Running of the bulls

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

10:18 p.m.

In his town house on East 75th Street, Emilio DeSoto admired himself in the full-length wall mirror and realized that at last, he had created his master work.

He was now a retro piece of living art. Minimalism was dead to him. In its place was classic severity and brash beauty delivered through the driving force of haute couture.

He held out his arms and then lowered them, allowing the scalloped polyester fabric to flutter in pretty waves. He did it again and then turned in such a way that air funneled up through the garment to create the illusion of weightlessness. He had smoked a joint earlier and his glaucoma was tolerable. Though he had only tunnel vision, if he looked directly at himself, he could see his reflection, and he was thrilled by what he saw.

After months of work on his latest piece-which used his own slender, angular body as its catalyst-he now embodied two art forms, each of which enjoyed a spellbinding link separated by centuries.

When that Spellman person left, he started going through the motions of at last bringing the influences together. And it worked, just as he knew it would months ago, when the idea struck him that soon, minimalism would no longer define who he was as an artist or a person.

After a long gestation of artistic incubation, that day was now.

He always had been a creature unlike any other-it’s why they loved and celebrated him-but now he had taken his talents to a new, defining level of greatness.

His face was a shield of Kabuki makeup that consumed his features-there was no trace of them beneath it. While his skin always had been pale, now it was painted pure white. The only other color was bright red, which he’d applied to the corners of his eyes-and to the lower lids-in an effort to make them appear as if they were about to spill over with blood.

On his lips was the same red, painted in such a way that his mouth now looked so grossly small, one would be surprised if words could escape it. Naturally, some critics would look at his mouth and seek connections to his dead body of work. They’d think its tiny appearance was his nod to minimalism, but they’d be wrong. Some would lean toward the great Kabuki artist Tamasaburo and see it as something of an homage, but they’d be wrong. It was, in fact, a post-apocalyptic statement designed to honor the past-and to confuse what DeSoto believed was now a dystopian present.

He turned again in front of the mirror, lifted his arms at his sides and enjoyed the way the vintage Halston caftan moved in sync with his body. It had belonged to Barbra Streisand, he’d bought it anonymously at auction when she had her big 1994 Christie’s garage sale, and he wore it instead of the traditional Kabuki dress most would be expecting given his Kabuki makeup.

On his head was a white turban, also by Halston, which harkened back to Emilio’s days at Studio 54, where he’d use cocaine in bathroom stalls and on bathroom floors with other celebrities and danced with a freedom that was stolen away from him when he gave himself over to the dead art of minimalism.

Completing the look-and crossing boundaries but not continents-were the tall wooden Geisha shoes that now pinched and bruised his feet. He was click, click, clicking around the room while dipping his head and fanning out the caftan by lifting his arms behind him when one of the clicks sounded like a pop.

He was standing at a tall window that overlooked 75th Street. He looked down at his feet to see if he’d broken one of the shoes and when he did, he caught movement on the street below. On the sidewalk were a pair of legs lying flat between two cars. They were slender and appeared to belong to a woman. As Emilio watched, they suddenly were pulled from sight.

With that Wood woman murdered, instinct made him move to the side of the window, so he wasn’t exposed. He was confused and a part of him was frightened. There was a van idling in the middle of the street. Its driver’s side door was open. Light pooled from the van onto the street, where a man and a woman, crouched low, were leaving the spot where those legs had disappeared. They hurried to the van, stepped inside and sped toward Fifth.

And Emilio DeSoto, who rarely did the right thing unless it benefitted him, stayed true to himself. There were killers in this neighborhood. The rodents Wood led here had just taken another life. There was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t take his.

Removing his shoes, Emilio put his hands straight out in front of him so he wouldn’t bump into anything and hurried out of the room. As he moved carefully down his curving staircase and rushed to the phone that was in the living room, the caftan billowed behind him, just as it should. He picked up the phone and dialed 911.

An operator came on the line. “What’s your emergency?”

“Somebody is going to kill me,” he said.

“How do you know that, sir?”

“Because the rodents just killed somebody else.”

“What rodents, sir?”

“Wood’s rodents.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific. Are you in danger now?”

