Chapter 75

Draper had paid cash for a room in a hotel two blocks away. Nothing flash, but it had twin beds and a hot shower. They would use it as a base. Somewhere to rest.

‘Ready?' Draper asked.

Koenig scowled at the human billboard leaning against the bathroom door. It was going to be as humiliating as he'd feared. But Draper was right. When it came to hiding in plain sight, it was the perfect disguise. It was absurd, but it would make him invisible. Human-billboard guys were out in the street at all hours. They were never moved on. And no one looked at their faces. You didn't want to catch their eye. You didn't want to see their ‘how did it come to this?' look.

With Chinatown a block over, Koenig had taken a job with Gurkha Spicy, an up-and-coming Nepalese restaurant. Thirty bucks a day, cash in hand. The front board promoted Gurkha Spicy's lunchtime special; the back board was their full evening menu. Koenig slipped the billboard over his shoulders and adjusted the straps until they fitted tight and snug.

Draper said, ‘I'm hungry.'

‘Funny,' Koenig said.

‘Quit pouting. We'll take turns. You take the first shift, then I'll take over.'

‘You can't. It pains me to say this, but you're a good-looking woman. If you wear this, people are going to wonder why. They're going to stare.'

‘I can do a shift,' Carlyle said.

‘No,' Koenig and Draper said together.

‘We need you safe and out of the way,' Draper explained. ‘Same goes for you, Margaret.'

‘I didn't offer, dear.'

‘It's just me then,' Koenig said.

‘Looks like it,' Draper said. ‘But there's a bar on their block. If I can get a window seat, I'll have a decent view of their apartment and sidewalk. I'll do the night shift from there. Let you come back here for some rest.'

‘You'll get hit on all night.'

‘Let me worry about that. Anyway, it'll help me blend in. We'll figure something out for the small hours.'

Koenig didn't like it, but he was out of options. ‘What do we know about their address?' he said.

‘They have the loft apartment. Registered to an offshore company. My guys will run it down, but it'll take time.'

‘Schematics?'

‘Four floors. Two apartments on floors one to three. Just the loft on the fourth. There's an old elevator – a converted manual – and switchback stairs if you prefer the cardio.'

Koenig nodded. Switchback stairs were split-level, U-shaped staircases with two flights per floor, facing 180 degrees from each other with a small landing platform in between. They saved space compared to more sweeping staircases.

‘Fire escape?' he asked.

‘Wrought iron. External. We won't need to cover it, though; it goes down into the alleyway, and that comes out on the same sidewalk we'll be on.'

‘We'll check it out anyway,' he said.

The alley was clean by New York standards, but it was still an alley. It wasn't a thoroughfare. You couldn't walk into it and come out at the other end. It was closed. And that meant trash and city debris had nowhere to go. Once it was in, it stayed in. Swirling and dancing in the air, obeying the laws of aerodynamics. The alley was wide enough for a horse and cart but not a modern garbage truck. It was why the dumpsters were nearer the entrance than the back wall. If every dumpster in New York had to be dragged thirty yards to get emptied, the city would grind to a halt.

The alley separated two converted warehouses. The fire escape was the usual iron structure. A sharp-edged urban jungle gym. Ugly and clunky. Put up to comply with industrial building code with no thought to aesthetics. It clung to the bricks like metal ivy, fixed there by rusty iron bolts.

Satisfied the alley held no surprises, Koenig rejoined Draper on the sidewalk.

‘Can you see the alley entrance from the bar?' he asked.

‘I think so.'

‘OK, I'll do from now until around ten p.m. You take over while I get some sleep, and when the bar closes, we'll do walk-pasts until the morning. It's the best we can do.' He paused. ‘But I hope these morons don't take too long. I already feel like an idiot.'