He settled back in the driver seat and loosened his grip on the wheel. His shoulders ached. He hadn't realized how tense he'd been since that cop had told him to move his car.

Relax, he told himself. We're back on track now.

He'd followed her to the Upper West Side from the AIDS center, and had watched her go into that dive called Julio's. He'd found a spot with a good view of the door and had settled in to watch.

Well, he'd been sitting there only a few minutes, just starting to memorize the license plates around him, when this cop came along. Seemed Baker's vantage point came with a fire hydrant attached to it. And though Baker had tried to explain that he was just waiting for someone and would keep the motor running, the cop didn't care.

"Drive it away or it gets towed away."

Not much of a choice.

So he'd pulled out and rolled down the street, looking for an empty legal spot. Fat chance. He would have loved to step into that bar and have a quick beer while he checked out who she was meeting, but he couldn't risk getting towed. So he'd kept moving, kept circling the block, waiting for her to come out.

But then when he finally did spot her coming though the door, he was already past the bar. And when he stopped and blocked the street, some b.a.s.t.a.r.d cab started honking like he was coming from a wedding. Baker had been driving this rented white Plymouth for two days now. After he'd seen the Clayton babe staring his way on Friday, he figured she might have made the gray Buick. He didn't want to draw any attention to this one, so he'd raced into another circle of the block, which turned into an agonizing crawl.

But now everything was cool. He didn't know what she'd been doing since he'd scooted out of sight, but who cared? She was just about where he'd left her.

The cell phone rang. Baker could guess who that was-the Arab had been on his case something fierce since the girl's lawyer exploded.

"Yeah?"

"You are with the woman?"

"Like stink on s.h.i.t."

"Pardon?"

"She's uptown. Flagging down a cab as we speak."

"Where has she been? Meeting another lawyer?"

"She was in a bar."

"In a bar? Does she appear inebriated?"

"You mean drunk?" Really weird the way this guy talked. Arab to the bone but he spoke English like a Brit. "No. Tell you the truth, I don't think it has anything to do with what we're interested in. Probably meeting a boyfriend or something."

"She does not have have a boyfriend." a boyfriend."

Baker watched the Clayton babe's loose skirt tighten across her b.u.t.t as she bent to get into the cab. Nice a.s.s.

Hard to believe she was completely unattached. She wasn't bad-looking. At least what he'd been able to see of her. A little makeup, a tight skirt, she could be a real looker. Instead...

Maybe she was a lez. Nothing wrong with that. He could get off on a lez. He figured their only problem was they hadn't met the right man yet.

"If you say so," Baker said.

"And you have no idea who she was meeting."

"Didn't get a chance to find out. But I don't think she met a lawyer in that dump." Baker almost added, But you never know But you never know, but decided against it.

He hoped to h.e.l.l she hadn't.

"You are not paid to think. I do not like what happens when you try to think."

Here we go, he thought. But the Arab didn't push it.

"Where is she headed?" Muhallal said.

"On her way back downtown. I'm right behind her."

"Good. Follow her and do nothing else."

Baker cut the connection and slammed his hand against the steering wheel. He thought about the wad of cash waiting in escrow for him, and he kept it in mind as he drove. A big f.u.c.king payoff, and he deserved every f.u.c.king penny of it for all the s.h.i.t he was taking.

Yoshio Takita finished off the second burrito as he followed Sam Baker's car. He'd picked them up earlier from someplace called Burritoville. He'd never heard of the chain, but was glad he'd tried it. He smacked his lips. These had been called "Phoenix Rising" burritos. He loved loved them. In fact, he'd yet to meet an American fast food he didn't like. And it was all so cheap over here. Back home in Tokyo it cost a small fortune to eat at one of the American chains that dotted the city. them. In fact, he'd yet to meet an American fast food he didn't like. And it was all so cheap over here. Back home in Tokyo it cost a small fortune to eat at one of the American chains that dotted the city.

He worried about getting fat, but his metabolism seemed to chew up the calories as fast as he shoved them in. That was good. It wouldn't do to develop a potbelly in his line of work, not at age thirty.

He wiped his hands and his mouth with the napkin, then settled both hands on the wheel. Had to be watchful here. Not for Baker-the man was a soldier for-hire, not an operative; his tailing skills were crude at best, and he hadn't the slightest idea he himself was being followed. No, the problem was getting left behind at a light. If Yoshio were tailing only one of them, the task would be fairly easy. But tailing Baker as he tailed the woman, that tended to stretch the chain too far for comfort.

