He wore a mustache that curved downward at the corners of a mouth set in a sour expression, and his nose had a noticeable bump on its bridge. Five o'clock shadow dusted his cheeks. Along his right forearm, from wrist to elbow, a white scar curved. But what caught my eye was his lantern jaw—a slab of bone under stretched skin. It was much too long for his face and culminated in a deeply notched chin, like someone had pierced the flesh there with a fishing hook and then pulled hard on the line.
I thought I could feel his eyes on my back as I strode to my table, but when I sat and flicked my gaze in his direction, his head was turned once more toward the window.
My appetite was gone, but I forced down a few spoonfuls of soup and chewed some bread, not wanting to give a hint that anything was out of the ordinary. I slipped Esther's final picture from my pocket and slid it on the table. As I blew on a spoonful of soup, I examined the picture again. What had been a suspicion had now become a certainty.
Slightly to Esther's right and behind her was a man. Only his head and neck and one shoulder were visible—the rest was obscured partly by Esther and partly by a gray-haired woman who sat on a bench at the edge of the picture, wearing a black dress and facing away from the camera. The man himself was not facing away. In fact, the picture displayed his face in its entirety. It was a wonder he had not noticed he was being photographed, but then again, Manny Orrin must have become quite adept at snapping pictures surreptitiously.
In the picture, the man had a full head of hair, and his face was leaner than it was today. But the mustache was the same, and there was no mistaking that jaw and chin. It was the man seated at a table by the window of Greta's Café.
I considered the odds of this being a coincidence and discounted them as negligible. Then I contemplated what this meant. I came to two conclusions: I didn't know, and I was going to find out.
Feigning ignorance of the man's presence, I polished off my food, taking my time with it, trying to look as if I hadn't a care in this world. When I was done, I smoked a lazy cigarette until it was about to burn my fingers, before mashing it out. I folded up the chessboard, piled it and the empty dishes onto the tray, and brought them to the bar. Behind it, Greta was wiping glasses with a checkered cloth.
"Thanks for dinner," I told her, in a low voice. "Act natural, okay?" Then I strode to the door, put my hand on the handle, half turned and, in a voice loud enough to carry to the man at the other end of the café, said, "I'll see you tomorrow, Greta. I'm going to take a walk on the beach, do some thinking."
Greta stared at me blankly for a heartbeat, then said, "All right, Adam. See you tomorrow."
I gave her a wink, opened the door, and stepped outside.
I ambled a block up Allenby Street, pausing to light another cigarette. I did not look over my shoulder, but when I puffed out my first lungful of smoke, I tilted my head at such an angle that I could see a shadow flit across the light spilling onto the sidewalk directly outside Greta's Café as someone emerged from within.
Smiling grimly around my cigarette, I carried on up the street at a quicker pace. It was just after nine and the sidewalks were busy with people enjoying the relatively cool evening air. Laughter and music bubbled out of restaurants and cafés. Teenagers giddy with summer hustled by in packs in search of excitement. A mass of humanity swarmed the plaza outside Moghrabi Theater and the hoarse shouts of hot dog and soda vendors sawed above the din of the throng. I crossed to the other side of the street, where foot traffic was lighter, not wanting to be slowed by the crowds, and in the process caught a glimpse of the man thirty feet behind, fisted hands at his sides. With each step I took, the skin on my back prickled in increasing panic, and my survival instinct screamed at me to turn around and face my pursuer, not to leave myself exposed.
I ignored it, assuring myself that the man shadowing me would take no action on a crowded street. If he was who I feared—or rather hoped—he was, doing so wasn't his style. He liked to keep things private. And I had given him reason to believe he wouldn't have to wait long for the perfect moment to strike.
But my assurances rang hollow in my ears and a cold sweat sprang up under my jacket. My heart was doing a wild, stuttering dance inside my rib cage. A mocking voice inside my head whispered that I was being arrogant again, that this time I'd end up worse off than bruised. I took a final drag and flicked the cigarette at a nearby gutter. My hands were damp and I stuck both of them in my pockets. Earlier, at Greta's, I'd removed the Luger from my waistband and slipped it into my right jacket pocket. Now my right hand curled around the cool grip of the pistol, thumbing the safety off.
