Setrakian said, "He must be segregated, do you hear me? Locked up separately."
"Don't worry, Pops. We always offer preferential treatment to killers."
Gus's eyes stayed on the old man as the tank door was closed and the cops pulled him away.
Stoneheart Group, Manhattan
HERE WAS the bedroom of the great man.
Climate controlled and fully automated, the presets adjustable through a small console just an arm's reach away. The shushing of the corner humidifiers in concert with the drone of the ionizer and the whispering air-filtration system was like a mother's reassuring hush. Every man, thought Eldritch Palmer, should slumber nightly in a womb. And sleep like a baby.
Dusk was still many hours away, and he was impatient. Now that everything was in motion-the strain spreading throughout New York City with the sure exponential force of compound interest, doubling and doubling itself again every night-he hummed with the glee of a greedy banker. No financial success, of which there had been plenty, ever enlivened him as much as did this vast endeavor.
His nightstand telephone toned once, the handset flashing. Any calls to this phone had to be routed through his nurse and assistant, Mr. Fitzwilliam, a man of extraordinary good judgment and discretion. "Good afternoon, sir."
"Who is it, Mr. Fitzwilliam?"
"Mr. Jim Kent, sir. He says it is urgent. I am putting him through."
In a moment, Mr. Kent, one of Palmer's many well-placed Stoneheart Society members, said, "Yes, hello?"
"Go ahead, Mr. Kent."
"Yes-can you hear me? I have to talk quietly..."
"I can hear you, Mr. Kent. We were cut off last time."
"Yes. The pilot had escaped. Walked away from testing."
Palmer smiled. "And he is gone now?"
"No. I wasn't sure what to do, so I followed him through the hospital until Dr. Goodweather and Dr. Martinez caught up with him. They said Redfern is okay, but I can't confirm his status. I heard another nurse saying I was alone up here. And that members of the Canary project had taken over a locked room in the basement."
Palmer darkened. "You are alone up where?"
"In this isolation ward. Just a precaution. Redfern must have hit me or something, he knocked me out."
Palmer was silent for a moment. "I see."
"If you would explain to me exactly what I am supposed to be looking for, I could assist you better-"
"You said they have commandeered a room in the hospital?"
"In the basement. It might be the morgue. I will find out more later."
Palmer said, "How?"
"Once I get out of here. They just need to run some tests on me."
Palmer reminded himself that Jim Kent was not an epidemiologist himself, but more of a facilitator for the Canary project, with no medical training. "You sound as though you have a sore throat, Mr. Kent."
"I do. Just a touch of something."
"Mm-hmm. Good day, Mr. Kent."
Palmer hung up. Kent's exposure was merely an aggravation, but the report about the hospital morgue room was troubling. Though in any worthy venture, there are always hurdles to overcome. A lifetime of deal making had taught him that it was the setbacks and pitfalls that make final victory so sweet.
He picked up the handset again and pressed the star button.
"Yes, sir?"
"Mr. Fitzwilliam, we have lost our contact within the Canary project. You will ignore any further calls from his mobile phone."
"Yes, sir."
"And we need to dispatch a team to Queens. It seems there may be something in the basement of the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center that needs retrieving."
Flatbush, Brooklyn
ANN-MARIE BARBOUR checked again to make sure that she had locked all the doors, then went through the house twice-room by room, top to bottom-touching every mirror twice in order to calm herself down. She could not pass any reflective surface without reaching out to it with the first two fingers of her right hand, a nod following each touch, a rhythmic routine resembling genuflection. Then she went through a third time, wiping each surface clean with a fifty-fifty mix of Windex and holy water until she was satisfied.
When she felt in control of herself again, she phoned her sister-in-law, Jeanie, who lived in central New Jersey.
"They're fine," said Jeanie, referring to the children, whom she had come and picked up the day before. "Very well behaved. How is Ansel?"
Ann-Marie closed her eyes. Tears leaked out. "I don't know."
"Is he better? You gave him the chicken soup I brought?"
Ann-Marie was afraid her trembling lower jaw would be detected in her speech. "I will. I...I'll call you back."
She hung up and looked out the back window, at the graves. Two patches of overturned dirt. Thinking of the dogs lying there.
Ansel. What he had done to them.
She scrubbed her hands, then went through the house again, just the downstairs this time. She pulled out the mahogany chest from the buffet in the dining room and opened up the good silver, her wedding silver. Shiny and polished. Her secret stash, hidden there as another woman might hide candy or pills. She touched each utensil, her fingertips going back and forth from the silver to her lips. She felt that she would fall apart if she didn't touch every single one.
Then she went to the back door. She paused there, exhausted, her hand on the knob, praying for guidance, for strength. She prayed for knowledge, to understand what was happening, and to be shown the right thing to do.
She opened the door and walked down the steps to the shed. The shed from which she had dragged the dogs' corpses to the corner of the yard, not knowing what else to do. Luckily, there had been an old shovel underneath the front porch, so she didn't have to go back into the shed. She buried them in shallow soil and wept over their graves. Wept for them and for her children and for herself.
She stepped to the side of the shed, where orange and yellow mums were planted in a box beneath a small, four-pane window. She hesitated before looking inside, shading her eyes from the sunlight. Yard tools hung from pegboard walls inside, other tools stacked on shelves, and a small workbench. The sunlight through the window formed a perfect rectangle on the dirt floor, Ann-Marie's shadow falling over a metal stake driven into the ground. A chain like the one on the door was attached to the stake, the end of which was obscured by her angle of vision. The floor showed signs of digging.
She went back to the front, stopping before the chained doors. Listening.
"Ansel?"
No more than a whisper on her part. She listened again, and, hearing nothing, put her mouth right up to the half inch of space between the rain-warped doors.