“The interstate is that way,” Dino said, pointing.
“I don’t think he’s heading for the interstate,” Stone replied.
“So we’re working your hunches now?”
“You don’t need to come to Newburgh to find an interstate. He has another reason to land here.”
Shortly, they were in downtown Newburgh, and Herbie spotted the van. “Red Ford, half a mile ahead, turning left.”
“Got it,” Stone said.
“Where the hell is he going?” Dino asked.
“Maybe he has a country house up here on the river?” Stone posited. They were soon in a residential neighborhood, then the van turned into a parking lot and stopped.
Dino read the sign aloud: “Luxury Dog Resort and Spa.”
“He’s picking up Trixie,” Stone said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Frances’s Jack Russell terrier. At least, I think that’s what he is. A brown ball of fur.” They were parked across the road.
“Let’s bust him on his way out,” Stone said.
“Negative,” Dino said. “Sig will shoot it out, and I want at least a SWAT team, and that’s going to take time up here.”
“And we’ve got only one weapon among the three of us.”
“And half a magazine of ammo,” Dino said, “four rounds. If he’s got a six-shooter, we’re outgunned. And we’re surrounded by civilian houses.”
“That’s a pessimistic way to look at it,” Stone said.
“I don’t know another way, given the circumstances. I think we need the state police, not the locals.” Dino got out his cell phone and started punching numbers.
A dog and owner were leaving the building about every minute. “Check-out time,” Herbie said.
“Or maybe the yoga class ran over,” Stone replied. Then Sig followed Trixie out of the building. Trixie made three pit stops on the way to the van, and Sig waited patiently.
“He’s moving,” Stone said.
“Don’t press him,” Dino said. “I don’t want a backwoods car chase in a strange neighborhood.”
“Admit it. You don’t think I could keep up.”
“That, too,” Dino said.
“He’s not going back to the airport,” Stone said. “At least, not the way we came.”
The van hugged the river, headed south.
“You think he’s alone in the van?” Dino asked.
“Except for Trixie,” Stone replied.
They drove for another half hour, with Stone keeping three or four cars between them. Herbie had his cell phone out. “He’s headed for the Palisades Interstate Parkway, is my best bet.”
“Then the George Washington Bridge,” Stone said. “We could trap him there.”
“I’m not shutting down that bridge at rush hour,” Dino said. “I’d have to find a job in another state.”
“How about the other side of the bridge, when he turns down the Henry Hudson Parkway toward the city.”
“That’s a great idea, unless he goes in the opposite direction,” Dino said.
“I told you, I’m working hunches. I think he feels safer in Manhattan.”
“Weirdly, I agree with you,” Dino said.
Sure enough, Sig turned south. After five minutes or so, traffic came to a halt on the West Side Highway. Nothing abnormal about that. Slowly, the traffic began to inch forward until, ten minutes later, they came to a red van, parked sideways in the middle lane, while the other cars picked their way around it.
“I hope he had a heart attack,” Dino said. He jumped out of the car, ran to the rear door of the van, and yanked it open, then he ran back to the Volvo and got in. “He bailed,” Dino said, pointing at the greenery beside the road. “Now he’s just another dog walker in Riverside Park.”
Dino blocked traffic while Stone drove around the van, then they were running south for the next exit, at Seventy-ninth Street. After the exit they came to a roundabout which allowed an exit or returned one to the highway. Without slowing around, Stone drove entirely around the circle.
“Hey!” Dino said, annoyed.
“He’s not in the park,” Stone said.
“And you know that, how?” Dino asked.
“Hunch,” they said in unison.
Stone got out of the car and walked a few steps to the main pontoon of the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin. He gazed out over the river and saw half a dozen or more small boats making their way up- or downstream.
“Hunch?” Dino asked.
Stone said nothing, just looked up and down the river.
“I’m all out of hunches,” he said, eventually.
53
Dino dropped Stone off at his house, then took Herbie and himself away. Everybody slept in his own bed that night. Nobody knew where Sig slept.
Stone’s phone rang early. He picked it up and spoke, “We didn’t search the marina.”
“My thought exactly,” Dino replied.
“It came to me about ten seconds before you called.”
“I’ve already ordered a search of all the boats,” Dino said. “Give ’em another couple of hours. There were at least forty boats there, and that’s forty cold entries and searches. I hope to God he’s not there. We’ll look like fools.”
“I’m not a cop,” Stone said. “You may reserve that pleasure for yourself.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Dino said. “Oh, somebody just handed me a piece of paper: two motorcycles were stolen in Soho last night.”
“Okay, no foot search of Manhattan.”
“I could just give orders to shoot any male driving a motorcycle,” Dino said. “We could get lucky.”
“Save your luck for something that won’t send you to prison,” Stone said.
“Let’s take a day off,” Dino said.
“How do you know Sig is taking the day off? There are still people on the hit list he has promised to murder, myself among them.”
“We need to do something he won’t expect,” Dino said.
“We could do that, if he expected something and we knew what it was.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“A meaningless turn of phrase. Don’t feel you have to talk just to fill the air with noise.”
“Are you telling me to shut up?”
“Yes, until you have an actionable idea.”
“Your actionable idea took us to two countries yesterday.”
“Three, if you count this one. And we had sight of him in each of them. That’s a pretty good score for hunches, isn’t it?”
“It would be a fantastic score, if we had scored.”
“Well, I for one am entirely willing to cede the search to your thousands of policemen and anybody else who cares.”
“Dinner tonight, Clarke’s?”
“Seven,” Stone said, then hung up.
Stone decided to turn the day into Sunday. On Sundays, he read the New York Times cover to cover and watched the political shows on TV. He had to settle for the daily Times, but the political shows were all recorded, and Holly Barker was on two of them. He had forgotten that the presidential election was being held the following Tuesday, and although Holly was ahead in most of the polls, she was ahead only by a point or two.
His phone rang. “Hello?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “it’s not Dino.”
“I’m so glad, baby. How are you?”
“I’d be a lot better if I were a lot further ahead in the polls,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“The pollsters are calling it a statistical tie, and I’m scheduled to be on MSNBC in four minutes, so I’d better be at Rockefeller Center.”
“So near, and yet so far away,” Stone muttered. “Any chance you could shake loose for a tryst?”