But it wasn't going to come to a shootout, Pulaski reminded himself. And even if it did, the backup team would be positioned in the hotel, ready to, well, back him up.
He was-- Jesus! The street spun. He nearly ended up on his ass, thanks to a patch of ice he hadn't seen, inhaling hard in surprise, taking in air so cold it burned.
Hate winter.
Then reminded himself it wasn't even winter yet, only the sinkhole of an autumn.
He looked up, through the sleet. Three blocks away - long blocks, crosstown blocks - he could see the hotel. A red neon disk, part of the logo.
He increased his pace. Just a couple of days ago, he and Jenny and the kids had spent the night in front of the fireplace because there'd been a problem with the gas line for the block. The cold had seeped in and he'd gotten a fire going, real logs, not Duraflames, the kids in PJs and sleeping bags nearby, and he and Jenny on an air mattress. Pulaski had told the worst jokes - children's jokes - until the youngsters had fallen asleep.
And he and Jenny had cuddled fiercely, until the caress of chill went away under their combined bodies. (No, not that, of course; they were in pajamas as chaste and comical as the children's.)
How he wanted to be back with his family now. But he pushed aside those thoughts.
Undercover. That was his job. His only job. Jenny was married to Ron Pulaski, not Stan Walesa. The kids didn't exist.
And neither did Lincoln Rhyme or Amelia Sachs.
All that mattered was finding the associates of the late and not very lamented Watchmaker. Who were they? What were they up to? And most important: Did the killer have a successor?
Ron Pulaski had a thought on this topic, though he'd decided not to say anything to Lincoln or Amelia, for fear that he'd look stupid if proven wrong. (The head injury again. It plagued him every day, every day.)
His theory was this: The lawyer himself was the main associate of the Watchmaker. He'd been lying about never meeting the man. He appeared to be a real lawyer - they'd checked that out. And had a firm in LA. (The assistant who answered the phone said Mr Weller was out of town on business.) But the website looked dicey - bare bones - and it gave only a P.O. box, not a street address. Still, it was typical of an ambulance chaser's site, Pulaski supposed.
And what was Weller's plan here?
The same as Pulaski's maybe. After all,
why come to New York to collect ashes when it would have been far easier and cheaper simply to FedEx them to the family?
No, Pulaski was now even more convinced that Weller was here on a fishing expedition himself - to find other partners of the Watchmaker, who had been the sort of master planner to have several projects going on at the same time, without telling one set of colleagues that the others even existed. He guessed that--
His phone vibrated. He answered. It was an NYPD officer from the team at the hotel. He and his partner were in position in the lobby and bar. Pulaski had relayed the details on Weller's appearance but the undercover reported that there was nobody fitting that description in the lobby yet. It was, however, still early.
'I'll be there in five, six minutes.'
'K,' said the man with a serenity that Pulaski found reassuring and they disconnected.
A gust of wind slashed. Pulaski pulled his coat more tightly around him. Didn't do much good. He and Jenny had been talking about getting to a beach, any beach. The kids were in swimming class and he was really looking forward to taking them to an ocean. They'd been to a few lakes Upstate but a sandy beach, with crashing waves? Man, they would love -
'Hi, there, Mr. Walesa.'
Pulaski stopped abruptly and turned. He tried to mask his surprise.
Ten feet behind him was Dave Weller. What was going on? They were still two blocks from the hotel. Weller had stopped and was standing under the awning of a pet shop, not yet open for business.
Pulaski thought: Act cool. 'Hey. Thought we were going to meet at the hotel.' A nod up the street.
Weller said nothing, just looked Pulaski up and down.
The officer said, 'Hell of a day, hm? This sucks. Been sleeting like this off and on for almost a week.' He nearly said, 'You don't get this in L.A.' But then he wasn't supposed to know that the lawyer had his office - or un-office - in California. Of course, maybe it would've been less suspicious and more inscrutable to let Weller know he'd done some homework on the man. Hard to tell.
Hell, this undercover stuff, you really had to think ahead.
Pulaski joined Weller in front of the pet store, out of the sleet. In the window, just behind them, was a murky aquarium.
A beach, any beach ...