“Still risky.”
“True,” Max admits. “But there’s nobody braver than a man who’s got nothing to lose. He sees a way out. He takes it. You and I have some more work to do in that pie shop.”
I guess he’s right. Max’s scenario is pretty loopy. But he and I have seen a lot of crime in the last decade. And some of it was even stranger than this. “Can I have the first shower?”
“Go for it,” he says.
* * *
An hour later, we’re sitting around Max’s dining table, eating Indian food and trying to figure out what to try next.
“The Plumber is using a Windows-based laptop,” Max says. “The pie shop modem logs were very clear on this.”
“A Windows machine. Got it,” I say. “There’s only like a million of those in New York. No problemo.”
“We need more cameras,” Pieter says. “Gunnar’s body cam can’t be everywhere at once. I get a lot of coffee porn. Nice technique with the milk, by the way. That unicorn you did for the old lady was your best yet.”
“Thank you,” I grumble.
“That other camera you planted allows me a nice view of the computer screens at that front table. But the worst crime I’ve seen so far over there was the purchase of a really ugly pair of shoes from Zappos.”
“What about that older guy?” I ask, tearing a piece of naan bread. “He holds meetings at the table in the afternoon. What’s he got on his computer screen?”
“He’s not our man.” Pieter shakes his head. “He’s interviewing candidates for Doctors Without Borders.”
“Really?” I snort. Unbelievable. We’re both in the business of saving lives, then. I hope he’s having better luck than I am. “Anything good from the facial recognition database?”
“Nope.” Pieter frowns. “One ex-con bought coffee from you yesterday. Grand theft auto. He’s a preacher now, and he lives in Westchester. He wasn’t carrying a computer bag, either.”
“Yeah, that’s not our guy. Let me ask you guys this,” I say. “How come you haven’t been able to ID the Plumber in the cell phone matrix?”
Max puts down his fork and sits back in his chair. “I honestly don't know, and it's pissing me off. We've spent a lot of man hours trying to find the informant’s phone, and we don’t have it yet.”
“Huh.” I shove another piece of chicken into my mouth, trying to think. It should be fairly simple to identify which cell phone has visited each of the coffee shops where The Plumber made his posts. Everyone's cell phone has commercial apps that anonymously track the location of the phone. Any company—including ours—can purchase buckets of this anonymous data to analyze it.
No doubt Max has a couple of quants downstairs right now sifting through cell phone location data for lower Manhattan. All they have to do is find a phone that's been to every location within the right time period. Then they can peer more closely at all the matches, analyzing where else those coffee drinkers go. It’s baby stuff.
“Anonymized” cell phone data is a stalker's dream. “Do you have too many leads?” I guess. “Is it a problem to sort them all?”
“Nope.” Max shakes his head. “Not a single phone passed by all three cafes on the right days. Unless my guys are just fucking this up. They’re looking for a flaw in the algorithm, but I’m getting frustrated.”
“Must be intentional,” I muse. “The Plumber could really be more than one person. If three different people posted those messages, you could never find this perp.”
“Or maybe it’s one guy, and he’s smart, and leaves his phone at home. Whoever is leading me around by the nose is doing a pretty good job of it.”
“Come on, buddy,” I urge my old friend. “Figure it out. I’m getting fat from eating pie every day.”
Scout leans forward in her chair. “How’s the product, anyway?”
“It’s so good,” I moan. “I already did the math on this—I’ll have to run an extra seven miles a week just to burn off half the calories.”
My friends all laugh.
“Every assignment has its own special risks,” Max says.
“You're telling me. She makes this gingered mango cream pie that tastes like it ought to be illegal.”
Pieter shakes his head. “I’m wearing a bulletproof vest to work this week. And your biggest fear is getting too fat for your jeans? How much of your paycheck are you spending on pie, anyway?”
“Plenty of it.”
“And you call yourself a man of self-control,” Scout teases.
“You try walking a mile in my shoes. The pie maker is a hottie who makes me drool, too. But she’s immune to my charms. And I still have to call her boss and do everything she says.”
