Honeymoon

Chapter 44

OH, BROTHER—what to do, what to do? This is a disaster so far.

The Tourist sat alone in the small, dingy room with another Heineken. He’d already had four. Or was it five? At this point, keeping count didn’t strike him as being very important. Neither did the Yankees game droning on his TV. Or eating the sausage-and-onion pizza getting cold on the table in front of him.

On the table were newspaper clippings about the shoot-out in New York. There were easily a dozen articles about the “Sidewalk Showdown.”

The story had legs, which didn’t exactly surprise the Tourist. He’d left behind a host of unanswered questions. A lot of ink was being devoted to conjecture and speculation; some of it credible, most of it wacky. The short note that came with the clippings summed it up. The circus is in town. Keep your head down, Tourist. Will be in touch.

He smiled and re-read the conflicting eyewitness accounts. How was it, wrote a columnist from the Daily News, that the same event could be seen so differently by people who were no more than twenty feet away?

“How indeed?” the Tourist said out loud. He sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. He had every confidence that his identity would remain a secret. He’d taken the necessary precautions, covered his tracks. He might as well have been a ghost.

There was only one thing bothering him now, and it bothered him a lot.

What was the list he’d copied off the flash drive all about? All those offshore accounts.

One point four.

Billion.

What about it?

Was it worth some poor schmuck’s life outside Grand Central?

Apparently so.

Was it worth somebody else’s life?

Like his?

Definitely not.

Was it part of a bigger picture that might make sense eventually?

Who could tell? But he sure as hell hoped so.