Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [56]
“Seven minutes, genius,” said Flynn.
“Seven minutes,” said Littlemore, shaking his head. “Now that surprises me, Chief. You think they’d leave their bomb ticking for seven whole minutes? I wouldn’t have. I mean, with the horse blocking traffic and all. If it were me, I’d have set my timer for one or two minutes. Because in seven minutes, somebody might move the horse out of there—maybe even discover the bomb.”
“Well, nobody did, did they?” barked Flynn. “Nothing impossible about that. Get him out of here.”
“Maybe nobody moved the horse,” said Littlemore as the two deputies approached him, “because it was only there two minutes.”
Flynn signaled his deputies to wait: “What are you talking about?”
“My men took statement from a lot of folks who were there yesterday, Chief Flynn. Eyewitnesses. The horse and wagon pulled up on Wall Street only one or two minutes before the bomb exploded. Your anarchists, you got to hand it to them. They leave Wall Street at 11:59 or 12:00, and they get to Cedar and Broadway before 11:58, when the mailman picks up their circulars. How do you catch people who can do that?”
No one answered. Flynn stood up. He slicked back his oiled hair. “So you’re a captain, huh? How many men report to you? Six?”
“Enough,” said Littlemore, thinking of Officers Stankiewicz and Roederheusen.
“I got a thousand. And my men ain’t like yours. There are two kinds of cops in the NYPD—the ones on the take, and the ones too stupid to realize that everybody else is on the take. Which kind are you?”
“Too stupid,” said Littlemore.
“You look it,” said Flynn. “But not stupid enough to get in the way of my investigation. Are you?”
Littlemore went to the doorway. “I don’t know; I’m pretty stupid,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
Flynn turned to his deputies. “Get me a file on that guy,” he said. “Get me wife, friends, family—everything. And see if Hoover’s got anything on him.”
Luc broke free from Younger and ran to the far side of the deck, which looked out on the water. Nearby, a pack of schoolboys shouted to one another about something they saw below. Luc ran toward them.
“Look at him,” said Younger. “He understands what those boys are saying.”
“Not their words—how could he?” replied Colette.
“He can read the newspaper,” said Younger.
“In English? Impossible,” answered Colette. They stood side by side at the railing and gazed out onto the vast urban panorama. She put her hand on his. “I wish I didn’t have to go back.”
He removed his hand and took out a cigarette.
“You don’t care if I leave?” she asked.
“I recommended you to Boltwood. You’re leaving him with no one running his laboratory. Of course I care.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t like your Professor Boltwood anyway. Do you know what he called Madame Curie the other day? A ‘detestable idiot.’”
“He’s just jealous. Every chemist in the world is jealous of Marie Curie.”
“Men are very cruel when they’re jealous.”
“Are they? I wouldn’t know.”
No one glancing at the man who had limped into the center of the platform would have seen the dagger in his right hand, tucked invisibly against his inner sleeve. Colette herself might have turned around without recognizing Drobac, whose mass of whiskers was now shaved off. Only his eyes—the small, black, perceptive eyes peering out below his low-cocked hat—could have given him away. He held the knife by its blade, one finger caressing its edge. There was no danger of his being cut: as with all good throwing knives, both of its edges were dull. The point alone was sharp.
An experienced practitioner of the knife-throwing art, if he intends to kill, will throw at the victim’s heart. Of those organs whose puncturing is virtually certain to cause death, the heart is the largest—saving of course the brain, which is rendered inaccessible by the hard bone of the cranium. The victim’s ribs might be thought a significant obstruction, but it isn’t so. Provided that the throw is sidearm, not overhand, there is no real difficulty. Ninety-nine times out