Hey! That guy. I finally placed the walk, a kind of a strut. He was the slimeball who'd been outside Paula Marks' building last week, carrying a gun and threatening me. What's he doing here?
My pulse went off the charts. Was he one of Nicky Russo's wiseguy crew after all? Had he come back, with his pistol, to pay me a return engagement?
My God.
Chill out, I told myself, take a deep breath. He's leaving. Just try and find out who he is.
Roses in one hand held up awkwardly around my face, I slowly ambled down the street after him. I didn't have to go far. Within about a hundred feet, he unlocked a long black Lincoln Towncar, stepped out of the FedEx camouflage, tossed it onto the seat along with the bag he was carrying, pulled the cap off his bald head got in, and sped away.
The license plate looked different from the usual, but I got what I needed: DL and a string of numbers.
Uh-oh, I thought. Was he leaving a package bomb for me?
I turned back and let myself into the outer lobby, glancing around as I did. There were no parcels anywhere, just blank, brown tile.
My apartment was 3A. The name on the bell was M. James. As I stepped through the inner lobby—still no package—a rumpled face appeared in the doorway just to my left. The sign on it, flaking, said SUPER.
"Oh, hi." The voice was Patrick Mooney, our superintendent, who did not normally emerge to greet those arriving. But there had been complaints from the building's managing agent that he could never be found for emergencies, so he probably wanted to appear available, even on Sundays. His voice was slurred from some midday medicinal Irish whisky. "Thought you were home. FedEx guy was here earlier looking for you."