There were two of them.
The first man had been following me down the stairs. He was heavyset, early forties, checkered shirt, green padded jacket, and a light mustache to match his hair.
He had paused on the staircase to check his cell phone when I’d reached the bottom and met Christine. Even while we talked, I could feel the big guy behind me. He wore dark pants with a solid crease down the middle and work boots. That sealed it. Any guy who’s got a pair of black, smart dress pants also owns a decent pair of shoes and there was no way he would come to court in his work boots.
The sandy-haired man in the green jacket kept coming, slowly, his phone in his hand with an earpiece running from the cell.
I wasn’t overly concerned about this guy. I couldn’t be sure, but he looked a lot like the man in the photo Dell had shown me: Gill, Harland and Sinton’s head of security, although I hadn’t yet gotten a chance to take a good look at his face.
The second man was a whole different story. He sat on the bench to my right. Arms folded, a newspaper spread out on the bench next to him. A long black overcoat spilled open as he lounged there, feet extended and crossed. His head back and eyes closed. He too wore an earpiece, only I couldn’t see the device it connected to. I detected a strong smell of stale cigarettes that grew in intensity the closer I got to him, and then I recognized him as the guy I’d seen in the hall earlier that morning, wearing the same coat. He’d dumped the gray sweater, to alter his appearance slightly, and wore a cream button-down shirt. But the neck tattoo gave it away. He was definitely the man I’d seen earlier with the smartphone. The one who’d looked straight at me. With a closer view of him I could see a mole on his right cheek, and he was heavily tanned, making his black hair appear even darker. He had a thin, pinched mouth, almost as if he didn’t have any lips, so that his mouth looked more like an open wound. It went against my instincts, but I guessed that he could only be an eye for Dell and the feds, though he really didn’t look like any kind of federal agent I’d ever seen.
Christine strode ahead toward the exit, her arms swinging as she walked.
I stopped in front of the man in the black coat. Guy stank. Nicotine stains on his index finger. He must’ve been going through a couple of packs a day at least. Placing my files on the floor beside me, I put one knee on the ground and worked at my shoelace. I was maybe three feet from the man in the black coat. I coughed, swore. He didn’t look up. I was close enough to his personal space for anyone to open their eyes, lift their head, and check what the hell I was doing. He didn’t move. At this distance I could make out the tattoo on his neck. The image tattooed onto his flesh was at once familiar and yet still remained strange to me no matter how many times I saw it: a man, or a ghost of a man—his body was fluid and formed in curves that accentuated the oval head, hands clasped over his ears and mouth open. It was The Scream, the painting by Munch.
He didn’t look at me and I was glad. I didn’t want to see those black eyes again. The thought of it gave me a dry mouth.
While I opened my laces, I watched the guy in the green jacket approaching me from behind. Before he passed, he disconnected the earpiece, folded the wire, and stuffed it into his right jacket pocket. The phone went into the left pocket. From his reflection I could see him watching me. His pace increased as he got closer. He planned to walk straight past me.
I got up quickly and moved to my right, straight into his path. My right shoulder hit him just under his left arm. He stumbled, and I grabbed him, steadying him before he fell. Eyes wide, he looked at me in total surprise and embarrassment.
“Oh, jeez, sorry, pal. Damn laces. You okay?” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled, and walked straight out the door without stopping. It was him all right, the firm’s chief of security—Gill.
The man in the black coat with the tattoo, even with the noise of the collision just feet away from him, didn’t raise his head.
I followed Gill out of the front doors and saw Christine propped up against one of the pillars, heel tapping on the stone, one arm across her chest, eyes on the traffic.
Gill walked past her and half ran down the stone steps.
I tucked his cell phone into my coat pocket and joined Christine.