The Deliveryman (Lincoln Rhyme 11.50)

"Yes?"

"Rinaldo wasn't alone when it happened. He had his son with him."

Ah, yes. That's right. Morales recalled this. It was decided that he'd take the boy with him on his rounds yesterday to give an air of innocence if he were stopped for a traffic violation. He'd never met the boy but believed him to be about eight or nine.

"What did he see?"

"Nothing, from what we're picking up on the chatter. But who knows?"

"I'll keep that in mind. Now, get started."

"Yessir."

He disconnected and, his jaw tight, looked over the soccer players. They should be in school. Where were their parents?

He reflected on his lieutenant's call and decided this was not the time to save fifty-nine dollars. He slipped the battery out of his phone--these he kept--and broke the unit in half, then dropped the carcass into a bag for disposal. From a drawer he withdrew another phone and, with a sharp, bone-handled knife, his father's, he began to slice through the encasing plastic carefully, one centimeter at a time.

After disconnecting the call, the stocky man put his Samsung into the pocket of his olive drab combat jacket and, sipping excellent diner coffee, wondered where the name Echi came from.

Wasn't that some kind of foreign word? No. Ecco. Was that it? From an old language? Like Greek or Roman? Ecco, therefore I am. In his job Stan Coelho didn't have much connection with old-time writing or foreign languages, other than Spanish. And occasionally Russian, if he had to go up against the Brighton Beach crew in Brooklyn.

He should read more. He should learn more.

Another bite of sloppy eggs.

So, Ecco Rinaldo was dead and a very important delivery had gone missing.

Well, this was a mess.

Perched on a creaky stool, he was finishing breakfast at a diner on the Upper East Side, eggs over easy, toast to mop, and turkey sausage, which because it was turkey was supposed to have less calories and fat than the other kind, the real kind. Probably didn't, though. Turkey fat, pig fat, both pretty much the same.

He felt his girth press against his belt, as if the meal was already expanding his forty-four-inch waist. It wasn't, Coelho was sure, but the imagined bloating felt real. He'd get the weight under control soon.

"Hey, honey, refill." He tapped the coffee cup. "And that Danish. The cheese one. And the bill."

"Sure thing."

He reached for his wallet but he reached carefully. He was carrying a Glock inside that taut waistband, pretty concealed but not absolutely concealed, and the diner was crowded. Not the place for somebody to scream, "That asshole's got a gun!"

Reflecting on the phone call a moment ago: his mission was to find the delivery, maybe find who did Rinaldo, but at this point doing that was optional. The delivery was all that mattered.

He left a bit of sausage, in caloric compensation, and chewed down half the Danish, which tasted mostly of sugar. Not that that was a negative. He poured back two slugs of coffee and ate the rest of the pastry. He wiped his mouth and his impressive moustache, as salt-and-pepper as his thick hair. Digging for bills, he left a ten and five under the plate, a generous tip. Then replaced the wallet--replacing carefully--and left the diner, walking out onto Third Avenue, congested with people headed to work, mostly going south, to Midtown. He lived in Queens, where the commute was different, mostly you took buses or walked to the subway or elevateds. It was still crowded, but not like this.

Manhattan.

Good diners here. Not much of anything else for him.

Coelho stood close to the diner and lit a cigarette. A woman passing by, dragging her overbundled kid to an overpriced school, glared at him. His return glare said, Fuck you, it's still America. He wanted to exhale smoke her way but she was gone fast, plodding along in her massive and ugly boots.

Smoking, thinking about where the delivery might be. The huge number of people streaming past seemed to flaunt the hopelessness of the mission.

At last, his phone hummed and he looked at caller ID.

"Yo."

"Still no word who bodied Rinaldo."

"Don't care about that," Coelho said. "Gimme something about the delivery. S'all we care about at this point."