My friends howl.
“And then I have to look at those pastries all day. And it smells like heaven in there. At least I’m earning tips.”
“Where do they put the tips?” Pieter asks. “In your G-string?”
“In a jar, asshole, because this is a classy operation. And—hey—when our clients bail on us because Max has devoted all our man hours to tracking a murderer, at least I can earn a living as a barista.”
“Now that you mention it,” Max says, sipping his beer. “I think I’m entitled to a cut of your tip jar. After all, I’m responsible for your coffee career taking off.”
“Nah. It's not the coffee they’re tipping on. It's the charm, baby. And I didn’t get that from you.”
“I don’t know,” Scout says with a teasing glint in her eye. “If you’re so charming, how does the lady boss resist you?”
“He’s wondered that for fifteen years,” Max says. “He had a whole summer to charm her into his bed, and he couldn’t do it.”
“Oh, buddy,” Pieter says, laughing. “Crash and burn. She’s a pretty one, too. Maybe I’ll ask her out.”
“You will not!” I grunt, and everyone grins at my reaction. “Don’t underestimate me. She wants me. It’s on.”
Pieter laughs, like he thinks I’m joking. But I’m not. Posy used to watch me to make sure I didn’t screw up. But now she watches me for fun. I swear sometimes her eyes are stapled to my backside.
“Gunn.” Max’s forehead furrows. “Can't you wait to seduce her until after this is over?”
“I suppose. Although Posy and I are like a steam valve with too much pressure on it. Someone's got to hit the release valve soon, or I may explode. Besides—when I quit this job, she'll be pissed at me.”
“Because you're no longer in her bed?” Scout guesses. “The ego on you!”
“Well, sure. All the ladies miss me when I’m gone. But she'll be trying to replace me behind the counter. And I’m getting the feeling it’s harder to replace a barista than a lover.”
My friends burst out laughing again, and even Max snorts into his scotch glass. “Just don't get yourself fired until we find our man.”
“I can’t be fired. It’s a tight labor market for people who can draw animals in foam.”
My friends are wiping their eyes now.
“Nevertheless,” Max says, changing the topic. “I’ll need most of you for a quick job sometime in the next ten days.”
“Oh yeah?” I perk right up at the sound of that. It’s been a while since Max and I ran a mission together. “What are we getting up to?”
“Remember when I told you that Xian Smith was in town for a nice long time?”
“Of course. He’s still around, right?” This whole crazy pie shop mission is tied up in Smith’s potential guilt. If Max says he’s lost track of Xian Smith, I’m going to seriously question my life choices.
“Well, he left town for a few days. But now he’s back.”
“Where'd he go?”
Max shakes his head. “He’s not hackable, and our guys lost him at the security checkpoint at JFK. So it could have been anywhere. But now I have a device in his hotel room.”
Whoa. “Seriously? How the hell did you pull that off?” An operative like Smith knows how to sweep his hotel room for bu
gs.
“Get this—” My old friend pushes his plate away. “He checked out of his room at the Soho Luxe.”
“You mean when he went out of town?”
A slow grin spreads across Max’s face. “That’s right. Even crime lords don’t like to overpay at a hotel.”
“Maybe he didn’t know if he was coming back,” I point out.
“Maybe.” Max’s grin turns smug. “But I had a hunch. And since he always stays in the same suite, I planted the device while he was gone. It’s a dead-end camera.”
“Oh.” Now I understand Max’s trickery. If the camera isn’t broadcasting a signal, Smith would have a lot more trouble detecting it in his room. “So you’ll have to recover it soon.”
“Sure. It will run out of juice in about …” He looks at his smart watch. “Eight days. You and me and Scout will go in there and pick it up while he’s out at a meeting. Even if he’s monitoring his room, we’ll be history by the time he gets back.”
“Okay.” That op sounds like fun. Except for one problem. “Just remember—I work seven to four most days. And don’t fuck with my lunch break.”
