Running of the Bulls

by Christopher Smith

  He was floating, floating. People stepped on him and screamed in the gathering rage of chaos. And then, just before life left him, he was aware of the biggest explosion yet as a vehicle at the end of the street exploded.

  But it wasn’t just any explosion. It was more like a bomb and its force was enough to flip the hood off him. As his eyesight faded, he watched people lift off the street and somersault weightlessly in the air. Others were vaporized in the ferocious funnel of flames. And then there was something else, something he barely could see.

  All around him, the buildings were crumbling.

  ~~~~

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  10:37 p.m.

  Wolfhagen checked his watch, turned on the television, backed away from it and watched New York City burn.

  He flipped through the news stations and saw the same thing on all of them--part of the Upper East Side was destroyed. Dozens of buildings had either collapsed or were severely damaged. People were running in the streets. Commentators were calling it a terrorist attack, but all were wondering why anyone would target this section of Manhattan since it was a residential area, which didn’t make sense to them.

  As he listened, he learned that the explosion had leveled a portion of East 75th Street, with the damage spreading to 76th and beyond to parts of 73rd. Hundreds were feared dead. There was a crater on the corner of 75th and Fifth that suggested a powerful bomb was employed after two rows of cars parked curbside exploded from 75th and Madison and rolled west to 75th and Fifth.

  Wolfhagen turned off the television. This was no longer his city. It and its people had turned against him years ago. He could care less about the damage or the dead.

  And besides, tonight was a night for many endings.

  Earlier, he pulled the glass out of his feet. The vase was too thick to cause any real damage--if it had been more delicate, then he really would have been in trouble as the glass would have cut more deeply into him. It hurt to walk, but he’d bandaged his feet the best he could. Like the pain in his split lip, he could handle it.

  He went to his dressing room and changed into something casual--khaki pants, blue polo, comfortable sneakers. Perfect for running if running is what he had to do, though given the condition of his feet, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

  He stepped into the bathroom, combed his hair and removed a small bottle of makeup from the silver tray to his left. He dabbed some beneath his eyes so he looked younger and less tired, and then stood back and appraised himself. He hated what he saw and reached over to dim the lights. It was magic. Ten years fell from his face. Already, the stubble was starting to show in spite of having shaved earlier, but it was tolerable.

  For the past several hours, Carra had held him captive in this suite of rooms. They’d fought earlier--certainly one of their uglier fights, but nothing like the one they’d had years ago in Paris, when he’d beat her so hard with a belt at the Ritz, there was a moment when he thought he killed her. Now, he tried to remember what they fought about then but it escaped him. Like so many things in his life, his memory had nearly given up on him. He had difficulty recalling elements of the past, which probably was for the best given their smothering weight. But it didn’t matter.

  Right now, for Wolfhagen, it was all about the present.

  He moved out of the room and into the bedroom, where the door across from him was bolted shut. Before she left, Carra called her security team and now four men with outsized bodies and brains the size and consistency of rabbit shit were making sure he didn’t leave.

  When she left earlier, he knew where she was going because Carra made sure he heard her on the phone, just to rub it in. She was out on the town with Ira Lasker, a man Wolfhagen once had trusted everything to, just as he had with Peter Schwartz, Hayes and the rest. At some point over the past year, Carra and Ira had started dating.

  Fucking, he thought. They started fucking.

  Along with everyone else, he’d seen their photographs in Vanity Fair, on Page Six, in the Times, all over the tabs. Usually, their heads were held back and they were laughing in that way that the rich laughed when their only security was money and power, which could slip away from them at any moment. And so they laughed on camera to sustain the illusion of lives others craved to have, but didn’t.

  He’d read articles about her philanthropy work, which actually was quite cunning on Carra’s part because the grotesque amount of cash she threw around lifted her profile in ways that distanced her from him. She was the largest pink ribbon breast cancer awareness ever had seen sweep through its doors. She was PETA’s go-to person for the past five years, going so far as to pose nearly nude because God knows, when it came to saving animals, Carra would rather be naked than wear a piece of fur. How she had rebuilt her image was ingenious. She found the correct, high-profile ways to give back. Have an obscure disease that needs funding and attention? Just call Carra!

  Lately, in each article that was written about her, she always managed to mention Ira, who betrayed Wolfhagen as so many others had along with him--including Carra--when he took the stand and testified against him. Those people now were being slaughtered and Wolfhagen felt nothing for them.

  He smoothed his hand down the back of his hair and thought again of Wood’s severed head. He still could see her dead eyes frozen in sightlessness, her blue face crisp with death’s rotten imprint and her bloody lips curling up from him as if they’d been dipped in week-old ketchup. The image delighted him. She was one of the biggest hypocrites he’d ever met. She’d locked him away for three years even though she’d been one of the more enthusiastic members of his club. Karma had caught up with her. Karma grabbed her by the throat and took her down. He couldn’t help a smile.

  Maybe she still has a shot, he thought. Maybe she won’t burn in hell. Maybe God will show her mercy and she’ll become one of his little angels.

  With a giggle, he went to the door and knocked on it. There were footsteps, groans and then the door swung open to reveal the four goons. “What?” one of them said.

