Fifth Avenue

CHAPTER TEN

Michael Archer awoke to the sharp crack of gunfire and the shrill screams of people on the street.

Startled, he sat up in bed and came face to face with his best friend of nearly fourteen years, Rufus, the golden retriever who sat beside him. There was a gnawed plastic dish in his jaws.

Michael slumped back against the mattress and closed his eyes. Already, the morning was warm and muggy. He turned onto his side and looked at what had become his only home-an over-priced one-room apartment on Avenue B that smelled like shit and now was filled with boxes sent from around the world.

Rufus nudged his arm and Michael got up, looking tentatively out the window as he passed it. Down below on the sidewalk, a small crowd of people were gathering around a woman who was face down on the street. Blood was pooling around her head. People were on cell phones, some were taking photos. Welcome to fucking New York, he thought.

Michael took the dish from Rufus’ mouth and filled it with dry dog food. He watched a cockroach scatter across the countertop and the irony that he now was living in this dump was not lost on him.

At thirty-four, he was among the most powerful men in Hollywood. His movies made millions at the box office, he had written six blockbuster novels and he had adapted four of them for the screen-all of which he had starred in and produced. To the public, he not only was a fine actor and writer, but also a respected businessman. Through his novels and movies, he led his fans into another world and gave them the escape they desired. He was their king, their shining star. He was invincible.

They were dead wrong.

The public knew only what Michael Archer allowed them to know. And because of this, they couldn’t know that this was now his life-and it was in danger.

The warnings began as small reminders. After a major purchase, his manager and accountants would call and suggest he curb his spending. “You’re not the government, Michael,” they would say. “Remember, even you have financial limits.”

Michael would nod and listen, but soon he would forget their words and instead remember his beginnings in Hollywood-a time when money was so scarce, he was lucky to eat one meal a day. Then, he hadn’t owned a villa in Italy, a brownstone in Boston, an estate in Beverly Hills. Then, Michael had known nothing but the struggle of day to day life and his seedy apartment in West L.A.

To escape from those days, Michael surrounded himself with luxury, often spending more money in a week than many people made in a year. Never did he think his bank accounts would run dry. Until they did.

He had been two weeks in Cairo, vacationing at a high-end resort, when his business manager phoned to tell him that his bank was about to foreclose on each of his three homes. Going as well were the Ferrari, the Lamborghini, both yachts.

He was incredulous.

“If you don’t have a minimum of $2 million to cover your debts by this Friday, everything will be taken from you.”

“Friday?” Michael said. “That’s three days away.”

“We’ve been warning you, Michael. This isn't a surprise.”

“What are my options?”

“At this point? You’ve got two.”

“What are they?”

“You could go to your father.”

“Fuck that.”

“Or you could gamble.”

“I have no money," he said. "Remember?”

“You could borrow it,” the man said. “A friend of mine runs Aura in Vegas. As a favor to you, I could call and tell him you’re coming for a weekend that you’re a good risk for a loan.”

“And what if I lose and can’t pay back the loan?”

“Then you’ll be in trouble. This is only a suggestion, Michael, and not one that should be taken lightly. You should go to your father. I recommend that-not the gambling.”

But Michael went with the latter.

As promised, borrowing the money was no problem. Paying it back, however, became one. Michael stayed at one of the casino’s black jack tables for hours until he lost it all. Now, he owed Stephano Santiago, owner of the casino and capo di capi of Europe’s most powerful Syndicate, over $900,000. It was blood money and Michael knew that, if he didn’t pay Santiago soon, the man would have him murdered.

A day passed before he received a threatening phone call from one of Santiago’s men. Another day passed and he was on a plane headed East toward Manhattan, where he met with his father for the first time in nearly sixteen years.

Seeing his father after all those years was a shock. Louis was older, grayer, heavier than that day Michael left home-and yet he still was a force. Seated at his desk, immaculate in a black silk suit, Louis looked across the room at his son, his eyes as dark and as judgmental as Michael remembered them to be. It didn’t take long for Michael to feel uncomfortable. Louis always had been able to make him feel inferior just by looking at him.

