44

Beck slept a dreamless sleep for just over five hours before his cell phone woke him.

He recognized Ricky Bolo’s voice. Ricky always spoke in a low voice, out of the side of his mouth. He could have been in a secure facility in a sound-proof office with an encrypted scrambled phone, and he would still talk as if someone were standing right behind him.

“You up?”

“I am now.”

“Your boy just walked out of his place. Front door. Got into a Town Car driven by a big guy.”

“Milstein?”

“Yeah, you told us to look out for him.”

“What time is it?”

“Little before seven.”

“Okay,” said Beck, sitting up. The pain immediately sent him back down on his bed. “Okay, good. But right now I’m more interested in his driver. I expect them to go into that building on the corner of Fifty-seventh and Lex. The one with that plaza outside.”

“You want I should go in and see where he ends up?”

“No. I already know. Where’s Jonas?”

“With me. He’s driving the Bolo-mobile.”

“You still using that same piece of crap van?”

“Hey, it blends in anywhere. It’s practically invisible.”

“What’d you guys do all night after you left Tribeca?”

“Had some fun. Grabbed a couple of hours sleep. Then came over here to check up on your guy.”

“Okay. Follow him and verify he’s going to work. Then stay with his driver.”

“Will do. Kisses.”

Beck set down his cell phone and remained flat on his back.

Kisses indeed, he thought. Images of Olivia Sanchez filled his mind. He wondered if he’d ever get out from under what was beginning to feel like an obsession.

He checked the time on his clock radio. Ten minutes to seven. He rolled onto his side, gritting his teeth against the pain and stiffness. He sat upright slowly, wincing as his weight pressed down on the stitches in his left thigh. Everything hurt. The room was cold. Dark. It all reminded him of prison.

Prison. Trapped by endless restrictions and circled by enemies. Much of the time you lived within the bubble of a tense truce. But if the truce broke down, and you knew you were a target, the key to survival was knowing who would be coming for you, and striking first. And you couldn’t make a mistake or you’d create another set of enemies.

Beck had survived by quickly learning the process. Build an alliance with people who could supply you with intelligence, arms, and backup. Strike first and hard, but always make sure you had a way to end the feud. Ending it was the difficult part. It had to be in everyone’s interest that you survived. There were two ways to make that happen. Make it too costly for your enemies to kill you by proving to them you would kill or maim as many as it took to survive, and if you didn’t survive, your allies would avenge you. Or, make sure your enemies would profit if you were alive and well. Generally, that meant sharing whatever drugs or money or power you had. And that, of course, meant you had to maintain your efforts in another whole realm.

It was exhausting, and you had to work at it continually.

He might be outside, be free to move, have access to more, but the rules were essentially the same. The big difference was that inside prison the population was limited and the geography tightly defined. Outside there were way too many people you didn’t know about who could be set against you. Worse, they could come at you from anywhere.

There was a soft knock on his bedroom door.

Beck knew by the sound that it was Manny.

“Yeah.”

The door opened. Manny stood at the threshold, making sure not to encroach on Beck’s personal space, an old habit from prison where you never stepped into a man’s cell without being invited.

Beck sat in his underwear on the edge of his bed, feeling the cold air around him, gently rolling his head, flexing his hands.

“You okay, James?”

“Okay enough.”

“I hear you had trouble at the hotel. I’m sorry, man. I should have made it clear to her.”

“You did. Some friend of hers at that place screwed it up for her. Good thing you picked the right person to bodyguard her. That Nydia saved us. She spotted the bad guys in the lobby when she came back from eating. It was close, but she gave us just enough warning. And she took down one of the fuckers in the lobby. Without her, we were dead.”

“Good. She’s a tough kid. Good in the pocket, as they say.”

“She is.”

Manny smiled.

“What?”

“You can’t have no shoot-up in a fancy hotel like that, man. It’s all over the news.”

“What’s the big deal? Nobody died. I’ll bet there were gunshots all over the city last night. Nobody gave a shit.”

“I hear you. So what’s the next move?” asked Manny.

“I fucking shower to get myself loosened up enough so I can move, and we start in on everything. Is Olivia still sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s Alex?”

“Downstairs. He’s sleeping on the floor by the computers. He gets a signal when Crane gets on his computer. He was at it until a little while after you all got back. Nothing since then.”

“What about you?”

“I’m just waiting, jefe. Not sure I want to wait much longer.”

Beck stood up and moved stiffly toward his bathroom. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to.”

“By the way…”

Beck stopped.

“What?”

“You got a message from Phineas.”

“Oh?”

“Said a guy named Walter Pearce tried an old scam to find out our location.”

“Christ, that guy?” Beck stood for a moment shaking his head.

“You know him?”

“Works for Milstein. Where’s D?”

“He just got up. He’s in the bar. Like usual.”

“Ciro and Joey still here?”

“Watching in shifts. Except for Joey B. Seems like he don’t sleep. I never seen a guy that size so buggy. You know what kinda drugs he’s on?”

“The kind that make you big and buggy, I guess.”

“Everybody is restless.”

“Good.”

Beck was thinking about what to do with Manny. When to tell him about Olivia. The trouble was, he wasn’t sure how or when would be best. Or, what Manny’s reaction would be. Instead, he decided to give Manny something to do.

“Hey, about that guy Pearce.”

“Yeah.”

“Check with Phineas. See if he can find out where he lives.”

“Okay.”

“You got coffee going?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll meet you and D in the bar in a few.”

45

Olivia lay wide awake.

By the time they got back to Red Hook, the adrenaline and fear had washed through her and she’d fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She’d slept soundly. But she had awakened at her usual six o’clock and remained in the strange bed in the small room at the east end of the third floor.

She listened to sounds from the house. The steam hissing and softly banging through the old pipes. Muffled male voices from the floors below her. An occasional sharp sound coming from the big kitchen on the second floor.

She felt trapped and surrounded. She didn’t want to be in this house with all these men. Beck made her uneasy. She hadn’t thought about him nearly enough before this had started. How could she? She knew so little about him. She had mostly thought about Manny.

Beck was the only man she had ever met that made her unsure of herself. On one level, he was doing exactly what she wanted him to do. But there was too much that he wouldn’t reveal to her.

She was as sure about Manny Guzman as she had ever been. He hadn’t taken all that much effort. Mostly just time and persistence. Something she was very good at. It had been easy. She had played the role of his one, loyal relative perfectly. It was kind of like training an attack dog. Feed it. Be the only one kind to it. Let the dog feel loved.

Manny loved her. He’d let her know it the only way he could. By telling her if she ever needed him, just reach out.