Chapter 24

I found what, back home, would’ve been called a coffee shop. Being Chicago, it went by the name, ‘Café Caffiend’. The place was kind of a Starbucks, but with a sense of humor. My request for ‘a medium regular coffee’, not only wasn’t met with a look of derision, the kid behind the counter actually knew what that meant. I was so pleased, I bought something in the display case labeled, ‘Neutron Pound Cake, ‘Gluon Free’. Carrying my coffee and yellow rectangle, I went out to the small patio in front of the shop. A wrought-iron-and-glass table afforded me an unobstructed view of both sides of the street.

I choose this place for no other reason than it was directly across South Wabash Avenue from the building known locally as ‘Big Red’. According to Kyle Harrington’s mumbled aside, Starr Prendergast, the young woman I was being paid to find, was meeting someone in front of the building at noon.

A classic stakeout, I even bought a newspaper that I planned on not reading. A childhood spent watching old movies had burned an engram into my mind not to be denied. I considered opening the paper and holding it in front of my face, then remembered that the woman I was watching for didn’t know me from Adam. Miz Prendergast would be mine to watch and I’d be as invisible to her. Sure, a little creepy. But not as creepy as, say, wearing a disguise and following her into a ladies room. I started to laugh at my inner narrator, then remembered I was sitting in a public place. Surveillance was the part of the job I most loved, despite how completely uncomfortable a part of me felt.

At five past twelve, Starr walked around the corner and was almost to the main entrance of the blood-red office building, when a woman in a dark business suit stepped out of the lobby. Extending her right hand, every professional sales person meeting a client for the first time, she walked up to my missing heiress. After a touching of hands, they stood facing each other, introductions ensued. I straightened up out of my ‘just-sitting-here-reading-the-paper’ slouch as Starr put something in the open palm of the woman from the building.  One smiled, the other looked…relieved. Then my day got interesting.

They both turned enough in my direction to allow me to see them side by side. Looking back, I missed the other woman putting her hand on Starr’s elbow, moving her into position. The similarities suggested by both women being blond and attractive, faded as I got a clear look at the woman from the building.

Starr is a beautiful young woman; in great shape and impeccably, if not eccentrically, dressed. She had the ‘throw-away sex appeal’ of a successful Hollywood movie star, or a wealthy heiress, everything about her was the best money could buy. The other woman, on the other hand, was shorter than Starr; had a good, but not spectacular figure and wore an expensive but no-nonsense business suit. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

As I sat gazing through the gaps in the stream of Chicago lunch hour traffic, my phone dinged an alert to an incoming text. Without looking away from the two women across the street, I raised the phone to eye level and almost dropped it in my half empty coffee.

On the display was a full color, high res photo of me at my table. Through some magic of camera angles, in the background was Starr Prendergast and the woman across the street.

I looked up, the woman next to Starr was staring at me with an intensity that made it feel she was half-an-inch and a midnight heartbeat from my face. With a smile and a wave as innocent as a high school cheerleader, she made it clear she’d be very pleased if I joined them.

I got up, and before I reached the curb, all the traffic lights went red, stopping the cars and buses and cabs in both directions. I found myself thinking, “Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound” and walked across South Wabash Avenue.