"I did worse at Quantico," she said. "But that was a long time ago."
Reacher said, "It's only ten feet if you fall."
"Thanks." She turned around and backed up to the void. Reacher took her right hand in his and she sidled left and swung her left foot and left hand onto the ladder. Got steady and let Reacher's hand go and paused a beat and climbed down into the dark. The ladder bounced and rattled a little and then he heard the crunch and rustle of trash as she hit bottom and stepped off.
"It's filthy down here," she called.
"Sorry," he said.
"There could be rats."
"Use the flashlight."
"Will that scare them off?"
"No, but you'll see them coming."
"Thanks a lot."
He leaned in over the pit and saw her flashlight beam stab the gloom. She called, "Where am I going?"
"Head for the front of the building. Directly underneath the door."
The flashlight beam leveled out and established a direction and jerked forward. The basement walls had been whitewashed years before with some kind of lime compound and they reflected a little light. Reacher could see deep drifts of garbage everywhere. Paper, cartons, piles of unidentifiable rotted matter.
Pauling reached the front wall. The flashlight beam stabbed upward and she located the door above her. She moved left a little and lined herself up directly beneath it.
"Look down now," Reacher called. "What do you see?"
The beam stabbed downward. Short range, very bright.
"I see trash," Pauling called.
Reacher called, "Look closer. They might have bounced."
"What might have bounced?"
"Dig around and you'll see. I hope."
The flashlight beam traced a small random circle. Then a wider one. Then it stopped dead and held steady.
"OK," Pauling called. "Now I see. But how the hell did you know?"
Reacher said nothing. Pauling held still for a second longer and then bent down. Stood up again with her hands held high. In her right hand was the flashlight. In her left hand were two sets of car keys, one for a Mercedes Benz and one for a BMW.
Chapter 50
PAULING WADED THROUGH the garbage back to the base of the ladder and tossed the keys up to Reacher. He caught them one-handed, left and then right. Both sets were on chrome split rings and both had black leather fobs decorated with enamel car badges. The three-pointed Mercedes star, the blue and white BMW propeller. Both had a single large car key and a remote clicker. He blew dust and fragments of trash off them and put them in his pocket. Then he leaned in over the void and caught Pauling's arm and hauled her off the ladder to the safety of the alley. She brushed herself down and kicked the air hard to get trash off her shoes.
"So?" she said.
"We're one for one," he said.
He closed the dull red door and put his arm back through the hole in the window glass and hugged the wall again and clicked the lock from the inside. Extricated himself carefully and tested the knob. It was solid. Safe.
"This whole thing with the mail slot was a pure decoy," he said. "Just a piece of nonsense designed to distract attention. The guy already had keys. He had spares from the file cabinet in Lane's office. There was a whole bunch of car stuff in there. Some of the valet keys were filed away and some of them were missing."
"So you were right about the time."
Reacher nodded. "The guy was in the apartment above the cafe. Sitting on the chair, looking out the window. He watched Gregory park at eleven-forty and watched him walk away but he didn't follow him down here to Spring Street. He didn't need to. He didn't give a damn about Spring Street. He just came out his door and crossed Sixth Avenue and used the valet key from his pocket. Immediately, much closer to eleven-forty than midnight."
"Same thing with the blue BMW the second morning."
"Exactly the same thing," Reacher said. "I watched the damn door for twenty minutes and he never came anywhere near it. He never even came south of Houston Street. He was in the BMW about two minutes after Gregory got out of it."
"And that's why he specified the cars so exactly. He needed to match them with the stolen keys."
"And that's why it bugged me when Gregory let me into his car that first night. Gregory used the remote thing from ten feet away, like anyone would. But the night before the other guy didn't do that with the Mercedes. He walked right up to it and stuck the key in the door. Who does that anymore? But he did, because he had to, because he didn't have the remote. All he had was the valet key. Which also explains why he used the Jaguar for the final installment. He wanted to be able to lock it from the other side of the street, as soon as Burke put the money in it. For safety's sake. He could do that with the Jaguar only, because the only remote he had was for the Jaguar. He inherited it at the initial takedown."
Pauling said nothing.
Reacher said, "I told Lane the guy used the Jaguar as a taunt. As a reminder. But the real reason was practical, not psychological."
Pauling was quiet for a second more. "But you're back to saying there was inside help. Aren't you? And there must have been, right? To steal the valet keys? But you already discounted inside help. You already decided there wasn't any."
"I think I've got that figured."
"Who?"
"The guy with no tongue. He's the key to the whole ballgame."
Chapter 51
PAULING AND REACHER trooped back through the chocolate shop and were back on the street before eight-thirty in the morning. They were back in Pauling's office on West 4th before nine.
"We need Brewer now," Reacher said. "And Patti Joseph."
"Brewer's still asleep," Pauling said. "He works late."
"Today he's going to work early. He's going to get his ass in gear. Because we need a definitive ID on that body from the Hudson River."
"Taylor?"
"We need to know for certain it's Taylor. I'm sure Patti has got a photograph of him. I bet she's got a photograph of everyone who ever went in or out of the Dakota. If she gave a good clear shot to Brewer he could head for the morgue and make the ID for us."
"Patti's not our best buddy here. She wants to take Lane down, not help him."
"We're not helping him. You know that."
"I'm not sure Patti sees the difference."
"All we want is one lousy photograph. She can go that far."
So Pauling called Patti Joseph. Patti confirmed that she had a file of photographs of all Lane's men stretching back through the four years that she had occupied the Majestic apartment. At first she was reluctant to grant access to it. But then she saw that a positive ID of Taylor's body would put some kind of pressure on Lane, either directly or indirectly. So she agreed to pick out the best full-frontal and put it aside for Brewer to collect. Then Pauling called Brewer and woke him up. He was bad-tempered about it but he agreed to pick up the picture. There was an element of self-interest there, too. ID on an as-yet-unexplained DOA would net him some NYPD Brownie points.
"Now what?" Pauling asked.
"Breakfast," Reacher said.
"Do we have time? Lane is expecting a name today."
"Today lasts until midnight."
"What after breakfast?"
"Maybe you'll want to take a shower."
"I'm OK. That basement wasn't too bad."
"I wasn't thinking about the basement. I figured we might take coffee and croissants back to your place. Last time we were there we both ended up taking showers."