What good was being a mentalist if you couldn’t read minds?
When Pippa emerged onto the street, the waiter was already crossing Ninth Avenue. Thomas was fifteen feet behind him and gaining fast. Pippa tore after them, forgetting entirely to look both ways for traffic and throwing herself into the street. Several horns blared; an ice-cream truck swerved to avoid her, and she passed practically underneath a horse pulling a coal wagon, provoking an outraged whinny and a string of curses from the driver.
Thomas was gaining on the waiter. Ten feet, then seven . . . Pippa watched with her heart in her mouth as Thomas swung himself up onto a parked car and then vaulted like a gymnast into the air. . . .
At the last second, the waiter swerved, and Thomas landed hard, directly where the waiter had been a second before. He tumbled, did a somersault, and scrambled to his feet. But by then, the waiter had regained an advantage.
“Stop him!” Sam cried. “Somebody stop him!”
Two young men in sailor uniforms were approaching from the opposite direction. Hearing Sam shout, they braced themselves, intending to block the waiter’s progress. But he barreled through them at such speed that they tumbled backward, landing in a tangled heap on the sidewalk. Sam, bolting toward them, caught a foot on one of their knees and went sprawling down to the pavement, landing with a gigantic crack where the sidewalk split underneath his palms.
Ahead of Pippa, Max suddenly stopped and began rummaging in her pockets. Pippa just managed to swerve to avoid her.
“What are you doing?” she called over her shoulder. Max was crossing the street and didn’t seem to hear. “Come on!”
The waiter was nearly at Eighth Avenue, close to a big corner magazine stand. Once he reached Broadway, he could easily lose himself in the crowd or duck into any one of the theaters. It was up to her. . . . But she couldn’t run any faster . . . she was losing him.
Suddenly, there was a whistling in her ears, and she felt a hard breeze blow by her. Before she could register what had happened, the waiter was pinned against the side of a building, his shirt at his ears, struggling like a fish on a line. Pippa approached him at a trot.
Then she saw the knives—one on each side of his neck—keeping his shirt tacked to the wooden wall of the magazine stand.
Winded and panting, Sam and Thomas joined her. Max came last, darting out across the traffic from the other side of the street, where she must have planted herself to aim.
“Nice . . . going,” Sam said, gulping for air.
“Nothing to it.” Max shrugged.
“P-please.” The waiter was wiggling and squirming, desperately trying to pull himself free of the knives that had him pinned to the wall like a bug on a display board. “P-please. Let me go. I didn’t do nothing. I swear, I swear. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
“Yeah?” Sam reached up and withdrew the knives. The waiter collapsed in a heap, moaning a little. “Then why’d you run?”
The waiter cowered, holding up both arms to shield himself as if worried that Sam might use the two knives to gouge out his eyes. His thin bottom lip was quivering. “You gotta believe me,” he said, and Pippa thought he might start to cry. “I didn’t mean nuthin’ by it. I was just doing my job, see?”
“Didn’t mean nothing by what?” Thomas said.
“The rats.” Now the waiter did start to sniffle. He ran a hand under his nose and Pippa was disgusted to see that it left a trail like that of a slug. She could only pray he would wash before returning to work.
Thomas and Sam exchanged a bewildered look. “What rats?”
“It’s part of my job, see?” the man continued. “When the rats start to get bad, I’m supposed to take the tin from the back and spread the poison around in the corners and the kitchen.” The waiter choked back a sob. “The rats was so bad on Wednesday I put extra out. Sprinkled it even in the shelves and under the tables. But I musta—I guess I musta accidentally got some in your uncle’s grub. See? But I swear—I swear!—I didn’t mean to!”
The waiter began to wail so loudly, several people on the opposite side of the street turned to stare.
“Shhh.” Max hushed him harshly. “Calm down, all right? No need to blubber like a baby.” But this just made the man wail even louder.
“What kind of poison do you use on the rats?” Thomas asked patiently.
“Cy—cy—cy—” the waiter blubbered.
“Cyanide,” Pippa breathed, and the waiter nodded. Thomas glanced meaningfully at the other three. Potts had been killed with cyanide. Could it have been an accident after all?
Thomas put a hand on the waiter’s shoulder. “Listen,” he said. “We’re not blaming you. We know you were just doing your job. But the police have to know, too. You have to—”
“WHAT IN THE DEVIL’S NAME IS GOING ON HERE?”