Thai Horse by William Diehl Page A

room, then took out his gun and, holding it in both hands, jumped into the room TV style. The cat streaked past him and ran down the ha l l.
    ‘Damn you,’ the watchman yelled.
    The watchman holstered his weapon, took a few steps into the room and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips.
    The Bird dangled directly over his head, a foot away.
    ‘You little son of a bitch, gonna give me a heart attack,’ the watchman said aloud. ‘That’s the second time this week you scared the piss outa me.’
    The Bird held his breath. If the watchman looked up, they would literally be eye to eye. But he didn’t. He gave the room a cursory once-over and went back down the hail, calling, ‘Kitty, kitty.’
    The Bird sighed with relief. He was well named. He hated cats.
    SLOAN
    It was four-twenty-eight when Stenhauser left the twenty- eighth-floor offices of Everest Insurance on East Fifty- seventh Street, took the elevator to the second floor, walked down one flight and left by the west-side fire door.
    Sloan was in a coffee shop on Fifty-seventh between Second and Third avenues. It was a perfect location for him. Through its glass window, he could see three sides of the Everest building. The fourth, the back side, led to a blind alley that emptied on Third Avenue. No matter what route Stenhauser took, Sloan could spot him. Sloan took out his small black book and made a notation, as he had been doing for the last three days. Then he followed the little man.
    Stenhauser’s name had been filed discreetly in Sloan’s computer for two years. Until three days ago he had no idea what Fred Stenhauser looked like or anything else about him other than his profession. It wasn’t necessary before now. The names in Sloan’s file were like savings accounts, and Sloan was big on savings accounts, on keeping something for a rainy day. He was also a neurotically patient man. Sloan was never in a rush, he could wait forever. Or at least until he was ready. Now he was ready to cash in one of the accounts, the one with Fred Stenhauser’s name on it.
    Stenhauser was an easy mark. He was as precise as Sloan was patient. He always left his office a little before four-thirty. He always stopped for a single martini at Bill’s Safari Bar on Fifty-sixth Street. He was always home by six and by six-ten was back on the street with his yappy little dog.
    Life, to Stenhauser, was a ritual. He wore double- breasted glen plaid suits, with a sweater under the jacket, and a paisley tie. Every day. He bad his hair trimmed every Tuesday morning at eight-thirty at the St. Regis Barber Shop, ate the same breakfast at the same coffee shop on Fifty-seventh Street every morning, always read the paper, the Wall Street Journal, from the back forward, always went to Cape Cod on his vacation. Everything Stenhauser did he always did.
    Even Stenhauser’s one little eccentricity was predictable, for while he followed this ritual day in and day out, he rarely left his office by the same door or took the same route to Bill’s or took the same route from Bill’s to his brownstone on Seventy-fourth Street. It was as if he were playing a game, as if someone were constantly following him and his gambit was to evade them. Sloan loved the irony of it. Now someone was following Stenhauser and he didn’t even know it.
    On this day, Stenhauser, a short, slender man in his mid-thirties with heavy-lidded eyes like a frog’s, went east to Second Avenue, south to Fifty-sixth Street, then turned right and walked two blocks to Bill’s Safari Bar. He walked briskly, always looking at the ground in front of him, as if he were afraid he would step on something. Sloan had decided to brace him in Bill’s. The bar was never too crowded, which was the main reason Stenhauser took his evening-cap there. And while the decor was a little heavy on ferns and stuffed animal heads, it was small and quiet, and the bartender made a perfect martini.
    When Stenhauser turned off Second Avenue onto