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from me, the way I was from him. No way to know. And nothing to do about it.
But it was still irritating as hell.
Now that I was properly outfitted and had a little time, I realized how hungry
I was. I hadn t eaten since the plane. I walked two blocks west to the
Carnegie Deli and, over a tureen of chicken soup and a roast beef sandwich
that could have faced down Godzilla, I configured the iPhone to work with the
GPS transmitter. By the time I was washing down a gigantic slice of apple pie
with a second cup of coffee, I had everything up and running, and checked
Accinelli s position. I had expected to find him still at the club, or perhaps
back home. Instead, I was surprised to see that he, or his car, anyway, was
right here in Manhattan. I zoomed in on the location downtown, corner of
Bowery and Prince. I watched for three minutes, but the car didn t move. Okay,
a fair bet he wasn t at a light or stuck in traffic. The car was parked.
I paid the check and went back to the garage where I d left the BMW. I headed
down Broadway, the iPhone plugged into the cigarette lighter, faceup on the
passenger seat en route. The Mercedes didn t move.
I made a left on Spring, then another left on Bowery. I drifted north a block,
and there, on the east side of Bowery just north of Prince, a parking lot. I
didn t see Accinelli s car as I drove past, but according to the transmitter
it was there.
I parked in another lot three blocks north of Houston and walked south back
down Bowery, the watch cap pulled low, the shades in place. Thick traffic
rolled by in both directions, and I heard engines and tires on pavement, the
sounds somehow amplified, compressed by the dull background roar of the wider
city. Down the street, someone laid on a horn, and three horns answered, like
some bizarre mating call. A truck was backing up to a loading bay on 1st
Street, beeping loudly and incessantly enough to warn all Manhattan. Two men
stood behind it, gesturing to guide it in.
I slowed when I reached the lot. An attendant manned a booth at the front.
Behind him were eight rows of cars, parked grill to tail, each about five
deep. And there was Accinelli s Mercedes, second from the front of one of the
rows.
The cars were clustered tightly to use as much of the small lot as possible.
When you came for your vehicle, they d have to move others to access it.
Meaning they would ask when you were returning, so they could put short-timers
up front and latecomers farther back, and thereby minimize the need to shift
vehicles every time a customer arrived for his car. Wherever Accinelli was, he
wasn t planning on staying long.
I circled the block on foot, considering. There was no way I could act here.
Too many people, too much light, too little control over the environment. I
supposed it would have been too much to ask for Accinelli to be parked in some
deserted spot in the Meadowlands.
Still, it might be useful to see which direction he came from when he returned
to his car. I would have a good view of the parking lot from up to a block
north on Bowery and from up to a block south, and from as far away as a block
west on Prince. I checked my watch and began slowly walking a T pattern along
the two streets. I figured I could keep it up for an hour before someone might
find the behavior suspicious. This was New York, after all. If I d been near a
high-value terror target, the Time Warner building at Columbus Circle or the
New York Stock Exchange, for example, I wouldn t have risked loitering. But on
a cold Sunday afternoon just north of Little Italy, I didn t expect any
problems.
As it happened, I didn t have to wait long. Twenty minutes after I d started
the T pattern, as I was heading west on Prince, Accinelli made a left from
Mott, just a block away and walking briskly toward me on the other side of the
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street. He was still in the black-and-gray polypropylene golf attire. I kept
my face away from him and turned left onto Elizabeth before we reached each
other. Then, when he d passed my position, I turned around and headed north on
Elizabeth, back to the BMW. There was no particular hurry now; I could track
him remotely from the iPhone.
I did. I stayed behind him, hoping for a crazy, random opportunity, a toilet
break at a highway rest stop, something like that, but he didn t stop or turn
off, he just headed straight home. As we proceeded, I fell farther and farther
behind, and I realized he was speeding. I didn t want to risk going more than
nine miles an hour over the limit, and I estimated Accinelli was doing
something like eighty-five, maybe better. Either the speeding was habitual for
him, or he was in a hurry.
I tracked him to Sands Point, but didn t follow him all the way to his house.
There was no benefit to doing so. I already knew it wasn t a good place to get
to him, although if I had to choose between his office and his home, I
marginally preferred the latter. With the GPS tracker in place, though, I had
a feeling I d find an opening somewhere else. It was just a question of when.
21
I HEADED BACK toward New York, thinking. The sun was beginning to get low in
the sky. Stay in the city? I knew it better than Long Island, but I wanted to
be close to Accinelli so I could react quickly if an opportunity presented
itself.
I stopped at a gas station and found a hotel called the Andrew in the phone
booth Yellow Pages. It was in Great Neck about five miles equidistant from
Accinelli s home and office. That would work. I called the hotel and confirmed
they had a room, but didn t make a reservation. The room would probably still
be available later, and I m always more comfortable denying a potential
datapoint to the opposition.
I decided to drive back into New York. I could check the bulletin boards
anonymously there, and I doubted Accinelli would be going out again today. I
monitored the transmitter just in case, but his car stayed put on Hilldale
Lane.
Part of my mind wanted to go to Dox, but I wouldn t let it. There was nothing
I could do for him that I wasn t doing already, and imagining his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]