Don’t Blink

Chapter 46

COURTNEY HAD APPARENTLY been holed up in her large Upper West Side apartment through the weekend. When she finally returned one of my many phone calls that Sunday evening, I convinced her to let me come over.

When she opened the door, she was dressed in baggy sweats, she wasn’t wearing a touch of makeup, and her eyes were so red from all the crying that she could have been the “before” picture in an allergy medication ad.

But to me, she never looked more beautiful. I just wanted to hold her. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t even try under the circumstances.

We hung out in her kitchen and opened up a bottle of Bordeaux. It was a 2003 Branaire-Ducru, her favorite. I couldn’t help wondering if Thomas Ferramore knew that. Did he know any of her favorite things? Maybe he did. Maybe he loved her like I did. Screw Ferramore. Of course he doesn’t.

After a few sips in complete silence, she took the deepest of deep breaths and exhaled. “Go ahead,” she said, “ask the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

Given Ferramore’s bank account it was more like the sixty-four-million-dollar question, but that was a bad joke I wasn’t about to crack. I was also going to do my best to avoid the word supermodel.

Still, I asked the question she wanted – make that needed – me to ask. “Is it true?”

“Tom swears that it isn’t. He even said he’d be able to prove it to me.”

“Do you believe him?” Don’t, Courtney. He’s a super-rich super-scumbag.

Courtney stared down at the wineglass cradled in her hands, the plum red of the Bordeaux reflecting off her ten-carat diamond ring. She was still wearing it.

“I don’t know,” she answered finally.

That was that.

She didn’t ask my opinion. She didn’t want to know what I thought she should do. Perhaps that’s because she already knew. She is that smart.

“Let’s focus on work,” she said. “I’ve got a magazine to run and you might have the biggest story in your life to write. Correct so far?”

I had to smile. She was proving it once again. If Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator, Courtney Sheppard was the Compartmentalizer.

“The police have arrested the wrong man for the murder of Vincent Marcozza,” she continued. “And you’re the only one who can prove it.”

“They maybe arrested the wrong man,” I corrected her. “As for my proving it, I’m nowhere near doing that.”

“Not yet, you’re not. But tomorrow’s another day,” she said. “Tomorrow’s always another day.”

I shot her a look. “What are you up to?” I asked.

There was something about the way she’d said tomorrow, like she had something tricky up her sleeve.

And sure enough, Courtney definitely did.

Chapter 47

“C’MON IN,” said Derrick Phalen of the Organized Crime Task Force, greeting me with an easy smile and a firm handshake at the door of his office in White Plains, New York. As he walked back to his desk, he motioned to an old, beat-up gray chair in front of it that looked to be one fat guy away from total collapse. “Have a seat, if you dare,” he joked, though given the chair’s condition, it wasn’t all that funny.

“Thanks,” I said, gingerly settling in. Then I reported, “Made it okay.”

Quickly glancing around the young prosecutor’s modest office, I came to an equally quick conclusion. This guy worked for a living. His desk was absolutely covered in paperwork while files as thick as phone books surrounded him like a moat.

But it was the little yellow stickies of notes and phone numbers that really caught my eye. They were stuck to every conceivable surface – his computer, desk lamp, stapler, coffee mug, even the framed diploma from the Fordham School of Law hanging on the wall.

“So how do you know Courtney?” I asked. “She didn’t tell me all the details.”

“I was roommates with her brother, Mike, at Middlebury College,” he said.

I immediately felt as if I’d put my foot in my mouth, even though I knew I really hadn’t. “Oh” was all I could manage.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know. We’re coming up on ten years since Mike died, and I still can’t believe he’s gone.” He rubbed his chin, reflecting. “He was a helluva guy. In fact, I was actually in Manhattan that morning and we were supposed to have lunch together. He even left a message on my cell phone to confirm twenty minutes before the first plane hit.” Phalen paused for a moment. “I still listen to it from time to time.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Hey, no, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to be a downer on our first date.” He sat up in his chair, snapping his shoulders straight. “So tell me, what can I do for you? And for Courtney.”

To tell you the truth, Derrick Phalen, I’m not sure. That’s what I’m here to find out.

“Did Courtney give you any of the background?” I asked. “Anything at all?”

“Only that you wanted to talk to me about Eddie Pinero,” he said. “I assume it’s for an article you’re writing for Citizen. Right so far?”

“Yes, hopefully,” I said. Instinctively, I reached into my leather bag to retrieve my tape recorder. I placed it on his desk.

Immediately, Phalen looked at it like Superman does kryptonite.

“I’m sorry, Nick,” he said. “As I told Courtney, I’m happy to talk to you, but I can’t go on record – or for that matter be recorded – when it comes to anyone this office has investigated. Them’s the rules.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I said. It was the first and only time I wasn’t a hundred percent on the level with the guy. He’d soon know why.

“No worries,” he said. “It’s just that when you work for the Organized Crime Task Force, you try to limit how much your name appears in print.”

“I can certainly appreciate that,” I said. I then held up my tape recorder, giving it the same kryptonite look Phalen had. “Actually, this thing has been nothing but trouble for me lately.”

“What do you mean?” asked Phalen.

Bingo, there it is. My opening.

A week ago I was worried that word about my recording of Vincent Marcozza’s killer would leak. Now here I was about to leak it myself.

“You might say I’m the reason Eddie Pinero is in jail for murder right now,” I said. “How’s that for an opening line?”

Phalen leaned back in his chair, a knowing smile filling his lean face. “Holy shit, it was you. All I’d heard was that someone had accidentally recorded Vincent Marcozza’s killer at Lombardo’s.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “Because I don’t think it was an accident.”

I expected Phalen to immediately ask me what I meant by that. He didn’t.

Instead he stood up and asked me a question I never would’ve guessed in a million years.

Chapter 48

“DO YOU LIKE pasta fagioli?” asked Phalen.

Huh? Come again? Bizarre soup segues for a thousand, Alex?

Phalen didn’t wait for my answer. “I know this place right across the street that serves the best pasta fagioli you’ll ever have. Best in White Plains, anyway. C’mon, we’ll get a bowl, have some lunch.”

The next thing I knew, I was following the guy out of his office and to the elevator bank on his floor. What’s going on? I was thinking as we walked – kind of fast, actually.

I was no psychic, but this much I could figure out: Derrick Phalen didn’t want to be in his office when we discussed Eddie Pinero’s involvement – or rather, noninvolvement – in Vincent Marcozza’s murder.

He had his reasons, I’m sure. Hopefully he’d explain them to me over lunch. Bring on the pasta fagioli!

Not quite yet, though. No sooner did the elevator arrive than we were stopped by a man’s voice coming from down the hall. He was calling out Phalen’s name.

Immediately, Phalen muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” he answered. “I was just saying we’ll catch the next elevator.”

But I was almost positive that wasn’t what he’d said. In fact, I was pretty sure he’d muttered only two words. Holy shit.

