Ted felt as if he’d hitched himself to a whirlwind. He pulled out the envelope with Cheryl’s supply of hundred-dollar bills and threw two of them on the table.

“Hurry,” she said. “Catch up with me out front. I’ll grab us a cab.” Kenzie stood and strode through the dining room, following the disappearing figures of Cheryl and her boss.

Ted ran through the math, computing the smallest acceptable tip. Two bills wouldn’t cover the meal. Three would constitute an enormous tip for world’s worst service. But Kenzie was out the door, and he couldn’t wait for change. With an “Aw, shit” that resounded loud enough to turn heads, he dropped a third bill and raced to follow.

-43-

-43-

The bar was packed with large, loud people waiting for their reservations to be honored. Ted saw Kenzie disappear through the archway at the far end of the room. He maneuvered through the crowd after her, held back by his own size and a disinclination to use brute force. By the time he got free, she was out the front door.

“Was everything all right, sir?” The tuxedoed maître d’ was Ted’s last hurdle. Armed only with a greasy smile, the man was partially blocking the way. Ted sidestepped him and dashed out onto the street.

There was no sign of Kenzie, nor of Cheryl, Pak, or Reisner. Reisner would have had a car waiting. Possibly Pak, too. Where was Kenzie? The rain was no longer a steady mist. It was approaching a deluge, and he’d left the damned umbrella inside. He wasn’t going back.

He surrendered his sanctuary in the doorway and quickstepped out into the rain.

The lights from the dealership across the road cast jagged shadows sliced through with stark shafts of brilliance on the wet pavement. Fluorescent puddles with multicolored neon reflections created an effect somewhere between psychedelia and cubism. And far down the sidewalk, a thin and bedraggled figure lurched on unsteady heels, heading for the Queens border. It was Kenzie.

“McKenzie!” Ted yelled. “There’s got to be a better plan than this,” he muttered. “I’m coming,” he called. The pelting rain had already soaked through his suit jacket. “Ah, hell,” he said and ran after her.

A big intersection loomed ahead. Across the boulevard, store signs beckoned in English, Korean, and Spanish. Blue-white light from above rearranged the scene from cubism to hyperrealism. Kenzie rushed the crosswalk as the pedestrian light ticked down the last four seconds. A horn blasted as she failed to make the curb before the light changed. Off in the distance, Ted saw a black limousine being swallowed by the flood of traffic entering from Little Neck Parkway.

“This is not working,” he thought aloud. They needed to have a discussion about strategy and chain of command.