“Bernard was going to give a speech,” she says. “He was working on it last night. It wasn’t much, but maybe you can read it for him instead?”
“Yeah, okay, maybe that will be nice,” I say.
“He sent it to me to proofread,” she says. “Hold on, I’ll text it to you.”
I let her cry as she works her phone and then I give her a bottle of lorazepam. She smiles and tells me that she already has her own, but I leave the bottle anyway. You can’t ever have enough.
I go looking for Ed and Mel. I find them playing with my nephews, letting Maxim and Julian climb all over them and giving them piggyback rides where they almost scrape the vaulted ceilings. Their insane levels of inhuman patience are proudly on display, and I envy their easy, laconic way of existing in the world.
I’m glad that Bernard dismissed his security detail before getting in that helicopter. I make a note to make sure that the helicopter pilot’s family is generously compensated beyond whatever insurance claims they’ll be able to make from the company and beyond whatever whole-life policy helicopter pilots must surely get for themselves as a matter of course. Whatever his family is paid, Nylo will match it.
“Aunt Caitlyn, did you make her stop crying?” asks Maxim as I pry my nephews off of my security guards. “Is everything back to normal?”
“Well, little guy,” I say, “it isn’t. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get used to the way things are now. You have to grow up a little bit faster, that’s all. I wasn’t much older than you when your grandmother died. Did you know that? Right now, I have to get back to the city, but when this is all over, you and I are going to get together and we are going to have a real special grown-up talk, okay?”
He nods at me, satisfied.
33
Somehow, I manage to sleep. When I wake up, I check to see if Alistair or Gabriella has texted, but they still aren’t responding to my messages.
I hop into the shower and let the hot water rain over me, steeling myself for Henley’s funeral, followed by another round with the Game Master. I throw on a nice black dress before getting a car to Ugly American.
Maybe Alistair and Gabriella will bother to show up. Or maybe not. After all, any one of us might be next. Whoever is running the game has proved that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from what is coming.
For the first time, I start to wonder what people will say if I win this horrible game. How will I spin it? Won’t people be suspicious if I am the only one left alive and therefore have total control over my family’s fortune?
I start to think about the Netflix documentary on this whole sordid affair that I will have to produce myself. I start to think about the way in which the police will be blamed for bungling the case and letting my siblings be killed by a terrorist one by one.
What will people say about me when they are asked? Will they tell the police that I would never be capable of something like this, of something so brutal and calculating with so many moving parts? Will they tell the police that they could never imagine me doing something so ruthless and diabolical?
Of course not. They’ll tell the police that I am the only person they know who could actually pull something like this off.
Even Ben won’t be able to spin a yarn that makes me heroic. My little girls will wonder about their mother. They will slowly become certain that I’m a murderer as they become rebellious teenagers. I don’t exactly project warmth.
It dawns on me that my only way out is to pin it on Angelo Marino. He is just as much of a possibility as me. He would have had the same access to our father in order to make this all happen. If I go down, he will go down, too.
I get to Ugly American shortly before 10 a.m. One of the bartenders lets me in. The caterers have put out a spread of Henley’s favorite foods in accordance with his wishes: SpaghettiOs, incredibly expensive French cheeses, rosemary and cracked black pepper crackers, kolaches, marzipan. There is a giant bong and a crystal bowl full of weed.
At first, I’m afraid no one is going to show up, but then Henley’s dirtbag friends start to trickle in. It is a motley collection of posh-looking private school sneaks and paunchy local scumbags. My Midwesterners arrive as a pack, looking like they’ve been up all night. When the one with the new chin sees me, he gives a wave. Everybody begins eating and drinking, periodically hitting the bong. It is a relatively upbeat and festive affair. Henley has always mocked anyone who worried about life, death, or anything in between. He didn’t learn that from our mom and dad. He got to that particular wisdom all on his own.
Pez and Angelo Marino arrive one after the other. Pez has his arm around a weeping woman dressed in skintight leather, whom I assume is Henley’s ex Sheila.
We are just about to start giving speeches when the tunnel and subway detectives slink up to me, sizing me up, both of them eating electric blue freeze pops. Their tongues are bright turquoise. They must have gotten them from the cart down on the corner, which also sells dirty-water hot dogs and probably cocaine.
“Detectives,” I say. “I’m glad you could both make it.”
“It’s official NYPD policy,” says Detective Jay.
“We’re supposed to attend the funerals of
