Page 46

Dominic and Manny loitered at the corner across the street from where Jack Coulter lived.

It was nearing nine p.

m.

, and a third of the building’s street-facing windows were dark.

Through the glass doors to the lobby, they could see a doorman and two security guards.

There was no way to get to the elevators without going by them.

“Jeez, Dom,” Manny said.

“How we gonna get to him?”

“We’ve sneaked into tougher places,” Dominic said firmly, though he had no idea how they were going to do it, either.

They’d already checked the back of the building and found two entrances.

Both were metal security doors, with locks easy enough for either man to pick.

Or they would have been easy if not for the security cameras mounted high on the building that covered the area.

“Yeah, but we usually had time to plan ahead,” Manny said.

“Look. Are you with me? Or not?”

“You know I’m with you.”

“Then trust me, all right?”

“I do trust you.”

“Good,” Dominic said.

“Then stop complaining and start thinking about how we can get to him.”

While Dominic had been talking, Manny’s attention had been across the street.

“We could just follow him.”

“What?”

Dominic looked over to see what had caught Manny’s eye.

The doorman of Coulter’s building was outside now, standing near the curb with a pair of carry-on suitcases, signaling for a taxi.

Standing just inside the lobby were two men who hadn’t been there when Dominic had last checked.

Both were more than six feet tall, the one wearing a suit a good twenty years younger than the other, if not more.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Manny said.

Dominic squinted.

The older man looked like he could be Coulter, but it was hard to tell through the glass door.

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Manny said.

“That’s him. I’m sure of it.”

As a cab pulled to the curb, the doorman signaled to the men in the lobby.

The moment they stepped outside, Dominic saw that Manny was right.

“Grab a taxi,” he said.

“Hurry!”

By the time the cab Coulter was in had started to pull onto the street, Dominic and Manny were climbing into theirs.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked.

Dominic pointed across the street.

“See that taxi? We go where it goes.”

“This ain’t the movies, buddy. Give me an address or get out.”

“A hundred on top of the fare, if you do it.” That would be a severe strain on Dominic’s finances but worth it if this paid off.

“Up front,” the cabbie said.

Dominic pulled out a hundred-dollar bill he kept in case of emergencies and shoved it through the slot in the Plexiglas divider.

The cabbie whipped the car in the direction Coulter had headed.

“Which taxi was it?”

Dominic eyed the road ahead and pointed.

“That one.”

Stone pulled the compact out of his pocket and opened it so he could see out the rear window of the cab.

“Now I understand,” Jack said.

“It’s a trick Tamlyn taught me.”

“She’s an intelligent woman.”

“Very.”

Before leaving Jack’s apartment, Stone had asked if Hillary had a compact that he could borrow.

They found several in her dressing room, and Stone had chosen the one with the largest mirror.

“Can you tell if someone’s following us?” Jack asked quietly, so the driver wouldn’t hear.

“We’ll need to make a few turns before I’ll know for sure.”

They’d instructed their cabbie to take them to the Equinox Hotel, a couple blocks south of the Lincoln Tunnel, so it wasn’t long before the taxi turned west.

After watching the road behind them for several seconds, Stone whispered, “Three cars made the turn with us.”

Two intersections later, their cab turned south.

“We’re down to one,” Stone said.

“Maybe no one’s following us,” Jack suggested.

“We should know soon enough.”

Two more turns and the cab that had been with them since Fifth Avenue was still there.

“It must be Estrada and Kroger,” Jack said.

“I’d say the chances of two cabs traveling across town to the Equinox at the same time from the same spot is highly unlikely,” Stone said.

“But let’s make sure.” He leaned forward and raised his voice.

“Driver, change of plans. Please take us to the Conrad downtown.”

“Sure thing,” the cabbie said.

While the Conrad was considerably farther south, it was on the west side of Manhattan, like the Equinox, so the route they had taken thus far would not seem unusual for their changed destination.

It also involved a few more turns, all of which the cab trailing them took.

“It seems the fish has taken the bait,” Stone said.

“Agreed,” Jack agreed.

“Shall we set the hook?”

“Let’s.”

The cab dropped Stone and Jack off at the entrance to the Conrad, where they purposely took no notice of the other cab turning the corner and pulling into the spot their taxi had just vacated.

While Jack made arrangements for the night at reception, Stone took a seat on one of the curved blue couches in the lobby and pretended to be looking at something on his phone.

From there, he could see the two men who’d exited the other cab and immediately recognized them as Estrada and Kroger, from Dino’s photos.

After a couple minutes of taking furtive glances at the hotel doors, Estrada entered the lobby.

He soon spotted Jack at reception, then looked around for Stone.

Stone leaned back, his phone raised in front of him, and tapped the screen like he was writing a text.

What he’d done instead was open his camera so that he could watch Estrada.

The man glanced at Jack again and then walked over and took a seat on a couch slightly behind Stone, and in easy listening distance of anything Stone might say.

Over at reception, Jack finished up and joined Stone at the couch, showing no sign that he’d noticed Estrada.

“All checked in?” Stone asked.

“I’m in the Conrad Suite on the top floor,” Jack said.

“The perfect place to hunker down until this all blows over.”

“That was my thinking. Care to join me for a drink before you leave? I hear the rooftop bar is still open.”

“I’d love to.”

Stone stood and they headed to the elevator, neither saying a word until they were alone in a car, heading up.

“Very clever of you getting Estrada to sit near you,” Jack said.

“I merely acted as a tempting target. He did all the rest.”

“I suppose they won’t make a move until I’m in my suite.”

“That would be my bet,” Stone said.

“But I suspect they’ll make an appearance at the bar to keep an eye on you.”

The rooftop bar was about half full when they arrived, and they were able to find a spot in a corner that was semiprivate.

A few minutes later, Estrada walked in alone.

“Stone,” Jack said.

“Yeah, I see him.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Stone looked over.

Jack was holding the disposable phone he’d been sent by the extortionists.

It was vibrating with an incoming call.

“Estrada’s not on a phone, so it must be Kroger,” Stone said.

The words were barely out of his month when Kroger entered the bar, with no phone in sight.

“Or not,” Stone said.