As if he couldn’t believe something. Like what? This bruiser coming down the hall?

“Oh, hey, Ian,” said Phalen as the man caught up to us at the elevator. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he said. “You got a minute?”

The two of them started to talk shop for a bit – at least, I think that’s what they were doing. I tuned out mostly, my ears giving way to my eyes and how different these two guys were physically. Derrick Phalen was a lean, compact man with short-cropped brown hair and a square jaw. Ian LaGrange was much taller and considerably wider. To be blunt, the word fat came to mind. So did the all-you-can-eat buffet at Caesars Palace in Vegas.

Of course, I didn’t even know then that Ian LaGrange was, well, Ian LaGrange.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Phalen, suddenly realizing he hadn’t introduced me. “Ian, this is Nick Daniels.”

“Nice to meet you, Nick,” said LaGrange as we shook hands.

Phalen turned to me. “Ian’s the deputy attorney general in charge of the Organized Crime Task Force. Or, as I like to call him, the Godfather.”

“It does have a nice ring to it, I have to admit,” LaGrange said, smiling through his scruffy beard. “So where are you guys heading?”

“We’re getting a quick bite to eat,” said Phalen. “Just across the street.”

LaGrange glanced down. “You’re wearing your vest?” he asked. “Derrick?”

“We’re only going across the street,” Phalen repeated.

“Yeah, and Lincoln was just going to the theater. Go put it on.”

Phalen shot LaGrange an exasperated look that reminded me of a teenage son catching heat from his father.

“Vest?” I asked.

“Bulletproof vest,” said Phalen before turning around for his office. “I’ll be right back.”

Wait a minute. The guy needed a bulletproof vest to go out in public? More important, where was mine?

“Hey, we could always order in!” I called after him. It sounded funny but I wasn’t really joking.

“Don’t worry, it’s just office policy,” said LaGrange, trying to reassure me. “There’s never been an attempt on anyone working for the OCTF.”

I was going to make some crack about there always being a first time for everything, but I bit my tongue. I’d only just met this guy. I didn’t know his sense of humor or for that matter anything else about him. Except his size.

“So what line of work are you in, Nick?” he asked. Very cool and casual-like.

Uh-oh. Careful, now.

“I’m a writer,” I said.

“No kidding. What do you write?”

“Articles, mostly. I work for Citizen magazine. You heard of it?”

“Sure have. Is that why you’re here to see Derrick?” he asked. “To do an article?”

There was no outright concern in his voice, but I knew subtext when I heard it. No way he was asking just to make idle conversation in the hallway.

And I wasn’t about to give an answer that could get Phalen in any kind of trouble.

“No. Derrick’s actually helping me out with some background on a novel I’m writing,” I said. “Verisimilitude and all that.”

“No kidding. We help out on the Alex Cross books sometimes.”

“Never read them,” I said.

I watched closely as LaGrange nodded, relieved when he quickly changed the subject. He asked which restaurant we were going to.

“Actually, I don’t know,” I told him.

He seemed to believe me. And as far as I could tell, LaGrange didn’t know that I was lying about why I was in his building to see Phalen.

He had bought the novel line.

At least that’s what I thought.

Only it turned out Ian LaGrange knew exactly what I was up to. The real surprise, however, was how the big man knew.

As Phalen had said himself…

Holy shit.

And then some.

Chapter 49

DERRICK PHALEN RETURNED to his office after lunch with Nick Daniels and did very little but stare up at the grid of white ceiling tiles above his desk. He stared at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes straight. The prosecutor had a lot to digest and it certainly wasn’t the pasta fagioli. It wasn’t even the very interesting story he’d just heard from Nick Daniels.

“Knock, knock,” came a voice at his door.

Instinctively Phalen looked to see who it was, but he really didn’t need to. He knew it was Ian LaGrange, and not because of his boss’s all-too-familiar baritone.

No, he expected the Godfather to be dropping by sooner or later. Probably sooner.

“Hey, Ian, what’s up?”

“Not much,” said LaGrange. “How was your lunch with the writer – the novelist?”

Phalen rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling tiles. “Don’t ask. All I can say is, that’s the last time I do a favor for a friend.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“That guy I introduced you to at the elevator is a writer for Citizen magazine. As a favor to his editor I agreed to give him some research, a little help for a novel he’s working on. Only it turns out there’s no novel.”

“I don’t follow,” said LaGrange. “What was he here for, then?”

“It was a ruse,” said Phalen. “What the guy actually wanted to do was sell me on this crazy idea that it wasn’t Eddie Pinero who ordered the hit on Vincent Marcozza. What kind of bullshit is that?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I were. The guy’s a real conspiracy nut. It was like having lunch with Oliver Stone.”

LaGrange laughed. “So if Eddie Pinero didn’t order the hit on Marcozza, who did? In his opinion?”

“That’s the thing. He didn’t know.”

“Gee, and let me guess, he wanted your help in finding out.”

“Exactly,” said Phalen.

“So what did you tell him?”

“A polite version of Go sell your crazy somewhere else, you nutbag. What else could I do?”

“Thatta boy,” said LaGrange, tipping an imaginary cap at Phalen. “Keep your distance from the guy, okay? Writers like that, all they can spell is trouble for everybody concerned.”

“Consider it done.”

As LaGrange strolled off, Phalen leaned back in his chair, his eyes finding their way back up to the white ceiling tiles. Slowly, he exhaled.

He’d been holding his breath the entire time, hoping that LaGrange would believe him.

It hadn’t been easy.

Hell, no. Ian LaGrange – the Godfather – hadn’t gotten to where he was by being anybody’s fool. Bluffing him was like tap dancing to ZZ Top on a tightrope.

But it was nothing compared to what Phalen was going to do next.

Chapter 50

“I CAN’T FREAKIN’ believe I’m doing this,” Phalen muttered to himself as he slowly walked down the deserted and dark hallway of the OCTF offices at close to midnight that same evening.

But of course he could believe he was doing this. He even knew why.

If he’d learned anything in his nearly three years with the Task Force, it was that his family of fellow prosecutors actually shared one major similarity with the Mafia families they were trying to take down: the motto Never Trust Anyone.

Including the Godfather.

Granted, it was impossible to work for the OCTF without succumbing to a little paranoia. Phalen didn’t have to look any further than the standard-issue bulletproof vest.

But worrying about your enemies in the mob was one thing. Worrying about the people who worked for you – that they weren’t loyal or, worse, they were out to get you – was entirely another.

Enter: Ian LaGrange.

Were it not for a spilled cup of coffee, Phalen may never have found the bug planted beneath the enter key of his computer’s keyboard. When he did, though, he had no question who had planted it.

He just had no proof.

So he left the bug alone.

Phalen went about his business, knowing that LaGrange could hear everything in his office at any time. For others, that might have been an awful burden – always having to choose your words carefully, always acting like the good soldier.

