Vail laid the photos on the counter in front of the sous-chef as she continued to cut the yellow and green vegetables. She blew a long strand of graying hair away from her eyes. “The one on the right, that’s him,” she said. It was Victor Radek.
“Did he say anything other than giving you the order?”
“When I told him that was an awful lot of garlic, he said the weirdest thing. He said, ‘Only if you’re going to eat it.’”
“That makes more sense than you know. Anything else?”
“No, that was about it. Paid with a credit card. Gave me the creeps the way he smiled at me.”
“How so?”
“It wasn’t real, like he had never smiled before.”
“Thanks for your time.” Vail went back to the table, where a fresh bottle of wine had been delivered. Kate nodded toward it. “Quite the operator, aren’t you? Another bottle with the owner’s compliments.” She held up her glass as if to toast Vail.
“I told him I was getting nowhere with you sober.”
“So this Nina, is she my competition?” she said playfully.
“As if anyone could compete with you.”
“There isn’t enough wine in this entire place to get me to swallow that line.”
Vail sat down. “I told you I wasn’t very good at this.”
“Don’t panic just yet, bricklayer, you’re doing all right.”
“That’s a little teaser to get me to tell what happened in the kitchen, isn’t it?”
She tilted her head coyly. “Is it?”
Vail stared at her as if making a decision. “Okay, on the off chance that this will help close the deal, here’s what I’ve been doing. Remember the trash can in the backseat of the car?”
“A story that starts with a garbage can and winds up in a kitchen doesn’t sound like it’s going to be very interesting.”
“That’s the good thing about it, it’s not interesting at all.” The waiter brought their veal, and when he was gone, Vail said, “It would probably be more exciting talking about what we’re going to have for dessert. Or for dessert after dessert.”
“Hmmm, methinks he protests too little. Maybe you better give me the boring details.”
Vail told her about Nina’s identifying Radek as having come to the restaurant the afternoon before, ordering the two heavily seasoned meals, and saying they were not for eating. “So then he puts one where he hides the two million dollars and the other in the building last night.”
“Why?”
“He wanted them to be noticed. The one from last night set up our noticing the one today. In case we survived last night.”
“That means he expected us to find the laundry. Would he leave the money there and then direct us to it?”
“He didn’t plan on dying. If we did somehow survive the shoot-out, he would have gone to the laundry and taken the two million out and left the metal box to electrocute one of us. And just in case that didn’t happen, he left the second garlic clue.”
“To lead us where?”
“Does it matter? He’s dead.”
“Well, something good did come out of the money being destroyed.”
“What’s that?” Vail asked.
“If there were doubts that Radek was dead, there’s no way he would have let it burn up if he were alive.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But DNA already said he was dead. Why did you chase down this clue?”
“My only reason for checking this out was to make sure it was Radek and not somebody else we didn’t know about,” Vail said. “That’s why I wanted the photos.”
She smiled. “Let’s see, the Pentad minus five bad guys, and five million minus five million—we’re back down to double zeros, just the way the Bureau likes it. I believe I’ll have another glass of that unbelievably inexpensive wine.”
Vail poured them each another glass and held his up to hers. “To the bureaucratic goal of zero.”
Kate’s cell phone vibrated on the tabletop. She picked it up and looked at the screen. “It’s Kaulcrick.”
“Don’t answer it.”
“You know I have to.”
“Okay, then have a lie ready. You have a fever; you think your stitches are infected. Come on, Kate, you should really be on light duty,” Vail said. “You’re drunk.”
“This is the first time I can ever remember being so attracted to a desperate man. Hold that whimper.” She answered the phone. “Yes, Don.” She looked at Vail and started deliberately taunting him with the vagueness of her responses. “Uh-huh…okay…sure…uh-huh…okay, I’ll be there.” She hung up and waited a couple of seconds before bursting into laughter. “You should see your face. He was just letting me know that the