Ramsey stood up as Shannon reached the booth. The waiter stood close to Shannon so that both men blocked him from the restaurant's view. The waiter was a cop, too, it turned out. He searched Shannon quickly, his hands going over his sides, his stomach, down to his ankles. Shannon let it happen, glancing up idly at the enormous plaster buttocks hanging on the wall. What the hell was that about?
Then the waiter was finished searching him. He nodded at Ramsey and moved away. Ramsey sat back down. Shannon slid into the booth across the table from him. He wagged his thumb at the ass over his head.
"I hope that's not a working model."
Ramsey gave a barely visible hint of a smile. "Could be." He crumpled the pink message slip and put it into his jacket pocket. He came out with his cell phone. He placed the phone in front of him, a small black machine on the white tablecloth. "In your case, it could just be."
The lieutenant's calm, still, dignified eyes held his eyes steadily. It made Shannon even more nervous. And that cell phone on the table, the phone that was supposed to act as a listening device… Shannon glanced away, looked around the room at the men and women talking and laughing over their plates of pasta. At least the restaurant was full of witnesses in case anything bad happened.
"You have something to say to me?" Ramsey asked.
When Shannon looked at him again, Ramsey was toying with the cell phone on the table in front of him, turning it this way and that as if he was getting ready to spin it around. Had the warrant been blown? Did he know the phone was bugged? Did he know this was a federal operation? Shannon couldn't face the possibility. He decided the lieutenant was just playing with the phone, that's all.
Shannon leaned toward him, leaned toward the phone.
"I was there the night you took down Patterson," he said. That was how Foster had told him to open it, go for the shock value. "I was Patterson's backup. I saw the whole thing."
Ramsey turned the cell phone on the tablecloth this way and that. He gazed at Shannon mildly. "Take down Patterson? What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. I was there. I saw it happen."
"Saw what? I don't know what you're talking about."
"You know damn well. He gave me copies of his records, too."
"You're not making sense." Ramsey turned the cell phone in his hand, gazing at Shannon.
"I'm not here to bust you, Ramsey. That was Patterson's thing. I don't care. I'm just after money, that's all."
"I'm sure you are," said Ramsey calmly, turning the phone in his hand. "But this is all a mystery to me."
Shannon felt cold sweat break out on his temples and under his shirt. This was bad. It was wrong. He could feel it. He could feel disaster coming at him, a train on a track. He leaned toward Ramsey, his face damp, his arms on the table. He was vaguely aware that the restaurant noise of voices and laughter had grown dimmer around him.
"Look," he said in a harsh whisper. "You brought me here. I thought you wanted to deal. You don't want to deal, don't waste my time."
"You're the one who's wasting time," said Ramsey coolly, smiling slightly. "I thought you had information for me about a murder case. Now you sound as if you're trying to blackmail me. But over what? It doesn't make sense."
It was such a smooth performance that Shannon stared at him. And as he stared, he noticed for the first time that the sounds of voices and laughter all around him had died away completely. The restaurant was quiet. There was a clink of silverware against a plate, then nothing.
Feeling the sweat roll down his chest, Shannon turned. The people sitting at the tables-the men in suits, the women here and there-had all stopped talking, stopped eating. They were all just sitting there at their tables. They were all turned toward him, every single one of them. Just sitting at their tables and staring at Shannon.
Shannon sensed a movement behind him. He looked over his shoulder in time to see a waiter-or a man dressed as a waiter-close the venetian blinds that covered the top half of the front window. Now the whole window was covered. Shannon turned farther at another movement and saw another waiter directly in back of him locking the front door, moving to stand in front of the door so that no one could see past him.
Now there was no noise in the restaurant at all. The place was silent and he understood: they were all cops. Everyone in the restaurant. They were all Ramsey's people. It was all a setup, all of it.
Shannon slowly turned back to Ramsey, his eyes passing over all those people-all those cops-at the tables staring at him. When he faced front again, Ramsey gazed at him just as mildly as before. A line of sweat ran down Shannon's temple.
Without looking down, Ramsey opened his cell phone. He pressed the power button. The cell phone gave out a tone and went dark.
"Now let's really talk," Ramsey said.
In the abandoned second-floor office across the way, the weaselly federal agent leaned forward in his chair, his face close to the laptop. He was listening to the voices of Ramsey and Shannon coming through the speaker.
"Man," he said. "Thing's working great. They're really coming over five by five."
Foster was still standing at the window, still looking down at the front of the restaurant below. "Well, well," he said. "Will wonders never cease?"
Then the voices coming from the computer crackled once and died.
"Wait a minute," said the weasel. "I think we lost them."
"I guess that answers that question," Foster murmured.
He narrowed his eyes, peering down at the restaurant. His hand was lifted near his face, his thumb rubbing his fingers as if he were feeling a piece of cloth-a nervous gesture. He noticed a movement now at the dark windows. It took him a moment to figure out what it was, then he realized: the venetian blinds had closed. His heart sank.
"Shit," he said. "They've got him."
Shannon felt the silence all around him, the eyes all around him. He felt his own breath go in and out and looked in Ramsey's eyes, which were calm and sad and unmovable. He hoped that Foster was on the run, coming like the cavalry to save him, but at the same time, he knew this was just hope, the everlasting reflex of hope: no one was coming, no one could. Ramsey's mild gaze-no wonder they called him Brick, his mild gaze was like a brick wall, like the dead end of yet another blind alley in a luckless life full of blind alleys, full of brick walls. And all those people-all those cops-sitting at all those tables, in all those booths under the plaster body parts, staring at him without mercy and without a sound… No one could save him here.
"It's funny, you know." Ramsey frowned down at the cell phone on the table. He considered it, turning it this way and that. "I was actually beginning to get superstitious about you. No, really. All this time, I sensed there was something wrong, something working against me. I thought… I'm not sure what I thought. But there's a reasonable explanation for everything, isn't there?"
Shannon breathed in and out, and the sweat trickled down his face. He knew it showed his fear, but he couldn't stop it.
"Who are you?" Ramsey asked him quietly. "Who sent you here?"
Shannon licked his lips and started, "I told you, I-"
"The smartest thing"-Ramsey interrupted him without raising his voice-"the smartest thing you could do for yourself now would be to tell the truth quickly. Because otherwise, we'll take it out of you slowly, bit by bit."
Shannon wiped his face with one hand. There was no point trying to hide the sweat; there it was for everyone to see. He took a long, deliberate look around the room-at the giant plaster nose, the torso, the cold, plaster, comfortless breast, and all those expressionless faces underneath the body parts that might as well have been plaster, too.