With a thick wad of bills in his pocket, Lacey returned home to his apartment, too tired to conduct counter surveillance techniques. He was under no illusion: using his cards to withdraw cash was about the most stupid thing he could do, but there was no other option. If he’d been ten years younger and fitter, and not carrying wounds, he might have taken a different approach to refilling his wallet. Back in the day, there were times when he’d rolled drug dealers for some of their takings rather than arrest them, and not a damn one of them had dared make a complaint when they’d have been incriminating themselves. He was never greedy, he only skimmed a wedge off the top and let them keep their product, but it only took a few shakedowns per week to earn him some walking round money his wife was unaware of, or to keep up the rent on his hidey-hole. Back then he’d been extremely careful about keeping his lair a secret, and he was even more so now he was in real danger. But after tramping all over Midtown, spreading his ATM visits wide enough that he could be hiding anywhere on the island, he was fit to drop and wanted only to lie down and take the weight off his knees. Elite’s analysts might be able to monitor his credit card usage, but they weren’t the NSA. Even if they were on to him right that minute, analyzing where he’d used the cards, they didn’t have a fucking spy satellite overhead to track him home. They’d have to mobilize their assets, put boots on the ground, and that would take time. He was confident he needn’t have to worry about a team running him down this evening, and it’d be some time after before they looked for him on his side of town. By then, his get-rich plan would be in play, and he’d be long gone.
As he’d walked he’d chugged down more of the pills given to him by Doc Grover, but their painkilling efficiency didn’t equal the exertion, and the ache in his knees had become a red haze of agony spreading from his legs to his throbbing skull. He was hot too and sweating, and wasn’t fully sure if that was through effort alone, but more to do with a fever. The wounds in his side were tight and itchy, and damp: he was bleeding again.
Doc Grover had warned him about overexertion, but people who wanted his head weren’t currently hunting Grover, and neither had the doc been down to the last few brown cents in his pocket. His energy output would be tested again this evening, because he fully intended a second visit to Si Turpin’s workshop. Now he had some considerable green in his wallet, he felt he could entice the hacker to join him in his blackmail plot better than the promise of decent alcohol could.
At the same convenience store as before, he bit down on his discomfort while he bought supplies, as he hadn’t consumed anything substantial since the glugs of Mountain Dew earlier. A good meal and a hot drink inside him and he would feel much better for the trek back to Turpin’s place. Leaving the store, he made a half-assed attempt at covering his tracks again, completing a shambling circuit of the block, before dipping into the stairwell of his building and trudging upstairs to his apartment. He set his groceries down and collapsed on his couch. That bells-and-whistles smart kettle Stella bought him would have come in handy just then, because he’d barely the energy to rise again and get some water boiling, but it was gathering dust over at his official family home. He’d fill the plastic kettle he kept here in a minute, once he’d rested his sore knees, and put something in the microwave to heat up, he decided, and instantly fell asleep, his snores rattling the windows in their frames.
While he slept in blissful ignorance, other players in his story moved towards him, Tess and Po by road, Hayden James and his team by air, following separate trails of breadcrumbs, all of whom were more than a step further ahead than he could have known and, worse still, Lacey should have promised more than champagne to a guy who couldn’t tolerate the stuff.