At six fifteen the next morning Nick was sitting in his car, parked next to the Dumpster, down the street but well within view of Archie's Tool Sharpening Shack.
After talking with Hargrave, he'd gone home last night and had dinner with Carly and Elsa and tried to put on a clear-headed, smiling act. But when he went quiet in the middle of a conversation about his daughter's science lesson on the African desert's effect on forming hurricanes, she looked up and saw his eyes staring out through the window. She turned to Elsa, but the nanny only shook her head and said, "It's OK, Carlita, he will be back."
They pretended not to notice and in a few minutes Nick was back, rejoining the discussion as though no lapse had occurred.
Later in the evening Nick helped with Carly's math homework and then gave her an early good-night kiss and went out to the patio. He slept in the chair and, almost as if an alarm sounded, he woke at five AM, took a shower and drove to this spot.
At six thirty he began to squirm. Walker was late and he had never been late so far. Light from the east was starting to glow and a dusty gray was rising into the sky. He was leaning forward, anticipating the headlights of Walker's car, when a sharp tapping of metal on glass caused him to jump.
At the passenger window was the face of a man, a long flashlight tube in his hand. Nick was confused for a second. No one had ever approached him before. The flashlight snapped against the window again and now Nick could see the badge displayed on the man's chest.
He hit the automatic button to lower the passenger-side window and only then did he realize a second man was on his side of the car, standing back a few paces at the rear panel.
"Please step out of the car, sir, and keep your hands where we can see them," the officer at the open window said. He was standing sideways as he bent to look in. A standard defense procedure, Nick knew, that gave less of a profile to hit if a driver was thinking of shooting a cop during a traffic stop.
"Yeah, yeah, sure, Officers. I'm cool," Nick said, exaggerating his hands up and fingers spread. "I'm just reaching down to open the door, OK?"
Nick had written about citizens being wounded by officers reacting to unpredictable and quick movements. He'd also written about cops being shot during traffic stops. Both sides needed to know what the other was doing.
He opened the door slowly and then pushed his upraised hands out first and then stood.
"Come around to the front here, please," the officer to the side said and Nick followed the instruction, only glancing at the cop standing behind him.
While Officer One ran his flashlight beam over Nick's clothes and finally his face, he could see Officer Two doing the same kind of search of his car interior.
"License, sir?" Officer One said.
"I'm gonna get it out of my front pants pocket. OK?" Nick said before reaching. He had always kept his wallet in his front pocket since some street hustler had tried to pick it one day. And he knew reaching oddly into a waistband area was a motion that would surely agitate a cop.
The guy nodded and Nick took out the wallet and opened it away from his body and slipped out the license and handed it over. The officer looked at the license and then at his partner and said, "Mr. Mullins, may we look in the trunk of your car, sir?"
"Yeah, sure, no problem," Nick said. "The button is right there on the left of the dash and the keys are in the ignition."
He turned his head to watch Officer Two lean in and take out the keys and then walk around to the trunk. Officer One said nothing and while they waited Nick took in the uniform badge and seal on the officer's shoulder. Fort Lauderdale Police Department. He knew that this was officially their jurisdiction, but had never even seen a sector car in this area before. A pair of cops doing foot patrol was way unusual, Nick thought.
"OK, Mr. Mullins," Officer One said after getting an all-clear sign from his partner, who slammed down the trunk lid. "Can you tell me, sir, why you're parked here so early in the morning?"
"Actually, I'm working on a story. I'm a reporter for the Daily News and I've got an early appointment to meet a guy here." Nick nodded toward the buildings across the street. "And I usually show up early to, you know, go through the questions I'm gonna ask and stuff."
"Yeah, OK." Officer One was listening and looking down again at the license. "I was in on that plane crash over at Executive Airport back in August. I was one of the first units responding and you interviewed me.
"Larry Jacobs," Officer One said and stuck out his hand.
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Nick said, pretending he recognized the guy, but definitely remembering the crash. A small plane nosedived right after takeoff and went face first through the roof of a car repair shop. The pilot was thrown through the windshield and then the plane engine crushed him right in the center of the repair bay.
"Grisly scene, man," Officer Jacobs said.
"Larry, yo," Nick heard Officer Two say from behind with an impatient tone.
"OK, Mr. Mullins. You'll have to move the car, OK? We've got a cordon going up because the feds are doing some political dog-and-pony show a few blocks down and they're setting up security. OK?"
Nick looked around and said, "Yeah, sure. No problem. Probably why my guy is late. I'll just get him on the cell and, you know, reschedule or something. I didn't realize they were doing anything this far from the convention center."
"Well, they were keeping it under wraps," Jacobs said. "But I'm surprised you wouldn't know." The officer attempted a wink, but Nick's head had already gone elsewhere and he just waved as he got back in his car, took one more look at Walker's empty spot and drove away.
Two blocks away, Nick pulled over and parked in a coffee shop lot that was still empty and stared at his cell phone, thinking. I'm surprised you didn't know? The cops always figure reporters know everything. Not so. But photographers usually do. He dialed Susan's cell number and despite the hour, she picked up on the second ring.
