Wish on a Star

Chapter 4

Federal Building, Manhattan, NY. January 11, 2005. Tuesday evening.

When Peter walked back to his desk after the last meeting of the day, Diana was the only person left in the bullpen. She called out his name when she saw him, and he paused at her desk.

"Big plans for your birthday?" she asked.

"No. El's still with the Shooting Stars family. We'll probably go out for dinner when she's done and call it a night."

Diana stood up and reached for her coat. "Yeah, that sounds like my kind of birthday. Neal asked me to give you this." She pulled a postcard out of her coat pocket.

The picture on the front of the card was The Starry Night by Van Gogh. On the other side was a message. Time for Tuesday Tails!

Because of the team lunch, they'd skipped Tuesday Tails this week, or so Peter thought. Apparently it had simply been postponed to the evening. Peter grabbed his coat, locked up his office, and dialed Neal's cell phone as he waited for the elevator. "Tuesday Tails?" he said when Neal answered.

"Usually you're too busy to participate. Since El's preoccupied at the moment, we wanted to give you something fun to do." Neal named an intersection and said, "That's your starting point."

Peter took a cab to the location Neal specified. Within a minute he spotted Neal's fedora, and started tailing him. Barely a block into the chase, he heard a familiar voice call his name. Peter turned around to see his boss. "Mind if I join you?" Hughes asked.

"You want to join a round of Tuesday Tails?" Peter kept following Neal, and Hughes walked beside him.

"When Caffrey ran his plan by me, it struck me that I've never had a chance to participate. You've been bragging about the things your team has learned through this exercise. I assume you'll mention it in the team's accomplishments for last year?"

"I've encouraged Neal to list it; he should get credit for the idea in his annual review. This way." Peter opened the door to a pub, and they walked toward the back exit, barely keeping the fedora in view as they dodged servers with platters of food and drinks.

"This is giving me an appreciation of his skills," Hughes said as they left the pub. Neal was nowhere in sight. "Where'd he go?"

Peter barely caught the door before it closed behind them. "Back inside. He must have slipped into one of the booths."

Sure enough, they saw Neal slide out of a booth and walk toward the front entrance.

"How'd he find an empty booth?" Hughes asked. "This place is packed."

As they reached the booth, someone else slid out. "Peter. You just missed Neal," Jones said.

"Yeah." Peter pressed forward, with Hughes and Jones in his wake. Every few minutes they ran into another member of the White Collar team, until Peter felt like they had a parade chasing after Neal. "He's like the Pied Piper," he muttered.

Diana chuckled. "Having fun, boss?"

"It's about to get fun," he promised. He'd seen the pattern in Neal's path. In order to arrange all of these encounters with team members, he must have planned a fairly straightforward route, and Peter took a gamble. Instead of keeping Neal in sight, he took a shortcut through an alley, and finally he was ahead of Neal. Peter stepped in front of him and swiped the fedora off his head. "Got you!"

"About time," Neal said. He took back the hat. "We're nearly there."

"What's our destination? I thought you might be heading toward the Met, since that postcard was a Van Gogh."