could keep an eye on the other three. One hundred and ninety-eight cars emerged during the next thirty-three minutes. Seven were silver BMWs. Four were the right age and model. But none belonged to Rollins. His musthave been left inside. Because he had switched cars. To a white Ford Taurus. I saw him sneaking out through the center booth, crouched low in his seat, the light reflecting off his bulbous Rolex as he showed the rental company exit pass to the parking attendant.
Rollins stopped at four pay phones on his way back from the airport. One was at a gas station. One outside a McDonald’s. One near a Starbucks. And one inside a tattoo parlor, which clearly made him uncomfortable. After each phone call we looped back on ourselves, re-covering old ground and switching direction apparently on a whim. And each time he got back behind the wheel, his driving became a little jerkier and more erratic. He was clearly getting nervous, jumping a light on Clybourn and nearly colliding with a minivan at a weird six-way junction between Halsted, Fullerton, and Lincoln. Then finally, after we’d covered just short of forty-eight apparently aimless miles, Rollins slowed down. He took a right from Orchard onto Arlington Place. There was a gap in a line of cars parked outside an old, stone-fronted apartment building. Rollins spotted it late and swung the Taurus wildly into the space, stopping abruptly with his front wheel jammed up against the curb and the car rocking drunkenly on its springs. I dumped the Crown Vic half a block farther down and made my way back along the opposite side of the street, on foot. Rollins stayed in his car for exactly ten minutes. He was sitting bolt upright, his eyes alternating anxiously between his watch and his rearview mirror. I guessed he was following instructions. Probably McIntyre’s idea of Anti-Surveillance 101.
They both should have saved their time.
Rollins took one last anxious look behind him, then shuffled out awkwardly onto the sidewalk, dragging a battered black leather medical bag after him. He started walking slowly, almost inviting me to come after him. I watched him stroll halfway back to Orchard Street, then suddenly turn on his heel and head back quicklytoward his car, blatantly staring at everyone who approached him. I smiled, and stayed in the lee of a UPS van until he was well past me, almost to the junction with Geneva Terrace. Then I followed. He turned right, still hurrying, spending so much time looking backward that he almost got run over by a blond woman in a white Toyota who was pulling out of a narrow driveway. He waved apologetically and immediately crossed the street, still heading for Fullerton. But before he got to the intersection he turned left, into an alleyway. It was clean. Straight. About five hundred feet long. I could see the service entrance for a modern apartment building at the far end. And the alley was broad. There was enough space for two cars to pass, if they took it easy. Which made it wider than the streets in some cities I’d been to. Many of the houses it served had garages or spaces to park. But one thing it didn’t have was house numbers. Rollins slowed down, appearing to count the gates. He stopped outside the tenth from the end, took a moment to gather himself, then disappeared from sight.
I reached the gate in time to see Rollins standing at the side of a large building. It was built of red brick. Three stories high, with ornate stone set all around the deep bay windows that overlooked the rear yard. Originally a single residence I’d guess, but now converted into apartments, judging by the iron fire escape that ran its full height, filling the gap between it and its neighbor. Apartments that were now vacant, judging by the weeds that filled the yard and the empty rooms I could see through the grimy rear windows.
It was perfect. McIntyre was lucky to have found it.
The side door opened, and Rollins stepped inside. He moved stiffly, as if
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