and when you found those pictures. Do you think he had that stuff ready and waiting and that he sent Stevie racing uptown to deliver it as soon as we left?”
I shook my head. “I think he’d set it up already. Our showing up when we did was a coincidence.”
Neary raised his eyebrows at me. “You think Marty could be that cool, knowing what was happening while we were sitting in his office? He’s not a total idiot, but he’s also not that smooth. And what about genius-boy Stevie? He clearly recognized you, even though it took him a while and he didn’t know enough to keep it to himself. You think that’s the response you would’ve got out of him if he knew this shit was going down today?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Maybe he didn’t know about it,” I said. “Maybe Czerka doesn’t trust him to know about this stuff.”
Neary wasn’t buying. “I don’t know that Marty trusts anyone, but I do know Stevie does all his fetching and carrying. If Marty arranged this bullshit, Stevie would’ve known about it, and he would’ve pissed his pants when he saw you today.”
I looked out the window at the doors of Jane’s building, and thought about what Neary had said, and grudgingly agreed. The timing didn’t make sense and neither did Czerka’s behavior, or Stevie’s. But my anger wanted a focus, and if not Czerka…
“Then who?” I said aloud.
“If we assume Marty’s boys took the pictures- and I don’t know who else would have- there are only two choices as to who set this up: one of Marty’s guys or Marty’s client.”
“His guys would have no reason to do it,” I said.
“None that I can figure.”
“Which leaves his client.”
“Which leaves his client.”
A surge of frustration closed my throat, and I slapped my palm against the window glass. “Which leaves us exactly where we were before- with no fucking idea of who that might be.”
“Maybe not exactly where we were,” Neary said evenly. “If Marty doesn’t know about the pictures, I can use them to shake him up a little and maybe shake something loose.” My cell phone trilled and I answered it. It was Jane, ready to leave.
“I’ll meet you out front,” I told her. I hung up and looked at Neary. “I notice you said I can use them, not we can use them.”
Neary sighed and was quiet for a while. “I think you’re wound a little tight right now, John,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t want you doing anything… counterproductive.”
I stared at him. “How hard will you go at him?”
Neary’s eyes narrowed and Sikes and Pritchard shifted again in their seats. “As hard as I need to,” he said. We were quiet for a moment, watching the street.
“When are you going to talk to him? It should be soon-”
“Today,” Neary said, cutting me off. “I’ll do it today.”
“How about the nephew, Stevie? He might go easier than Czerka. He-”
“I’ll do what needs doing, John.” Neary’s voice was tight.
“And that means what?”
“That means part of what you’re paying for here is my judgment. That means I’m not going in there high on my own adrenaline and with my head up my ass. That means if what you’re looking for is somebody to kneecap these guys, you’re on your own.” Neary stared at me, and his eyes were flat and unmoving.
I took a deep breath and let it out and nodded. “I don’t know if I could take that office again anyway,” I said.
Neary smiled a little. He looked beyond me, out the car window. “Here she comes,” he said. He slipped the photos into the envelope and passed it to me.
I climbed out of the Volvo. “Call me when you’ve talked to Czerka. And thanks for sitting out here.”
“It’ll be on your bill,” he said. “You sure you don’t want a shadow home?” I shook my head and closed the door and the car pulled away. Jane was watching. She hitched her big black bag higher on her shoulder. There were tight lines around her mouth.
“Was that your friend Neary?” she asked. I nodded. “What was he doing?”
“Waiting for me to get here.”
Jane pursed her lips. “What’s going on?” she said. We started toward 16th Street and I told her. We walked slowly and Jane listened, and when I was done she didn’t speak for several minutes. When she did, her voice was soft and flat.
“The boys were okay?” she asked.
“Probably a little confused, but okay.”
“That’s good,” Jane said.
She was quiet for another half a block.
“And you think this thing is a warning to you- about Danes?” I nodded. “From whoever hired- what’s-his- name- Czerka?” I nodded again. “I guess they don’t know that you were fired.”
“I guess not.”
She went silent again, and as we reached the corner of Fifth Avenue and 17th Street, she stopped. “What’s the warning?” she asked. “I mean specifically, what message is he sending with those pictures?”
I looked at her and she met my gaze and waited. “I suppose it’s a message that he knows what’s important to me and that he can… get at those things if he wants to. I suppose it’s a message about what’s at stake if I keep pushing.”
“And is he right about what’s important to you? I know your nephews are, so he’s right about that much.” Her face was blank, and her dark eyes were empty.
“I didn’t want this, Jane. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Something already happened to me.”
I took a deep breath. “I know.”
Jane started walking again. “Why didn’t you tell me someone was following you- maybe following both of us?” she said.
“I didn’t think they were a threat- until recently I wasn’t even sure they were there. And I never thought they were interested in you. You had a lot on your mind, and I didn’t want to upset you.”
Jane stopped again. She almost spoke, but she bit back the words. She looked at the manila envelope in my hand. “Let me see them.”
I shook my head. “You don’t-”
“Just give them to me, goddamn it.” Her voice was icy. We moved into the doorway of a small office building and I handed her the envelope.
Jane slipped the pictures out and looked at each one. Her face was still and ashen; only her dark eyes moved. She leafed through the stack three times and leaned against the building and was quiet for a while. When she did speak, it was almost to herself.
“They were so close… I had no idea.”
“Neither did I.”
She handed me the envelope. “But now you know,” she said. “You have no case and you have no client, but now you know about this. So what will you do?” Her voice was even and without emotion.
“I need to find out who sent this, Jane.”
She nodded, unsurprised. “Why?”
I studied her unreadable face and thought about all the answers I could give- that the best way to keep her and my nephews safe was to find whoever made this threat and send a message of my own, that I didn’t like being pushed around, that I needed to know what the hell was going on, that I needed to keep working. All of them were true and none of them seemed adequate and finally I said nothing.
After a while we walked again. Jane slowed as we came to 16th Street and looked down the block. I followed her eyes as they scanned the people and parked cars, and I saw a grimace cross her face and a shudder go through her shoulders.
“Let’s get something to eat,” she said, without looking at me.
We kept going south, to a coffee shop off Union Square, and had a silent meal amid a chattering crowd. We
