The cold room

THIRTY-FOUR

I remember the rest of that evening as a succession of isolated scenes. First, the shock on Margaret Portola’s face — and the look of utter rapture on Ronald’s — when Adele enumerated the charges she intended to file against the woman: two counts of involuntary servitude; two counts of extortion; four counts of assault; one count of obstruction of justice; one count of tampering with evidence; one count of conspiracy.

Bill Sarney came next. As his annoyed tone made clear, Harry Corbin was the last person he wanted to hear from at eight o’clock on a Sunday night. But he didn’t shirk his duty. Damage control was in order.

It was Sarney who arranged to transport the prisoners, including Ronald, to the Fifth Precinct, Chinatown, in lower Manhattan, and it was Sarney who brought in an ADA named Wilson Bird. Bird was beyond accommodating and I had to assume that someone of considerably higher rank than Bill Sarney had cashed a marker with the Manhattan DA.

By the time I got David Portola in the box, I was resigned to the task at hand. I wanted to tell him that he’d already said too much, that hiring a lawyer to cut a deal was his one and only move. Instead, I listened to a confession that might better have been made to Father Manicki. Only David wasn’t after absolution. He wanted to dig a hole in which he could lay down and die.

I did my best to prevent this outcome by telling Wilson Bird that David had threatened to commit suicide, a fact I intended to document in my written report. Hopefully, the boy would be placed on a suicide watch and kept far away from the Rikers Island wolves. But you can never be sure with the Department of Corrections. DOC is a world onto itself, cultivating a level of secrecy that makes cops appear frank and open by comparison. Disregarding a simple request from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office was not beyond its capacities.

I carried David’s confession to Bill Sarney and Wilson Bird, who were huddled inside a small office. I nodded to Bird. ‘Give us a minute. The Inspector and I need to talk.’

‘Sure.’

I waited until the door closed behind him, then told Sarney about Zashka Ochirov and the other women. I needed Tynia Cernek, of course, to make a case against Margaret. Sarney was predictably suspicious, but I assured him that any and all would testify voluntarily, should their testimony become necessary. In the meantime, being as they’d lawyered up, it was better to keep them in the background. The last thing anybody wanted was publicity.

‘Look, between Zashka and the Portolas, you can put Aslan away for the rest of his life. If that doesn’t convince him to leave the country, nothing will. All you have to do is find him.’

Sarney stared at me for a long moment, but I only smiled. I wanted Aslan for myself and I think he knew it. As I knew that Hansen was running his own investigation on the side. Call it a friendly competition. Whoever finds Aslan first gets to take him into custody. And what fun that would be.

‘Okay, Harry, you’ve done what you said you were gonna do. You’ve handed me Aslan Khalid’s head on a platter. I have no complaints.’ Sarney dropped his butt to the edge of a desk. ‘Are you still considering my offer?’

‘It’s tempting, for a lot of reasons.’

‘Like?’

‘Like the rumors are gonna follow me for the rest of my life. I’ll never get back what I had. So why not become the First Dep’s rat? Why not accept the promotion and the pay raise that comes with it?’

Sarney grinned. ‘Well put, Harry. Why not?’

‘Because sooner or later, most likely sooner, you’ll ask me to do something that I won’t be able to do. Then what?’

‘Then we’ll deal with it.’

I had more to say, much more, but I froze when Adele cried out, froze with my mouth hanging open. Adele’s cry was closer to a moan than a scream, a cry of immense loss, a ghost’s cry. I had to gather up all my courage before I opened the door, and to step around Wilson Bird before I was able to see Adele. She was sitting on the floor tiles, her back slumped against the side of a desk, her tan slacks red with blood.

I knew, then, even as I gathered her up in my arms, as I followed Bill Sarney out the door and down to his car. I knew on the ride to Beekman Medical Center and when I was ordered to wait outside and when Bill Sarney came to sit next to me. I knew when Sarney left, at my insistence, an hour later. I knew when Doctor Morris called out my name. Morris wore blood-stained green scrubs and a white mask that hung around his neck.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but we couldn’t save the pregnancy.’

‘And Adele?’

‘She’s had a miscarriage. She’ll be out of here within a couple of days.’

Morris started to turn away, but I put my hand on his arm. ‘A boy or a girl? Which was it?’

