New York City
O'Neill was as good as his word. An FBI agent was waiting for us at immigrations. You couldn't miss him. The loose linen jacket didn't even pretend to hide the Glock and shoulder holster. With only a hello, he walked India and me through immigrations, customs, and out of the terminal to catch a taxi.
Both of us were exhausted. India had cried halfway across the Atlantic, until there was nothing left inside her. A death in the family, I told the stewardess when she asked. Wasn't that right?
India fell asleep in the taxi heading into the city. I woke her when we got to the Mercer, walked her inside to the lobby, and told her I'd be back for her in a couple hours. She didn't protest, didn't say anything. She must have done something like this a hundred times with her father, wait for him to make a meeting, never asking who or why.
I looked at the address twice, 9 Pell Street, and again at the number above Joe Shanghai's, a downscale Chinese restaurant in the downscale part of Chinatown. O'Neill had sent word with his FBI baby-sitter that I was to ask for him at the "receptionist." Easier said than done. I pushed my way through the noon crowd waiting to get in and waved my hand back and forth to get the attention of the young Chinese girl behind the register.
"I'm here to join Keith." It was the name I'd been told to ask for. She looked at me dumbly. I figured she didn't speak a word of English.
"Keith!" I yelled. "Here?"
"Keith? Upstairs. Sixth floor." A flawless Brooklyn accent.
I hit the steps. A lawyer's office took up the entire second floor. Above that, the building was all apartments. The place was eerily quiet after the hubbub down below. I got to the fifth floor and that was it. No sixth, but there were stairs to the roof and the door wasn't locked, so I opened it and walked out. O'Neill grabbed my shoulder from behind.
"Three buildings that way," he said, pointing across the roofs.
I heard him slap a padlock on the door I'd just come through. No one could get out on the roof now unless he'd brought along an axe or a sledge hammer.
Three buildings down, just as advertised, we clambered back inside. Again, O'Neill locked the door behind us, then led me to a third-floor apartment. The place was bare except for a table in the living room with four chairs around it. I looked in the kitchen. The refrigerator door was open. Cabinet doors were open and empty, too. The whole place reeked.
"What are we doing here?" I asked.
"NYPD," O'Neill said, sitting down at the table. "I still have friends there."
"That wasn't an answer."
"Somebody's all over me," he said.
"Like?"
"It doesn't matter."
"You sound like me. You'll tell me if you want. Did you get the meeting set up?"
He nodded. A surprise. I thought I'd run that well dry, too.
"Tomorrow," he said.
"We'll go down together."
"I'm not going."
"Don't tell me you got something more important to do."
"July eighth was my KM A."