He went to a window, looked out at the street and saw those dead feet tucked between two cars. “Yes,” he said. “I’m in danger. Alright? I’m in danger.”

“By who?”

And Emilio exploded. “How the fuck do I know?” he shouted. “What more do you need from me? I just told you I’m in danger. They’re going to kill me just like they killed her.”

“Sir-”

“They’re going to kill me because I don’t fit their mold. They’re going to kill me because I’m different. Because I’m magnificent.”

“Sir-”

“They’re going to kill me because I’m poised for greatness. They’re going to kill me for all those reasons, and if you don’t get your ass down here now, I’ll be just another dead freak felled by the very rodents you idiots can’t seem to catch.”

Spocatti drove to the end of 74th Street, stopped at a red light and was about to ask Carmen if she was hurt when an NBC news van drove past them. It was moving fast-too fast-and each turned to watch it race up Madison and cut left onto 77th Street, where Peter Schwartz lived.

“News is out,” he said.

“Literally.”

“Cops will be there.”

“And more will be coming. We need to move. It’s time to finish this.”

The light turned green. Spocatti stepped on the gas, drove three blocks east for protection and then cut back onto 75th. There was a parking spot midway down the street. Surprised, he went for it but saw the fire hydrant as he approached. Didn’t matter. Cops were busy and about to get busier. He took the spot and turned off the engine.

“Why are we so far back?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Are you hurt?”

“I’ll live.”

“She was a feisty one.”

“God’s telling her that now.”

A woman with a dog turned the corner and started walking toward them. She was young, maybe twenty-five, with a bounce in her step and a smile on her face. She said something to the dog and laughed when it barked. They waited for her to pass before speaking.

“There’s no failing here,” he said. “Let’s run through it. What’s first?”

“You’re on the street with the video camera.”

“What’s second?”

“I’m on the phone with Pamela Dean to make sure she’s home, which I already know she is because I saw her pass a window on the second floor of her townhouse. But I’ll double check.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Let’s just say she’s not going out.”

“If someone else answers and you need to ask for her, what’s your name?”

“Rebecca Stiles. Pamela and I used to work together with Wolfhagen. She was one of his moles and gave him information that helped him bilk billions from foreign markets.”

“If her husband answers, what if he doesn’t know you?”

“He doesn’t need to know me. Pamela and I were lunchtime friends. We ate together once a month. But it’s been years since we’ve talked. We lost touch after Pam took the stand against Wolfhagen. I’m in town. I heard about Wood. I know she lives next to her and wanted to check in to see if she’s alright.”

“That’s so kind of you.”

“Rebecca’s that kind of girl.”

“Do her voice.”

One of Carmen’s strengths was mimicry. Not long after Wolfhagen was sent to Lompoc, Pamela told her story to “60 Minutes.” Wolfhagen sent them the tape. Carmen studied it. She did the voice.

“Nice,” he said, and then paused. “I need you to be aware of something. Did you see the black Escalade when you were planting the explosives?”

“The one at the end of the street? Just before Fifth?”

“That’s right.”

“How could I miss it? Those cars are obnoxious. Why?”

“You know what McVeigh used to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma?”

She didn’t answer. A part of her froze.

“That’s what’s in the Escalade.”

“But that will take down several blocks.”

“Actually, we don’t know what it will do. We used only a quarter of what McVeigh used. I know it will level its share of buildings and give us our distraction, but I don’t know to what extent. When you’re certain Dean is there, I want you to detonate those bombs.”

“Who put the Escalade there?”

“I have friends all over this city, Carmen. Who did it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he was able to do it.” He reached behind him and grabbed the camera. He held it up to his face to see if he could zoom in properly down the street. Perfect. With a lens this powerful, he easily could focus on the events as they occurred, which would make Wolfhagen happy. And that’s what mattered.

“Let’s do this,” he said.

“Just a minute. You say you don’t know what will happen when the Escalade blows. But look at us-we’re pointed in that direction. What’s the plan on getting us out of here?”

He patted her knee. “It’s simple. We’re going to run like hell in the opposite direction. I have a car waiting four blocks behind us. It’s all taken care of, Carmen. You just need to be able to run.”

