‘And what someone might say might get back to Gault?’ I asked skeptically.
‘If the Western Union agent in Beaufort somehow tips his hand to the one here in New York, you just never know what might happen to scare off Gault. We don’t want to take the chance, and the fewer people we involve, the better.’
‘I understand,’ I said.
‘That’s another reason I want you with the commander,’ Wesley went on. ‘Should Mrs. Gault decide to interfere in any way, I’m going to need you to talk to her and get her back in the right frame of mind.’
‘Gault just might show up at the pharmacy anyway,’ Marino said. ‘He might not know until he gets to the counter that the money’s not coming, if that’s what happens because his old lady wimps out on us.’
‘We don’t know what he’ll do,’ Wesley said. ‘But I would suspect he’d call first.’
‘She’s got to wire the money,’ I agreed. ‘She absolutely must go through with it. And that’s hard.’
‘Right, it’s her son,’ Wesley said.
‘Then what happens?’ I asked.
‘We’ve arranged it so the parade starts at two, which is about the time the money has been wired in the past. We’ll have HRT out – some of them will actually be in the parade. And there will be other agents as well. Plus plainclothes police. These will be mostly positioned in the subway and in areas where there are emergency exits.’
‘What about in the pharmacy?’ I asked.
Wesley paused. ‘Of course, we’ll have a couple agents in there. But we don’t want to grab Gault in the store or near it. He might start spraying bullets. If there are to be any casualties, it will be just one.’
‘All I ask is let me be the lucky guy who does him,’ Marino said. ‘After that I could retire.’
‘We absolutely must get him underground.’ Wesley was emphatic. ‘We don’t know what weapons he has at present. We don’t know how many people he could take out with karate. There’s so much we don’t know. But I believe he’s fired up on coke and rapidly decompensating. And he’s not afraid. That’s why he’s so dangerous.’
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, watching dreary buildings flow by as a light rain fell. It was not a good day for a parade.
Tenn’s set up a command post at Bleecker Street, which is close to Houston Pharmacy but a safe distance, too,’ Wesley said. ‘Her team’s been at it all night, bringing in computer equipment and so on. Lucy’s with them.’
‘This is inside the actual subway station?’
The officer driving answered, ‘Yes, ma’am. It’s a local stop that operates only during the week. Trains don’t stop here on the weekends, so it should be quiet. Transit PD’s got a miniprecinct here that covers the Bowery.’
He was parking in front of the stairs going down into a station. Sidewalks and streets were busy with people carrying umbrellas and holding newspapers over their heads.
‘You just go down and you’ll see the wooden door to the left of the turnstiles. It’s next to the information window,’ the officer said. He unhooked his mike. ‘Unit one-eleven.’ ‘Unit one-eleven,’ the dispatcher came back. ‘Ten-five unit three.’
The dispatcher contacted unit three and I recognized Commander Penn’s voice. She knew we had arrived. Wesley, Marino and I carefully descended slick steps as rain fell harder. The tile floor inside was wet and dirty, but no one was around. I was getting increasingly anxious.
We passed the information window, and Wesley knocked on a wooden door. It opened and Detective Maier, whom I had first met at the morgue after Davila’s death, let us into a space that had been turned, essentially, into a control room. Closed-circuit television monitors were on a long table, and my niece sat at a console equipped with telephones, radio equipment and computers.
Frances Penn, wearing the dark commando sweater and pants of the troops she commanded, came straight to me and warmly grasped my hand.
‘Kay, I’m so happy you’re here,’ she said, and she was full of nervous energy.
Lucy was absorbed in a row of four monitors. Each showed a blueprint of a different section of the subway system.