‘A boy.’

Time and space. That’s what Adele claimed to need. But time to do what? Space to do what? I couldn’t get these questions out of my mind as I made my way down a long corridor. Adele was in room 2A and I ticked off the rooms as I went: 2G, 2F, 2E, 2D, 2C, 2B. Then I heard her, heard Adele. I heard her sobbing as I imagined David and Ronald must have sobbed, years ago, when they were utterly helpless, as I imagined Mynka sobbing when the cold began to penetrate her bones.

I rushed into the room, dropped to one knee by the side of the bed and took Adele’s hand. I didn’t know where any of this was going, but I felt an overwhelming need to protect her. That was impossible, of course. Nobody can be protected from an event that’s already happened. But if I couldn’t protect her, I could definitely avenge her.

Adele gripped my hand, but didn’t stop crying or look at me. Instead, she fixed her eyes on a bag of whole blood hanging from the arm of an IV pole. I wanted to tell her that we’d make it. I wanted to tell her that love would conquer all. But I was too old for that. Eventually, we’d file our grievances. And it would be all the worse if our conversation was polite.

‘Corbin?’

‘Yes.’

‘My IUD slipped. I didn’t become pregnant on purpose.’

This was one grievance that never crossed my mind. ‘I know that, Adele.’

‘I wanted to say it before you left.’

I rose to my feet when a nurse entered the room. She held up a syringe and said, ‘You’ll excuse us?’

I don’t know what the nurse gave her, but Adele was almost asleep when I returned. Her eyes fluttered when I entered her field of vision, but she didn’t really focus. I stood above the bed for a moment, staring down at her pale face, her hollow cheeks. I wanted to take her in my arms, carry her home, tuck her into her own bed. I wanted to care for her.

But I did nothing of the kind. I waited until she was asleep, then walked away.

It was raining hard when I turned onto North Third Street to find the front windows of Aslan’s apartment dark. I circled the block, to get a look at the rear windows, finding them dark as well. Finally, I parked the Nissan about fifty yards from the apartment and leaned back. A dog walker, a woman, was coming toward me from the other end of the block.

I don’t believe the woman spotted me, not even when she paused to let her drenched husky pee against my front tire. The wind had picked up and she was far too preoccupied with her striped umbrella. The umbrella was gigantic, wide enough to protect her legs, but nearly impossible to control in the wind. Meanwhile, the dog was pulling her down the street and her arms were extended in opposite directions. She looked like a Hong Kong traffic cop.

I waited for her to stumble off before retrieving the tension bar, then the snap gun, from my coat pocket. For the next few minutes, I rehearsed the sequence of actions that would unlock Aslan’s door. My aim was to be just another pedestrian hurrying home on a miserable September night. To that end, I would stand erect, with my head raised, close enough to conceal my hands while I worked on the lock. I would have to grope for the keyhole, to rely almost entirely on my sense of touch. If I’d been a little smarter, I’d have practiced in the dark. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, holding the tension bar between my fingers. The snap gun rested in my palm, the blade jutting out. This was the end of the game, the point of the exercise, what my life had been about since that July morning when I first came upon Mynka’s decaying body.

I opened my eyes, checked the mirrors, checked Aslan’s still-darkened windows, scanned the street ahead of me. The block was entirely deserted.

I didn’t hesitate. I walked directly up to Aslan’s door, glanced quickly down at the lock’s keyway, finally raised my head and let my fingers go to work. Fumbling just a bit, I slipped the tension bar into the bottom of the keyhole before applying torque. The snap gun’s blade followed, sliding in above the bar.

When I pulled the trigger, the blade shot up into the lower pins. Whatever noise it made was obliterated by rain and wind. But the lock stayed locked.

I pulled the trigger again, then again, then again, waiting for a slight release in the tension to indicate that the upper pins were trapped above the shear line. But there was no release and I had to fight the instinct to grab for my gun when a car turned onto the block. The car’s lights swept over my body as it approached, casting an elongated shadow across the face of the building, a shadow that steadily retreated, then disappeared as the vehicle passed me.

Despite my best intentions, I found myself holding my breath. Maybe Aslan coming home while I was standing in front of his door with my back turned was a long shot, but it was far from impossible. Meanwhile, the car didn’t slow down until it reached the stop sign at the end of the block. A moment later it was gone.

