The Steel Shark

Chapter 26

Vivian went up the elevator with Edison. She’d decided to go out with him on his walk with Andres Peterson. She wasn’t doing anyone any good down at Tesla’s house. He’d been on the computer the entire day yesterday, and today looked like it would be more of the same.

Andres stood outside the information booth in a pair of paint-spattered leather pants and a bright white T-shirt. He definitely looked like the artist he was.

“Hello, Mr. Edison!” He crouched down, and Edison launched himself at the man, tail wagging furiously. Edison was a bouncy and exuberant dog without his service vest.

“I’ll be coming along,” Vivian said. “If that’s OK.”

“I was thinking of Central Park,” Andres said. “First, we walk to the park, and then we run around inside looking for squirrels to chase.”

“Sounds like a great afternoon.”

“Every afternoon is great if you have a dog.” Andres took the leash, and they walked across the polished marble to the 42nd and Park exit.

After they crossed the street, she looked back at Grand Central’s lovely entrance topped by the winged statue of Hermes. Tesla might never see this view again. She and Andres had stepped out through the door like it was nothing, but Tesla hadn’t been able to do that for a long time. Now he wasn’t even able to haunt the tunnels.

Dirk was right that she didn’t want to trade places with Tesla, even if she could have. Maybe he was right about other things. Maybe she ought to step back, accept the new jobs Mr. Rossi had lined up, and get back outside.

“How is Mr. Tesla?” Andres asked.

“Fine.” He’d awoken at the crack of dawn and been glued to his computer ever since. He hadn’t showered or eaten. She wasn’t even sure he’d noticed when she left with the dog.

“Not so fine, I’m thinking.”

She shrugged. She wasn’t going to divulge any information about a client, even to his other employees.

“I heard that Miss Maeve and he have parted company.”

Vivian had heard that, too, from Dirk. “Maybe.”

Andres dropped the subject, and they enjoyed a long romp in the park. Edison chased his tennis ball, sniffed for squirrels, and made friends with a giant Schnauzer named Jake. He and Jake wrestled on the ground, play-growling, until Jake had to go home.

“You’re quiet.” Andres flopped down on the grass next to her. A strand of blond hair fell across his forehead.

“Edison has a second life with you.”

“I try to give him things to sniff, dogs to meet, and a long run.” Andres lay flat on his back and looked up at the sky. His eyes were an extraordinary shade of blue. “Dogs need such things.”

She wished Tesla could see Edison now. “So do people.”

“Is Mr. Tesla happy down there?” Andres asked. “I know he can’t come out to play like Edison, but these past days seem worse. I haven’t even seen him.”

She wasn’t sure how to answer.

“See that cloud?” He pointed south. “It looks like a hen with little chicks.”

She looked where he was pointing, but didn’t see the cloud.

“Put your head where mine is.” He rolled to the side.

She positioned herself where he’d been. A cloud hen with a raised comb and sharp beak came into focus. Smaller clouds around the hen’s feet looked like chicks. How long had it been since she’d lain in the grass and watched the clouds?

“You pick a cloud. Tell me what you see,” Andres said.

Edison dropped the wet tennis ball on Andres’s chest and collapsed between them as if he wanted to look at the clouds, too. She felt like the dog was somehow cheating on Tesla. That she was cheating on him, too.

“I need to be getting back.” She sat up and dusted grass off her shirt.

“Just a few clouds,” Andres said. “Then maybe a coffee after?”

Was he flirting with her? If so, he was doing an admirable job. He looked adorable with the dog next to him, grass in his wind-blown hair, and a smile with dimples.

She leaned back and pointed at the sky. “That looks like a sailing ship.”

“I see the sails and even some rigging.” Andres had moved his head next to hers.

“And that’s a giant kraken underneath trying to sink it.” She wanted to keep him there, talking.

“Or a wave buoying the ship up, moving it along to its destination.”

It did look more like a wave than a kraken. “The optimistic version.”

“What harm is there in that?” He laughed. “Gloominess is not to be courted lightly. The sun, the sky, they are bigger than that.”

She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but it sounded good.

“That cloud will turn a delicious shade of pink soon, when the sun decides to rest for the day. Shall we wait for it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s wait.”

It was dark by the time they got back to Grand Central. Even though she’d offered to take Edison back on her own, Andres had insisted on coming, and she hadn’t put up much of a fight.

“My art opening, you will come?” Andres asked. “In a fancy dress to entice buyers in off the street to look at the art?”

