night to meet a filing deadline or a court date. Batten Schechter’s attorneys rarely soiled their hands with anything so vulgar as a public trial. This was a sedate, dignified firm that specialized in trusts and estates and the occasional litigation, always resolved in quietly vicious backroom negotiations, perhaps a word whispered in the ear of the right judge or official. It was like growing mushrooms: They preferred to work out of the light of day.
I drove the white Ford panel truck down Trinity Place along the back of the Hancock Tower, and up to the loading dock. A row of five steel pylons blocked my way. I got out, saw the warning signs—DO NOT SOUND HORN FOR ENTRY and PUSH BUTTON & USE INTERCOM FOR ACCESS WHEN DOOR IS CLOSED—and I hit the big black button.
The steel overhead door rolled up, and a little fireplug of a man stood there, looking annoyed at the interruption. It was 9:16 P.M. Stitched in script on his blue shirt, above the name of his company, was CARLOS. He glanced at the logo on the side of the van—DERDERIAN FINE ORIENTAL RUGS—nodded, hit a switch, and the steel columns sank into the pavement. He pointed to a space inside the loading dock where a few other service vehicles were parked.
He insisted on guiding me in as if I couldn’t park by myself, waving me in closer and closer to the dock until the van’s front end nudged the black rubber bumpers.
“You here for Batten Schechter?” Carlos said.
I nodded, striking a balance between cordial and aloof.
All he knew was that the law firm of Batten Schechter had called the Hancock’s property management office and told them that a carpet cleaner would be working in their offices some time after nine o’clock. He didn’t need to know that the “facilities manager” of Batten Schechter was actually Dorothy.
Couldn’t have been easier. All I had to do was promise Mr. Derderian I’d buy one of his overpriced, though elegant, rugs for my office. In exchange he was happy to lend me one of his vans. None of them were in use at night anyway.
“How’s it going there, Carlos?”
He gave the standard Boston answer: “Doin’ good, doin’ good.” A Boston accent with a Latin flavor. “Got a lotta carpets to clean, up there?”
“Just one.”
He grunted.
I pulled open the van’s rear doors and wrestled with the big bulky commercial carpet extractor/shampooer. He helped me lower it to the floor, even though it wasn’t his job, then pointed a thumb toward a bank of freight elevators.
The elevator was slow to arrive. It had scuffed steel walls and aluminum diamond-tread-plate floors. I hit the button for forty-eight. As it rose, I adjusted Mauricio’s STI pistol in my waistband. I’d been storing it in the Defender’s glove box ever since I’d grabbed it from his apartment.
I didn’t see any security cameras inside the elevator, but I couldn’t be sure, so I didn’t take it out.
A moment later, the steel doors opened slowly on a small fluorescent-lit service lobby on the forty-eighth floor. Obviously not where the firm’s clients or partners entered. I wheeled out the rug shampooer and saw four doors. Each was the service entrance to a different firm, each labeled with a black embossed plastic nameplate.
The one for Batten Schechter had an electronic digital keypad mounted next to it. David Schechter’s firm probably had reason to take extra security measures.
From my duffel bag I drew a long flexible metal rod, bent at a ninety-degree angle, a hook at one end. This was a special tool called a Leverlock, sold only to security professionals and government agencies.
I knelt down and pushed the rod underneath the door and twisted it around and up until it caught the lever handle on the inside, then yanked it down. Thirteen seconds later I was in.
So much for the fancy digital keypad.
Now I found myself in some back corridor where the firm stored office supplies and cleaning equipment and such. I pushed the rug shampooer against a wall and made my way by the dim emergency lighting.
It was like going from steerage to a stateroom on the Queen Mary. Soft carpeting, mahogany doors with brass nameplates, antique furnishings.
David Schechter, as a name partner, got the corner office. In an alcove before the mahogany double doors to his inner sanctum was a secretary’s desk and a small couch with coffee table. The double doors were locked.
Then I saw another digital keypad, mounted unobtrusively by the doorframe at