Secret of the Seventh Son (39 page)

"I'm going for a run," Will announced through a scowl.

"Go for a long one, Mister Will," Leonora advised.

A daily run had become part of Will's post-retirement routine, a component of his new-man ethos. He was leaner and stronger than he had been in years, only ten pounds heavier than his football-playing weight at Harvard. He was on the brink of fifty, but he was looking younger, thanks to his no-Scotch diet. He was big and athletic, with a strong jaw, boyishly thick, tawny hair, and crazy-blue eyes. Clad in nylon jogging shorts, he turned women's heads, even young ones. Nancy still wasn't used to that.

On the sidewalk, he realized the Indian summer was over and it was going to be uncomfortably chilly. While he stretched his calves and Achilles against a signpost, he thought about shooting back upstairs for a warm-up suit.

Then he saw the bus on the other side of East 23rd Street. It started up and belched some diesel exhaust.

Will had spent the better part of twenty years following and observing. He knew how to make himself inconspicuous. The guy in the bus didn't, or didn't care. He had noticed the rig the previous evening, driving slowly past his building at maybe five miles per hour, jamming traffic, provoking a chorus of honks. It was hard to miss, a top-of-the-line Beaver, a big, royal blue forty-three-footer, with sides splashed out in gray and crimson swooshes. He had thought to himself,
Who the hell takes a half-a-million-dollar motor home into lower Manhattan and drives around slow, looking for an address? If he found it, where was he going to park the thing?
But it was the license plate that rang bells.

Nevada. Nevada!

Now it looked like the guy had indeed found adequate parking the night before, across the street just to the east of Will's building, an impressive feat, to be sure. Will's heart started to beat at jogging speed even though he was still stationary. He had stopped looking over his shoulder months ago.

Apparently, that was a mistake. Gimme a break, he thought.
Nevada plates
.

Still, this didn't have their signature. The watchers weren't going to come at him in a half-baked Winnebago battle-wagon. If they ever decided to pluck him off the streets, he'd never see it coming. They were pros, for Christ's sake.

It was a two-way street and the bus was pointed west. All Will had to do was run east toward the river, make a few quick turns and the bus would never catch up. But then he wouldn't know if he was the object of somebody's exercise and he didn't like not knowing. So he ran west. Slowly. Making it easy for the guy.

The bus slid out of its space and followed along. Will picked up the pace, partly to see how the bus responded, partly to get warm. He got to the intersection of Third Avenue and jogged in place, waiting for the light. The bus was a hundred feet behind, stacked up by a line of taxis. He shielded his eyes from the sun. Through the windshield he made out at least two men. The driver had a beard.

On the go again, he ran through the intersection and weaved through the sparse pedestrian sidewalk traffic. Over his shoulder, he saw the bus was still following west along 23rd, but that wasn't much of a test. That came at Lexington, where he took a left and ran south. Sure enough, the bus turned too.

Getting warmer, Will thought, getting warmer.

His destination was Gramercy Park, a leafy rectangular enclave a few blocks downtown. Its perimeter streets were all one-ways. If he was still being tailed, he'd have a bit of fun.

Lexington dead-ended at 21st Street at the park. Twenty-first ran one-way west. Will went east, along the outside of the park fence. The bus had to follow the traffic pattern in the opposite direction.

Will started doing clockwise laps around the park's perimeter, each lap taking only a couple of minutes. He could see the bus driver was struggling with the tight left turns, nearly clipping parked cars at the corners.

There wasn't anything remotely funny about being followed, but Will couldn't help being amused every time the giant motor home passed him on its counterclockwise circuit. With each encounter he got a better look at his pursuers. They failed to strike fear in his heart, but you never knew. These clowns definitely weren't watchers. But there were other sorts of problem children out there. He'd put a lot of killers in jail. Killers had families. Vengeance was a family affair.

The driver was an older fellow, with longish hair and a full beard the color of fireplace ash. His fleshy face and ballooned-out shoulders suggested a heavy man. The guy in the shotgun seat was tall and thin, also on the senior side, with wide-open eyes that furtively engaged Will sidelong. The driver stiffly refused to make eye contact altogether, as if he actually believed they hadn't been made.

On his third circuit, Will spotted two NYPD cops patrolling 20th Street. Gramercy Park was an exclusive neighborhood; it was the only private park in Manhattan. The residents of the surrounding buildings had their own keys to the wrought-iron gates and the police were visible around there, prowling for muggers and creeps. Will pulled up, breathing heavily. "Officers. That bus over there. I saw it stop. The driver was hassling a little girl. I think he was trying to get her inside."

The cops listened, deadpan. His flat, southern drawl played havoc with his credibility. He got a lot of those out-of-town looks in New York. "You sure about that?"

"I'm ex-FBI."

Will watched for a short while only. The cops stood smack in the middle of the street and halted the bus, waving their hands. Will didn't stick around. He was curious, sure, but he wanted to get over to the river for his usual circuit. Besides, he had a feeling he'd see these geezers again.

To be on the safe side, when he got back home, he'd take his gun out of the dresser and oil it up.