She sat quietly while Paul drove up to the entrance of the New Otani. A bellman appeared with a cart and lifted their luggage onto it, and the parking attendant took their car away. She walked inside with Paul, and sat on a couch in the lobby while he checked in.
Sylvie had made the reservations using her best secretary voice, and gotten them the special Attorney Rate. The hotel Web site promised them accommodations within walking distance of state and federal courts, “affording your legal team a productive workplace” and “war rooms” that included conference tables, fax machines, workstations, copiers, and shredders. Today Paul was attorney Peter Harkin, and Sylvie was his wife, Sarah Harkin. They were from Charlotte, North Carolina. Peter had a distinguished-looking head of graying hair and a matching mustache, and Sarah had blond hair of the type that was just light enough to look as though its color had a genetic component.
Sylvie had selected their clothes and wigs to be especially misleading from above, where most surveillance cameras were mounted. Her blond wig was already feeling tight and uncomfortable. It reminded her of a movie Cherie Will had made called Blond-sided. She and three other actresses had all supposedly been cheerleaders who arrived from Texas for the Rose Bowl and missed their team bus. She and two of the others had needed to wear blond wigs, and she had hated it. Whenever Cherie had an idea for a movie, it didn’t matter if it meant actors had to be run over by a truck, as long as it was quick and cheap.
Sylvie distracted herself by looking at the lobby. The space was large, with lots of long angles and a mezzanine above, all in beige. There was a lounge that consisted of a long marble counter with tables and chairs along both sides of it, and at either end, an enormous arrangement of flowers exploding upward in various tones of bright red.
Paul stepped away from the front desk and Sylvie joined him on the way to the elevator. She said, “Any problem about the room?”
He shook his head. Then the bellman caught up with them and they had to wait to speak again. She had specified that the room be on the north side, high enough for a good view of the city. She had not dared to be more specific than that. There were over four hundred rooms in the hotel, so at there were at least eighty that would do.
They rode the elevator to the fifteenth floor. Paul and Sylvie both followed the bellman, looking down at the carpet as they walked, as though they were trying to be sure their luggage didn’t fall off the bellman’s cart. This kept their faces away from the lenses of the surveillance cameras in the hallway. At their room, the bellman unlocked the door and they had to endure his standard tour. When he began his recitation of the hotel’s amenities, Paul put a bill in his hand and said, “Thanks, but we’ve been here before.” He left.
Sylvie locked the door, then stood beside it and listened. When she heard the sound of the luggage cart clanking off the carpet onto the bare floor of the elevator, she took off the blond wig, then the hairnet, and shook out her own hair. “Oh, man,” she muttered. “Feel my neck.”
Paul touched the nape of her neck dutifully. “Sweaty.” He kissed it.
She shivered. The nape of her neck had always been sensitive, even ticklish. She had been surprised again by the intensity of the feeling. She rubbed the spot with her hand as she watched Paul lift the two heavy suitcases to the bed.
She waited until he had opened the suitcases, then lifted out the folded clothes and set them on the bed so they would be out of Paul’s way while he removed the two dismantled rifles. He reassembled the first rifle. He had decided to use the .308 Remington Model 7s he had cleaned yesterday. Paul had always said that .308 was the government-certified man-killing caliber because the FBI snipers used .308 rifles. She and Paul were hoping to put only one bullet through one small woman.
Paul was setting up the spotting scope on the table beside the window. He looked into the eyepiece. “It’s just about perfect,” he said. “I can see the curb, the sidewalk, the front steps, the door, and a hundred feet on either side. I can see in the windows. Take a look.”
She stepped to the table and took his place. “Great view. There’s a guy sitting on the bus-stop bench, and I can see the crow’s-feet wrinkles by his eyes.” She paused. “Oops. Not now. He’s putting on sunglasses.” She straightened and stepped to the window for an unmagnified look.
“If you stay back from the window a few feet, you’ll be harder to see.”
She retreated. He was right, of course, but she wished he had not spoken. That need that men had to assert, to insist, to instruct, was infuriating. She stepped to the bed, unfolded the few clothes they had brought, and hung them in the closet. Then she picked up one of the rifles, raised it to her shoulder, and looked through the scope at the District Attorney’s building. The scope was a new Weaver V16 Classic that was adjustable from four to sixteen power. She settled the crosshairs on the front entrance and decided the scope was just right for this long shot.
Paul was busy placing the night-vision scope on the other rifle. The nightscope was harder to use, harder to line up, and made everything glow with a green luminescence. They would use the nightscope only if the girl arrived at night, but why on earth wouldn’t she? It would be foolish of her to come any other time, and she would be foolish not to disguise herself. If the police brought her, they would treat her like a protected witness. She would arrive with three big cops, all of them wearing bulletproof vests and oversized jackets. They would surround her and hustle her into the building.
Paul’s preparations had been meticulous, partly because he was trying to overcome the jinx that seemed to have followed them in this job. Being careful was also the rational reaction to a risky time and place for killing someone. Sylvie played with the telescopic sight, staring at the silent street so far below her. She placed the crosshairs on the man on the bus bench, but then a bus pulled into her line of fire and obliterated her view. The bus had an advertisement on the side, and she moved the crosshairs to the oversized front tooth of the reclining actress. “Coming August 12,” she said aloud. “Bang.” The bus pulled away and he was still there, sitting on the bench as before. The man was big, with broad shoulders and a suspicion of a belly. He lifted a newspaper and appeared to be reading it. As she watched him, she moved the crosshairs on his body, placing them on the small metal bridge between the lenses of his sunglasses, across his nose, then up to his forehead. From this angle, she could hardly take her eyes off his widow’s peak. The hair jutted down to a point, with shiny receding spaces on either side of it that reflected the late-afternoon sunlight. She said, “Doesn’t that man on the bus bench look like a cop?”
Paul said, “The guy in the sport coat?”
“Yes. See him?”
Paul made a tiny adjustment to the spotting scope. “With this thing I can read his mind. Yeah.” Paul stared at him for a few more seconds. “He could be one. I mean, what the hell is he doing there? Guys like him don’t ride buses, they drive.”
“Maybe he can’t,” she said. “He’s right outside the DA’s office. Maybe he’s had his license pulled for a DUI.”
“I don’t know,” said Paul. “Come here and watch him through the spotting scope.”
She set the rifle down on the couch and stepped to the table beside the window. She looked into the eyepiece. “What are you doing?”
“I want to get everything ready. Can you see anything on him? A radio, or a bulge in his coat that shouldn’t be there?”
“How about a big gold badge?” she teased. “Nothing that I can see. He isn’t wearing body armor, because I can see his gut. No earpiece.”