I had been toying with the phone and accidentally hit the call button. I pressed stop when I realized what I had done. The phone was ringing the same number as before. Then it stopped. She said, “Hold on. Call that again.” I pressed the call button again and waited.

The phone rang. “Now be quiet,” she said.

The phone rang. “You hear that?”

“What do I hear?”

Nazari put her hand on my arm. “Listen.”

Then I heard a distant ring-tone. A tropical rhythm. Maybe samba. It was coming from Le Foxy Kebab.

“It’s not from the restaurant.” She looked at me. “It’s from above it.”

We sat in silence and heard the distant tropical rhythm again. Looked at each other.

I pressed stop and the tropical ring-tone stopped abruptly.

Nazari said, “The Woodcutter.”

I said, “An office above the restaurant. Nobody’s there, or else he would have picked up.”

“He must have just left.”

I scanned the area because you never know. No fat and bald men. No fat or bald men. Only skinny men with hair, and women and children.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I said, “I’ll check it out.”

“I’m coming with you.” She opened the driver side door.

I put my right hand on her left. “Not a good idea. You’re a cop, off duty. I don’t know what I’m going to do or who I’m going to run into. This is reaching into the unknown. You could lose your job.”

“You need backup.”

The street was dark and empty. Except for the light spilling out of Le Foxy Kebab. And the orange vapor lamps that lined the sidewalks. A cat huddled underneath a parked car and then dashed across the street.

I squeezed her hand. “What I need is for you to stay in the car and keep a look out. Use the phone. He might have gone out for cigarettes. Might be on his way back right now.”

I looked at the restaurant. The view would have been better if the Peugeot was reversed a couple of yards, but that wasn’t possible because there was a car right behind us. “Get in the backseat. It’s got a better view. Call me if you see someone going to the toilet who is not already a paying customer. The stairs are accessed from that door.”

I called her phone with the burner, so she had the number. We set the phones to vibrate, not ring. She climbed into the back seat of her Peugeot. I got out of the car and closed the door. I had the burner in my front pocket. I crossed over to Le Foxy Kebab and waited outside.