Whip said he’d discovered a vulnerability in regard to Jonah Bank. Nate knew there was always a vulnerability, if the time and effort was spent to discover it. No human being could be one hundred percent secure. There was always a way to get close enough to a target to do the job.
Every night between seven and seven-thirty, Whip said, Bank left The Dakota alone on foot without minders or bodyguards. He changed out of his $3,000 Dolce & Gabbana three-piece courtroom suit into a baseball cap, a worn leather bomber jacket, baggy jeans, and Nike running shoes. Bank’s destination was Zabar’s, an eclectic specialty food store eight blocks away at Broadway and 80th, where he’d buy the “Nova Scotia”—a bagel with scallion cream cheese — and a single black-and-white cookie. Bank would return to the building before eight. Whip speculated that Bank’s bodyguards weren’t aware of his nightly sojourn, or they’d accompany him or insist on fetching the snack themselves.
Bank didn’t deviate from his established route on the round trip. After leaving The Dakota, he’d walk up West 72nd to Broadway and blend in with the crowded foot traffic for the remaining eight blocks to Zabar’s. But on the way back, while he was eating, he’d return by a different route: 80th to Amsterdam, then 74th to Columbus Avenue, then to 72nd and The Dakota, where he’d enter the same side door from which he’d departed.
Whip had identified one block on the return route that was poorly lit and not bristling with closed-circuit cameras. It was on 74th, between Amsterdam and Columbus. The block was quiet and residential, with only one storefront retail business — Abraham’s Florist Shop, where Abraham’s white panel delivery van was parked out front during business hours. The single CC camera Whip identified was across the street from the florist’s shop.
Many nights, Abraham took his van on final deliveries and never returned it. Whip guessed Abraham took it to his home in Brooklyn. Other nights, Abraham left the van parked and locked and rode the train home. There didn’t seem to be any way to predict whether the vehicle would be left on the street or gone for the night until Whip figured it out: it depended on the location of Abraham’s last delivery. If the delivery was in the direction of Brooklyn or in Brooklyn itself, Abraham kept the van. If it was somewhere else or there were no more deliveries at all, the owner would ride the train home.
So for the past three nights, Whip had placed anonymous orders via the Internet for deliveries after six to three different addresses on the way to Brooklyn, each time specifying that the flowers be left on the stoop if the recipient wasn’t home. He paid for each with a valid but stolen credit card number from a list he’d been provided.
Whip had taken a photo of the florist’s logo on the side of the van with his cell phone, and had a vinyl replica made uptown. Then he’d found a nearly identical 2009 Chevy Express Cargo Van at a location near LaGuardia Airport and reserved it for Nate. Nate’s job was to drive the van and slip it into the empty space after Abraham went home for the night and wait for further instructions. If anyone ever reviewed the video history of the block, they’d notice the lack of a pattern to whether the van was there for the night or gone.
The CC camera could clearly view the van on the street, but it couldn’t see through it to the opposite sidewalk. There was an eighteen-foot length of pavement blocked by the van. Anything that happened within that eighteen feet couldn’t be seen.
On both of the two previous nights, Nate had heard his throwaway phone chirp and heard Whip say, “I’ve got him. Unlock the doors and get ready.” Nate had responded by punching the electric toggle on his armrest and hearing the locks clunk open. He watched the sidewalk via the passenger-side rearview mirror while poising his hand over the door handle, ready to throw open the sliding door.
On night one, Jonah Bank had been wearing the uniform Whip had described and he’d approached in an amble, as if he wanted the walk back to his home to last as long as possible. In the distance behind Bank was a rapidly approaching figure hidden in shadow. Nate guessed it was Whip.
As Bank neared the rear bumper of the van, Nate heard a cacophony of enthused voices and looked up to see ten or twelve well-dressed people coming down the sidewalk in a writhing knot. They’d engulfed Bank just as he approached the sliding side door of the van.
“Abort,” Whip said softly, and melded back into the darkness.
The group of people were clutching tickets and talking about the last time they’d heard Diana Krall sing at the Beacon Theatre a block away. They unconsciously parted to let Bank pass through them going in the other direction, and re-formed when he was through. By then he was twenty feet away on the sidewalk, strolling toward The Dakota, and two steps away from a pool of overhead streetlights and back in the field of vision of the CC camera.
The night before, Bank had appeared at the exact same time and place. Nate had glanced up the street — no concertgoers this time — and unlocked the doors to the van. Again, he saw Bank approach in his rearview mirror and the dark form close on him from the shadows, on pace to overtake Bank when he was shielded by the van. But there was someone else — a woman who had passed Nate’s vehicle thirty seconds before, en route to Broadway. Something had made her turn around, and she was now jogging back the way she’d come. Her heels clicked on the pavement with sharp percussion, and Bank heard them and paused to look over his shoulder.
She was suddenly in Bank’s face, screaming.
“It’s you, you bastard!” she shrieked, jabbing a finger in his face. “It took me a minute, but I realized it was you, you putrid piece of shit.”
Because Bank was only half turned, Nate could see the weary look of bemusement on his face. When Bank said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You must be mistaken, lady,” Nate saw Whip’s form freeze on his approach.
“You’re Jonah Bank, you wicked prick,” she screamed. “You stole my grandmother’s last dime. You stole every penny from the sweetest woman I’ve ever known, and I hope you go straight to hell and burn for a thousand years.”
Bank shrugged unconvincingly and turned away from her. He was then next to the sliding door of the van and for a moment Nate couldn’t see him. Then Bank walked by the driver’s-side window, head down and determined, with the woman skipping alongside, jabbing her finger and cursing.
“It’s him, everybody!” she shouted, trying to rouse the residents of the quiet buildings. “It’s Jonah Bank. Right here, the pathetic douche-bag thief of New York! The predator!”
No curtains rustled from the windows of the brownstone apartments.
There was a whisper from the cell phone: “Abort.”
“It’s him!” she yelled, still keeping pace with Bank. “Here he is, the bastard.”
The two of them entered the pool of light on the corner, and she stayed with him, skipping alongside and jabbing at him with her finger until he was out of sight.
“I’ve got him. Unlock the doors and get ready.”
Bank’s only concession to the events of the night before was to flip up the collar of his bomber jacket and pull his cap lower to further obscure his face. Plus, he seemed to be walking more rapidly, with his head down.
This time, the block was empty. Nate unlocked the door.
Bank approached the van quickly. As he did, and a second before he walked into the blind spot directly next to the sliding panel door, Nate saw Whip close in until the two figures melded into one. Nate threw the van door open and stepped back as both of them hurtled inside. Whip had wrapped up Bank and was on top of him as they hit the van floor, rocking the vehicle. In the next second, Nate saw a stubby revolver in Whip’s hand and a flash of Bank’s panicked eyes as the muzzle pressed into his ball cap with enough muscle to jam the man’s head into the floor. Whip reached back with his free hand and slammed the door closed behind him.