The Shadow of Your Smile

12

Sammy Barber had not become a successful hit man by behaving impulsively.

In the most unobtrusive way possible Sammy began to methodically study the daily pattern of Monica Farrell’s comings and goings. Within a few days he was able to establish that she never arrived at the hospital later than 8:30 A.M. and two days out of three returned there at five P.M. Twice she took the Fourteenth Street bus across town from the hospital to her office. The other day she walked in both directions.

She was a fast walker, he noticed, taking long, graceful strides in her low-heeled boots. He doubted that trying to push her in front of an oncoming bus would work. She never stood perched on the edge of the curb, or tried to beat a light as it was turning red.

On Friday morning, at eight o’clock, he was sitting in his car on the opposite side of the street from the converted brownstone where she lived. He had already canvassed the neighborhood and knew that there was a wall about four feet high and a narrow alleyway separating the backyard of her residence from the backyard of the identical brownstone directly behind it. He decided it might be possible to get into her building that way.

When Monica left her apartment at 8:10 Sammy waited until she was safely in a cab, then got out of his car and walked across the street. He was dressed in a hooded ski jacket and wearing dark glasses. Across his chest was a heavy canvas sack with empty boxes protruding from it. He knew that anyone seeing him would think he was a private service messenger.

Averting his face to avoid the security camera, Sammy opened the door into the outer vestibule of Monica’s residence. In an instant he learned what he had come to find out. There were eight buzzers with name cards next to each of them. Two apartments to a floor, he thought. Monica Farrell was in 1B. That’s got to be the back apartment on this floor. His hands in gloves, he rang the bell of the tenant on the fourth floor, claimed a delivery, and gained entry into the inner hallway. Then, wedging the inner door open with his bag, he immediately called that woman back and claimed he had rung the wrong bell and the delivery was for the tenant in 3B, whose name he read from the card next to that bell.

“Next time be more careful,” an annoyed voice told him.

There won’t be a next time, Sammy thought as the door closed behind him. Wanting to know the layout of Monica’s apartment, he walked noiselessly down the long, narrow hall to 1B. He was about to try his string of master keys to unlock the door when he heard the whine of a vacuum coming from her apartment. Her cleaning woman must be in there, he thought.

Turning swiftly, he retreated down the hallway. The elevator was descending. He did not want to run into a tenant who might remember him. Moving rapidly now, he left the building. He had learned what he needed to know. Monica Farrell lived on the ground floor in the rear. That meant her apartment was the one with the patio, which meant she has a back door. There’s no lock I can’t open, Sammy thought, and if she has a back window, too, so much the better.

It’s the best way to handle it, he thought dispassionately. A burglary attempt gone wrong. Intruder apparently got nervous when Dr. Farrell woke up and saw him. It happens every day.

But as he got back in his car and tossed the delivery bag on the backseat, Sammy’s expression became morose. A dedicated Internet researcher, he had printed out all the information he could find on Monica Farrell. It wasn’t as if she was a celebrity, but that didn’t mean she was just any doctor. She’d written some articles about kids and gotten some awards.

Who’d want to kill her and why? Sammy wondered. Am I doing it too cheap? That was a question that nagged him as he drove to his apartment on the Lower East Side, his eyes burning for sleep. He had worked at his regular job as bouncer from nine p.m. until four A.M., then gone directly to Monica’s street on the chance that she might have a middle-of-the-night emergency call.

He’d been prepared for that, with a dark jacket, tie, and limo service ID, figuring that if she did come running out, she might very well take a gypsy limo instead of trying to find a taxi.

I’m covering a lot of bases, Sammy thought. He pulled off his sweatshirt and jeans and threw himself into bed, too tired to undress fully.