Chapter 36: Chapter 36: Waiting for Darryl

Vintner shouldn't have been so nervous. He had spent so much of the last nine months sneaking around that he'd grown accustomed to it. He was good at it. He'd stolen a tiger from a tiger park in India, a gorilla from the world's most famous zoo. He had created a secret pipeline of hundreds of pounds of food from Chinatown to the deep recesses beneath New York City. Throughout that time, Vintner'd been followed numerous times and, each time, was able to evade the person following him. He'd developed strong instincts for when to move and when to be still. Even just a year ago, Vintner wouldn't have believed the skills that he'd developed. He often joked to himself that, if he had to do it all over again, he would have made a halfway decent spy. Even so, Vintner stood on the sidewalk, his back up against the red brick building behind him, and was nervous. Every so often, he would peer around the corner to see if anyone was coming.