Where the blood was thick and caked, he carefully soaked the area with wet paper towels, then blotted it dry, picking out every little piece.
Four hours later he had finished. Nothing.
Now for the shoes. He had saved the most likely hiding place for last.
Noon. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, a sandwich up in the mountains, and now the only substance inside his stomach was a dozen espressos. It felt like he’d drunk a pint of battery acid. No matter: he picked up the phone and ordered a triple espresso from room service, hot, hot.
He took the shoes out of a paper bag and set them on the coffee table. They were Chinese-made knockoffs of John Lobbs. Both were caked with hardened blood—Wu’s legs had been crushed. One shoe was horribly mangled and had been cut off the foot; the other was merely caked in gore. In the summer heat, they had already begun to smell.
Clearing a space, he examined the right shoe with the sweep kit. Nothing. A knock came on the door and he went outside—keeping the door mostly shut—took the coffee, tipped the bellhop, and drank it down with a single gulp.
Ignoring the boiling feeling in the pit of his stomach, he went back to work, taking the shoe apart, methodically, piece by piece, and labeling each with a felt-tipped pen. First the heel came off; then he unstitched the sole and detached it, laying the pegs and stitches in neat rows to one side. With the X-Acto blade, he unstitched all the leather pieces and laid them out. The heel was of leather, built up in layers, and he carefully separated each layer and laid them side by side. A second sweep revealed nothing. Still using the X-Acto knife, he split every piece of leather, examining both sides and sweeping them all again. Yet again, nothing.
He repeated the process on the other shoe without success.
Gideon packed everything away in ziplock bags, labeling each one, and then sorted and stacked it all into a large Pelican case he had bought for the purpose, locking it up tight. He leaned back in the chair. “Sink me,” he muttered exasperatedly. This was getting tedious. The thought of all the money Glinn had promised revived him a little.
Now for the inside work. It seemed unlikely, but he had to be thorough. But first: Music to Search Entrails By. Something a little more stretched out. He decided on Cecil Taylor’s Air .
He picked up a thick manila folder from the bedside table—the complete suite of ER X-rays, head to toe, to which he was entitled as Wu’s “life partner.” Pulling the shade off the lamp, he held up the first X-ray to the bulb and examined it with the loupe, inch by careful inch. The head, upper chest, and arms were clean, but when he came to the lower midsection his heart just about stopped: there was a small white spot indicating metal. He grabbed the loupe and examined it, and was immediately disappointed. It was indeed a fragment of metal, but nothing more than a twisted piece that had obviously gotten embedded in the car accident. It was not a microchip, or a tiny metal canister, or secret spy gizmo.
There was nothing in the stomach or intestinal tract indicating any sort of container, balloon, or storage device. Nothing in the rectum, either.
It horrified him to look at the X-rays of the legs. Embedded in them were more than a dozen bits of metal—all showing as irregular white spots, along with grayer pieces that he guessed were fragments of glass and plastic. The X-rays had been taken from several directions, and he was able to get a crude idea of the shape of each piece—and none of them even remotely resembled a computer chip, a tiny canister or capsule, or a magnetic or laser storage device.
He had a vision of the owlish man descending the escalators, frightened and peering about, small, serious—and courageous. For the first time Gideon considered the risk the man had taken. Why had he done it? It would be a miracle if the man ever walked again. If he even survived. At the
Four hours later he had finished. Nothing.
Now for the shoes. He had saved the most likely hiding place for last.
Noon. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, a sandwich up in the mountains, and now the only substance inside his stomach was a dozen espressos. It felt like he’d drunk a pint of battery acid. No matter: he picked up the phone and ordered a triple espresso from room service, hot, hot.
He took the shoes out of a paper bag and set them on the coffee table. They were Chinese-made knockoffs of John Lobbs. Both were caked with hardened blood—Wu’s legs had been crushed. One shoe was horribly mangled and had been cut off the foot; the other was merely caked in gore. In the summer heat, they had already begun to smell.
Clearing a space, he examined the right shoe with the sweep kit. Nothing. A knock came on the door and he went outside—keeping the door mostly shut—took the coffee, tipped the bellhop, and drank it down with a single gulp.
Ignoring the boiling feeling in the pit of his stomach, he went back to work, taking the shoe apart, methodically, piece by piece, and labeling each with a felt-tipped pen. First the heel came off; then he unstitched the sole and detached it, laying the pegs and stitches in neat rows to one side. With the X-Acto blade, he unstitched all the leather pieces and laid them out. The heel was of leather, built up in layers, and he carefully separated each layer and laid them side by side. A second sweep revealed nothing. Still using the X-Acto knife, he split every piece of leather, examining both sides and sweeping them all again. Yet again, nothing.
He repeated the process on the other shoe without success.
Gideon packed everything away in ziplock bags, labeling each one, and then sorted and stacked it all into a large Pelican case he had bought for the purpose, locking it up tight. He leaned back in the chair. “Sink me,” he muttered exasperatedly. This was getting tedious. The thought of all the money Glinn had promised revived him a little.
Now for the inside work. It seemed unlikely, but he had to be thorough. But first: Music to Search Entrails By. Something a little more stretched out. He decided on Cecil Taylor’s Air .
He picked up a thick manila folder from the bedside table—the complete suite of ER X-rays, head to toe, to which he was entitled as Wu’s “life partner.” Pulling the shade off the lamp, he held up the first X-ray to the bulb and examined it with the loupe, inch by careful inch. The head, upper chest, and arms were clean, but when he came to the lower midsection his heart just about stopped: there was a small white spot indicating metal. He grabbed the loupe and examined it, and was immediately disappointed. It was indeed a fragment of metal, but nothing more than a twisted piece that had obviously gotten embedded in the car accident. It was not a microchip, or a tiny metal canister, or secret spy gizmo.
There was nothing in the stomach or intestinal tract indicating any sort of container, balloon, or storage device. Nothing in the rectum, either.
It horrified him to look at the X-rays of the legs. Embedded in them were more than a dozen bits of metal—all showing as irregular white spots, along with grayer pieces that he guessed were fragments of glass and plastic. The X-rays had been taken from several directions, and he was able to get a crude idea of the shape of each piece—and none of them even remotely resembled a computer chip, a tiny canister or capsule, or a magnetic or laser storage device.
He had a vision of the owlish man descending the escalators, frightened and peering about, small, serious—and courageous. For the first time Gideon considered the risk the man had taken. Why had he done it? It would be a miracle if the man ever walked again. If he even survived. At the
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