For Phalen, however, it was like being given the answers to a test in advance.

He always knew the smart thing to say in every situation. He always had a heads-up.

Right up until that afternoon, when he had asked Nick Daniels if he liked pasta fagioli so they could get out of his office and talk in private.

That’s when the big surprise had come.

The six-foot-four Ian LaGrange had come bounding down the hallway from his office almost like a linebacker for the New York Giants. Right then and there Phalen had known this seemingly coincidental meeting at the elevator was no coincidence.

LaGrange was very interested in Nick Daniels and what he had to say about Eddie Pinero and Vincent Marcozza. A little too interested, in fact.

Something wasn’t right about this. It stunk to high heaven already.

That’s why Phalen was about to return the favor to LaGrange.

Patiently, he waited in his office until everyone else had gone home for the night. He even waited out the cleaning crew until they’d emptied every last can and mop pail.

Now it was just him and a little birdie.

A Flex-8 “F-Bird,” to be exact. The latest, most sophisticated digital recording device used by none other than the OCTF itself. Battery powered, smaller than a quarter, and on its way to a brand-new home.

The Godfather’s office.

Phalen slowly turned the doorknob at the end of the hall and stepped inside, quiet as a mouse.

Or a bug.

Here’s listening to you, Ian.

Chapter 51

I HAD TO ADMIT, Derrick Phalen knew his pasta fagioli. It was good stuff, very good. Reminded me of my favorite Italian restaurant in the world, Il Cena’Colo, back in my home-town of Newburgh.

But even better than Phalen’s pasta fagioli was what came with it – and I’m not talking about a piece of Italian bread. It was my next move.

Thanks for the jump start, Courtney.

Phalen had listened calmly to everything I said at lunch, asking a logical question here and there, but mostly listening. He wasn’t about to print up any “Free Eddie Pinero” T-shirts, but he didn’t look at me as if I were crazy, either.

What he did do was take a pen from his pocket and write a phone number on a napkin.

“I know a guy out in Greenwich who might be able to help you,” he said, pushing the napkin toward me. “Call him and make an appointment.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Hoodie Brown.”

“Hoodie?”

“You’ll see when you meet him. Tell him you’re a friend of mine. That’s all.”

“What does he do?”

“You’ll see,” Phalen said again.

I shrugged my shoulders. Okeydokey.

The following afternoon I was on a Metro-North train out to Greenwich, Connecticut, for a two o’clock appointment with someone named Hoodie Brown. When I’d told him on the phone “Derrick Phalen sent me,” it was as if I’d delivered the secret password at the door of an underground nightclub. I was in.

“Follow me,” said the receptionist at his office.

Greenwich was the capital of the hedge fund world, but what I was doing in the lobby of one such company I had no idea. D.A.C. Investments? Why would Phalen send me to a trader?

He hadn’t. The receptionist, a tall, slender brunette who looked as if she’d stepped off the set of a Vogue magazine shoot, led me past a long, bustling trading floor to a quiet office tucked away in the back of the building. That’s where I met Hoodie Brown.

The name made sense immediately.

Not only was the man who shook my hand wearing a hooded sweatshirt – gray, with the Caltech insignia – he actually had the hood pulled over his head à la the Unabomber. Hell, this guy even looked a little like the Unabomber.

“So, who’s the P.I.Q.?” he asked, settling in behind his desk. I noticed there was no place for me to sit. No chair, no couch. Nada for visitors.

“P.I.Q.?” I asked.

“Person in question,” he explained. “Who are we investigating?”

Oh. “Dwayne Robinson,” I said. “The pitcher for -”

“I know who he is,” said Hoodie. “Or was.”

“Specifically, I’m looking to see if he has any ties to organized crime,” I added.

Hoodie nodded and began tapping away on one of the three keyboards lined up on his desk. At least twice as many computer screens stared back at him.

“Are you a private investigator?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even acknowledge that I’d asked him a question.

“We’ll pull up all domestic bank statements and any police records to start,” he said barely above a whisper. “Then we’ll see if he has an FBI file. It shouldn’t take too long.”

My jaw literally dropped. An FBI file? It shouldn’t take too long?

“How are you able to do this?” I asked incredulously.

“One-hundred-and-twenty-gigabyte fiber-optic connection speeds,” he answered.

“No, I mean -”

“I know what you meant, friend. The answer is, you don’t want to know. You may think you do, but trust me, you don’t.”

If you say so, Hoodie… whoever you are.

I suddenly felt like a little kid swimming into the deep end for the very first time. Maybe I’d be fine.

Or maybe I was in way, way over my head.

And to be honest, I knew the answer to that one. Worse, I still wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest like Derrick Phalen had.

Chapter 52

I STOOD THERE quietly in Hoodie Brown’s office, watching and waiting, respectful. Nearly shivering, too. The damn room felt like a meat locker, it was kept so cold. Hoodie, of course, was dressed appropriately. I sure wasn’t.

Thankfully, the guy was right and the wait wasn’t too long. After another few minutes, Hoodie looked up from his slew of computers for the first time.

“Do you know a Sam Tagaletto?” he asked.

The name didn’t mean anything to me. “No,” I said. “Never heard of him.”

“Apparently Dwayne Robinson did. About a month ago, he wrote him two checks over the span of a week. Both were for fifty grand.”

“I didn’t think Dwayne had that kind of money anymore. I’m almost sure of it.”

“He didn’t,” said Hoodie. “Both checks bounced.”

Red flag, anyone?

“So who’s Sam Tagaletto?” I asked.

“Definitely not a Boy Scout, that’s for sure. He’s been arrested twice for illegal bookmaking, among other things, once in Florida and most recently here in New York,” he said.

“How recent?”

“A year ago. He got six months’ probation.”

“Anything about his having ties to the mob?” I asked. Hoodie cocked his head in my direction. “You mean other than his being a bookie?”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m looking for actual names. Maybe somebody I have heard of.”

“Give me another minute on that,” said Hoodie.

He went back to the keyboard, his fingers tapping away almost as fast as my mind was racing.

Think, Nick. What does all this mean? What could it mean?

Dwayne Robinson had owed a bookie a big chunk of change and couldn’t pay it off. He hadn’t bounced just one check to this guy, Sam Tagaletto, he’d bounced two.

Maybe that’s why Dwayne had killed himself. Or had gotten thrown out of a window by somebody. Because he’d owed money to a bookie and had showed disrespect.

But there had to be more to it than that. It was now officially impossible to believe that my being at the table next to Vincent Marcozza had been a coincidence.

But if it indeed had been a setup like Pinero told me, then who had set it up?

Dwayne Robinson? I doubted it. Dwayne had been a former major league pitcher, not a former brain surgeon.

Or had it been someone else and that’s what Dwayne had wanted to tell me?

All I knew was that it was time to get to know a certain Sam Tagaletto a little better. Presuming I could find him.

“Do you have a current address for this guy?” I finally asked Hoodie. “Tagaletto?”