But what Baker lacked in grace and style, he more than made up for in ruthlessness. Yoshio had learned that last week when he followed him out to that attorney's house on Long Island. He'd seen Baker tampering with the man's car, but had a.s.sumed he was installing either a tracer or a bug. If he'd realized that Baker was planting a bomb, he'd have called the attorney to warn him.

Enough people had died already.

According to Yoshio's employer, Kaze Group in Tokyo, 247 people were already dead because of something Ronald Clayton knew or had discovered. Yoshio had witnessed the death of one other a few weeks ago. And last Friday, the death of Leo Weinstein raised the grand total to 249.

Apparently the board of Kaze Group knew no more than Yoshio. Or at least they pretended not to. They told him they did not know why Ronald Clayton and his house were so important to this Arab Kemel Muhallal; but if it was worth the lives of so many innocent people, then certainly it was worth their effort to look into it.

They knew more than that, he was sure. Although nominally just a simple holding company, Kaze Group was more powerful than the largest keiretsu keiretsu. It had global reach. But obviously they didn't know all they wished to know.

And so the board had called upon Yoshio, as they tended to do when they had a problem that needed to be handled with discretion, and sent him to America to learn more for them. It helped that English was one of the four languages he spoke fluently. His a.s.signment was to be their eyes and ears here. They had secured a set of diplomatic license plates to afford him more lat.i.tude with the city's traffic and parking regulations. He was to watch, to listen, and to report back to them.

They had sent him alone. He had no backup here now, but should the need arise, help could arrive within hours.

So far he had learned nothing knew. But Kaze Group was patient. Always it took the long view. He would stay here as long as they wished him to.

Gladly. The food was wonderful. He glanced at his dashboard clock. Soon it would be lunchtime. He could hardly wait.

Jack sat in the front window on the second floor of Pinky's Drive-in and watched Seventh Avenue directly below. "Jingle Bell Rock" wafted from the speakers set among the hubcaps on the wall as he sipped a Snapple peach iced tea from the bottle and scanned the mob below.

And a mob it was. Christmas shoppers, school trips, parents with their bundled-up kids waddling behind them like chubby ducklings, all streaming onto the already congested streets from Penn Station, heading for Macy's, FAO Schwartz, the Warner and Disney stores, the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. And this was only a Monday. Wait till Wednesday-matinee day.

The crowds brought out the flyer guys in force, standing like starter jacket-wrapped stones in the flow, handing out party-colored sheets offering everything from a dollar off a fried chicken special, to a Special Overstock Sale, to Live Girls-Nude! Nude! Nude!

Catty-corner across the intersection Jack could see workmen inflating a huge snowman above the Madison Square Garden marquee.

Christmastime in the Big Apple...

And then he spotted a guy with a pink carnation sticking out of his jacket. He watched closely to see if anyone appeared to be with him.

Nope. Looked like Jorge had arrived alone, as instructed.

Jack went over to the stairs and scanned the first floor. The lunch crowd hadn't hit yet. Jack didn't see anyone who looked like he might be with Jorge-no rules against your backup preceding you to a meet-so he leaned over the stair rail and signaled to him.

"Jorge!" he called. "With the carnation. Buy something and then-" He jerked his thumb back up the stairs.

Jorge nodded.

A few minutes later he came up the stairs, spotted Jack, came over. He extended his hand.

"Mr. Jack?" he said in thickly accented English. He wore a heavy shirt that mixed black, yellow, and orange in an odd pattern; a chrome chain stretched fore and aft from a loop of his black denims to his wallet and heavy key ring. His nose and lips were thick, his cheeks deeply and extensively pocked. He looked like an overweight Noriega, but without the sinister smugness. "Thank you for meeting me."

"Welcome to my office," Jack said, shaking hands.

Used to be, Jack met all his potential customers at Julio's. It was still his favorite place for a first meet. Julio was an excellent screener-had a sixth sense about people, and he could pat someone down without their having an inkling they'd been searched. But then Jack began to worry that he was getting too closely connected with the place-and that could be bad for him and and Julio. Julio.

So he'd started varying the location of his "office." Pinky's Drive-in was a new one. He kind of liked the idea of a place with no parking and no drive-through that had the guts to call itself a drive-in. He liked the tacky retro ambiance of the turquoise-and-white tile and pink neon in the service area below, and the hubcaps-not shiny new hubcaps, but old banged-up veterans of the road-nailed to the wall up here in the second-floor seating area. Liked this high perch over the street, liked the emergency exit door at his back that opened onto a stairway to the first floor.

Plus it was easy enough to find: Go to Seventh and Thirty-third and look for a place with a big neon Cadillac above the door.

