Near Miss

“One more thing,” Stone said to Billy. “I’d like a box seat for the performance.”

“I’m sorry, Stone,” Billy said, “but you’re too likely to be spotted as the pain-in-the-ass uptown lawyer you are. Remember, some of those people on the street will have already attended briefings on how to ‘rub you out,’ as they used to put it. Would a hi-def video feed of the action do it for you?”

“As long as Carly doesn’t star in it,” Stone said. “I don’t want the Greek’s buddies to come looking for her.”

“Hey,” Carly interjected, “me, neither.”

“Nor I, either,” Billy said.

“Sorry. I sometimes forget that Billy is my new high-school English teacher.”

“We all learn from Billy,” Stone said. “When does the curtain go up on this little drama?”

“This afternoon at five, more-or-less, sharp. I have it on good authority Gromyko will be having an early dinner only a couple blocks from where he is staying.”

Stone threw up his hands. “I surrender, Billy. You always best me.”

Billy excused himself and left, but Carly held back for a moment.

“What?” Stone asked.

“Any advice?”

“Any advice I give you would run along the lines of taking the next bus out of town, and I sense that’s not what you have in mind.”

“Nope,” she said, confirming his judgment. Then she was out of there.

Stone sat in his study alone, trying to picture how this thing could work without getting both Billy and Carly killed, instead of the guy who was supposed to get killed. It didn’t work.

Chapter 41

Carly sat in her bus seat and watched the back of Billy Barnett’s head, but not too closely. She didn’t want to get caught doing that. The bus stopped, and she got off. Billy stayed with the bus and rode away.

She started up the street in the direction she had been told to walk and looked for a shop. It had been left to her to choose what kind. Krispy Kreme looked pretty good to her. It was busy, but not too busy.

Keeping her back to the street, she entered and waited for the woman ahead of her to conclude her business, which seemed to include feeding a large birthday party. Carly pressed the button in her brain that said, Calm, and she instantly was. She read the overhead menu a couple times, then stepped up when the woman left with her purchase.

“Yes, ma’am?” the woman behind the counter said.

“A dozen chocolate glazed and two dozen original glazed,” Carly replied.

Her order was filled, and a price mentioned. Carly handed her a fifty.

There was a flash of green being counted, and the jingle of change. Carly dropped the coins into the charity collection jar and stuffed the bills into her pocket. The handle of a shopping bag emblazoned with the product name was thrust at her, and she accepted it and turned toward the street.

As she reached the door and opened it, a Vespa motor scooter flashed past her, and a moment later, two crisp pops sounded. She turned right and began to walk unhurriedly up the crowded street, swinging her shopping bag.

Then there was a kind of collective gasp, and a small girl screamed. People fell away from a man lying facedown in the gutter. Carly stopped and stared at the inert form.

“Somebody call 911,” she said to no one in particular. People moved around the man like leaves in a stream around a rock, so she made the call herself, using a throwaway Billy had given her.

“911, what is your emergency.”

“It looks like a man got shot in the street,” Carly said. She gave the approximate address, but not her name. “He seems to have bullet holes in his head.” She hung up, put the phone away, and walked around the seeping form in the gutter.

Half a block behind her there was a low moan, repeated, from a police car, and a crowd began to encircle the man and stop. A police car nosed its way into the circle, and two cops got out. One of them was talking into a handheld radio.

“Man down in the street,” he said, then bent and examined the man. “What appears to be a pair of gunshots to the back of the head.” He felt the man’s neck. “Unresponsive. I can’t find a pulse.”

The other cop walked in Carly’s direction. “Lady, what did you see?”

“What you see now,” Carly replied. “That’s it.”

The cop looked for a more responsive customer, and an old lady accommodated him, talking rapidly.

Carly turned and walked away. She reached into the bag and pulled out a donut and took a big bite. Ahead of her, a woman got out of a cab, and Carly got in.

“The Strand Bookstore,” she said and gave the address on Broadway and East Twelfth Street.

Shortly, the cab stopped, Carly got out, leaving the Krispy Kremes behind, and Billy got in, giving the driver an uptown address. Carly walked into the huge bookstore and shopped around, choosing two biographies, Eleanor Roosevelt and Kate Lee. She paid in cash and left the store, having shed her raincoat, and with a new shopping bag.

Stone watched the TV intently and saw Carly go into the Strand, then lost her. Somebody got into her cab and drove away. There was nothing else to see.