Max snickers. “I wouldn’t dare.”
10
Gunnar
At nine, after my friends and I have finished both our dinner and our meeting, I take a car back down to SoHo. I get out on Spring Street and consider my next move. Tomorrow is my day off from the pie shop, so I don’t have to go to bed at ten o’clock tonight like a loser.
Across the street is The Alley Cocktail Lounge, where I can see a TV through the window. There’s a baseball game on the screen. The Mets are playing tonight, barely ten miles away from here.
The sight of the baseball diamond on the green glare of the screen puts an unwelcome tug in the center of my chest. As a kid, I used to watch the Mets with my dad. Back when life was simpler. It wasn’t ever simple, but I didn’t know that. I was just a little boy who sat beside his father on our living room couch in Queens. We don’t speak to each other anymore, and I’ve been avoiding New York baseball for a long time because it reminds me of him.
But I wonder how the Mets are doing tonight.
My feet are moving before I even realize it. Taking care not to get run over by a taxi, I cross the street and head into the bar.
“Gunn!” calls Jerome, the bartender. “Long time no see! Where’ve you been, man? Sit down and have a beer.” He puts a coaster down in front of the only empty bar stool.
“It’s been months, right?” I pull out the stool, and just as I’m sliding onto it, I happen to glance at the woman on the next bar stool. Her head is down because she’s reading a book. But I'd know the graceful line of her neck anywhere.
Posy Paxton is reading a novel in the middle of a crowded bar on a Friday night, a half-drunk dirty Martini in front of her.
The baseball game is immediately forgotten. So is Jerome, for that matter. Because Posy is wearing one of those tops with a neckline that’s wider than necessary. It’s slid down on one side, revealing one smooth, tantalizing shoulder. There’s a frown of concentration on her kissable face. And the cherry on this libido sundae is the way her wavy hair is loosely collected by a ribbon that looks like it would slide out if I gave it just the barest of tugs. My hand tingles with the urge to do exactly that.
I don’t, of course. But Christ. Normally I don't ogle every woman like she's my own personal dessert buffet. But this one always stopped me in my tracks. And since she doesn't look up from that book, there's no one to stop my gaze from sliding all over her body.
Get a grip, Scott. I clear my throat, preparing to say hello. She turns the page of her book, oblivious. “Posy Paxton,” I say, my voice full of gravel. “You really know how to party.”
If I’d expected her to startle, I’m disappointed. “Don't judge,” she says calmly. “This book and I are in the best relationship of my life. This book listens when I talk. This book will never stand me up.”
“Does it put the toilet seat down, too?” I chuckle at my own joke. “But wait—did you get stood up tonight? That's hard to imagine.”
“Is it?” She finally looks up at me. “One year ago tonight, my husband asked me to open our marriage. The ink is barely dry on our divorce. And now he's having a baby with a professional lifestyle guru who's barely legal to drink.”
“Lifestyle guru? That's a job?”
“Seriously?” Posy gives me a glare. “That's what shocks you about this whole situation?”
“Well, yeah. Because I’m pretty hard to shock when it comes to the shitty things men will do. Your guy blowing up his life just so he can stick it in a sweet young thing who gives his ego a BJ every day? Sorry, honey. That’s just not shocking. Men have been pulling that since the dawn of time.”
“Glad to hear it,” Posy says between gritted teeth.
“—But making money telling other people how to live? Now that's a trick.”
“I suppose you're right.” She sighs. “But I don’t have to like her.”
“True,” I agree. “And it’s not like she needs to make a ton of cash. Not if she's got your ex supporting her.”
Posy glances back down at the page, as if the idea embarrasses her. “I heard he went back to work. Babies are expensive.” Her voice drops so low I can tell she doesn’t want to discuss it.
“What are you reading, anyway?”
She puts her palm over the page. “This isn’t an open relationship. Sorry.”
I snort. The verbal tug of war with Posy is as familiar as breathing. “Show me,” I demand.
