The Zero Hour

“What happened?” Sarah asked.

“It’s Ullman,” Roth said, ashen-faced.

“What do you-what about Ullman?” Sarah said, although she now knew.

“Dead,” Ranahan said thickly.

“Oh, my God,” exploded Vigiani.

Ranahan continued: “He followed a guy for a couple of blocks, then vanished without a trace in an alley behind a restaurant. When we stopped hearing his voice, we sent out some guys to track him down.”

“I found him,” Roth said. “Dumpster behind the restaurant. Under a pile of, I don’t know, food shit.” He sank into a chair. There was a stunned silence.

“Baumann?” asked Pappas.

“His MO, anyway,” Roth said. “Same as the Pollsmoor killings. Done with bare hands, except for a blunt object used to smash in the eyeball.”

“Russell must have been on to him,” Vigiani said in a hoarse whisper.

“Maybe,” Sarah said. “But Baumann’s obviously on to us.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

The doorbell chimed, and Sarah buzzed Brian Lamoreaux in. He was wearing a nubby brown jacket over a striped band-collar shirt and looked terrific. He smelled very faintly of bay rum cologne. He was wearing an Armani-type pair of glasses with a tortoiseshell inlay that made him look almost sexy.

“New glasses,” she said by way of greeting.

“They’re old, actually,” Brian said. “I’m glad you could come with me tonight.”

“I can’t work all the time,” she said, although in truth she wished she were back at MINOTAUR headquarters. Still, if she continued working the way she had been, she feared she’d go out of her mind.

From behind his back he drew a small bouquet of lilies, some of which were already wilted. “How nice,” she said. “Thank you. But let me warn you again, if my beeper goes off while the music’s playing, I’ll have to leave you in the lurch.”

“Understood. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

Softly playing in the background was the E-flat adagio movement of the Haydn G minor piano trio, which was not helping much to calm Sarah down. This was their second time going out, and for some reason she was still nervous. She’d turned him down at the hospital, but accepted when he called later in the day to check on Jared. The next night they’d met for a drink at a Cuban café on Columbus Avenue, and she’d decided maybe there was something there.

Jared approached shyly. Behind him hovered his babysitter, a Marymount Manhattan College student named Brea, who said hi and didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands.

“So, Brian,” Jared said, “do you build buildings?”

“No, I just write about them,” Brian admitted.

“Oh,” he said, disappointed. “You like baseball?”

“The truth is, I don’t follow baseball. I don’t know anything about it. But funny you should mention baseball.” He produced a small plastic-wrapped card and handed it to Jared. “Look what I found in the rubbish.”

Jared looked at the object, and his eyes widened. “No way!” he exulted. “You didn’t find this in the trash! Oh, my God, it’s a Satchel Paige!”

“Isn’t that nice of Brian!” Sarah said.

“It’s awesome,” Jared said. “It’s a 1953 Topps!” He turned to Sarah and explained: “There’s hardly any Satchel Paiges around-they didn’t make Negro League cards.”

Sarah said, “I hope it didn’t cost too much.”

“You know, Satchel Paige didn’t even know how old he was,” Jared said. “There aren’t any official stats on him. He’d, like, pitch three games a day, day after day, and then he’d go down to South America and pitch down there… This is so excellent.”

The phone rang. Sarah felt an adrenaline jolt and turned to answer it, but Jared got to it first.

“Oh, hi,” he said without enthusiasm, and Sarah instantly knew who was calling. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he went on in a sullen monotone. “Everything’s fine. Mom, it’s Dad.”

“Can you tell him I’ll call him tomorrow from work?”

“Mommy’s going out on a date,” Jared said into the phone. As Jared hung up the phone, Sarah caught his eye and gave him a look. He stared back at her brazenly, as if to say, I know what I’m doing.

***

“Now this is an apartment building,” Sarah said as they strolled past the Dakota, at Central Park West and Seventy-second Street. She was distraught and frightened by Ullman’s death, barely able to think about anything other than her work now, and yet trying to mask it with a blithe air. “You know anything about this one?”

“The Dakota? Sure do,” Brian said. “Well, it was really the first great luxury apartment house. Built in the 1880s by a guy named Edward Clark, the president of the Singer sewing machine company. People called it Clark’s Folly, because it was ridiculously far from the center of town.”

“Hmm.”

“In fact, I believe it was named the Dakota for the Dakota Territory, because it was so far away.”

“Who was the architect?” she asked without interest. What am I doing? she asked herself. Trying to keep the conversation going so I don’t have to think about the nightmares?