“I’ll come.” She walked down the corridor toward Vanderbilt Hall and loosened the strap on her cast. “Can’t guarantee any enticing.”

“If you come,” he said, “the enticing will take care of itself.”

From anyone else that would have sounded corny, but for Andres it worked. Maybe it was the accent.

Edison tugged at the leash, practically dragging them back into the main concourse with its starry ceiling.

“He wants to see his master, don’t you, boy?” Andres crooned.

He sounded good when he crooned.

They had almost reached the round information booth that led to the elevator to Tesla’s home when something brushed her casted arm.

Edison jumped into the air and hit her hard in the chest. She fell right onto her ass. Her casted arm hurt when she landed. An open-mouthed Andres looked down at her.

She rolled to the side, reaching for her gun. Edison didn’t knock people around for no reason. She scanned the huge room. A few people looking at her in surprise, a few more walking by like nothing had happened, and a man leaning against the wall playing with his phone. Nothing suspicious.

“Are you injured?” Andres helped her up by her good arm.

“I’m fine.”

A crunching sound came from Edison’s mouth as if he had a spring in there. He spat something out onto the marble.

“You naughty dog.” Andres shook his finger at Edison and bent over the pile of dog spit. His face changed, and he scooped the wet object up with a handkerchief and pushed her toward the information booth so fast she almost fell over.

“Inside,” he said. “We must get inside.”

Evaline saw them coming and had the door open before they even got there. Andres closed the door when they were barely through.

“Are you OK, Miss Torres?” Evaline asked.

“Fine.” Vivian watched Andres.

He was looking out through the glass like he expected to see an army. She looked, too. Nothing unusual.

“What’s going on?” Vivian asked.

“Into the elevator,” he said. “We talk there.”

Evaline looked like she wanted to know what was going on, too, but she only said, “Give my best to Mr. Tesla.”

“Will do.” Vivian barely had time to answer. Andres rushed her down the hatch and the spiral stairs to the elevator.

Once they were inside the elevator’s cage and moving down, he took the handkerchief out of his pocket. “This thing. I have seen something like it before.”

She studied the wet object laid out on the white cotton: a collection of tiny gears, microchips, and something that looked like plastic wrap. “What is it?”

“First, we go to Mr. Tesla’s Faraday cage.”

“OK.” How did he even know what a Faraday cage was? He was supposed to be a simple artist and dog walker.

He gave Edison a treat out of his pocket. “You’re a good boy. A smart boy.”

Edison wagged his tail.

She examined her cast where the object had touched her. The cast didn’t look any different.

Officer Chan and Officer Fitzgerald met them at the elevator door. Chan had experience — a few white hairs threaded through his black hair, and he was careful about his job. Fitzgerald was his opposite — young and ready to jump. Parker was the only one unaccounted for. He was another bodyguard from Mr. Rossi’s office. He was probably inside with Tesla.

“Hello, Miss Torres,” said Fitzgerald. “And Mr. Peterson. Did you have a good walk?”

Chan stepped inside to wedge the elevator lever in its down position so no one could call it back up to the concourse.

“Fine,” Vivian said.

“Let’s go see your master.” Andres unclipped Edison’s leash.

The dog trotted off toward Tesla’s crazy underground house. She’d initially liked the Victorian house and had loved its new garden, but she’d gotten heartily sick of it in the past few days. She didn’t know how Tesla could stand it cooped up down here. Because he had to, her mother’s voice said. People do what they have to do.

She and Andres followed the dog. Once they got to the red front door, they knocked, as per protocol. Parker let them in. He must have sensed something was up, because he tensed.

“Weird but no immediate danger,” she told Parker.

“Another ordinary day,” Parker said.

Andres went into the house, marched down the hall, and entered Tesla’s billiard room. Soon after he moved in, Tesla had built a Faraday cage in there. The cage was made of a fine mesh and covered the walls, floor, and ceiling, designed to keep out electronic signals, not that there were many down here in the middle of nowhere. She’d always thought it a paranoid indulgence, but maybe she’d been too hasty.

“Mr. Tesla!” Andres called.

Tesla came down the stairs with Edison. At least he’d showered since she’d left. Hopefully, he’d even eaten. He looked distracted.

Andres set the handkerchief in the middle of the table. “Your fine dog snatched this off Miss Torres’s arm and broke it.”

Tesla was already bent over the collection of parts.

