Tailed by Brian M. Wiprud Page A

“Look, Stella, I’ve been on the road for almost two weeks. I want to go home.”
    I heard her take a deep drag on a cigarette. “I will not whine. Say it.”
    â€œI’m not whining! Can’t I miss my home? My girl?”
    â€œSay it.”
    I groaned. “I will not whine.”
    â€œBetter.” I heard Stella exhale. “But no groaning, either.”
    â€œSo, how long does it look like I’ll have to stay in Seattle? I’m best man at Nicholas’s wedding next week—I have to be back in New York by then.”
    â€œThe meeting?”
    I recapped.
    When I finished, there was a pause on the other end, and I could hear Stella’s cigarette tapping nervously at an ashtray. “Let me call the Feds and see if I can find out what’s going on. I’ll call you back.”
    â€œHow about I call you back? I want to go for a walk and clear my head. This room is like a cell.”
    â€œOne hour.” She hung up.
    I took off my tie, grabbed my key card, and headed for the elevators.
    I set about the futile task of reassuring myself. What was there to worry about? I hadn’t done anything. The FBI was all over this. So what if this serial killer knew who I was? I knew he knew, the FBI knew he knew, he probably knew I knew. It wouldn’t make sense for him to make any kind of contact with me again. And if he did, he’d surely be caught.
    And yet, I always had a sense for when things were about to get worse before they got better. It was sort of like lower back pain. It starts small, just warning twinges. So you stretch, you pop over-the-counter drugs, but you stop short of using a heating pad, or getting a massage, or taking the extra measures to avoid a major spasm. Instead, you try to ignore it, hoping it’ll just go away. Then you sit up in bed one morning and it goes
sproing.
Next thing you know you’re in a world of pain, a chiropractor is feeling up your back and saying, “You should do yoga.” And as often as this may happen, as often as you see it coming, you seem incapable of heading off the
sproing.
    So how was I going to get out of this situation? I could see trouble coming from a mile away, and I was determined to avoid yoga.
    Along the way to the elevators, I toured the room service trays lying on the floor next to various rooms. You could divine a great deal about a room’s occupant by the remnants of their meals.
    One had lipstick on the coffee cup, an uneaten grapefruit, and an empty pastry basket with the napkin carefully tucked in it: a woman who ordered the grapefruit as part of her diet, but with nobody around gulped down the sticky buns instead.
    One had a bare greasy plate, numerous empty jelly containers, an empty aspirin pouch, and spilled coffee. The napkin had shave cream on it. Clearly, Watson, here was an overweight businessman who’d drunk his fill last night.
    The last one had scrambled eggs with only one corner missing, a sausage with one end gone, two empty boxes of Fruit Loops, and an empty glass of milk: Elementary: your basic sugar-hooked tike.
    Would that my situation were as easy to fathom as the mysterious leftovers.
    Was it too soon to get a lawyer? I watched the elevator numbers tick by toward the ground floor. I mean, the FBI couldn’t keep me in Seattle. They had a branch in New York, for Pete’s sake, and they could always reach me if they wanted to interrogate me further. And Stella? I just had to get tough with her. My temerity was mainly the result of not being used to being an employee of anyone other than myself.
    At the lobby I snagged a map of Seattle from a display next to the front desk and went out the front doors. A herd of German tourists were milling about a tour van out front, whispering excitedly in their native tongue. There’s something about the German language that sounds decidedly conspiratorial when whispered. Or perhaps I’ve just been subjected to a few