A glance at her watch. Late for work, as always. Mr. Balzac would not be happy.

Saturday was their busiest day. She drained the coffee cup, pitched it out and walked into the hallway.

A large black woman in a white uniform lifted a hand in greeting. "Kara! How long you been here?" A broad smile in a broad face.

"Twenty minutes."

"I would've come by and visited," Jaynene said. "She still awake?"

"No. She was out when I got here."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Was she talking before?" Kara asked.

"Yep. Just little things. Couldn't tell if she was with us or not. Seemed like it. . . . This is some gorgeous day, hm? Sephie and me, we're gonna take her walking in the courtyard later if she's awake. She likes it. She always does better after that."

"I've gotta get to work," Kara told the nurse. "Hey, I'm doing a show tomorrow. At the store. Remember where it is?"

"Sure do. What time?"

"Four. Come on by."

"I'm off early tomorrow. I'll be there. We'll drink some more of those peach margaritas after. Like last time."

"That'll work," Kara replied. "Hey, bring Pete."

The woman scowled. "Girl, nothing personal, but th'only way that man'll see you on Sunday is if you're playing the halftime show for the Knicks or the Lakers an' it's on network TV."

Kara said, "From your mouth to God's ear."

Chapter Five

One hundred years ago a moderately successful financier might've called this place home.

Or the owner of a small haberdashery in the luxurious shopping neighborhood of Fourteenth Street.

Or possibly a politician connected with Tammany Hall, savvy in the timeless art of growing rich through public office.

The present owner of the Central Park West townhouse, however, didn't know, or care, about its provenance. Nor would the Victorian furnishings or subdued fin de siécle objets d'art that had once graced these rooms appeal to Lincoln Rhyme at all. He enjoyed what surrounded him now: a disarray of sturdy tables, swivel stools, computers, scientific devices—a density gradient rack, a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, microscopes, plastic boxes in myriad colors, beakers, jars, thermometers, propane tanks, goggles, latched black or gray cases of odd shapes, which suggested they contained esoteric musical instruments.

And wires.

Wires and cables everywhere, covering much of the limited square footage of the room, some tidily coiled and connecting adjacent pieces of machinery, some disappearing through ragged holes shamefully cut into the hard-earned smoothness of century-old plaster-and-lath walls.

Lincoln Rhyme himself was largely wireless now. Advances in infrared and radio technology had linked a microphone on his wheelchair—and on his bed upstairs—to environmental control units and computers. He drove his Storm Arrow with his left ring finger on an MKIV touchpad but all the other commands, from phone calls to email to slapping the image from his compound microscope onto computer monitors, could be accomplished by using his voice.

It could also control his new Harmon Kardon 8000 receiver, which was currently piping a pleasant jazz solo through the lab.