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"Well?" Rhyme asked.
"They're finding someone. They've got--" He lowered his head as someone answered and the young man repeated his request. He started nodding and announced to the room, "I've got two locations . . . no, three."
"Who is it?" Rhyme barked. "Who're you talking to?"
"The curator of the city archives. . . . He says there've been three major stockyard areas in Manhattan. One on the West Side, around Sixtieth Street . . . One in Harlem in the 1930s or '40s. And on the Lower East Side during the Revolution."
"We need addresses, Banks. Addresses!"
Listening.
"He's not sure."
"Why can't he look it up? Tell him to look it up!"
Banks responded, "He heard you, sir.
. . . He says, in what? Look them up in what? They didn't have Yellow Pages back then. He's looking at old--"
"Demographic maps of commercial neighborhoods without street names," Rhyme groused. "Obviously. Have him guess."
"That's what he's doing. He's guessing."
Rhyme called, "Well, we need him to guess fast."
Banks listened, nodding.
"What, what, what, what?"
"Around Sixtieth Street and Tenth," the young officer said. A moment later: "Lexington near the Harlem River . . . And then . . . where the Delancey farm was. Is that near Delancey Street?--"
"Of course it is. From Little Italy all the way to the East River. Lots of territory. Miles. Can't he narrow it down?"
"Around Catherine Street. Lafayette . . . Walker. He's not sure."
"Near the courthouses," Sellitto said and told Banks, "Get Haumann's teams moving. Divide 'em up. Hit all three neighborhoods."
The young detective made the call, then looked up. "What now?"
"We wait," Rhyme said.
Sellitto muttered, "I fucking hate waiting."
Sachs asked Rhyme, "Can I use your phone?"
Rhyme nodded toward the one on his bedside table.
She hesitated. "You have one in there?" She pointed to the hallway.
Rhyme nodded.
With perfect posture she walked out of the bedroom. In the hallway mirror he could see her, solemn, making the precious phone call. Who? he wondered. Boyfriend, husband? Day-care center? Why had she hesitated before mentioning her "friend" when she told them about the collie? There was a story behind that, Rhyme bet.
Whomever she was calling wasn't there. He noticed her eyes turn to dark-blue pebbles when there was no answer. She looked up and caught Rhyme gazing at her in the dusty glass. She turned her back. The phone slipped to the cradle and she returned to his room.
There was silence for a full five minutes. Rhyme lacked the mechanism most people have for bleeding off tension. He'd been a manic pacer when he was mobile, drove the officers in IRD crazy. Now, his eyes energetically scanned the Randel map of the city as Sachs dug beneath her Patrol cap and scratched at her scalp. Invisible Mel Cooper cataloged evidence, calm as a surgeon.
All but one of the people in the room jumped inordinately when Sellitto's phone brayed. He listened; his face broke into a grin.
