No Relation (33 page)

“Thanks, guys. You’re life-savers,” I said as I climbed in. “This could be kind of fun.”

“Where to, Hem?” Hat asked. He looked deadly serious.

“LaGuardia, and we’re a little behind schedule.”

I didn’t think you could stomp on the accelerator of a beat-up nine-year-old van filled to the rafters with audio equipment and still squeal the tires. Well, you can, and Hat did. I banged my head on the side window as he flipped a U-turn and headed for the airport. Mario flew into the back of the van, but eventually reappeared a few blocks later, when Hat actually decided to
respect a red light at a busy intersection. Mario gripped my seat in a submission hold and hung on until we made it to LaGuardia. I briefed them on the drive. They were quite excited about it all.

Hat drove us to the Arrivals level and pulled up to the very end of the pickup lane. We were just going to make it. Mario and I leapt out and dashed inside. Hat kept the engine idling, which doesn’t sound as if it would be a challenge, but trust me, with that van, it was. I scanned the Arrivals screen and saw that Henderson Watt’s flight had already landed. We stood behind a concrete pillar and peeked around to the sliding doors spewing passengers from the baggage area. I’d found a ratty old New York Jets ball cap in the van and grabbed it before coming inside. I pulled it down low until the brim was pretty well resting on my nose. I could still see if I tilted my head back.

“Stand right in front of me,” I said to Mario. “I’ve met the guy we’re waiting for, and it will make it tough to follow him if he recognizes me. He’ll be suspicious immediately.”

Mario leaned against the pillar, trying to look casual, while I hovered behind. We hadn’t been there more than five minutes when the sliding glass doors parted and released Henderson Watt wearing a light olive green suit, a blue button-down Oxford cloth shirt, and a yellowish striped tie. He sauntered right toward us. He carried nothing with him.

I inched around to the other side of the pillar as he passed to keep it between us. So far, so good.

“There’s our guy,” I said, nudging Mario.

We fell in about twenty yards behind Watt and tried not to look as if we were following him. We achieved this, or at least attempted this, by chatting amiably with each other and looking around at all the sights a modern airport has to offer. But through it all, I tried to keep one eye fixed on Henderson Watt. The operative word being “tried.” I’d just sent Hat a quick text citing our code phrase, “The eagle has landed,” but when I lifted my eyes again, Henderson Watt was nowhere to be seen. At that same instant, I walked straight into Mario, who had stopped in his tracks.

“I lost him, Mario. I lost him,” I hissed. “Where’d he go, and what’s with the sudden stop?”

“Bathroom,” Mario whispered, turning his head and elongating his mouth to aim the words back at me.

“Why didn’t you go before? There’s no time right now. You can go when we get back.”

“No, Hem, I mean our guy’s in the bathroom. That’s why I stopped.”

“Oh.”

We found a second pillar close by and the stakeout continued. Two minutes later, Henderson walked back out and headed for the door. We watched him join the taxi lineup before we slipped out the door and rejoined Hat in the very inconspicuous big battered green New York Jets van. We had a perfect view of the taxi stand. When Henderson slipped into a cab three minutes later and pulled out, we followed. I just hoped he had not heard
the screeching brakes and angry honking of the airport bus Hat cut off in the process.

I memorized the number of Henderson’s taxi just as two other cabs snuck in between us. It took some concentration to keep the right cab in sight, particularly as we entered Manhattan. Henderson’s cab eventually slowed and pulled over in front of a sidewalk café in SoHo. I think it was on Prince Street.

“Okay, he’s stopping,” I said, then pointed. “Hat, drive right on by and then, if you can, pull a U-turn and park across the street there. That’s how they do it in the cop shows.”

