HOULD WE go in after her?” Declan tensed as soon as Hammer got up to follow Courtenay. Liam raised a finger and angled an eyebrow so Declan saw Gunner going after them.
Liam spoke quietly. “She’s up to something.”
“Don’t you think it might be something she’ll need us for?”
“If it was, do you not think she’d have said?”
“Ah, okay.” Declan’s lips tightened. “So you’re all right with her going into a situation with a feral mobster, and not knowing what the situation is?”
“I’m not, now that you come to mention it, no. But whatever it is, I think we should let her have her head, at least for a few moments.”
“How do you know that Gunner didn’t just run after her?” Declan’s hand clenched. “Like I’m thinking we ought to do?”
Liam put a hand flat on the table. “I know because I saw her signal to him. She gave him a look and waited to see that he’d understood what it meant.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right then. What did it mean?”
“The look?”
“Yes. The look she gave him. What did it mean?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t give it to me.”
“Oh, well, that’s completely reassuring. I don’t know what I was worried about there.”
Liam took a breath. “All I’m saying is, whatever it is she’s trying to do, we should give her a chance to do it before we go steaming in and fuck everything up.”
“Has it not occurred to you that we could quietly steam in right now, do the job and get it finished up? We could be out of Berlin and headed back to the good old US of A.”
“With a dozen fucking mobsters waiting out here, who just already watched Gunner follow their boss out to the back? You think we should hurry after the three of them? Do you think that table of thuggery would just shrug and bide their time while they contemplated the dessert menu?”
“Don’t you feel like we should do something?”
“Of course I do. And I’m doing it, or I would be if you’d just occasionally chill for a few consecutive seconds.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m watching. And I’m trying as hard as I can to listen.”
“Ah, fair point. When I’m jumpy, I am sometimes given to listening with my mouth and my tongue.”
Liam gave him a gentle look and nodded.
“I’m doing it now, aren’t I?”
Liam nodded again.
“Right. I’ll clam up then.”
Liam smiled with another nod.
“You’ll not hear another peep out of me.”
Liam’s head shook and he grinned as he caught a waiter’s eye, to indicate for him to bring the check.
Hammer burst back out into the restaurant with a face full of thunder. As soon as he reached the table he growled at the man-sized safe. “Where’s my brandy gone?”
“What brandy, boss?” The man-sized safe had a surprisingly cultured, gentle voice. Neither Liam nor Declan had heard it before. He looked like a hurt pug as he protested softly, “You didn’t have any brandy.”
“Why didn’t you fucking get me one then?”
The waiter was heading over with the check. Declan said, “If we get up and leave now, he’s going to make a connection between us and Courtenay, right?”
“It’s a worry, that’s for sure.”
“His seat’s got his back to us. If he ever sits back down.”
“He’s looking for ways to start arguments and fights though. You can see that.”
Both men were careful not to look at him as he cast around the restaurant. Hammer’s eye settled on Courtenay’s empty seat. The man-sized safe had persuaded a waiter to bring a bottle of cognac and a big balloon glass. Hammer’s eyes narrowed. He was interested in the table where Courtenay had been sitting, but his whole party of mobsters were focused on getting his attention to the big brandy glass.
Liam smiled innocently and aimlessly as he murmured, “I think they’ve seen him in a temper before.”
Declan looked around as he folded his napkin. “It tells you something about him, doesn’t it? Look how they’re all fawning and distracting him. The man’s a fucking time bomb.”
“A booby-trapped time-bomb at that.”
While three henchmen congratulated Hammer on the biggest brandy glass any of them had ever seen and the man-sized safe poured it half full from the bottle, Declan and Liam slipped quietly away.
Out on the street, Liam said, “Did you see Gunner come back?”
“I did not.” Liam’s lips tightened. “How far do you think we can trust those two?”
“Now you’re getting a little too philosophical for me, my friend. You know I try to avoid all that kind of speculative talk. I don’t have the head for it.”
Liam called Gunner’s cellphone. “Straight to voicemail.”