“Yeah. My landlord drives one just like it. Does a hundred and eighty and costs about the same.”
“Nice,” Rosales said. “A grand per mile per hour.”
Andrews chuckled.
Still four car lengths from the Audi, Rosales saw the light ahead turn green. The Lincoln pulled away. The Audi—a woman behind the wheel—followed. Almost to the end of the next block, the light there turned yellow. But, instead of continuing at a leisurely speed, the driver of the Lincoln sped through the light as it turned red. That didn’t particularly surprise Rosales. What did surprise him, however, was that the Audi driver ran the red light, then appeared to slow down after she was through the intersection.
“You see that?”
“Yeah,” Andrews said. “Maybe the Lincoln’s got a tail. Besides us, I mean.”
Janet watched as they passed brownstones and then mom and pop retail stores topped with apartments. Everything looked so old in Brooklyn, compared to what she was used to in California. They’d been in the car for five minutes when Massarino ended a phone call and turned slightly to look at her.
“Bruno tells me you’ve had one heck of a year.”
Janet met his gaze and shrugged.
“How did you and Bruno meet?”
She told him the story about the two kids mugging Bruno for his briefcase.
Massarino shook his head. “Jeez. He didn’t tell me that story.” He smiled at her. “You really have had quite a year.”
She didn’t know how to respond. Every time she thought about the events of the past seven months, she conjured up her mother’s sweet face and the bloody scene in her house the day Rasif Essam broke in. She changed the subject. “What’s Bruno been up to out here?”
“I’ll let him tell you.” Massarino looked through his window and added, “We’ll be there in a couple—”
“Boss, I think we got a tail,” Caniglia announced.
“You recognize anyone?”
Caniglia glanced in his rearview mirror. “No, boss. Just some broad. Uh, sorry, Ms. Jenkins.”
“Keep an eye on her,” Massarino ordered. “Let’s take a Sunday drive.”
The driver meandered around Brooklyn streets, seemingly driving aimlessly. He turned down narrow residential streets, drove below the posted speed limit, and stopped for nearly every light. The Audi had turned in at a hotel a block back and hadn’t been spotted since.
Caniglia announced, “False alarm, boss. She’s gone.”
Nguyen pulled into a semi-circular drive fronting a hotel and handed the doorman a twenty-dollar bill and her car keys.
“You checking in?” the man asked.
“Later,” she said. “Park it.”
Nguyen scooted over to a taxi and climbed inside.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“Just drive. You follow instructions and there’ll be a big tip in it for you.”
“You’re the boss,” the driver said.
“What the hell are you doing?” Andrews asked as Rosales parked at the curb in front of the hotel the Audi had pulled into. “You’ll lose the Lincoln.”
“There’s something hinky about the woman in that Audi.”
“So what? I thought we were trying to find Pedace.”
Rosales gestured with a hand to tell Andrews to be patient. He watched the woman from the Audi rush from her car, say something to a doorman, and then sprint over to a cab parked at the end of a semi-circular drive.
The taxi then drove away.
“Cute trick,” Rosales said as he followed the cab. “Very cute.”
The cab had barely pulled away from the hotel when it switched lanes, jockeying with other cars.
“What in God’s name?” Andrews exclaimed.
“Pretty damned clever,” Rosales said. “Massarino musta spotted the Audi and the gal figured that out from the way the Lincoln driver acted.”
“She coulda lost the Lincoln while switching vehicles,” Andrews said.
“Yeah, she could have. But the way that cab’s moving, I suspect she’s spotted it.”
Nguyen thought she saw the tail end of the Lincoln turn right. “Speed it up,” she ordered the cabbie. “I’ll cover any tickets you get.”
Two blocks down, after making the right turn, she spied the Lincoln as it turned left about fifty yards ahead.
“Take the next left,” she said.
Almost as soon as the driver turned left, the Lincoln pulled into a loading zone halfway up the block on the left.
“Drive to the end of the block, then pull over as soon as you can,” Nguyen ordered.
After the driver pulled into a handicap space, she exited the vehicle, handed the driver a one-hundred-dollar bill and told him, “There’ll be another ‘C-Note’ for you when I return.” She walked to the front door of a pizza joint on the corner and peeked down the street. She watched a large man exit the Lincoln’s right front door, look around, and then open the right rear door. Louis Massarino stepped into the street. The driver then got out and opened the left rear door for Janet Jenkins, who joined Massarino. As Massarino, the big man, and Jenkins quickly crossed the street, the driver got back in behind the wheel.
Her eyes on the threesome as they approached a boutique in the middle of the block, Nguyen thought they were headed to the shop. But, instead, they walked past the entrance and stopped at a steel door set into the right front of the building, a few yards from the shop entrance. The big man appeared to use a key to unlock the door. After Massarino and Jenkins went inside, he locked the door behind them and stood guard.
Nguyen’s predator instincts were now in hyper drive. Something deep inside told her she’d found Bruno Pedace. It’s all about being patient, she thought. Nguyen touched the silenced 9mm Beretta automatic in her coat pocket, then withdrew her hand. She guessed Massarino’s driver and the man guarding the door would be armed. Massarino could be carrying, as well. The odds were against her taking action then and there. And, if she did, and was successful, she would have to eliminate the taxi driver. No loose ends, she thought.
As soon as Rosales turned the corner, he saw the light on the cab’s roof down the block on the right. Andrews pointed out the Lincoln parked on the left side of the street, a man in the driver’s seat.
“Check out the guy on the right, in front of that shop,” Andrews said. “Hands in his coat pockets, eyeing the street and sidewalk.”
“Yeah, I see him,” Rosales said. “Looks like muscle.” He drove past the shop and then turned right at the corner where the cab was parked. He jerked a glance to the right and saw the Asian woman he’d seen get out of the Audi back at the hotel. She now moved from a storefront to the cab. Rosales circled the block and double parked eight car lengths back from the Lincoln. He and Andrews settled in to watch, but less than a minute passed before a loud horn blast startled them. Rosales looked in his rearview mirror and saw the grill of a large truck. “Damn,” he muttered. He moved the car forward just as he spotted the taxi pull away.
Rosales asked Andrews, “You get the address where that guy was standing?”
“Yeah.”