He was already two steps ahead of me. I’d no sooner finished the question than the purr of a printer filled the room. Hoodie handed me not only Tagaletto’s last known address but also his latest mug shots.

“Anything else I can do for you?” he asked.

Yeah, you can tell me what the hell you’re doing working for a hedge fund firm. On second thought, never mind. I probably don’t want to know that, either.

“No, that’s more than enough,” I answered. “Thanks a lot, man.”

I shook Hoodie’s hand, thanked him again, and was about to show myself out the door.

“Oh, one more thing,” he said. “It goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway. This meeting never took place.”

I nodded. “What meeting?”

Chapter 53

I WAS NEVER one to keep secrets from Courtney, personally or professionally. Nonetheless, I felt I owed it to Hoodie Brown – not to mention Derrick Phalen – to keep mum on the meeting that had supposedly never happened.

What I did plan to tell Courtney was that Phalen had promised to try to help me out, albeit on the down low. That wasn’t a lie; it just wasn’t the entire truth. A sin of omission, as they say. Or, as one of my journalism professors at North-western used to put it, “The truth may set you free, but it’s the little white lie that will save your ass.”

Now if Courtney would only return my call.

There was no answer on her cell, and when I rang her secretary, M.J. told me Courtney had left the office without saying where she was going.

Of course, the last time Courtney did that, Thomas Ferramore had stopped by the office with news of a certain supermodel’s YouTube video.

Why was I suddenly getting a weird feeling again?

The answer came soon enough as I stepped off the train back from Greenwich. Walking through Grand Central Station I passed a newsstand just as a guy was stacking the late edition of the New York Post.

Voilà! There she was again, the French supermodel Marbella, on the cover with yet another glass of champagne in her hand and a mischievous smile.

“JUST KIDDING!” read the headline.

Fifty cents later I was standing off to the side, my head buried among the pages.

Apparently Marbella had given an interview to a French television station claiming – au contraire – that she’d never actually slept with Thomas Ferramore. It had all been a bad joke, she insisted, and she deeply regretted any problems it may have caused the billionaire or his “lovely fiancée” in America.

Yeah, right. Color me sold, sweetheart.

But there was more.

And on the believability scale, it was actually a bit more convincing, or at least creative.

The CEO of ParisJet, the company in France that Ferramore was negotiating to buy, had told the French business magazine Les Echos that Ferramore had been in talks with him day and night for his entire trip.

“Trust me, Mr. Ferramore had no time for any funny business or hanky-panky business,” read the money quote.

I closed the Post and tucked it beneath my arm, walking toward the Lexington Avenue exit to hail a taxi. I could feel the whoosh of commuters rushing by me for their trains and the vibration of their footsteps against the wide marble floor.

But what I really felt was numb, confused, and more than a little lost.

For sure, Courtney hadn’t been scooped by the Post. She had to be up to speed on this latest twist and turn in her marital saga. Ferramore probably even made sure of it. Why wouldn’t he? It was alibi city.

But was she buying it?

The verdict rang in my pocket no more than a minute later. Courtney was finally calling me back.

“I saw the story. Do you know what you’re going to do now?” I asked her.

“I do,” she answered.

Chapter 54

IT WASN’T THE words themselves but the way Courtney said them. As if she were already standing at the altar with Thomas Ferramore.

“I do.”

I immediately fell silent on the phone. There was no need for Courtney to officially break the news. It was broken. Just like my heart.

“I need you to understand, Nick,” she said. “I’m marrying Tom, but I need you to be there for me.”

“I was there for you,” I said.

“I know you were. Promise me you won’t stop now. Do you promise?”

What could I say? As much as I loved her, she had always been my friend first, before anything else.

“Please,” she said, pressing me. “Do you promise? I need to hear the actual words, Nick.”

I took a deep breath and swallowed it along with my pride.

“I do,” I said.

Of course, little did I know how fast I’d have to make good on that promise.

A few hours later, with the sun setting over Manhattan, I arrived downtown at the North Cove Marina to climb aboard Sweet Revenge, Thomas Ferramore’s 180-foot Trinity megayacht. I’ve seen much smaller houses. Actually, I grew up in one.

In a word? Wow.

At the bow stood the bar, and at the stern was the live jazz band, a really good combo. In between was a veritable who’s who of publishing, fashion, and what remained of the decimated ranks of the banking and Wall Street elite.

You get one guess as to where I headed first, and it wasn’t to shake Thomas Ferramore’s hand.

“I’ll have a Laphroaig Fifteen Year Old,” I said to the rent-a-bartender, who barely looked old enough to drive, let alone serve drinks.

The young man looked at me as if I’d just spoken Swahili to him. “A what?” he asked.

“A Laphroaig Fifteen Year Old,” came a voice over my shoulder.

It was Courtney, and in her hand was an entire bottle of my favorite Scotch whisky.

“Here,” she said, handing the bottle to the bartender. “Please keep this behind the bar for Mr. Daniels, and Mr. Daniels only.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, quickly pouring me a double. “Laphroaig Fifteen Year Old.”

Courtney took my arm as we moved away from the bar. “Thanks so much for coming,” she said. “It means the world to me. You’re the best.”

Apparently not, but I took a big swig of excellent whisky and winked at her. “What are friends for?” I said.

She gave me a huge smile and leaned in to tell me something, when the music suddenly stopped. It was replaced by the sound of a knife tapping on crystal. Oh boy, Thomas Ferramore wanted to make a toast.

Once again he had come between Courtney and me. I guessed I’d better get used to it.

“C’mon up here, sweetheart!” he bellowed, standing up straight and proud on the captain’s deck. He was wearing a faux white naval jacket replete with shoulder boards and a sleeve insignia. Two blond women flanked him, both very pretty, and I figured they were his PR team. Was this guy for real? I couldn’t understand what Courtney saw in him. Not even when I tried extra hard.

As she made her way to join him, Ferramore thanked everyone for coming on such short notice “to this wonderful celebration of love.” That brought a rousing cheer from the entire crowd. Minus me, of course. I had one hand in my pocket and I was wiggling my middle finger at him.

Ferramore took no offense and continued: “Courtney and I wanted to make it very clear this evening that no rumor, no unfounded gossip, no nonsense whatsoever, will ever get the better of us. We can ride out any storm that comes our way!”

Ferramore turned to face Courtney, pulling her tightly into his arms. As the two of them kissed, he thrust his hand high in triumph. An even louder cheer erupted from the crowd of his friends, or whoever these hordes of overdressed people were.

Right on cue the first firework exploded in the night air, a beautiful collage of rainbow colors mixing with a sea of stars. It was an amazing spectacle, actually.

But the real spectacle that night was yet to come, and of course, I would be part of it.

Chapter 55

I’D SPENT THE afternoon with Hoodie.

Now here I was with Houdini.

