Watch Your Back!

But no. At noon today, the two Josés left the Imperiatum, out onto Fifth Avenue, and walked around the corner onto Sixty-eighth Street, toward the doctors' offices. They were almost to the first entrance when they heard a sudden rasping sound they didn't recognize, out ahead of them, and then saw that the garage door in the next building was lifting.

It hit them both at the same time. That wasn't their building, it was the next building, but that had to be Preston Fareweather's garage! So, the first day home, he was taking his BMW out for a spin.

Poised at the doctor's threshold, they waited, watching as the garage door very slowly lifted, waiting to see both the BMW and the fabled owner of that penthouse.

But what came out first was obviously neither. Three guys emerged, ducking under the rising garage door, and walked briskly away down Sixty-eighth Street. All three of them were guys, the Josés knew, who would never get past security in the front of the building, so what were they doing coming out of the back of the building, and coming out through territory that belonged to the richest guy in the building?

The garage door opened to the top, and there now backed out, springs sluggish as though it were very full, a white Ford truck, a pretty big one with what must be a sixteen-foot box, so it must have crammed that garage from end to end. In the cab of the truck were two guys wearing yellow hard hats, which didn't make any sense, because for once there was absolutely no construction going on in this neighborhood.

The truck backed into the street in a half-turn as the garage door began to lower. The truck headed off down Sixty-eighth Street, and Little José said, "Take a look at that license plate."

So Big José did: pf won.

"That's no commercial plate," Little José said. "That truck's gotta have a commercial plate. José, there's something wrong."

Big José already had the cell phone in his hand. The local precinct was on his speed-dial, and when the bored voice answered, he said, "This is José Carreras, security at the Imperiatum."

"How can I help you?"

"There's a white Ford truck just left this building with a New York license plate PF space WON. I think that license plate is supposed to be on a BMW instead, and there's something fu

"You want me to run the plate? Hold on."

The NYPD's hold music was the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which didn't seem right somehow, but it was more pleasant than listening to perky female voices keep you up to date on local parking regulations. Besides which, it wasn't that long before the original cop came back:

"You're right, that tag is assigned to a four-year-old BMW Series One."

"Owned," Big José said, "by Preston Fareweather."

"That's right."

"The truck just turned off Sixty-eighth onto Madison," Big José said, "and Preston Fareweather just came home to his penthouse in the Imperiatum last night after a long absence. I think you might want to stop that truck and send some people over here."

"They're on their way."

50

AT EVERY TRAFFIC LIGHT where they had to stop, Kelp and Stan did some more adjustments on the cat's cradle of straps inside the hard hats, until they were just perfect, completely comfortable. They still looked moronic, of course, riding way up above your head as though you were hiding a cheeseburger in there, but at least they were comfortable.

And so was the truck. Not like the hard-riding workhorses of yore, this one came equipped with air, soft bench seating, automatic shift, and even cruise control, though you wouldn't use that so much in the city. But the rest was very nice.

They were southbound on Eleventh Avenue, within two blocks of the construction site where they would stash this very nice truck, continuing to admire its qualities, Stan saying he thought he might hold on to it for afterward since it contained this magic kryptonite stuff that robbed police forces of their power, when all at once a black Chrysler Consigliere cut in front of them so sharply that Stan had to hit the brakes, his horn, and the roof, all at once: "Whatsamatterwithyou?"

The Chrysler in front of them now stopped entirely, and all at once a Jeep Buccaneer was on their left, also stopping, and they were crowded against the parked cars on their right, unable to move.

Kelp said, "Stan, it's a hijack!"

"I don't need this," Stan told the world, and something tapped the windowglass to his left. When he looked over there, what was tapping was the metal end of the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun the right front passenger in the Jeep was aiming his way. The guy had a whole lot of neck and nose, very little hair, and a smile meant for pulling wings off flies. This guy made up-up gestures with the shotgun barrel, and his meaning was perfectly clear: Get out of the vehicle.

Stan, not looking away from the shotgun and its bearer, said, "They want us out of the truck. I'd rather go out your door."

Looking past Stan at their visitors, Kelp said, "Roger," opened his door, and slid out to the sidewalk in the narrow space left by their nearness to the parked cars on their right.

As Stan followed, a guy very similar to the shotgun guy came trotting down from the Chrysler to get behind the wheel of the truck, and another one from the same litter came from somewhere behind the truck to brush Stan and Kelp aside and get up into the passenger seat. With no choice in the matter, Stan and Kelp made their way past the parked cars to the curb as the truck and its three escorting cars, all with Jersey plates, noisily rushed away from there.

Sounding more bitter than outraged, Stan said, "I never been hijacked before. Never once."

Sirens screamed. The three cars and the truck, still at the other end of this block, stood on their brakes, red lights shining against the sun. Police cars came from everywhere, slamming to a stop, plainclothesmen and uniforms boiling out, armed to the teeth.

"Well, you couldn't have picked a better time to have it happen to you," Kelp commented.

"Holy shit," Stan realized.

Two plains with their badges hanging down their shirt-fronts like yellow tongues paused to yell at Stan and Kelp: "Move along, move along, nothing to see here, get on to work, get on about your business, this is a crime scene here."

"Oh, I hate those," Kelp said. "Come along, Martha."

Under their hardhats, they walked briskly away. Kelp, getting into the part, pretended he had a metal lunchbox under his left arm, and you could almost see it.

51

PRESTON SLEPT through the first round of alarums and halloos, the phone-calling, the loud footsteps and louder voices, the general hullabaloo. Having been prematurely dragged to the surface of consciousness once, he had afterward burrowed in even deeper than before, so that he could be thought of now as hibernating rather than merely sleeping.

But when Alan Pinkleton burst open his bedroom door and cried, "Preston, wake up! You've been robbed!" Preston's eyes snapped open like searchlights. He stared at Alan and, though barely conscious he was doing so, cried out, "Arnie Albright!"

This stopped Alan's momentum. "What? Preston, burglars came—"

"He was right there."

Preston struggled to a seated position, struggled to free his arms from the covers so he could point, then pointed at Alan and said, "He was right there, where you are."

"Preston," Alan said, "I'm not sure what you're talking about, but the police are here, and you have to come out and see them."

"Was it a dream?"

"Please, Preston."

Preston shook his head, clearing some of the fog from his brain. "A dream, I dreamed—"