Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro #4)(49)

He walked up the street and I looked at my watch: 9:15 A.M.

Mullen had been inside four minutes. Why’d he turn around in the first place? Had Broussard blown the tail?

No. Broussard was too good. I’d only seen him because I knew to look for him, and even then he blended into crowds so well my eyes had skipped over him once before I’d identified him.

I looked at my watch again: 9:16.

If Angie had gotten Broussard’s message as soon as he’d realized Mullen was headed back to Devonshire Place, she would have been in the elevators, or possibly have gotten as far as the outside of Mullen’s door. She would have turned and headed right for the stairwell. And she’d be down by now.

9:17.

I watched the entrance to Devonshire Place. A pair of young stockbrokers stepped out in shiny Hugo Boss suits, Gucci shoes, and Geoffrey Beene ties, hair so thick with gel it would take a wood-chipper to muss it. They stepped aside for a slim woman in a dark-blue power suit and a matching pair of wafer-thin Revos over her eyes, checked out her ass as she stepped into a taxi.

9:18.

The only way Angie would still be up there was if she’d been forced to hide in Mullen’s apartment or if he’d caught her, either inside or at his door.

9:19.

She’d never have been dumb enough to hop back in the elevators if she had, in fact, gotten Broussard’s message. Stand there and see the car door open to Chris Mullen on the other side…

Hey, Ange, long time no see.

You too, Chris.

What brings you by my building?

Visiting a friend.

Yeah? Aren’t you working that missing girl case?

Why do you have a gun pointed at me, Chris?

9:20.

I glanced across Washington to the corner of School Street.

Poole met my eyes, shook his head very deliberately.

Maybe she had reached the lobby but was being harassed by the security guard.

Miss, hold on. I don’t remember seeing you in here before.

I’m new.

I don’t think so. His hand goes to the phone, dials 911….

But she’d be out the door by then.

9:22.

I took a step toward the building. Took another one. Then stopped.

If nothing had gone wrong, if Angie had simply turned off her walkie-talkie so the squawk wouldn’t alert anyone to her presence and was, as I stood there, standing on the other side of a fifteenth-floor exit door, watching Mullen’s apartment door through a small square of glass, and I stepped in front of the entrance just as Mullen walked out, recognized me…

I leaned back against the wall.

9:24.

Fourteen minutes since Mullen had shoved me into the wall and entered the building.

The walkie-talkie in my jacket purred against my chest. I pulled it out and there was a quick low bleat, followed by: “He’s coming back down.”

Angie’s voice.

“Where are you?”

“Thank God for fifty-inch TVs, is all I can say.”

“You’re inside?” Broussard said.

“’Course. Nice place, but easy locks, man, I swear.”

“What brought him back?”

“His suit. It’s a long story. Tell you later. He should be reaching the street any second.”

Mullen exited the building wearing a blue suit instead of the black one he’d worn on the way in. His tie was different, too. I was staring at the knot when the head above it swung my way and I glanced down at my shoes without moving my head. Quick movements are the first thing your paranoid drug dealer types notice in a crowd, so I wasn’t about to turn away.

I counted down from ten very slowly, thumbed down the volume on the walkie-talkie in my pocket, and barely heard Broussard’s voice. “He’s moving again. I got him.”

I looked up as Mullen’s shoulders moved in front of a young girl in a bright yellow jacket, and I turned my head slightly and picked up Broussard sliding through the crowd where Court became State Street as Mullen turned right before the Old State House and cut through the alley again.

I turned back to the window of Eddie Bauer, met my reflection.

“Whew,” I said.





15





An hour later, Angie opened the passenger door of the Crown Victoria and said, “Wired for sound, man. Wired for sound.”

I’d moved the car to the fourth story of the Pi Alley garage and pointed it toward Devonshire Place.

“You bugged every room?”

She lit a cigarette. “The phones, too.”

I looked at my watch. She’d been in there an hour flat. “What’re you, CIA?”

She smiled around her cigarette. “I tell you, I might have to kill you later, babe.”

“So what was up with the suit?”

She had a far-off look in her eyes as she stared through the windshield at the facade of Devonshire Place. Then she shook her head slightly.

“The suits. Right. He talks to himself.”

“Mullen?”

She nodded. “In the third person.”

“Must have picked it up from Cheese.”

“He comes in the door going, ‘Great fucking choice, Mullen. A black suit on a Friday. You out of your fucking mind?’ Like that.”

“I’d like Inane Superstitions for three hundred, Alex.”