“From an explosion of that magnitude? We’re essentially in a tunnel, Vincent. A fireball is going to roll down this street. It will incinerate us.”

He stepped out of the car with the camera and moved to the street corner. Over his shoulder, she heard him say, “That’s why you need to run fast.”

Emilio DeSoto retrieved his wooden Geisha shoes from the second floor, squeezed his sore feet into them in the first-floor living area and looked out again at the legs that were between the two cars outside his home.

It had been fifteen minutes since he called the police and there was no sign of that they were anywhere close to coming. No sirens. No flashing lights. Nothing.

Twice, he had gone to his door and opened it, hoping to hear something, hoping not to be attacked. But nothing had happened-the rodents were gone. More compelling, each time he opened the door, he could see those feet, which ignited in him a curiosity that was impossible to stuff down.

Who did they belong to? Who was murdered and why? Was it someone he disliked? He hoped it was someone he disliked.

He went to a mirror and checked his Kabuki makeup. Flawless. He held out his arms and allowed the Halston caftan to fan out and then ripple softly against his sides. Brilliant. He put his hands up to the turban and moved it slightly on his head. Perfect.

If he had time, he would have changed into different clothes and removed his makeup, but time was running out and if he didn’t act now, he might miss this moment. Naturally, the police would show up at some point-likely soon-which meant he had a limited window in which to go to the sidewalk and see who was attached to those dead feet before this neighborhood was consumed again by the police.

Awkwardly, he walked away from the mirror, click, click, clicked to the desk across the room and removed the loaded pepperbox he kept there for protection.

He held it at his side, just as Joan Crawford did in his favorite movie, “Johnny Guitar,” and made the supreme effort of walking across the room to the front door, which was no easy task given the shoes on his feet.

Still, there was no way in hell he was going to wear anything else but these shoes. If someone saw him on the street-if the paparazzi were there to take his photograph, which he knew could happen at any moment because he was a celebrity-he needed to be seen in this new creation as it was meant to be seen. Nothing else would do.

Stealing himself, he opened the door.

He looked each way down the street, saw no one, and then looked at those feet sagging against each other between the two cars. With his free hand grasping the iron rail, he descended the few steps that lead to the sidewalk and stood there, listening. Ahead of him, over the buildings and a few blocks away, he could hear sirens, but they were stationary and not growing louder. They were on another street.

Emilio frowned, though you wouldn’t know it given the upward lift of his Kabuki lips. This was one of Manhattan’s finest neighborhoods. What was it coming to? Years ago, as a young artist living in the Village, he’d felt safer in his sixth-floor, one-room walk-up than he did here.

Pepperbox in hand, he worked through his tunnel vision and clicked forward on unsteady feet, ready to shoot if anyone approached him, ready to kill if that’s what it took.

There was a breeze on his face and it kicked up the caftan, allowing it to take flight behind him in ways that gave him new ideas about how he’d officially present this when the time was right. He’d use fans. Dry ice would be employed because of its retro hook and because it would capture that Studio 54 vibe he was going for.

As he stood there, billowing, he thought of Diana Ross blowing kisses in a Central Park monsoon. Arms open to the breeze, his gun pointing at the house across the street, he let his wings fly as he hobbled forward and stopped at the dead feet.

Because he couldn’t see well, he needed to lean almost directly over the body to see the face. And when he did, he saw the ruined face of that pretty Asian slant who worked for Helena Adams. Part of her head was blown off. Emilio put the back of his hand to his mouth and looked closer. One side of her face was missing. She was resting in the congealed fallout of her own blood.

He felt nauseous. Violated. This was taking place on his street? His Geisha shoes took several steps backward. The only other time in his life that he had confronted death was during his black period, when he went inward and explored it with his own vision.

But it looked nothing like this.

He click, click, clicked over to the car to his right, came around it and leaned down again so he could have a better look at the slant’s face. But he couldn’t see anything. He was casting a shadow. He was about to move so light could slip through when suddenly her face bloomed orange as the cars at the far end of the street began to ignite in a series of rapid explosions.

