Requiem for an Assassin

action if I were seen: “Yeah, what a surprise running into you here, Bob; right, I’m just buying a present for the wife at A Détacher. And you?”
    I walked up the steps and looked through the door, putting my hands up and my face close because the light from outside was mirroring the glass. The first thing I noted was the absence of a doorman. Good for Accinelli—he wouldn’t want to have to announce or explain himself, or to be noticed or remembered. And maybe good for me, too.
    There was a narrow corridor stretching for about twenty-five feet past a group of metal mailboxes and back to an elevator. Fluorescent lighting. No cameras I could see—another plus, from Accinelli’s standpoint.
    I stepped back. There were no hinges visible, and there was a push handle on the left. The door would open inward from that side. To the door’s left was a metal call box. A few FedEx and postal service signs were taped to it. So package and mail delivery occurred before—I glanced at my watch—eleven-thirty, at least today. I counted thirty buttons from among which a visitor would select to call his host and be buzzed in. Each had a last name next to it. I read through the list quickly. None of the names meant anything to me, and I doubted any of them would prove relevant for what came next regardless.
    I walked up and down the street twice more, taking in the details: where I—or someone else—might set up to wait and observe; which stores and cafés would offer a view of the street; how people were dressed and what they were doing. The vibe wasn’t quiet, exactly, but it wasn’t bustling, either. It was still a little early for lunch, and even some of the shops hadn’t yet opened. Accinelli probably favored visits at this hour as much for the relative lack of crowds as for the built-in “going out for a business lunch” excuse the time afforded him.
    I went back to the car and was relieved to find that no passing law enforcement official had noticed my parking peccadillo. I drove around the block several times, cementing details in my mind, then widened my perambulations to include more of the neighborhood. Then I found a parking space on Bleecker Street, where I waited and monitored the transmitter. At twelve thirty-five, the Mercedes pulled out. I followed from a distance just in case he stopped somewhere and an opportunity presented itself. But I doubted he would. As it was, the whole thing could have been a two-hour “lunch.” I doubted he wanted to be away longer than that.
    I was right. He went straight back, pulling past the guard post at one o’clock sharp.
    I drove around for a while, going nowhere in particular, letting all the details of what I’d just seen—the layout, the openings, the flow, the risks—run through my mind. Accinelli would be back to his secret spot on Mott Street, of that I had no doubt. Probably his schedule, and his ability to fabricate plausible reasons for two-hour absences, would be the only limiting factors. Lunchtime would typically be convenient. And if a secretary harbored suspicions about why certain appointments were always made directly, rather than through her, so what? Did she really want to risk her job through an indiscreet comment that got back to a powerful man like her boss?
    I thought of the bike messenger I’d seen, and felt a plan beginning to cohere. I started with the general parameters, then built in details. I asked what-if questions, and played when/then games. I liked what I was coming up with. It wasn’t perfect, and there were risks. But there always are. I doubted I was going to have a better opportunity than Mott Street.
    I found a bike shop in Great Neck, where I bought the cheapest twelve-speed they sold, along with a pair of long neoprene biking gloves; a fleece balaclava and a helmet to go over it; a nifty side-view mirror called Third Eye that attached to the earpiece of a pair of sunglasses; and a three-foot, case-hardened, steel bike chain called the Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit. Next, an Office Depot, where I bought a large box of styrofoam peanuts. Finally, a hardware store, where I picked up a file, a paintbrush, and two cans of paint—black, and mud brown. I wiped down everything and didn’t handle any of it afterward except with the gloves.
    At a nearby park, not far from young mothers pushing their toddlers in strollers and on swings, I slathered paint all over the bike frame. I started with the can of black, using little care