Daniel held up a rea.s.suring hand. She froze, uncertain about the gesture, he imagined, and turned slightly toward him. He shot her once in the center of the chest. As she slumped back, staring up, he shot her twice more, in the mouth. For the brain stem. This emptied the five-round cylinder.
Daniel dropped the gun on the seat and pocketed the paper towel. He returned to the Prius and pulled around the Cherokee slowly. He drove out of the neighborhood, occasionally checking the rearview mirror, but saw no lights, no emergency vehicles. He noted only a few SUVs, two, coincidentally, with nearly identical infant seats affixed in the backseat.
He took a direct route to the parkway and then headed into the city. Eventually he ended up in the South Bronx. GPS sent him to an intersection, near one of the better or at least cleaner housing projects. He drove to where a Taurus sat idling in a parking s.p.a.ce. He eased up behind it and flashed his lights, though the driver had already seen him, he"d observed. When the Ford had pulled out of the s.p.a.ce, Daniel parallel parked, wiped the interior for fingerprints, then climbed out and dropped the keys on the floor of the car, leaving it unlocked. He got into the Taurus"s pa.s.senger seat.
Daniel nodded to bald, fit Sam Easton, behind the wheel, and Sam lifted his foot off the brake and sped down the street.
"Heard it went good. Andrew called."
"Fine. And no tail," Daniel said. "I"m ninety-nine percent sure."
Sam nodded, though as Daniel would have done he continued to check the rearview mirror more frequently than a prudent driver might.
Before the Ford turned onto the street that would take them into Manhattan, Daniel glanced back and noted two young men slow as they walked past the Prius, looking around, then easing closer, like coyotes sniffing out wounded prey.
Daniel read a text. The cash had been drained from the Aruba account and was already laundered, scrubbed clean.
"You want to go home?" Sam asked. "Or drop you at the usual place?"
"Downtown. The club."
Daniel invariably spent Friday afternoons swimming at his health club in Battery Park, then would have a drink or two at Limoncello"s and take his boat out for a sunset ride in New York Harbor.
After that some Indian or Thai food and back home, where he"d summon one of the girls from the outcall service he used. Whom to pick? he wondered. Daniel was in a particular mood after the shooting he found himself picturing the outstretched b.l.o.o.d.y body of the target"s daughter. This memory was persistent and alluring.
He decided he"d ask for one of the girls who allowed her customers to practice rough trade. Still, he reminded himself that he"d have to exercise a bit more restraint than several weeks ago when Alice or was it Alina? ended up in the emergency room.
CHAPTER.
3.
12:20 p.m., Friday
1 hour, 10 minutes earlier
"Gabby!"
She turned to see the pudgy redheaded man approaching through the aisles of the electronics superstore, near City Hall.
She thought again of her initial impression from a month or so ago, when they"d met. The round thirty-something had farm boy written all over him. A look you didn"t see much in Manhattan. Not that there was anything wrong with this image intrinsically (anything but the hipster look, Gabriela felt); the problem was just that it was too easy to picture him in overalls.
She smiled. "Hi!"
"What"re you doing here?" Frank Walsh asked her, as he beamed, smiling.
He wore a tan Polo shirt, which matched everybody else"s here. His name tag reported, F. Walsh, Computer Fix-It Dept. Manager.
She took his hand, which he turned into a hug.
Gabriela said, "Have a meeting downtown. Thought I"d say hi."
His face seemed to glow. "No kidding! I was just thinking about you. Wow, Tiffany"s."
She glanced down at the bag. "Just my comfy shoes."
"I like the ones you"re wearing," he whispered, noting the spiky high heels, which elevated her to his height. Stuart Weitzmans. They cost the same as one of the computers on sale at a nearby end cap.
"Try walking to work in them sometime," she said with a laugh.
On the far wall scores of the same Geico commercial flickered from TV screens large and small.
Frank glanced at his watch. "You free for lunch?"
"No, I have to get back to that meeting. Got time for coffee, though."
"Deal."
They went to a Starbucks next door, collected their drinks she a black coffee, Frank a frothy latte. They sat and chatted, amid the muted grind of blenders and the hiss of the steam device.
Despite appearances, Frank was about as far removed from the farm as could be. "Nerd" was a better descriptive, a word that she would have avoided but he"d said it about himself once or twice so maybe it was politically correct. Computers consumed him. His job here, of course. And he seemed to be an avid partic.i.p.ant in online role-playing games; she deduced this from the way he had coyly asked her if she knew certain t.i.tles (she"d never played one in her life). Then, looking a bit disappointed, he"d changed the subject and didn"t bring the topic up again, probably embarra.s.sed.
