Tears stood in Daphne's eyes. "This is worse than before, isn't it?"
Marrity took a breath to answer, paused, and then let it out. "I guess it is," he said finally. "No more hundreds of possibilities, just this one old drunk cranking around in Grammar's car."
Seven
As Marrity held open the tinted glass door of Alfredo's for her, Daphne asked him, "What are you going to have besides beer?"
The air was cooler inside the dark restaurant, and smelled of fennel and garlic.
"Two for lunch, please, smoking or nonsmoking doesn't matter," Marrity said to the hostess behind the cash-register counter. They had missed the lunch crowd because of having painted Daphne's room and the hall ceiling, and he could see several empty booths with fresh silverware and red-and-white paper place mats on the tables.
"It's a hot day," he told Daphne as they followed a waitress to a booth against the west wall. "I'm thinking about a beer because that's what I want first. I don't know why sausage and bell peppers looks so good to you on a day like this."
"I haven't absolutely made up my mind."
"It's all I see in there," he said as he sat down across from her. "The young lady will have a—" Marrity said to the waitress, "—don't tell me — a lemon in it, that's an iced tea. And could I have a Coors, please."
"You were picturing two," Daphne said after the waitress had walked away.
"And I'm going to have two," Marrity told her, "but not both at once."
"You should get the chicken and broccoli. You don't eat enough vegetables."
"Onions and potatoes are vegetables."
"They're not green. You don't eat right. Your guts are probably all creepy looking."
"You've got paint in your hair."
She looked dismayed, and glanced back toward the cashier's counter as she patted her bangs. "A lot?"
"No. Here." He reached across the table, pinched a strand of her brown hair and drew the fleck of paint down to the ends, where it slid off. "Only somebody sitting right across from you under this light could have seen it."
"Thank God for that."
Charlotte Sinclair strolled from the back of the parking lot toward the entrance to Alfredo's, trailing the fingers of her right hand along the brick wall for balance. She had changed into black jeans and a burgundy short-sleeved blouse, and her dark brown hair was now pulled back in a ponytail, though her sunglasses were the same. She carried a purse in her left hand, letting the strap swing free. She lingered at one section of the wall for a full thirty seconds, then moved on, rounding the building's northwest corner and shuffling carefully right past the entry door. By the coolness of the air, she knew she was in shadow now. At the northeast corner she turned right again and made her way along the restaurant's eastern wall, again trailing her fingers along the brick surface.
She turned around and walked back to the curb, and when she heard a car squeak to a stop in front of her, she looked out of the driver's eyes and saw herself standing in the sunlight beyond the open passenger-side window; with that view to guide her, she was able to put her hand on the door handle and lean down to speak to the driver.
"Mirror," she said.
"I always forget." The man bent sideways to look at himself in the rearview mirror, and Charlotte recognized the lean, white-mustached face of Roger Canino, the Vespers security chief at the Amboy compound. Charlotte opened the door and got into the passenger seat.
"How's my favorite girl?"
"Fine, Roger."
As the car began moving, she groped in her purse — no sense in asking old Canino to look in there for her — and by touch found the radio and switched it on. In a moment she heard Rascasse's voice say, "Prime here." He pronounced it preem.
Leaning down over the purse and pressing the send button, she said, "Seconde here. The old guy from the green Rambler, octopus's garden" — she switched the frequency up one notch — "is sitting way in the back on the east side, by the restrooms; it's the smoking section, there are ashtrays on the tables. He's got a couple of empty beer bottles and the remains of spaghetti in a white sauce in front of him, but he's done eating and it looks cold to me, polythene Pam." Again she clicked the dial. "Our man and his daughter are in a booth against the west wall, toward the front, north, on the other side of the kitchen. They're just ordering now."
"Got it, thanks," came Rascasse's voice.
"Can I be one of the parties?" she said. "I'm hungry." Actually she wanted to monitor Marrity and his daughter from a closer vantage point, without the restaurant wall between her and them; for a moment there, as she had been looking at Daphne through Marrity's eyes, she had found herself seeing Marrity's face, and she remembered the same skipping-across phenomenon happening this morning when she had been monitoring Daphne from the car.
I've never slipped from one viewpoint to another accidentally before today, she thought. Am I losing my grip? Will I start seeing everybody's viewpoint at once?
"No, Charlotte," came the voice from the speaker, "because."
The radio was silent. "That was a cue, sweetie," said Canino without looking away from the traffic.
"What," said Charlotte, " 'Because'? Shit." She switched the frequency dial again.
"—bumper-beeper on his Ford—" Rascasse was saying.
"Again, from the bridge," said Charlotte.
"Oh," came Rascasse's voice. "Okay, You can't go in because you're going to cute-meet him later, remember? If we don't find the artifact in his house or truck. We're doing research in the house right now, to prep you for it. And we've got a bumper-beeper on his Ford pickup — if we need you, we should be able to make an opportunity before sundown."
"Right."
"Any clues about who the old fellow is? She came in through the bathroom window."
"That one I get," Charlotte muttered, switching the frequency again. "No," she said. "Strong family resemblance with our man, as you've seen. His father, maybe."
"Probably in town for the funeral," said Rascasse. "Obviously he is supposed to meet them in the restaurant."
Charlotte didn't correct him, but it seemed to her that neither Marrity nor the old man expected the other to be there.
"Who are these guys?" whispered Bert Malk to himself as he drove past Alfredo's in the opposite direction. He had just seen the dark-haired girl in the sunglasses climb into a car that then sped away with her; she had probably been a lookout — probably another one had stepped up. And she was pretty definitely the same girl he had seen this morning cruising twice past Marrity's house.
Bozzaris would probably already be in the restaurant. Malk had stopped at a 7-Eleven parking lot pay phone to call the relay sayan, and had got a message from Lepidopt: Crew of three entered M's house as soon as father and daughter drove away. You two prevent any kidnap. Daylight.
"Daylight" meant "highest state of alert."
This was a full-scale operation by somebody.
Malk was aware of the angular shape of the Beretta Model 70S against his hip. It held nine .22 long-rifle rounds — a small caliber, but it was the Mossad standard, and the theory was that it didn't need a silencer since the report of a .22 round, though loud, didn't exactly sound like a gunshot. It was more a loud snap than the deafening pop of bigger calibers. And the long-rifle .22s were plenty deadly if they were put in the right places.
He steered left onto E Street to check for alternate exits from the parking lot and any back doors of the restaurant.