Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 75

PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE here soon. Quite a lot of people, actually.

Charles Danko sat pretending to read the Examiner underneath the giant fountain in the sparkling glass atrium of the Rincon Center just off Market Street, downtown near the Bay Bridge. From above him, an eighty-five-foot plume of water splashed breathtakingly into a shallow pool.

Americans like to feel awe, he thought to himself - they liked it in their movies, their pop art, and even their shop-ping centers. So I'll make them feel awe. I'll make them feel in awe of death.

It would be busy here today, Danko knew. The Rincon Center's restaurants were getting ready for the surge of the lunch crowd. A thousand or more escapees from law firms and real estate trusts and financial advisers around the Financial District.

Too bad this can't stretch out a little longer, Charles Danko thought, and sighed, the regret of someone who has waited such a long time for the moment. The Rincon Center had proved to be one of his favorite places in San Francisco.

Danko didn't acknowledge the well-dressed black man who picked out a place beside him facing the fountain. He knew the man was a veteran of the Gulf War. Despon-dent ever since. Dependable, though perhaps a little high-strung.

“Mal said I could call you `Professor.' ” The black spoke out of the side of his mouth.

“And you are Robert?” Danko asked.

The man nodded. “Robert I am.”

A woman started to play on a grand piano in the center of the atrium. Every day at ten to twelve. A melody from Phantom of the Opera began to fill the gigantic space.

“You know who to look for?” Danko asked.

“I know,” the man said, assured. “I'll do my job. You don't have to worry about me. I'm a very good soldier.”

“It must be the right man,” Danko said. “You'll see him come into the square at about twenty after twelve. He'll cross it, maybe drop some change off for the pianist. Then he'll go into Yank Sing.”

“You seem awfully sure he'll be here.”

Danko finally looked at the man and smiled. “You see that plume of water, Robert? It falls from a height of precisely eighty-five point five feet. I know this because having sat in this spot for a very long time, I have calculated the exact angle of an imaginary line stretching from the center of the pool, and the corresponding right angle created at its base. From there, it was easy to extrapolate its height. You know how many days I've sat and watched this fountain, Robert? Don't you worry, he'll be there.”

Charles Danko stood up. He left behind the briefcase. “I thank you, Robert. You are doing something very brave. Something that only a small few will ever commend you for. Good luck, my friend. You're a hero today.” And you're serving my purpose as well.