me, lady!” He shoved the weapon into the holster at his back and began to move around the counter.
Frank wasn’t going to wait for another chance.
“Police — freeze!” he shouted, his own heart hammering as the man turned toward him. His voice had come out at about half its usual volume — he had forgotten the effects of the smoke. “Freeze!” he said again.
To Frank’s surprise, the wasp man complied. He could see in the wasp man’s eyes that he didn’t necessarily want to do so — but he responded in the manner of someone experienced with being arrested.
“Hands high! On top of your head! Keep them there. Lock your fingers together.”
The wasp man complied.
“You will slowly take two steps away from that counter! Now!”
He moved, Frank’s weapon trained on him the entire time.
“Face the door!” Frank moved so that he was behind him but not within reach. “On your knees!”
With only the slightest hesitation, he obeyed.
Frank thought of waiting for backup before removing the weapon — always a tricky moment, one when it was easy to end up losing your own. But not knowing whether Pete had received the message, he wasn’t going to give this wasp knucklehead the time to change his mind about being cooperative.
“On the floor, facedown. Cross your ankles.”
Carefully, he relieved the wasp man of his weapon. It was not until he had taken the clip out of it that he noticed that the Brandenburg Concerto was still playing. For some minutes — could it have been only minutes? — he had been concentrating on the wasp man to the exclusion of all else. He cuffed him just as the old woman called out, “Is it okay now?”
“You were faking?” the wasp man said, incredulous.
“Shut up!” Frank told him, glad that she was all right but worried that she might be more difficult to control than the handcuffed man on the floor.
This concern seemed warranted when the woman stood and started to walk out from behind the counter.
“Stay back,” Frank warned. “Don’t come any closer. Just stay right there.”
“For God’s sake,” she said to Frank, sounding more calm than he did. “Took you long enough. What was I going to have to do next? Strip naked to scare him out of here?”
“You knew I was in here?”
“Oh, yes, I saw you back by the roses a little earlier. Do you have a cold, dear?”
“No. You couldn’t know that I wasn’t with him,” he said, indicating the wasp man. Although the man stayed perfectly still and did not seem inclined to cause trouble, Frank never took his eyes off him.
“Well, yes, I did know. I expected you.”
“Expected me?”
“Yes, you personally. The man he’s been asking about gave me your picture.”
“What?”
“You’re Mr. Lefebvre’s other illegitimate brother, the policeman, right? Your brother — the living brother — told me you might see those flowers and use your police know-how to find out where they came from. And he said to tell you that there was no need to feel obligated to him or to me and that he’d already paid me in full. Which he did. Now, I must ask you — do you have a picture of your father? He must have been some man!”
Mercifully, the SWAT team arrived, sparing him from having to answer her.
33
Wednesday, July 12, 8:30 P.M.
The Kelly-Harriman Home
He was tired, he was hungry, and it occurred to him that after talking to Mrs. Garrity and dealing with all that had followed, he hadn’t remembered to buy flowers. The arrest had kept him at the station longer than it did the wasp man, whose lawyers — Dane’s lawyers — had him out of jail almost before he was booked, saying that he had done nothing more than try to help an elderly woman whom he believed was suffering a heart attack.
Mrs. Garrity had readily identified the spray of flowers in Frank’s photo, but hadn’t been able to provide many clues to the identity of the man who bought them.
“He was wearing a disguise, of course,” she said.
“You knew this at the time?” Frank asked. “And weren’t suspicious?”
“Yes, but after all, a person doesn’t want everyone on earth to know he was born out of wedlock. So I understood perfectly. He was wearing sunglasses, and a hat, and a wig — not a very good one. No mustache.”
“Well, that’s something to go on!” Pete said.
“Sarcasm does not become you,” she said.
“How tall was he?” Frank asked.
“Not as tall as you, not as diminutive as Detective Sass here. Did he pass the height requirements for the department?”
“I used to,” Pete answered, “but witnesses like you have worn me down.”
She had not studied the man too closely, having been distracted by stories of legions of bastards roaming Las Piernas and by envisioning the all-white arrangement of flowers. She had complimented Frank on his photography
