There was a routine to be followed in this situation. It had never before been employed, but it had been rehearsed often and thoroughly. The thickset man at the chest-high counter moved his hand casually sideways and used his index finger on one button and his
middle finger on another. The first button locked the oak door out to the elevator lobby. There was an electromagnetic mechanism that snicked the steel tongue into place, silently and unobtrusively. Once it was activated, the door stayed locked until the mechanism was released again, no matter what anybody did with the latch or the key. The second button set a red light flashing in the intercom unit on Hobie’s desk. The red light was bright and the office was always dark, and it was impossible to miss it.
‘Who?’ the thickset guy said.
‘Sheryl,’ O’Hallinan repeated.
‘I’m sorry,’ the guy said. ‘There’s nobody called Sheryl working here. Currently we have a staff of three, and they’re all men.’
He moved his hand to the left and rested it on a button marked talk, which activated the intercom.
‘You operate a black Tahoe?’ O’Hallinan asked him.
He nodded. ‘We have a black Tahoe on the corporate fleet.’
‘What about a Suburban?’
‘Yes, I think we have one of those too. Is this about a traffic violation?’
‘It’s about Sheryl being in the hospital,’ O’Hallinan said.
‘Who?’ the guy asked again.
Sark came up behind O’Hallinan. ‘We need to speak with your boss.’
‘OK,’ the guy said. ‘I’ll see if that can be arranged. May I have your names?’
‘Officers Sark and O’Hallinan, City of New York Police Department.’
Tony opened the inner office door, and stood there, enquiringly.
‘May I help you, Officers?’ he called.
In the rehearsals, the cops would turn away from the counter and look at Tony. Maybe take a couple of steps towards him. And that is exactly what happened. Sark and O’Hallinan turned their backs and walked towards the middle of the reception area. The thickset man at the counter leaned down and opened a cupboard. Unclipped the shotgun from its rack and held it low, out of sight.
‘It’s about Sheryl,’ O’Hallinan said again.
‘Sheryl who?’ Tony asked.
‘The Sheryl in the hospital with the busted nose,’ Sark said. ‘And the fractured cheekbones and the concussion. The Sheryl who got out of your Tahoe outside St Vincent’s ER.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Tony said. ‘We didn’t get her name. She couldn’t speak a word, because of the injuries to her face.’
‘So why was she in your car?’ O’Hallinan asked.
‘We were up at Grand Central, dropping a client there. We found her on the sidewalk, kind of lost. She was off the train from Mount Kisco, and just kind of wandering about. We offered her a ride to the hospital, which seemed to be what she needed. So we dropped her at St Vincent’s, because it’s on the way back here.’
‘Bellevue is nearer Grand Central,’ O’Hallinan said.
‘I don’t like the traffic over there,’ Tony said neutrally. ‘St Vincent’s was more convenient.’
‘And you didn’t wonder about what had happened to her?’ Sark asked. ‘How she came by the injuries?’
‘Well, naturally we wondered,’ Tony said. ‘We asked her about it, but she couldn’t speak, because of the injuries. That’s why we didn’t recognize the name.’
O’Hallinan stood there, unsure. Sark took a step forward.
‘You found her on the sidewalk?’
Tony nodded. ‘Outside Grand Central.’ ‘
‘She couldn’t speak?’
‘Not a word.’
‘So how do you know she was off the Kisco train?’
The only grey area in the rehearsals had been picking the exact moment to drop the defence and start the offence. It was a subjective issue. They had trusted that when it came, they would recognize it. And they did. The thickset man stood up and crunched a round into the shotgun’s chamber and levelled it across the counter.
‘Freeze!’ he screamed.
A nine-millimetre pistol appeared in Tony’s hand. Sark and O’Hallinan stared at it and glanced back at the shotgun and jerked their arms upward. Not a rueful little gesture like in the movies. They stretched them violently upward like their lives depended on touching the acoustic tile directly above their heads. The guy with the shotgun came up from the rear and jammed the muzzle hard into Sark’s back and Tony stepped around behind O’Hallinan and did the same thing with his pistol. Then a third man came out from the darkness and paused in the office doorway.