Thomas Ferramore had just pulled off the impossible, a trick for the ages. He had escaped the seemingly inescapable bind he’d been in, and he’d made it look easy.

Deep down, Courtney may have still had some suspicions, but there on his yacht, for all of Manhattan ’s glitterati to see, Ferramore still had his prize. That’s all that mattered to him.

And me.

I should’ve stolen a page from Courtney’s playbook and put everything into a box.

Instead, I put it all into a glass… and drank it.

After about an hour at the party, and after the youthful rent-a-bartender decided that my drinking two-thirds of a bottle of whisky was clearly one-third too many, I decided I would tell Thomas Ferramore exactly what I thought of his marrying Courtney.

Only I couldn’t find him. So I did the next worst thing.

I told Courtney.

Cornering her along the starboard railing, I slurred the truth to her in a voice somewhat louder than it should have been. “You can’t marry him! You’re making a mistake! Don’t you see what a mistake this is? You’re smart – so act smart, Courtney.”

Her eyes filled with tears as everyone within earshot turned to gawk at the scene I was making. Courtney was so upset, she could barely get the words out.

“All I see is someone drunk who just broke his promise to me,” she said.

She walked away then, leaving me alone – unless, of course, you count all the lookie-loos still watching. That’s when I really gave them their money’s worth. All that whisky in my otherwise empty stomach churned and sloshed its way up past my heartache and back out through its original port of entry. Right there over the starboard railing, with an ear-wrenching heave-ho, I power-fed the fishes.

I should’ve been embarrassed to death, but that’s the temporary beauty of being drunk: complete lack of self-awareness. Still, I did manage one decent decision – to go find a bathroom to wash up so I could hail a cab home without scaring off the driver.

Parting the deck crowd like Moses with the measles, I babbled while stumbling and bumbling off. “A bathroom… a bathroom… my kingdom for a bathroom.”

No one laughed, and I guess I couldn’t blame them for that. I had let myself become a complete horse’s ass on Courtney’s special night. I had let my best friend down.

I entered the main galley and immediately began twisting every doorknob in sight down a long hallway. It figured that every room was locked.

Finally one door opened. As I groped for a light switch, all I could think was, Please, Lord, let this be a bathroom!

But as the room lit up, I couldn’t believe my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I blurted out. “This can’t be for real!”

Chapter 56

IT WAS LIKE the game of Clue, only the sex-addict edition. Thomas Ferramore… in the supply room… with his pants down around his ankles.

In front of him was a young and very pretty blonde on her knees. Needless to say, she wasn’t praying. I wasn’t sure, but I thought she was one of the PR ladies who had been with him on the deck.

Panic flashed across Ferramore’s face, but amazingly, it vanished almost as fast as it had arrived. Apparently you don’t get to be a billionaire without being able to think quickly on your feet, even with your dick hanging out.

“Get up, honey,” he said calmly to the young blonde. “Go enjoy the rest of the party.”

She quickly buttoned her white blouse, dabbed at her lips, and hurried out the door. I suppose I couldn’t blame her, but not once did she look at me.

Meanwhile, that’s all Ferramore could do. His dark eyes bored straight into mine. He was staring, unblinking. And of all goddamn things, he started to smile.

“So, you caught me,” he said, the second we were alone. “Now what are you going to do about it? You have a plan of action yet?”

The son of a bitch hadn’t even bothered to pull up his pants.

“What do you think I’m going to do about it?” I shot back. “At your own engagement party? After what you said to Courtney up there?”

He shook his head and laughed some more. “It’s your word against mine and your word is pretty drunk, isn’t it?”

“Not so drunk that I’m blind, pal. I saw what I saw.”

In fact, I suddenly felt as if I’d downed a dozen cups of coffee. Not quite sober as a judge, but the thoughts and words were forming just fine.

“Do you even love Courtney?” I asked.

“Does that even matter?”

“It does to me.”

He laughed again. “Yes, I know it does,” he said. “You love her madly, right? That’s probably why you felt it was okay to fuck her when you knew she was engaged to me.”

That stopped me cold. How did he know that?

“She told you?” I asked in disbelief.

His laugh grew louder, a booming cackle now, and it dawned on me that there was another explanation.

“Christ, you had her followed.”

“I always look after my investments, Nick – force of habit. In a way, all it proves is that Courtney and I are meant for each other. In fact, for your sake, you should feel lucky I was okay with it.”

“Tell you what, then,” I said. “Since you know about Courtney and me, why don’t we go tell her about what I just walked in on and she can decide for herself.”

“You do that and you can kiss your sweet job at Citizen magazine good-bye.”

“Yeah, but I’d sure be going out with a bang.”

“Yes, you sure would. Too bad about Courtney, though. She’d be out of a job, too. You understand that, of course.”

Checkmate! And he knew it, too. Citizen was Courtney’s baby, the joy of her life.

Ferramore finally reached down and pulled up his trousers. “To show you there are no hard feelings, though, how about I cut you a check and we forget this whole thing ever happened.”

Was this prick really trying to buy me off? That was the worst insult yet.

“That depends,” I said. “What does your being caught getting a blow job go for these days?”

“That’s a very good question,” came a trembling voice over my shoulder. “What does it go for, Tom?”

Chapter 57

I SPUN AROUND to see Courtney leaning against the doorway, her arms folded tightly, as if she was hugging herself for comfort. Her eyes were shooting so many sharpened daggers at Ferramore, I practically had to duck.

No one had to ask how long she’d been standing there or how much she’d heard.

She’d obviously heard enough.

But there were no tears like she had had with me out on the deck. She wasn’t sad now, she was angry – mad as hell at Ferramore and even more pissed off at herself. I thought I knew what she was thinking: How could I have been so stupid?

“So tell me, Tom, what did you have to pay your little French supermodel to change her story? How much was that check?” she demanded to know.

I expected Ferramore to show at least a little remorse here. Maybe even a little class.

Boy, was I ever wrong. The rich have such incredibly high opinions of themselves.

The prick smirked. “Hell, she was cheap compared with that CEO of ParisJet. I actually had to buy his company.”

All at once, Courtney yanked off her ten-carat diamond ring and threw a fastball at Ferramore’s chest.

“C’mon, Nick, let’s go,” she said.

It was the four most beautiful words she, or anybody, had ever said to me.

“I hope you two are extremely happy together,” chirped Ferramore as he buckled his trousers. “Oh, and by the way, you’re both fired! Good luck finding new jobs.”

“Don’t worry, we will,” Courtney shot back. “You see, I get to start over. But you? You’ll always be a scumbag!”

Brava, Courtney!

She turned and walked off, and I was about to follow in her steps, but I just couldn’t help myself. The moment was too good; I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.

“By the way, Ferramore,” I said, glancing down at his ridiculous white jacket, “Captain Stubing from The Love Boat called. He wants his uniform back.”

Chapter 58

IN THE MOVIES, Courtney and I would have made mad, passionate love all night long to the tune of a saxophone sound track. Then we would’ve blissfully woken up in each other’s arms without a single hair out of place.

