“You there?”

“I am.”

“There’s a gray car following me,” Myron said.

“Make?”

“I don’t know. I’m not good with cars. You know that.”

“Describe, please.”

“The logo looks like an aggressive lion standing.”

“Gray Peugeot. It’s French. You love the French.”

“Indeed I do.”

Despite its being five A.M., Fulham Palace Road still had plenty of traffic. The taxi dropped Myron off in front of the NatWest Bank. It was, of course, closed. Myron paid the driver and stepped out. The taxi drove off. Myron stood in front of the bank, holding the bag of cash. The bills were “marked”—that is, Win knew the serial numbers on them—but Fat Gandhi had not asked for unmarked bills. Or was that another movie trope? Who checked the serial numbers of bills when you spent money?

After a full minute of standing like a dope, Myron’s cell phone rang. The number was blocked, but it had to be Fat Gandhi. Myron picked it up, put on a bad fake British accent, and intoned in his best Alfred the butler, “Wayne Manor. I’ll summon him, sir.”

“A Batman reference,” Fat Gandhi said with a chortle. “Who was your favorite? Christian Bale, right?”

“There is only one Batman, and his name is Adam West.”

“Who?”

Today’s youth.

“Do you see the gray car with the tinted windows?” Fat Gandhi asked him.

“The Peugeot,” Myron said, showing off his new car knowledge.

“Yes. Get in.”

“What about Denise Nussbaum at the bank?”

Fat Gandhi hung up.

The car pulled up. The thin black guy from the arcade’s back room opened up the back door and said, “Let’s go, mate.”

Myron checked the car. One driver. One thin guy.

“Where are the two boys?”

“I’m taking you to them.”

Thin Guy slid over, making room for Myron. Myron hesitated but got in. Next to him, the thin black guy was on a laptop. “Give me your phone,” he said.

“No.”

“It won’t do you any good anyway.” He smiled widely. “I got your cell jammed.”

“Pardon?”

He smiled at Myron. “This here laptop? I’m using it to scramble your signal. So like yesterday, when you had all that data going back and forth between you and whoever was listening? Well, he can’t hear you anymore. Oh, and if you put any kind of wire or listening device on yourself? Same thing.”

“Just so I’m clear,” Myron said, “your laptop is cutting off all signals?”

The guy’s grin grew. “Exactly.”

Myron nodded. Then he slid open the car window, snatched the laptop from the skinny guy’s hands, and tossed it out the window.

“Hey! What the—?” He looked out the back window to where his smashed laptop lay, guts split open. “Are you for real? Do you know how much that cost?”

“A billion pounds?”

“This ain’t funny, mate.”

“I’m sure it’s not. Now, enough games. Call Fat Gandhi.”

The kid looked as though he might cry. “Ah, you didn’t have to do that,” he said in a high-pitched whine. “I was just doing what I was told.”