I thought of the bike messenger I’d seen, and felt a plan beginning to cohere. I started with the general parameters, then built in details. I asked what-if questions, and played when/then games. I liked what I was coming up with. It wasn’t perfect, and there were risks. But there always are. I doubted I was going to have a better opportunity than Mott Street.
I found a bike shop in Great Neck, where I bought the cheapest twelve-speed they sold, along with a pair of long neoprene biking gloves; a fleece balaclava and a helmet to go over it; a nifty side-view mirror called Third Eye that attached to the earpiece of a pair of sunglasses; and a three-foot, case-hardened, steel bike chain called the Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit. Next, an Office Depot, where I bought a large box of styrofoam peanuts. Finally, a hardware store, where I picked up a file, a paintbrush, and two cans of paint-black, and mud brown. I wiped down everything and didn’t handle any of it afterward except with the gloves.
At a nearby park, not far from young mothers pushing their toddlers in strollers and on swings, I slathered paint all over the bike frame. I started with the can of black, using little care in my application. I just wanted the bike to look old, or as though someone had tried to make it a less enticing target for theft. Later, in a more private setting, I would file down the serial number until there was a hole in the metal beneath.
I ran the brush back and forth, back and forth, letting my mind drift. Of course it was impossible not to think of Koichiro. To have just seen him, to know that he was so near. To be within earshot now of all these young mothers with their children, hearing them laugh and chat and gossip about goings-on in the neighborhood. To have read of the fallout, the consequences, of what I’d done to Jannick.
I opened the can of brown and kept at it, the sun providing a hint of warmth to the otherwise chill air. Midori’s parents were dead, and she had no brothers or sisters. If something happened to her, who would take care of Koichiro? No one but Midori knew I was his father. Even if someone did, there was no way to find me. What would happen to my son? Who would step forward?
My hand stopped in midstroke and I stood completely still for a moment, frozen by sudden insight. It had been right in front of me, and I’d missed it. I’d been too focused on the CIA funding of Jannick’s company, that was the problem. It seemed like a connection. But it wasn’t impossible that it was nothing but a distracting coincidence.
Who would step forward? The article said Jannick’s wife and children were being cared for by relatives. Who, though? Grandparents? Brothers? Sisters? Uncles? Aunts? Whoever they were, they were like pieces on a chessboard, and Jannick’s death had rearranged their positions. Maybe that new positioning was what Hilger was really after.
I finished the bike. As soon as it was dry, I threw it in the trunk and drove to the Great Neck Public Library, where I posted a message to Kanezaki: What relatives are staying with Jannick’s family now? Parents, siblings, whoever. Names, addresses, most of all, their jobs. Cross-reference with everything else we have. Hilger might have been after a secondary effect.
THE NEXT FORTY-EIGHT HOURS were uneventful. I continued to tail Accinelli, but he never left the office during the day and always went straight home at night. I figured he was too busy for an assignation, or couldn’t come up with a believable excuse. I heard from Kanezaki. He told me he was running down the leads I had sent him, but that was all.
I started to get concerned. Hilger had given me five days, and I had only one left. I thought about contacting him, insisting on talking to Dox again. But I decided not to. Hilger wouldn’t have done anything yet: he needed Dox, at least until I was finished with Accinelli. Besides, right now, it would be too easy for him to say no. I wasn’t devoid of leverage, but what I had, I needed to use sparingly.
ON THE MORNING of the deadline, I was waiting in the BMW near Sara D. Roosevelt Park, about ten blocks from the Mott Street apartment, watching the readout on the iPhone. I’d been there since following Accinelli to his office as always, and so far he hadn’t moved. It was past eleven now, and I was beginning to think I might have to contact Hilger and tell him I needed more time. And then, just like that, the little light that represented Accinelli’s car on the phone started moving. Come on, I thought. Come this way. A little afternoon delight.
I watched as he headed west on the LIE, then the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. When I saw him approaching the Williamsburg Bridge, I was sure.
I affixed the little side-view mirror to the shades I had on and stepped out of the car. Almost every inch of me was covered in something: thermal underwear, work boots, the wool turtleneck sweater, the peacoat, the balaclava, the neoprene gloves. I put the chain over my neck, secured the bike helmet over the balaclava, and set the box of styrofoam peanuts on the ground. I took the bike out of the trunk, propped it against the car, and looked around. There were a couple of pickup basketball games going on at the park. Construction on a nearby street. No one was paying me any attention. I waited for a break in the traffic, for the intermittent clusters of passing pedestrians to thin, and then picked up the box by a plastic strap across its top and walked the bike away from the car. The box was large and awkward, but with only styrofoam peanuts inside, it weighed almost nothing. I had stripped off all the labeling; the box was now bare, and there was no way to tell what was inside it.
Two blocks from the car, I got on the bike and rode it one-handed to Mott, just another bike messenger in eclectic cold-weather gear, a heavy chain across my chest, peddling an old bicycle I’d painted ugly like all the messengers do so no one would want to steal it. I rolled slowly down the street, checking the hot spots, finding nothing out of place. Like the last time I was here, daylight mirrored the exterior of the glass door, making the apartment corridor invisible from the sidewalk. The call box in front of the apartment was once again festooned with notices from deliverymen, and I nodded, satisfied to have one less thing to worry about.
I leaned the bike against the wall of the apartment building, to the left of the door, the side that would open when Accinelli unlocked it. I set the box down and arranged the chain around the bicycle frame but didn’t actually lock it. I wouldn’t have cared if someone stole the bike right then, and I certainly didn’t want to have to waste time unlocking it when this was done. I just needed something to look busy with for the few minutes I waited for Accinelli.
I faced north on Mott, expecting him to arrive from the south side as he had before. The little side-view mirror gave me an excellent view of the street to my rear. From Accinelli’s standpoint, it would seem that my back was to him, that I was paying him no attention at all.
A minute later, I saw him turn the corner from Prince, heading toward me on my side of the street, gradually growing larger in the side view. A hot rush of adrenaline spread out from my gut and my heart started kicking. I glanced ahead and saw no problems.
I watched him come closer in the mirror. A charcoal suit today, and a yellow tie. His keys came out, like last time. Ten yards. Five. Three.
Just as he hit the bottom of the stairs, I straightened and picked up the box, struggling with it, exaggerating its heft and awkwardness. I turned toward him. He was at the top of the stairs now. I started up behind him. He put the key in the door and turned it. I was one step below him now. He pushed the door open.
“Can you hold that for me for a sec?” I asked, stepping across the threshold and thereby not giving him much of a choice.
I saw a second’s uncertainty ripple across his expression. Letting a stranger into a New York apartment building is a no-no. But with the outfit, the helmet, the box, I looked legit. And it would have been impolite to not even hold the door, to leave me standing outside in the cold with that heavy, awkward parcel. I knew that somewhere, deep in his instincts, he was wondering why the bike messenger didn’t just buzz the apartment of whoever the big box was for. But because more than anything else he wanted to end this transaction quickly, to get inside and be on his way with the least fuss possible, he would tell himself that surely I would have, could have, buzzed the apartment, but just happened to see him there, opening the door, and hoped he would be kind enough to help me…