So much for the movies, which don’t seem to get it right very often anyway.

I didn’t have Courtney in my arms or anywhere else in my apartment the next morning. What I did have, however, was a terrific hangover and a severe case of bed head that would’ve scared Lyle Lovett.

As upset as Courtney had been as she’d stormed off Ferramore’s yacht, she’d known better than to engage in any “Sweet Revenge” scenarios with me. And as drunk as I had been, I really hadn’t been looking for anything more than a kiss on the cheek. Maybe. After all, I had been beyond obnoxious at the party, and I’d broken my promise to her.

“We’ll be making two stops,” Courtney had told the cab driver. “First his apartment, and then mine.” But she held my hand for the entire ride and indeed gave me that kiss on the cheek when we rolled up to my place. And that’s how the night ended.

At least, I’m fairly sure that’s how it ended. It was all still fuzzy in the a.m. In fact, it wasn’t until I’d taken in some hot, über-strong coffee and a cold shower that I managed my first lucid thought.

According to Thomas Ferramore I was no longer employed by Citizen magazine. Just like that, I was suddenly out of a great job, probably the best one I’d ever had. Pink-slipped. Canned for doing the right thing.

But I still had work to do. I had my mission impossible to try to accomplish.

Armed with an address and some ugly mug shot photos courtesy of Hoodie Brown, I headed out to the South Bronx in search of Sam Tagaletto. Ironically, he lived less than six blocks from Yankee Stadium. Was that how he’d first met Dwayne?

Tagaletto’s home was on the second floor of a decrepit corner brownstone, the bricks of which looked to be literally crumbling when not outright missing. This guy apparently didn’t care much about curb appeal.

Or, for that matter, who wandered into his building off the street.

Not only was there no buzzer system, the front door was actually propped open with – what else? – one of the bricks from the building’s façade.

My plan once inside was fairly simple. So simple, in fact, any eight-year-old could have done it and probably had. Ring and run!

After climbing the stairs, I rapped my knuckles hard against the door of apartment 2 – B before dashing up to the third floor. I needed a glimpse of Tagaletto to make sure it was really him – assuming he was home.

He was.

After the sharp snap! of a turning dead bolt, the door to his apartment opened as wide as its chain lock would let it. That’s when I saw him – tall, skinny, and with a narrow, mottled face not even a mother could love. Hell, this guy looked worse in real life than in his terrible mug shots.

I stole another peek down through the third-floor railing as Tagaletto glanced left and right with his dark, deep-set eyes. Then, like a turtle, he retreated back into his apartment.

I settled in for the wait.

Hopefully, the guy would soon have places to go and people to see, any one of which could be the break I was looking for. I needed to get lucky. Then again, with my luck the guy would turn out to be a hermit. Sam Tagaletto, the agoraphobic bookie of the South Bronx…

Great, just great.

Less than half an hour later, though, I heard it once again – the sound of a turning dead bolt.

Yes! Sam Tagaletto was leaving his apartment. Now, where was he going? And could I follow him without being spotted and getting the shit kicked out of me?

Chapter 59

I COULD COUNT on one hand how many times in my life I’d ever “tailed” someone. And I’d still have five fingers left over.

This was a new feeling, all right, including the relentless pounding of my heart as I fell in line behind Tagaletto out on the street. How close is too close?

Best not to find out, I decided. I kept a safe distance for the first few blocks, nearly losing him once when he turned a corner at a busy intersection. In fact, were it not for Tagaletto’s nicotine habit I would’ve lost him for sure along the crowded sidewalk. All I had to do was keep my eye on the gray cloud hovering over his head. The guy smoked more than a chimney in the wintertime.

Lean and scraggly, Tagaletto wasn’t exactly the physically imposing type. But somehow, some way, he still managed to look menacing. Maybe it was the “don’t fuck with me” walk. He definitely had that down pat.

For another few blocks I kept right in line behind him. Until, finally, he made another turn, disappearing from view in a maze of storefronts.

Immediately I began to sprint. Tagaletto had gone down a narrow alley next to a pizza parlor, its red neon sign glowing in the window: SLICE OF HEAVEN.

“Shit, where is he?” I mumbled, reaching the alley and peering around the corner. Out of breath, all I could see were piles of garbage lining both sides and no one in between. Slowly, I started to walk. Where the hell did he go?

I saw the most probable answer halfway down. It was a metallic door, the only one. If I had to bet, it led into the kitchen of Slice of Heaven, but that’s as close as I wanted to get. My nose was telling me this was a bad place to be, and it had nothing to do with the smell of pepperoni and onions in the air.

I was about to turn around and get the hell out of there, when I heard the door in the alley begin to open, the sound of rusted hinges ricocheting off the walls. I quickly moved behind a Dumpster that reeked so badly I put my sleeve over my nose.

There were maybe two inches of daylight between the piled garbage and the wall, just enough to catch a glimpse of Tagaletto stepping back outside.

He was lighting a cigarette. And he wasn’t alone.

Holy shit.

I recognized the other guy right away. How could I not? He was Carmine Zambratta, a.k.a. the Zamboni.

There was never a more fitting nickname for a mob guy. Zambratta not only looked like a Zamboni – the machine that smooths the ice at hockey rinks – he acted like one. From what I knew, he was a fixer, the kind of guy used when there was a “rough patch” that needed smoothing over. All of New York knew his face. Countless times his mug had graced the covers of the city’s tabloids – and each time the headline was a variation on the same theme. Not guilty!

Zambratta’s ability to escape conviction was rivaled by only one other mob figure. That would be Eddie “The Prince” Pinero.

So why was I so surprised to see Zambratta?

Possibly because he didn’t report to Eddie Pinero. Just the opposite. The Zamboni worked for a rival boss by the name of Joseph D’zorio.

It took me a few seconds to do anything besides stare at the two mob guys. Then I reached for my pocket. Looking down, I searched for the camera application on my iPhone. Raising the phone, I eyed the screen to center Tagaletto and Zambratta in the picture I was about to take.

Shit. Now what had happened?

Zambratta was gone. Where the hell had he disappeared to?

“I’m right here, cocksucker,” I suddenly heard as the nose of a gun hit my cheek.

Chapter 60

“DO I KNOW YOU?” Zambratta asked, his tone already anticipating my expected answer.

“No,” I said, trying not to shake. God only knows what my tone sounded like. Scared shitless, probably. Out of my league, out of my element, out of my mind?

“You’re right, I don’t know you,” he said. “So how do you know me?”

“I don’t.”

Zambratta cocked his gun, the click! echoing in my ear. “Don’t bullshit me,” he said. “Everybody knows me. I’m a legend.”

I tried to breathe normally but it was becoming next to impossible. “I know who you are,” I corrected myself. “What I meant was, I didn’t know you’d be here.” What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I turned slightly, my eyes meeting his for a split second.

