Outside, Philadelphia met me cold and clean.
Behind me I heard the doors open. “You’ll be back by morning,” Prescott called from the top of the steps. “You have nowhere to go. Nobody else is going to want damaged goods.”
I didn’t turn around.
Less than two minutes later, the low, powerful purr of an engine rolled up the avenue. A black armored Rolls-Royce curved into the hotel drive and stopped directly in front of me. Four security men emerged as if choreographed, each one in a dark suit, each one scanning the perimeter with the cool alertness of former military. One opened the rear door. I got in.
As the car pulled away, I looked through the tinted glass and saw Prescott standing motionless on the steps, trying and failing to understand what he was seeing. He had no idea that the man driving toward me through the city was the same man he had mocked as a grease monkey.