“Like stink on shit.”

“Pardon?”

“She’s uptown. Flagging down a cab as we speak.”

“Where has she been? Meeting another lawyer?”

“She was in a bar.”

“In a bar? Does she appear inebriated?”

“You mean drunk?” Really weird the way this guy talked. Arab to the bone but he spoke English like a Brit. “No. Tell you the truth, I don’t think it has anything to do with what we’re interested in. Probably meeting a boyfriend or something.”

“She does not have a boyfriend.”

Baker watched the Clayton babe’s loose skirt tighten across her butt as she bent to get into the cab. Nice ass.

Hard to believe she was completely unattached. She wasn’t bad-looking. At least what he’d been able to see of her. A little makeup, a tight skirt, she could be a real looker. Instead…

Maybe she was a lez. Nothing wrong with that. He could get off on a lez. He figured their only problem was they hadn’t met the right man yet.

“If you say so,” Baker said.

“And you have no idea who she was meeting.”

“Didn’t get a chance to find out. But I don’t think she met a lawyer in that dump.” Baker almost added, But you never know, but decided against it.

He hoped to hell she hadn’t.

“You are not paid to think. I do not like what happens when you try to think.”

Here we go, he thought. But the Arab didn’t push it.

“Where is she headed?” Muhallal said.

“On her way back downtown. I’m right behind her.”

“Good. Follow her and do nothing else.”

Baker cut the connection and slammed his hand against the steering wheel. He thought about the wad of cash waiting in escrow for him, and he kept it in mind as he drove. A big fucking payoff, and he deserved every fucking penny of it for all the shit he was taking.

4.

Yoshio Takita finished off the second burrito as he followed Sam Baker’s car. He’d picked them up earlier from someplace called Burritoville. He’d never heard of the chain, but was glad he’d tried it. He smacked his lips. These had been called “Phoenix Rising” burritos. He loved them. In fact, he’d yet to meet an American fast food he didn’t like. And it was all so cheap over here. Back home in Tokyo it cost a small fortune to eat at one of the American chains that dotted the city.

He worried about getting fat, but his metabolism seemed to chew up the calories as fast as he shoved them in. That was good. It wouldn’t do to develop a potbelly in his line of work, not at age thirty.

He wiped his hands and his mouth with the napkin, then settled both hands on the wheel. Had to be watchful here. Not for Baker—the man was a soldier for-hire, not an operative; his tailing skills were crude at best, and he hadn’t the slightest idea he himself was being followed. No, the problem was getting left behind at a light. If Yoshio were tailing only one of them, the task would be fairly easy. But tailing Baker as he tailed the woman, that tended to stretch the chain too far for comfort.