Fifth Avenue

by Christopher Smith

  The doors slid open.

  The woman stepped inside and Spocatti followed. Again he looked at her. She was wearing dark sunglasses, faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Her lips were full and painted deep red. He nodded at her, smiled when she nodded back.

  The door closed and they were alone. Spocatti pressed a button and the car lurched into motion. The woman continued staring straight ahead.

  He glanced sideways at her. “Have you found him?” he asked.

  “Of course. We nailed him at a travel agency on 40th Street. He’s now at your apartment.”

  If Spocatti was relieved, it didn’t show on his face. He looked up at the elevator’s lighted dial and watched the floors tick by. “And where was our friend hoping to go?”

  The woman opened her black leather handbag and removed the receipt for the airline tickets. She handed it to Spocatti. “He bought two first-class tickets to Milan. The flight leaves this evening from JFK. My guess is that he was planning to take Leana on a trip.”

  Spocatti pocketed the envelope and studied her reflection in the elevator’s brass doors. She was stunning in her arrogance. Her name was Amparo Gragera, she weighed less than 110 pounds--and he had once seen her kill a man twice her size with her bare hands. She was an important member of his organization, had complete weapons training, a solid knowledge of computers and once had been the love of his life. He knew she could be just as deadly as he.

  “Is everything set for tonight?” he asked.

  “Terry took care of everything this morning.”

  “And you know what’s expected of you?”

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  “Just personally,” he said. “But no, not professionally.”

  “What a relief.”

  “This is our last night in New York. How about dinner once the job is done?”

  The elevator stopped. The doors slid open and several people began stepping inside, reaching in front of them and pressing buttons on the elevator’s control panel. Spocatti left the elevator and turned back for a response.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m fucking somebody else now. She’s actually more your style than mine--her ass is as hard as stone--but she does give good head. When I’m through with her, I’ll give her your number. I think she does men, too.”

  Spocatti couldn’t help a smile. The elevator doors slid shut.

  * * *

  Louis tossed the airline tickets onto his desk. “Where is Michael now?”

  Spocatti was at the bar. He dropped ice into two glasses. He reached for a bottle and poured. “He’s at my apartment, being watched by one of my men.”

  “What about Jack Douglas and Diana Crane? You’ve been following them. Where are they?”

  Spocatti came across the room and handed Louis his drink. He thought the man looked older. Cheeks a bit hollow. Eyes set deeper into his face. “They should be arriving at Heathrow within the next few minutes. They’ll refuel and fly back to New York.”

  “And they’ve telephoned no one?”

  Spocatti sipped his drink. “They’ve phoned their parents from the plane,” he said. “But no one else. They’re won’t try anything, Louis. They know what’s at risk. They know the plane is wired. They know somebody will be at Heathrow watching to make sure they don’t get off. By the time they reach New York, it’ll be over.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Louis said. “We’re cutting it close. What are your plans when they arrive?”

  Spocatti raised an eyebrow. “What do you think my plans are? They know too much. When they arrive at JFK, they’ll be assassinated. So will their parents.”

  Satisfied, Louis stepped to the windows and looked out over the city. It was still hours before the sun would set, but anticipation was building. He listened to the quiet. The only sound was the clicking of ice against glass as he lifted the drink to his mouth.

  Spocatti watched him tap the glass against the side of his thigh and sensed a disturbance in the air. He wondered again what kind of woman Anne Ryan had been.

  “So, this is it,” Louis said. “The envelope’s on my desk. See to it that Redman gets it by nine o’clock tonight.”

  Spocatti lifted the envelope, tucked it in his jacket pocket. “You’re sure he’ll meet me?”

  Louis turned away from the windows. “He’ll meet you. Once he reads that journal entry and realizes what I’ve done to his daughter, he’ll be there. You can count on it.”

  “What about the police? He might call them.”

  “No, he won’t,” Louis said. “Redman is a lot of things, but he’s no fool. He won’t call the police--not if he wants his wife to live. Just bring Michael and him to Leana’s office. Don’t let anyone see you. Use one of the side entrances. Make sure they’re both there by ten. Leana and I will meet you as planned.”

  * * *

  The Learjet glided through darkness and clouds and rain. It trembled in the turbulence and then dropped through the sky as it hurtled toward the lights of London and Heathrow Airport. The captain’s voice came over the speakers: “Should be about ten minutes, folks,” he said to Diana and Jack. “Sorry about the bumps, but it’s pretty wild out there. If you’d keep your safety belts fastened, we’ll land, refuel and begin the trip to New York.”

  Diana looked across the desk at Jack. He was writing on a yellow legal pad, stopping from time to time to glance out the windows, his face set, determined.

  She was frightened. What they were proposing could backfire--yet they had no choice. If they didn’t act, the consequences would be equally severe.

  The plane banked right, slipped below the cloud line and London burst into sudden, glowing bloom. Diana looked down at the brilliant, intricate web of lights shining beneath them and thought of Louis Ryan. He murdered Celina. He may have destroyed Redman International. In a matter of hours, Leana would open his new hotel. Was she next on his list? Was it George? Elizabeth?

