Henry openedTheNew York Timesto the second page without reading the first.
His coffee arrived in ninety seconds. He thanked the barista by name.Marco.
I lifted my cortado. Henry was readingThe Times. Cabot was waiting for his eggs. Neither of them looked at the other.
I watched Henry in the espresso machine’s chrome.
For six minutes, nothing.
Henry turned a page. He sipped his coffee before turning another.
Cabot’s eggs arrived a few minutes later. He ate them without looking up. He opened a slim notebook in front of him. It was a prop.
At nine-twenty-six, Henry looked up.
He looked across the room, past two empty tables, and found Cabot’s face. He stared for two full seconds. Then he looked back down at theTimes.
I tapped the comm and spoke low. “Contact made, no escalation.”
Cabot wrote three lines in the notebook. The angle of his pen signaled short sentences scribbled in the left margin.
At nine-thirty-eight, Henry folded theTimes.
He set it on the chair beside his coat and drank the last of his coffee. Standing, he pulled his coat off the chair and shrugged it on. He walked toward the front door at an unhurried pace.
I let my hand fall into my lap. The sidearm was holstered at the small of my back.
Henry passed Cabot’s table. He didn’t slow down or stop. He looked straight ahead. His left hand, the one farthest from me, dropped a folded white napkin. It landed beside Cabot’s water glass without Henry breaking stride.
The bell above the door rang as he left. Through the front window, I watched him turn left.
Across the street, the navy jacket was back. He moved in the same direction as Henry on the other side of the street, approximately twenty feet behind. He matched his stride to Henry’s.
It was a clean tail.
I tapped the comm.
“Dane. Navy jacket following Henry. Eastbound. Opposite sidewalk.”
“Eamon has him. Stay where you are, Farrow.”
Through the window, I watched Eamon come into the frame from the right. He crossed against the light at a relaxed angle, hands deep in his coat pockets, head slightly down, looking for all the world like a man who had just realized he was on the wrong block.
He intercepted the navy jacket at the corner.
He stopped in front of the man while holding his phone and gestured in the opposite direction from where Henry had gone. It was the body language of a tourist asking for an address.
The navy jacket stopped. He had no choice. Eamon stood wide and rubbed his ginger beard.
It took forty-five seconds. He angled his phone, frowned, scrolled, and asked another question. The navy jacket answered with one syllable and tried to step around him. Eamon moved a half-pace into the line of escape and apologized with his whole upper body. He waited one beat longer than was comfortable. Then he finally stepped aside.
The navy jacket broke off east at a faster pace than before.
By then, Henry was a block ahead and around the corner, according to Dane in my ear. The tail was broken for now.
Eamon turned a quarter-turn and was already crossing back toward the café.
Inside, Cabot had not moved.