Eamon had made the call at six a.m. “Farrow takes the café. Dane stays with Wiley.”
Dane hadn’t argued. He stood at the kitchen window and looked out for a long beat, then turned back into the room and said, “Agreed.”
“Farrow reads as a man drinking coffee on a Thursday. Dane reads as a man waiting for something to happen. Henry’s been in that café every week for eighteen months. He won’t register Farrow as a watcher.”
“I’m flattered,” I said.
“I’m not flattering you. I’m casting.”
The café smelled of burnt sugar and steamed milk. I’d been sitting at a table pretending to read a paperback I’d bought across the street at a used bookshop so I’d have something with the right crease on the spine.
Naked Lunch. Pleasure reading with teeth.
The table I’d taken was second from the front window, on the left as you came in, which put me four feet behind and slightly off-axis from where Cabot had said Henry sat. It was the onlyseat in the room with a sightline to Henry’s chair, the front door, and the chrome housing of the espresso machine reflecting the room. Three sightlines for the price of one. I’d take it.
I was on my second cortado. The first was good enough to make me forgive the café its exposed Edison bulbs. The second was cover. A man who orders two coffees in forty minutes is reading something he cares about. A man who orders one is an amateur.
I had my earpiece in. Dane had contacted me three times since I arrived. Once as confirmation. Once to flag a suspicious delivery van that turned out to be a normal delivery van, and the third to tell me Collins and Reed were set. I’d answered each time with one syllable, low, so the woman at the next table reading theGlobeon her phone wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
I’d logged everyone who’d come and gone.
There were two regulars, both women. The first, in a long camel coat, kissed the barista on both cheeks and ordered without looking at the board. The second, a sixty-something with a small dog in a tote bag, ordered an Americano in a porcelain cup.
The dog didn’t make a sound. It was better trained than half the men I’d slept with.
A barista shift change took place at eight-fifty. The new one came in through the front, hung his jacket on the hook behind the counter, and tied his apron. He was late twenties and left-handed with a sleeve tattoo on his right forearm.
He glanced at me twice. The first glance was the standard scan. The second one, five minutes later, lasted longer.
It could have been flirting. On a different morning, I might have found out.
Cabot walked in at eight-fifty-five, right on Eamon’s schedule. He didn’t look at me or anyone else, and he took the table he’d been told to take, two over from Henry’s chair, on the same wall,with his back to the front window. He set his messenger bag on the seat beside him and pulled out the menu.
The barista brought him water. He ordered eggs and coffee without lifting his eyes from the menu.
Then there was the window shopper I didn’t like.
Navy jacket, dark beanie, mid-forties. He’d come up to the front door at eight-thirty-six and stopped. He didn’t step inside. Instead, he put his hand on the door, looked at his phone, and then walked away east.
He’d come back at eight-forty-nine. It was the same approach, and he left again.
I tapped the comm.
“Dane, the navy jacket from earlier reappeared. Same action.”
“Eamon has him from the corner. Two blocks east, sitting at a bus stop. One bus has come and gone.”
“Lovely.”
“Stay seated.”
Henry entered at five past nine.
He didn’t scan the room. Cabot was right about that. He walked in and hung his coat over the back of his chair. He nodded and raised a finger to the barista. After a return nod, the barista started up the espresso machine.
I watched Henry in the espresso machine’s chrome reflection.
He was thinner than the image in my head. The bags under his eyes showed he had not slept well in a long time. He wore his dark hair cut close at the sides. He wore a charcoal sweater over a white shirt. No tie.