False Impression Read online

  The caretaker looked up from his sedentary position and, when he saw who it was, nodded—the most energetic thing he’d done all day—then turned his attention back to the racing page. Leapman placed the packet of Marlboros on the counter, knowing they would disappear before he turned around. Every man has his price.

  He peered into the gloom of a corridor lit only by a naked forty-watt bulb. He sometimes wondered if he was the only person who advanced beyond the counter.

  Despite the darkness of the corridor, he knew exactly where her box was located. Not that you could read the number on the door—like everything else, it had faded over the years. He looked back up the corridor; one of his cigarettes was already glowing in the darkness.

  He took the key out of his tracksuit pocket, placed it in the lock, turned it, and pulled open the door. He unzipped the bag before looking back in the direction of the old man. No interest. It took him less than a minute to empty the contents of the box, fill the bag, and zip it back up.

  Leapman closed the door and locked it for the last time. He picked up the bag, momentarily surprised by how heavy it was, and walked back down the corridor. He placed the key on the counter. “I won’t be needing it again,” he told the old man, who didn’t allow this sudden break in routine to distract him from his study of the odds for the four o’clock at Belmont. He’d been fifty feet from a racing certainty for the past twelve years and hadn’t even checked the odds.

  Leapman walked out of the door, climbed back up the steps and into the light of Lincoln Street. At the top of the steps, he once again glanced up and down the road. He felt safe. He began to walk quickly down the street, gripping the handle of the bag tightly, relieved to see the cab was still waiting for him on the corner.

  He had covered about twenty yards when, out of nowhere, he was surrounded by a dozen men dressed in jeans and blue-nylon windbreakers, FBI printed in bold yellow letters on their backs. They came running toward him from every direction. A moment later, two cars entered Lincoln, one from each end—despite its being a one-way street—and came to a screeching halt in a semicircle around the suspect. This time passersby did stop to stare at the tracksuited man carrying a sports bag. The taxi sped away, minus fifty dollars, plus one squash racket.

  “Read him his rights,” said Joe, as another officer clamped Leapman’s arms firmly behind his back and handcuffed him, while a third relieved him of his gym bag.

  “You have the right to remain silent . . .,” which Leapman did.

  Once his Miranda rights had been recited to him—not for the first time—Leapman was led off to one of the cars and unceremoniously dumped in the back, where Agent Delaney was waiting for him.

  Anna was at the Whitney Museum, standing in front of a Rauschenberg canvas entitled Satellite, when her cell phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. She glanced at the screen to see that Stalker was trying to contact her.

  “Hey,” said Anna.

  “I was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?” asked Anna.

  “It was more than two million.”

  The clock on a nearby church struck four times.

  Krantz heard one of the guards say, “We’re off for our supper. We’ll be back in about twenty minutes.” The chain smoker coughed but didn’t respond. Krantz lay still in her bed until she could no longer hear their departing footsteps. She pressed the buzzer by the side of her bed and a key turned in the lock immediately. Krantz didn’t have to guess which one of them would be standing in the doorway, eager to accompany her to the washroom.

  “Where’s your mate?” Krantz asked.

  “He’s having a drag,” said the guard. “Don’t worry, I’ll see that he gets his share.”

  She rubbed her eyes, climbed slowly out of bed, and joined him in the corridor. Another guard was lolling in a chair, half asleep, at the other end of the corridor. The smoker and the philanderer were nowhere to be seen.

  The guard held on to her elbow as he led her quickly down the passage. He accompanied her into the bathroom, but remained outside while she disappeared into the cubicle. Krantz sat on the toilet, extracted the condom, peeled off two more twenty-dollar bills, folded them, and hid them in the palm of her right hand. She then slowly pushed the condom back into a place even the least squeamish guards didn’t care to search.

  Once she’d pulled the chain, her guard unlocked the door. He smiled in anticipation as she walked back out into the corridor. The guard seated at the far end didn’t stir, and her personal minder seemed as pleased as she was to discover that there was no one else around.

  Krantz nodded toward the linen closet. He pulled open the door and they both slipped inside. Krantz immediately opened the palm of her hand to reveal the two twenty-dollar bills. She passed them over to the guard. Just as he went to grab them, she dropped one on the floor. He bent down to pick it up—only a matter of a second—but long enough for him to feel the full force of her knee as it came crashing up into his groin. As he fell forward, grasping his crotch, Krantz grabbed him by the hair and in one swift movement sliced open his throat with the doctor’s scissors. Not the most efficient of instruments, but the only thing she could lay her hands on. She let go of his hair, grabbed him by the collar, and, with all the strength she could muster, bundled him into the laundry chute. With a heave she helped him on his way, then dived in behind him.

  They both bounced down the spacious metal tube, and a few seconds later landed with a thud on a pile of sheets, pillowcases, and towels in the laundry room. Krantz leapt up, grabbed the smallest overall from a peg on the wall, pulled it on, and ran across to the door. She opened it slowly and peered out through the crack into the corridor. The only person in sight was a cleaner, on her knees polishing the floor. Krantz walked quickly past her and pushed open the fire-exit door to be greeted by the word Subsol on the wall in front of her. She ran up one flight of steps, pulled up a window on the ground floor, and climbed out onto a flower bed. It was pouring with rain.

  She looked around, expecting at any moment to hear the raucous sound of a siren followed by floodlights illuminating every inch of the hospital grounds.

  Krantz had covered nearly two miles by the time the philanderer required the privacy of the linen closet for a second time that night. The nurse screamed when she saw the blood all over the white walls. The guard ran back into the corridor and charged toward the prisoner’s room. The chair-bound guard at the end of the passage leaped up from his seat as the smoker came rushing in from the fire escape. The philanderer reached her room first. He pulled open the door, switched on the light, and let out a tirade of expletives, while the smoker smashed the glass covering the alarm and pressed the red button.

  9/24

  46

  ONE OF ANNA’S golden rules when she woke in the morning was not to check the messages on her cell phone until she had showered, dressed, had breakfast, and read The New York Times. But as she had broken every one of her golden rules over the last two weeks, she checked her messages even before she got out of bed. One from Stalker asking her to call, which made her smile, one from Tina—no message, and one from Mr. Nakamura, which made her frown—only four words: “Urgent, please call. Nakamura.”

  Anna decided to take a cold shower before she returned his call. As the jets of water cascaded down on her, she thought about Mr. Nakamura’s message. The word urgent always made her assume the worst—Anna fell into the half-empty-glass category rather than the half-full.

  She was wide awake by the time she stepped out of the shower. Her heart was pounding at about the same pace as when she’d just finished her morning run. She sat on the end of the bed and tried to compose herself.

  Once Anna felt her heartbeat had returned to as near normal as it was likely to, she dialed Nakamura’s number in Tokyo.

  “Hai, Shacho-Shitso desu,” announced the receptionist.

  “Mr. Nakamura, please.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Anna Petrescu.”