cathedral, and I slipped the BlackBerry in unnoticed. With any luck, if it was still emitting a signal, and if that signal was indeed being tracked, it would lead its followers to Omaha or some place like that, by way of a matinee of The Lion King, a carriage ride through Central Park, and a Circle Line cruise.
But I still needed to find a place where I could sit quietly, undisturbed and with little chance of apprehension while I figured out what I was going to do next. Thinking about the Circle Line had planted the seed of an idea, and when I saw one of those red double-decker buses lumbering across Fifth Avenue, it seemed like fate was trying to tell me something.
Not only had I never been to St. Patrick’s before, I’d never taken a Gray Line tour of the city, even though the buses regularly passed in front of my office building, ferrying tourists from midtown to United Nations Plaza on the East River. Nobody would ever think to look for me on a tour, and I liked the idea of staying on the move without actually having to move.
I strode through Rockefeller Center at a brisk but, I hoped, inconspicuous pace. The attendant in the box office at Radio City Music Hall sold me a ticket without even looking up from the paperback he was reading, but I still kept my sunglasses on as I made my purchase. A bus pulled up a few minutes after I pocketed the change.
Given the chill to the air, most of the passengers had opted for the enclosed lower deck. I had my new hat to keep me warm, and I preferred privacy, so I took the stairs to the upper deck, doing my best not to look furtive as I went. I had a wide selection of seats from which to choose.
I slid down an empty row and set about formulating a plan.
chapter fifteen
I t was dark by the time I climbed up to the pedestrian walkway over Hudson Street. I could smell the exhaust from the commuters’cars below, their engines idling as traffic moved slowly through the Holland Tunnel and into New Jersey.
Concrete stairs led down to the cobblestones of Laight Street and its string of converted warehouses and factories. I ventured along the sidewalk with careful steps, alert to any danger that might be lurking in the shadows.
But I reached the familiar door without encountering any lurking dangers. With a sigh of relief I pressed the button for the fifth floor.
“Yes?” The voice over the intercom was wary.
“It’s me.”
Caution gave way to impatience. “It’s about time.” The buzzer buzzed and I pushed the door open.
The hike up the four steep flights of stairs actually felt good after the several hours I’d spent on the bus. Its route had looped through midtown, over to the U.N. and then down to the South Street Seaport and the office towers of Wall Street before heading back up to Times Square and midtown. The narrative that came over the speakers had been interesting at the beginning, but it grew dull with repetition—even the same jokes were repeated. Fortunately, I felt I had enough of a plan to disembark in Tribeca before the bus headed uptown for the third time.
The first part of my plan involved finding a hideout that was warm, comfortable, and equipped with Diet Coke and other important staples. In addition to meeting these criteria, Emma’s loft would be a relatively safe retreat given its out-of-the-way location and that it lacked the potentially prying eyes of a doorman. It had the further advantage of being accessible, because if Emma turned out not to be home, I had a convenient copy of her key stashed on my key ring. And if she were home, I doubted that she would turn me in to the cops.
Instead, when I finally emerged from the stairwell, she was standing in the open doorway holding out a glass of white wine.
“We thought you’d never get here. Are you hungry? We were thinking of ordering Thai.”
My friends had been awaiting my arrival since midafternoon. They’d anticipated the thought process that would lead me to Emma’s loft—in
But I still needed to find a place where I could sit quietly, undisturbed and with little chance of apprehension while I figured out what I was going to do next. Thinking about the Circle Line had planted the seed of an idea, and when I saw one of those red double-decker buses lumbering across Fifth Avenue, it seemed like fate was trying to tell me something.
Not only had I never been to St. Patrick’s before, I’d never taken a Gray Line tour of the city, even though the buses regularly passed in front of my office building, ferrying tourists from midtown to United Nations Plaza on the East River. Nobody would ever think to look for me on a tour, and I liked the idea of staying on the move without actually having to move.
I strode through Rockefeller Center at a brisk but, I hoped, inconspicuous pace. The attendant in the box office at Radio City Music Hall sold me a ticket without even looking up from the paperback he was reading, but I still kept my sunglasses on as I made my purchase. A bus pulled up a few minutes after I pocketed the change.
Given the chill to the air, most of the passengers had opted for the enclosed lower deck. I had my new hat to keep me warm, and I preferred privacy, so I took the stairs to the upper deck, doing my best not to look furtive as I went. I had a wide selection of seats from which to choose.
I slid down an empty row and set about formulating a plan.
chapter fifteen
I t was dark by the time I climbed up to the pedestrian walkway over Hudson Street. I could smell the exhaust from the commuters’cars below, their engines idling as traffic moved slowly through the Holland Tunnel and into New Jersey.
Concrete stairs led down to the cobblestones of Laight Street and its string of converted warehouses and factories. I ventured along the sidewalk with careful steps, alert to any danger that might be lurking in the shadows.
But I reached the familiar door without encountering any lurking dangers. With a sigh of relief I pressed the button for the fifth floor.
“Yes?” The voice over the intercom was wary.
“It’s me.”
Caution gave way to impatience. “It’s about time.” The buzzer buzzed and I pushed the door open.
The hike up the four steep flights of stairs actually felt good after the several hours I’d spent on the bus. Its route had looped through midtown, over to the U.N. and then down to the South Street Seaport and the office towers of Wall Street before heading back up to Times Square and midtown. The narrative that came over the speakers had been interesting at the beginning, but it grew dull with repetition—even the same jokes were repeated. Fortunately, I felt I had enough of a plan to disembark in Tribeca before the bus headed uptown for the third time.
The first part of my plan involved finding a hideout that was warm, comfortable, and equipped with Diet Coke and other important staples. In addition to meeting these criteria, Emma’s loft would be a relatively safe retreat given its out-of-the-way location and that it lacked the potentially prying eyes of a doorman. It had the further advantage of being accessible, because if Emma turned out not to be home, I had a convenient copy of her key stashed on my key ring. And if she were home, I doubted that she would turn me in to the cops.
Instead, when I finally emerged from the stairwell, she was standing in the open doorway holding out a glass of white wine.
“We thought you’d never get here. Are you hungry? We were thinking of ordering Thai.”
My friends had been awaiting my arrival since midafternoon. They’d anticipated the thought process that would lead me to Emma’s loft—in
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