  Wolfhagen sized him up. Years ago, when he was at the very top of his game and the world bended to its knees to service him, often literally, he occasionally used to sleep with men to spice things up. He liked sex and he was nothing if not sexual. To him, a body was a body, and this was exactly the type of body he used to hire to fuck the hell out of him.

  The man was tall, thirtyish, masculine, built. Like the rest of them, he also was wearing a black suit because that’s how Carra rolled. In this case, he agreed with her. He loved a man in a suit. He loved it when he used to wear one. Wear the right clothes by the right designer and, if you could pull them off, doors opened for you.

  “I’m going out for the night,” Wolfhagen said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out four checks he’d retrieved earlier from the checkbook buried deep in one of his bags. The goons drew closer. “Yes, I am.”

  The hot one looked down at the checks. “You can’t bribe us, Mr. Wolfhagen.”

  Wolfhagen knew better. “But I have $1 million for each of you.”

  The hot one cocked an eyebrow at him. “Mrs. Wolfhagen pays us well. She offers nice, steady employment. Why don’t we just take the checks and shut the fuckin’ door in your face?”

  “Because that would be cheating yourselves out of more,” Wolfhagen said. “And everyone wants more. It’s what the world is made of--craving more. Dying for more. Wanting to be more. And besides, I just want to go out for two hours. That’s all. Carra won’t know. I’ll be quick. When I return, each of you will receive another million for your trouble. And the secret stays with us.”

  “Why do you need to go out?”

  “Can’t say. Sorry. Lot’s of secrets, some going to my grave. But time is running out. Carra is a late night kind of gal, but let’s face it, she’s putting on the years and I doubt she can go as deeply into the night as she used to. So, to minimize risk, I need to leave no
w so I’m back here before she returns.”

  He held out his hands and, as he did so, each man glanced down at the unsigned checks. Then, they looked at him. “All I need is one of your cars, a cell phone and two hours. That’s it. If you agree, I sign these checks alone in the car, give them to you and then I’m off.”

  They all looked at each other.

  And Wolfhagen’s shoulders sagged in frustration. “Oh, stop looking so tense, you big lugs--you’ll see me again. It’s all part of the goddamn plan.”

  * * *

  The car they offered was surprisingly sweet--a black Audi TT. He felt a little rush as he slipped into it. Snug yet comfortable. Beautifully appointed and made specifically for one’s lost youth. He couldn’t be sure yet, but he bet it was fast, which was perfect for his needs.

  “Do you have a pen?” he asked.

  The goons were waiting outside the car. The hot one reached into his jacket to retrieve a pen and, when he did, Wolfhagen saw his gun resting inside its holster beneath the folds of fabric.

  “Can I borrow that?”

  “Borrow what?”

  “Your gun.”

  “You’re not borrowing my gun.”

  Wolfhagen started signing the checks on the steering wheel. “What are your names?”

  They told him.

  “Make sure they’re your real names.”

  “They are.”

  He signed each name with a flourish, then stopped at the last check. He looked at the hot one and wished he could reach out a hand to see if he was really packing. But that wouldn’t be good form. “$500,000 for the gun. That’s $250,000 per hour, plus the million I’m giving you now. Good money, if you ask me. It’ll put your kids through college.”

  “I don’t have kids.”

  “Then think of your wife.”

  “I don’t have one of those, either.”

  “Then you and I need to talk. Later. My bedroom. When it’s just the two of us and a harness.”

  The man screwed up his face and the goons looked at each other. The tallest of them said in a low voice to the hot one, “If you don’t do it, I will.”

  “Okay,” the hot one said. “Write the check for one five.”

  “Of course.” He winked at him. “And what a business sense. You’ve got a head on your shoulders. I like that.” Wolfhagen filled out the amount and then, turning slightly to the window, he said: “First the gun.”

  The man hesitated, but then he handed to him.

  No stranger to a gun, Wolfhagen checked to see if it was loaded. It was. He gave the men their checks, rolled up the window so they couldn’t pull anything on him, cut into traffic and roared off to the very place he knew Carra would be.

  It was Saturday night. She’d be at her version of The Bull Pen. The club he created all those years ago was back in operation and apparently thriving--the few people who remained friends with him during his awful fallout with the world were members of it. They told him that Carra and Lasker were there once per month on a Saturday night. Though they’d moved the club to a new building after the federal crack down, Carra and Lasker had kept it going in his absence, obviously for the money it brought in, but more likely for the connections it offered.

  He wondered if they videotaped the crowd as he used to do. If they did, he wondered how many favors they were sitting on now.

  The address he was given would take him to West 83rd Street, which told him all he needed to know. While the location had changed, what was happening inside that club hadn’t. These people needed their playtime, but they also needed to play in a location that was safe, upscale, unsuspecting and in which they could do anything they wished in complete privacy. Whether the club was extreme as it was when he ran it was doubtful--Carra was a conservative little cunt. But she also was bright and he knew she wouldn’t be stupid enough to tamper with what once had worked so well.

  The Bull Pen offered certain expectations.

  Tonight, it would see those expectations lifted when he himself murdered Carra and Lasker in front of those who were there. Some would get off on it. Others would wonder why they did. And a few would be repelled.

  That is, of course, if anyone was there. It wasn’t even 11 p.m. yet. It might be that only a few stragglers would enjoy the show, because like most of the darker clubs in New York, few got started before 3 a.m., which was just fine with Wolfhagen. In this case, the fewer people, the better.

  To pull this off, he needed help. And so he took the cell phone the goons had given him and tapped out a number. As the line rang, he rolled down the window and sped uptown, the warm breeze stirring his hair. In the distance, he could see the orange, fiery glow hovering above the city’s Upper East Side.

  When it came to murder, Wolfhagen had the best help in the city.

