Fifth Avenue
Page 44
EPILOGUE
Diana Crane, Chief Attorney
Redman International
49th Street & Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10017
(212) 555-2620
Dear Jack:
So, here we are again. Will you receive this letter? Will you answer it this time? I have sent you about a dozen letters over the past few months, only to have them returned unopened. Where are you? I send the letters to your parents and they tell me they forward them to you. Are they? They only tell me that you’re well. Are you traveling? Has it gotten easier?
I don’t know if you’re connected to the world or if you unplugged yourself from it. Knowing you, I’ll assume the latter and hope for the former.
Wherever you are, do you get the news? Are you aware that the stock market crashed? We survived it. That Monday, while Wall Street was crumbling, we were signing a deal with Anastassios Fondaras for $8 billion. Iran insisted he buy more ships to keep up with demand and we were happy to offer up WestTex. After a massive round of layoffs and restructuring, Redman International’s stock is now trading in the high fifties. Not where it used to be, but better.
If you’ve been reading any of these letters, then you know that George made a full recovery. What you might not know is that Elizabeth was indicted last week. Ten years. I think she’ll do five. Maybe three, if she’s lucky. I did my best.
Also, I’ve written this before but the status hasn’t changed. Leana is still missing. No one has seen her since she left New York Hospital last August. She disappeared, though we know she’s alright. At a benefit last Saturday, Helen Baines told me that Leana has called her, but she refuses to tell anyone where she is. I’m thinking she’s with Mario De Cicco. I checked and he’s no longer in New York.
I’ll leave you with this. Three weeks ago, I was on Wall Street when I saw Vincent Spocatti in the crowds on the street. I know it was him, just as he knew it was me. We looked at each another and then he lifted his head and smiled before turning the other way. I reported it to the police, but there’s little they can do and Spocatti knows it.
There’s nothing more to tell you, really, only that I miss you and wish you were here in your office at Redman International. Nothing is the same anymore. Everything’s changed. I don’t live at Redman Place. I sold my apartment and moved to the West Side. Now, I have a different view of Central Park, a cat for company and...what else? Nothing, really. Thank God for work. As my father used to say, work saves us.
If you receive this, please write. You’ve had time. I need to know that you’re all right and that at least one of us is moving forward.
With love,
Diana
P.S. I still think about him, you know? Given all that he did, it’s ridiculous. But after all this time, Eric is still part of me. Do you still think of Celina? Sometimes, it’s as if they never died, isn’t it?
* * *
Jack Douglas folded the letter in half and returned it to its envelope, which he’d carefully opened with a knife. Like all the letters Diana sent, he would return this one to his parents and they would forward it back to her. He sealed each letter in such a way that suggested he’d never opened it or read its contents. Jack wasn’t ready to renew their friendship. He would contact her again, but he would wait a while longer before doing so.
Just now, he was sitting in the back of a dusty white Jeep, his skin brown from months in the sun, the top of his sandy hair bleached with streaks of blond. He was leaner than he had been in years, his body hard and toned from hiking through the jungles of Venezuela. Above him, he could hear the faint but familiar shrieking of macaws and cockatoos. Below him was the sound of rushing water. He was thousand of miles away from New York City and he loved it.
He thought of Diana’s letter. Of course, he still thought of Celina. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t think of her and all that could have been. He loved her. With Elizabeth Redman now going to prison, he wondered if he ever would see the Redman family again.
He wondered if he cared?
He left the jeep and walked to the center of the long, rickety bridge that stretched before him. A woman had just jumped from its rotting planks and now was screaming as she plummeted to the roiling river below.
Jack moved to the wooden rail and leaned forward. He watched her bounce thanks the bungee cord strapped to her ankles and her long dark hair cracked like a whip in the humid air. Watching her and listening to her jubilant cries, he felt strangely at peace and knew what he was doing was right. This was part of his own healing.
Beside him, a young Venezuelan woman began pulling the frayed bungee cord back to the bridge. She was tall and slim, her arms and shoulders taut with muscle. Her bare feet dug into the gray wooden planks as she continued to hoist up the heavy cord. Once the cord was retrieved, she turned to him.
“Listo?” she asked.
Jack nodded. “Listo.”
“You do this before, yes?”
“I’ve done this before,” he said.
From his pocket, he removed the blindfold he promised to wear when Celina jumped all those months ago. He showed it to the woman, who shrugged. She helped him over the wooden rail, attached the bungee to his ankles, pulled hard on the nylon strap and checked the buckles.
Jack put the blindfold into place.
With the sudden darkness, his senses became acute. The river was louder, the sun somehow stronger. He could feel the thrum of nature and then his heart beating in his chest.
The woman touched his arm. “Jump,” she said. “Fly.”
Poised at the edge of the bridge, Jack took a breath, nodded and let go of the wooden rail. For a moment, he just stood there, perfectly balanced with his arms held out at his sides. His hair stirred in the breeze. His palms faced a brilliant, cloudless sky he couldn’t see. He was aware of everything and nothing. The faint, exotic smells of the jungle enveloped him, consumed him and for the first time in months, he smiled.
