Revenant

Chapter 14

About an hour and a half later, I left my apartment building. Again.

I was wearing the exact same clothing, but had the John Noakes ID with me, sunglasses, and a black gym bag hoisted over one shoulder. The keys to a rental car that was waiting outside were jangling in my pocket as well. I'd ordered the car over the phone using my Noakes identity, and made sure that they had a driver bring it to the bar, hand the keys over to Nate, and then catch a cab back to, well, to wherever their drivers hang around waiting. I've never bothered to find out where that is.

The car itself was a nondescript green sub-compact, the sort that were really good on gas. I opened it, threw my bag into the passenger's seat, got into the driver's seat, started it up, and pulled out of my parking spot. I checked the rear-view mirror.

A grey sedan was pulling out as well. Here went nothing.

My first stop was a nearby grocery store. I parked, took out my gym bag, and locked it in the trunk of the car. Then I went inside and bought some beef jerky, a six-pack of bottled water, two muffins, and a banana. Perfect food for a road trip, or a stake-out.

On the way back to my rental car I located the grey sedan out of the corner of my eye. Both sunglass-wearing figures were watching me intently from another parking spot about thirty yards away. I made a small production out of removing my grocery items one by one and placing them inside the gym bag, making sure I was at an angle they could see. That done, I closed the trunk, brought the gym back back into the car with me, threw it on the passenger seat, and pulled away.

Second stop was a bookstore. It went much the same as the grocery store had, except that instead of traveling food, I bought a road map. Again, I made sure my tail was watching, and even opened the map up to inspect it once I was inside the car.

Third stop was a hardware store. I picked up a large waterproof tarp, two coils of rope, some glue, a hacksaw, and a large styrofoam cooler. I came out with the rope over one shoulder, hauling the rest as best I could manage, making it obvious what I carried. Most of the hardware store stuff went into the trunk instead of inside my gym bag.

During all three store visits, the guys in the grey sedan simply sat in their car, watching me. They'd start up their car when I'd start up my car, pull away when I pulled away, following me closely but not so close that it became too obvious that they were following me around. They were actually pretty good - I'd been tailed by much, much worse.

In my imagination, I pictured them talking to one another, speculating about what I was doing, and why I was picking all of this stuff up.

My fourth stop was going to be the amusing bit.

I drove downtown, obeying all traffic laws, never going over the speed limit. I didn't want to give anyone an excuse to stop me. Or rather, I did everything in my power to try to look like a guy who didn't want to give anyone any excuse to stop him. Every signal I was sending was consistent with the notion that I was in the middle of doing something important, probably illegal, and didn't want to attract attention to myself. It's harder than it sounds.

Once downtown I headed for a certain bank, a fairly small branch that was attached to a two-story mall. I parked on the street in front of a dull grey parking meter. It took a while to find a spot, because I wanted to make sure that my tail also had a nice convenient place to park their car.

I'm so considerate sometimes.

Whistling to myself, I grabbed my gym bag, popped out of my car and skipped around the front end, hand reaching into my pocket for some change. I put a single quarter into the old-style parking meter, and made a point of inspecting the amount of available time closely. Then, I went around to the back, opened the trunk, stuffed my gym bag into a pocket of available space, slammed the trunk closed, and headed into the bank.

From there, I didn't even have to look behind me - I was home free.

We Americans have a strange attachment to cars. We have magazines about them, car shows devoted to them, and ads for them playing on the television night and day. We find them useful, I suppose. They take us places, carry stuff, let other people know how well we're doing, all manner of cool things. Some people want them bad enough to steal them. Others feel naked if they're out somewhere and they don't have access to one.

We depend on them, is what I'm saying.

So, if you're ever being watched by someone and you desperately need to lose them, get a bunch of stuff, put it in the trunk of your car, park somewhere that says 'I'll be back in a jiffy', and then ditch it. Doesn't matter who they are or how long they've spent on the job, everyone just sort of assumes you'll be coming back.

I had about five minutes on the meter, but it'd be about ten or so before they'd start to worry, more than enough time for me to hail a cab somewhere out of sight and head to where I needed to go. The car would get towed eventually, and I'd have to pay an extra charge to the rental company as a result, but it was well worth the price. Plus, thinking about those feds sitting in their car, watching, waiting for me to walk back out of the bank . . . well, that was just funny as hell.

Walking through the bank, I tipped my cap at a few people who made eye contact, smiled a friendly sort of smile, continued on through into the mall and looked around. I located a pay phone within seconds, placed a call, walked nonchalantly to an exit located on the opposite side of the building, hanging around somewhere inconspicuous until my cab arrived, three minutes later.

I got in.

"Where to, pal?" an Eastern European voice asked in a well-rehearsed Manhattan accent.

Hey, at least he was trying.

"We'll be heading over to the docks in a bit. For now, Orleans to North Wolfe street, please."

"You got it, boss," he said, his forced American accent faltering the tiniest bit.

Well, I'd left those feds behind without too much trouble, and I had the whole afternoon to poke around and ask questions about my mark, Steven. Yes, the piano store was near the docks, but there were a couple of disreputable pawn shops along the way that I had to pay a visit first.

I needed a gun.

You know, just in case I got lucky.