Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child [102]
No regrets on my part. Better to err on the side of safety. Guys in fights who think ahead to the aftermath usually don’t get that far. They become the aftermath. So no regrets. But no net gain, either. Which was frustrating. Not even the brass knuckles fit my hand. I tried both sets on, and they were way too small. I dropped them down a storm drain twenty feet away.
Their car was still idling at the curb. It had New York plates. No navigation system. Therefore no digital memory with a base location. I found a rental agreement in the door pocket made out to a name I had never heard and a London address that I assumed was fake. In the glove box I found instruction manuals for the car and a small spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. The notebook had nothing written in it. I took the pen and walked back to the two guys and held Leonid’s head steady with my left palm clamped down hard. Then I wrote on his forehead with the ballpoint, digging deep in his skin and tracing big letters over and over again for clarity.
I wrote: Lila, call me.
Then I stole their car and drove away.
Chapter 54
I drove south on Second Avenue and took 50th Street all the way east to the end and dumped the car on a hydrant half a block from the FDR Drive. I hoped the guys from the 17th Precinct would find it and get suspicious and run some tests. Clothes are disposable. Cars, not so much. If Lila’s people had used that Impala to drive away from the hammer attack, then there would be some trace evidence inside. I couldn’t see any with the naked eye, but CSI units don’t rely on human vision alone.
I wiped the wheel and the shifter and the door handles with the tail of my shirt. Then I dropped the keys down a grate and walked back to Second and stood in a shadow and looked for a cab. There was a decent river of traffic flowing downtown and each car was lit up by the headlights behind it. I could see how many people were inside each vehicle. I was mindful of Theresa Lee’s information: fake taxis, circling uptown on Tenth, down on Second, one guy in the front, two in the back. I waited for a cab that was definitively empty apart from its driver and I stepped out and flagged it down. The driver was a Sikh from India with a turban and a full beard and very little English. Not a cop. He took me south to Union Square. I got out there and sat on a bench in the dark and watched the rats. Union Square is the best place in the city to see them. By day the Parks Department dumps blood-and-bone fertilizer on the flower beds. By night the rats come out and feast on it.
At four o’clock I fell asleep.
At five o’clock one of the captured phones vibrated in my pocket.
I woke up and spent a second checking left and right and behind, and then I fumbled the phone out of my pants. It wasn’t ringing. Just buzzing away to itself. Silent mode. The small monochrome window on the front said: Restricted Call. I opened it up and the big color screen on the inside said the same thing. I put the phone to my ear and said, “Hello.” A new word, recently invented. Lila Hoth answered me. Her voice, her accent, her diction. She said, “So, you decided to declare war. Clearly there are no rules of engagement for you.”
I said, “Who are you exactly?”
“You’ll find out.”
“I need to know now.”
“I’m your worst nightmare. As of about two hours ago. And you still have something that belongs to me.”
“So come and get it. Better still, send some more of your guys. Give me some more light exercise.”
“You got lucky tonight, that’s all.”
I said, “I’m always lucky.”
She asked, “Where are you?”
“Right outside your house.”
There was a pause. “No, you’re not.”
“Correct,” I said. “But you just confirmed that you’re living in a house. And that right now you’re at a window. Thank you for that information.”
“Where are you really?”
“Federal Plaza,” I said. “With the FBI.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your call.”
“Tell me where you are.”