Iron Orchid

FORTY-TWO

A WEEK PASSED, and Holly and Ty went to Lance’s office to present their report. Lance and Kerry Smith waved them to a seat.

Holly set a flat-screen monitor on Lance’s desk and placed the wireless laptop associated with it at a corner where she could easily access the keyboard.

“Here’s what we’ve done,” she said, tapping some keys. The screen filled with passport-sized photographs of men in their late middle years. “We took eight hundred and forty-one digital photographs of men on the Lexington Avenue subway between the apparent ages of fifty-five and seventy-five. We eliminated slightly more than half, because they weighed too much and their faces were too full. Then I personally went through all the remaining photographs and eliminated all the men I felt could not possibly be our guy. I know this is subjective, but I’m the only one who’s actually set eyes on the man, even if he was disguised. We finished up with two hundred and ninety-two possible Teddy Fays, and we transmitted their photographs to Langley, specifically to the Technical Services division, where they were reviewed by a couple of dozen employees who had worked with Teddy or, at least, had seen him several times a week. The result is that not one of them identified a single photograph as Teddy Fay.”

Kerry looked at the ceiling, and Lance sighed.

“I took the additional step of ordering another sketch of Teddy, which was seen and commented on by all the people who had looked at the photographs, and here is the result” She placed a sketch on Lance’s desk.

Lance and Kerry looked at the sketch for a long time.

“It’s Larry David,” Lance said, finally.

“We’ve heard about the resemblance before,” Ty said.

“It’s useless,” Kerry said. “Unless we were looking for Larry David.”

“He’s too bland,” Lance said, “too devoid of distinguishing features: no prominent nose, no beetle brows, no scars, no buck teeth.”

“What can I tell you?” Holly said. “Teddy Fay is the Sir Alec Guinness of serial murderers. He’s a nearly blank canvas upon which he can stick prosthetics and hair and become somebody else.”

“So we can’t post him on the ten-most-wanted list,” Kerry said. “We can’t call ‘America’s Most Wanted’ and nail him that way. It would never work, and we’d get thirty thousand phone calls from all over the country from people who think it’s their Uncle Harry or Larry David.”

“This is why I’m not a police officer,” Lance said glumly. “Or why I wasn’t until now. Being a spy was a lot more fun.” He turned and looked at Holly. “I don’t want you to feel badly about this,” he said. “It was a good idea, and it was worth the manpower; it just didn’t pan out; we weren’t lucky enough.”

“Any more ideas?” Kerry asked hopefully.

Holly looked at her feet. “Well…”

“What?” Lance asked. “Say it.”

“There was this one thing that happened in the subway, at the Sixty-third Street Station.”

“What?” Kerry demanded.

“As the train pulled into the station, I caught a glimpse of a man I’ve seen in my neighborhood. I don’t know his name, but I’ve sort of bumped into him a couple of times, and he fits the description. What makes me think of him is that he was standing on the platform when the car I was on passed, but he didn’t get on the train. I looked through all the other cars for him, but he wasn’t on the train.”

“Why do you think he didn’t get on?” Lance asked.

“I think he may have seen me,” Holly replied. “I didn’t make eye contact with him, but if he’s Teddy Fay, he knows me from the opera. Maybe he saw me on the train and balked.”

“That makes sense,” Kerry said. “God knows the guy has good instincts. If he saw someone on the train whom he knew to be CIA or FBI, that would be enough to keep him off it.”

“Maybe he even guessed what we were doing,” Lance said. “Does he know where you live, Holly?”

“The first time I saw him was when I was coming out of my building,” Holly said.

“Well, if he saw you arriving at the Sixty-third Street station on the train, and he knows that’s the one nearest your building, and you didn’t get on there or get off, maybe he put it together.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have gotten onto the trains myself,” Holly admitted. “It was such shitty duty that I thought I ought to share it with the others.”

“The first thing you have to get used to when you’re supervising people, Holly, is handing people shitty assignments without pity,” Lance said. “From now on, I don’t want you on any surveillance detail of any of the potential victims we’re watching. I don’t want Teddy to spot you in a car or on a street, except where you live.”

“All right,” Holly said. “But what can I do around here?”

“Consider yourself reassigned as my assistant. Ty, we’ll find you another partner.”

Ty nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“The only time I want you to be seen by Teddy is in your own neighborhood-at your building, walking Daisy in the park, shopping, that sort of thing. Clear?”

“Yes, Lance.”

“We should have Holly followed at those times,” Kerry said.

“Right,” Lance agreed. “I want a team of four on Holly every time she leaves her apartment building. I want them well back from her, constantly changing places, and I want the team changed twice a day. Holly, I want you to carry your cell phone with an earpiece in your head at all times. Program the team number into it so that you can call them if you spot your man. I don’t want you to be seen using the cell phone, and don’t move your lips when you talk. This guy spooks easily, and we don’t want to cause him the slightest anxiety.”

“Okay,” Holly said.

Kerry spoke up. “And if you literally run into him, be nice, let him pet Daisy, but don’t attempt to engage him in more than perfunctory conversation; don’t be interested in him, got it?”

“Got it,” Holly said.

“On the other hand,” Lance said, “if he appears to have an interest in you, don’t put him off. Behave the way you did at the opera; just don’t go overboard or appear too curious about him. Is he someone who, in the normal course of your life, you might find attractive?”

“No, not really, though I liked him at the opera. I wouldn’t want to fuck him, if that’s what you mean.”

Lance looked chastened. “I wasn’t suggesting that you should. What I meant was, if a mutual attraction seemed natural, you might exploit that to your advantage, but if not, don’t fake it.”

“I understand.”

“Can I be on the team?” Ty asked.

“No,” Kerry said. “If he saw Holly on the train, he might have seen you, too, and your presence would spook him immediately. We have this little advantage that he’s seen Holly on the street before, so it won’t alarm him to see her on the street again.”

“Will you bust him immediately, if I see him?” Holly asked.

“No. We’ll have the team get in touch with Kerry or me for that decision. They’ll tail him from a distance and report it if he goes into a building. I want to know where he lives and where he does his work. He has to have some sort of workshop somewhere, either in his home or nearby, and the equipment, weapons, disguises, etcetera, that we might find there would be very useful in prosecuting him. This guy might have an identity so tight that we might have trouble breaking it in court. We’re going to need all the ammunition we can get. Remember, we don’t have photographs, fingerprints or DNA to work with.”

“Right,” Holly said. “How do you want me to proceed?”

“Do you bring Daisy to work with you every day?”

“No, just sometimes.”

“On the occasions when you don’t, you go home to walk her?”

“Yes, I go home at lunchtime. She only needs walking once after I go to work, then when I come home again.”

“Start having lunch at home and walking Daisy then. When you’re off duty, take her with you when you leave the house. We want it to be easy for Teddy to spot you.”

“All right.” Holly groped for words.

“What?”

“What about my… personal life?”

Lance looked sympathetic. “If there are times when you don’t want a team on you, let me know, and I’ll pull them. If you should run into Teddy then, you can always call it in.”

“Thank you, Lance.” Not that she had a personal life, but she was still thinking about Stone Barrington.

Lance looked at his watch. “Give me fifteen minutes to get a team together, then go home to lunch.”