“Take my card,” I said. “Just in case you change your mind.”
I gave it to him, and Sampson handed back the knife in the cardboard sheath. “You don’t need money for a call,” I said. “Just tell any cop on the street you want to talk to me. And stay out of trouble with that blade, okay?”
There was no good-bye, of course. He pocketed the knife and headed straight up D Street while we stood there watching him go.
“Talk to me, Sampson,” I said. “Are we thinking the same thing here?”
“I think we are,” he said. “He knows something. I’m just going to let him get around the corner first.”
“Sounds good. I’ll ask Siegel to finish up at the shelter. Then I want to get this Coke can over to the lab, see if it tells us anything.”
Our mystery man had just reached First Street. He turned left and continued on out of sight.
“All right, that’s my cue,” Sampson said. “I’ll call if there’s anything to tell.”
“Same here,” I said, and we split up.
Chapter 86
WALKING AWAY from the police detectives, Stanislaw Wajda could feel his heart still bucking in his chest. This wasn’t over yet. No. No. Not at all.
In fact, when he reached the corner and chanced a quick look back, they were still watching. They’d probably follow him, too.
It had been a mistake to run like that. It only made things worse. Now there was nothing to do but keep moving. Yes. Figure it out later. Yes.
The grocery cart was right where he’d left it, in an alcove at the back of Lindholm. You weren’t supposed to use the back door here. In fact, very few people seemed to even know about it.
The alcove was just big enough to tuck the cart away — out of sight of the street — when he couldn’t keep an eye on it himself. He pulled it out now and proceeded up the road, slowly and cautiously, but ready to run again if he had to.
It felt good to move. The walking eased his mind. And the sound of the cart rattling and shimmying over the sidewalk was a kind of white noise that blocked out the other sounds of the city. It created a space where he could think clearly and focus on his work, and what to do next.
Now, if he could just remember where he’d been when he left off.
Mersenne 44, was that it? Yes. That was it. Mersenne 44.r />
It came back slowly, shimmering into his mind as if out of the shadows, until he could see it clearly.
See it and speak it.
The words tumbled out of him when they came, but quietly, in nothing more than a mumble. Nothing anyone would overhear, just enough to help make the number real once again.
“Two to the thirty-two million, five hundred eighty-two thousand, six hundred and fifty-seventh,” he said.
Yes. That was it precisely. Mersenne 44. Yes. Yes. Yes.
He picked up his pace now and continued up the street without looking back again.
Chapter 87
IT WAS QUIET at the Fingerprint Analysis Section when I got there. The only person in the lab was one of the civilian staff, an analyst named Bernie Stringer who usually went by “Strings.” I could hear the heavy metal on his iPod blaring away while he worked.
“I hope that’s not priority!” he shouted, and then pulled out an earbud. “Narcotics is already kicking my ass here.” There were two full boxes of slides on the bench next to him.
“I just need some prints off of this,” I said, holding the Coke can up by the lip.
“Tonight?” he said.
“Yeah, actually. Now.”