The pins lined up and the bolt retracted on my twelfth attempt. By that time, my legs were soaked, from mid-shin to ankle, and rainwater was streaming from my coat. I pushed the door open, stepped inside, glimpsing a narrow flight of stairs before closing the door and plunging the space into utter darkness.

I felt instantly reassured. Stairway, hall and door were windowless — Aslan would step into the same darkness (assuming he wasn’t asleep in his bed) when he returned to his apartment. If I positioned myself halfway up the stairs, I’d have him in my sights before he knew I was there. That was important because my raincoat was dripping water onto the linoleum floor and every step I took on those stairs would leave a puddle behind.

I retrieved my flashlight and flicked it on. About the size of a cigar, the flashlight was set to cast a very narrow beam. I ran that beam over the wall to my left, discovering a light switch. Good news. Aslan would reach for the switch with his left hand, while closing the door behind him with his right. The sequence would be automatic, leaving both hands far from any weapon he might have on his person.

It was a nice fantasy. Aslan opening the door, the light coming on to reveal Harry Corbin sitting on the stairs. I could even picture myself, coat open, weapon in hand, smiling my brightest gunslinger smile when I pressed that first button: ‘Yo, Aslan, what’s happenin’? I thought you’d never come home.’

I flicked the light switch, but nothing happened, hall and stairs remained as dark as ever. I was about to throw the switch a second time, then checked myself as I remembered Zashka’s warning; Aslan would kill me if he got the chance. Then I recalled something else she’d said. Faced with a mini-revolt, Aslan had once threatened to blow up the Eagle Street Warehouse with everyone in it. At the time, he’d also claimed the expertise to bring it off.

Surely, replacing the bulb at the head of those stairs, if it blew out on its own, would be one of those household chores that gets taken care of right away. Otherwise, you’d have to climb the stairs and find the lock with your key in total darkness. I widened the beam on the flashlight, examined the area at my feet, finally began to move forward. When I got to the stairs, I dropped to my knees before I began to climb. I was looking for a trip wire, or an electronic sensor that would mark my passing, perhaps set off an alarm, or something far worse. I didn’t find anything like that, just a series of painted wooden steps that rose to a landing barely wider than the door it fronted. Nevertheless, I checked the door carefully before turning my attention to the light fixture on the ceiling above my head. I could see the outline of a bulb through the frosted glass, but that didn’t tell me what I needed to know.

Rising onto my toes, I was just able to reach the light, to unscrew the pins holding the globe in place, to finally expose a single bulb. Gingerly, I took the bulb between my fingers and gave it a slight twist. It was loose in the socket, but I didn’t test it by screwing it down. Instead, I removed the bulb, then examined the filament, positioning the flashlight behind the bulb to maximize the contrast. The filament was perfectly intact and there was no carbon build-up on either pole.

I dropped the bulb into my pocket, next to the snap gun and the tension bar, then closed up the overhead fixture before turning to the door. By then, my brain was rocking along. Aslan’s home country was the place where booby-traps were perfected, especially as they applied to urban guerrilla warfare. According to the Russians, explosive devices of one kind or another were found in every third building when they re-took Grozny, along with a host of lesser goodies, like ceilings and floors rigged to collapse, and light bulbs filled with gasoline.

I sat down on the landing, my legs on the stairs, facing the door at the bottom of the steps. A little voice in my head was insisting that I stay the hell out of Aslan’s apartment. Do it just the way you said, this voice insisted. Wait for him on the stairs. Take him down the minute he steps through the door.

But there was another voice, too, a nasty little voice that whispered, Aslan killed your son. Over and over and over again.

Of one thing I was certain. The loose bulb was not some sort of trigger mechanism. Not unless Aslan had imagined me clever enough to check the bulb out, then stupid enough to screw it back down. There had to be another reason.

I sat there, in total darkness, until I thought I knew that reason. Then I got to work.

I wasn’t surprised to find the door unlocked, though I admit to a flash of bladder-clenching fear when the hinges squealed as it swung away from me. I was at the back of a long room, facing a narrow table set against a wall fifteen feet away. Light streamed into the apartment through a pair of windows and the room seemed well lit compared to the hallway. There was enough light, for instance, for me to pick out a shadow beneath the table, a shadow mounted flush to the wall. I could even see little pinpricks of light, so faint I might have imagined them, within the shadow.

