The Crooked Street

11

When the man was clear of the park and sure that Frost Easton wasn’t following him, he slowed to a walk. His car was parked three blocks away on a residential street. He saw no one nearby when he reached it, but procedure said he should walk from one corner to the next to make sure there was no surveillance. He wasn’t going to take any shortcuts. One contact had ignored procedure on an operation in Lincoln Park, and word had gotten back to the boss. The contact had been found shot dead the next day.

It was a lesson in following the rules.

He checked the area, then got inside his car and removed a phone from underneath the front seat. The contact number changed every week, but he had the new number memorized. He punched in the digits and waited. The process was always the same. The voice on the other end was always the same.

“Identification,” the woman answered.

“Geary,” he said.

“Password.”

“21851.”

“Status.”

“Golden Gate.”

He’d never had to declare a different status. Golden Gate meant all was well. If something was wrong, if he was under surveillance or being coerced, then the status was Bay Bridge. Those two words sounded the alarm.

“Report,” the woman said.

Her voice had a nasal, dominating tone that broached no small talk. He had no idea who she was, or where she was, or how old she was. Even so, he found her voice oddly arousing, and he would have enjoyed being able to see her in the flesh. In his fantasies, she was young and erotically charged behind her severe ways, like a teacher who knew how to deal with naughty schoolboys. But he would never know the truth about her.

“Report,” she barked again when he didn’t reply immediately.

“Easton visited the Berkeley location.”

“Were you able to listen?”

“Yes. He’s not buying the story about the suicide. He’s zeroing in on Tuesday, too. I’m not sure the situation can be controlled much longer. We may need to take action.”

“That’s not up to you,” the woman replied.

“Fine, but next time it would be helpful to know about personal connections between my targets before you order the snakes. If I’d been informed, maybe this could have been avoided.”

He didn’t like to be nasty with the voice — it wasn’t safe — but he was the one in the field. And no one needed to lecture him about loyalty when he was taking all the risks. Geary did the dirty work.

“Have you located Mr. Jin?” she asked him, as if he hadn’t said a thing.

“Not yet.”

“That’s priority one.”

“I know that,” he replied icily. “Mr. Jin disappeared before I was brought in. It’s not my fault.”

“Regardless, it’s essential that we find him before Easton does. He’s the only one left who can talk.”

“I have a plan,” the man said. “I’ll get it done.”

“See that you do.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all,” the woman replied.

Geary was about to hang up, but he decided to push his luck. “Make sure you tell Lombard what I said. Easton is a wild card we weren’t anticipating. As long as he’s alive, we have a problem.”