Critical

16

"Hey, asshole!" Carlo called while giving Brennan's shoulder a sudden forceful shake.

Brennan, who'd fallen asleep and had slowly slipped down in his seat until his knees were pressing against the dash, overreacted to being awakened so roughly by sitting bolt upright. Frantically, he searched the immediate area outside the windshield for a beast or foe. As soon as he heard Carlo begin to chuckle in the darkness of the car's interior, he became oriented to time, place, and person. And just when he was about to say he'd had quite enough of Carlo for one night, Carlo pointed out something beyond the windshield.

"I think our charges are returning to port," Carlo said. "Front and center!" He'd spent a year and a half in the armed forces before earning a dishonorable discharge. He'd hated the regimented experience, but he still indulged in the phraseology on occasion.

Brennan had to squint into the distance beyond the pier. A sliver of a moon had arisen over the New York City skyline, throwing a limpid line of reflections toward them across the Hudson River. Brennan and Carlo were still in Carlo's Denali parked high on the hill at the very back of the marina's parking lot, waiting for Franco and Angelo's return.

"I don't see them," Brennan said. Hardly had the words escaped his mouth before a sizable yacht silently slipped through the moon's reflection. "Okay. I see a boat. How do you know it's them?"

"How many boats have we seen go in and out tonight?"

"You still don't know it's them," Brennan said, as he raised his binoculars. With the magnification, the boat looked ghostly as it slipped through the mist suspended over the water's surface. "Aren't they supposed to have some lights on?"

"How do I know?"

"What are we going to do?"

"We're going to sit here and watch them leave and see if they are still accompanied by the young lady. Then we are going to take a look at their boat."

It seemed to take forever as the boat backed into its slip and Franco and Angelo made it secure. When it was finally done, the two men walked along the pier toward dry land.

Carlo put down his window. Even from the distance, Carlo and Brennan could hear that Franco and Angelo were carrying on as if they'd been to a party. They were laughing as they climbed into Franco's finned Cadillac, slammed the doors, and drove away.

"It must have been quite a boat ride."

"At the girl's expense," Carlo commented as he started the car. "What a couple of pigs."

"It doesn't make much sense. I wonder who she was. Why all the effort? She certainly didn't look like anything special."

"It doesn't make sense to us, but maybe Louie can make sense out of it," Carlo said. Then, turning to Brennan, he asked, "Did you bring your locksmith's tools?"

"I always do."

"Let's take a quick look around the inside of the Full Speed Ahead, if you can manage the door and the alarm system."

"I'll manage them," Brennan said confidently. Two of Brennan's skills were lock picking and understanding electronic equipment, including alarms and computers. He'd gone to a technical school for electronics after he'd been kicked out of regular high school.

Carlo re-parked in approximately the same place Franco's car had been. He took a flashlight from the dash before he and Brennan walked out the pier. They proceeded in silence, listening to the waves softly lapping against the pilings. When they got to the gangplank of Full Speed Ahead, Carlo hesitated. He looked back at his vehicle. "I hope they didn't forget something and come back."

"Want me to run back and move the car?"

Carlo shook his head. "Let's just keep a sharp eye out for headlights. We'd have a lot of warning. It's not like this is the only boat on the pier."

They boarded the yacht quickly. "Start on the door," Carlo said. "I'll keep an eye out."

"Posh boat," Brennan said. Then he stopped. "What do you think this stack of cinder blocks is for?"

"Three guesses and the first two don't count, lunkhead."

Brennan looked back at the cinder blocks and suppressed a shiver at the thought. Proceeding on to the glazed double doors leading into the yacht's interior, he got out his set of tiny locksmith's tools. He didn't have much light, but he didn't need much. Lock picking was a skill done mostly by feel.

"What do you think?" Carlo asked. He was sitting on the gunwale at the very stern where he had a good view of the approach into the marina, as well as the entire parking lot.

"A piece of cake," Brennan said. Two minutes later he had the lock open but had to deal with the primitive alarm system. With that taken care of, he called to Carlo.

Carlo used his handheld light to quickly scan the interior of the main saloon. He pointed to the glasses on the bar. "So they were drinking. Explains their mood."

"What if we find the girl? What are we going to do?"