  ~~~~

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  10:42 p.m.

  For Carmen and Spocatti, time was smashed by the chaos of what they’d created.

  With the clock running against them, they now needed to beat the media, who soon would go public with connections that had become so obvious, it would start what they feared all along--a running of the bulls as Wolfhagen’s former bulls left the city.

  And when that happened, it would prevent them from finishing their job and collecting the millions in bonuses that came along with it.

  And so they moved. They had their distraction. There were people to kill. No time to lose.

  They were now four blocks east of 75th and Fifth, where the Escalade ignited and leveled the buildings surrounding it. With only a fleeting exception, they hadn’t stopped running until now, when Spocatti slowed beside a car Carmen didn’t recognize and popped the trunk.

  Sirens sounded everywhere. The night was so heavy with humidity, the smoke from the explosions hung low, choking the air.

  Carmen looked at the end of 75th and Fifth, where buildings had fallen into the streets. Fires were burning. Helicopters circling. People were rushing past her and toward the damage in an effort to help those likely trapped beneath the rubble.

  She was aware of people screaming. She was aware of her own heart racing. She kept hearing the word “terrorists” being shouted in a cacophony of fear and outrage. She watched Spocatti click the cap off his video camera and offer Wolfhagen a final shot of the devastation. Right now, he was everything she wasn’t. He was an automaton. He was cool. He was composed.

  But Carmen? She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t shaken.

  Spocatti stood next to her on the sidewalk. The video camera was poised in front of him, pointing down the street. She looked at him and swore she could see the hint of a smile on his face. He was getting Wolfhagen his money’s worth, but they needed to leave before the streets were closed. She’d give him 30 seconds.

  Earlier, when Carmen called Pamela Dean, the woman did exactly what they hoped she’d do--she answered her phone, confirming she was home. For the last time in her life, she said “Hello” and listened to Carmen as she sent her Wolfhagen’s best. “You knew this day would come, Pamela. You ruined his life, and now he’s taking yours. He’ll be listening to this. Can you tell him how it feels?”

  Before Dean could reply--but not so quickly that she couldn’t process what was happening--the cars parked curbside lifted from the pavement and started to flip in a fiery rush. Like dominoes, one car exploded and it set off the next car, and the next.

  It was so engrossing, they hadn’t wanted to leave. Hollywood should have been there to see it if only because it would have understood that it got it wrong every time--this is how it looked. Better yet, in the midst of all of it, they’d watched a person in a white caftan turn into a funnel of flames as he stumbled toward Fifth. A hail of burning debris rained down on him and those running past him. When he fell, they each turned to run, knowing that the Escalade was about to explode and blow the surrounding area into nothingness.

  They raced toward Madison, clipped around the corner and pressed their backs against the building
s just as the street flashed white, the buildings shook and somewhere behind them, other buildings fell. There was a rush of searing wind and then the fireball Carmen feared most whooshed past them down the street, incinerating those caught in its path. Then, with no tunnel to propel it, it lifted in the middle of Madison, rolled high in the wide-open space and evaporated.

  There was no question that Dean was dead, so they continued to run, this time cutting through the traffic until they stopped at the getaway car.

  She nudged Spocatti. “That’s it. We’re out of here.”

  He clicked off the camera and put it in his bag in the trunk. She walked around the car as he pulled out his keys and unlocked the doors. “Who’s first?”

  “Cohen is closest. We do him, then Dunne, then Casari.” His cell phone buzzed in his pants pocket. He removed it and looked down at the number, which he didn’t recognize. He hesitated, but answered it, anyway. Wolfhagen.

  “It would help if you told me when you have a new phone, Max. I almost didn’t answer.”

  “Sorry. Where are you now?”

  “We just did Dean. We’re getting ready to do the others.”

  “They’ll need to wait.”

  “That’s a mistake.”

  “There are two other people I need your help with first.”

  “We don’t have time for two other people. Have you seen the news? Have you looked out your window? We told you this was happening tonight. They’ll be blocking the streets. If they haven’t already, the media will make the connections and report them. And when they do, the rest will run. If you want them dead, we’ve got a narrow window to make it happen.”

  “And you will make it happen. You never fail, Vincent. That’s why I hired you and your sweet little conchita. And besides, this one will be quick, it has to be done for critical reasons and I can’t do it without you.”