I had two advantages. First, he was outside in the cold. And I wasn’t. Second, he knew about me. But didn’t know I knew about him.
I watched for half an hour from a second-floor stairwell. He moved every five minutes, drank coffee to stay awake, smoked cigarettes to keep warm, and kept his eye on the front door of the Raphael. A squad car rolled by once. He did a nice job of fading into the overhang of a Gold Coast brownstone.
The coffee especially intrigued me. A curl of steam when he took the lid off told me it was still hot, which meant he probably got it somewhere close. Even better, it was a large, at least sixteen ounces. I waited until he finished and threw the blue-and-white cup into the gutter. Then I cut through the lobby and found the back service entrance. Once out in the street, it took all of three minutes to find the only coffee shop open in the area. I looked through the plate-glass window and saw a stack of blue-and-white paper cups beside a large silver urn with black handles. I turned up my collar and stepped inside. The place smelled of Vaseline and earwax. The cook was at the far end of the counter, talking to a slip of a woman in a long black jacket and jeans. She sat on a stool, jacket open, legs crossed, a shoe dangling off her right foot. Neither of them looked at me, and I hiked down a short corridor to the men’s room.
I had a plan. Like most plans, it needed a little bit of luck. I went into the bathroom and got my first small piece. A latch on the door. I left it unlocked.
To my left was a single stall, a long white urinal trough, and a window at the far end. I pried the only mirror in the place, a small plastic stick-on, off the wall above the sink. In a room like this, reflections were something I could do without.
I stepped inside the stall, crouched up on the toilet, and closed the door. Ten minutes later, I heard the diner’s front door open and a soft scraping. My second piece of luck had just walked in.
The seconds stretched and hung. But they always did just before. I thought I heard him in the hallway. Then I was convinced he’d stopped at the counter, probably got himself another cup of coffee. I was thinking about taking a look when the men’s room door pushed in. I watched his left foot drag past and let him settle in front of the urinal. He might have done his business in an alley. Might have never left the street. But it was cold out. And I was upstairs in the hotel, warm, with a woman. And the goddamn large coffee. So the man with the limp came inside for his piss. And made a mistake. I wouldn’t make a second.
I eased the stall door open, grabbed him by the hair, and cracked his face into the fly-specked drywall above the trough. His nose burst in a cloud of red and he went to a knee, right hand reaching inside his coat. I slammed his temple into the porcelain edge of the urinal. A gun skittered across the tiles and he sagged sideways. I stepped to the bathroom door and slipped the latch. I was back in less than five seconds. He was already struggling to get up. I put a boot to his head. Then hammered home two straight rights. This time, he was out.
I found his cuffs and chained him to a pipe running along the base of the wall. The ID inside his pocket said he was a special agent with Homeland. Name was Robert Crane. I picked up the piece he’d been reaching for. A twenty-two with a suppressor. He had a second gun, a standard. 40-caliber service weapon on his belt. Crane groaned and tried to raise his head. I took out a handkerchief and threw it at him.
“Wipe off your face. And zip yourself up.”
“I’m a federal agent, Kelly. And you’re in a world of shit.”
“Zip yourself up.”
He did.
“Why does a federal agent carry two guns?” I held up the forty. “I mean, what’s wrong with the one they gave you?”
“You got it all figured out. You tell me.”
“Why didn’t you take a run at me when we were in Little Kings?”
“Not exactly the best place for a white guy to be pulling a piece. Even if it is to shoot another white guy. Besides, the woman was a problem.”
“She’s not on your list?”
“Who said I had a list?”
I crouched down. “You got a list, Crane.”
His nose was leaking blood. He wiped it clean, only to have it leak all over again.
“How long you think before the moron up front decides to check on the two perverts in his bathroom?” he said.
I glanced at the latch on the door. “We got time.”
“For what?”
“Why do they want to kill me?”
“Piss off.”
“I’m the one with the gun.”
“Do what you have to. Or give me back my piece and get out of town before your luck runs out.”
“You think I’m gonna shoot you?”
“I’m thinking you better.”
“What does that mean?”
He spit a bright red wad onto the floor, stretched one leg, and rolled his good foot in a small circle. “In a job like this you’re an asset but also a threat. An asset until you’re no longer reliable. Then a threat because of everything you know.”
“No retirement package, huh?”
“They hire your replacement, and his first assignment is you. So we all do what we do. Until we don’t do it so well anymore. Can I stand up?”
I uncuffed him and stepped back as he got to his feet. His nose was badly broken. The blood had slowed to a steady drip. For the first time I noticed his eyebrow was crushed. He winced every time he blinked.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“I always wanted to be standing. Don’t know why, but it seems right.”
I felt my cell phone buzz in my pocket but ignored it. Crane was studying me. Hands loose at his sides. Not looking for an advantage. Just studying.
“It’s not that hard, Kelly.”
“Looks like it took its toll on you.”
“They’re coming either way. For me. For you. So just do it. And don’t spend whatever time you have left worrying about the rest.”
Crane buttoned up his overcoat, wiped his face for a final time, and straightened his shoulders. He looked at the thin gun in my hand and nodded.
“Ready when you are.”
Twenty minutes later I climbed out the bathroom window. The sky was lightening in the east, and I needed some sleep. I’d walked two blocks when my cell buzzed again. I had two text messages. Both from Molly Carrolton. It appeared she’d been up all night as well. And had the piece of the puzzle I’d been waiting on.