I was taking off my coat and gloves and about to talk to Lucy when the door in back opened and Maier emerged. He walked with quick, angry strides until he got to me.
‘Do it for Jimbo,’ he said with emotion. ‘Don’t let that asshole get away with it.’
The veins were standing out in his neck and he looked up at the ceiling. ‘I’m sorry.’ He blinked back tears and almost could not talk as he flung open the door and left.
‘Lucy?’ I said, and we were alone. She was typing and concentrating intensely.
‘Hi,’ she said.
I went to her and kissed the top of her head.
‘Have a seat,’ she said without looking away from what she was doing.
I scanned monitors. There were arrows for Manhattan-bound, Brooklyn-, Bronx- and Queens-bound trains and an intricate grid showing streets, schools and medical centers. All were numbered. I sat beside her and got my glasses out of my briefcase as Commander Penn reappeared, her face stressed.
‘That was no fun to do,’ she said, standing behind us, the pistol on her belt almost touching my ear.
‘What are these flashing symbols that look like twisted ladders?’ I asked, pointing out several on the screen.
‘They’re the emergency exits,’ Commander Penn said.
‘Can you explain what you’re doing here?’ I asked.
‘Lucy, I’ll let you do that,’ the commander said.
‘It’s really pretty simple,’ Lucy said, and I never believed her when she said that. ‘I’m supposing that Gault is looking at these maps, too. So I’m letting him see what I want him to see.’
She hit several keys and another part of the subway was there before me, with its symbols and long linear depictions of tracks. She typed and a hatch work appeared in red.
This is the route we believe he’ll take,’ she said. ‘Logic would tell you that he’ll penetrate the subway here.’
Lucy pointed to the monitor left of the one directly in front of her. ‘This is for the Museum of Natural History station. And as you can see there are three emergency exits right here near Hayden Planetarium and one up by Beresford Apartments. He also could go southbound closer to Kenilworth Apartments and get into the tunnels that way and then pick any platform he wants when it’s time to get on a train.
‘I haven’t altered anything on these field surveys,’ Lucy went on. ‘It’s more important to confuse him at the other end, when he gets to the Bowery.’
She rapidly typed and one after another images appeared on each monitor. She was able to tilt, move and manipulate them as if they were models she was turning in her hands. On the center screen in front of her the symbol for an emergency exit was lit up and a square had been drawn around it.
‘We think this is his snake hole,’ Lucy resumed. ‘It is an emergency exit where Fourth and Third merge into the Bowery.’ She pointed. ‘Here behind this big brownstone. The Cooper Union Foundation Building.’
Commander Penn spoke. The reason we think he has been using this exit is we’ve discovered it has been tampered with. A folded strip of aluminum foil has been wedged between the door and its frame so someone could access the exit from above ground.
‘It’s also the closest exit to the pharmacy,’ Commander Penn continued. It’s remote, back here behind this building, basically in an alleyway between Dumpsters. Gault could go in and out whenever he pleased, and it’s unlikely anyone would see him, even in broad daylight.’
‘And there’s another thing,’ Lucy said. ‘At Cooper Square there’s a famous music store. The Carl Fischer Music Store.’
‘Right,’ Commander Penn said. ‘Someone who works there recalls Jayne. Now and then she wandered in and browsed. This would have been during December.’
‘Did anyone talk to her?’ I asked, and the image made me sad.
‘All they recalled was that she was interested in jazz sheet music. My point is, we don’t know what Gault’s connections to this area are. But they could be more involved than we think.’
‘What we’ve done,’ Lucy said, ‘is take away this emergency exit. The police have bolted it shut, and boom.’