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Village Club, it was called, but where was it? As I drove back down Hilldale,
then right on Middle Neck, the same way I had come in, I looked for local
points of interest on the nav system. Country clubs, country clubs, come on& I
couldn t find it. Okay, the hell with it, plan B.
I pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped. If Accinelli came this way, I d
let him go right past me, then fall in behind. A few minutes of a big BMW
behind him, especially if he were heading to Sands Point s golf club, as I
expected, wouldn t alarm him. And if he went the other way on Middle Neck, I
would just swing around and follow him in the other direction.
Sudden paranoia jolted me: what if the Hilger team I d been so watchful for
turned out to be Accinelli? Maybe they know each other from the war. Maybe
Accinelli owes a favor. Hilger tells him roughly when to expect me; Accinelli
watches the road from the house, with the car warmed up; he sees me, then
walks out pretending not to, with a golf club bag that s actually holding a
12-gauge shotgun loaded with sabot slugs.
I scanned the area. A black SUV was coming toward me down Middle Neck, and I
started to get that deep-down Oh, fuck feeling. I held down the brake with my
left foot and put my right over the gas, ready to floor it if the SUV slowed,
or sped up, or swerved. But it didn t, and as it came closer I could see the
occupants were just an elderly couple. Shit, they were probably on their way
to church.
I let the SUV pass and checked the rearview. There was the Mercedes, pulling
out of Hilldale and making a left on Middle Neck, away from me. For a moment,
I d been so keyed up that I was surprised he wasn t coming at me. Then I
realized I was being ridiculous. What was Accinelli going to do, blow someone
away from his own car a hundred yards out from his $10 million home, right in
front of the horrified neighbors? No. Hilger might have been trying to set me
up, but it wouldn t be that way.
I did a U-turn on Middle Neck and followed from about a hundred fifty yards
back. It was a long, straight road that gradually curved from east to south,
and tailing him from far back was easy. I continued to scan for surprises as I
drove.
After about two miles, Accinelli made a left onto Thayer Lane. Thayer, right,
now I remembered, that was the address of the club. I followed along behind
him. About eight hundred yards up, Thayer curved around to the right and I
lost sight of him for a moment. Then I came around the curve, too, and saw
Accinelli s car again, stopped next to an island with a guard post at the
center of it. Beyond the post was a parking lot; beyond the parking lot, a
compound of enormous tile-roofed brick buildings that I remembered from the
website comprised the former estate of Isaac Guggenheim. This was it, then,
the entrance to the club. Accinelli moved forward past the post. I swung
around on Thayer and headed back out.
I recognized there was an opening here, if I could move fast enough to exploit
it. I input the coordinates for Midtown Manhattan into the nav system.
Twenty-five miles. Allowing time for parking and the purchase I planned to
make, with just a little luck and light traffic I could be back here in not
much more than an hour and a half.
I took the Long Island Expressway west as fast as I could without risking a
ticket. What was Accinelli planning today nine holes, or eighteen? And how
long would he be playing regardless? Surely no less than two hours, even for a
shorter game. And it would be lunchtime after that. Maybe he d grab a bite at
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the club. Maybe this was a Sunday ritual for him, leaving his wife a golf
widow, spending two, three, maybe four hours on the links, and with his
cronies thereafter. It made sense. Anyone who played in these temperatures had
to be a fanatic.
Maybe. But of course I couldn t really know. There was no time to hone in on
his patterns, and all my suppositions were just that. But with only five days
to work with, I had to exploit whatever openings presented themselves, no
matter how narrow.
It took me less than forty minutes to reach the Spy Shop on 34th between Third
and Lexington. I remembered it, along with a few other handy places, from the
last time I d reconnoitered New York. Predictably, there were no parking
spaces anywhere nearby. I considered parking illegally I was going to be in
the store for only a few minutes but decided it wasn t worth the admittedly
small risk of having the BMW s presence here logged in a New York City law
enforcement database. I found a garage around the corner, gave the attendant a
twenty to keep the car on the main floor for fifteen minutes, and jogged over
to the Spy Shop. It was a bit warmer now than when I d arrived that morning,
but I was still going to have to make time to buy some proper clothes when I
had a chance.
The store was well outfitted with various options for vehicle tracking, overt
and surreptitious. I chose a top-of-the-line model I was familiar with, the
Pro Trak Digital, a magnetically emplace-able real-time GPS system, and was
suddenly down another twenty-six hundred dollars. Along with warm clothes, I
was going to have to find a bank.
I picked up the car and headed back to the Village Club. Traffic was
manageable again and I made good time. While I drove, I unpacked the unit,
placed the eight D cells I had also bought into the battery pack, assembled
everything, and tested it for power. It all seemed to be working. I put the
unit in the glove box and stuffed the empty packaging under the passenger
seat. I was wearing the gloves, not just because of the weather, but to keep
my prints off the device, too.
As I turned onto Thayer Lane again, exactly ninety-seven minutes after I d
left it, I started thinking in Japanese, like my good friend Yamada, who this
time was being transferred to New York and would live on Long Island. Like
many Japanese, I was an ardent golfer, and relished the chance to become a
member of a top club for less than the million dollars entry cost in Japan. I
was hoping to take a look at the Village Club because it sounded so good on
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