“I don't think I will.” She lifts her martini glass and downs the dregs.
“Please?”
“Nope.”
I’m considering my options when the guy on the other side of Posy turns to face us. He’s got a barbell through one eyebrow, and he’s wearing a baseball cap that says Gay AF. “You know what’s funny? The guy on the cover of the book looks sort of like you. Big shoulders. Kind of hot and bossy.” Then he gives me a big smile to go along with the compliment.
“Really?” I ask. “Could this be true? You’d better show me.”
“Nope.”
“I can't see my twin? What if we were separated at birth?”
“He looks nothing like you,” she says to the page.
“Let me be the judge,” Jerome pipes up. “I’m kinda dying of curiosity back here.”
Posy groans. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” The sound of the f-word coming out of her pouty mouth makes my body tighten in three or four different ways. She lets out a long-suffering sigh and lifts the cover toward Jerome.
I crane my neck so I can see the front of Posy’s book. And I see a bare-chested man with long flowing hair and very tight pants. Not baseball-player tight, but more like knight-in-shining-armor tight. “Interesting,” I say.
“Don't judge,” Posy reminds me.
“I wasn't. Honestly, if you were sitting here reading Nabokov on a Friday night, then I’m totally gonna judge. Can I buy you a drink?”
She closes the book and puts it onto the bar, face down. “Sure. Thank you.”
“Jerome?” I call. Could you make us two of your rhubarb Collinses?”
Posy’s eyes widen. “I don't get to choose my own drink?”
“Sure. You can order any drink you want. But I spent the last ten days watching you put together all kinds of crazy flavor combinations in that pie shop. Who knew that pears and cardamom went together? So I thought you'd like to try Jerome’s specialty.”
“How do you know I haven’t already tried it?” she asks.
Jerome snickers behind the bar. “She’s got you, old man. Just fold your cards now. Posy—what can I get you to drink?”
“I’ll have the rhubarb Collins, please. I’ve heard it’s wonderful.” She gives him a smile, and everyone laughs. At me. Including the eyebrow-barbell guy.
“Two rhubarb Collinses is coming up,” Jerome says.
“Make it three,” I say. “One for that guy.” I po
int at the guy on Posy’s left. “I might as well buy drinks for people who appreciate me.”
His face lights up. “Thanks, dude.”
“Sorry I gate-crashed your date with the guy in breeches.” I elbow Posy, because I’m a pain in the ass. “I bet he’s bossier than I am.”
Posy rests her slim fingers on the back cover. “You'd be right. But guess what? A bossy man is only fun in the pages of a book.”
“Are you sure? Have you tested this theory? People say I’m pretty fun.”
If I’m not mistaken, there’s a flush on her cheeks. “Which people?”
“Well, female people.” I give her a hot smile. “Clothing optional.”
Posy gulps.
“Drink up, friends.” Jerome slides three drinks onto the bar in front of us. The salmon-colored liquid is served over ice, with a jaunty lemon wheel on the lip.
“Damn that’s pretty,” our new friend says from under his baseball cap. “Cheers, guys. To pink drinks and baseball.” We all lift our glasses and touch them together. “Now if only the Mets could strike this motherfucker out.”
As I take a sip, I glance up at the TV for the first time since sitting down. The score is tied. But I don’t care as much as I usually would.
Posy is much more diverting than baseball. I don’t know why I’m drawn to her. I’ve never really understood it. We were downright hostile to each other back in the day. And then—at the bitter end—her dad made me angrier than I’d ever been in my life. And now I have to call her boss and literally fetch coffee all fricking day.
Even all these years later, she still gets under my skin. There’s something about her energy that resonates with me. She’s driven and focused. She doesn’t suffer fools. Those are traits that we have in common.
But Posy has a warmth that underlies her troubled soul. As if she is doing everything she can to avoid becoming a cynical bastard like me. I see it when she puts an extra cookie in an old man’s bakery bag. And every time she speaks kindly to Jerry even when he’s forgotten to do something basic—like closing the backdoor.
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