The officers had crowded into the room, but they didn’t say anything.

“What is it?” Vivian couldn’t take it anymore.

“A spy robot, I think,” Andres said. “But I’ve never seen one this small before.”

Tesla pointed at the mishmash of metal and dog slobber. “It has a stinger that leads to a small compartment. It doesn’t look like it was broken open. Was anyone stung?”

Andres went pale. He’d picked it up and carried it like it was nothing.

“Poison?” Vivian asked. “It might have poison in it?”

“Might.” Tesla reached down and petted Edison. He checked the dog’s eyes and mouth and put his head against the dog’s chest as if to listen to his breathing or heartbeat. “Edison seems fine.”

Tesla took pictures from several angles, then lifted the object and put it in a mini-Faraday bag he sometimes used for his phone. He must be worried the object was still transmitting, but hard to imagine that after the dog had smashed it.

“So, was anyone stung?” Tesla repeated.

“It landed on my cast. But not my skin. Edison got it pretty quickly.”

“How did the dog know it was dangerous?” asked Parker.

Tesla examined the dog. Edison looked healthy as ever, but Vivian worried. “Maybe he smelled the poison. After my poisoning a few months ago, he and I have worked on training him to respond when something smells off.”

Tesla and Andres examined her cast. Tesla even retrieved an antique magnifying glass with a silver handle from one of his bookshelves, and they passed the lens back and forth.

“There’s no hole. It didn’t sting you,” Andres finally said, sounding as relieved as she felt.

Tesla wiped her cast off thoroughly with a wet washcloth, bagged the cloth, and added it to the Faraday bag.

She ran her fingers over her cast. Nothing there.

“I’ll need an analysis of this.” Tesla handed the Faraday bag to Fitzgerald. The guy took it in one freckled hand, but he looked thoroughly confused. “Have them check the stinger for poison, and be very careful with it.”

When no one was looking, she touched her cast where the creature had landed. Maybe Maeve was right. Maybe Tesla was a danger magnet.

Fitzgerald broke into her musings. “I’ll take the bag up. We’ve called for a new officer to replace me. Officer Khan.”

“I’ll come up with you,” Vivian said. “I want to check something.”

Back into the old elevator they went. Fitzgerald looked nervously at the chandelier suspended from the ceiling. “I always wonder if this thing is going to stop working and I’ll be trapped here until someone digs down to retrieve my desiccated corpse.”

A bucket of joy, this guy. “It might be better than whatever poison is in that bug in your hand.”

He started and looked down at the bag. It really wasn’t nice to tease him. Her mother wouldn’t have approved.

“Do you think there are more of these little buggers?” he asked.

“I do.” She wasn’t really sure, but the prudent thing to do was to act like there were, which was why she was in the elevator.

They reached the top, climbed the stairs, and came out into the information booth.

Evaline blocked their way out with her round form. “A minute, if you please, Miss Torres.”

“Just the woman I want to see,” Vivian said.

Fitzgerald’s light blue eyes stared into the concourse like it was full of killer bugs. Maybe.

“I don’t know exactly what happened out there with you and the dog.” Someone came up to Evaline’s counter, and she held up one finger to tell them to wait.

Vivian had never seen her do something like that. Evaline never let anyone wait a second longer than necessary. This was going to be good.

“Don’t look,” Evaline said. “But at my three o’clock is a man really focused on his phone.”

She saw the guy out of the corner of her eye. Officer Fitzgerald looked down at the bag in his hand.

“He’s been in the concourse off and on for the past few days, always just staring at his phone, but he never goes down to take a train,” Evaline continued. “I notice things like that. It keeps my job interesting.”

“And?” Officer Fitzgerald said.

“Just before Edison knocked you over, Miss Torres, he looked right at you. Then, during the confusion when you looked like you were going to shoot someone, he was the only person who didn’t seem surprised.”

“Maybe he just likes his phone games,” Officer Fitzgerald said.

“Maybe,” Evaline said. “But he’s still there, and you’ve been down there awhile. And every so often, he takes a look around above everyone’s heads, like he’s looking for someone really tall.”

Or something that flew.

“Thank you,” Vivian said. “We’ll look into it.”

Fitzgerald dropped the Faraday bag into his inside jacket pocket. “You’re a civilian.”

“Right. So you can’t tell me what to do.”

“I’ll handle it,” he said. “No need for you to get involved.”

“This guy might be staking out Tesla, and he might have tried to kill me. I’m involved.”

