Reed ignored him and poured the tonic into a glass.

“There’s water all over the place. I think the toilet’s overflowing.”

Jesus Christ. Reed pinched his eyes shut. What the hell else could possibly go wrong tonight?

CHAPTER 30

Max waited a beat as Reed dropped his head, muttered something under his breath, and then headed for the john.

Two other men passed Max, also heading into the restroom; at last Max followed them in. By the time Max got there, Reed was in the stall, bent down, turning off the water line.

“Holy hell,” one of the men said. The other just laughed and tiptoed across the wet floor to a urinal.

Max had hoped to see the jacket, but it was nowhere. Surely Reed would have to reach into the water to fix the problem. He couldn’t do that without getting his sleeves wet. But what if he didn’t fix it? What if he simply put up an Out of Order sign on the stall?

Max heard the scrape of porcelain as Reed removed the tank’s lid. “Goddammit,” Reed muttered.

The two men chatted about some plumbing mishap one had experienced after a hard freeze. They moved from the urinals to the sinks, and Max went to the urinal closest to the stall to listen. He couldn’t tell what Reed was doing, and thought that his scheme might have failed. But then Reed tossed his jacket over the partition so that half of it fell on Max’s side, the breast pocket with the burner phone only inches from his face.

The two men washed their hands. They could see Max in the mirror if they looked, but they weren’t paying attention. Still, it was too risky. They might have been regulars or friends of Reed’s, so he waited. On the other side of the partition, Max could hear water being rippled and assumed that Reed was reaching for the float bar at the bottom of the tank.

The two men shuffled out, and Max went to work. He unbuttoned the breast pocket of the jacket and the phone slid into his hand. He was in luck; the phone hadn’t timed out. Max pressed the icon for phone calls and a single number showed. Max memorized the ten digits, repeating them in a loop as he slid the phone back into the pocket.

Then Reed yelled, “What the fuck!”

Max was trying to rebutton the flap when the jacket suddenly moved. The button slipped from Max’s fingers, but the phone didn’t fall out.

Reed spoke again, this time an angry hiss. “A fucking sock?”

Max gave the button a second try, punching it through the hole just as the jacket disappeared over the top.

Reed slammed the stall door open. Max turned to the urinal, his face aimed at the wall like a man taking a leak. In his head, he repeated the phone number over and over. Reed washed his hands, pounding the soap dispenser, yanking out paper towels, and cursing under his breath.