Page 60 of The Picasso Heist
“I’m not sure yet.”
He starts to look, and I tell him to stop.
“You think we’re being followed?” he asks.
“Like I said, I’m not sure yet.”
“Well, let’s get sure. Take the next right after the light.”
“Not so fast,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“We need to know first.”
He leans forward a bit, eyeing the side-view mirror. “Which car?”
“It’s a van.”
“The white one?”
“Yeah. When we came out of the alley, I saw it pull away from the curb after we passed it. It’s been hanging back behind us ever since. Could just be a coincidence.”
“Or it could be Nikolov… his thugs. Maybe he—”
“Knows what we did to him? If he did, we’d be dead already.”
“Not if he wants the real Picasso.”
“Decent point.”
The light turns green and I continue straight up First Avenue, only a little slower.
“Still behind us?” asks Bergamo.
“Yeah. Still hanging back too. Keeping the same distance between us. Now we make those turns,” I say. “Okay, you can look.”
I hang a left at the next light. Bergamo stares over his shoulder. I can hear his breathing. He waits and watches, his eyes fixed out the back. “Shit.”
We both see the white van make the turn. It’s official. We’re being followed.
CHAPTER53
BERGAMO BEGINS TOpanic. “What do we do?”
“We lose them. That’s what we do,” I say, speeding up. “We need to disappear.”
“Disappear?”Bergamo hardly sounds convinced. “We should call the police,” he counters. “Better yet, let’s drive to a police station.”
“Sure, and when we get there, we can tell them everything. Why you and I are together, where we came from tonight, and especially about the shipment from China we’re expecting next week. That should go over real well.”
“We don’t have to tell them anything. Hell, we could simply be asking for directions.”
“Then what?” I ask, checking the rearview mirror again. “Who-ever’s in that van can just park down the street and wait us out.”
“Or maybe they don’t,” he says. “Maybe it scares them off.”
“Fine. Hurry, then,” I say. “Where’s the nearest station?”
