We stepped into an empty office suite. It needed paint. You could still see the indentations on the carpet where desk and chairs had been, a ghost layout. I saw papers on the floor. Some sort of e-commerce scam.
'Where is he, Bill?' asked Gabriel, pushing me forward.
In the next room I stepped past food wrappers, cans, bottles, and newspapers. Some clothes. Somebody had been living there. Spending a lot of time, anyway. A small oxygen bottle lay among the refuse. Bits of plaster had been tracked all over the carpeting.
Then, turning the corner to the next room, I saw a wide section of a party wall had been torn out, right where a heating duct rose from the floor below. The duct serviced both the office we were in and the one next door- Cowles's office- its vent set at a height of about eight feet. Plaster and old lathing and sheet metal lay strewn heavily over the floor. Jay had cut out his side of the heating duct, vent and all, and built a hooded observation structure in this torn-out space, about the size and height of a linesman's chair at a tennis tournament. The hood's black fabric, crudely attached with a staple gun, completely enclosed the chair so that no sunlight from the windows could penetrate within. In this high position, I understood instantly, Jay could peer through the vent that serviced Cowles's office. A second vent had been exposed six feet away, and several lipstick-sized cameras had been jammed into it, their cables feeding a computer humming on the floor. But that was not all. A phone cable, no doubt a secret splice off of Cowles's office line, hung down through a broken dropped-ceiling panel and split into two wires, one of which led to a phone sitting on the floor. The other arrived at the same computer that serviced the lipstick cameras. Jay was recording everything Cowles did in his office. Every gesture, every word, every breath.
I returned my attention to the large hooded chair and stepped closer to it. What was hidden behind the fabric? I lifted the flap a bit and saw a leg and a man's shoe dangling. I dropped the flap in surprise. Dead? A suicide? Maybe Jay had heard us coming, maybe- I pulled the flap back, ready for any murderous horror- and here Jay was, in the chair, wearing a jacket and tie, leaning forward against the wall, asleep, an oxygen bottle set in a crude cradle built for it, a tube rising toward his head. A plastic breathing mask covered his nose and mouth. For a younger man, he looked enormously tired, as he was of course, dragging himself everywhere with not enough air. His lungs took shallow, too-rapid breaths, like a child with a fever. How many hours had he silently peered through the vent- studying Cowles, watching him, living his life vicariously, studying the cameras' digital footage? What did this prove to him? The impossible distance that lay between him and his daughter, now captive downstairs? Was he studying the man who would care for her after he himself was gone? And, ridiculous as it sounded, was it for this reason that he'd bought the building in the first place, unable to resist further acts of voyeurism? Or had the idea lived in the shadows of his unconscious? It didn't matter. Here he was.
'Wake him up,' Gabriel told me.
I put my fingers to my lips.
'If you want this done quietly, then let me do it,' I whispered. 'He's liable to react. If you make a big noise, you'll have more problems.'
Gabriel conceded nothing, just motioned with the gun that I should wake Jay. I leaned forward and positioned one eye behind the vent.
There was Cowles, in his suit, talking on the phone. Papers on his desk.
'Yes,' he said, 'we'll get it over to you. Brilliant.' He hung up. His assistant came in. Cowles handed him a piece of paper. 'These are the numbers for the Martin thing.'
'Okay.'
'What's happening to the euro?'
'Up a bit.'
'How big are the blocks?'
'Varies.'
'Are the Japanese buying?'
'Can't tell.'
'I'll come look.'
Cowles followed his assistant out of the office, and I took this opportunity to wake Jay.
'Hey,' I said softly. 'Jay, wake up.'
I would have expected him to be startled but he wasn't, instead opening his eyes slowly and lifting his head.
'You found me,' he said softly, not seeming to mind.
'Wake up, guy.'
He shifted in his chair.
'You need to come downstairs,' I said, handing him his coat.
'Why?'
'They've got Sally.'
'Sally?'
I nodded.
'I don't get it.'
'You will.'
That was Gabriel, stepping forward, gun up.
Outside, the limo door opened as we approached.
'Get in,' said Gabriel, and Jay and I did as we were told.
Sally, pressed between Denny and Jay, looked at each of us, stricken. She didn't recognize me, or Jay, for that matter. 'What's going on? What're you going to do with me?'
I answered, trying to sound as firm as possible. 'Nothing is going to happen to you, Sally.'
'Something already did.' She began to cry again. 'How does everyone know my name?'
'If anyone touches you,' said Jay, 'I'll kill him.'
But this, I saw, didn't comfort her, just scared her further. She looked frantically from one man to another, lips tight, hands gathered tightly over her school blouse. 'Are you- am I going to be-?'
'Okay, Gabriel,' I said, 'you can let her go now.'
'We need money first.'
'Jay?' I said. 'The man needs his money. Where's the cash?'
No answer. He hadn't taken his eyes off of Sally. But for the moment he'd stood behind her at the Steinway hall, he hadn't been this close to her since she was an infant. 'I want to talk with her.'
This only scared Sally more. But I wondered if somewhere deep within her she might sense her connection to Jay. You could see him in her. You could see the fierceness in her eyebrows and her good shoulders. She was leggy and would be more so.
'Do it fast, then,' said Gabriel.
Jay leaned toward Sally. She pulled backward, frightened by his scrutiny, turned her head to one side.
'Easy, Jay,' I said.
'Are you happy?' Jay asked his daughter.
'Who are you?' she said.
He breathed heavily. 'Are you happy?'
'Well, not now.'
'No, I mean-' Jay coughed violently. 'I mean- in life.'
Even Sally understood the absurdity of the question, under the circumstances. 'Yeah, sure.'
'Very nice chitchat,' interrupted Gabriel. 'But we have to-'
Jay turned toward Gabriel. He wasn't afraid of Gabriel, and Gabriel saw this.
'A minute,' Gabriel conceded.
Jay turned back to Sally. 'You have a nice family?'
'Yes.'
'You miss your mum?'
The girl looked at him, blinking. 'Who are you?'
'I was an old friend of hers.'
She was suspicious. 'When?'
