The Millionaires

38

“She knows,” Gallo said.

“How could she possibly know?” DeSanctis asked.

“Just look at her,” he said, jabbing a fat finger at the computer that rested on the seat between them. “Her sons are missing… it’s another night alone… but does she report it? Does she cry on the phone, sobbing to a friend? No – she just sits there, sewing away and watching the Food Channel.”

“It’s better than watching soaps,” DeSanctis said, pointing the thermal imager up the dark block.

“That’s not the point, ass-face. If she knows we’re watching, she’s less likely to-”

The chime of a doorbell blared through the laptop’s speakers. Gallo and DeSanctis shot up in their seats.

“She’s got a visitor,” DeSanctis said.

“Was that from downstairs?”

DeSanctis aimed the imager at the glass windows of the lobby. In the camera, a muddy dark green image of the lobby came into focus. Green was cold; white was hot. But as he scanned between the buzzer area and the lobby, the only thing he saw were two white rectangular starbursts along the ceiling. No people – just fluorescent lights. “No one’s down there.”

“Coming…!” Maggie shouted toward her door.

“How’d they get past us? Is there a back door?” Gallo shouted.

“Could be a neighbor,” DeSanctis pointed out.

“Who is it?” Maggie asked.

The answer was a mumble. Microphones didn’t work through doors.

“Just a minute…” Maggie said as she shut off the TV. Undoing the locks with one hand, she straightened her hair and her shirt with the other.

“She’s making an impression,” DeSanctis whispered. “I’m betting a client.”

“At this time of ni-?”

“Sophie! So nice to see you,” Maggie sang as she opened the door. Over Maggie’s shoulder they saw a gray-haired woman wearing a cable-knit brown cardigan, but no coat.

“Neighbor,” DeSanctis said.

“Sophie…” Gallo repeated. “She said Sophie.”

DeSanctis tore open the glove compartment and yanked out a stack of paper. 4190 Bedford Avenue – Residents – Real Property.

“Sophie… Sofia… Sonja…” Gallo suggested as DeSanctis frantically ran his finger down the printed list.

“I got a Sonia Coady in 3A and a Sofia Rostonov in 2F,” DeSanctis said.

“How have you been?” Sophie asked in a thick Russian accent.

“Rostonov it is.”

“Fine… just fine,” Maggie replied, inviting her inside.

“Watch her hands!” Gallo barked as Maggie reached out and touched Sophie’s shoulder.

“You think she’s passing something?” DeSanctis asked.

“She doesn’t have a choice. No fax, no e-mail, no cell phone – not even an electronic organizer – her only hope is getting something from outside. I’m guessing a pager or something small that can do text-messaging.”

DeSanctis nodded. “You take mom; I got Sofia.” Crouching down toward the laptop, the two agents were silent. In the darkness, their faces glowed with the pale light from the screen.

“I took almost an inch off all the sleeves – let me get them off the line…” Maggie said as she walked toward the kitchen window. From his bird’s-eye view in the smoke detector, Gallo only saw her back, but he studied everything she touched. Hands at her side. Opening the kitchen window. Pulling in the clothesline. Unhooking two women’s blouses and angling each onto a hanger.

“You put them out in this weather?” Sophie asked.

“The cold’s good for it – makes them crisper than the day you bought them.” Maggie hooked both hangers on one of the three coat racks that lined the living room wall.

“Watch the money change…” Gallo warned.

“Uck, where’s my head?” Sophie began, searching for a purse that wasn’t there. “I left my…”

“No harm done,” Maggie said. Even in the pixelized digital image, Gallo could see her strained grin. “Bring it by whenever. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Dammit!” Gallo shouted.

“You’re a nice person,” Sophie insisted. “You’re a nice person, and good things are going to happen for you.”

“Yeah,” Maggie said, glancing up toward the smoke detector. “I should be so lucky.”

Shutting the door behind Sophie, Maggie took a silent breath and made her way back to the window in the kitchen. Along the wall, the old radiator hiccuped with a sharp clang, but Maggie barely noticed it. She was too focused on everything else – her sons… and Gallo… and even her routine. Especially her routine.

Jamming her palms under the top of the window frame, she gave it two hard pushes and finally forced it open. A blast of cold air shoved its way inside, but again, Maggie didn’t care. With Sophie’s shirts gone, there was an open spot on the clothesline. An open spot she couldn’t wait to fill.

Grabbing the damp white sheet that was draped over the nearby ironing board, she leaned outside the window, took a clothespin from the pouch in her apron, and clipped the corner into place. Inch by inch, she scrolled the sheet out over the alley, slowly pinning more of it to the line. At the edge, she pulled the sheet taut. A gust of wind did its best to send it flying, but Maggie held it down with a tight fist. Just another normal night. All that was left was the hard part.

As the wind passed, she stuffed both hands back into the apron’s pouch. Her left hand felt around for a clothespin; her right searched for something more. Within seconds, her fingers skimmed along the edge of the note she had written earlier in the night. Careful to keep her back to the kitchen, she palmed the folded-up sheet of paper in her already shaking hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the faint glow in Gallo and DeSanctis’s car. It didn’t slow her down.

Fighting off tears, she clamped her jaw shut and planted her feet. Then, in one fluid motion, she leaned out the window, tucked her right hand under the sheet, and clipped the note in place. Directly across the way, the window in the building next door was dark – but Maggie could still make out the inky silhouette of Saundra Finkelstein. Hiding in the corner of her window, The Fink carefully nodded. And for the third time since yesterday – under the glare of four digital videocameras, six voice-activated microphones, two encrypted transmitters, and over fifty thousand dollars’ worth of the government’s best military-strength surveillance equipment, Maggie Caruso tugged at the two-dollar clothesline and, under a cheap, overused, wet sheet, passed a handwritten note to her next-door neighbor.