“What?” I snapped at him and then immediately felt bad about it when he looked so happy about me giving him a little attention, even if it was gruff. I’d been ignoring him a lot lately as I dived into the internet.
Odin stood, wagged his tail at me, and then walked around in a circle a couple of times before knocking into my hand with his head. I rubbed the velvety spot on top of his nose, and his tail wagged harder.
“Fine,” I muttered. I grabbed his leash from the hook near the door and headed outside.
Lake Shore East Park was right behind my apartment building. It had a decent-sized dog run, lots of grass and trees, which Odin enjoyed, and was usually less crowded than Navy Pier. There was always a pile of kids at the playground, but we stayed away from that area. Odin had never really been around kids, and though he was quite well-behaved under normal circumstances, you just never knew what a kid might do. If Odin got agitated and snapped at someone…well, that would draw way too much attention to me.
Besides, I liked Odin. If he bit someone, and they told me I had to put him down…well, that wouldn’t go over well. I imagined there would be a lot of dead bodies around, but none of them his. At least, not until someone managed to take me out.
They would, too. Nice little park like this, surrounded by high-rises – there were plenty of places for snipers to hide out and strike without ever being seen. It was part of the reason I chose to live in the area. That and the dog-run.
We traversed all of Odin’s favorite trai
ls, circled the whole park, and paused to rest while I checked out the specials at III Forks. I hadn’t been out to a restaurant for a while and wondered if Bridgett would like to go out for dinner sometime. I could call the pimp up early on and tell him to dress her up for me in something a little classier than thigh-high stockings and see through tops. Hell, I could get her a dress myself and then she could keep it.
I nodded to myself and decided to do it. That would be better anyway, since pimps were assholes and he’d probably just take the cost of a dress out of her cut of my money.
I wondered how Lia would look all dressed up for a night on the town but shook the thoughts away again. Thinking about it definitely didn’t help, and I had a reason to consider Bridgett instead.
My mind wandered to her body and dwelled on the curves of her tits and her ass. My hands remembered the feeling of her, and I decided she was probably about a size eight. I recalled just exactly how much I needed to bend over to kiss her and figured she was five-six.
That ought to be enough information to get a dress picked out for her.
“Come on,” I said to Odin, and we started back home. I cringed a bit as the door of the parking garage exit across the street from the dog run opened, blaring out a warning signal that echoed through the otherwise peaceful park. It was a fairly recent addition to the area, and the noise always pissed me off, public safety be damned.
We crossed the street and headed over the grass towards my building. As we did, thoughts of obnoxious noises, dinners out, and hookers left my head as my target took over my mind. The more I considered it, the more I knew this job was exactly as described – fucking difficult.
I needed to do more recon.
As soon as we were back inside and Odin’s leash was put away, I walked back to the computer, pulled up Ashton’s official schedule, and called Jonathan.
“I need a plane ticket to New York.”
“Chasing what’s-his-name?”
“Yep.”
“Hold on.”
A few moments later, Jonathan provided me with an online account number and all the credentials I needed to get a plane ticket. Ten minutes after that, the dog sitter was arranged. Within a half hour, I was throwing shit into a bag and calling a cab.
New York wasn’t my favorite place, but Manhattan did give me a lot of options as far as rooftops went. People didn’t really pay any attention to who you were, either, which made it a good place to be when you were looking to kill people.
The food was pretty good, too.
From the top floor of a hotel and through binoculars, I crouched down on a balcony and watched the crowd around Brad Ashton and his security crew. There were others there, of course – media people for the most part, but a few fans and other celebrities as well. Some chick who was bouncing up and down like she was on a fucking pogo stick was obviously annoying Ashton. His jaw tightened when he turned to her, and his shoulders would go stiff when she spoke or reached out to touch his arm. He was still smiling and putting up with her, so I could only guess she won some kind of contest.
Those things should be fixed.
I put the binoculars down for a moment and grabbed a sandwich off the room service tray. I chewed while contemplating which of the four guys around Ashton needed to die. Jim was out of the question, so that left one of the other three. They were all in my field of vision, which meant blocking Ashton. I had originally hoped I would get lucky, but found out soon enough Rinaldo knew what he was talking about – picking off Brad Ashton from a distance wasn’t going to work. They were all over him all of the time.
Besides, if I killed one of the guards right in front of Ashton, he’d be just a bit on the suspicious side. He’d increase security to the point where I wouldn’t be able to get close enough, and that just wasn’t acceptable. I needed to go with a lot more subtlety.
As I used my binoculars to scan around me, I could see various security people placed on at least two rooftops and likely on top of the building where I perched as well. They alternated looking around at the ground floor and checking out the skyline. Ashton knew he was a target, no doubt about it – even this far from Chicago. With him on the alert, I was going to have to do a lot more waiting. I didn’t really mind the waiting too much. If it all worked out, it would be well worth it, and I was used to being patient.
I followed his tour for two days in New York and then another day in Boston. From there he went to Orlando, which was a nice change of pace from the winter weather up north, and he finally boarded a plane back to LA. That’s when I returned to Chicago to study my notes.
There were some definite trends I could use to my advantage.