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Cody explained he’d been a federal prosecutor before seeking office and had learned of Rhyme through that job. He’d also read some of the books in a series about Rhyme—some of the more famous cases he’d worked on. Rhyme had always wondered why the author bothered.
“Detective Spencer was asking me about the attack on the crane, some affordable housing activists. Housing’s one of my platform planks. A real problem everywhere, especially in New York. There’s something to their demands: we have so much square footage the government could put to good use, but there’s resistance. Major resistance.”
“Hm. A shame,” Rhyme mumbled and Sachs cut him a glance, which unfolded into: don’t be sarcastic, we might need him. His response was to lift an eyebrow in concession.
“But I’m sure you’re not interested in lectures. I’ll tell you what I found: None of the organizations in the affordable housing world know anything about this Kommunalka Project. And no one’s ever heard of affordable housing terrorism. When you think about it, it’s not a cause where violence really works. You can burn down ski resort developments, you can spike trees in lumber forests, you can monkey-wrench land-clearing bulldozers. But those’re directed against anenemy: the oil companies, the developers. Affordable housing’s goal isn’t to stop anybody from doing anything. It’s just to make living quarters available to people who can’t otherwise afford it.”
“Helpful,” Rhyme said. And it was true. He had not thought about that.
“If I hear anything else, though, I’ll be in touch.”
Sachs thanked him and they ended the meeting.
She said, “You going to vote for him?”
“I don’t know. When’s the election?”
“November. It’s always in November.”
“Is it? Who’s he running against?”
“Her name’s Leppert, former prosecutor too. She went after the cartels in South Texas. I like her.”
“Really?” he asked absently. “So, I think that confirms it. Affordable housing? It’s just one of his complications.”
Charles Vespasian Hale was a killer and a scam artist and a burglar and a mercenary.
But he was something else as well: he was an illusionist. He took his lead from the concept of complications in watchmaking: any function of a watch or clock other than telling the time. Complications could be hidden within the instrument, like abell-striking mechanism; or they could be visible on the display, such as dials indicating the phases of the moon, tides, seasons. Watches with many such features were called “grande complications.”
The term could also be used to describe Hale’s plots.
Rhyme had done considerable research into the subject of horology, to better understand his adversary. He’d learned that the watch with the most complications is the Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega 4. Thirty-six features and nearly fifteen hundred parts.
He wondered if Hale owned one. Maybe he’d made a watch himself with even more complications than that.
“All right,” he said slowly, “we’ll put affordable housing off the table temporarily. Then who hired him and what’s he really got planned?”
Sachs asked, “If it’s something else, then what does that do to the deadline?”
In thirteen hours, the Watchmaker had promised, another crane would come crashing to earth.
“We assume he’ll keep going. Whatever he’s up to, the sabotage is part of it.”
The front door buzzer sounded. Rhyme and Sachs both looked at the monitor, each with an at-this-time-of-night? expression.
A nondescript man, Black, middle-aged, was looking up at the camera. He wore a dark suit, blue or black, and a white shirt with a tie. On his belt was a gold badge.
“Yes?”
“Captain Rhyme. Lawrence Hylton. Internal Affairs. Sorry to bother you this late. Can I speak with you?” The accent was Caribbean, Rhyme judged. Jamaican, maybe.
Rhyme let him inside and Sachs went to greet and usher him into the parlor.
When he stepped inside, he scanned the impressive laboratoryand then focused on Rhyme. Once again, a visitor’s face glowed with minor adulation.
Rhyme’s own expression was clouded. Not because of the man’s presence, or the somewhat irritating awe, but because of his learning just now that he had absolutely no idea what the Watchmaker was up to.
Thom swung through the room, surprised there was a guest. He asked about coffee or another beverage—missing, or ignoring, Rhyme’s frown meant to discourage anything that kept Hylton here a moment longer than necessary.
