What?
Jamie tried it again, then looked for the bars. Nothing. In its place, the image of a telephone receiver with a red hash mark across it.
No service.
No service here—a few minutes from the heart of downtown Philadelphia?
Maybe David had canceled the free office cell phone perk since he’d left. But no, that couldn’t be right. Jamie had used the phone yesterday, calling Andrea from CVS, asking if he had the right package of diapers for Chase.
Jamie pressed the button again. Still nothing. He’d have to call Andrea from work.
His name was Stuart McCrane …
… and his Ford Focus was halfway up the white concrete ramp before he saw the sign. He hit the brakes and squinted his eyes to make sure he was seeing right. The Focus idled. It didn’t like to idle, especially on such a steep incline. Stuart had to rev it to keep it in place.
Weekend rate: $26.50.
Unbelievable.
The Saturday-morning sun blazed off 1919 Market, a thirty-seven-story box of a building. You couldn’t call it a skyscraper, not with Liberty One and Two just two blocks down the street. This was where Stuart reported for work, Monday through Fridays. He had no reason to know the garage rates. He almost never drove. The regional rails carried him from his rented house in Bala Cynwyd to Suburban Station, no problem, all for just a few bucks. But this was a Saturday. Trains ran much slower. And without much traffic downtown, it was faster to drive. Apparently, it was more expensive, too.
You’d think a cushy government job would come with free parking.
Then again, you’d think that a cushy government job wouldn’t haul you in on a Saturday.
Hah.
But really, he had no idea why he was being dragged in on a weekend morning. Stuff he did—erasing bank accounts, leaving your average wannabe jihadist with a useless ATM card in one hand, his dick in the other—could be done anywhere, really. He could do it at friggin’ Starbucks. There was nothing more simple and yet nothing more satisfying. Maybe some guys got off on the idea of picking off towel-heads with a sniper rifle. Stuart loved doing it by tapping ENTER.
Guess he’d find out what this was about soon enough.
Stuart threw the Focus in reverse, gently lifted his foot off the brake. The car rolled back down the ramp. Another vehicle turned the corner sharply, ready to shoot up the ramp and, judging from its speed, over the Focus, if need be.
Brakes screamed. The Focus jolted to a stop, pressing Stuart back into his seat.
“Man,” he said.
He slapped the steering wheel, then looked into the rearview.
It was a Subaru Tribeca. With a woman behind the wheel.
Stuart crouched down into his seat, checked the rearview again. Squinted.
Oh.
Molly Lewis.
Stuart allowed the Focus to roll backwards. The Tribeca got the hint and reversed back down the foot of the ramp and backed onto Twentieth Street. Stuart steered the Focus until it was parallel with the Tribeca. Traffic was light this morning. It was only 8:45. Stuart rolled down his window. The Tribeca did the same, on the passenger side.
“Change your mind about work?”
“Hey, Molly. Yeah, I wish. I’m just not paying twenty-six fifty to park. I’ll find something on the street.”
“Then you’ve got to feed the meter.”
“Then I’ll feed the meter. I’m not paying twenty-six fifty.”
“David told me we’d be here until at least two o’clock.”
“What? I thought noon.”
“He e-mailed me this morning.”
“Man. What is this about anyway? I’ve got my laptop at home. I can do whatever he wants from my living room.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Stuart watched the Tribeca—fancy wheels for an assistant, he thought—shoot up the ramp. He continued up Twentieth, turned left on Arch, then Twenty-first, then Market down to Nineteenth. He drove past the green light at Chestnut, then hung a right on Sansom. There were no available spots on the 1900 block, or the next. Didn’t look like much farther down, either.
He flipped open the ashtray. One quarter, a few nickels, many pennies.
“Man.”
But then, movement. The red taillights of a Lexus. Pulling back. McCrane pressed his brakes. Slowed to a stop. Watched the Lexus maneuver out of the space.
Even better, it was a Monday-through-Friday loading space. Weekends, it was fair game.
“Yes,” Stuart said.
Her name was Molly Lewis …
… and she eased the Tribeca into a spot on an empty level in the 1919 Market Street Building’s garage. The nearest car was at least ten spots away. She turned off the engine, then opened the suitcase on the passenger seat. Inside, on top of a yellow legal pad, was David’s package.
Molly’s cell phone played the guitar riff from “Boys Don’t Cry.” She put in the earpiece and pressed ANSWER. A voice spoke to her.
She said: “Yes, I remembered.”
And a few seconds later: “I know. I followed the protocols.”
The packages had arrived last night. Paul had asked what she’d ordered now—smiling as he said it—and Molly truthfully replied that it was something for David. She had carried them to the glassed-in patio and sat down on a white metal garden chair. Then she carefully clipped away the masking tape with a pair of blue-handled scissors and then opened the flaps of the first box.
She had put the contents—David’s delivery—into her own briefcase, then gone back to order dinner from the gourmet Chinese place a few blocks away. Paul hated calling it in, and always complained until Molly did it.
Then she went back out to the patio to open the second box. She was staring at the contents now:
A Beretta .22 Neo.
Ammo—a box of fifty, target practice, 29 gr.
“I am,” she said now. “See you soon.”
Molly opened a white cardboard box, dumped most of the doughnuts and cannoli out onto the concrete floor of the parking garage. Let the pigeons enjoy them. She quickly assembled and loaded the pistol, then nestled it between the two remaining doughnuts. Sugar jelly.
Paul used to love sugar jelly.
Her name was Roxanne Kurtwood …
… and they were driving toward downtown Philadelphia.
“We’re closing,” Roxanne said.
She’d been waiting all morning to say that.
“We’re not closing,” Nichole said. “Our kind of business doesn’t close. Not in this market.”
“Then why a Saturday meeting?”
“Whatever, but we’re not closing.”
Nichole and Roxanne had become fast friends three months ago, ever since Roxanne was promoted from her internship. Before that Nichole hadn’t said much to Roxanne, other than to chastise her for forgetting to return the shared key to the ladies’ room. The day the promotion memo made the rounds, though, Nichole sidled up to Roxanne’s cubicle, asked her to go to Marathon for lunch. Since then they’d had lunch together every day.
Roxanne appreciated the friendship, but it was also frustrating. Nichole was like most Philadelphians: cold and standoffish, right up until the moment they’re not.
Even after their friendship suddenly and miraculously bloomed, the office was so secretive. How many times had she walked into Nichole’s office, only to find her quickly hit a key sequence that blanked her screen and brought up a fake spreadsheet? Like Roxanne wasn’t supposed to notice?
“We’re not closing,” Nichole repeated, “but I saw the reports.”