He was very intense and focused, and I saw enough to know that he was trying to decide what to do with me.

“Sam!” he called out.

Tagaletto walked over to the Dumpster, his latest cigarette dangling from his thin lips. “What a stink,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Who is he?”

“You tell me,” said Zambratta. “You’re the one brought him here.”

“I’ve never seen him before. No idea who this idiot is.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“What’s your name?” Zambratta asked me.

My first thought was to make one up. Thankfully, my second, somewhat more rational thought prevailed. “Nick Daniels,” I answered.

“Turn and face the wall, Nick,” said Zambratta, backing up a few steps. I’d barely heard the words before Tagaletto stepped in and gave me some help – courtesy of a hard shove. As soon as my palms slammed against the bricks, he frisked me.

Out came my wallet.

“Hey,” I said instinctively, but then I shut myself up.

“Turn back around,” ordered Zambratta. “But keep your hands nice and high.”

When I did, I saw Tagaletto checking my driver’s license. He gave Zambratta a nod. I was telling the truth. Did that count for something with mob guys? Probably not.

“So who the hell are you, Nick Daniels?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“Ahhh. So were you following Sam?”

So much for the truth. It was time to lie. C’mon, Nick, think fast!

Faster!

“I’m doing a story,” I answered. “It’s about bookies. Actually, it’s about New Yorkers who are ruined by their gambling habits.” That was pretty good, under the circumstances.

“You expect me to believe that total crock of shit?”

I nodded at Tagaletto. “He’s a bookie, isn’t he?”

“So what does that make me?” asked Zambratta. “Am I going to be in your story now, too?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure this was a bad idea for a story. A really bad idea, I now realize. So I’m out of here. All right if I slowly lower my hands?”

Zambratta chuckled. I’d become his court jester and that was fine by me. Just so long as I wasn’t his next victim.

“What should we do with him, Sam?” asked Zambratta. “Any brilliant ideas?”

Tagaletto shrugged again, flicking the butt of his cigarette against the wall. “The guy obviously knows some things he shouldn’t,” he said.

“You’re saying we should kill him?”

“It’s your call. But I would.”

Zambratta nodded. “So go ahead,” he said, tossing Tagaletto his gun. “Kill him.”

Chapter 61

I SWEAR THE gun traveled in slow motion from Zambratta to Tagaletto. That’s how it felt, at least. A stub-nose piece of metal floating through the air, and my life hanging in the balance.

I watched as the bookie fumbled, then nearly dropped the gun. He did drop his cigarette. His hands were clearly as surprised as the rest of him. Are you serious? said the look on his face.

Zambratta seemed pretty damn serious to me.

“Please,” I said. “Don’t do this!” I’m in love with a terrific woman, and I need to work it out before I die.

“Shut up!” barked Zambratta.

I stared back at Tagaletto with a whole lot of irony cruising around in my brain. He was holding a gun, but there was no longer anything menacing about him. The truth was, he looked nervous, almost as scared as I was, and he wasn’t the one with the death sentence here.

He can’t do it! He doesn’t have it in him!

“What’s the matter, Sam? What are you waiting for?” asked Zambratta. “Kill him.”

Tagaletto didn’t say a word. He couldn’t even look at Zambratta. Or me. His head was down, his eyes trained on the filthy ground of the alley.

“There’s no need to do this,” I tried again. “I’m no threat to either of you. You let me leave and it’s like this never happened.”

“I said, SHUT UP!” barked Zambratta again, the veins in his tree stump of a neck bulging above the collar of his brown leather jacket.

Then he turned back to Tagaletto. “We don’t have all day here, Sam. If you don’t have the stones for this, let me know.”

Christ! Zambratta was goading him to commit murder – my murder!

I watched in horror as Tagaletto started to look up from the ground. His eyes stared directly into mine. Next he raised his arm, the gun aimed straight for my chest.

Do something, Nick! Lunge for him! Anything!

I saw that Tagaletto’s hand was beginning to tremble. He steadied it with his other hand. He was steeling his nerve. This was his first time, wasn’t it?

“Don’t do this,” I told him.

Then he pulled the trigger.

The air exploded around me, the blistering sound of the shot piercing my ears.

But no pain right away.

I looked down at myself. There was no blood visible. No wound that I could see.

Did Tagaletto just miss me from six feet away?

That’s when I finally looked at Tagaletto. Except he was no longer standing there. He was lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

“Lucky for you I always carry a spare,” said Zambratta. He returned the second pistol to a holster inside his jacket.

I couldn’t move and I felt paralyzed. The question I wanted to ask was, why was Tagaletto dead and not me? But I couldn’t speak.

Zambratta answered anyway. “Sam was a careless mother-fucker, always has been,” he sneered. “Today, it’s a reporter like you. Tomorrow, it’s a Fed.”

He slid my driver’s license into his pocket and tossed my wallet to the ground. Then he really fucked with me.

“I’m not supposed to kill you yet,” he said.

Chapter 62

ALL THE WAY back to my apartment, Zambratta’s last line echoed in my head like the sound of the gunshot that had killed Sam Tagaletto. What’s more, he knew who I was even before he saw my driver’s license.

Because he worked for Joseph D’zorio.

Everything was coming together in a way I could never have imagined. And that wasn’t a good thing. People whom I didn’t know, whom I’d never even met before, knew exactly who I was and wanted me dead. Just not quite yet.

It was all the more reason for me to run – don’t walk! – straight to the police. But I didn’t. I decided not to.

Just not quite yet. I was too consumed with the chase for the truth by this point. The same kid who had stared up in awe at the screen at Woodward and Bernstein in All the President’s Men was now too preoccupied with piecing together what had really brought me and Dwayne Robinson together that bloody day at Lombardo’s. Or, rather, who had brought us together.

If I had it right so far, it had all begun when Dwayne Robinson made some bad bets and lost money he didn’t have. He owed Sam Tagaletto, but Tagaletto was just a middleman. The person Dwayne really owed was Joseph D’zorio. After Dwayne bounced two checks, D’zorio could’ve broken his arms or sunk him to the bottom of the Hudson River.

But D’zorio didn’t become a mob boss by using muscle alone. He was smart and he was cunning. Played chess, not checkers. So he came up with a better way for Dwayne to pay off his debt. All the former ace southpaw had to do was break his long-standing silence with the media and consent to an interview in a seemingly random steakhouse with a credible journalist who would eat up the potential story.

Let the tape recorder roll.

“I have a message from Eddie.”

Just like that, D’zorio had set up Eddie Pinero. He had used Dwayne and me. But most of all, he had used the fact that Pinero would have a motive to want his longtime attorney dead.

It was a pretty damn perfect plan. Right down to my coming across the Pinero reference on my recorder. Of course I would have done that. In fact, had I not left my jacket at Lombardo’s and talked to the hostess, Tiffany, I never would’ve become the least bit suspicious.

