“Give yourself a little vacation. Then fly back tomorrow morning. Your department must be wondering where you’ve gone.”
“They won’t know I’ve left. I told you, this is my day off.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“I’ll call in sick.”
“You don’t have jurisdiction here,” Decker said. “Do yourself a favor. Get back to New Mexico as soon as possible.”
“No.”
“You won’t be able to follow me. Two minutes from now, you won’t have any idea how I got away from you.”
“But you won’t do that.”
“Oh? What makes you think so?”
“Because you can’t be sure you won’t need me.”
2
The bar—on First Avenue near Delancey—looked to be on the verge of going out of business. In its windows, liquor advertisements had faded almost to illegibility. The windows themselves were so grimy that they couldn’t be seen through. Several letters in its neon sign were burned out, so that instead of BENNIE’S, it now read BE E’S. A derelict holding a whiskey bottle in a paper bag slumped on the sidewalk next to the entrance, mindless of the downpour.
Frustrated by the rush of time, Decker crossed the street, heading toward the bar. He was followed by Esperanza, whose cowboy hat had been replaced by an inconspicuous Yankees baseball cap that they had bought from a souvenir stand along the way. His long hair had been tied back so that it, too, was less noticeable. About to go into the bar, Decker made Esperanza pause at the entrance, letting the derelict, who wasn’t a derelict, get a good look at them.
“Bennie’s expecting us,” Decker said.
The derelict nodded.
Decker and Esperanza went into the bar, which was hazy with cigarette smoke. Given its shabby exterior, the place was surprisingly busy, its noise level high because of a football game on a big-screen television.
Decker went directly to the husky bartender. “Is Bennie around?”
“Ain’t seen him.”
“I phoned earlier and made an appointment.”
“Says who?”
Decker used a pseudonym. “Charles Laird.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” The bartender gestured toward the far end of the counter. “Bennie’s waiting for you in his office. Leave your bag with me.”
Decker nodded, handing him the small suitcase, putting twenty dollars on the counter. “This is for the beer we didn’t have.”
He led Esperanza toward the closed door at the end of the counter, then halted.
“What’s the matter?” Esperanza asked. “Why don’t you go ahead and knock?”
“There’s a formality we have to get through first. I hope you don’t mind being groped.”
Four broad-shouldered men turned from playing pool at a table next to the door. Eyes cold, they searched Decker and Esperanza roughly and thoroughly. With a final check of both men’s ankles, not finding any microphones or weapons, they nodded curtly in dismissal and went back to playing pool. They didn’t find anything suspicious because, at Decker’s insistence, Esperanza had left his badge and handgun locked in Decker’s Jeep Cherokee at the Albuquerque airport. Decker was determined that if he and Esperanza had to do any shooting, it wouldn’t be with a weapon that could be traced to either of them.
Only now did Decker knock on the door. Hearing a muffled voice behind it, he opened it and faced a narrow, cluttered office in which an overweight man with a striped shirt, a bow tie, and suspenders sat at a desk. The man was elderly. He had a bald head and a silvery mustache. A polished brass cane lay across the top of his desk.
“How are you, Bennie?” Decker asked.
“On a diet. Can’t seem to lose this weight. Doctor’s orders. And what about you, Charles?”
“I’ve got trouble.”
Bennie nodded wisely, each movement of his head squeezing his double chins together. “No one ever comes to me otherwise.”
“This is a friend of mine.” Decker indicated Esperanza.
Bennie listlessly raised a hand.
“My friend has to make a phone call.”
“Right over there.” Bennie pointed to a pay phone in a corner.
“It’s still linked to a pay phone in Jersey City?”
“That’s where anyone tracing the call will think you are,” Bennie said.
Decker gestured to Esperanza that it was okay for him to make the call. As agreed, it would be to Miller in Santa Fe to find out if there was any news about Beth and McKittrick. Decker had phoned him several times en route, desperate to know if Beth was still alive. So far, there wasn’t any news.
“Sit down,” Bennie told Decker as Esperanza put coins in the pay phone. “How can I help?”
Decker positioned himself in a chair across from Bennie, knowing that a shotgun was under the intervening desk. “Thank you. You were always cooperative when I needed help before.”
“It amused me,” Bennie said. “A change of pace, doing something for my government.”
Decker understood. Although it was commonly thought that the CIA had a mandate limiting it to overseas operations, the fact was that it maintained offices in various major American cities and did on occasion carry out domestic operations, but, in theory, not without first obeying a presidential order to alert the FBI. It had been with the cooperation of the bureau that Decker had consulted with Bennie three years earlier and been given a fake identity as a mob member associated with Bennie. The purpose was to enable Decker to infiltrate a foreign terrorist network that was trying to disrupt the United States by using organized crime to flood the country with fake hundred-dollar bills.
“I’m sure the government was most appreciative,” Decker said.
“Well, it doesn’t come around and bother me anymore.” Bennie shrugged listlessly. “And after all, it was in my self-interest. What’s bad for the economy is bad for my business, too.” He smiled slightly.
