Page 8 of Omar

Stone went still for a second. Not visibly. Just a small pause where his attention settled on what I'd said and stayed there. Then he nodded.

"Probably old paper that just hasn't been wiped down properly," he said. "But twice is interesting. Tell Devon I want everything by tomorrow night."

"A'ight."

Kadeem made one more note. Stone went back to his book.

I picked up the folder and went out.

Stone caught up to me at the front door. He had his coat over his arm and he was still moving easy, no urgency in him, just a man who'd decided he was leaving at the same time I was.

"You busy this afternoon?" he asked.

"Got a couple things on Nostrand. Devon flagged a plate."

"Mind if I walk you to your car?"

"No."

We went out into the cold. The street was quiet at this hour. He walked beside me toward where the Range Rover was parked at the corner, his hands in his coat pockets, his pace easy.

"Last night's meeting," he said.

"What about it?"

"There was a moment when the woman came out. You handled it well. Both of you did. I just want to make sure your head's where it needs to be going into this next stretch."

I kept walking.

"My head's right."

"That's all I needed to hear."

He stopped at the Range Rover and put his hand on my arm. Brief. A touch meant to make sure something he'd said had landed before he let it go.

"You're a steady man, Omar," he said. "I'm not worried about you. I just don't like surprises in rooms where there's a lot at stake."

"I hear you."

"Good."

He let go of my arm and gave me a small nod, then went off down the block toward his own car. Stone walked at his own pace, like the world was going to wait for him to get there, and the world generally did.

I got in the Range Rover.

The Nostrand work took the rest of the afternoon. I sat on the address Devon had flagged. Logged plates. Logged faces. Watched a barbershop trade nothing with a corner store across the street for two hours and decided whatever Devon had picked up from this address wasn't going to surface today. I called him on the way back, gave him what I had, told him I'd run it again tomorrow.

I was supposed to drive home but I didn't. I came off the BQE at Atlantic, went left when I should have gone right, knew exactly what I was doing and let myself do it.

Supreme's building was on a quiet block in Crown Heights. A six-story limestone with a doorman and gold trim around the entrance, the sort of building that didn't advertise itself but cost what it cost, the top two floors his apartment alone. I parked four cars down on the opposite side of the street with the engine off, headlights dark, hands on the wheel. I watched the door.

A woman came out with a stroller and went south.

A man went into the building with a takeout bag and didn't come back out.

The light in the second-floor window came on at one point and went off again twenty minutes later.

She didn't appear.