Reluctantly, he told his father the predicament he was in. And while Louis said he’d take care of everything, there was that tone in his voice, that calm tone his father used whenever he wanted something.

Now, Michael knew it had to do with the photographs he was given of Leana Redman and the appearance he made last night at George Redman’s party. There was a reason his father demanded he meet her and it worried him. His father had a motive behind everything.

He checked his watch and decided he had time to unpack a few more things before meeting with his father. He sat beside Rufus, who knocked his arm with his nose, and reached for a box marked PERSONAL. The first item he pulled from the box was, ironically, his first novel and best-seller.

Michael ran his hand over the faded dust jacket and thought back to when he started the novel. He was eighteen years old, on a bus headed for Hollywood and running away from his father. They had fought the night before and Michael decided then that no matter how hard he tried, he and Louis would never get along. And so he left.

Even now, all these years later, Michael could remember how the fight ended. Louis told Michael that he didn’t love him and never had. He said that he wished it was Michael who died, not his mother.

Michael tossed the book aside and dug deeper into the box. When he grasped the next object, there was a light tinkling of glass. His heart sank. He knew what it was before he pulled it through the many strands of torn newspaper and held it in his hands. It was a framed photograph of his mother, Anne, something he had cherished since he was three years old. The glass had pierced her face.

Michael was staring at it when a knock came at the door. He put the picture down and glanced at his watch. Puzzled, he looked at Rufus, who now was facing the door, his head cocked in such a way that suggested he too knew they weren’t expecting anyone. There was another knock, this one sharper, more urgent, and then the sound of footsteps swiftly moving away.

Michael moved quickly through the maze of boxes and unlocked the door. He opened it wide, stepped into the hall and nearly stumbled over the brilliantly wrapped basket at his feet.

The hallway was cloaked in a network of shadows and for a moment, he heard nothing but his neighbors, who were shouting again at their child. He could sense a presence, knew he was being watched. He stepped back into the safety of his apartment, bolted the door and waited.

Time seemed to stop. His neighbors continued to shout. And then, from the end of the hallway, came a clatter of metal striking metal as the gate to the freight elevator crashed open and someone stepped inside.

The gate slammed shut and the car hesitated only briefly before it began its noisy, sluggish descent.

Michael opened the door and ran down the hall, eager to see who was inside. But by the time he reached the elevator and gripped the metal bars, the car already was a lost cage of rattling iron shadows.

For a moment, he stood there, listening to the faint wail of police sirens. Just now, they were coming for the woman who was shot earlier. He wondered if his death would mirror hers. Would a stranger take him by surprise, draw a gun and silence him with a well-placed bullet?

Or did they have something else planned for him?

He returned to his apartment and brought the basket inside. It was cocooned so tightly in sheets of red cellophane that he couldn’t see its contents. Rufus nudged his leg and Michael patted his back, reassuring him that everything was all right-even though he knew it wasn’t.

Steeling himself, Michael removed the crimson shield and tossed it aside.

The stench was sudden and overwhelming. Michael covered his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and took a step back, the haze of fruit flies lifting in front of him as if they were wavering veils of ash. The basket was filled with rotten plums, peaches that were soft and brown and dimpled with mold, apples that had been gnawed to the core, bananas that were black and alive with maggots.

Michael knew who had sent it even before he reached inside and removed the envelope taped to the wicker handle. Inside was a note, precise and neatly typed: “Three weeks, Mr. Archer. That’s how old this fruit is, and that’s how much longer we’re giving you to come up with our money. By then, the sum will be one million dollars. Please have the money by then. If you don’t, our generosity will have run out and you’ll be giving your mother some unexpected company.”

Shaken, Michael crumpled the note and tossed it aside. He had never mentioned his mother’s death to anyone, and yet somehow these people knew. But how? And how did they know where I live? I just moved here.

He looked at his watch and saw with a start that it was seven-thirty. His father had requested his presence at eight sharp. As Michael rushed out of the apartment, the door locking shut behind him, he realized that if he was late for this meeting, it very well might cost him his life.