Vince was halfway to the Carpenter’s Arms pub when his phone chimed. Again it was Chuck Mays.
“Swtyeck is following you.”
“How do you know?” asked Vince.
“I’m watching it right here on my computer screen.”
“You have a GPS tracking chip on Jack?”
“It’s a remote installation through his cell phone. I put one on you, too.”
Vince bit his lip to stem the eruption. “Chuck, you need to stop doing things like that without telling people. It’s a violation of privacy.”
“People need to stop telling themselves that there is such a thing as privacy.”
Spoken like a true data miner, but that was another debate. “Do you want me to go back to the hotel?”
“I don’t know,” said Chuck. “Let me think this through. You didn’t tell Swyeck who you’re meeting with, did you?”
“I lied and said it was probably a detective.”
“Good, then just lose him.”
“What do you expect me to do, roll down the window and throw a box of roofing tacks on the road?”
“Just give the driver an extra twenty pounds to ditch him.”
“That won’t work,” said Vince. “I told Jack the meeting was at Carpenter’s Arms at one o’clock.”
“Damn it! Why’d you do that?”
“Probably because I’m not at all comfortable lying to him. The three of us made a deal. This was supposed to be a team approach.”
“Fuck the team! Just call Swyteck and tell him that the meeting was canceled.”
The cab stopped, and Vince heard the meter register. “Seven pounds,” said the driver.”
Vince checked his wallet for a ten-tens were folded in half, twenties in thirds-and he told him to keep the change.
“Would you mind directing me to the pub’s entrance?” he asked the driver.
Chuck overheard. “Vince, don’t get out of the cab.”
“Sorry, I’m going in.”
“It took a lot of coaxing to arrange this. I promised it would be just you. You can’t go in with Swyteck on your tail. Let me reschedule.”
“I’ve waited long enough for answers.”
“You know how skittish she is. All I did was look at her and she ran from me.”
Vince climbed out of the cab. A cool mist greeted his skin, and he heard the Cockney accents of passing pedestrians-the nuances of northeast London in his perpetual world of darkness.
“I can’t look at her,” he said as he stepped onto the sidewalk, “which is why Shada won’t run from me.”