The Detachment

motor scooter, stayed outside.
    Once Larison had confirmed he was inside and could see Capps, I told Dox to pull out. If Capps was indeed meeting Finch here, I didn’t want to give him the chance to log more of us than was strictly necessary.
    I waited on a bench under the shade of some trees in the nearby Stadtpark, just a harmless-looking Japanese tourist taking in the sights and sounds and smells, savoring the sense of loneliness and freedom that comes only from solitary sojourns in strange lands, where all the everyday things seem subtly wondrous and different and new, where there’s no one to please or disappoint or explain to, where the traveler finds himself suspended between the beguilement of the comforts he left behind, and the allure of an imaginary future he senses but knows he can never really have.
    I passed nearly an hour that way, the day’s heat slowly loosening, the trees’ shadows lengthening, pensioners and lovers and dog walkers drifting past me, occasionally enjoying an adjacent park bench. Maybe Horton’s intel had been faulty. Maybe Finch wouldn’t show. Maybe I’d get credit in the next life, or the afterlife, for trying, for a good faith effort that had ultimately failed to produce results.
    My mobile buzzed. Larison’s number. I clicked answer. “Yeah.”
    “Gang’s all here,” he said in his gravelly whisper.
    I could hear the sounds of the café around him—music, conversation, laughter. “Good. Sound quality okay?”
    The phones we were carrying were equipped with the latest listening gear—integrated electronic amplifiers. State of the art, as Horton had promised. Not as powerful as a parabolic mic, but a hell of a lot smaller and less obtrusive. Depending on overall acoustics, the user could eavesdrop on a quiet conversation as much as thirty feet away through a pair of ordinary wire-line earbuds, the kind Larison would be wearing right now.
    “Excellent,” he said.
    “Good. Let me know if you find out where we’ll be dining and staying.”
    “I will.”
    “Does it look like just us? Or should we expect extra company?
    “Unless the extra company is cooling its heels outside, it looks like just us.”
    So Finch was traveling without security. Unexpected, given his position, and even more so given the quality of enemy he must have developed through his information-brokering hobbies. Maybe he felt the dirt he had banked made him untouchable. Maybe he felt his side trip to Vienna had been planned discreetly enough to offer adequate protection. It didn’t matter. I’d have Treven make a pass on the motor scooter and Dox on foot to confirm, but for now it seemed like good news for us.
    “All right,” I said. “If you learn anything or need anything, we’re nearby.”
    “Copacetic for now.”
    I clicked off and considered. For the moment, I didn’t want to say anything to Larison, but in my mind his cover was already blown. Even if Finch was relaxed enough to travel without a bodyguard, the way he had planned this trip suggested a degree of security sensitivity—certainly enough for him to log Larison and his danger vibe. Dox had commented on it, too, on our drive west from Las Vegas. “That hombre could make Satan’s neck hairs stand on end,” was how he’d put it. “He’s a reloader for sure.”
    “A reloader?” I’d asked.
    “Yeah, I’d empty the whole magazine into him, then reload and do it again, just to be sure.”
    I agreed with his assessment. If Larison had a weakness, it was that danger aura he put out. Most men who have it just can’t cloak it. And if Finch picked up on it, he’d sure as hell take note if he spotted Larison again later that evening.
    Ten minutes later, Larison buzzed me again. “Good news,” he said. “We’re eating at a place called Expidit. That’s how it sounds, anyway, I don’t know how it’s spelled. Like ‘expedite’ but with ‘it’ at the end, not ‘ite.’”
    “I’ll see what I can find online. What about lodging?”
    “A hotel called the Hollman Bell something. Again, I couldn’t make it out exactly. But that should be enough to work with.”
    “Arrival time?”
    “They’re done with their drinks and waved the waiter off when he asked if they wanted another, so I’d guess soon.”
    “Okay, let me know if they head out. I’m going to try to find the restaurant and hotel.”
    It took me only a minute to locate the Xpedit restaurant and Hollman Beletage Design and Boutique Hotel, both within