He thought of Celina then and when he jumped, he jumped hard, rising gracefully into the air and into the sun.
For an instant, he was free.
* * *
Michael Archer remained in New York. In the six months that had passed since his annulment from Leana, he had left their apartment on Fifth and moved into a large, airy loft in the Village that overlooked the Hudson.
His life was quieter. He rarely went out and he saw only close friends. He refused prime roles in movies and on Broadway, and he refused to be interviewed. Although his agent was hounding him to write another book, he hadn’t written a word in months. His dreams were bad. He supposed he was now something of a recluse.
It was in late September, two months after the incident at The Hotel Fifth, that he received a letter from one of George Redman’s attorneys, suggesting that he join George for a blood test. Michael refused. He didn’t need a blood test to confirm that he was George Redman’s son. His mother’s journal confirmed it.
In her own hand, Anne described--in detail--her affair with George and how she knew that Michael was George’s son. If Redman couldn’t accept that, then Michael decided it was best that he wasn’t part of the man’s life.
Leana came to him in dreams.
He would be walking up Fifth Avenue and she would suddenly appear in the crowd, wearing the very dress she wore that night at The Hotel Fifth, her skin pale and lucent, a tiny pinpoint of bright light wavering from the hole in her stomach. In the dream, she held out her arms to him, called out his name in a voice that wasn’t her own but one that he assumed was his idea of his mother’s. And then she disappeared. When Michael ran after her, it was Louis Ryan’s face he saw, not Leana’s.
He heard from Leana only once since they annulled their marriage. When she called, she was somewhere in Europe with Mario De Cicco, though she wouldn’t say where. In spite of all that had transpired between them--and the truth that they were half brother and sister--he admired her for keeping the conversation as light as she could.
“I’m sorry for everything, Leana.”
“I know you are,” she said. “But it’s not your fault--we both were used by him. Just hear me on this--if we don’t let go of all of it, if we don’t move forward, it will color the rest of our lives until we do. And if that happens, he wins, which we can’t let happen. I’m moving on with my life. I want the same for you. We deserve to have our lives back.”
“You’re right.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“Call me when you’ve settled.”
“You’ll hear from me again,” Leana said, and she was gone.
It wasn’t until January that he was ready to sit at his desk and look seriously at his typewriter, the one his agent sent him months ago as a gift.
He knew he couldn’t go on like this. By withdrawing from the world, by hanging onto the past, he was killing himself and everything he’d worked so hard for. His agent had given him a number of story ideas, but only one mattered to Michael, only one was paramount, and if he wanted to move on, if he really wanted to deal with the past, the only way to do so would be to write about it.
He looked at the typewriter. He never wrote on a computer and his agent knew it. He liked the sound of a typewriter. He liked the feeling of removing a piece of paper when he was finished creating something on it. He liked the rhythm of the words as they were pounded out.
He put a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter and closed his eyes. That title, that opening sentence and the first few paragraphs came to him at once. They had been lingering in his mind since the original manuscript was burned.
But could he do it? Could he really write the story that had changed so many lives? And if he did write about it, if he did tell the truth even if he did change the names, would he be ready for all the controversy that would ensue? Michael wasn’t sure. Novel or not, people would know the story he’d written was based on fact.
Maybe he’d change the names later. Maybe he wouldn’t. What mattered now was getting it on paper.
And then he remembered what the man Cain said to him that day in his apartment. Just moments after he read the first chapter and destroyed the manuscript, Cain asked how Michael could use these events, these places. Michael’s answer was immediate--perhaps he would use a pseudonym.
He rested his hands on the typewriter and was relieved to find that it no longer seemed as threatening. He thought of Leana then, thought of all the Redmans, chose a generic pseudonym and after a moment, he began to type:
FIFTH AVENUE
A novel by:
Christopher Smith
BOOK ONE
FIRST WEEK
CHAPTER ONE
July
New York City
The bombs, placed high above Fifth Avenue on the roof of The Redman International Building, would explode in five minutes.
Now, with its mirrored walls of glass reflecting Fifth Avenue’s thick, late-morning traffic, the building itself seemed alive with movement.
On scaffolding at the building’s middle, men and women were hanging the enormous red velvet ribbon that would soon cover sixteen of Redman International’s seventy-nine stories. High above on the roof, a lighting crew was moving ten spotlights into position. And inside, fifty skilled decorators were turning the lobby into a festive ballroom.
Celina Redman, who was in charge of the confusion, stood before the building with her arms crossed. Streams of people were brushing past her on the sidewalk, some glancing up at the red ribbon, others stopping to glance in surprise at her. She tried to ignore them, tried to focus on her work and become one with the crowd, but it was difficult. Just that morning, her face and this building had been on the cover of every major paper in New York.
She admired the building before her.
Located on the corner of Fifth and 49th Street, the building was the product of thirty-one years of her father’s life. Founded when George Redman was twenty-six, Redman International was among the world’s leading conglomerates. It included a commercial airline, office and condominium complexes, textile and steel mills and, soon, WestTex Incorporated--one of the country’s largest shipping corporations. With this building on Fifth Avenue, all that stood in George Redman’s way was the future. And by all appearances, it was as bright as the diamonds Celina had chosen to wear later that evening.
####
Thank you for purchasing and reading "Fifth Avenue." I hope you enjoyed it.
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Below is a sneak peak at my next book, a Wall Street thriller entitled "Running of the Bulls." Look for it in 2011.
Thank you again.
Christopher
RUNNING OF THE BULLS
A novel by:
Christopher Smith
BOOK ONE
PREFACE
New York City
The bright bedroom was swimming, the walls rippling in peach-colored waterfalls.
With an effort, Kenneth Cole turned his head, tried to focus, couldn’t and closed his eyes. Blackness enveloped him. He took a breath and felt his body lift, felt his soul soar. Everything was enhanced. He could hear voices in the charged silence, could taste the dried blood on his bruised lips, could feel a great weight pressing down on him, suffocating him, squeezing the air from his lungs. The drug they’d given him last night hadn’t worn off. He still felt as though he were shifting through separate realities, moving through different realms of consciousness.
Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe he hadn’t gone through with any of it last night. Maybe he’d run like hell, as Hayes had.
He brought a hand to his chest and felt the bandage they’d wrapped around him. This was no dream. He’d done everything they’d told him to last night. This was real.
But where was he now? Was this his bedroom? His home? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He drifted off.
He was awakened by a loud metallic clanging. This time it was he who moved, not the bedroom. He sat up in bed and looked around. His head ached and he was exhausted, his body drained, as though he had been ordered to run a marathon, forced to win.
Clang, clang, clang--coming from downstairs.
He swung his legs around and put his bare feet on the cool hardwood floor--perhaps too quickly, because he became dizzy, disoriented. He licked his tingling lips and fought the urge to lie back down. He wore no clothing. Bandages covered his chest in a bloody patchwork quilt. He was a rich man who had enjoyed a life of excess and greed, and he weighed over 300 pounds. His stomach--hairless and pale and dimpled with fat--rested in his lap like a great ivory-colored balloon, taut and ready to burst.
Clang, clang, clang!
Cole stood, tentatively at first, and shaded his eyes from the resilient sun. Every window was open, every shade was up. It was the middle of winter and the bedroom was freezing. He could see his breath forming before him in little white clouds, could feel his skin shrinking against the cold. He was a man used to comfort and this was ridiculous.
Clang, clang, clang!
“Bebe!” he shouted. “What the hell is that noise?”
Clang, clang, clang!
“Bebe!”
Silence.
“Jesus.”
He had to pee. He looked across the room to the closed bathroom door and thought he’d never make it. But he was stubborn. Resolved, he set off toward the bathroom, but one leg seemed shorter than the other and he stumbled. What had they given him last night? Meth? He couldn’t rememb
er. He hadn’t wanted any drugs. He wanted to experience everything with a clear mind. Had they given Bebe that opportunity? He couldn’t remember that either....
Almost there, almost to the bathroom, his feet shuffling like sandpaper along the cold floor. He reached out a hand to push the bathroom door open but missed it and bumped into the wall.
“Christ,” he said to himself.
He groped his way inside, found the toilet, lifted the seat, lifted his stomach and relieved himself. The house was quiet. All he could hear was his own sigh and the urine shooting into the toilet’s dark blue well of water. He was exhausted. His eyelids were heavy. In the moment he closed them, he heard the urine hit the rim, splash onto the tile floor. Fuck it, he thought. Let Angel clean it up.
He shook himself dry, flushed and reached behind him for the white terry cloth bathrobe hanging on the door. He pulled it around his enormous frame, tied it tight around a stomach that had been flat in youth and shut out the cold. He wanted to brush his teeth, wash his face. He wanted to get rid of every trace of what they’d done to him last night. But when he stepped in front of the marble vanity and looked at himself in the spotless mirror, all Cole could do was stare.
His face was swollen and bloodied and bruised, as though they had beaten him. But all Cole could remember were the hands and the smiles and the screams and the joy and the eyes shining like quicksilver through the darkness. He couldn’t recall being beaten, couldn’t recall any pain.
Tentatively, he brought a hand to his face, touched his numb, bloated right cheek and recoiled when his fingertips met the tender edge of bone. How would he ever explain this? Eventually the media would find out. Eventually all of New York would know that something had happened to Kenneth Cole, the first of twelve who years ago had sold out to the SEC and sent Maximilian Wolfhagen to prison. The press would be all over this. There was a time when his testimony had helped destroy the greatest insider trading ring in financial history.