A Danger to Himself and Others: Bomb Squad NYC Incident 1 (29 page)

Proceeding to his workshop, he packed a knapsack with four pounds of C4 and several blasting caps. He left the rest of the hardware, which he could more easily duplicate. He rushed to the dresser and stuffed some underwear, a few shirts, and a few pairs of socks inside the pack. Lastly he took his laptop computer and his small Dopp kit. He set the whole thing inside the workshop door and checked his watch. Forty-five minutes remaining.

From the workshop Manis grabbed the last, most important item. He had wrapped four blocks of C4 together in electrical tape and placed them in a wooden cigar box atop a spring-loaded switch, the nub of which protruded out a hole he’d cut in the bottom. Rigged also as a relay switch, the device included a pair of 9-volt batteries, which would decay in about six hours time. Guaranteed explosion.

Even if everyone managed to flee, he thought, at least he’d send a message to the cops about fucking with Warren Manis.

Between mattress and box spring, he slipped a one-by-six wooden board to provide the switch with firm resistance. He’d tested the spring a thousand times. It would take more than the weight of the mattress to set the switch, but not much more.

In a few minutes longer, everything lay hidden under the mattress except for a pair of protruding wires, waiting to be joined.

When he’d satisfied himself that all was in order, Manis retrieved his M9 pistol from under the kitchen sink and returned to his workshop. He burned the pictures from the wall in a metal trash bin, stuffed into his pockets a few of his favorite pieces of hardware, and said goodbye to his treasured machines. They were his friends, these machines, a friendship made more intimate by their secrecy and the countless hours he’d spent alone with them.

Because this had once been the foreman’s office to the factory floor, there was a side door that he could use if he had to escape quickly—if she brought the cops. He had two grenades in his pockets and the pistol. With his escape plan and the element of surprise, that should be enough to extricate himself if it came to that. But for now he contented himself with turning on the closed-circuit television and monitoring the cameras that covered his apartment entrance and the street.

KAHN WAITED ALONE IN A
response truck at a pull-off by the Henry Hudson Parkway. O’Shea gave a wave, but he took off as soon as Diaz got out of the Crown Vic.

“Where’s he going?” Kahn asked.

“Wants to be at the office if and when the break comes in.” Diaz followed the disappearing car with his eyes. Almost wistfully, Kahn thought.

“We need gas,” he said.

“I’ll drive,” Diaz volunteered.

They stopped at a service station on Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Kahn, having gotten a complete update from Diaz over the phone, knew exactly what the photo album resting on the dashboard was all about. Curious to see what this nurse had that got everyone so hot and bothered, he grabbed the album and leaned up against the hood of the response vehicle while Diaz went inside for snacks. Kahn had been in and out of the truck all day, and his back throbbed. He hoped he wasn’t getting sciatica again. He’d struggled with it a few years ago, could barely bend over, and began to fear he’d have to apply for disability. What was the point of disability if you couldn’t swing a golf club? Then, like a miracle, the pain had gone away on its own.

He set the album on the hood and stretched as he turned the pages. There was nothing of use in there and he half wondered why Diaz and O’Shea had bothered to take it. They were rushing about like headless chickens, chasing bombs, cleaning up the aftermath. No wonder they got on each other’s nerves sometimes. This work could test the patience of the Dalai Lama.

The pump clicked and Kahn topped off the tank and took a receipt. Diaz came out of the store chewing a candy bar, and Kahn climbed back into the truck, this time on the driver’s side, taking care to swing his legs around like the physical therapist had taught him.

Diaz lifted an eyebrow and waved a fresh Snickers bar. “Got this for you.”

“Not a good idea at my age.” Kahn patted his belly.

“Suit yourself.”

They rode in silence over to the West Side Drive and down. Then Diaz swallowed the last bite of his candy bar and said, “You think this is our guy?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Me, too. The combat engineer angle is dispositive.”

Kahn laughed. “Dispositive? You learn that when you looked up ‘procedure’ in the dictionary?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re right, though.”

“Part I wonder about is whether the nurse is an accomplice.”

“Or an accomplice after the fact.”

“You think she knows?”