Jorge deposited a quarter-pound Pinky Burger and a Budweiser on the table as he seated himself.

"So let's talk," Jack said. "I know the basics, but I want to get more details to see if this is workable."

According to Jorge, he was an Ecuadorean who ran a small office-maintenance business. Nothing big, just a couple of crews of three-he worked on one of the crews himself-who cleaned offices by night. Hard work, long hours, but it was a living. He was able to pay his bills and his workers. But he had a problem: a deadbeat client named Ramirez.

"And what really p.i.s.ses me off," Jorge said, "is he's a brother."

"Your brother brother?"

"No way, man. I mean a brother of Ecuador. He tol' me he was giving me the work because we come from the same country. He say he is a peasant who come here and make good, and he want to help me, a brother peasant, become rich like him." He swigged his Bud and slammed it on the table. "All bulls.h.i.t! The real reason he hire me and my guys is he know he can rip us off."

"You said he owes you six thousand."

"Right. And I never would have let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d get so far behind. But he keep telling me that business is slow, that his own customers are not paying him, but a big contract is due at the end of the year and he will settle up everything then with interest. And because he is a fellow Ecuadorian, a brother peasant" peasant"-he spat the word-"I believe him and keep coming back with my crew, night after night, week after week." Another sip, another slam on the table. "More bulls.h.i.t! He never intend to pay me. Never!"

"Here's where I start to lose you," Jack said. "You must have some sort of contract with him."

Jorge nodded. "Of course. I always get one."

"But you tell me you've tried every legal means of getting the money back. Seems to me if you have a contract-"

"Can't," Jorge said, shaking his head.

"Why not?"

"My crew. Two of them are cousins of my wife." His gaze shifted away. "They are not, um, legal."

"And this Ramirez guy knows that?"

"He know it from the start."

"Ah-ha." Jack leaned back and took a sip from his Snapple. "The plot sickens."

"Eh?"

"Nothing. So how do things stand between you two now?"

"I finally tol' him I can't go on working for him without some some payment. He give me that same dance about the contract coming in, and when I tol' him it was supposed to be in by now, he get mad. We go roun' and roun' about the same old stuff, but I do not back down this time. I was not going away empty-handed as I had every time before." payment. He give me that same dance about the contract coming in, and when I tol' him it was supposed to be in by now, he get mad. We go roun' and roun' about the same old stuff, but I do not back down this time. I was not going away empty-handed as I had every time before."

"So what did he do?"

"He fire me."

Jack had to smile. "He fired fired you! you! That took b.a.l.l.s." That took b.a.l.l.s."

Jorge bared his teeth. "It is worse. He tell me I do inferior work. Me! Let me tell you, Mr. Jack, my work is de pri-mera de pri-mera!"

Jack believed him. He could see the fierce pride in his eyes. This was a man trying to build something; more than a business-a reputation... a life. Jack sensed his anger, and something else: hurt. He'd been betrayed by someone he'd trusted.

"Jorge," he said. "I think you're right. I think our friend Ramirez was planning to rip you off from the start. And I'll bet that even as we speak, he's hunting up a new office cleaning service."

"Yes. I will not be surprised. He would steal from a dying man. But what do I do now?"

"Well," Jack said, "you and your cousins can go break his legs."

Jorge smiled. "Yes. I have thought of that. We have even talked of killing him, but we are not that sort of people."

"The other thing is to do about $6,000 worth of damage to his property."

"Yes, but I would rather have the money. The sweet taste of revenge will not pay my bills. And I am trying to avoid avoid trouble with the police. The truth is, Mr. Jack, I need money more than I need revenge. I just want what is mine. Will you help me?" trouble with the police. The truth is, Mr. Jack, I need money more than I need revenge. I just want what is mine. Will you help me?"

Jack leaned back, thinking. Jorge was the type of customer that kept Jack in the business. A guy with a genuine beef and nowhere else to turn. But right now, Jack had no idea what he could do for him.

"I will if I can. But I need to know more about Ramirez. Tell me all you know about him. Everything you've learned during all these months of working for him."

Slowly, as Jorge spoke, a plan took shape...

Alicia wasn't hungry, so she put off lunch. She liked this quiet time when no IV-therapy sessions were scheduled for the clinic and the day-care kids were having lunch; the staff and volunteers who weren't with the kids were out grabbing a quick bite. Usually she stayed in her office and caught up on her paperwork. But today she was restless.

And she didn't know why. It wasn't because of Hector-the little guy with the "mad buth cut" seemed to be responding to the antibiotic. She simply had to move.