17
Having returned to the van, Isaac and Bikie started the engine and drove to the cigar shop. It turned out to be in the outskirts of the town, although previously it had been on an upmarket shopping street. There was an upside to that – unlike in the center, here there were convenient observation sites where they could easily park. The shop window displayed hookahs, wine bottles and all sorts of bits and pieces including a cigar box and a humidor.
Driven by the thrill of the chase, Isaac suggested going in, but Bikie objected.
“How could you be so careless? We obviously don’t fit the part of rich smokers or their couriers.”
“Cool it! Half the store window is filled with cheap garbage. It’s a long time since they sold anything but cigars. Come on.”
Getting into the shop turned out to be impossible. A note stuck to inside of the glass said that the shop would open in half an hour. How long ago it had been put up was not clear, and the disappointed friends went back to the van. It was stuffy inside so Bikie parked the van under some trees to cool down.
Bikie took out his laptop and fiddled with it, trying to find a Wi-Fi connection. Isaac watched the entrance, waiting for the owner or a shop assistant to show up. Long after the lunch siesta crowds flooded down the street, there was not a soul around, just the baking sunlight and hot asphalt frazzling the air. Bikie started the engine to give it at least a small blast of coolness from the air conditioning. The two friends didn’t feel like talking; you might have thought they have been overcome by holiday-resort lethargy, but they were really trying to focus. It felt like at any moment Link would come to the shop and everything would work out just fine.
Eventually an elderly Italian came up to the store, opened the door and took the note off the glass. Five minutes later the friends were already inside, just an ordinary little shop, nothing remarkable. Bikie asked about the internet, and a secondhand mini-router was unearthed from among the masses of odds and ends on the shelves. While the shop assistant checked to see that it was still working, Isaac pointed out to Bikie a fridge with a glass door, with neat rows of cigars inside, in boxes and loose. Bikie smiled contentedly. The cigars were found, all right – the only thing left was to wait for the buyer.
After they spent several hours in the van and not a single customer entered the shop their excitement evaporated. They noticed a policeman coming in their direction. He walked up to the van, peered inside vigilantly, knocked on the window on the driver’s side, and when Bikie opened it, asked an unambiguous question:
“What are you doing here, boys?”
“We’re tourists,” Bikie replied brightly, keeping his grip on the laptop. “First day on the island. We still haven’t figured out where to stay, so we’re sitting here arguing and looking at the sites of the hotels nearby.”
“Move on, guys, will you,” said the policeman, in a genial mood. “We’ve had a complaint from the old woman in the house opposite. She says some strange characters got out of a van and then mysteriously went back, and now they’re sitting there with the engine running and making a stink, and are obviously plotting something. I understand everything, but she’s an old lady, why upset her?”
“OK, chief,” Bikie responded. “Already gone.”
The policeman walked away. They drove the van away a bit, and Isaac nodded in the direction of the shop. The shopman locked the door and was twirling the handle of the shutters, covering the display window. The guys could leave without any qualms of conscience: the first day of surveillance was officially over.
They stopped a kilometer from the shop, at an empty lot where the van was concealed from the road by bushes. Bikie came up with an idea – let technology do the surveillance. In a blink of an eye he had linked up a web camera from his arsenal to the laptop and fine-tuned the image.
It was almost dark when the friends got out of the van to stretch their legs, grab a bite and install the web camera opposite the cigar shop.
When they reached the site, Isaac noticed an old woman on a chair in front of one of the houses. She was either dozing or enjoying the long-awaited coolness of the evening with her eyes blissfully closed. Bikie caught Isaac’s glance and nodded. They would have to wait. There was a little grocery shop on the ground floor just behind the woman.
“Clear enough, life teaches proprietors to be vigilant,” Bikie explained to Isaac. “Or maybe she’s just feeling bored.”
They took up a position on a municipal bench, pretending to be tourists resting after a hike and ate the pizza they got on the way.