No Witnesses

As she took her attention off him to board the escalator, she suddenly felt his eyes find her. She strained to lean over the escalator and look down-to confirm this-but in those few spent seconds he was gone. Try as she did, she could not locate him.

With this man in sight she had felt okay, but now that she had lost him, her paranoia returned and she punched her way rudely up the stairs of the moving escalator, as if running from someone she could not see. Get hold of yourself, she cautioned internally, knowing the dangers of such behavior-fear fed on fear and could run out of control in situations like this. But she felt him back there, like her brother chasing her as a child, like her drunken uncle chasing her around her bedroom, reaching out for her-and she could not help but experience the terror of being caught. Wild with this fear, she charged out of the escalator, took the corner, and ran to the next and final escalator up, knowing somewhere within her-but not realizing-that the more she ran, the more attention she drew to herself. The easier a target.

As she entered the ticket line for the monorail with her heart in her throat, she knew she wasn’t thinking clearly. She bought a round-trip, impatiently checking over her shoulder, and then moved on to join the waiting crowd. The monorail surged around the bend and slowed for its arrival. Her agitation increased with each passing minute. The two train cars pulled to a stop and a handful of passengers disembarked. A moment later she and the others crossed the steel catwalk into the train and took seats. No one in a khaki windbreaker, she realized to great relief. The sliding doors clapped shut, and she exhausted a huge sigh. She moved forward to the lead car where there was more room, instinctively distancing herself.

But the doors, previously shut, hissed open admitting three latecomers, including a man in a khaki windbreaker whose back was already to Daphne by the time she realized these others had boarded. When she spotted that jacket, she nearly let out a small scream, but muzzled herself and faked a sneeze to cover. She could not allow herself this kind of fear. She knew that once a cop allowed him- or herself this kind of paranoia, it was difficult if not impossible to stop it. You saw the faces of killers you had helped to convict in every crowd, on every street. You imagined where no imagination should be allowed. She felt through her purse at her side to the small police-issue handgun it contained.

She collected her strength, stood, and walked back to this other car, her full attention on the khaki windbreaker. She passed the circular bench, took a handhold on an overhead rail, and turned to face him. She stared at him until he finally looked up. He was a small man, midforties, with a tiny scar by his left eye. With boyish curiosity he said, “Hi.”

“Do you know me?” she asked, not knowing where the words came from, not recognizing him.

“I think I’d like to,” he said.

“Why are you following me?” she asked.

He looked around nervously at the people around them, all of whom Daphne was using intentionally. Confront, intimidate. He could not do anything to her here. “What?” he replied. If he was acting, he was quite good.

“Go away,” she said, “or I’ll have you arrested.” She took one step away and then added as an afterthought, “If you know anything about me, you know I’m capable of delivering on that.”

“Listen-” he said. But she would not give him any chance at an explanation. The worst possible thing she could do, she had just done, responding to emotion rather than logic. If he was for real, she should have played him out, should have arranged to have him followed, to turn the tables on him, to get something out of it. Instead she had felt the need to prove herself, and had blown whatever advantage she might have had over him. She handled this all wrong. She knew all this, and yet she felt satisfied as she sat back down, because it had taken nerve to do what she had done-and right then she had needed proof of that nerve. Now she did not, but now it was too late.

The monorail came to a stop after its brief trip to the Seattle Center. She wandered the Center for longer than she had intended, keeping an eye on this man who, paying her no mind whatsoever, headed straight to a crafts show, confusing her all the more.

With this confusion charging her system, she headed toward the crafts fair at a full run. To hell with the meeting. She would follow him. She would call in backup and stay with him.

But he was gone. She spent ten minutes searching the grounds, the rides, a few of the displays. He had disappeared again, as quickly as he had at the Westlake.

Or maybe, she thought, glancing around quickly, he was once again watching her, only this time more cautiously. This time vowing to make no mistakes.

The felt board outside the Seattle Center’s planetarium was the kind used in hotel lobbies for seminar announcements. It read, NEXT SHOW: 12 NOON, with a listing of the planetarium’s regular summer schedule in a smaller white press type below.

The center was mobbed with families overcome by the interactive science exhibits, providing the exact cover that Boldt had hoped for in calling the meeting here. Boldt discreetly showed his badge and gave his name to a security guard who stood sentry by the planetarium’s door, and getting the nod, let himself in. Taplin and Fowler were already waiting.

Boldt had to convince Adler to pay the extortion money. He expected the man to flat-out refuse.

The room was a twenty-foot-diameter circular enclosure, its perimeter entirely surrounded by a padded couch. In its center was a large, fixed desktop covered with an abundance of gray-metal projection gear that looked to Boldt as if it were straight off the set of Buck Rogers. The room had only one entrance and it was sound-proofed, the two qualities that when combined with its extremely busy public setting made it the perfect location for a covert meeting.

Boldt had seen the real show a few months ago while here to meet a snitch who had whispered right over the words of the college-age woman with her red-light pointer narrating “a voyage into the night sky.” Pretty good show at that-terrific for the under-twelves. Miles would need a few years before he could get anything out of it.

“You look a little whipped,” Fowler said, coming over to him. Taplin, an open briefcase next to him, was focused on a stack of papers on his lap. “You’re supposed to sleep every week or so, whether you need it or not,” Fowler quipped.

“Glad to be out of it?” Boldt asked.

“Am I out of it? I feel like you’re keeping me out of it,” he complained.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant the department.”

“Hang on,” Fowler said, pressing his finger into his left ear. Only then did Boldt notice a tiny, flesh-colored wire running from his shirt collar. “The boss is here.” Fowler had his people in the area, and as a result felt in control. It bothered Boldt, who was accustomed to running things.

The padded door opened and Adler entered.

Howard Taplin put the paperwork aside and stood. He appeared to have lost another five pounds, emaciated by stress and fatigue.

Adler crossed the room and shook hands with Boldt. “You look about like I feel,” he said sympathetically.

“I’m not sure how to take that.”

“Here comes trouble,” Fowler announced. “And way off schedule, I might add.”

Daphne entered, looking frayed. Fowler locked the door behind her.

“If you’ve got problems with your watch,” Fowler said nastily, “we’ll get you another.”

“I was delayed,” Daphne said.

“I was supposed to be ten-minute intervals,” Fowler reminded her. “You were due here before Boldt.”

“I was delayed,” she repeated, glancing at Boldt, who sensed immediately that something was terribly wrong.

“Let’s get started,” Taplin complained irritably. “We have a lot of ground to cover.” He handed both Boldt and Matthews a photocopy of a fax. “This is the first of the two faxes we received.”

“Two?” Boldt asked, reading.

YOU BROKE THE RULES.

YOU HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME.