I couldn't sit still after that. The Audi was still there when I checked the window again — two doors down, engine off, like a patient predator. I told myself to ignore it, but the thought of being watched gnawed at me. So I put on my coat and stepped outside.
The evening was cool, the street quiet. I walked slowly, hands in my pockets, listening for the sound of a door or an engine. Nothing. When I reached the corner, I stopped and looked back. The Audi was still there, black paint catching the last of the light. And then the door opened.
He got out like a man who'd decided something. Tall, well-cut coat, hair neat, face calm. Not a thug. Not a dealer. He walked toward me with the easy stride of someone who doesn't expect trouble.
“Mr Breidenthal.” He said it like a greeting, not a question.
“You've been tailing me for weeks,” I said. No heat. Just the fact of it.
A pause. The kind that admits more than it denies. “Have I?”
“Fine, Mercer. What do you want?”
“I have a client,” he said. “They'd like to do business with you.” He kept his hands out of his pockets, palms unthreatening. “Simple as that.”
“All right,” I said at last. “But not tonight, and not tomorrow. Give me a week.”
He weighed it. “And then?” “Then we talk. Somewhere neutral. Daylight.”
“The café on St. John's Lane,” I said. “Thursday. Eleven.”
He nodded once. “I'll be there.” He took a card from an inner pocket and offered it between two fingers. White. Uncluttered. M. Mercer and a number. I set it on the low brick wall beside us, as if that were the same thing.
He turned back toward the car. No last look, no parting threat. Just the door opening, the door closing, the quiet cough of the engine. The Audi slid away without haste, as if the street belonged to it. I picked up the card and slipped it into my pocket. Then I walked home, counting the days.