He actually pulled it off without attracting too much attention, although Mario took another unexpected trip into the depths of the van when Hat yanked on the wheel to make his sudden turn. By the time Henderson stepped from the cab, we were already parked a little way down the street from the café. I only hoped he was actually going to the restaurant. We were in luck. A nattily dressed man already seated on the patio stood, called out to Henderson, and waved. The guy looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Henderson approached, shook hands with the other suit, and sat down. It was only a table for two, so, using my well-honed powers of deduction, I assumed no more guests were expected. Unfortunately, we weren’t parked as closely as I would have liked, but there were no open parking spots any nearer. Besides, we couldn’t hear what they were saying anyway, so it really didn’t matter, I guess.

The two of them looked very comfortable together. They obviously knew each other reasonably well, judging by what looked
like the easy back-and-forth of the conversation. It’s amazing how much you can discern from a café conversation, even without the benefit of sound.

I didn’t really know what more we could do, other than observe and take note of anything that seemed noteworthy. They both ordered drinks and food. Mystery man had a pizza while Henderson had what looked like a Caesar salad, but it could have been the Niçoise salad. We just weren’t close enough to be sure. They were having quite an animated conversation. In a flash of brilliance, or it might just have been the glare of the obvious, I pulled out my cellphone and snapped a couple of photos, assisted by its built-in digital zoom. I confirmed the Caesar salad. We just sat there and watched until dessert and coffee were delivered to Henderson and his lunch partner.

“I must say I’m getting a little peckish watching the two of them enjoy what looks to be a very nice meal indeed,” Hat said.

“Me too. I just wish we could hear what they’re saying to each other.” I sighed.

“What? You want to hear their conversation?” Hat asked. “Why have you waited until now to make that point clear?”

Without waiting for a response from me, he squeezed between the two front seats and into the back of the van. I continued to watch the lunch meeting while Hat created quite the ruckus behind me digging through the equipment.

“Hem, would you please be so kind as to start the van up?” Hat asked from the back. “I’ll be needing to plug in back here.”

I did as I was told and then turned around. Hat was holding a parabolic dish in his hands.

“Mario, would you mind terribly plugging that cord into the outlet you’ll find at the base of the door jamb, there. Right there.”

Mario did as he was told.

“Now, Hem, is your smartphone equipped with an audio recording app?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. I use it for dictating story ideas that occur to me when I’m not near my laptop. At least I used to do that when I used to have ideas for my novel.”

“Excellent. Will this input jack fit into your phone?”

He handed me a small-gauge wire that originated in the black box on the backside of the parabolic dish. The jack fit perfectly when I inserted it into the port in my phone.

“Now, open the recording app and hit the big red button to start recording, if you kindly would.”

“Okay, I’ve done that, and – look – it’s picking up our conversation! I can see the sound waves jumping on the screen in time with our voices.”

“That is just splendid news, Hem, splendid news,” Hat said in a tone tinged with triumph. “Then we are definitely ready. Mario, slide open the door if you would.”

Mario did as he was told.

“Actually, Mario, could I suggest you open the other door, you know, the one facing the restaurant,” Hat proposed.

Mario closed the door on the sidewalk side and then opened the one on the other side of the van, giving Hat a clear line of sight across the street and up the block a ways, directly to Henderson Watt’s outdoor table. Hat sat on the floor, scooched over toward the gaping rectangular opening in the side of the van, and aimed the dish toward our quarry. Cars were whizzing by beside the van’s open door.

“Mario, you’ll need to lie here and hold the door open so it doesn’t slide shut.”

I was a little concerned that aiming a rather conspicuous parabolic dish toward unsuspecting patrons enjoying lunch on an outdoor patio might seem just a tad suspicious. But I kept that thought to myself.

Hat was wearing headphones and kept shifting the dish, trying to get a line on Henderson’s conversation. At one point he slid a little too far out the door and a car honked and nearly took out the dish and Hat, too. He pulled back inside the van.

“Damnation! I’m starting to feel steamed!” Hat snapped.

“Whoaaa, Hat, it’s okay, calm down,” I soothed as I patted his leg from my perch up front.

“Thank you, Hem, but I will need your services back here, if you please.”

I crawled back so that all three of us were crammed into what little space there was behind the two seats.

“I believe I can get a better angle if I’m kneeling rather than sitting, but I’ll need you to steady me and keep me from
falling over. The dish gets heavier the longer you hold it. Could you do that for me, Hem?”

