“Yeah. Where’s this briefcase I’m supposed to pick up?”
“Not there yet.”
“How much longer am I going to have to wait?”
“Just sit tight. It’ll get there when it gets there.”
“If it’s not here in ten minutes, I’m out of here,” she declared. “I have things to do.”
“Don’t you dare go anywhere until you have it in your hands, do you hear me?”
“Or what?”
He bit back what he really wanted to say and gave himself a second to calm down. “Look, you do this for me, and you can take a week off, okay?”
“A whole week?”
“All seven days.”
After a few seconds of silence, she said, “All right. I’ll stay. But after today, don’t expect to see me around the house.”
“But only for a week,” he stressed, even though he didn’t really care since he’d be long gone by then. He just couldn’t help reminding her that he called the shots.
She grunted, then hung up.
He shoved his phone back into his pocket and raised the binoculars again, then grinned.
A black Range Rover was coming up Amsterdam. When it reached the beer place, it parked at the curb.
There was a woman in the driver’s seat, and what appeared to be two people in the back. He increased magnification to get a closer look. As expected, sitting in the rear were Johnny Fratelli and Stone Barrington.
Gennaro did a quick look around to see if any other cars appeared to be traveling with them, but nothing set off any alarms.
He pulled out the throwaway phone and called Fratelli. “You made it with six minutes to spare. Well done.”
“Where do I take this?”
“Relax. You’re not there yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Next stop, the Javits Convention Center. You’ve got thirty minutes.”
“What the hell? I’m not interested in playing games. I want this done.”
“Patience, Johnny. This isn’t a game. It’s what you gotta do to make sure no one else you know gets hurt.”
Fratelli started to say something else, but Gennaro hung up, then used his own phone to call Toomey and said, “I’m on my way.”
“He’s trying to make surewe’re alone,” Jack said.
Stone nodded. “Alicia, can you—”
“I’ve already input the convention center into the GPS.”
As they pulled back onto the road, Stone called Dino. “He’s sending us to the Javits Center now.”
“Hold on.” Dino relayed the info to Watkins, then said into the phone, “The Hudson Parkway will be fastest.”