“This time, I can’t offer you incentives, I’m afraid.”
“Oh?” Bennie looked suspicious.
“I don’t have anything to do with the government these days. I have a personal favor to ask you.”
“Favor?” Bennie grimaced.
In the background, Decker heard Esperanza speaking into the pay phone, his tone somber as he asked questions.
“What kind of favor?” Bennie obviously dreaded the answer.
“I need to know how to contact Nick Giordano.”
Bennie’s cheeks normally had a touch of pink. Now they turned pale. “No. Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to be involved with any involvement you have with Nick Giordano.”
“I swear to you, this has nothing to do with the government.”
Bennie’s formerly listless gestures were now animated. “I don’t care! I don’t want to know anything about it!”
Decker leaned forward. “And I don’t want you to know anything about it.”
Bennie stopped suddenly in midgesture. “Don’t want me to know?”
“All I’m asking for is a simple piece of information. How do I get in touch with Nick Giordano? Not the owner of the restaurant where he likes to eat. Not one of his lieutenants. Not his attorney. Him. You won’t have to introduce us. You won’t be directly involved in any way. I’ll take the responsibility for making contact. Giordano will never know who told me how to get in touch with him.”
Bennie stared at Decker as if trying to understand a foreign language. “What possible reason would make me want to do this?”
Esperanza’s telephone conversation ended. He turned toward Decker.
“Any news?” Decker’s stomach cramped.
“No.”
“Thank God. At least, she hasn’t been reported dead. I’ve still got hope.”
“She?” Bennie raised his thick eyebrows.
“A friend of mine. I’m trying to find her. She’s in trouble.”
“And Nick Giordano can help get her out of trouble?” Bennie asked.
“He de
finitely has the power to do that,” Decker said. “That’s what I need to talk to him about.”
“You still haven’t given me a reason to help you.”
“I love this woman, Bennie. I want you to do this because I love her.”
“You’re making a joke, right?”'
“Am I laughing?”
“Please. I’m a businessman.”
“Then here’s another reason. Nick Giordano has a special interest in this woman. He thinks she killed Joey Scolari.”
Bennie flinched. “You’re talking about Diana Scolari? Joey’s wife? Jesus, Nick has everybody looking for her.”
“Well, it might be I can help him find her.”
“Make sense. If you love her, why would you turn her over to Nick?”
“So she won’t have to run for the rest of her life.”
“Of course not. She’ll be dead. You’re still not making sense.”
“Then maybe this will make sense,” Decker said. “If Nick Giordano is happy with the way my conversation with him turns out, he might want to reward anybody who showed the good judgment to make the conversation happen.”
Bennie scowled, calculating.
3
The phone on the other end rang only once before a man’s raspy voice said, “You’d better have a damned good reason for calling this number.”
Immediately Decker heard the beep of an answering machine and dictated his message. “This is Steve Decker. My name ought to be familiar to you. Your people were watching me in Santa Fe. I have something important I need to discuss with Mr. Giordano. It concerns Diana Scolari and the murder of her husband. It also concerns a U.S. marshal named Brian McKittrick. I’ll call back in thirty minutes.”
Decker put the phone back on its hook and stepped from the littered glass booth into the dusky rain, approaching Esperanza, who stood in the doorway of a closed appliance store.
“Getting tired of following me?”
“Not when you’re taking me to such interesting places.”
4
The flower shop was on Grand Street, OPEN SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS, a sign on the door announced. A bell rang when Decker opened the door and stepped into the shop. The funeral-home scent of flowers surrounded him. Curious, Esperanza glanced around at the closed-circuit television cameras above the abundant colorful displays, then turned toward the sound of footsteps.
A matronly middle-aged woman wearing gardener’s gloves and a smock came out of a back room. “I’m sorry. It’s almost seven. My assistant was supposed to lock the door. We’re closed.”
“I guess I lost track of the time,” Decker said. “It’s been a while since I did business with you.” He picked up a pen and a business card on the counter, wrote something, then showed it to the woman. “This is my account number, and this is how my name is spelled.”
“One minute while I examine our records.”
The woman returned to the back room and closed the door behind her. A mirror next to that door was two-way, Decker knew. An armed man watched him from behind it, he also knew, just as two other armed men in the basement watched the monitors of the closed-circuit cameras.
Not letting his troubled thoughts show, he pretended to be interested in various attractive corsages that were visible behind the glass doors of a cooler. He was appalled by the disarming ease with which he was slipping back into his former life.
Esperanza glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes until you have to make that phone call.”
The woman came back into the display room.
“Mr. Evans, our records show that you left a deposit with us two years ago.”
“Yes. I’ve come to close out the account.”
“Our records also show that you always ordered a particular type of flower.”
“Two dozen yellow roses.”
“Correct. Please, step into our display room.”
The small room was to the left of the counter. It had photo-graphs on the walls, showing the numerous flower arrangements the shop could provide. It also had a plain table and two wooden chairs, where Decker and Esperanza sat after Decker closed and locked the door. Esperanza parted his lips to say something but was interrupted when the matronly woman came in through another door, set a briefcase on the table, and left.
