Gone Tomorrow

I got out at 34th Street and stayed in the station. Just sat in the heat on a wooden bench and walked myself through my theories one more time. I replayed Lila Hoth’s history lesson from the days of the British Empire: when contemplating an offensive, the very first thing you must plan is your inevitable retreat. Had her superiors back home followed that excellent advice? I was betting not. For two reasons. First, fanaticism. Ideological organizations can’t afford rational considerations. Start thinking rationally, and the whole thing falls apart. And ideological organizations like to force their foot soldiers into no-way-out operations. To encourage persistence. The same way explosive belts are sewn together behind, not zippered or snapped.

And second, a plan for retreat carried with it the seeds of its own destruction. Inevitably. A third or a fourth or a fifth bolt-hole bought or rented three months ago would show up in the city records. Just-in-case reservations at hotels would show up, too. Same-day reservations would show up. Six hundred agents were combing the streets. I guessed they would find nothing at all, because the planners back in the hills would have anticipated their moves. They would have known that all trails would be exhausted as soon as the scent was caught. They would have known that by definition the only safe destination is an unplanned destination.

So now the Hoths were out in the cold. With their whole crew. Two women, thirteen men. They had quit their place on 58th Street and they were scuffling, and improvising, and crawling below the radar.

Which was exactly where I lived. They were in my world. It takes one to find one.

I came up from under the ground into Herald Square, which is where Sixth Avenue and Broadway and 34th Street all meet.

By day it’s a zoo. Macy’s is there. At night it’s not deserted, but it’s quiet. I walked south on Sixth and west on 33rd and came up along the flank of the faded old pile where I had bought my only uninterrupted night of the week. The MP5 was hard and heavy against my chest The Hoths had only two choices: sleep on the street, or pay off a night porter. Manhattan has hundreds of hotels, but they break down quite easily into separate categories. Most of them are mid-market or better, where staffs are large and scams don’t work. Most of the down-market dumps are small. And the Hoths had fifteen people to accommodate. Five rooms, minimum. To find five empty unobtrusive rooms called for a big place. With a bent night porter working alone. I know New York reasonably well. I can make sense of the city, especially from the kind of angles most normal people don’t consider. And I can count the number of big old Manhattan hotels with bent night porters working alone on my thumbs. One was way west on 23rd Street. Far from the action, which was an advantage, but also a disadvantage. More of a disadvantage than an advantage, overall.

Second choice, I figured.

I was standing right next to the only other option.

The clock in my head was ticking past two thirty in the morning. I stood in the shadows and waited. I wanted to be neither early nor late. I wanted to time it right. Left and right I could see traffic heading up on Sixth and down on Seventh. Taxis, trucks, some civilians, some cop cars, some dark sedans. The cross street itself was quiet.

At a quarter to three I pushed off the wall and turned the corner and walked to the hotel door.

SEVENTY-THREE

THE SAME NIGHT PORTER WAS ON DUTY. ALONE. HE WAS slumped on a chair behind the desk, staring morosely into space. There were fogged old mirrors in the lobby. My jacket was puffed out in front of me. I felt I could see the shape of the MP5’s pistol grip and the curve of its magazine and the tip of its muzzle. But I knew what I was looking at. I assumed the night porter didn’t.

I walked up to him and said, ‘Remember me?’

He didn’t say yes. Didn’t say no. Just gave a kind of all-purpose shrug that I took to be an invitation to open negotiations.

‘I don’t need a room,’ I said.

‘So what do you need?’

I took five twenties out of my pocket. A hundred bucks. Most of what I had left. I fanned the bills so he could see all five double-digits and laid them on his counter.

I said, ‘I need to know the room numbers where you put the people who came in around midnight.’

‘What people?’

‘Two women, thirteen men.’

‘Nobody came in around midnight.’

‘One of the women was a babe. Young. Bright blue eyes. Not easy to forget.’

‘Nobody came in.’

‘You sure?’

‘Nobody came in.’

I pushed the five bills towards him. ‘You totally sure?’

He pushed the bills right back.

He said, ‘I’d like to take your money, believe me. But nobody came in tonight.’