Free Orphan X: A Novel by Gregg Hurwitz Page B

but produced no military or gang affiliation that matched the markings. Another personal touch, then, nothing more.
    Her body language stayed tight and closed, her arms crossed, her shoulders angled away from the hubbub. Beneath the table her knee jacked up and down.
    She was either nervous or a damn fine actress.
    He checked his fob watch, then dialed his phone.
    The hostess picked up on the second ring. “Bottega Lou ie.”
    “May I please speak to Fernando Juarez?”
    “Fernando Juarez? Who is that?”
    “One of the barbacks who works there. It’s an important matter regarding his tax returns.”
    “Oh. Okay. Sorry. Hang on.”
    Through the mil-dot reticle of his binoculars, Evan watched the waitress thread through the tables and speak to the bartender. Her attention shifted to a man stocking bottles. The same man had taken a smoke break in the alley before opening shift, giving Evan opportunity to approach with a folded note and a crisp hundred-dollar bill.
    The waitress handed Fernando Juarez the cordless phone. Pinning him in the crosshairs, Evan saw the man’s mouth move even before the voice came across the line.
    “Hello?”
    “Repeat after me: ‘Yes, okay. I will handle this when I get home.’”
    “Yes, okay. I will handle this when I get home.”
    “You remember our arrangement?”
    “I do.”
    “She is sitting at table twenty-one. Now is the time.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    Fernando hung up. He finished with the bottles, wiped the bar, then walked over to the woman in the sunglasses and handed her the note. Evan watched her unfold it.
    It told her to exit the restaurant and go to the newsstand across the street.
    As she read the directive, her back curled in a paranoid hunch. Her sleek hair whipped her cheeks as she turned her head this way and that, looking around the restaurant, eyeing various diners. He watched her face. She was scared. She took a sip of water to settle herself, then gathered her things and hurried out.
    Grand Avenue, one of Downtown’s main thoroughfares, hummed with traffic, and she had to wait for a break before darting across. Evan followed her with the binocs. As she neared the newsstand, he dialed another number. The worker there, sitting on a barstool reading a thrice-folded edition of La Opinión, picked up a cracked phone receiver held together with electrical tape.
    “ Hola. L.A. News ’n’ Views.”
    “There is a woman approaching wearing dark glasses. Over your left shoulder. There. May I please speak to her briefly?”
    The man glanced over, gave a disinterested shrug, and offered her the receiver. “Iss for you,” he said, returning to his magazine.
    The woman stepped away, stretching the telephone cord. “What is this?”
    “I’m not sure I can trust you either. I will meet you at a crowded restaurant, but it won’t be one you choose. Do you see that bus up the hill? In a minute and a half, it will stop at the bus shelter a block south of you. It will take you to Chinatown. Get off at Broadway and College. Lotus Dim Sum is in the Central Plaza. I will meet you there. Go now.”
    Her head snapped up to watch the bus’s wheezing advance. “And if I don’t?”
    “Then I can’t help you.”
    This time he hung up first.
    *   *   *
    Evan had taken numerous precautions, but now was the vulnerable moment, where nothing was left except the approach. The woman sat at the edge of the bustling restaurant, her back to the window. Lobsters and catfish stirred lethargically in tanks, and shiny metal dim sum carts flew to and fro, trailing steam and tantalizing scents.
    Evan’s Woolrich shirt featured fake buttons for show, but the front was really held together with magnets that would give way easily in the event he needed quick access to his hip holster. His cargo pants were tactical-discreet, with streamlined inner pockets that hid extra magazines and his Strider knife while giving no bulge on the silhouette. He wore Original S.W.A.T. boots, lighter than