"We'll have to improvise." His light found the steps and the gangway forward. After taking another look up at the entranceway into the marina, which he could barely see, thanks to the neighboring boat, which was almost as large as the one they were on, Carlo led the way down the stairs and into the galley and dining area. Moving quickly to avoid being out of sight of land, they crossed the galley into the gangway leading forward. Carlo briefly tried each door, but the staterooms were all empty and undisturbed until they came to the last one. In it, the queen-sized bed cover was in disarray, as was a towel on its surface.

"I'd say this was the scene of the crime," Carlo said. He shone the light around the room, which was otherwise totally shipshape. "The girl's gone. That's what we came here to find out, so now let's blow."

They rapidly backtracked. Carlo didn't feel comfortable until he had a reasonable view of the marina and the parking area at the boat's stern. All was serene. He turned back to Brennan. "I just had an idea. How easy would it be to hide a tracking device on this yacht?"

"Easy" Brennan said. "What kind of tracking device are you interested in: one that records exactly where the boat's been or one that tracks in real time and you can watch where the boat goes."

"The second one," Carlo said, warming to the idea.

"No sweat. We can put a thing about the size of a deck of cards someplace here on the boat and then set up a situation where we can follow it on the Internet."

"Good. Let's run it by Louie first."

"AH, COME ON," Angelo pleaded. "It's not that much out of the way."

"But it's going to midnight, and I'm exhausted," Franco said.

They were in the Lincoln Tunnel heading back to New York City, where Franco was intending to drive directly across Manhattan to connect with the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

"I want to stop at the Neapolitan," Franco continued. "The party will be breaking up soon, and I'd like a chance to make sure Vinnie understands the secretary is history."

"It's only twenty blocks out the way I just want to see if she still lives in the same place, because if she does, the job will be a piece of cake. You can't believe how much I'm looking forward to getting some revenge. I've done two stints in the slammer for that bitch, got coldcocked by her damn boyfriend, and she's the one responsible for my face looking the way it does."

Franco glanced over at Angelo in the half-light of the car. He'd become accustomed to Angelo's horrific facial scarring. He wondered if it were his own face, would he ever get used to it?

"What would it take?" Angelo said. "Ten minutes, fifteen at most."

"Okay, okay," Franco said reluctantly.

Twenty minutes later, Franco's big black car was creeping along 19th Street with Angelo bent down to see the building's facades. The last time he'd been there had been ten years earlier, but the experience had been burned into his memory. He'd been certain he'd remember the building, but it wasn't happening.

"Which one, for chrissake?" Franco demanded. He'd made the decision to sacrifice the time because he'd momentarily felt sorry for Angelo, but the rationale was wearing thin with Angelo taking so freaking long merely to pick out the right building. Earlier, Angelo had assured him there wouldn't be a problem.

"There it is!" Angelo exclaimed suddenly. He pointed.

"Are you sure?" Franco questioned. He looked at the building Angelo was pointing at. It was brick, in a mild state of disrepair, exactly like the buildings on either side. "How can you tell?"

"Trust me! I can tell."

As Angelo climbed out of the car, Franco called after him to remind him that their visit was only a quick reconnoiter. Angelo waved over his shoulder to indicate he'd heard.

Angelo glanced up at the top of the building. Lights were on in the fifth-floor apartment. Dr. Laurie Montgomery's had been the apartment in the back: 5B. Angelo pulled open the outer door and stepped into the foyer. As soon as he did, he remembered his crazy partner, Tony Ruggerio, blasting away in that particular foyer at a woman who both of them thought was Laurie Montgomery but who turned out to be someone else. Partnering with Tony had been a frustrating handicap for Angelo, but he'd had no choice in the matter until the guy's recklessness got him killed.

Hoping for pay dirt, Angelo checked the names alongside the buzzers and mailboxes. To his great disappointment, the name for 5B was Martin Soloway.

Having keyed himself up to such an extent, Angelo felt a momentarily paralyzing letdown. But then he remembered that he knew where she worked, and his mind-set took a rapid about-face, only to be halted by the very real possibility that after twelve years she might have switched jobs, as well as apartments. In a mood hovering between unbridled anticipation and abject despondency, Angelo returned to the car and climbed in.

Although the retracted scarring of Angelo's face restricted his range of facial expression, Franco had learned to interpret subtle small changes. He knew instantly that Angelo was dejected.

"She's no longer there?" Franco questioned.

"No longer there," Angelo confirmed. He then told Franco his concerns that she might have left town.

"Hey, buck up! She's got to be here. She wouldn't be causing trouble if she wasn't."

Although there wasn't a lot of facial movement, Franco could tell that Angelo's mood had changed for the better.