Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [58]
Littlemore heard the crash all the way from Wall Street. He listened for an aftermath, for the sounds of riot or terror. Hearing nothing more, he resumed his instructions to his men: “Stanky, you take this shoe straight to Inspector Lahey.”
“Can I tell the press about it?” asked Stankiewicz.
“Make sure you do,” said Littlemore. “But the Feds don’t touch that shoe, you hear me?”
“Excuse me, Captain,” said Roederheusen. “Mr. O’Neill’s still waiting to talk to you.”
Terrified screams rent the rooftop of the Woolworth Building. Schoolboys gaped and yelled in horror. Only Luc was perfectly silent, reaching his hands, with a strange and protective intelligence, to take those of his sister.
The dead girl was the schoolteacher who had stopped short behind Luc. Had Colette taken one more step, Drobac’s knife would have found her. But because of the schoolteacher’s unexpected halt, the knife had pierced the right lung of the wrong victim—the unlucky schoolteacher—rather than the left lung of its intended target.
The mass of people on the observation deck, not having seen the knife, believed they had witnessed a ghastly accident. A new load of sightseers just then emerging onto the deck added to the confusion. Younger, however, had seen the knife in the schoolteacher’s back, and now he saw a man limping toward the heavy oak doors that led to the elevator bank—the only person leaving the platform amid the pandemonium. Drobac glanced back as he passed through the doorway. Younger recognized the small, black eyes at once.
Younger rushed across the deck and through the doorway. Between the closing doors of an elevator car, Younger saw those same black eyes again, peering at him from below a fedora’s brim. The narrowing gap between the doors was too small for a man to fit through, but it was large enough for Younger’s arm, which he thrust into the car, grabbing Drobac by the lapel. The elevator operator, barking out in surprised protest, reopened the doors. Younger yanked Drobac out and threw him to the floor.
Drobac tried to fight, but it was no contest. Younger beat him and beat him and kept beating him until the bones of his nose, his jaw and even his eyesockets all gave way.
O’Neill—who’s that?” Littlemore asked Officer Roederheusen on a street corner near the Morgan Bank.
“That’s him over there, sir. He’s been waiting all morning. He says he got a warning about the bomb too.”
“Bring him over. Then go find the mailman who picks up at Cedar and Broadway. And not next week. I want that mailman in my office tomorrow morning, got that?”
“But tomorrow’s Saturday,” said Roederheusen.
“What about it?” asked Littlemore.
“Nothing, sir.” Roederheusen crossed the street and returned with a man barely over five feet in height, with a waistline of approximately the same size and whose arms, as he walked, moved like those of a toy soldier. “Sorry you had to wait, Mr. O’Neill,” said Littlemore. “You have some information for me?”
“Yeah—it was last Thursday, see,” said O’Neill. “Or else Friday. No, Thursday.”
“Just tell me what happened,” said Littlemore.
“I’m on the train from Jersey, like every morning. This guy, he gets on at Manhattan Transfer and we get to talking. Friendly-like.”
“Describe him,” said Littlemore.
“Nice-looking,” said O’Neill. “About forty, forty-two, maybe. Never saw him on the train before. Six-footer. Athletic type. Blond. Educated. Tennis racket.”
“Tennis racket?” asked Littlemore.
“Yeah, he was carrying a tennis racket. Anyways, we’re in the Hudson Tube, see, and he asks me where I work. I tell him 61 Broadway. He says he works on the same block, at some kind of embassy or something, and we keep talking, this and that, you know, and then he leans over and whispers to me, ‘Keep away from Wall Street until after the sixteenth.’ ”
“He said the sixteenth?” asked Littlemore. “You’re sure?”
“Oh yeah. He says it a couple of times. I ask him what he’s talking about. He says he works on the sly for the Secret Service and his job is to run down anarchists. Then he goes, ‘They have 60,000 pounds