"Hi, it's Susan."
"Well, good morning, early bird," Nick said pleasantly.
"My ass," she grumbled back.
Nick smiled. This was the stuff he'd miss.
"What's up, young lady?"
"Goddamn early assignment," she said. "But what's up with you, Nick? I heard you cleared out your desk. You get that job down in Miami?"
"No. No. I think I'm getting out of the business," Nick said.
"No shit! Good for you, Nicky," she said. "Man, I'm gonna be the oldest one on this beat before long."
"So what's going on this morning?" Nick said, getting to it.
"You know. Some gig that has to do with that OAS thing down at the convention center. It's all that hush-hush stuff. We have to meet them at the center and then they're going to drive us to some secret location to shoot some VIP hand-grab photos."
"Is it the Secretary of State?" Nick said, working.
"I gotta figure. That's the biggest face down here."
"Is it up north of the center? Like, by Tasker Street? 'Cause I got stopped up here by a bunch of security guys doing a sweep."
"Could be, Nick. They're not telling us anything yet," Susan said. "But why are you poking around if you quit?"
Nick didn't answer.
"Ha!" Susan laughed into the phone. "Can't get it out of your blood, eh, Nick? Not even for a day."
"You know everything, Susan," he chided back. "Have a great morning."
Nick's next call was to Hargrave.
There had to be a reason Walker hadn't shown for work. The son-of-a-bitch hadn't been late yet. It was part of his goddamn parole agreement. He was breaking his parole!
Nick fumbled while punching in Hargrave's number and got one of those high-pitched three-tone wailing sounds in his ear and cursed. Then he stopped, laid the phone in his lap, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Think it through, Nick, he told himself. So Walker's late. Lots of possibilities. What were you going to say to the guy anyway? Hey, duck, you're gonna get shot! Or maybe you were going to just sit there and watch him get shot? Watch the man who killed your wife and daughter bleed out on the street? If Redman is going to assassinate the guy because he has deluded himself into thinking you are his so-called spotter, why not let him? If he thinks he owes you by giving you this retribution, then maybe he's a better man than you are.
He opened his eyes, took another deep breath, dialed Hargrave's number and waited.
"Hargrave," the phone said.
"It's Nick, Detective."
Hargrave pulled the old no-question-no-answer routine that so many hardass cops seemed to work at and remained silent.
"I was calling to tell you that Walker didn't show up for work this morning at his usual time," Nick said. "Did you by chance warn him of the possibility that he could be a target after we talked last night?"
"A target? Well, I didn't really get that far," Hargrave said and Nick thought that was going to be it until he continued. "But I did get some intelligence that he left his house this morning in his truck at six."
"And where might this intelligence have come from?" Nick asked.
"I stopped him in his driveway," Hargrave said. "He is one ugly guy, by the way."
"Tell me something I don't know, Detective."
"I informed him that the Sheriff's Office had reason to believe that he may be in danger and told him maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to go to work today."
"And?" Nick said, feeling the heat of anger crawl up his neck.
"He asked for an explanation and as soon as I got to the part that had to do with you, he told me to fuck off and move my car out of his way."
Nick stayed quiet.
"Frankly, I don't need that shit," Hargrave finally said. "Even if you're right about Redman wanting to kill this son-of-a-bitch, I don't need it."
Nick wanted to say he agreed and just walk away. But somewhere in the last few days the story had changed for him. It was now more about saving Redman from himself than it was about saving his targets.
"Well, Walker never showed up here."
"I know," Hargrave said. "I'm watching his truck from four cars back. We're stopped at a roadblock to warehouse row, they're checking all I.D.s of people entering because of some federal action at a Cuban nursing home that's supposed to go off at nine."
"I heard," Nick said.
"Oh, really? Fitzgerald told us it was supposed to be a need-to-know deal, highly secretive."
"Yeah, well, what good is a photo opportunity like that if you don't tell the press?" Nick said.
"Yeah, well, if that info is floating around, Fitzgerald's not going to be a happy man," Hargrave said.
"You talked to him?"
"Right after I hung up with you last night I called Lieutenant Canfield. Then he patched together a conference call with Fitzgerald. The guy sounded hinky. He was under the gun because they got some kind of intel that this sniper they're looking for is definitely a foreigner and has been in the country doing one of those sleeper things, laying low, for a year.
"But that obit of yours with the National Guardsman's dad blaming the secretary for his kid's death might have creeped him out. They actually ran some kind of itinerary on Redman's movements over there and he might have spent time with the dead kid's unit. You didn't know that too, did you, Mullins?"
"No," Nick said. "But doesn't that say something to you, Detective?"
"Like too many coincidences?" Hargrave answered. "Yeah, it talks to me. But I get the feeling Fitzgerald is sticking with the foreigner-on-our-soil theory."
"But what do you think? Who's Redman's next target?"
"I already told you. I'm on Walker's ass right now," Hargrave said. "But you must be close by if you know he's not at work yet, Nick. So where exactly are you calling from? And what the hell are you doing?"