"At least this one isn't swarming with police." Beth said as she held the Swarovski 10x42 binoculars to her face.
"Do police travel in swarms," Julia asked, "or do they flock?"
"Jesus, are we starting this again?"
"It was just a question."
Beth was on the roof of a building on Avenue C looking across the two lanes of one-way traffic and the separated road that the building used for parking. The construction site and industrial building on the far side of the road that ran up to the intersection with 15th street was not that far from the site of their last target, the one that Beth had watched, much like she was watching this one now, barely six hours earlier.
During those six hours she had reacquainted herself with the man she had scared shitless. This time it was the gloved hand she displayed to him. Her voice had remained soft, her words calm, almost friendly, as she explained the current dilemma. It was a tactic she had used in the past, always to great effect; and this time was no different. The words had gushed out of him to such an extent that Beth acquired a new found admiration for the man that she swore had told her everything during their last interview.
"No word yet what was recovered overnight?" Beth asked into her earbud.
"No. They don't want to ask directly, since it would demonstrate that it wasn't them."
"Makes sense."
"You are sure that this one is the big kahuna."
"Yes. but I was sure of that last night too. That guy had untapped depths. I never realized he was holding back."
"You can't keep doing this to him. He'll have a heart attack."
"One way or another I think we are done with him," Beth said. "What's that story about the boy who went to the well once too often?"
"Is there a story like that?"
"If there isn't one, there should be."
There was a moment's silence on both ends of the encrypted, anonymized VOIP call.
"So tonight, or tomorrow night?" Julia asked.
"Last night's plans should work just as well tonight, with minor changes."
"Like the address."
"Like that, yeah. Smartass."
"Smart Julia," she answered in a sing-song voice.
"Put those smarts to good use and figure out where we are going to meet for lunch."
"There is that place in Harlem on Malcolm X Blvd that I have always wanted to try."
"What was it called?"
"Cap's Bar and Grill."
"They should start numbering those so we can tell them apart."
"At least this one doesn't have a giant mural on the outside, just a long red awning."
"Fine by me. I have a stop to make. 1ish?"
"1ish works. Wash the blood off your hands first."
"It's not that kind of stop."
"Ms. Kane, Doctor Burke will be right with you. His 10 AM is running just a bit over," the young black receptionist said with a smile.
"Thank you."
Beth was not sure how Carver Burke kept the lights on. She had been seeing him once a week for the past year-and-a-half (and twice a week for the year before that), and in all that time she could not remember ever sharing the waiting room with anyone else besides his receptionist/daughter, Monika. But Beth also had to admit that she had no idea how much her sessions cost since Kate had guilted Bruce into paying for them.
It wasn't that Beth didn't have any money. She had money to spare if you overlooked the fact that she had, while still inhabiting the identity better known as Alice, siphoned most of that money from a series of employers that had also been very bad men, all of whom had met very bad ends. Alice had contributed to some of those bad ends, though not all of them. For the one's she had a hand in, for all of the things she had done as Alice, she had pleaded Guilty But Insane. Part of her plea deal was forfeiture of any and all profits, cooperation in any further investigations and legal proceedings, and psychiatric treatment.
So the roughly nine million dollars that she was not supposed to have, that she was supposed to have turned over to the United States Government, that she had stashed in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands, was untouched, and untouchable until the five remaining years of Beth's supervision was completed and she was no longer under such a powerful microscope. Until that time, and quite possibly a long time afterwards, she was forced to live a simple life, her only consolation being her family, friends, and the promise of compound interest.
She had not quite hated Dr. Carver Burke when she first met him, but she had certainly resented him. It had taken almost six months of twice a week sessions for her to truly open up to him. Now, he was the only one she could be completely honest with, the only one she confided in without any sort of filter. He knew things that Kate didn't even know.
I am more honest with him than I am with my twin sister. How fucked up is that.
She could hear the other door to his office, the one that patients used as an exit to the private corridor, open and close. She waited the few minutes she knew it would take for him to jot down some final notes on his last patient before the door finally opened.
He was about 65, black, shaved head. Beth knew he worked out religiously, which was why his six foot tall frame looked twenty years younger than it was.
She had begun to dream about him when their relationship reached a certain point, erotic, wet dreams like she had not had in a many years. Of course, she had confided that to him as well, though it was not honesty that had motivated her to do so, it was lust, and the faint hope that he would dispense with his almighty code of professional conduct and fuck her right there on his office desk.
"It's called transference," he had explained, his voice, his whole demeanor, exactly like it always was: friendly, but professional, "and it's a sign of progress. You are coming alive again, emotionally speaking. That's a good thing."
It would be a better thing if you fucked me until my eyes popped out of my head, she had thought. That was a thought that she chose not to confide.
The door to the inner sanctum opened slowly, and the tall, black, muscular man in dark brown slacks, brown loafers and a white shirt greeted her as he always did.
"Beth," he said with a smile, his deep voice soft and inviting, "please come in."
