hands apart, and—
And she was out of her body, just like that, floating without a body, up in the air above the truck and able to look down through the roof of the truck, watching, watching as the wire slipped through her flesh as if through a liquid, watching the breast slide slowly away from the rest of her, watching the blood seep.
Watching until the blood filled up the whole of her vision, watching it darken, darken, until the world went black.
Chapter 14
Kelly was away from his desk. The man who answered his phone at Brooklyn Homicide said he could try to have him paged, if it was important. I said it was important.
When the phone rang Elaine answered it, said, 'Just a minute,' and nodded. I took the phone from her and said hello.
'My dad remembers you,' he said. 'Said you were real eager.'
'Well, that was a while ago.'
'So he said. What's so important they got to beep me in the middle of a meal?'
'I have a question about Leila Alvarez.'
'You got a question. I thought you had something for me.'
'About the surgery she had.'
' 'Surgery.' That what you want to call it?'
'Do you know what he used to sever the breast?'
'Yeah, a fucking guillotine. Where are you coming from with the questions, Scudder?'
'Could he have used a piece of wire? Piano wire, say, used almost like a garrote?'
There was a long pause, and I wondered if I'd pronounced the word incorrectly and he didn't know what I meant. Then, his voice tight, he said, 'What the fuck are you sitting on?'
'I've been sitting on it for ten minutes, and I've spent five of them waiting for you to call back.'
'God damn it, what have you got, mister?'
'Alvarez wasn't their only victim.'
'So you said. Also Gotteskind. I read the file and I think you're right, but where did you get piano wire with Gottes-kind?'
'There's another victim,' I said. 'Raped, tortured, a breast severed.
The difference is she's alive. I figured you'd want to talk to her.'
DREW Kaplan said, 'Pro bono, huh? You like to tell me why those are the two Latin words everybody knows? By the time I got through Brooklyn Law I'd learned enough Latin to start my own church.
Res gestae, corpus juris, lex talionis. Nobody ever says these words to me. Just pro bono. You know what it means, pro bono?'
'I'm sure you'll tell me.'
'The full phrase is pro bono publico. For the public good. Which is why big corporate law firms use the phrase to refer to the minuscule amount of legal work which they deign to undertake for causes they believe in as a sop to their consciences, which are understandably troubled by virtue of the fact that they spend upwards of ninety percent of their time grinding the faces of the poor and billing upwards of two hundred dollars an hour for it. Why are you looking at me like that?'
'That's the longest sentence I've ever heard you speak.'
'Is that right? Miss Cassidy, as your attorney it's my duty to caution you against associating with men like this gentleman. Matt, seriously, Miss Cassidy's a Manhattan resident, the victim of a crime which took place nine months ago in the borough of Queens. I'm a struggling lawyer with modest offices on Court Street in the borough of Brooklyn. So how, if you don't mind my asking, do I come into it?'
We were in his modest offices, and the banter was just his way of breaking the ice, because he already knew why Pam Cassidy needed a Brooklyn lawyer to see her through interrogation by a Brooklyn homicide detective. I had gone over the situation with him at some length on the phone.
'I'm going to call you Pam,' he said now. 'Is that all right with you?'
'Oh, sure.'
'Or do you prefer Pammy?'
'No, Pam's fine. Just so it's not Pammy.'
The special significance of that would have been lost on Kaplan.
He said, 'It'll be Pam, then. Pam, before you and I go down to see Officer Kelly— it's Officer, Matt? Or Detective?'
'Detective John Kelly.'
'Before we meet with the good detective, let's get our signals straight. You're my client. That means I don't want you questioned by anyone unless I'm at your side. Do you understand?'
