The Twelfth Card

was clear and she’d be awaiting them.
    Finally the North Carolinian hit the speakerphone button on Rhyme’s phone and called the girl’s uncle to make sure he was home.
    “ ’Lo?” the man answered.
    Bell identified himself.
    “She’s okay?” the uncle asked.
    “She’s fine. We’re headed back now. Everything all right there?”
    “Yes, sir, sure is.”
    “Have you heard from her parents?”
    “Her folk? Yeah, my brother call me from th’ airport. Had some delay or ’nother. But they’ll be leaving soon.”
    Rhyme used to fly to London frequently to consult with Scotland Yard and other European police departments. Travel overseas had been no more complicated than flying to Chicago or California. Not so anymore. Welcome to the post-9/11 world of international travel, he thought. He was angry that it was taking so long for her mom and dad to get home. Geneva was probably the most mature child he’d ever met but she was a child nonetheless and should be with her parents.
    Then Bell’s radio crackled and Luis Martinez’s staticky voice reported, “I’m outside, boss. The car’s in front, door open.”
    Bell hung up the phone and turned to Geneva. “Ready when you are, miss.”
    *   *   *
    “Here you be,” said Jon Earle Wilson to Thompson Boyd, who was sitting in a restaurant in downtown Manhattan, on Broad Street.
    The skinny white guy with a mullet haircut and wearing beige jeans, none too clean, handed the shopping bag to Boyd, who glanced inside.
    Wilson sat down in the booth across from him. Boyd continued to study the bag. Inside was a large UPS box. A smaller bag sat beside it. From Dunkin’ Donuts, though the contents most definitely were not pastries. Wilson used the chain shop’s bags because they were slightly waxed and protected against moisture.
    “Are we eating?” Wilson asked. He saw a salad go past. He was hungry. But although he often metBoyd in coffee shops or restaurants they’d never actually broken bread together. Wilson’s favorite meal was pizza and soda, which he’d have by himself in his one-room apartment, chockablock with tools and wires and computer chips. Though he sort of felt, for all the work he did for Boyd, the man could stand him to a fucking sandwich or something.
    But the killer said, “I’ve got to leave in a minute or two.”
    A plate of lamb shish kebab sat half eaten in front of the killer. Wilson wondered if he was going to offer it to him. Boyd didn’t. He just smiled at the waitress when she came to collect it. Boyd smiling—that was new. Wilson’d never seen it before (though he had to admit it was a pretty fucking weird smile).
    Wilson asked, “Heavy, huh?” Glancing toward the bag. He had a proud look in his eyes.
    “Is.”
    “Think you’ll like it.” He was proud of what he’d made and a little pissed that Boyd didn’t respond.
    Wilson then asked, “So how’s it going?”
    “It’s going.”
    “Everything’s cool?”
    “Little set-back. That’s why . . . ” He nodded toward the bag and said nothing else. Boyd gave a faint whistle, trying to match the notes of ethnic music coming out of the speaker above them. The music was bizarro. Sitars or something from India or Pakistan or who knew where. But Boyd hit the notes pretty good. Killing people and whistling—the two things this man knew how to do.
    The counter girl dropped a plate of dishes into the busboy pan with a huge crash. As the diners turned to look, Wilson felt something tap his leg under the booth. He touched the envelope, slipped it into his bell-bottoms pocket. It seemed surprisingly thin tobe holding $5,000. But Wilson knew it was all there. One thing about Boyd: He paid what he owed, and he paid on time.
    A moment passed. So, they weren’t eating together. They were sitting and Boyd was drinking tea and Wilson was being hungry. Even though Boyd had to leave in a “minute or two.”
    What was this about?
    Then he got the answer. Boyd glanced out the window and saw a battered, unmarked white van slow and turn into the alley that led to the back of the restaurant. Wilson got a glimpse of the driver, a small man with light brown skin and a beard.
    Boyd’s eyes watched it closely. When it disappeared into the alley he rose, hefting the shopping bag. He left money on the table for his bill and nodded to Wilson. Then he started toward the door. He stopped, turned back. “Did I thank you?”
    Wilson blinked. “Did you—”
    “Did I thank you?”