That’s when D’zorio’s plan became a little too perfect. At least for me.

The question now was whether I could prove my theory to anyone, or at least anyone who mattered in police circles. And whether I would live long enough to do it.

The second I walked into my apartment I grabbed Derrick Phalen’s business card. It was only a little past two o’clock. Odds were he was in his office. Still, he had asked that I call him only on his cell.

Phalen picked up quick, only one ring, but then said he’d have to call me back in a couple of minutes. When he did call back, I could hear street sounds in the background. He’d obviously gone outside to speak to me. Was he being extremely paranoid or just smart as hell?

“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” I told him. “This is going to blow your mind.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he came back. “What I found out last night will blow your mind.”

Chapter 63

PHALEN SAID HE couldn’t get into his news right now and he didn’t want to discuss it over the phone. “Nick, can you come by my apartment tonight?” he asked.

Are you kidding me? Yeah, like anything could stop me.

I called Courtney on the way over to Derrick’s that night. She was quiet and reserved, so I didn’t bring up Thomas Ferramore, and I also didn’t get into what had happened in the Bronx today. I did tell her I was seeing Phalen, and she told me, “Be careful, Nick. I don’t want to lose you.”

At a few minutes past eight, I exited the Henry Hudson Parkway in the heart of the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Phalen’s street was a few blocks east and was lined with prewar brownstones. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Save for one difference: available parking. I found a spot probably less than fifty feet from Phalen’s address.

As I grabbed my shoulder bag and hit the sidewalk, I was reminded of a joke my uncle Leo had once told me. I had been nine or ten years old.

“How do you keep a turkey in suspense?” he asked.

“I don’t know. How?”

Uncle Leo smiled. “I’ll tell you later. Turkey.”

I could barely wait to hear what Phalen had for me. I was actually speed-walking toward his brownstone and my heart was going pretty good. With one foot on the front stoop, however, I stopped.

Did I lock my car?

I couldn’t remember.

I reached into my pocket, my thumb searching for the lock button on my electronic key fob. I gave it a click and watched for the taillights on my Saab to blink – only they didn’t.

I clicked again.

No luck.

I cursed under my breath and started walking back, thinking I was out of range. The entire key chain was out of my pocket and aimed squarely at the dash. I was definitely close enough now.

But the taillights still weren’t blinking.

C’mon, already!

I shook the key fob, pressing the lock button hard a few more times. Was the little battery inside the thing dead?

No, it wasn’t. But I sure as hell was supposed to be.

BOOM! went my Saab.

Chapter 64

MY CAR ROSE in the air a good three feet as an orange fire-ball raced toward me, then knocked me down, my body slamming so hard against the sidewalk that I actually blacked out for a few seconds.

When I came to, the sound of the explosion was still pummeling my ears. All at once I could hear the shattering of glass, the twisting of metal, my car being blown to smithereens!

Slowly I got up, but the heat from the flames was so intense I had to step back. Am I okay? Am I hurt more than I think I am? Am I still among the living?

I looked down at my charred clothing and got part of the answer. Smoke literally was rising from my sweater. I was dizzy and scared to death, but most of all I was relieved to be alive.

Okay, Nick. You’re okay.

Then came another awful scene – and the kind of screaming that raised every little hair on the back of my neck.

My head whipped left and right until I spotted a chocolate Lab dragging a leash on the opposite sidewalk. The dog was spinning in circles, barking like it had gone crazy.

Then I saw why.

Dashing across the street, I practically ripped the sweater off my own body. By the time I reached the curb, I was already flying through the air.

The dog’s owner, a college-aged kid, was on the ground in flames and screaming in agony. I landed on him sweater first, trying to smother the fire. “Help me!” he was pleading now. “PLEASE HELP ME!”

I was smothering the kid with my body and sweater. But the flames were stubborn and I needed help.

Thank God, it came. Whoosh! I felt the freezing cold spray of white powder against my skin. It was like an avalanche, and just in time.

I coughed and sputtered, barely able to catch my breath. Someone had rushed forward with a fire extinguisher, emptying what seemed to be the entire canister. That was fine by me. Really fine by the guy who was no longer on fire underneath me.

“You okay?” I asked as I finally rolled off him.

“I don’t know,” was all he could manage.

By now the entire street was filling with people from the brownstones. Anyone within earshot of the explosion had come out to see what had happened. They didn’t understand, but I did, and it chilled me like the spray of dozens of fire extinguishers.

Someone had just tried to kill me.

The next thing I knew, I was being helped to my feet by some good people in the crowd. “Are you hurt?” one man asked. “You okay, mister?”

I heard the question but didn’t respond. All I could do was look around at all the concerned, frightened faces. With each face I didn’t recognize, I became more afraid. “Oh, no!” I suddenly cried out. “Oh God, no.”

Then I was running away from the crowd. Fast, as fast as I could go on rubbery legs.

Like someone’s life depended on it.

Chapter 65

I WAS NOW the designated madman on the street, the guy covered in white powder, with smoldering clothes and charred skin, with singed hair and desperate eyes.

With each frantic step I kept looking around me, hoping that I’d spot Phalen.

Was that Derrick over there by the fire hydrant?

No.

Was that him on the stoop?

Dammit! No again.

I kept banging into people, forcing my way across the street. It was a block party of lookie-loos, my burning car at the center of it, me as the other story of interest.

I reached the front of Phalen’s brownstone and bounded up the steps, my arms pumping. The front door was locked – shit! – so I turned to the column of buzzers off to the side. I dug into my pocket for his apartment number. I remembered I’d written it on the back of his business card.

3C!

I pounded my fist against the buzzer. The seconds took forever as I waited for a response. Plausible scenarios zoomed through my head. Derrick was in the shower. Taking a nap. Not home yet. Anything but what I feared.

I kept stabbing the buzzer, when the front door suddenly opened. A man in a bathrobe was coming to see about the commotion on the street.

“Hey, what’s your problem?” he said as I nearly knocked him over to get inside.

The stairwell was straight ahead. Two by two I took the steps, turning the corner to the second floor, then the third. The man in the bathrobe was still yelling at me, threatening to call the cops.

I scanned the doors. 3C was down the hall, at the front of the building.

It was locked. Of course it was.

I hammered on the door, calling out Derrick’s name. Please be there!

The more I pounded, the less hope I had, though.

I turned around, searching for something to help break down the damn door. Then I figured out what I needed. Hell, I was practically wearing the answer.

But there was no fire extinguisher in the hallway on Derrick’s floor.

I dashed up to the fourth floor. Yes! Near the top of the stairs was a large canister, polished red and silver. I ripped it from the wall. Then I raced back downstairs to Phalen’s door, smashing it as hard as I could over and over, definitely looking like a madman now.

Finally the door splintered. I was able to get at the locks. Then the door flew open. I was just about to call out Derrick’s name.

Instead I fell to my knees. I was staring into what had once been Derrick Phalen’s eyes.