'Which means…' Danny began.
'He's probably small,' said Stella. 'Let's…'
She used the mouse and hit more keys.
'The last time he was pulled in, that was last August, he stood four ten and weighed ninety pounds. Look at his rap sheet.'
Danny looked. The list was long and included an arrest for stabbing a prostitute and five other arrests for bar fights, all involving knives.
'Laudano is a known associate of Steven Guista,' said Stella.
'What do we do?' he asked.
'Attach a ninety-pound weight to that chain,' she said. 'Lower it twelve feet and see if it holds.'
'We'll need more chain,' said Danny.
'We'll need more chain,' Stella agreed. 'But that can wait. Guista's bakery truck was picked up last night. It's at an impound on Staten Island.'
'So we're going there first?' asked Danny.
Stella shook her head 'no' and said, 'First we go to Brooklyn.'
'Brooklyn,' Danny repeated. 'Why?'
'Guista took a car service from a location in Brooklyn last night,' said Stella, reaching for a report next to her desk and handing it to Danny. 'We check the company. Find out where he went. Should be easy. One of the two kids who took Guista's truck for a spin remembered Guista, the time and the car.'
'It's going to be a busy day,' said Danny. 'What about Laudano, the Jockey?'
'Flack is on it,' she said.
'He should be in bed,' said Danny.
'He should be in the hospital,' said Stella, 'but he's not. He's on the street. Let's go.'
'Since we're on the subject of hospitals,' he said. 'You're not looking any better.'
'I'm fine.'
'Your face is red,' he said. 'You have a fever.'
She ignored his comment and put the computer in sleep mode, dropped a small stack of reports in a file folder, and stood up.
'The Jockey,' Danny said almost to himself. 'Who would have thought? It makes no sense.'
'Why not?' asked Stella, leading the way out of the lab.
'A crooked union boss with mob connections hires a circus act to murder a witness? A strong man and a…' Don asked.
'Little person,' Stella completed.
'Why?' asked Danny. 'They were sure to be noticed.'
Stella picked up her kit in one hand and her file folder in the other. Danny took her place at the computer.
'Maybe we're supposed to think it's a circus act,' she said.
'Red herring?' asked Danny.
'It smells fishy,' she said with a smile.
Danny groaned.
Stella left the lab, went to the elevator, and pushed the button for the lobby. Stella coughed, a raspy cough.
'Why?' said Louisa Cormier's agent, Michelle King, a twitchy woman in her late forties. Like Louisa she was well groomed, thin, and dressed for business in a black suit and white blouse. She did not have her client's good looks, but she made up for it with a handsome, confident severity. The room smelled of cigarettes and a flowered spray scent.
Aiden sat in one chair of King's office on Madison Avenue. King played with a pencil, tapping it impatiently against the top of her mahogany desk.
'Why?' Michelle King asked again.
Mac looked at her for ten seconds and said, 'We can go to our offices and discuss this. I don't think you'd like it there. Dead bodies and evidence from things people don't like to touch or even see.'
'I did advise Louisa to get a gun and keep it loaded in her apartment,' Michelle King said, reaching for a cigarette in a packet in one of her desk drawers.
'You mind?' she asked, unsteadily holding up the cigarette.
'We won't arrest you for it, if that's what you're asking,' Mac said. Smoking was illegal in New York City buildings. 'Besides, many of the people we have to deal with smoke,' Mac said. 'We accept it. One of the hazards of the job.'
'Second-hand smoke?' Michelle King asked lighting up with a silver-plated lighter. 'It's a myth created by anti-smoking fanatics who have nothing better to do.'
'And first-hand murder,' said Mac. 'Is that a myth?'
The agent looked at Aiden, who said nothing, which seemed to unnerve King more than Mac's questions.
'All right,' King said. 'I advised her to get a gun, even suggested the kind she might get, one just like mine.'
'Can we look at yours?' asked Mac.
'You think I shot that man?' she asked, blowing out a plume of smoke and pausing in her pencil tapping.
'We know he's dead,' said Mac.
'Why on earth would Louisa or I want to kill this man, whoever he was?'
'His name was Charles Lutnikov,' said Aiden. 'He was a writer.'
'Never heard of him,' King said, putting out her cigarette.
'Your name and phone number were in his address book,' said Mac.
'My-?' King said.
'He called your office three times last week,' said Aiden. 'It's in his phone records.'
'I never spoke to him,' King insisted.
'Your secretary?' asked Mac.
'Wait, the name does ring a bell,' said King. 'I think that may have been the name of the person who kept leaving his number. The message from Amy, my assistant, was that he said he had something important to tell me.'
'But you didn't call him back?'
She shrugged.
'Amy said he sounded nervous, was very insistent and… well, I'm an agent. I've got lots of oddballs wanting to talk to me about their ideas for books. One of Amy's jobs is to keep them away from me.'
'But this oddball lived in the same apartment building as one of your biggest clients,' said Aiden.
'My biggest client,' King corrected. 'I was unaware of that.'
She reached into her desk drawer suddenly and came up with a small gun which she pointed at Aiden. Neither detective flinched.
'My gun,' King said, handing it across her desk.
Mac took it and handed it to Aiden who examined it and said, 'Never been fired.'
'Not even loaded,' said King. 'It's like a chenille blanket I had when I was a little girl. I keep it around for comfort and a sense of security, which I delude myself is real.'
'What happens to the manuscripts of Louisa Cormier's books after she gives them to you?' Mac asked.
'She doesn't give me manuscripts,' said King. 'She E-mails me her manuscripts as attachments. I read them and send them on to her editor. Louisa's work requires very little editing by me or the publisher.'
King picked up the pencil again, considered tapping it, changed her mind, and put it down.
'What about the first three books,' said Mac.
King looked at him warily.
'The first three books were… a little rough,' King said. 'They needed work. How did you know?'
