He was still unavailable. She left a message to say she’d called, then decided to phone Rhees. She watched traffic slide past and wondered if Anthony Dansk was nearby, if he’d really followed her downtown and seen her going inside the Federal Building, if he was following her still. Watching her moves. You were meant to be smelling the flowers, Amanda. She’d surprised him when she’d popped out of the phone booth. He’d made a big effort to seem unflustered, but he’d reacted like a man caught in an act of voyeurism, an eavesdropper surprised behind a door, a whole flurry of give-aways: scratching his birthmark, nibbling the tip of his pinky. And then out of the blue the whammy, the bizarre diatribe against litter, white flecks at the corners of his lips. A dog craps on a sidewalk and Dansk reacts badly. A neatness freak. Captain Hygiene. The thing that bothered her was the voltage in his eyes as he spoke. It was a zealot’s intense stare, unblinking and focussed on some remote place only he could see.
