The fog was cool and wet as it rolled up Grant Avenue near the highway, then slipped back down Jackson, past the phone booth outside the Pagoda Restaurant where Jack stood watching the evening settle over the Bay. He had just caught the 7:10 out of LAX and was hoping Wong jai was going to turn up in San Francisco. The circle was closing, and he knew Mona was inside it somewhere.
He sat in the rented car, took out the magazine pictures and his Glock, loaded fifteen hollow-points into the clip and watched the phonebooth. He called the agency on the cell phone and put out a bulletin on Johnny's rental car, wondered where it'd turn up. Midnight passed and no one came down Jackson. He drained his second coffee and pondered his next move, sitting in the hushed night, waiting through the mist for the first light of day.
Shadow
The red muscle car with black-tinted windows followed at a distance as the highway signs ran from Redwood City, San Mateo, Burlingame, to San Francisco. The unseen passengers watched Johnny's compact rental go north, then east toward the Bay. The rental car was moving slow and easy, and that suited them just fine.
Johnny felt as if he was being followed again. But when he checked his mirrors he saw nothing suspicious, just the normal lights of night traffic queuing up behind him, even as he turned into the San Rema.
Nobody followed him in, and he told himself he was just being overly cautious. He checked the address he'd scribbled on the piece of memo paper from the Holiday Inn.
Then he parked the car in the space nearest the exit.
The Trans Am powered around the complex and rolled into the parking lot from the back access road. The engine idled and one of the low boys came out carrying a cell phone in his hand, keeping to the shadows as he followed Johnny into the courtyard. He watched Johnny go up to the middle landing, turn left toward the third door in the row, knock on it.
There was a long pause, words spoken low from Johnny's mouth. The low boy brought the daai gar daai-cellphone-to his ear, tapped into the keypad a direct pager redial.
Then he backed away toward the red car, scoping Johnny, and waiting for Golo Chuk.