Page 6

"Right."

Charles got out of the Pontiac and walked past the door to the cocktail lounge. He saw DeZego slip into a chair by a table right by the entrance, shake hands with three men already sitting there, and jokingly kiss the hand of a long-haired blonde who wasn't wearing a bra.

I hope she was worth it, pal, Charles thought.

The Cadillac de Ville was still in front of the hotel entrance when Charles got there, engine running. But he hadn't walked much farther when, casually glancing over his shoulder, he saw it move away from the curb and then make the first left. A heavily jowled man in a bellboy's uniform was at the wheel.

Charles crossed the street, now walking quickly, to see if he could-if not catch up with it-at least get some idea where it had gone.

Heavy traffic on narrow streets helped him. He actually got ahead of the car and had to stand on a corner, glancing at his watch, until it passed him again. Two short blocks farther down, he saw it turn into a parking garage.

He waited nearby until, a couple of minutes later, the jowly bellboy came out and waddled back toward the hotel. Charles followed him on the other side of the street and, when the bellboy came close to the hotel, timed his pace, crossing the street so that he would be outside the cocktail lounge. He saw the bellboy hand DeZego the keys to the Cadillac, then saw DeZego drop them in the pocket of his jacket.

He walked back to the parking garage and stood near the corner, examining the building carefully. Somewhat surprised, he saw that the pedestrian entrance to the building was via a one-way gate, like those in the subways in New York, a system of rotating gates, ceiling-high that turned only one way, letting people in but not out.

He thought that over, wondering how the system worked, how a pedestrian-or somebody who had just parked his car- got out of the building. Then he saw how it worked. There was a pedestrian exit way down beside the attendant's booth. You had to walk past the attendant to get out. The system, he decided, was designed to reduce theft, at least theft by people who looked like thieves.

He walked to the garage and passed through the one-way gate. Inside was a door. He pushed it open and found two more doors. One had ONE painted on it in huge letters, and the other read, STAIRS. He went through the ONE door and found himself on the ground floor of the garage. The door closed automatically behind him, and there was no way to open it.

DeZego's Cadillac was not on the ground floor. He went up the vehicular ramp to the second floor. DeZego's car wasn't there, either, but he saw that one could enter through the door to the stairwell. He walked up the stairs to the third floor. Same thing. No brown Cadillac but he could get back on the stairs. He found the Caddy on the fourth floor. Then he went back into the stairwell and up another flight of stairs. It turned out to be the last; the top floor was open.

He walked to the edge and looked down, then went into the stairwell again and walked all the way back to the ground floor. The attendant looked up but didn't seem particularly interested in him.

I don't look as if I've just ripped off a stereo, Charles thought.

He walked back to South 16^th Street and stood on the corner catty-corner to wait for Victor to come around the block again.

Then he saw the cops. Two of them in an unmarked car parked across the street from the hotel, watching the door to the cocktail lounge.

Were they watching Brother DeZego? Or somebody with him? Or somebody entirely different?

Victor showed up, and when Charles raised his hand and smiled, Victor stopped the Pontiac long enough for Charles to get in.

"The Caddy's in a parking garage," Charles said.

"Penn Services-I saw it," Victor said.

"There," Charles said.

"I also saw two cops," Victor said. "Plainclothes. Detectives. Whatever."

"If they were in plainclothes, how could you tell they were cops?"

"Shit!" Victor chuckled.

"I saw them," Charles said.

"And?"

"And nothing. For all we know, they're the Vice Squad. Or looking for pickpockets. Take a drive for five minutes and then drop me at the garage. Then drive around again and again, until you can find a place to park on the street outside the parking garage. You can pick me up when I'm finished."

"How long is this going to take?"

"However long it takes Lover Boy to leave that bar," Charles said, and then, "How would I get from the garage exit to the airport?"

"I'm driving," Victor said.

"I'm toying with the idea of driving myself in Lover Boy's car," Charles said. "I think I would attract less attention from the attendant if I drove out, instead of carrying the bag."