As Cooper and Pulaski continued to analyze and catalog the evidence from both Pam’s apartment and Billy’s workshop and safe house, Rhyme motored back to the evidence table. ‘Glove,’ he called.

‘You want—?’ Thom asked.

‘Glove! I’m about to fondle some evidence.’

With some difficulty the aide slipped one onto Rhyme’s right hand.

‘Now. That.’ He pointed to the slim notebook titled The Modification, which contained pages of details on the poison plot: timing, victims to choose, locations, police procedures, quotations from Serial Cities, the true crime book about Rhyme and directions on how to ‘anticipate the anticipator’. The notes were written in Billy’s handsome cursive. Not surprisingly, given his artistic skill, the handwriting resembled that in an illuminated manuscript inked by scribes.

Rhyme had skimmed the booklet earlier but now he wanted to examine it in depth to search for other conspirators.

Thom arranged it on the arm of his wheelchair and, in a gesture at times awkward, at times elegant, but ever confident, Lincoln Rhyme turned pages and read.

V
REUNION

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9
5:00 P.M.

CHAPTER 75

The stocky, balding man, in a short gray overcoat, strolled along the wide sidewalk with feet pointed outward. He carried a battered briefcase. Few people on the street noted his physique or gait. He was as nondescript as could be. Businessman, accountant, ad agency executive. He was a Muggle. He was a Prufrock.

He liked this place. Greenwich Village was less chic than, say, SoHo or TriBeCa but more of a neighborhood; Little Italy had come and gone but the Village remained a bastion for old-school Manhattanites, the quirky ones, the artistic, the descendants of European immigrants. The ’hood was populated by the families of, yes, stocky, balding husbands and stolid wives, ambitious yet modest sons, clever daughters. He blended here.

Which was good. Considering his mission.

The sun was down and the temperature low but at least the sky was clear and the sleet of the past few days had ended.

He walked to the window of the Café Artisan and perused the stained menu. It was a real coffeehouse. Italian. This place had been steaming milk before Starbucks was even a gleam in the eye of whatever Seattlian, not Sicilian, had created the franchise.

He gazed through the early deployment of Christmas decorations in the fudgy window and studied the scene at a table against the far wall: A redheaded woman in a burgundy sweater and tight black jeans sat across from a man in a suit. He was lean and looked like a lawyer on the verge of retirement. The woman was asking the man questions and jotting responses in a small notebook. The table, he noted, rocked a bit; the wedge under the north-by-northeast leg was not performing.

He studied the man and the woman carefully. Had he been interested in sex, which he was not, the woman would certainly have appealed.