FORTY-FIVE
They were sitting at his table. They were looking through the window at the gym, putting it together and talking about him.
He felt the chill of a cold hand grabbing him by the back of the neck. It was the proverbial cold hand. The one he felt when he knew he was in deep trouble.
He started shivering. He looked up the street at the gym, then turned to the storefront directly before him and pretended to window-shop. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a Milky Way bar and tore open the wrapper. As he popped the candy into his mouth, he read the words
Eddie pulled the scarf over his mouth and stepped closer to the window, peering at them in the cafe from the corner of his eye. He could see them drinking coffee and going over it again with the manager-the guy who always gave him funny looks when he ordered his usual caffe latte, the guy who liked to flirt with Rosemary. Eddie had seen the woman with blond hair in the newspapers. She was a prosecutor working the Darlene Lewis murder case. He didn’t recognize the man seated across from her, but he seemed young and eager and too intense. Eddie had never liked people who were eager. Mrs. Yap had been eager, and look where it got her.
Two young women and a man passed him on the sidewalk. They were wearing expensive clothing, walking arm in arm and giggling at him. Obviously, they had stopped off for drinks after work and were popped. Snarling at them as they vanished around the corner, Eddie turned back to the cafe.
The manager was saying something, and the other guy was writing it down. They were getting up, moving to the door, the manager waving at them. As the door opened, Eddie heard the manager say, “If I remember anything else, I’ll let you know. If he comes in again, I’ll call the cops.”
The man started up the street with the blonde. They were getting away and they had something.
His eyes moved back to the cafe. The manager was behind the counter, flirting with a female employee as he wiped the counter with a towel.
Eddie turned away and started up the sidewalk, deciding he’d follow the two of them until he could figure out what he was supposed to do. He dug his heels into the pavement, hurrying his step until he was right behind them. He liked the woman’s hair and face. As he eyed her figure beneath her coat, he realized that he liked that, too. But the man was another story. He had a cell phone to his ear, ignoring the woman and jabbering into his phone on a public street.
They stopped at the corner, waiting for the traffic to pass. Eddie was with them, part of the crowd and playing it casual. Close enough to smell the rich scent of her skin. The man closed his phone and slipped it into his pocket, glancing back at the cafe and then right at Eddie. Their eyes met. Eddie looked away, adjusting the scarf over his mouth. When the traffic cleared, the man turned back to the blonde and they crossed the street.
“It was Jill,” he overheard the man saying to the woman. “Andrews called and says he wants a meeting first thing in the morning. It sounds like something’s up.”
The woman shrugged as if she didn’t know anything about it. But Eddie knew who Andrews was. The district attorney had gotten more coverage in the papers than she had.
He kept his eyes on them as he followed three feet back. There was something about the guy he didn’t trust. Something about him he didn’t like. A certain darkness in his eyes. A strong chin and prominent cheekbones. It was the look of someone who had taken a hit in life and was ready for the next one. The look of someone who might turn on him, reprimand him, tell him that he was no good.
Eddie couldn’t keep his eyes off him. The more he looked at the man, the more frightened he became. The more he hated him.
They were walking down Seventeenth Street. Then without warning, the man swung a door open and followed the blonde into the ground floor at One Liberty Place. The first two floors of the building were something like a high-end mall. Eddie followed them in, slowing down his pace and thinking they might be getting something to eat. When he saw them pass through the doors into the building lobby and walk toward the elevators, he realized he was wrong. The man didn’t work for the district attorney. He wasn’t a cop or even an art critic with an eye in the center of his forehead.
Eddie watched them through the glass, turning away as they stepped into the elevator. He heard the doors close and entered the lobby. The elevator was rising up into the towers above. He could see the numbers over the doors clicking by one after the next. When the elevator stopped on the seventeenth floor, he crossed the lobby and checked the building directory. The sixteenth and seventeenth floors were occupied by Barnett amp; Stokes. He knew the law firm. He’d read about them in the papers, too. The man he’d just seen was a defense attorney representing that stupid mailman, Oscar Holmes. So why was he on such good terms with one of the prosecutors?
Eddie didn’t know what to do. The manager at the cafe had obviously recognized him and said something. He could feel his life slipping away. Fame and fortune burning to the ground.
He heard someone shout at him and looked up. It was a guard, staring at him from behind the front desk.
“Can I help you, pal?” the man said.
From the tone of the guard’s voice, Eddie could tell that the man didn’t really want to help him. He looked up and saw the cameras. The moment was being recorded on TV.
“I was looking for a company,” Eddie said. “It looks like they’ve moved.”
“Then maybe you should, too.”
The guard jerked his hand up and pointed at the door. Eddie took the hint and exited the building. As he walked up the street, he dug his fingers into his pockets fishing for another Milky Way bar or even some leftover chocolate chip morsels. There weren’t any left. When he felt his pocket knife, he wrapped his hand around it and realized he was heading back to the cafe. He smiled beneath his scarf as he thought about the manager flirting with his female employees, even Rosemary. It was a vicious smile. The hidden smile of the world’s next genius. Eddie finally knew what he was supposed to do.
FORTY-SIX
Eddie walked into the 7-Eleven on the corner, perusing the aisles for just the right item. Something that would make the act stand out and give it panache. He was an artist. It was the only way he knew.
His eyes stopped on the tubes of Crazy Glue hanging from a rack between the Frito Corn Chips and Ramsey rubber display. An idea formed as he put the two items together in his head. A montage of sorts.
This was it, he decided. Crazy Glue.
He crossed the aisle to the register, and the man behind the counter rang up the order. As Eddie dug into his pocket for his wallet, he noticed the Tootsie Pops stuffed into a jar beside a cigarette display. Even better, they weren’t out of grape pops. Eddie had read somewhere that grapes were good for the cardiovascular system. He tried to eat at least one grape flavored Tootsie Pop a day, but they were hard to find. The word must have gotten out, he figured. He sifted through the bowl and bought all ten pops, stuffing them into his pocket with the Crazy Glue. Then he legged it out of the store to the Honda Accord parked on the far side of the empty lot.
The cafe manager was waiting for him in the backseat, bound and gagged and looking as if he’d just woken up. Eddie could hear him whimpering, trying to talk through the gag and making animal noises. His eyes were the size of silver dollars and particularly expressive, Eddie thought. Like the kind you see drawn in cartoons or the funny papers.
“We’ll discuss it later,” he said to the man.
Eddie pulled out of the lot. They needed a place to talk. A place to take a high-level meeting with some degree of privacy.