“She suspects. She went to New York again so soon because you rattled her. Either she’s come here to confirm her suspicions or to confront him. Possibly both.”

“So you’re saying I done good?”

“You want a pat on the head, go to the lieutenant. He’s into that sort of thing. You ask me, a job well done should be its own reward, okay? I have a dog to worship me. You can get one, too. They give them to anyone these days.”

Diaz grinned. It had taken some time, but they were finally growing on each other.

“What about your wife and kids?”

“What about them?”

“They don’t worship you?”

Kahn rolled his eyes. “Ever have a wife, Diaz?”

“No.”

“If you had you wouldn’t ask that question.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. Just wanted to make sure I had you figured right.”

“Yeah, I’m a real enigma.”

“What is that?”

“Forget it. You ever come across the sappers while you were in combat?”

“All the time. They’re like us. They got a lot of respect for gadgets. Spend a lot of time with their equipment.”

“Suppose I would’ve guess that.”

“But they’re more rigid than we are.”

Kahn nodded, thinking,
Procedure.

“One thing I’ll say,” Diaz continued. “If they tell you they’re gonna drop a bridge, then they’re gonna drop a bridge. They won’t have to do it twice. They won’t skimp on the plastic.”

“Well, Manis already proved that he can put enough gum together to drop a person. Let’s hope he doesn’t have greater ambition.”

“Or the ordnance to see it through.”

They were passing the Lincoln Tunnel entrance. Neither of them associated the conversation about the bridge with blowing up this tunnel, another piece of critical infrastructure. You couldn’t live life while seeing everything around you as a potential target.

Kahn’s phone rang.
Finally!
O’Shea had the suspect’s address.

“I’m driving. Hold on.” Kahn passed the phone to Diaz and told him to write it down. As he listened to Diaz reading it back, he formulated a route. He’d shoot across Houston Street and take the FDR Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge, cut through Brooklyn Heights to Red Hook. He thought about what Diaz said about combat engineers and overkill. Maybe, he thought, against all odds they could close this thing down without any more casualties. He checked his rearview mirror before swinging into another lane and nearly missed crashing into a beat-up Korean church van.

Missed
being the operative word. It gave the man hope.

MANIS SAT ALERT AT THE
monitor for longer than he’d expected. Finally, he saw her coming from the street.
Alone.
That surprised him. Maybe he’d already beaten the horniness out of her. Or maybe Salinowsky was too freaked out to come.

He stuffed the M9 into his waistband and loosened his shirt over it. Just as Sallye walked through the front door he emerged from the workshop, leaving the door unlocked. Secrets didn’t matter anymore.

Upon seeing him she went pale.

“Surprise,” he said.

“Change of plans?”

It took her a moment to recognize him without the beard. Her eyes went to his mutilated hand, which gave it away. The clean shave was a profound change, but he could see that she didn’t want to indicate how much it unsettled her. She shirked her coat onto a chair and tried to play nonchalant but couldn’t manage to camouflage her nerves from him. If she hadn’t been hiding anything before, she surely was now. He’d have to remain alert.

She startled him by walking up and slapping him across the face. “That’s for earlier.”

He had to control himself so as not to reach for the gun. He stepped forward, his right hip to her left, as if they were going to tango, and pinched her between the legs.

“Ow!”

“Where were you?”

“I went out for a walk.”

“Seeking something?”

“Yeah. Peace and quiet. This has gone too far, Warren.”

He laughed derisively at that, went to the refrigerator and poured a glass of orange juice. “The nurse gets a taste of her own medicine. You can’t hurt me anymore, Sallye.”

“I never laid a hand on you. You’re the one who hits me all the time.”

“You insisted upon it. I’m not talking about physical hurt. I’m talking about the heart.”

“Poor baby.”

“You want me to hit you again, don’t you?”

“No.” She met his stare, but her voice grew tremulous. “You really hurt me, Warren, these last days. We have what they call a codependent relationship. It’s not healthy.”

“We’re way past that.”

She looked away. “You never should’ve killed those men.”

As she distracted herself, he stirred a fine powder into the juice. “You never should’ve teased me with them.”

