He glanced at his watch. Five minutes gave him time for one quick coffee. He didn’t intend staying here, not with Constantine. That fuck always had an appetite, and never seemed to have money enough of his own with which to satisfy it.
Constantine was one of Hoffer’s three employees. He’d just come back from Boston, and Hoffer wanted the lowdown. Meantime, he drank his coffee and stared out of the window. The street was noisy with cabs and drunks and what looked like a few tourists. Someone who looked like a prospective buyer even walked into the splatter gallery. That had to be a first. Then he saw Constantine come out of the building. The guy was young, mid-20s. He was always sharply dressed. Hoffer reckoned he had a side job. He sure as hell didn’t buy all those clothes on what Hoffer paid him. Constantine was a shrewd guy, despite his years. He’d grown up on the street, or not far from it, and had a good way with words. He usually got people to talk.
Hoffer was at the diner door waiting for him. He put an arm round Constantine’s shoulder and led him away from the diner.
‘Let’s walk, get some air.’
‘I was gonna have some cheesecake,’ Constantine complained.
‘Sure, kid, later. First, tell me about Boston.’
What was there to tell? Armed with the information that the D-Man and Harrison had touched down there, all Constantine had done was find their hotel.
‘They only stayed one night,’ he told his employer. ‘Staff hardly saw them. Crashed out, I’d guess.’
Hoffer was only half-listening. Between his friend in the FBI and Robert Walkins’s contacts, he’d been able to find out a little about Don Kline. This past day or so, he’d found himself thinking more about Kline than about the D-Man. After all, the D-Man had never had the bad grace to disturb Hoffer at breakfast.
Kline was ex-NSC. Nobody seemed to know why he’d resigned; at least, nobody was telling. This niggled Hoffer, because now he couldn’t be sure who was paying Kline. Somebody had to be paying him. That trip to the UK must have cost something, plus he had men to feed. Kline was beginning to worry Hoffer more than the D-Man himself was. Maybe he was just nervous that Kline might track the D-Man down before he did. Maybe there was more to it than that...
‘What’s that you said?’ Hoffer said suddenly.
‘The sister hotel,’ Constantine repeated. ‘That’s where they headed after Boston. They booked from their hotel.’
‘Sister hotel where?’
‘Here,’ Constantine said, opening his arms wide. ‘That’s what I’ve been telling you. Here in Manhattan.’
‘Where in Manhattan?’
‘The corner of 42nd and 7th.’
Hoffer was already waving down a cab.
The hotel was a typical tourist place, lacking style but clean enough to suffice. They’d booked in as Weston, and again they’d stayed just the one night. Hoffer handed a twenty to the desk clerk, as agreed.
‘Any idea how they spent their time?’
‘Sir,’ said the desk clerk, pocketing the money, ‘to be honest, I don’t remember them at all.’
‘You don’t, huh?’ The clerk shook his head.
‘Well, thanks for your time. Rate you charge, I’d’ve been cheaper renting a hooker.’Hoffer turned away and found himself face to face with Constantine. ‛I don’t like it,’he said.
‘What?’
‘The fact that the D-Man’s been here. This is my fucking town!’ Then he stuffed his hands into his pockets and charged out of the hotel, nearly toppling two elderly tourists in his wake. Constantine followed him into the street. Hoffer turned so suddenly, the two almost collided.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘look at flights, trains, coaches, car rental, the lot. Leave nothing out. Names to check: Weston, West, and Wesley, pre-names Michael or Mark. And remember there’ll be a female companion.’ Hoffer turned away again and faced the traffic. He wasn’t seeing it.
‘What was he doing here?’ he asked. ‘What did he come here for? He must’ve had someone to see, maybe something stashed away.’
‘You don’t think he’s still here, chief?’
‘What am I, fucking Sitting Bull? Don’t ever call me chief, understand?’
‘Sure.’ Constantine swallowed. He’d never seen his boss like this. Come to that, he’d seldom seen his boss period. But the guy paid, always on time and always the amount owing, and you had to respect that. Money: it was practically the only thing, excepting the Giants, his mother, and the pairing of Cary Grant with Katharine Hepburn, that Constantine did respect.
‘So what’re you waiting for?’ Hoffer said. ‘A gratuity?’
Then he turned away from Constantine and walked away. Constantine watched him go. There was room in his heart for a moment’s pity. He wouldn’t like to be Leo Hoffer, not for a day, not for a hundred thousand dollars (which was what he reckoned Hoffer earned in a year). There couldn’t be many years left inside Hoffer’s oversized body, maybe ten at most. Guys his size never lasted; they were like dinosaurs that way, neither species meant to last.
Eventually, Constantine’s attention was diverted by a burger bar across the intersection. He dug into his pocket and started counting his change.
Back in his apartment that evening, Hoffer took a shower, then wished he hadn’t.
His ears still hadn’t recovered from the flight, and he got some water and soap in one of them, making it worse. It was like the wax was moving in there, like it was alive, crackling. Maybe the stuff was evolving or mutating. He stuck a match in, but that hurt, so he let the wax be. Maybe it was more than wax, some infection or something. He took some painkillers and had a hit of his duty free. Then he slumped on his sofa and took a look around him.
The apartment didn’t have much to it. No personality or anything like that. It was a place to sleep, to ball sometimes, a place to cook up a meal if he could be bothered. He didn’t have hobbies, and he wasn’t about to waste his time decorating or anything like that. He never brought friends back here, because he didn’t have any friends. There were a few guys he might go to a ball game with or play poker with, but that was always someplace else, not here. They were men he’d known on the force. Actually, these days, he hung out with more old hoods than old cops. A sign of the way his life had gone.
He couldn’t remember the last woman he’d brought back here. Why should he? They were always one-night stands, the woman was usually drunk, and so, come to that, was Hoffer. He had plenty to waste his self-pity on. He could sit here all night bawling inside like a baby. Or he could go get ripped at the bar down the street. Instead, he pulled out the file Joe Draper had given him. And he wondered again, what am I doing here when I could be in Seattle? He knew that’s where the D-Man would head, maybe not straight away, but eventually. So what was Hoffer doing hanging around New York? He reckoned he had half the answer: he wanted the D-MAN to do his thing. Because Hoffer too wanted to know who had set the D-Man up, and why. He wanted to know who else wanted the D-Man as badly as Hoffer himself did. Part of him didn’t like the competition. It was like someone was trying to steal his pet mutt.
But there was more to it than that. There was Kline. He still couldn’t see where Kline fitted in, but he knew Kline would be on the lookout for him. Since arriving back in the States, he’d been watching for tails, checking for bugs. Kline would be keeping tabs somehow. Hoffer didn’t want to look too keen. He’d hit Seattle soon, but on his own terms. And by then maybe Kline and the D-Man would be out in the open. That would be interesting. That would be very interesting.