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"Sorry, wasn't thinking."
"Hey," Thom said, laughing. "Congratulations!"
"What's that?" the rookie asked.
"You've graduated to last-name basis. He's beginning to think of you as a step above a slug. . . . That's how he refers to the people he really likes. I, for instance, am merely Thom. Forever Thom."
"But," Sachs said to the rookie, "tell him you're sorry again and you'll be demoted."
The doorbell sounded a moment later and first-name Thom went to answer it.
Rhyme glanced at the clock. The time was 1:02. Could it be that a repairman was actually prompt?
But, of course, this wasn't the case. It was Lon Sellitto, who walked inside, started to take his coat off, then changed his mind. He glanced at his breath billowing from his mouth. "Jesus, Linc, with what the city coughs up for you, you can afford to pay your heating bill, you know. Is that coffee? Is it hot?"
Thom poured him a cup and Sellitto clutched it in one hand as he opened his briefcase with the other. "Finally got it." He nodded at what he now extracted, an old Redweld folder disfigured with faded ink and pencil notations, many of the entries crossed out, evidence of years of frugal municipal government reuse.
"The Luponte file?" Rhyme asked.
"That's it."
"I wanted it last week," the criminalist grumbled, the inside of his nose stinging from the cold. Maybe he'd tell the repairman he'd pay the bill in one to five months. He glanced at the folder. "I'd almost given up. I know how much you love cliches, Lon. Does the phrase 'day late and a dollar short' come to mind?"
"Naw," the detective said amiably, "the one I'm thinking of is 'If you do somebody a favor and they complain, then fuck 'em.'"
"That's a good one," conceded Lincoln Rhyme.
"Anyway, you didn't tell me how classified it was. I had to find that out on my own, and I needed Ron Scott to track it down."
Rhyme was staring at the detective as he opened the file and browsed through it. He felt an acute sense of uneasiness, wondering what he would find inside. Could be good, could be devastating. "There should be an official report. Find it."
Sellitto dug through the folder. He held up the document. On the cover was an old typewritten label that read Anthony C. Luponte, Deputy Commissioner. The folder was sealed with a fading piece of red tape that said, Classified.
"Should I open it?" he asked.
Rhyme rolled his eyes.
"Linc, tell me when the good mood's going to kick in, will you?"
"Put it on the turning frame. Please and thank you."
Sellitto ripped open the tape and handed the booklet to Thom.
The aide mounted the report in a device like a cookbook holder, to which was attached a rubber armature that turned the pages when instructed by a tiny movement from Rhyme's finger on his ECU touch pad. He now began to flip through the document, reading and trying to quell the tension within him.
"Luponte?" Sachs looked up from an evidence table.
Another page turned. "That's it."
He kept reading paragra
ph after paragraph of dense city government talk.
Oh, come on, he thought angrily. Get to the goddamn point. . . .
Would the message be good or bad?
"Something about the Watchmaker?" Sachs asked.
