“Okay,” Bill said, standing. “Good to be working with you, Aramis. Come on, you need a drink. I’ll buy you a martini.”
Jack cocked his head. “A pickletini?”
“For me to pay for that,” Bill said, “there’d have to be blood.”
Jack spent a few minutes locking his computer and his Hasui in a closet, in anticipation of the emergency window repair and the inevitable sawdust. Then we headed downstairs. Jack spoke to the manager of the ground- floor chocolate shop. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, giving her his key for the window crew.
She shrugged in a very French way. “Some excitement. Good for the neighborhood.”
While that was going on, Bill crossed the street. He prowled the sidewalk, looking at Jack’s building from various spots. Jack and I followed on the next light.
“Something up, Sherlock?” Jack asked.
“That shot came from over here.”
Jack scanned the ground. “Footprints?” He sniffed. “Gunshot residue still in the air?”
“The length of the track in your ceiling. A shot fired from your side of the street would’ve gone straight up. Probably right through the floor above.”
“And plugged poor Mischa, who rebuilds violins up there. I’ll be sure to tell him how lucky he is. Listen, not to diss your detecting genius or anything, but the police already worked that out.”
“Which must be why they think their ‘random’ theory’s reasonable. If you were at your desk, there’s no way anyone over here would’ve seen you.”
Jack gave Bill another brief look, then glanced across at his own window. “Well. Damn. Do you think maybe they’re right, then?”
“Not for a minute. I think it wasn’t real.”
“A mass hallucination? Group hypnosis? No, wait, you mean it was me! A grab for attention? A cry for help?”
“If it were you it would’ve been more theatrical.”
“Well, thanks for that, anyway. Though how much more theatrical could it get?”
“You weren’t supposed to get hurt. Just scared.”
“A complete success, then! Can I ask who? Why?”
“You can ask, but I can’t answer. Someone who wants you off the case.”
Jack sighed. “Though it hurts my ego to say it, there are other people in New York who do what I do. Scare me off and my client would just hire one of them. Why not shoot at my client and scare him off? Then he’d fire me and run away, and we’d all be happy.”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe,” I said, “we should ask him.”
“Dr. Yang?” said Jack. “You want to go charging down to NYU and ask Dr. Bernard Yang why someone’s shooting at me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think that’s a damn good idea.” He took out his iPhone and poked a number. When he spoke it was obvious he was leaving a message. He clicked off and said, “Voice mail. He’s probably in class. I said to call me.”
We headed up the street. Both Bill and Jack seemed to know exactly where we were making for. I could only assume it was one of their male-bonding taverns.
“So,” Jack asked, “what did you guys do today? Tell me you haven’t been goofing off while someone tried to take me out.”
“Hey,” said Bill. “We’ve been busting our accents working this case.”
“Actually,” I said, “if you can hold off on that drink, when you called we were on our way to see someone.”
Jack stopped. “You have a lead?”
“We got it from our other lead.”
“You have
“We weren’t working together then.”
He waited, then said, “Are you going to tell me now, or do I only get to know things that happen from now on?”
“Sure,” I said. “We leaned on a kid at Baxter/Haig and he broke like a twig.”
“Baxter/Haig? That repulsive little Nick something?”
“You know him?”
“He’s been there a long time. Haig’s a walking oil slick and he generally hires people from the same toxic gene pool. Baxter was better, but in the end he couldn’t stand Haig—”
“No, really?”
