He shook his head. “An hour later than it is here. The earth simply has to revolve, Eve, however annoying it is for you.”
“It can revolve all it wants. I just don’t see why people can’t settle on the same time.”
“I’ll think about that when I’m running your search, and talking to Hong Kong.”
“What time is it there?”
“Morning.”
“See? Crazy.” She walked to her desk, settled down. And contacted Feeney.
It felt good, good and solid, just to see his face, hear his voice.
He said, “Yo,” and took her right back to New York.
“I got an angle I want you to work. What’s that noise?”
“Ball game. No score, bottom of the second. Two outs, runner on first. Mets don’t screw up they can clinch the division tonight.”
“Shit, I wanted to see that game.”
“They got a ban on baseball down there?”
“No. Or probably not. Maybe I’ll catch it on replay.”
He shook his head sadly. “Not the same.”
“Better than nothing. Anyway, I’m working on the theory that McQueen’s got a second hole down here.”
“Peabody’s kept me in the loop. She’s doing good. I know McQueen sliced the partner, slithered out. You got the woman and the kid back.”
“She killed a cop, walked right out of the hospital, stole a car out of the lot. She had an hour on us.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.”
He shifted, paused the game. She realized he was home, not at Central. Which considering the time she should have expected.
Home, she thought. Beer and the ball game.
“I know you’ve been on this, hard.”
“We’re running it round-the-clock, digging out bytes, cleaning them up, piecing them together. The guy’s a fucker, but he’s no amateur.”
“I’m looking for different bytes. If he’s got this place . . . and I know he does, Feeney. I know it.”
“I wondered if he had one here back in the day. A grifter has to grift. He couldn’t take marks into the place on Murray. But we had him, so digging hard for that got pushed down the line.”
“Everything points to a second location here. So he had to find it, rent, or buy it. To do that he had to communicate with some sort of real estate or rental company, right? Even if he used a go-between, he’d have to communicate. He’d have to wire funds.”
Feeney popped a couple candied almonds, washed them down with beer. “He wouldn’t be running games yet. No time to set them up. So how’d he know he’d need the other digs?”
Yeah, it felt good, Eve thought as she ran it through for him. If she tried hard enough she could imagine herself in his office at Central, bouncing the info, the theories back and forth.
“Makes sense to have an alternate, a safe zone if things go south. He’s not going to want to leave Dallas, what with wanting to kill you so bad.” Feeney pursed his lips, tipped the beer back again. “Yeah, he likes having all his frogs in a line. Always meant to slice the partner. You just made that sooner than later. From what he packed up he’d likely have more wherever he was going. The thing is, he’s smart. It’s smarter to lay low, take the hike, let you come back home. Wait you out some, then come at you when your guard’s down.”
“He needs it. Needs to clinch the division. He can’t move on and up until he’s taken me. He took the kid because he needed to get off, and because he wanted to rub it in my face. Added to it, it gave him two lures or bargaining chips. Now he’s got none.”
“You think he’ll go after another kid?”