Legacies

3.

"There you are!"

Sam Baker spoke aloud in the otherwise empty car as he caught sight of the Clayton babe. For a few bad moments there he'd thought he'd lost her.

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 bastard 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 shit."

"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 a boyfriend."

Baker watched the Clayton babe's loose skirt tighten across her butt as she bent to get into the cab. Nice ass.

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 decided against it.

He hoped to hell 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 fucking payoff, and he deserved every fucking penny of it for all the shit he was taking.