“OK,” Fitzgerald said. “The important thing is we get him.”

“We split up when we leave the booth. I’ll break left, you go right.”

“Keep your firearm holstered,” he said. “Grant me that much.”

In answer, she gave Evaline a quick smile and headed for the door.

“Good-bye!” she called over her shoulder to make onlookers assume she and Fitzgerald were just splitting up to go their different ways. Then she shut the door quickly in case a bug robot was trying to get in. She wasn’t going to put Evaline in danger.

She hadn’t looked directly at Evaline’s guy yet. Oblique glances told her he looked like the Avenger of Blood. Tesla had said, in describing him, He’s what we in facial recognition call an exceedingly ordinary-looking man — medium height, straight black hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing characteristics. He has the kind of face people forget.

He slouched against a tan wall with his eyes glued on his phone. Nothing out of the ordinary. Was that camouflage, or was he using the phone to control the flying robots? That seemed like his MO — first the flying drone at the party, and then the bug that tried to sting her.

Take out the phone first.

Or at least that was the plan. A group of girls in silver and black cheerleading uniforms burst through the door and ran right in front of her. She was enveloped in a sea of perfume and ponytails and gray makeup. They weren’t just cheerleaders — they were zombie cheerleaders.

Fitzgerald was coming up on Phone Guy, and she wasn’t in a position to back him up. That was probably Fitzgerald’s plan all along.

Fitzgerald didn’t even reach the guy before he stumbled and hit the floor. Had he been stung?

The nearest exit was behind her, and Phone Guy sprinted toward it. He hadn’t noticed her with her hot teen camouflage. She elbowed through the zombie pack, stuck out her foot, and tripped Phone Guy as he sailed past. All those hours looking for this criminal mastermind, and she’d tripped him like a bully in the schoolyard. Sometimes better to be lucky than smart.

He went down hard, and she landed with her knee in his back. She smashed his hand against the marble. She couldn’t let him hold on to that phone. He twisted sideways and tried to keep ahold of it, which made her even more determined. She whacked his hand against the floor harder, and the phone slid across the polished marble. She hoped nobody stole it, but didn’t have time to think about that.

The guy bucked around, but she kept him pinned. She had to get him subdued before he remembered she had only one strong arm. She went for one arm and yanked it back. That was a start.

As soon as she pulled his arm across his back, he gasped in pain and went limp. A shoulder injury. She eased off a fraction, but not much. He was a dangerous guy, and she wasn’t taking any chances.

“Do you want to cuff him?” Fitzgerald dangled handcuffs in her face.

“Can’t,” she said. “I only have one arm.”

“Right.” Fitzgerald dropped down next to her and cuffed the guy’s hands behind his back. Then he started patting him down.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“I thought I saw a bug.” Fitzgerald hadn’t come up with anything, even a wallet. “And when I slapped at it, I went ass over teakettle.”

“It’s a slippery floor,” she said.

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind her ear.

She turned. A zombie cheerleader with plastic brains stuck to the front of her sweater held out a gray hand.

“Everything’s OK.” Vivian hoped the girl wasn’t going to panic. She didn’t want to deal with a hysterical teenager.

“I know.” The cheerleader handed her a cell phone. “I think your suspect there dropped this.”

Not the panicking type, this zombie.

“Thank you.” Vivian took the phone gingerly, not wanting to add any more fingerprints to the surface.

The cheerleader shook a raggedy black pompon.

“Go, team!” she said before turning and rejoining her pack. They waved to Vivian and Fitzgerald and the guy on the ground before heading down toward the food court, presumably in search of brains.

Fitzgerald hauled the guy to his feet. Phone Guy had no expression on his face, like this kind of thing happened to him all the time. Maybe it did, although she suspected he didn’t often get caught.

“I want a lawyer,” he said in unaccented English. “I know my rights.”

Fitzgerald shrugged.

She looked at the phone. Its screen displayed a bug’s-eye view of the concourse. Four white arrows were on the bottom of the screen. It couldn’t be as easy as that. Could it?

Clumsily, she worked the arrows. The view changed and started moving closer, careening around like the drone was drunk. Her sister, Lucy, would have been horrified at her remote-control incompetence. Even so, within a few minutes she’d guided the little fly to a shaky landing on the floor next to her.

Fitzgerald plucked the fly up and dropped it into his Faraday bag next to its smashed-up companion.

She went over to thank Evaline.