She took out her phone and dialed, her eye still on the camera, watching the darkened doorway to the back room of the store through which Haig, Roderick, and Fiss had disappeared. When Newler picked up, she knew the answer to her question. He’d connected too fast. She asked it anyway.
“Are you up on Haig and his crew right now?”
There was a pause. Andy ground her back teeth.
“It’s an insurance policy,” Newler said.
“For fucksake!”
Andy was so angry she was momentarily blinded. Green clouds tunneled her vision. She backed off the camera and began dismantling it by feel, her cell phone clamped between her ear and shoulder.
“I’m not an idiot, you know. I looked ahead,” Newler said. “Played out the possibilities. I’m thinking: What if Haig didn’t murder the woman and her kid? What if his crew didn’t, either? What if they had nothing to do with the shooting of Officer Ivan Willstone? What if I’ve brought you in as an undercover, and you fish around for a few months, and you discover there’s nothing here that interests you? You get tired of my shit, and your sudden unceremonious departure spooks the crew. Suddenly I’m fifty grand in the hole and I look like an asshole, because I can’t pin anything heavier than a parking ticket on these guys.”
“I’m gonna spook the crew?” Andy had to tell herself not to scream the words. She shouldered her backpack and blinked away the rage clouds. “You just sent an eyes-on team in as dog walkers! What is this, grade school?”
“You can insult my tactics all you like. You’re the one who didn’t notice my team following you this week, or setting up tonight. You haven’t noticed the guy I’ve got planted under a car at the end of the street, have you?”
Andy glanced up at the buildings above her as she exited the back of the gym. She saw no signs of a team overlooking the jewelry-store robbery, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
“This is not what I agreed to,” she snarled. “I came into this with you, Tony, with one condition. I work alone, and unsupervised!”
“I’m not comfortable with that.”
“All right, I’m done.” Andy shook her head. “I’m walking.”
“You’re not gonna walk when you know there’s a kid in the mix.”
“Fuck you, Tony.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What are you gonna do if Jake Valentine spots one of your guys?”
“That’s your problem, not mine,” Newler laughed.
Andy was so distracted by her own anger, she banged her elbow on a rail of the fire stair on her way to the street. The sound seemed to clang on forever and ever into the night, the pain rattling through her as she held the phone hard against her ear.
“There’s another possibility,” Newler was saying. “You fall for Haig, or one of his guys, and you let them walk. I need something in hand in case that happens.”
Andy gripped the phone so hard she heard the plastic case creaking.
“We both know it’s possible,” Newler said.
Andy threw the phone against the wall beside her. It shattered in a spray of plastic chunks and splintered glass.