And why the different parking lot today? Everything else I’d seen about Accinelli indicated he was comfortable with patterns-foolishly comfortable, in my opinion, because even aside from the fact that Hilger wanted him dead, his wealth and stature made him an inviting target for kidnapping. But today, he’d practically driven right past the lot on Bowery, in favor of another that wasn’t a half-mile away. Why the change, and why only now? Could it be because he didn’t want to be seen by the same attendant every time he came here?
I’d come across this kind of thing before. When a large part of your job involves following people surreptitiously, discovering patterns you can exploit, you see a lot of behavior that goes unnoticed by the outside world. Drugs. Prostitution. Gambling. Affairs. Closet homosexuality. Addictions and compulsions, cravings and lust. The real world, the id, the dark constants of our nature.
Maybe it wasn’t a mistress. Maybe it was a gay lover, or a catamite, or some such thing. My gut told me a mistress, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I had a new focal point, one potentially more accessible than his home or his office.
I crossed Prince and parked in front of a hydrant on the other side of Mott. I didn’t expect to be more than five minutes, and confirming my suspicions would be worth the small chance of a ticket, and the even smaller chance that the BMW’s presence here today would ever be discovered as meaningful.
I got out, the hat and shades already on, and headed north on Mott, my breath fogging in the cold. Cars and trucks lurched along on Prince in front of me, gears grinding, the occasional horn honking. I heard children yelling and laughing somewhere, probably at a nearby school. A construction team was tearing up a sewer line, and for a moment the explosive pounding of a jackhammer drowned out everything else. I glanced left at the corner of Prince and bingo, there he was, wearing a navy suit, coming toward me. The light across Prince was red, and I was happy to be a good, law-abiding citizen and wait for it. It gave Accinelli time to make a left on Mott and get ahead of me.
The light changed. I crossed Prince with a dozen other people and stayed on the west side of Mott, the opposite side from Accinelli, and therefore the more likely to escape his notice if he were to glance behind. To my left was a church, the grounds around it enclosed by an old brick wall. On the right side of the street, various awnings and signs for ground-level stores and cafés; above them, fashionable, red brick apartment buildings that had once been tenements and warehouses, dark fire escapes zigzagging down their façades. I counted four floors of living space on some of the buildings; others had five. My eyes tracked everywhere as I walked. Two men and a woman stood smoking and shivering in front of a place called Café Gitane, but they were too young, too hipster-looking, and I didn’t make them as a problem. An attractive brunette in a long leather coat was rolling up the metal gate in front of a store, opening for the day’s business. She displayed no awareness of anything around her and again I detected no problems. A bike messenger in dreadlocks and shades was taking a package from a woman in an apron in the doorway of a florist called Polux. Like everyone else I’d seen so far, they paid no attention to the street scene around them. They felt like civilians, and nothing more.
As he walked, Accinelli reached into his pocket and took out a set of keys. Right, keys out now for faster entry, don’t want to linger on the street where you might be seen. About halfway down the street, he turned and went up a flight of four granite stairs to an apartment building entranceway. He unlocked the metal framed glass door and went in.
I continued on Mott to Houston, then crossed the street and came back, checking hot spots. Everything still seemed fine. No good hides for a sniper, I was glad to see: this stretch of Mott offered no parking; the crosstown traffic on Houston and Prince rendered untenable a shot from a vehicle farther away; and with the church grounds across the street from the apartment, the only accessible windows and rooftops were directly overhead, too sharp an angle to be useful.
I stopped in front of the building Accinelli had entered. It was sandwiched between two stores: a high-fashion men’s clothing consignment shop called INA Men, and a tiny place called A Détacher that looked equal parts fashion gallery and couture boutique. If I were Accinelli, paying my mistress’s rent, I would have selected a spot very much like this, with the church across the street, so no apartment windows from which someone might look down and see me, and the easy access to the Williamsburg Bridge and the LIE beyond it. Also, the nearby boutiques that would provide cover for action if I were seen: “Yeah, what a surprise running into you here, Bob; right, I’m just buying a present for the wife at A Détacher. And you?”
I walked up the steps and looked through the door, putting my hands up and my face close because the light from outside was mirroring the glass. The first thing I noted was the absence of a doorman. Good for Accinelli-he wouldn’t want to have to announce or explain himself, or to be noticed or remembered. And maybe good for me, too.
There was a narrow corridor stretching for about twenty-five feet past a group of metal mailboxes and back to an elevator. Fluorescent lighting. No cameras I could see-another plus, from Accinelli’s standpoint.
I stepped back. There were no hinges visible, and there was a push handle on the left. The door would open inward from that side. To the door’s left was a metal call box. A few FedEx and postal service signs were taped to it. So package and mail delivery occurred before-I glanced at my watch-eleven-thirty, at least today. I counted thirty buttons from among which a visitor would select to call his host and be buzzed in. Each had a last name next to it. I read through the list quickly. None of the names meant anything to me, and I doubted any of them would prove relevant for what came next regardless.
I walked up and down the street twice more, taking in the details: where I-or someone else-might set up to wait and observe; which stores and cafés would offer a view of the street; how people were dressed and what they were doing. The vibe wasn’t quiet, exactly, but it wasn’t bustling, either. It was still a little early for lunch, and even some of the shops hadn’t yet opened. Accinelli probably favored visits at this hour as much for the relative lack of crowds as for the built-in “going out for a business lunch” excuse the time afforded him.
I went back to the car and was relieved to find that no passing law enforcement official had noticed my parking peccadillo. I drove around the block several times, cementing details in my mind, then widened my perambulations to include more of the neighborhood. Then I found a parking space on Bleecker Street, where I waited and monitored the transmitter. At twelve thirty-five, the Mercedes pulled out. I followed from a distance just in case he stopped somewhere and an opportunity presented itself. But I doubted he would. As it was, the whole thing could have been a two-hour “lunch.” I doubted he wanted to be away longer than that.
I was right. He went straight back, pulling past the guard post at one o’clock sharp.
I drove around for a while, going nowhere in particular, letting all the details of what I’d just seen-the layout, the openings, the flow, the risks-run through my mind. Accinelli would be back to his secret spot on Mott Street, of that I had no doubt. Probably his schedule, and his ability to fabricate plausible reasons for two-hour absences, would be the only limiting factors. Lunchtime would typically be convenient. And if a secretary harbored suspicions about why certain appointments were always made directly, rather than through her, so what? Did she really want to risk her job through an indiscreet comment that got back to a powerful man like her boss?