Chapter 7: The Meeting in the Rain
David called on a Thursday.
I was in my apartment, which now had a man named Sal standing on the sidewalk below with the patient stillness of someone who had been standing on sidewalks for a living for twenty years.
I had made coffee.
I had not been sleeping well.
I answered on the third ring.
"I want to see you," David said.
"Just talk.
Somewhere public."
"All right," I said.
A pause.
He had expected resistance.
"You mean it?"
"I mean it.
Somewhere public.
Tomorrow afternoon."
He chose a coffee shop in Midtown, neutral ground, the kind of place where nobody knew anybody and the tables were far enough apart for a private conversation.
I told Matteo.
Matteo told me three things: what to ask, what not to say, and that there would be two people in the coffee shop who were not customers.
I wore my own clothes.
I carried Rocco in my bag because Leo had insisted, with the serious logic of a six-year-old, that I needed protection and Rocco had already proven he was good at it.
I did not tell Matteo about Rocco because some things did not require explanation.
David was already there when I arrived.
He looked the same.
That was the first thing I noticed — how completely the same he looked, how nothing about two years of absence had changed the careful warmth of his face, the way he stood up when I came in as though we were on a date, as though the photograph and the phone call and eleven thousand dollars of debt had been a misunderstanding we were here to resolve.
"Hannah." He smiled.
"You look good."
"Sit down, David."
We sat.
He ordered coffee.
I ordered nothing.
He talked for the first few minutes about things that didn't matter — the city, the weather, how long he'd been back, a vague reference to having sorted things out that I did not ask him to clarify.
I let him talk.
I watched his hands, which were steady, and his eyes, which moved to the door twice in the first five minutes.
"I know you're angry," he said finally.
"I'm not angry."
He blinked.
That wasn't the script he'd prepared for.
"I'm past angry," I said.
"I want to understand something.
I want to understand what's actually happening, because I think you know more about my situation than I do, and I think you've known it for a long time."
David's hands moved to his coffee cup.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that someone has been paying attention to me.
To where I work, who I serve, who I talk to.
And I think that someone is connected to you." I kept my voice level.
"I'm not accusing you.
I'm asking you to be honest with me for once."
He looked at me for a long moment.
The warmth in his face shifted — not disappearing, but recalibrating.
I had seen that shift before.
It was the moment David decided which version of the truth would be most useful.
"There are people," he said carefully, "who are interested in certain connections you've made recently.
I'm not one of them.
I'm trying to keep you out of the middle of something you don't understand."
"What people?"
"People who have resources.
Who pay attention to things." He leaned forward slightly.
"Hannah, the man you got into that car with — you don't know what he is."
"Tell me."
"He's dangerous.
The people around him are dangerous.
And right now, because of one night at that restaurant, you are on a list that you do not want to be on."
"Whose list?"
He hesitated.
One second.
Two.
"The man who runs things," he said.
"The man above the people you've been hearing about.
He's noticed you.
And he wants to know — " Another hesitation.
"He wants to know which of De Luca's associates are most exposed right now.
Which names are most active."
I reached into my bag.
I set the list of eight names on the table between us.
David's face went very still.
"Is it one of these?" I asked.
He looked at the list.
His eyes moved down it once, then stopped.
His finger didn't move, but his gaze did — it landed on the fourth name and stayed there for almost two full seconds before he looked back up at me.
I had what I needed.
"Where did you get that?" he said.
"It doesn't matter." I picked up the list and put it back in my bag.
"David.
I need you to tell Carver that I want to meet with him."
The name landed like a stone in still water.
David's careful warmth disappeared entirely.
What was left was something I had never seen on his face before — something that looked very much like fear.
"Don't say that name," he said quietly.
"Tell him I have something he wants.
Tell him I'm willing to deal." I stood up.
"Tell him I'll be in touch within forty-eight hours."
"Hannah." His voice was low and urgent now.
"You don't know what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing." I picked up my bag.
Rocco's plastic tail was sticking out of the top.
"Don't contact me again until you've passed the message."
I walked out into the rain.
Sal was across the street, reading a newspaper that I was fairly certain he had been reading for the past hour.
I walked past him without acknowledging him, turned the corner, and stood in a doorway for thirty seconds while my hands shook.
Then I called Matteo.
"The fourth name on the list," I said when he answered.
A pause.
"You're certain?"
"His eyes stopped there for two seconds."
"All right." Another pause.
"Are you all right?"
I looked at my hands.
They were steadying.
"I will be.
May you like
What happens now?"
"Now," Matteo said, "we give Carver his meeting."