  Jack finished writing and slid the legal pad across the desk. Diana picked up the pad of paper. Twice she read what he’d written before laying the pad back onto the table. Her heart was racing when she closed her eyes. This won’t work, she thought. It’s too risky. If he’s caught, my mother dies--and so do his parents. Who are we to jeopardize their lives?

  Jack must have sensed what she was thinking, because he reached across the desk and took her hand in his. He looked hard at her and if this compartment wasn’t wired, he would have said what his eyes already conveyed: We have no choice. You know that. Pull yourself together. I need you.

  She released her hand and nodded briskly. She had been put in difficult situations before and she would handle this. She turned back to the window and watched the rain beat against the glass. Outside, it seemed as though the world was melting.

  The plane was about to land.

  Diana gripped the sides of her seat and braced herself, wincing as the wheels struck the wet tarmac. The engines and the brakes screamed. Jack was out of his seat the moment they stopped beside Terminal Four.

  The captain alighted from the cockpit, his smile fading when he saw Jack standing in the middle of the aisle, a finger to his lips, legal pad in hand. The man looked past Jack and toward Diana, who also was standing, her face as pale and as watchful as a ghost. “What’s the matter?” he asked, unsure how to read the situation. “Was the trip that bad?”

  Jack’s face darkened.

  “No,” he said. “The trip was fine--it was the weather that was a little scary. At one point, I think Diana wasn’t going to make it.”

  Before the man could speak, Jack approached him, handed him the legal pad and motioned for him to read it. The man’s brow furrowed, he moved to speak, but Jack shook his head firmly and pointed to the pad of paper.

  The captain read. When he was finished, he lifted his eyes to Jack’s. On his face was a look of cold understanding. “We’ll be on the ground for about thirty minutes,” he said. “Meantime, if either of you wants to go inside the terminal and br
owse around, there’s plenty of time.”

  “No,” Diana said. “We’ll stay here. Thank for getting us here in one piece.”

  The man managed what might have been a smile under different circumstances and removed his cap. He tossed it to Jack. “No problem,” he said. “But if you two would excuse me, I have to go inside. I promised my daughter a souvenir from the trip.”

  And he started to remove his flight uniform.

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Jack Douglas was wearing the pilot’s charcoal-gray uniform and his oversized trench coat. He left the plane and hurried down the Lear’s slick, narrow steps, his head bowed as he moved through the wind and the driving rain.

  Diana sat at a window and watched him go, not looking away until he had reached the glowing terminal and slipped behind one of its lighted doors. She knew they were being watched, could sense it just as she had sensed Jack’s fear before he left. Whether they were being watched by a member of the ground crew or by someone looking down at them from Terminal Four’s great expanse of windows, she couldn’t be sure.

  She turned away from the window.

  The pilot had removed his carry-on bag from a small closet and was quickly changing into a pare of khaki pants, a white cotton shirt and a blue baseball cap. He didn’t look at Diana as he dressed, but instead looked past her and watched his co-pilot, the young man who was standing at the Lear’s open door, squinting in the damp breeze, motioning to a member of the ground crew.

  The man bounded up the wet steps, his bright yellow slicker shining, his face flushed and wet and smiling. “What’s up, mate?” he asked, shaking the co-pilot’s hand. “Damn good to see you. How’s your wife--still cheating on you?”

  The co-pilot laughed and led the man inside, moving him away from the open door and handing him the yellow legal pad. Diana watched him read. The co-pilot said, “You sorry bastard, it’s your wife who cheats. When are you going to stop lying to yourself and admit it?”

  The man finished reading. The humor left his face and he looked down the aisle toward the pilot, who had closed his suitcase and was waiting at the rear of the plane, where there were no windows.

  “I’ve got the happiest lass in London,” he said. “She’d never cheat on me.”

  And he removed his yellow slicker.

  * * *

  The rain was beating against the Lear when the pilot left Diana and his crew behind. He hurried down the steps and crossed the tarmac, the baseball cap shielding his lowered face, the rain and the wind pressing hard against his bright raincoat.

  He had an impulse to glance up the terminal’s glowing windows, but stilled it and instead entered the building. He darted up a flight of stairs, opened a door and turned right, cutting through the streams of people hurrying to make their connections. He checked for inconsistencies in the crowd. If he was being followed, they were doing a damn good job of concealing it.

  He went to the men’s room he and Jack agreed upon.

  “Hurry,” Jack said, when the man stepped inside. “I’ve got twenty minutes to get my ass on that plane. Move!”

  The washroom was large and clean and empty. They entered the last two stalls and started undressing.

  “Did anyone follow you?” Jack asked.

  The pilot tossed his clothes over the stall partition. “No,” he said. “No one followed me.” He paused to grasp the uniform Jack slipped under the gray metal wall and said, “Before you get on that plane, you should call Redman.”

  “Can’t,” Jack said. “His phone might be bugged.”

  “Then call ahead to the police. You won’t be there for another seven hours. Ryan might have done something by then.”

  Jack left the stall and went to the full-length mirror. The clothes were loose, but not too loose. The baseball cap concealed his sandy hair.

