Just Watch Me (Riley Wolfe 1)

I moved a lot faster up on top. That made up for the two or three minutes I’d wasted in the street. “Lollygagging,” Mom would’ve called it. She came out with these ancient Southernisms like that sometimes. I never did figure out most of them. Like, if you gag on a lolly, that slows you down?

Whatever, I didn’t lollygag on the rooftops. I raced across the city—uptown, down to street level to cross Fifth Avenue, then up again and crosstown to West End and down at 66th Street. I loved traveling by parkour on a day like this one. Every time I launched into space, it felt like I would live forever.

When I finally came down at 66th, I was smiling. It was a short walk to my goal, one of the last working phone booths in Manhattan. I love these old things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-tech. I use cutting-edge techno toys every day, and the edgier, the better. But I still think it’s a true shame that phone booths are dying out. Especially for somebody who every now and then needs to make a call that doesn’t leave any kind of cell signal, no ID, nothing at all to track you. Sure, somebody could figure out where the call was coming from. But by the time they could do anything about it I’d be long gone.

That was exactly what I had in mind this morning. So the old phone booth at West End and 66th was perfect.

I slid into the booth, no problem—can you believe nobody was using it? Not even to piss in? I dropped a quarter into the slot and dialed a number I’d memorized this morning. After three rings, a woman’s voice came on. She sounded like a cross between a robot and a high-priced hooker, a pretty good trick, if you think about it.

“Grey Wolf Securities, Elmore Fitch’s office,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“Yes, hello,” I said in a British Oxonian accent I’d used before. And I have to say, it was pretty good. “I’m calling from Sotheby’s? I have an extremely important message for Mr. Fitch.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fitch is in a conference,” the woman said, and her reply sounded so automatic it might have been recorded.

“Well, of course he’s in a conference,” I said, trying to sound amused and patronizing. I mean, there’s more to doing Brit than just the sound. You’ve got to cop the attitude. “If he wasn’t in a conference, I’m sure we’d all be terribly worried. So be a dear girl and simply convey a message, won’t you? As I said, it’s rather urgent.”

“Yes, sir, and what was your name, please?”

“Tell Mr. Fitch that the Jasper Johns painting he purchased recently is a forgery,” I said, very happy, like all Brits are when something goes wrong. I mean, for somebody else. “If he’ll carefully examine the lower left-hand corner of the canvas, he’ll see proof of this. He will have to look rather closely, but I assure you, the proof is there. Lower left, yes? Can you do that like a good girl? Brilliant.”

“And your name, sir?” the woman repeated.

“Now please make sure he gets the message immediately, or even sooner, all righty? Brilliant. Ta,” I said, and hung up the phone. I was sure I’d been just superior and annoying enough. That, combined with the Oxonian accent, and the poor woman would have to assume I was the kind of asshole who can only live at the high levels. I had to be important and official, and she’d deliver the message. “Brilliant,” I said to myself, and I snorted. I mean, why do they always say that? Stupid habit. Fucking Brits.

And then I dropped the whole lighthearted Limey thing and walked back down West End. The phone call and the parkour were fun, but that part was over now.

From here on, things got serious.

CHAPTER

12

Frank Delgado got to Syracuse bright and early his second day. He’d last been there about twelve years ago. Not much had changed. It was still Syracuse. The leaves already had changed colors and fallen to the ground, brown. And he still didn’t like Syracuse much.

The police station was in the same place, and Delgado parked, went in, and presented his credentials. No problem. And the cops found the file easily enough. Of course, there was a little routine foot-dragging first. Delgado had expected it. He’d been in the field his whole career with the Bureau, and he knew very well that no local cop worth his badge was going to jump up and run through some hoops just because a Fed asked him to. But Delgado was patient, and eventually, when the locals had proved they didn’t give a shit about any Fibby, they turned him over to a Sergeant Valducci, a fireplug of a man in his fifties, broad across the shoulders, with arms like Popeye. Valducci was bald on top, with a short white fringe and massive black eyebrows.

“We love to cooperate with the Bureau, Special Agent Delgado,” he said, and his gigantic black eyebrows moved as he spoke. “Let’s hike on down to Records.”

Delgado nodded and followed the sergeant.

“Well, shit,” Valducci said when he’d pulled the file. “This is sealed—court order, the perp is a minor.”

“Was a minor,” Delgado said. “It was twenty years ago.”

“Uh-huh,” Valducci said. “But it’s still sealed. That might mean he went straight, never arrested again . . . ?” He raised his giant eyebrows inquiringly.

Delgado said nothing.

“Oh. Like that, huh?” Valducci said. The sergeant frowned and brushed some dust off the folder. “I can get this unsealed, but it’ll take some time. Couple weeks minimum, and more likely months.” He shrugged and looked at Delgado. “Unless you can pull some Bureau strings?”

Delgado looked back and studied Valducci’s face. One important reason he needed to see inside this folder was that the copy of the arrest report from the FBI files had no accompanying photograph. This might have been omitted originally to protect a juvenile. It might also have been removed later, for more sinister reasons. Either way, Delgado was still not entirely sure what Riley Wolfe looked like. So if Valducci was stalling, continuing the old Cops vs. Feds game, Delgado wanted to find a way around it and open the folder.

But the dark eyes under the massive eyebrows looked back at him with nothing but patience. Delgado nodded. The sergeant wasn’t being a jerk. A file sealed by a court has to be unsealed by a court. Just as Valducci said, that could take weeks or months, and Delgado could end up using his entire leave just to get to his starting point. Unless—

“Is there anything written on the outside?” he asked.

The sergeant glanced down, turned the folder over, nodded. “It says, ‘Remanded to custody of Jefferson County Probation Department, Juvenile Services.’” He glanced up again. “Jefferson County, that’s Watertown. North of here?”