The Millionaires

26

Craning her neck skyward, Joey stared up at the thirty-story building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “You sure she’s home?” Joey asked, almost dizzied by the height.

“I just spoke to her ten minutes ago pretending to be a telemarketer,” Noreen said. “It’s past dinner. She’s not going anywhere.”

Nodding to herself, Joey turned under the awning and peered through the double glass doors that led to the lobby. Inside, a doorman was hunched against the front desk, flipping through the newspaper. No uniform; no tie; no problem. Just another daddy’s little girl’s first apartment.

Painting on a wide grin, Joey unclipped her cell phone from her belt, held it to her ear, and pulled open the door. “Uch, I hate it when they do that!” she whined into the phone. “Panty hose are so middle-class.”

“What’re you talking about?” Noreen asked.

“You heard me!” Joey shouted. She blew by the doorman without a wave and stormed straight for the elevator. The doorman shook his head. Typical.

Twenty-three floors later, Joey rang the bell for Apartment 23H.

“Who is it?” a female voice answered.

“Teri Gerlach – from the National Association of Securities Dealers,” Joey explained. “Oliver Caruso recently applied for his Series-7 license, and since he listed you as one of his references, we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions.” As she said the words, Joey knew there was no reference check for the Series-7, but it never slowed her down before.

There was a quiet clink and Joey could feel herself being studied through the eyehole. Once it got dark outside, women in New York had plenty of reasons to not open their doors to strangers.

“Who else did he list?” the voice challenged.

For effect, Joey pulled a small notepad from her purse. “Let’s see… a mother by the name of Margaret… a brother, Charles… Henry Lapidus from Greene Bank… and a girlfriend named Beth Manning.”

Chains whirred and locks thunked. As the door opened, Beth stuck her head out. “Didn’t Oliver already take his Series-7?”

“This is for the renewal, Miss Manning,” Joey said matter-of-factly. “But we still like to check the references.” She motioned back to the notepad and offered a perfectly pleasant smile. “I promise, it’s just a few simple questions – painless as can be.”

Shrugging at no one in particular, Beth moved back from the door. “You’ll just have to excuse the mess…”

“Don’t worry,” Joey laughed as she stepped inside and waved a hand against Beth’s forearm. “My place is fifty times worse.”

Francis Quincy wasn’t a pacer. Or even a worrier. In fact, when the lid on the pressure cooker clamped down, while everyone else was anxiously roving back and forth across the carpet, Quincy was the one stuck to his seat, quietly calculating the odds. Even when his fourth daughter was born three months premature, Quincy stepped back and took silent solace in the fact that eighty percent of similarly aged babies turn out just fine. Back then, the numbers were in his favor. Today, they were out of his control. He still didn’t pace.

“Did he say anything else?” Quincy asked dryly.

“Nothing… less than nothing,” Lapidus said, rapping his middle knuckle over and over against the desk. “They just want us to keep a tight lip.”

Quincy nodded, standing alone by the window in the corner. Staring out at the electric skyline, he reached up and gripped the top of the butterfly-covered shoji screen for support. “Maybe we should wait a day before telling the partners.”

“Are you crazy? If they found out we were holding back… Quincy, they’d drink our blood for breakfast.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Henry, but they’ll be screaming for blood no matter what – and until we find Oliver and that money, there’s nothing we can do.”

Lapidus’s knuckle rapped even harder. “I already called twice. Gallo hasn’t called back.”

“If it’ll make it easier, Henry, I’m happy to take a stab at it.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Maybe Gallo needs to hear it in both ears,” Quincy suggested. “Just to tip the scales a little.”

Lapidus paused, studying his partner. “Yeah… no… that’d be great.”

Almost immediately, Quincy headed for the door.

“Just don’t forget whose side Gallo and DeSanctis are on,” Lapidus called out. “When it comes right down to it, law enforcement is just like any other client – out for their own peanut.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Quincy said as he left the room. “I know all about it.”

“So how’re we looking?” DeSanctis asked, cradling the phone with his chin.

“Hard to say. Obviously, we hit a few speedbumps, but I think it’s all about to smooth out,” his associate explained. “What about there? How’s Gallo doing with the mom?”

Peering through the one-way glass, DeSanctis watched as Gallo helped Mrs. Caruso thread her arms into her coat. “We’ve got it covered,” DeSanctis said dryly.

“You don’t sound too confident…”

“I’ll be confident when we have them,” he insisted. Charlie and Oliver may’ve gotten away once, but it wasn’t going to happen again. Not with stakes like this.

“Have you thought about calling in other agents?”

“No – no way,” DeSanctis shot back. “Believe me, we don’t want that headache.”

“So you really think you and Gallo can keep it quiet?”

“Personally, I don’t see much of a choice – for any of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” DeSanctis said coldly. Through the glass, Gallo led Mrs. Caruso out of the interrogation room. “You just do your job, and we’ll do ours. As long as that’s taken care of, they don’t have a chance.”