Page 33 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“Not yet, Kevin.”

Duggin slouched back in what appeared to be quite a luxurious black leather chair and sipped from a mug. “I think it oughta be fucking gavel time,” he muttered.

The Twins unmuted. “Eighty.”

Duggin: “Eight five.”

“Crap,” Steven spat out. “You don’t even know what the fuck to do with a truck like that.”

“Now, gentlemen, pretend we’re at Christie’s. A little civility.”

The brothers looked at each other once again. They shook their heads simultaneously.

Buryak was disappointed. He’d thought this lot would do better.

“Going once …”

Welbourne took a slip of paper from a hand that ended in red polished nails. He read it.

“Going twice.”

Welbourne looked into the camera. “One hundred ten thousand.”

Yes!

Duggin grimaced, and the twins exchanged perplexed glances. All three remained grudgingly silent.

“Sold!” Buryak slapped his desktop in lieu of a gavel.

“I’ll wire the money now,” Welbourne said in his quiet, unemotional voice.

“It will take about a week to ten days for prep.”

“All right.”

“Now, let’s move on to lot two.” A picture of a twenty-foot cabin cruiser on a trailer appeared. It was old, the paint job uneven, missing some windows.

“This is what is called a fixer-upper, but well worth the investment. Let me give you the details.”

18

Shortsighted, foolish …

Lincoln Rhyme was staring at the triptych of evidence boards.

In the corner was the Alekos Gregorios killing. Behind it, the Viktor Buryak–Leon Murphy case.

Which was, of course, not a case any longer at all.

Front and center was the Locksmith. It contained scores of notations, which Sachs would photograph and transcribe onto a similar board in the crime scene main facility in Queens—now that the case had been stolen away.

Rhyme knew he probably wasn’t the best criminalist in the world. Out there somewhere—France, Botswana, Singapore, Brazil, the U.A.E., or, likely, in the borough of Queens, at the main NYPD lab—there was a man or woman with forensic skills that outshone his. But one thing was undeniable. Rhyme knew the city of New York as well as he knew this town house. And it was that knowledgebase, combined with his natural talents for chemistry, physics and deduction, that made him unique.

Was some of this assessment ego?

Yes, of course. But ego and skill do not, by any means, exist in opposition. A good argument could be made that they have a correlated, and possibly causal, relationship.

“Here.”