“I’m your man.”

I straddled him from behind. Hmm, that didn’t come out quite as I had intended. I sat behind Hat with a leg on either side of him as if we were riding a toboggan together or perhaps a motorcycle. Yes, that’s a little better.

“Okay, Hem, you must push me up now so I can get to my knees.”

I did my best to hoist him up. Then when he was on his knees, I grabbed his belt to keep him steady while he aimed the dish again.

“I can only get little snippets from this distance. We must get closer. The cars are interfering and we’re just a bit out of range,” Hat said. “And that delivery truck parked in front is in no way helping, either.”

At that precise moment, I noticed through the front windshield that one of the cars parked up ahead, nearly directly across from Henderson’s table, was pulling out into traffic. No, check that, two cars were pulling out, one in front of the other. Hat saw the double parking spot opening up and looked at me. We were both stuck where we were and had only limited range of motion. I sighed.

“We have no choice,” I whispered to Hat. He nodded.

“Okay, Mario, your moment is now,” I said.

“What?” he replied. “What do you mean?”

“This is important and you need to move fast. Get in the driver’s seat and move the van up to the parking spot that is just opening up ahead. You can drive right into it. It’s a double spot. No parallel parking required. But you have to do it now,” I said with some urgency. “Or we’ll lose it.”

“I don’t know, guys,” Mario stammered.

“Right now!”
Hat shouted.
“You must do it right now!”

Mario was startled, or perhaps terrified, by Hat’s outburst, and leapt into the driver’s seat. He turned the key in the ignition, making the most hideous metal-on-metal shriek imaginable.

“Mario, the van is already started, just put it into Drive and get into that spot before someone else does.”

As Mario sat there adjusting his seat and mirrors, Hat lost it.

“Forget the blasted mirrors! We’re only driving seventy-five feet! Go! Go! Go!”

Mario threw it into Drive and pulled into the lane. A miracle blessed us with an opening in the traffic and we moved up the street. A red Porsche had pulled up ahead of the double parking spot and was about to back into it when Mario darted in frontward, jumping the curb and screeching to a halt with two wheels on the sidewalk and two wheels on the road. Oh yes, he also knocked over a green wire garbage can, spilling its contents all over the ground. As Mario hit the brakes – and believe me, I’m grateful he did – the open door slid shut with a bang, nearly decapitating Hat. We were thrown around the back of the van and landed in a heap on the floor.

The driver of the Porsche was not happy and had gotten out of his car. Mario was paralyzed in the front seat. Hat saw the guy coming, so he threw open the door and bounded out to intercept him. Hat must have put on his most menacing look, to which I’ve grown accustomed, because without saying a word, Mr. Porsche turned on his heel, zipped back to his little red sports car, and squealed away.

The eyes of everyone on the restaurant’s patio were fixed on our van, including those of Henderson Watt and his co-conspirator. Fortunately, I was buried in the back in a mess of wires, cables, and electronic equipment, far from prying eyes. We reassembled in the van and stayed quiet for a few minutes until Mario reported that life and lunch had returned to normal across the street. Then Hat slid the door open again and, as discreetly as possible, once again aimed a three-foot-diameter parabolic dish at the patio patrons across the street. I hid behind Hat, though my legs and shoes would have been clearly visible from the restaurant.

I snuck a peek around Hat’s hip and saw that Henderson and the other guy were both standing and shaking hands. It was all but over. They walked out onto the sidewalk and got into separate cabs, both going the same way, which was exactly the opposite direction the van was facing. They were gone.

Hat sat back down, on top of me.

“Sorry, Hem.”

I pressed the button on my phone to stop the recording.

“Hem, I think I got just the tail end of their conversation. Did you get it?”

“Well, it was recording the whole time, so we got whatever you heard.”

Mario was still sitting in the driver’s seat with his white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. Or it’s possible he was trying to pull the steering wheel right out of the dashboard. It took us another ten minutes to calm him down.