Manhattan Is My Beat

scissors, toothbrush.
    She dug down through the layers.
    And found a small, battered brown accordion folder with a rubber band around it. It was very heavy. She opened it. She found a letter—from Weissman, Burkow, Stein & Rubin, P.C.—describing how his savings, about fifty-five thousand, had been transferred to an account in the Cayman Islands. A plane ticket, one-way coach, to Georgetown on Grand Cayman. The flight was leaving day after tomorrow.
    Next to it, she found his passport. She’d never seen one before. It was old and limp and stained. There were dozens of official-looking stamps in the back.
    She didn’t even look at the name until she was about to put it back.
    Wait. Who the hell was Vincent Spinello?
    Oh, shit! At Stein’s law firm, when she’d looked through the lawyer’s Rolodex, she’d been so nervous she’d misread the name. She’d seen
Vincent Spinello
and thought
Victor Symington
. Oh, Christ, she’d gotten it all wrong. And she’d even broken the poor man’s window!
    All a waste. She couldn’t believe it. The danger, the risk, Pretty Boy … all a waste.
    “Goddamn,” she whispered harshly.
    Only, wait … The letter.
    She opened the letter again. It
was
addressed to Symington and at
this
address. So what was he doing with Vincent Spinello’s passport?
    But as she looked at the passport again, the condensed, grim little picture, there was no doubt.
Spinello
was the man she’d seen at Robert Kelly’s apartment. Who was he?
    She dug to the bottom of the folder and found out. What made it so heavy was something that was wrapped in a piece of newspaper—a pistol. With it was a small box of cheap cardboard, flecked brown-green. The box, too, was heavy. On the side was printing in what she thought was German. She could make out only one word.
Teflon
.
    Oh, God …
    Symington—or Spinello—was the man who’d killed Robert Kelly. He and Pretty Boy
had
found the Union Bank robbery money. They’d stolen it and killed him! And the loot was in the closet!
    Rune dropped to her knees and looked at the padlock on the closet. Leaned close, squinting. Pulled it, rattled the solid lock.
    Then she froze. At the sound of a door opening then closing.
    Was it the front or the back door? She couldn’t tell. But she knew one thing. It was either Pretty Boy or Symington. And she knew something else: they both wanted her dead.
    Rune gave one last tug at the closet door. It didn’t move a millimeter.
    Footsteps inside now. Nearby. If he finds me here, he’ll kill me! She stuffed the accordion envelope into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
    A creak of floorboards
    No, no …
    She thought they were in the front of the apartment. In the living room, which wasn’t visible from where she was. She could probably get out the back without being seen. She glanced into the corridor fast, then ducked back into the bedroom. Yep, it was empty.
    Rune took a breath and ran from the bedroom.
    She slammed right into Victor Symington’s chest.
    He gasped in terror, stepped back, the ugly hat falling from his head. In reflex he lunged out and slugged her hard in the stomach, doubling her over. “Oh, God,” she wheezed. A huge pain shot through her chest and jaw. Rune tried to scream but her voice was only a whisper. She dropped to the floor, unable to breathe.
    Symington, furious, grabbed her by the hair and spun her around. Dropped to his knees. His hands smelled of garlic and tobacco. He began to search her roughly.
    “Are you with them?” he gasped. “Who the fuck are you?”
    She couldn’t answer.
    “You are, aren’t you? You’re working for them!” He lifted his fist. Rune lifted an arm over her face.
    “Who?” she managed to ask.
    He asked, “How did you …”
    He stopped speaking. Struggling to catch her breath, Rune looked up. Symington was staring at the doorway. Someone stood there. Pretty Boy? Rune blinked, rolled to her knees.
    No … Thank you, thank you, thank you … It was his daughter, Emily.
    Rune was so grateful to see the woman that it wasn’t until a second later that she wondered: How’d Emily find the place? Had she
followed
me here?
    Wait, something is wrong.
    Symington let go of Rune, backed up.
    Emily said, “How did we find you, you were going to ask? Haarte has some good contacts.”
    Haart? Rune wondered. “Who’s Heart?” she asked.
    “Oh, no, it’s Haarte?” Symington whispered. Then he nodded hopelessly. “I should’ve guessed.”
    “What’s going