But Rhyme would have none of that. He was a child on Christmas morning. Here he was in a foreign country for the first time in many years. He was excited at the prospect of the trip itself. But also at what it might yield: hard, physical evidence in the Moreno case. He’d decided to come down here because of something he was nearly ashamed to admit: intuition, that fishy crap that Amelia Sachs was always going on and on about. He had a feeling that the only way he was going to get that million-dollar bullet and the rest of the evidence was to wheel right up to Corporal Mychal Poitier and ask him for it. In person.

Rhyme knew the officer was genuinely troubled by the death of Robert Moreno and troubled too that he was a pawn being used by his superiors to marginalize the case.

There wasn’t a single inspection or license I handled that was not completed in a timely, thorough and honest manner…

He didn’t think it would take much to convince the corporal to help them.

And so Thom had thrown himself upon the sword of airline and hotel reservation telephone hold, listening to bad music—the aide announced several times—to arrange the flight and motel, an assignment made complicated by Rhyme’s condition.

But not as complicated as they’d thought.

Certainly some issues had to be contended with when traveling as a quad—special wheelchairs to the seat, particular pillows, concerns about the Storm Arrow in storage, the practical matters of the piss and shit details that might have to be attended to on the flight.

In the end, though, the journey wasn’t bad. We’re all disabled in the eyes of the Transportation Security Administration, all immobile, all objects, all baggage to be shuffled about at whim. Lincoln actually felt that he was better off than most of his fellow travelers, who were used to being mobile and independent.

Outside the baggage claim area, on the ground floor of the airport, Rhyme motored to the edge of the sidewalk filled with tourists and locals bustling for cars and taxis and mini vans. He looked at a small garden of plants, some of whose varieties he’d never seen. He had no interest in horticulture for aesthetics but he found flora extremely helpful in crime scene work.

He’d also heard the rum was particularly good in the Bahamas.

Returning to where Thom was standing, making a phone call, Rhyme phoned Sachs and left a message. “Made it okay. I…” He turned, hearing a caterwauling screech behind him. “Christ, scared the hell out of me. There’s a parrot here. He’s talking!”