I stood there for a moment, the iceman propitiated, exulting, watching as Mr. Blond struggled to get up, his legs kicking, a pool of blood spreading on the sidewalk all around him. Then the kicking slowed and his hands fell away. A long, burbling sigh issued forth, his head dropped to the pavement, and the tension drained out of his limbs. One foot continued to scrape slowly back and forth, back and forth, whether reflex or the body’s last, futile efforts to fight I couldn’t say and didn’t care.
I glanced around. A dozen bystanders stood rooted, mouths agape, shocked, not comprehending, struggling to come to grips with the evidence of their own senses. They were all twenty-and thirtysomethings with fashionable bags and trimmed goatees who’d come here for an upscale lunch of Moroccan couscous or to acquire a fabulous pair of Italian platform shoes. A safe bet none of them had ever even witnessed a dead body, let alone one newly created with a knife before their very eyes. I saw no immediate problems, neither accomplices nor anyone who looked the least bit likely to try to intervene. I would have expected more than one, but…Dox had said four people on the boat. Maybe Hilger couldn’t spare more than Mr. Blond.
I badly wanted to check for ID, but there were too many people, and not enough time. Besides, it was almost certain he was traveling sterile. I closed the knife and pocketed it, threw the chain over my head, and picked up the box. I righted the bike and almost got on, but looked down at the front wheel in time. It was too badly bent to rotate cleanly through the metal struts on either side of it. Shit.
I laid the bike down flat and stomped on the wheel, truing it sufficiently to turn. I could have just jettisoned it, and the box, too, but I preferred to leave nothing behind. And besides, I could create more distance faster on the bike.
In my peripheral vision, I saw people taking out cell phones now, snapping pictures, shooting video, and I was glad for the balaclava, helmet, and sunglasses. Keeping my head down, I got on the bike and pedaled away north on Mott, against traffic so no one in a car could try to follow me. The front wheel wobbled but it held.
I made a right on Houston, rode as fast as I could four blocks to Forsyth, then made another right, again against traffic. There was a dumpster at the northeast end of Sara D. Roosevelt Park and I stopped next to it. I used Mr. Blond’s knife to open the box and upended it into the dumpster, spilling out the styrofoam peanuts. Then I sliced open the box’s other end, folded it flat, and threw it into the dumpster, too. Witnesses would describe the box the bike messenger had been carrying, and doubtless it had been captured on some cell phone cameras, too. It couldn’t be traced back to me, but there was no advantage to making it easy to find, either. Layers of defense. Always layers.
I cut east on Stanton. Two blocks further on, I paused just long enough to dump the knife and the bike chain in a sewer. I pedaled south on Allen until I found another dumpster, this one for the bike helmet and side-view mirror. When I reached Canal, I got off the bike and leaned it against a building, confident someone would appropriate it inside fifteen minutes. Even if no one did, and the police picked it up, it was sterile. The serial number was gone, I’d paid cash when I bought it, and I’d wiped it down completely for prints before setting off that morning. More layers.
On foot now, I headed west on Canal, then north on Eldridge, then west again on Hester and into the park. As I walked, I pulled off the balaclava and the shades and stripped off the peacoat. Underneath, I was wearing my new shirt, sport jacket, and tie. Shorn of the bulky coat, my build now appeared considerably slimmer. I carried myself differently, too, imagining myself as a professional, a man who wore a tie and jacket every day and worked in an office. Anyone looking for a bike messenger now would go right by me. I took the gloves off last, and left everything on the ground near a trash can. There were homeless men in the park, and I expected the remnants of my bike messenger persona would disappear no less quickly than the bike itself.
I pulled out the second pair of sunglasses, the round ones, from inside the jacket and slipped them on, then checked the iPhone to see where Accinelli had parked. The Bowery lot, the same place I’d seen him the first time. A little closer to Mott Street than I would have liked, but no one was going to make me now. Regardless, I couldn’t leave the transmitter under his car. Probably no one would find it, and even if someone did, no one could trace it back to me, but…the way I saw it, there was still a slim chance Accinelli’s death could be ruled accidental. Maybe a heart attack from the fright of witnessing a bloody murder not ten steps from where he stood, something like that. Not likely, but…things were happening too fast for me to consider it all right now. I didn’t want to leave behind evidence suggesting Accinelli had been targeted. I’d stick with the original plan and figure out the rest later.
I heard sirens from west on Prince Street, and glanced over as I came to the Bowery lot. There was a police barricade in place, a uniformed cop directing traffic from in front of it. The lot attendant was standing outside his booth, watching.
“Excuse me,” I said, walking over. “I think I dropped my MP3 player the last time I parked here. Can I take a quick look?”
“Sure, man,” he said, barely glancing away from the spectacle west on Prince. I thanked him and went to Accinelli’s car. I squatted down, quickly retrieved and pocketed the equipment, and slipped away without another word.
I drove back to Great Neck. Once I was out of the city and the immediate exigency had passed, I got the shakes-the usual aftereffect of an overdose of adrenaline, this time compounded by my awareness of how close I had just come to dying. I pulled over at a rest stop to wait for it to pass.
I sat in the car for almost an hour. When the shaking was no more than a slight vibration in my fingertips, I started thinking. I needed to consider three things: How Hilger had gotten to me. Why. And what it meant for Dox.
How was the easiest. He must have known about Accinelli’s mistress. If he knew about her, he would be aware of the unfavorable home and work terrain, as well. Not so difficult to anticipate that I’d learn of the mistress, too, and that I’d make my move at her apartment. Mr. Blond had probably been setting up there for days, maybe in a van a block or two north, watching the area in front of her apartment through binoculars. When he saw me go in after Accinelli, he knew what I was there for. At which point, he gets out of the van to intercept me and take me out. It was a good plan. If I hadn’t seen him in Saigon, and remembered that smooth gait, it might have been me right now, lying on the cold sidewalk in a pool of my own blood.
Why was harder. By killing me in the immediate vicinity of Accinelli’s cooling body, Hilger would have significantly reduced the chances that Accinelli’s death would be viewed as natural causes. Two deaths so close together is a hell of a coincidence. That meant that the naturalness of Accinelli’s demise wasn’t a priority for Hilger. Which raised the question of why he wanted me for the job in the first place.
There was another thing. The third job was bullshit. There was no third job: it was just an illusion, a way to get me to drop my guard.
Finally, Dox. I wanted to worry, knowing Hilger might already have killed him, but the iceman wouldn’t permit it. Just work the problem, a voice in my mind said. Be cool. Be analytical. The rest won’t help you, or Dox, either.
I put myself in Hilger’s shoes. He was smart. How would he plot this out?
There are only two targets. As soon as the second one is done, Mr. Blond takes out Rain. Kill Dox first? Risky. What if Rain demands to talk to him again before the Accinelli hit? And what if something goes wrong with the hit on Rain? Without Dox, I’ll have lost all my leverage. Better to wait. When Mr. Blond confirms Rain is done, I put Dox to sleep right after.