Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

“What?” Colin stormed.

The headwaiter didn’t take his eyes off Neal as he hissed, “Harry, did we have a purse turned in?”

“I’ll go look.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

“I should mash your ugly face in, mate,” Crisp said to the headwaiter.

“Shut up,” said Colin. He studied the headwaiter’s face, memorizing details. The purple and orange crew cut was looking around the restaurant, making sure that everyone saw their vindication. Allie smiled behind a napkin.

The waiter came back. “Is this it?” he asked. He wasn’t as good an actor as his boss.

“Yeah, that’s it,” said Colin, snatching it from him.

The headwaiter played it out. “Do you have some identification, sir?”

Colin flipped the wallet open to a picture of himself. “Happy?”

“Overjoyed.”

Colin flipped some bills on the table. “Keep the change. I owe you one, guv.” Then he addressed the crowd. “And to all you happy couples out there, I hope you get fucked as good tonight as you got in this place! C’mon, you lot.” He led his band out of the restaurant.

Yeah, okay, now what? Neal thought. You’ve made contact so you have to follow up on it. Otherwise, if you try just to follow them, and get spotted, you’re screwed. You’ve walked through the door, so it’s time to smile and say hello.

He left a ten-quid note on the table and headed for the door. The headwaiter stopped him.

“Thank you, sir, for returning the gentleman’s purse,” he said with a smile as cold as his chilled salad forks. “I do hope we can do something equally helpful for you someday.”

“Like force-feed me pate with a coal scoop?”

“Something along that line, sir, yes.”

“Sounds like fun. Now get out of my way.”

“Running off to join our new little friends, are we, sir?”

The waiter wasn’t moving and Colin and friends were. Neal also saw that the other much-abused waiter was standing directly behind him. Attacked by a gang of vicious waiters, for Christ’s sake?

Neal smiled pleasantly. “You know, usually, supercilious little fucks like you keep people like me out of the restaurant, not trapped in it.”

“We just wanted to express our gratitude, sir.”

Tick, tick, tick. Every second he stood there dealing with these assholes, Allie was getting farther away. Neal wondered whether the police were already on the way. Oh, well, what the fuck, he thought. He crossed his hands in front of his chest and grabbed the waiter’s lapels. Then he straightened his hands with a snap, popping the waiter’s stiff collar into his carotid artery. The world got all nice and woozy for the waiter, who pitched forward into Neal. Neal spun him and handed him to his startled assistant, and ran out the door.

Step one, he told himself, is to get lost in the crowd. You don’t want the waiter doing any funny “He went that-away!” numbers for the local constabulary. Step two is to spot Colin and the Little Lost Kids before they fade back into a city of thirteen million other sweaty individuals. So pick it, kid, right or left out this door, and hope like hell you make the lucky choice. Neal would rather have licked every toilet bowl in greater Cleveland than explain to Graham and Levine how he could possibly have lost Allie Chase when she had been sitting right beside him in a restaurant. He made the choice to turn left outside the restaurant and plunged into the crowd of tourists who now thronged the street.

Now most people don’t know how to get through a crowd, but most people didn’t spend their entire adolescence chasing Joe Graham through Chinatown on market days and down Fifth Avenue at Christmastime. Neal silently blessed the malevolent leprechaun as he eased his way quickly through the traffic toward Leicester Square, his best guess and hope as to Colin’s destination. He knew that angry people walk fast, and that they also tend to go to familiar places to cool off. Colin was sure as hell angry.

Neal thought he’d grabbed a glimpse of Crisp’s head bobbing in the crowd about a half block ahead, but then he lost it. If Colin beat him to the square without Neal getting a look at where he was headed, it could be all over. Colin could head anywhere from the south side of the square, leaving Neal only a guess and a desperate search through the local pubs. He quickened his pace, finding every hole in the crowd and moving through it. He worked his way to the edge of the crowd, figuring he could race ahead and maybe even beat Colin to the square. That’s when the cop grabbed him.

Neal stared up at the huge bobby, who had thrown an arm across his chest.

“Steady, lad,” the cop intoned. “Do you want to get run over?”

Neal saw the edge of the sidewalk under his feet and realized that he had been about to step into the street, where even now taxis were rushing past. His heart slowed to a mere race as he forced a smile and said, “No, sir. Thank you.”

He thought that he’d rather get creamed by the fucking cab than lose Colin and Allie, which was exactly what he was doing. They had to be in the square by now, and unless they were going there to hang out, he might have blown his last chance.

The signal changed and Neal ran across the street onto the broad sidewalk that made up the northwest corner of the square. No Colin, no Allie, no crew cut, no Crisp. Go fish. In fact, he couldn’t see a goddamn thing with all the people out there. The unpleasant buzz of panic filled his ears for a second. Then he had a “just might work” idea. He crossed the north sidewalk, walking away from the square, and ran up a flight of stairs on the outside of the corner building. This was a second-floor restaurant, where a few tables looked out onto the square. He walked in. The place was packed and there was a line. Neal sidled his way up to the headwaiter. (He never suspected that his life would be so much in the hands of London’s headwaiters.)

“Sir,” said this one in a voice that told Neal that these guys must all go to school together, “perhaps you noticed the people in queue behind you?”

“I’m meeting friends,” Neal said, “and I’m very late.”

“And do your friends have names, sir?”

Tick, tick, tick. Maybe the old lapel trick…

“Lord and Lady Hectare,” Neal said as he stood on tiptoes and waved to an old couple seated by the window. The puzzled old gentleman waved back feebly, just in time for the guard at the gate to see.

“Bring another chair, could you?” Neal said before the waiter had a chance to check his reservation list. Neal was gambling that the waiter wouldn’t fuck around with any friend of the nobility anyway, and he headed straight for the table and stood over the couple, smiling his most ingratiating smile.

“Hello,” Neal said as he peered out the window. “You don’t know me from a hole in the manor wall, but I just need to stand here for a moment or so and look out the window.” He scanned the square from left to right, farthest to nearest, and perhaps…

“Now see here,” the old man was saying.

“Exactly,” answered Neal. “I thought I saw a very rare Bumbailey’s pigeon a moment ago land in a tree in the square. I just couldn’t pass up a chance to spot it and add it to my list.”

“A Bumbailey’s pigeon!” the woman exclaimed. “I’ve never seen one, either!” She turned to look out the window.

“Balls,” the old man said.

“I think it’s a female, actually. Of course, I only got a brief look at it.” There they were, headed down the west side of the square, not stopping for anything, presenting Neal with the perfect Hobson’s choice. He could stand up here and watch them walk out of range, or he could run down into the square and lose sight of them.

“I have my opera glasses in my bag,” the woman was saying. Neal wasn’t listening. He was swallowing the bitter taste of fucking it up good. Bumbailey’s pigeon, indeed. He was about to run for the stairs and give it a futile shot when he heard the sound of drums and cymbals, and saw Colin and his trio stop dead in their tracks and try to turn around. Too late. A crowd formed in back of them, and in front of them were the Hare Krishnas, fifty of them at least, snaking their way up the west edge of the square in perfect formation. As the lead members started to circle around Colin and Allie, Neal smiled a long smile. Maybe there is a God, he thought. Hare Krishna, Hare Hare.