Requiem for an Assassin

maybe Delilah had been right. That, improbably, even accidentally, I had proved her right. And that, if I could do it once, I could do it another time. And another after that.
    You can, I told myself, again and again, my lips forming the words like a prayer, an incantation. You can. You can. And, breathing that silent mantra, clutching it as though it was my last and only hope, finally, fitfully, I slept.

23
    I GOT UP AT five the next morning. The first thing I did was check the transmitter. Accinelli’s car hadn’t moved—it was still at his house in Sands Point. I showered, shaved, and got dressed, then went down to the restaurant for breakfast. I kept the iPhone open in front of me while I ate, in case Accinelli moved earlier than I thought likely.
    At six o’clock, I started driving circuits on 25A and the Long Island Expressway between Mineola and Sands Point. At six-thirty, the transmitter started moving. I wasn’t surprised. Accinelli was a self-made man, with all the ambition self-made success implied. I hadn’t expected him to show up and punch a time clock at nine.
    I watched on the iPhone as he came down Searingtown Road, then fell in behind him on the LIE. Traffic was already thick in the other direction, toward New York, and I supposed one of the benefits of living in Sands Point and working in Mineola was that doing so offered him a reverse commute.
    As I followed him I hoped, but didn’t really expect, that he might pull over at a rest stop, or a favorite diner, or some other place where I might find an opportunistic few minutes alone with him. But he didn’t. From the LIE, he went south on the Northern State Parkway, then onto East Jericho. By the numbers, from home to the office. I went past as he waved to the guard in front of the parking lot, then watched him drive inside.
    I picked up some sandwiches and fruit at a supermarket and went back to the hotel room. If Accinelli didn’t go anywhere until he was done at work, it was apt to be a long day of watching and waiting.
    But at just before eleven o’clock, he moved. I went to the car, watching on the iPhone as he headed west on the LIE, toward New York. On the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, I came close enough to spot his car, and stayed behind him across the Williamsburg Bridge. Downtown again. Interesting.
    I followed him onto Delancey, keeping several cars between us. Where are you going? I wondered. Same place as yesterday?
    I expected him to go right on Bowery and park at the lot I’d seen him use the day before. Instead, he continued onto Kenmare, then made a left on Mott, going the opposite direction from where I’d spotted him yesterday. Then right on Broome, right on Crosby, and into a parking lot between Spring and Prince. And all at once it came together for me. I knew why he was here.
    I drove past the lot, made a right onto Houston, then another right onto Mott, the same block I’d seen him turn off yesterday. I paused at the corner of Mott and Prince, but didn’t see him coming. If I was wrong, I had already lost him, and wouldn’t be able to reacquire him until he was moving in the car again. But I knew I wasn’t wrong. The signs had all been there; I was just too distracted by thoughts of Midori and Koichiro to put them together.
    Accinelli had a mistress.
    Why had he still been in his golf clothes when I saw him yesterday? Why was he hurrying, first on foot, then on the highway? And he hadn’t been shopping here—he was carrying no packages.
    I pictured it: he tells his wife he’ll be golfing at the club, and he will be, too, because it’s important that he’s seen there, that his buddies will unintentionally vouch for him, unwittingly provide an alibi. But he’s only staying for nine holes, not eighteen. The difference creates a two-hour window for him. He wants to make the most of it, so he doesn’t even change his clothes. In fact, he wants to stay in the clothes, wants to be wearing them when he gets home later. And then he stays too long, and hurries to return before his wife gets suspicious.
    And why the different parking lot today? Everything else I’d seen about Accinelli indicated he was comfortable with patterns—foolishly comfortable, in my opinion, because even aside from the fact that Hilger wanted him dead, his wealth and stature made him an inviting target for kidnapping. But today, he’d practically driven right past the lot on Bowery, in favor of another that wasn’t a half-mile away. Why