Emilio moved so he directly faced the center of the street and could see all of it. And what he saw was a horror show. Cars on each side of the street were flipping high into the air and pinwheeling into the buildings on either side of them. Windows smashed, fireballs rushed toward the heavens and, in the vacuum created by the broken windows, he watched fire being sucked into those buildings. Soon, they’d burn.

His pepperbox dropped to his feet. When one car exploded, it caused the car in front of it to explode. And so on. It was unfolding quickly-too quickly-and the lot of it was roaring his way.

E turned toward Fifth Avenue and ran.

Tried to run. Because of his shoes, he nearly tripped. He tried to kick the damn things off but they were too tight. His feet had swelled in them. He struggled to remove the shoes, but it was impossible. And so he hopped and he hobbled, his arms held out on either side of him for balance while behind him, all hell was unleashed as this part of 75th Street was smashed and burned beyond reason.

He tried to scream for help, but all that left his Kabuki lips was a frazzled peep of a shriek. Out of nowhere, a car door flew over his head and smashed in front of him on the street. It was like a fiery comet morphed into something else by the heated atmosphere.

Emilio looked over his shoulder and saw that death was upon him. He looked ahead of him, where the traffic was rearing to the right and colliding on Fifth. People leaped out of their cars. On the sidewalks, others ran.

He was almost there. He could make it. He pushed harder. Click, click, click! Click, click, click! Another car erupted. And another. The sound was deafening. He could hear the vehicles rising into the air behind him. There was a great yawning as metal twisted against metal and melted in the rising heat.

Something caught his eye. He looked down the length of his spread-eagle arms and saw that the caftan, once white, was now glowing orange in the flames licking behind him. He was morphing from a moth into a spectacular-looking butterfly and he wasn’t that far gone to realize the terrible beauty of it.

He rounded Fifth, where now masses of people were running down the avenue to what they hoped was safety. He hit the middle of the street and was about to cut left when a fiery tire bounced hard beside him and sprayed liquid flames onto his face before it somersaulted over the sidewalk and jackknifed like a demonic Halloween pumpkin into Central Park.

People were running alongside him. He tried to keep up, but couldn’t. The heat was becoming unbearable. Hobble, hobble, hobble. Click, click, click. He watched them look at his Kabuki face and what he saw in their terror-filled eyes wasn’t what he expected. The look was unmistakable. What he saw was pity.

And then Emilio burst into a sphere of light.

The tire also had sprayed fire onto his caftan, and now it was he who was erupting. In a matter of seconds, the fire curled up his body, rounded his legs, tasted the edges of the scalloped fabric and raced toward his outstretched wings.

He stood in the middle of the street as the flames consumed him. The polyester caftan melted into him, searing his skin as it sank inward toward the bone. Hands reaching and pulling, he tried to yank the caftan over his head, but he couldn’t-it now was part of him. The art he created literally was part of him.

Cars were still exploding, still turning in the air, still shattering the faces of the buildings on either side of them. More debris fell from the sky. Something struck his head and his turban became alight with flame. He batted his hands at it, but the polyester glued itself to his palms, destroying them.

The heat of it all caused his Kabuki makeup to melt. He was aware of people coming near him in an effort to help, but the moment they saw his face, their lips twisted back in horror and they kept running. “Sorry,” they said. “Sorry.” He was watching them run from him when his shoes hooked a manhole and he fell face first in the street. With his arms stretched out at his sides, he now looked like a burning cross.

“WOAT!” he shouted as the flames seared his throat. “FLAK!”

Something heavy struck his back. He expelled a rush of air and managed to crane his neck around. He was pinned beneath a car’s burning hood. He writhed beneath it like a trapped bug. Glass exploded into the street. At this level, all he could see were feet running past him. Why wouldn’t they help him?

“SHELP!” he cried. “GLOP!”

And then, as the polyester continued to burn into him and cause him to melt along with the heat from the car’s burning hood, Emilio DeSoto, once one of New York’s most revered artists, realized through the pain that he was becoming every artistic expression he ever hated.

As his body roasted, his frying mind was aware that he had long passed any kind of impressionism, post-impressionism or realism. He now was a bloody, sizzling abstract blob, which proved to him again just how cruel life could be and that there was no God.

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

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

All around him, the buildings were crumbling.