Free Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series) by Robert B. Lowe Page B

and more privacy than was available at the tightly packed restaurant. They still hadn’t discussed what had happened earlier in the week outside the News’ building.

Chapter 10
    THE MAN IN the blue Ford station wagon had been waiting outside Sarah Armstrong’s flat for two hours before Enzo Lee had arrived. Abdul Hassan had followed Lee’s Fiat when they drove to the restaurant, parking farther down on Filmore Street and then walking back up Filmore where he could watch them through the large windows of the Hilltop Cafe.
    When he saw that they were ordering dinner, Hassan returned to Sarah’s flat. He parked the station wagon a block away and walked back to the flat. Hassan was Egyptian by birth, although he had moved to Queens as a teenager. He had short black hair and a thick, well-trimmed mustache. He was wearing jeans, Reebok running shoes, and a gray sweatshirt with the hood drawn over his head.
    When he reached the front of the house, Hassan leaped quickly up the outside stairs. It took him 20 seconds to pick the lock to Sarah’s flat and let himself in. He locked the door behind him.
    Once inside the flat, Hassan moved methodically through the rooms. In the bedroom, he took a pillowcase off a pillow and emptied the contents of a jewelry box on the dresser into it. He pulled open all of the dresser drawers and pulled everything out, looking in the places where people ordinarily hide their valuables. He found a wad of $20 bills in Sarah’s underwear drawer. He added that to the jewelry in the pillowcase.
    Hassan pulled Sarah’s hanging clothes out of her closet and pulled out the boxes stacked on the upper shelves. He pulled off the tops but found nothing except a Nikon camera that he added to his stash.
    In the office, he went through the file cabinet and pulled most of the files from the drawers. He put them on the floor quietly. He didn’t want the tenants below to hear anything alarming. He didn’t find anything worth stealing in the office and just left the files scattered about.
    In the living room, Hassan removed the books from the built-in bookcases and piled them on the floor. He knew it was a place where many people install wall safes. As he expected, he didn’t find one. It didn’t really matter. He just wanted to leave the trail of a half-way competent burglar. He decided to bypass the kitchen. The noise would have been too great a risk.
    He made a quick survey of the rooms, thinking about how they would look to the police. He left the pillowcase with the meager booty at the top of the stairs. Hassan made a mental note to take it with him when he left. Afterward, he would dump it someplace where it would likely be found and, hopefully, reported to the police. He would leave the camera and some of the jewelry inside.
    The last thing he would do is take the girl’s purse and the reporter’s wallet, if he returned with her. In a few days, he would try to use one of the credit cards or bank cards, making sure that he couldn’t be identified in the process, of course. That should convince anyone that he had been a burglar, surprised in the act, who had merely killed the people who walked in on him.
    Hassan moved a small chair in the living room to the front bay windows. He would have to return it to its original place when he saw them drive up. He was careful to position it in the shadow, where no one outside would see him sitting. Then, he took his .38-caliber Glock out of a holster in the small of his back. He toyed with it, popping the magazine out and then pushing it back into the handle of the gun, over and over, while he waited.
    •   •   •
    SARAH AND LEE were at the bottom of the outside stairway when the door at the top of the landing, the one beside the door leading to her flat, opened. A couple emerged. The man had long, brown hair tied in a ponytail in the back. The woman was a plump Asian.
    “Hi, Sarah,” said the woman.
    “Hello, Denise. Hello, Terry,” said Sarah.