a side road, he heard a shout from behind him.
‘Hey!’
He turned, ready to fight, expecting the foursome to have chased him.
But they were walking fast up Ditmars, headed the other way and putting distance between themselves and the bar.
None of them were pursuing them.
At the end of the street, Farrell had stopped. Archer watched him pause, thinking.
Then the big man raised a hand in an acknowledgement.
‘Thanks,’ he called.
Archer looked at him for a moment, and nodded back.
Then he turned on his heel and walked off swiftly down the street, disappearing into the night.
THREE
At 10 am the next morning, Archer pulled open the front door to an apartment building across Astoria, having just showered and dressed. He pulled it closed behind him quietly and took in his first breath of fresh morning air.
It was another beautiful day in New York City, the sun warm, the sky blue, not a whisper of wind in the air. He was dressed in a navy blue and white flannel shirt over a white t-shirt and faded jeans, light clothing, not enough to make him sweat but little enough to keep him cool. He slid a pair of sunglasses resting on his towel-dried hair down over his nose and walked forward through a small metal gate. Pulling it open and then pulling it back in place behind him, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked each way down 38 Street, left and right.
It was quiet. There were a few people walking down the sidewalk, most of them pulling small metal carriages packed with groceries, but everything was still and calm. He could hear birds chirping and tweeting in the trees that lined the street, and the faint shouting and drilling of workmen digging a hole somewhere nearby. Turning right, he started walking down the sidewalk towards the end of 38Street, and the turn to 30 Avenue.
From the apartment he’d just left, he had two choices of subway trains to take. The R train was five minutes away to the left, up on Steinway Street, and the N train ran from the bottom of the hill on 30 Avenue to the right, slightly further away. He wasn’t in a hurry, so he opted for the N. It was also over-ground for the first half of the journey, and provided a far better view than the dark tunnels and passages of the underground R service. On a morning as beautiful as this, it would have to be the N, no question.
He walked to the end of 38 Street, and turning left, started to wander down the hill. 30 Avenue was a great stretch of neighbourhood, one of the best in the outer boroughs in Archer’s opinion. It had everything. As he walked down, he saw cafes, markets, different kinds of stores. Across the street, he saw people sitting outside a restaurant, enjoying a relaxed morning brunch and each other’s company. It was a great place to live. He remembered being told once that Astoria contained the biggest population of Greeks in the world outside of Greece itself. The area certainly had a relaxed European feel to it, and definitely had the quality of food.
He made his way down the seven blocks to the subway. It was busier on 30 than it had been on 38 Street, and he saw people formally dressed in suits headed in the same direction towards the station. The rail line itself ran horizontal to the street, looming over 31 Street, and served as direct passage to either the east and Ditmars Boulevard or the west and Manhattan. As he approached the stairs that led up to the station and platforms up above, he heard a Manhattan-bound train arriving, moving into the 30 Avenue station from Astoria Boulevard. He jogged briskly up the steps, pulling a yellow Metrocard from his pocket, and swiped his way through the turnstiles as the train rattled into the station above. He ran up the second flight of steps and arrived on the platform just as the train screeched to a halt. The doors opened, and he stepped past people departing the carriages, moving inside one and joining scores of people already inside. Judging by their clothing, most of them seemed to be headed for work. He took up a position by one of the doors, and turning, watched the carriage next door.
He wanted to get a good look at the guy following him.
He’d picked up the tail the moment he’d turned off 38. The guy had been