The way to do that was to make sure that when she moved around the city, pretending she was leading a normal life, out of the investigation and no longer a player, she was shadowed by undercover cops. When she was in her apartment, like now, the main thing was to keep track of everyone entering or leaving the building. Everyone.
Beam knew numbers were important, but they wouldn’t get the job done by themselves. The killer might even figure out a way to use numbers against them. A lot of cops were a good thing, but they weren’t necessarily a lot of protection; they multiplied the possibility of someone being spotted or identified as police, of making a mistake.
Usually a suspect couldn’t afford even one mistake, but a mistake by the police could be rectified and might only delay the payoff. The Justice Killer had managed to reverse that dynamic, to flip the odds so they favored him. One mistake by the police, and Nell would be dead. And the stalker was choosing time and place, biding his time for a sure kill. He could wait. Numbers were no match for patience.
The patience of a hunter.
70
Like she hadn’t a care.
Justice watched Nell stroll down the street toward a knot of people waiting to cross at the intersection, then stand on the fringes of the group. She was wearing Levi’s, sandals, a gray golf shirt, and had her hair tucked under a blue Yankees cap. And she was carrying what looked like one of those collapsible two-wheeled wire carts many New Yorkers used to transport light loads such as clothes or groceries.
She’s looking kind of yummy today, in those tight jeans.
Not that it matters.
West-and east-bound traffic squealed and rumbled to a halt, except for vehicles making right turns. The backup of people building at the intersection broke from the curb and began to cross. Some hurried, glancing warily from side to side, while others walked slowly and seemed casually unaware of traffic. Nell was a typical New Yorker and crossed briskly, her head up, her gaze shifting for oncoming traffic or other urban dangers.
For the urban danger standing unseen across the street, watching her.
Justice smiled. He wasn’t at all surprised that Nell hadn’t gone to Los Angeles to visit friends, as the media reported. That had been a cover story floated by the police. She remained in the city, where Justice, unfooled, was supposed to discover her. A trap.
Unfooled and unfooled.
He stopped near a window display of electronics and observed the reflection of the street behind him.
There went Nell, into a D’Agostino’s grocery store.
Justice studied the moving, reflected scene made vivid by bright sunlight. Who was the young tourist type, complete with jeans and backpack, who’d been walking behind Nell but now slowed down and moved back against a wall, then ostensibly began searching for something in his pockets? He finally found a map, unfolded it, and began to study it.
Did he glance at the casually dressed couple-the man with a camera slung on a strap around his neck-as they entered D’Agostino’s? Did they glance back?
A green Ford Taurus slowed, stopped, then parked in a miraculously available space near the grocery store. It contained only the driver, and he didn’t get out.
The police had quite an operation going. They were covering Nell very efficiently. Justice approved.
Fifteen minutes later, Nell emerged from the store with her wire cart unfolded and loaded with two tan plastic bags stuffed with groceries. The green of celery tops or leaf lettuce protruded from the top bag. There was a six-pack of something beneath the bottom one. Looked like Diet Pepsi. Justice was learning more and more about Nell.
She pushed rather than pulled the cart as she walked back the way she’d come. As it passed over seams in the sidewalk, the flimsy little cart bounced, and Nell had to use both hands to control it.
The young tourist with the backpack folded his map and stuffed it back in his hip pocket, then continued his stroll. The car whose driver had never gotten out pulled away from the curb. The middle-aged couple with the camera came out of D’Agostino’s. Nothing in their hands. No paper-or-plastic dilemma for them. They began strolling side by side behind the youth with the backpack, who was behind Nell.
Nell walked leisurely along the crowded sidewalk, pushing the two-wheeled cart ahead of her. It looked as if there might be a wire attached to something in her right ear. Listening to music? Well, she was supposed to be unconcerned. To have assumed that the Justice Killer had put her out of his mind, out of the game, and she was safe.
She’s turning in a pretty good performance, acting the unknowing bait. Even swishing her hips more than usual in case I might be watching. Those tight jeans are for me. That ass-
Nell stopped and raised a hand to adjust her earpiece. Probably not listening to music at all.
Justice watched her smile slightly, then bob her head as if in time to music. Nice touch.
She placed both hands on the cart again and resumed walking.
On the other side of the street, he followed.
Beam screwed the lid back on his nearly empty thermos and laid it on the seat next to him. He was parked near Nell’s apartment in the white minivan. The evening was warm, so the motor was running and the air conditioner working away. He was parked on the other side of the street, facing away from Nell’s building, but had its entrance under observation in the van’s oversized left outside mirror.
Nell should be back soon.
A siren yodeled several times a few blocks away, making Beam squirm in the van’s scuffed leather seat. The confiscated vehicle didn’t have a police radio; Beam used his two-way: “This is Beam. What was the siren?”
“Ten fifty-three on Eighth Avenue,” a voice said. Police code for a vehicle accident. Could be a simple fender bender.
More sirens. Sounded like emergency vehicles.
“Code ten forty-five,” explained the voice, before Beam could ask. An accident with injuries. An ambulance was needed.
“’Kay,” said Beam, and got off the two-way.
New York being New York, he thought. Nothing to do with Nell.
He knew that officers Havers and Broome, borrowed from an SNE, a street narcotics enforcement unit, were posing as a tourist couple with a camera, keeping a tight tail on Nell. They had two-ways and backup mobile phones and would notify Beam if anything out of the ordinary was happening.
Beam sat up straighter. There was Nell in the van mirror, pushing a wire cart along the sidewalk.
He watched as she turned around and, moving backward, pulled the overloaded cart up the three steps to her building’s foyer. The wide door, flanked by stone columns, opened, closed, and she was inside.
Safe at home.
Beam knew better, but he breathed easier.
A car’s headlights flared in the mirror and momentarily blinded him. When the lights went out, he saw that a drab brown Chevy sedan had parked behind him, a vehicle as inconspicuous as the van.
Looper, here to take over until Beam returned at midnight. Excellent. Beam couldn’t get the coffee taste from his mouth, and he had to take a piss.
He went back to the two-way: “All yours, Loop.”
“She in?”
“Tucked away and secure, probably for the evening.”
“No hot date?”
“Not unless it’s the one we’re trying to arrange.”
Beam decided to take a turn around the block before driving to his apartment, brushing his teeth, and trying to get some sleep. Looper would call him if anything developed.
He twisted the key in the ignition, and the starter grated, startling him. Jesus! He’d forgotten the van’s old engine was already running.
His back ached as he put the transmission in drive and the vehicle jerked away from the curb, leaving Looper in the parked Chevy behind. Beam realized his legs were stiff from sitting in one position for almost two hours.