21 October
His ass was tired. But then, when Rick Corday pulled a surveillance job, his ass was always tired. He lifted his right cheek now and scratched. It was numb. He'd been sitting too long.
He looked at the array of stuff he always took with him when he pulled surveillance. Wrigley's Spearmint gum. Life Savers peppermints. Johnson amp; Johnson Dental Floss. A penknife for cleaning his fingernails. A copy of the new Guys! Guys! Guys!.
His car phone rang. 'Uh-huh?' he said after picking it up.
'It's me. Adam.'
'She's still in there. Saw a couple of people carrying stuff in and out. She must have a session.'
'I have to go to New York.'
Corday didn't say anything.
'Are you still there?'
'What's this New York crap?'
'You seem to forget who I used to work for.'
'So that means New York?'
'I have to make a little correction on a job I did awhile back. Somebody else connected with the case.'
You might think, from some of the language, that Rick and Adam were cops. They weren't. Rick was a former employee of a large investigative agency here in Chicago, while Adam was a former Los Angeles police detective. One of the things they had in common was that they killed people. Sometimes for fun. Sometimes for profit. Rick always preferred the former.
'Nothing's going to happen.'
'Right.'
'I told you, Rick. I'm really trying to change.'
'So far I haven't noticed. I mean, you were pretty drunk when you got home the other night. And pretty late.'
'Perfectly innocent. Hit a few bars was all.'
'Right.'
'When we wrap this upwith Jill, I meanhow about we take a vacation?'
'Just you and me and one of your new friends, huh?'
'There's no sense talking to you when you're in this kind of mood.'
'This New York thing pisses me off.'
'I'll be back in a week. Just keep watching Jill. But don't do anything till I get back, all right?'
'Yessir, your highness.'
'You can really be hard to take sometimes, Rick, you know that?'
'And you can't?'
'I'll call you from New York.'
'Right,' Rick said. And broke the connection.
The sonofabitch, Rick thought. The unfaithful sonofabitch.