“You could have asked me to stop.”

“I
begged
you to stop.” He stepped around the counter and back toward her. She flinched, but he only ran the fingers of his bad hand through her hair. The strands tickled his erogenous zone. He ran his tongue across her cut lips, which were rough with scabbing, then kissed her long and hard, harvesting a last taste to remember her by. She didn’t resist.

He said, “How many times did I tell you I didn’t want it this way? You kept pushing and pushing. Those men...their blood is on your hands.”

“I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear? I thought, deep down, you enjoyed it as much as I did.”

“When Salinowsky dies,
his
blood, too, will be on your hands, Sallye. Unless...” He left it hanging.

“What do you want from me, Warren?”

“I want to make love to you the old-fashioned way, like we once did. Like people in the suburbs. Regular people. Missionary-style. No screaming or hitting or telling stories.”

The thought of it made her tremble. “But we were never regular people. I was a girl and you were a man.”

“But we loved each other, didn’t we? All the way from Germany I followed you. Before that, all the way from Texas. And you encouraged me.”

“I was looking for something lost. But you’d become someone else.” She shook her head sadly, the deep truth now as exposed as his face was with the beard gone. “I thought I was the one who’d become a different person—who was all grown up. But that car accident…it really changed you, didn’t it?”

“I flew through the windshield. You ever fly through a windshield, Sallye?”

She shook her head again.

He touched the scar across his brow, ran a hand over his own jaw. “It’s hell on the visage, especially when you land on pavement.”

“I always wished you hadn’t lost that accent.”

“That education they sent me for while I recovered—becoming an engineer. They educated the Bronx out of me.”

“Say it. No atheists.”

“No ate-ee-ists in da fox-oles.”

“You sound just like him.”

“I never wanted to go back that far—revisit the man I was.”

“But I was trying to find him—or a replica—and all this while…” Now she fully accepted. Her jaw went slack. “Statutory rape means I never really chose it for myself. Ever since we got reacquainted in Germany you’ve been trying to make up for it. And ever since then, too, I’ve been determined to get that control back, though I never understood why.”

“I wanted to be kind to you, but you wouldn’t have it.”

“I’m addicted to the hurt.”

“And the hurting.”

“I see that now. Can we start again?”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m done now with my suffering. I earned my forgiveness a long time ago. Drink this, Sallye.” He handed her the orange juice concoction. “Drink it all up.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. I own you.”

“I was a girl when we met, Warren. You always owned me. I can’t change that, can I?” She went to take a sip and he grabbed her hair from behind, his good hand over her hand on the glass, tilting her open like a spout. She slobbered, but he got most of it down.

It changed her almost immediately. She was so small and the dose was large. In addition, the midazolam was fast-acting. The glass slipped from her hand and splintered on the floor.

“Take off your clothes, Sallye. You’ve been a bad girl.”

She was nearly limp. Through the broken glass she shuffled to the bed, but he stopped her.

“Not there. Not yet. Over here.” He pulled her toward his chest, lifted her turtleneck over her head. She was wearing no bra.

He laid her down on the floor, in the broken glass. It didn’t matter anymore. Her eyes were closed. It would all soon be over.

Quickly he pulled off her red sneakers and her socks. He undid her jeans and removed her underpants. She lay there unmoving. A wisp of flesh and bone. To lift her off the floor was nothing. He placed her with care on her back in the center of the bed, made a trip into the workshop, and emerged with four iron rings on plates, some thick nails and a hammer.

Using quick, short, expert strokes he nailed the plates to the wooden floor near each corner of the bed, tied her hands and ankles to each cotton rope so that she lay there spread-eagle. He could have his way with her like that for days, but all desire had left him. If only she’d loved him for who he’d become. He was better, after all. Better than the man he’d once been, the man who’d taken her innocence all those years ago.

He fetched a syringe from behind the toilet seat in the bathroom. It contained flumazenil, an antidote to the date-rape drug that he’d forced her to swallow. The veins in the fold of her arm were prominent. He made the injection and watched her eyelids shoot open. A moment later she was struggling against the restraints, arching her back.