

“Okay, onward and upward, Ron. Now, tell me, you want a bartender or a businessman?”

“I don’t really care. How ’bout we flip a coin?”

“The Watchmaker probably bought the clocks at Hallerstein’s Timepieces,” Mel Cooper announced to Rhyme and Sellitto, hanging up the phone. “The Flatiron District.”

Before he’d been dragged off by Sachs on the Creeley case, Pulaski had tracked down the Northeast wholesaler for Arnold Products. The head of the distribution company had just returned the rookie’s call.

Cooper reported that the distributor didn’t keep records by serial number, but that if the clocks had been sold in the New York area, it would have been at Hallerstein’s, the only outlet there. The store was located south of Midtown in the neighborhood named after the historic triangular building on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, which resembled an old-time flatiron.

“Check out the store,” Rhyme instructed.

Cooper searched online. Hallerstein’s didn’t have its own website but was listed in several sites that sold antique clocks and watches. It had been in operation for years. The owner was a man named Victor Hallerstein. A check on him revealed no record. Sellitto punched in caller ID block and called, not identifying himself, just to check on the store hours. He pretended he’d been in before and asked if he was speaking to Hallerstein himself. The man said he was. Sellitto thanked him and hung up.