Frank Walsh was a film buff, too; he went to the movies twice a week. This they had in common.
They sipped coffee and chatted. Then he confided with a grimace, "I"ve got the weekend off ... but I"ve got to visit my mother."
"Congratulations. And all my sympathies."
He laughed.
"She"s on Long Island?" Gabriela recalled.
"Syosset. But I"m back about noon Sunday. There"s a noir festival at the SoHo that starts then. You interested? Sterling Hayden, Ida Lupino, Dan Duryea. The best of the best."
"Oh, sorry, Frank. Have plans Sunday."
"Sure." He didn"t seem particularly disappointed. "Hey, I"m making a mix tape with those songs you liked. Well, mix download. Mention "tape" to a new clerk here and they"re like, "Huh?""
"Wow, thanks, Frank." Though she wondered: Which songs were those? She didn"t listen to much modern music, no pop at all. A lot of cla.s.sical and jazz. Many old-time crooners and cabaret singers. Sinatra, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Denise Darcel. She"d inherited a ma.s.sive collection of marvelous alb.u.ms. Hundreds of them, embraced by their beautiful, rich-smelling cardboard jackets. She"d bought a Mich.e.l.l Gyro Dec turntable a few years ago, a beautiful machine. When she cranked up the volume in her apartment, the sounds it sent to the amplifier were completely pure. Arresting. They stole your soul.
She may have mentioned this to Frank in pa.s.sing and he"d remembered.
Conversation meandered: to De Niro"s latest film, to Frank"s mother"s health, to Gabriela"s plans to redecorate her Upper West Side apartment.
Then: "Funny you show up today." Uttered in a certain tone.
"How"s that?"
"I was going to call you later. But here you are. So."
Gabriela sipped the strong coffee. She lifted an eyebrow toward him pleasantly. Meaning, Go on.
"Ask you something?"
"You bet."
"Any chance of us?" He swallowed. Nerves.
"Us ...?" Gabriela wondered if that p.r.o.noun was the end of the sentence, though she suspected it was.
Frank filled in anyway: "Dating, more seriously. Oh, hey, I"m not talking about marriage. G.o.d. I don"t even think that makes financial sense nowadays. But every time we"ve been out, it"s clicked. I know it"s only a few times. But still." He took a breath and plunged forward. "Look, I"m not a Ryan Gosling. But I"m working at losing a few pounds, I really am."
He looked down into his coffee. He"d made a show of using Equal, not sugar, and ordered with 2 percent milk, though Gabriela knew those were not the tools for fighting weight.
She told him, "Women like men for a lot of reasons, not just their looks. And I went out with somebody who was a dead ringer for Ryan Gosling once and he was a complete d.i.c.k."
"Yeah?"
"Hey, I like you, Frank. I really do. And, there could be an "us." I just want to take things real slow. I"ve had some problems in the past. You have too, right?"
"Hey-ay, I"ve been a mistake magnet." He elaborated on what he"d told her a few weeks ago, about a difficult breakup. She couldn"t quite tell who was the dumpee and who the dumper.
As she listened, she counted sixteen freckles on his face.
"I respect that," he said seriously.
"What?" Had she missed something?
"That you"re being reasonable. Taking time, thinking about things. And that you didn"t get all weird and run out of here."
"How can I run? I"m wearing killer high heels."
"Which"re pretty nice."
And now that Frank had raised a Serious Topic and the matter had been debated, he dropped it, for which she was infinitely grateful. He rose, pulled three sugar packets out of the tray and returned, spilling the contents into his coffee, then stirring up a whirlpool. Before he sat, though, he whipped his Samsung phone out of its holster.
"Smile."
"What?"
He aimed the camera lens at her and shot a few pictures, full length, from head to shoe, as she grinned.
Finally he sat, reviewed the pictures. "Some keepers." Frank then sipped more coffee and looked up at her. "You know, that film festival"s going on all week."
"Really? I"m free Tuesday if you like."
"I"m working then-"
"Well-"
"No, if Tuesday works for you, I"ll swap shifts."
"Really?"
"For you, yeah."
"That"s really sweet, Frank. Really sweet." She gave him a breezy smile.
CHAPTER.
2.
11:00 a.m., Friday