The moment the door clicked shut, Decker opened the briefcase. Esperanza leaned forward, seeing objects cushioned within niches cut into plastic foam: a Walther .380 pistol, an extra magazine, a box of ammunition, and two small electronic objects, the purpose of which wasn’t obvious.
Decker couldn’t subdue his self-loathing. “I hoped I had touched this stuff for the last time.”
5
“You’d better have a damned good reason for calling this number.”
Beep.
“This is Steve Decker again. I have something important I need to discuss with Mr. Giordano. It concerns Diana Scolari and—”
A man picked up the phone on the other end. His voice had the arrogant tone of someone accustomed to giving orders. “What do you know about Diana Scolari?”
“I need to speak to Mr. Giordano.”
“I’m Mr. Giordano,” the man said angrily.
“Not Nick Giordano. Your voice sounds too young.”
“My father doesn’t take calls from people he doesn’t know. Tell me about Diana Scolari.”
“And Brian McKittrick.”
“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”
“Put your father on.”
“Anything you have to say about Diana Scolari, you can say to me.”
Decker hung up, waited two minutes, then put additional coins in the pay phone and pressed the same numbers.
This time, there wasn’t an answering machine. Instead, halfway through the first ring, a hoarse elderly male voice said, “Nick Giordano.”
“I was just talking to your son about Diana Scolari.”
“And Brian McKittrick.” The voice sounded strained. “My son says you also mentioned Brian McKittrick.”
“That’s right.”
“How do I know you’re not a cop?”
“When we meet, you can search me to make sure I’m not wearing a wire.”
“That still won’t mean you’re not a cop.”
“Hey, if you’re that paranoid, maybe there’s no point in trying to arrange a meeting.”
For a moment, the line was silent. “Where are you?”
“Lower Manhattan.”
“Stand on the Fifth Avenue side of the Flatiron Building. A car will be there to pick you up in an hour. How will the driver know it’s you?”
Decker glanced at Esperanza. “I’ll be holding two dozen yellow roses.”
6
In a coffee shop just down Fifth Avenue from the Flatiron Building, Decker stayed silent until the waiter brought their order and left. They had chosen a far corner table. The place wasn’t busy. Even so, Decker made sure no one was looking in his direction before he leaned down, opened his travel bag, and removed a small object that he had earlier taken from the briefcase at the flower shop. The object was metal, the size of a matchbox.
“What is that thing?” Esperanza asked.
“It sends out a homing signal. And this”—Decker reached into his travel bag and withdrew a metal box the size of a pack of cigarettes—“receives it, as long as the signal doesn’t come from farther than a mile. Traffic moves south on Fifth Avenue past the Flatiron Building. You’ll be waiting in a taxi north of here—at Madison Square Park. After I get into the car Giordano sends for me, give me fifteen seconds so you won’t be obvious, then follow. The receiver operates visually. This needle points to the left, right, or straight ahead, depending on which direction the signal is coming from. This gauge tells you from one to ten how close you are, ten being the closest.” Decker flicked a switch and put the receiver ahead of the transmitter. “Yes. The system’s working. Take the receiver. If something goes wrong, our rendezvous is in front of this coffee shop at the top of each
hour. But if I don’t show up by six tomorrow night, get back to Santa Fe as fast as you can.” Decker glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time. Let’s go.”
“What about your bag?”
“Keep it.” The bag contained the pistol, the spare magazine, and the box of ammunition. Decker knew he’d be searched. There was no way he was going to spook Giordano by trying to carry a weapon to a meeting with him. “Ten minutes after I arrive at wherever I’m being taken, phone the number Bennie gave me. Ask to speak to me. Make it sound as if bad things will happen if I don’t come to the phone.”
“And?”
“Follow my lead when I talk to you.”
They reached the exit from the coffee shop.
“You won’t have any trouble catching a cab around here.”
“Decker.”
“What?”
“Are you sure about this?”
“No.”
“Then maybe there’s another way.”
“The last thing I want to do is go out there. But I’m running out of time. Maybe I’ve already run out of time. I don’t know where else to go except straight to the source of the problem.”
Esperanza hesitated. “Good luck.”
“Beth needs it more than me.”
“But what if ...”
“They’ve already killed her?”
“Yes.”
“Then what happens to me doesn’t matter.”
A minute later, during which Decker hoped that Esperanza had time to hail a cab, he stepped into the darkening rain and turned right, walking toward the Flatiron Building. Worried about what McKittrick might be doing to Beth, Decker couldn’t help being reminded of the similar rain that had fallen the night McKittrick shot his father in Rome.
He reached the Flatiron Building five minutes ahead of schedule and stood in the shelter of another doorway, holding the yellow roses in plain view. His emotions were complicated: various levels of doubt, fear, and apprehension. But only the doubt applied to himself. The rest were directed elsewhere: fear for Beth, apprehension about what might already have happened to her. But most of all, he felt seized with determination. It was the first time he had ever engaged in a mission in which the mission truly meant more to him than his own life.