  “Forget it,” he said. “Louis Ryan probably owns the police.”

  The pilot stepped out of the stall and stood beside Jack. Their eyes met. “Besides,” Jack said, “by the time we arrive, Ryan will be at the opening of his new hotel. The event will just be getting underway. We know he’s planned something significant, but it won’t happen at that party.”

  “I disagree. That’s exactly when he’d plan it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I’ve got a hunch.”

  He moved toward the door, but stopped to shoot the pilot a look. “Buy your daughter a gift. They’ll be watching.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  As soon as Elizabeth laid eyes on him, she knew that something else was wrong, knew it had to do with the envelope he just received by messenger. It was not a familiar look, that brief glimpse of horror she saw in his eyes, but she recognized it just the same.

  She closed the door behind her and stood there, not far from him or his desk, watching his features slowly return to normal as he folded the letter in half and tucked it in his jacket pocket. For a moment, he was unmoving, his gaze fixed on the photo of Leana that was on his desk. Then he took a breath and looked up at his wife. The years he had never shown were suddenly there on his face.

  Elizabeth took a step forward, out of the shadows and into the light. “What is it?” she asked. “Is it about Celina?”

  George didn’t answer. With an effort, he rose from his seat and crossed to the bar. He chose a gold-rimmed highball glass and poured himself a glass of Scotch. He drank.

  Watching George, sensing his fear almost as surely as she sensed this sudden tension, Elizabeth felt inept, unable to help him.

  She stepped beside him.

  George put the empty glass down onto the bar and poured himself another drink. It seemed that forever passed before he finally spoke. “No,” he said. “This isn’t about Celina.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said. “At least not now. So, please don’t push me on this. I have to leave.”

  Elizabeth watched him walk away from her.

  Across the room, through the long stretches of darkness and silence, was the dim glass of an enormous, 18th-century beveled mirror. George hesitated before it and his back stiffened. Framed in gold and heavy with age, his pale face loomed in the night, glowing like some odd, faraway moon. He stared at himself, and there was the sense that he didn’t recognize the person staring back.

  Elizabeth went to him.

  She put her arms around him and held him. She was eager to know where he was going, but she trusted him enough not to ask and instead stood there, holding him, feeling his body relax slightly against hers.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I want you to stay here.”

  “I can’t.”

  He turned and kissed her on the lips. They looked at one another for a long moment and then George broke the embrace. He made and effort and smiled at her. “I might be a while,” he said. “Don’t wait up for me. Okay?”

  Elizabeth suddenly felt sick. She took a step back and watched him look around his office. It was as though he was seeing it for the first time, maybe the last.

  Reluctantly, she watched him move toward the twin mahogany doors and step into the hall.

  She went after him.

  “I’m really not that tired,” she called. “I can’t imagine falling asleep.”

  The hallway was long and in shadow, so dim it seemed almost gaslit. Isadora, the family cat, left the library and now was trotting after George, her tail high and full. Above them, their shadows joined on the ceiling in a delicate sort of embrace.

  “Well talk when you get back,” Elizabeth said. “All right?”

  “I love you,” she said.

  George lifted a hand in response. He turned the corner and was gone.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, when he pushed through Redman International’s revolving glass doors, George hesitated only a moment before he walked the few steps to the black Mercedes limousine that was waiting for him at curbside.

>   Vincent Spocatti was leaning against the driver’s side door. “Mr. Redman,” he said, with a slight bow of his head. “Glad you could make it.”

  George looked at the man, committed his face to memory, but said nothing. He stepped inside the limousine and came face to face with a woman.

  She was striking. She was dressed completely in black, her long, dark hair pulled away from her face. Her mouth tightened slightly when he sat down next to her.

  And there was someone else in the car. He was sitting next to the woman, his own face a frozen mask. It was Michael Archer.

  The two men stared at each other. Ropes of silence spun out between them.

  George was about to speak when the woman started frisking him. Her hands were quick and thorough. She looked at Spocatti when he leaned inside the open door. “He’s clean.” she said.

  Spocatti glanced at Michael and George. “Jesus,” he said. “Would you look at yourselves? You’d think we were going to a morgue and not a party. Lighten the hell up.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Music swelled, there was a sharp burst of applause and Leana continued moving through the crowd, smiling to people she didn’t know, nodding to those who suddenly knew her, wondering where Michael was.

  She had no escort. She was surrounded by hundreds of smiling, laughing people, yet never had she felt more alone. Where was he? She specifically asked him to be here by eight, so they could join the party together at eight-thirty. Yet now it was pushing ten and he was nowhere in sight.

  Neither was Louis.

  Alone, she had just finished greeting, by name, the better part of eighteen hundred guests, including the French ambassador, the British ambassador, Countess Castellani and her blind husband, Count Luftwick, Lady Ionesco from Spain, and the mayor and governor of New York. Alone, she had given interviews to select members of the press--an exhausting task that hadn’t gone well. Everyone wanted to know why she took this position given the public feud that existed between her father and Louis Ryan. And everyone wanted to know if there was any information on Celina.