Eight-thirty. Buchanan kept staring toward the phone. Five minutes passed. Then ten. His head began to throb. At last, at quarter to nine, the phone rang.
Buchanan grabbed it before the noise could wake Cindy.
“There’s a minimall near you on Pine Island Road. A couple of blocks from Sunrise Boulevard,” Bailey’s crusty voice said.
“I know the place. I’ve driven past it.”
“Go over to the pizza joint. Stand to the right of the entrance. Be there at nine. Come alone.”
Before Buchanan could acknowledge the message, Bailey hung up.
Buchanan frowned and turned to Doyle. “Got to run an errand.”
“The keys to the car are in that drawer.”
“Thanks.” Buchanan shook his hand.
That was all the sentiment Buchanan could allow. He took the keys, lifted his suitcase, grabbed a small red picnic cooler off the counter, and nodded as Doyle opened the door for him.
Ninety seconds later, he was driving away.
15
The small red picnic cooler contained an apple and two bologna sandwiches on a white plastic tray. A lower tray contained ice cubes. Beneath that tray was a hundred thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. In the dark, driving, Buchanan glanced toward the cooler on the seat beside him. Then he checked for headlights in his rearview mirror to see if he was being followed.
He’d received the cooler and the money in it that afternoon while he was parked at a stoplight on his way back to Doyle’s. The money was in response to a call that he’d made from a pay phone immediately after returning from his conversation with Bailey. The colonel had told Buchanan to wait at the Bon Voyage office until three o’clock and, when he drove away, to leave his passenger window open. At the stoplight, a motorcyclist had paused, pushed the cooler through the open window, and driven on.
Now, his pulse quickening, Buchanan parked at the crowded minimall on Pine Island Road. Beneath hissing sodium lights, he carried the picnic cooler to the pizza shop and stood to the right of the entrance. Customers went in and out. A delivery boy drove hurriedly away. Scanning the night, Buchanan waited. This time, Bailey made contact exactly when he’d said he would.
“Is your name Grant?” a voice asked.
Buchanan turned toward the open door to the pizza shop, seeing a gangly, pimply-faced young man wearing a white apron streaked with sauce.
“That’s right.”
“A guy just called inside. Said he was a friend of yours. Said you’d give me five bucks if I relayed a message.”
“My friend was right.” Buchanan gave the kid the five dollars. “What’s the message?”
“He said you’re supposed to meet him in twenty minutes in the lobby of the Tower Hotel.”
Buchanan squinted. “The Tower Hotel? Where’s that?”
“The east end of Broward Boulevard. Near Victoria Park Road.”
Buchanan nodded and walked quickly toward his car, realizing what was ahead of him. Bailey-afraid that he’d be in danger when he showed himself to get the money-intended to shunt Buchanan to various places throughout the city, carefully watching each potential meeting site for any indication that Buchanan had not come alone.
Bailey’s instincts were good, Buchanan thought as he checked a map in his car and steered from the minimall, heading toward his next destination. The truth was, Buchanan did have a team keeping track of him. Their mission was to follow Bailey after the money was handed over and to try to find where he was keeping the videotape, the photographs, and the negatives, especially the ones depicting Buchanan on the yacht with the colonel, the major, and the captain. The colonel had been very emphatic about that point when he’d hastily returned Buchanan’s phone call. The images of Buchanan with the colonel had to be destroyed.
As Buchanan headed east on Broward Boulevard, he again glanced in his rearview mirror to see if he was being followed. He looked for Bailey, not the team that was keeping track of him, for there was no way he could spot the team, he knew. They had a way to follow him and later Bailey that permitted them to stay far back, out of visual contact, and that method was the reason Bailey’s protective tactic, no matter how shrewd, wouldn’t work. Bailey would never see the team at any of the potential rendezvous sites. He could never possibly detect the team as they followed him after he received the money. No matter what evasion procedures he attempted, he would not be able to elude them.
Because they didn’t need to keep him in sight. All they had to do was study an audiovisual monitor and follow the homing signals they received from a battery-powered location transmitter concealed within the plastic bottom of the small picnic cooler that contained the money.
Friday-night traffic was dense. Amid gleaming headlights, Buchanan reached the glass-and-steel Tower Hotel two minutes ahead of schedule. Telling the parking attendant that he would probably need the car right away, he darted inside the plush lobby and found his jeans, nylon jacket, and picnic cooler being sternly assessed by a group of men and women wearing tuxedos and glittering evening gowns. Sure, Buchanan thought. There’s a reception going on. Bailey found out and took advantage of it. He wants me and especially anyone following me to be conspicuous.
Used to being inconspicuous, Buchanan felt self-conscious as he waited in the lobby. He looked for Bailey among the guests, not expecting to find him, wondering how Bailey would contact him this time. The clock behind the check-in counter showed twenty after nine, exactly when Buchanan was supposed to. .
“Mr. Grant?” a uniformed bellhop asked.
Buchanan had noticed the short middle-aged man moving from guest to guest in the lobby, speaking softly to each. “That’s right.”
“A friend of yours left this envelope for you.”
Finding a deserted corner, Buchanan ripped it open.
At quarter to ten, be at the entrance to Shirttail Charlie’s restaurant on. .
16
Three stops later, at eleven o’clock, Buchanan arrived at the Riverside Hotel on Las Olas, a street that seemed the local equivalent of Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive. From information in the terra-cotta-floored lobby, he learned that the hotel had been built in 1936, a date that was very old by Fort Lauderdale standards. A few decades before, this area had been wilderness. The wicker furniture and coral fireplaces exuded a sense of history, no matter how recent.
Buchanan had a chance to learn these facts and notice these details because Bailey didn’t contact him on schedule. By twenty after eleven, Bailey still hadn’t been in touch. The lobby was deserted.
“Mr. Grant?”
Buchanan looked up from where he sat on a rattan chair near glass patio doors, a location he’d chosen because it allowed him to be observed from outside. A woman behind the small reception counter was speaking to him, her eyebrows raised.
“Yes.”
“I have a phone call for you.”
Buchanan carried the picnic cooler to the counter and took the phone from the receptionist.
“Go out the rear door, cross the street, and walk through the gate, then past the swimming pool.” Bailey’s curt instructions were followed by the sudden hum of the dial tone.
Buchanan handed the telephone back to the receptionist, thanked her, and used the rear exit. Outside, he saw the gate across the street and a walkway through a small murky park beside the swimming pool, although the swimming pool itself was deserted, its lights off.