But I wasn’t imagining the wires running from a light switch to my left, down to the floor, then out along the wall in both directions. To Aslan, the sequence must have seemed obvious. You climb those stairs in the dark, the first thing you’ll do, when you finally get into his apartment, is grope for that switch. The light at this end of the room, furthest from the windows in front, was extremely dim. It had to be, otherwise the shadow between the legs of the table would be revealed for the pound or so of plastic explosive it actually was. And that would ruin all the fun.

I leaned through the doorway and looked around. The space was large, easily fifteen-by-thirty, and sparsely furnished. The Chechen flag caught my eye first, just to the right of the rain-spattered windows. I couldn’t see the wolf’s eyes — the walls to either side of the window were in deep shadow — but I knew his gaze was as mean spirited as ever.

A worn leather sofa, an end table supporting a painted ceramic lamp, a small TV set on a rolling stand, and a coffee table littered with newspapers and DVDs were clustered before the windows. Along the near wall midway between where I stood and the windows, an open notebook computer, along with a stack of floppy disks and a small printer, rested on a metal desk.

Facing the desk, an L-shaped serving bar partitioned off a small kitchen, its metal sink piled with unwashed dishes. A pair of doors to my right led to interior rooms. The room closest to me was the bedroom, the one I’d looked through when I climbed the drainpipe. The second room was undoubtedly the bathroom.

I registered each of these items carefully, in search of anything out of order. When I was satisfied, I squatted down to examine the open spaces between the furnishings. I was looking for trip wires and the light was very dim, especially along the walls. But I kept at it, until I was sure I could enter the apartment without blowing myself all the way back to Manhattan. Then I stepped inside and took another survey, this one limited to the explosives, mounted six feet apart and six inches off the ground, on all four walls.

From close up, those pinpricks of light I’d observed when I first opened the door were obviously the heads of common nails. The nails had been pressed into bars of what looked like molded clay, the intention to shred the flesh of anyone caught in their path. But the nails were pure overkill. There was enough explosive material in that room to take out the building. If it went off, I wouldn’t live long enough for the nails to reach my body.

Still, I appreciated the theatrical touch; as I also appreciated the way Aslan had rigged the trap after I found a second set of wires, in addition to the wires leading from the light switch. These wires began at a DVD player positioned on the floor where the eastern wall of the building met the kitchen’s service counter. They ran the full length of the room and were connected (as were the wires from the light switch) to detonators on each of the little bricks fastened to the wall.

I stood over the DVD player for a moment, staring down, until I finally hit upon its purpose. Then I began a search of the room that ended when I found the Sony’s remote control next to the computer. Needless to say, I was careful not to press any of its buttons. Instead, I carried it to the door through which I’d come, back to the rigged light switch.

I’d had some formal training in the handling of explosives while I was in the military. Enough to know that Aslan had created a dual system. The explosives could be triggered by turning on the light switch or the DVD player, either one. Thus, an intruder, like myself, entering while Aslan was out, would be the immediate cause of his own death when he switched on the light. On the other hand, if I’d made an appearance while Aslan was at home, he’d literally have his finger on the button.

Still, there was a definite bottom line here: no current, no explosion.

I went into my pants pocket, removed a small folding knife, and opened the blade. I told myself that the remedy here was apparent. If there was a break in the wire, no circuit could be completed, no matter what you did with the switch. But despite all that macho bullshit about inviting Aslan to the dance, I couldn’t bring myself to cut those wires. My knowledge of explosives was limited. For all I knew, Aslan had rigged his bombs to explode when an already established circuit was broken. How he’d do it, given the simplicity of a light switch, was beyond me, but sometimes the consequences of a mistake are so great, it doesn’t matter how great the odds against it. I’d surveyed the apartment, done my job, and fulfilled my obligation to protect the public. Who would fault me if I waited on the stairs? I’d give the bomb squad a heads-up, of course. Right after I finished with Aslan.

Good thinking, no doubt, but my timing was awful because I was still standing there, looking down at the open blade of the knife, when the outside door opened and I heard raised voices in the downstairs hall. I was seconds away from a confrontation. I had to act.