changed. The teenagers looked much more vicious, heartless, almost hyenalike. Oh, I thought, spotting a news van. That explains it.
I was scanning for a slot to get through the converging newsies, when I suddenly stopped at the town house’s bottom step. Instead of running, I waved the crowd toward me. I had an idea.
“I have an announcement,” I said.
I cleared my throat as lights and microphones leaned toward me. Peering at me from behind the bulky cameras and apparatus, the surrounding press people looked like an invading army of alien cyborgs. The problem I had with them was that they often treated me like I was part of an invading army of alien cyborgs.
“Today another young victim was abducted, but this one was released unharmed,” I began. “First off, if the person responsible is listening, I want to thank them for their mercy in this case. I would also urge them strongly to contact me so that we might be able to resolve this situation once and for all. I’m available anytime day or night. You have my number. Please do not hesitate to speak with me.”
“Do you have any leads in the case?” one of the cyborgs called to me.
“Goddammit,” I said angrily. “Can’t you see we have an investigation to run? That’s it now. Out of my way. I mean it!”
Parker was silent as we stepped to the car. Then she suddenly snapped her fingers.
“Oh, I see,” she said. “You wanted to get the pissed-off-cop routine on the eleven-o’clock news. You’re trying to make our guy think we’re still running around in circles instead of getting closer.”
“Exactly,” I said with a wink. “Why let on that we’re getting closer to grabbing him? That’ll only make him run. I need to make him think that he’s still way ahead of us. Then bam! Once we get this fingerprint hit, we nail him cold.”
“That’s brilliant, Mike,” Emily said. “I love it.”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m just trying to keep up with you, Special Agent.”
I checked my watch.
“I just hope to God he hasn’t done that Hastings kid yet. We need that hit fast. And if that’s not enough to worry about, it’ll be Ash Wednesday in a few hours. Who knows what this loon has planned.”
“Maybe he’s cut us some slack and decided to head to New Orleans to catch the tail end of Mardi Gras,” Emily said.
“Sounds like fun,” I said. “You and I should go, too. I could use a road trip.”
“Not so fast, Mike. If all goes well, we’ll have the ID of the kidnapper in an hour and a half. After we put this lunatic out of business, I’ll buy the first round.”
LIMOUSINES AND TOWN cars were three deep out in front of the Waldorf Astoria as Francis Mooney stepped north up Park Avenue. He had to walk in the street to avoid the scrum of paparazzi stuffed behind sidewalk barricades. He was temporarily blinded as a limo door popped open and three dozen flash packs went off at once. A scruffy young man in a tuxedo emerged, squinting merrily in the brilliant shower of white light. An actor perhaps?
The American Refugee Committee was having its benefit tonight, Francis remembered, putting the scene at his back. He was happy that ARC was having such a stunning turnout. Mooney had been on the organization’s board ten years ago and knew it to be a terrific organization, unlike the many charities whose bloated CEO salaries and outrageous benefits budgets soaked up most of the donations.
Continuing up Park, he thought about Mary Beth Haas. He cursed himself for the thousandth time for not wearing a mask during the test. He’d been positive she was going to fail. He’d gotten lazy, and someone had seen his face. Oh, well. Couldn’t worry about it now. Places to go, he thought.
Three minutes later, he quickly turned the corner onto 52nd and passed beneath the awning of the legendary Four Seasons restaurant on the north side of the street. Coming up the stairs, he smiled at a startling black-haired woman in a gravity-defying backless gown who was speaking German into a cell phone. More chic women and slim, suited men waited for their tables beneath the Picasso inside. He inhaled the expensive-perfume-thick air. Cedar, gardenia, ambrette, he thought with a sigh. Now, that’s what money smells like.
The sleek, platinum-haired maitre d’, Cristophe, rushed toward him from the front bar.
“Mr. Mooney,” he said with a flourished raising of his hands. “Finally, you have arrived. Mrs. Clautier was worried. May I take your coat?”
“Thank you so much, Cristophe,” Mooney said, allowing him to remove his camel hair as the rest of the elegant crowd pretended not to gape at his royal treatment.
“Has she been waiting long?”
“Not so long, Mr. Mooney. Shall I take your case as well?”
Francis hefted the briefcase with the 9-millimeter Beretta in it, as if debating.
“You know what, Cristophe? I might as well hold on to it.”
He stopped for a moment before he followed the maitre d’ into the restaurant’s storied Pool Room. He took in the glittering white-marble center pool, the shimmering chain-link drapes, the important and beautiful people at the crisp, glowing tables, all eating with a meticulous casualness. He could almost feel the power thrumming through the floor. Even he couldn’t deny that the sensation was exhilarating.
The other board members of New York Restore had already arrived. They were seated at the double table by the pool that they always reserved for their quarterly dinner meeting.
“Well, if it isn’t our wild Irish chairman,” Mrs. Clautier said. “In all the time I’ve known you, Francis, I do believe this is the very first time you’ve ever been late.”
“I can’t tell you how hectic things have been at the office,” Francis said, grinning widely as he kissed her Cartier-diamond-encrusted hand. “The important thing is, I’m here now to bask in the glow of your loveliness.”
“Such a charmer,” Mrs. Clautier said with a sigh as she touched his cheek. “Francis, as I’ve told you many a time, you were born several generations too late.”
“And you several too early, my dear,” Francis said. He declined the menu the tuxedoed waiter offered and ordered the Dover sole.
“I was with Caroline at lunch today, and she told me that Sloan-Kettering is doing celebrity-designed lunch boxes for their soiree,” Mrs. Clautier told the group. “Isn’t that a hoot? Brooke came up with the idea.”
For Mrs. Clautier, diva of the New York social set, to actually go out of her way to supply the last names Kennedy and Shields would have been beneath her, Francis knew.
Mrs. Clautier was an unapologetic snob. In truth, he really couldn’t give two shits about New York Restore and its insipid mission to maintain and beautify Manhattan ’s playgrounds and public spaces. The only reason he’d decided to head it was to humor the generous Mrs. Clautier. Over the years, he’d become a kind of unofficial philanthropy consultant to her, and he had been able to steer millions of the limitless oil fortune her husband had left her to other much more important causes.
In fact, he was going to squeeze her for the biggest amount he’d ever chanced right after the meal. The papers, all ready for her to sign, were under the holstered automatic in his briefcase.
“Champagne, Mr. Mooney?” the ever discreet table captain whispered to Francis as Mrs. Clautier’s regaling veered into tales of the latest mischief her Pekingese, Charlie, had gotten into.
“Glenlivet. A double,” Mooney whispered back.
Chapter 65
WAKING ABRUPTLY IN the dark, Francis Mooney immediately regretted the third Scotch he’d ordered the night before. Alcohol always disrupted his sleep. He was trying to fall back when the 1010 WINS xylophone started up from his radio alarm.
“Good morning,” the anchor said. “It’s five-thirty. Alternate side of the street parking is suspended today for Ash Wednesday.”
Despair surged like vomit into the back of Francis’s throat at the mention of the day.
It was here, he thought as he began to whimper inconsolably. No! It’s too soon. I can’t face this. How can I face doing this?
Tears poured down his cheeks. It took him a full ten minutes of breathing slowly to control himself enough to sit up. He squeezed his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms as hard as he could. The pain was exquisite, but it did the trick. He wiped his eyes, shut off the radio, and swung his feet out of bed.
He made coffee and carried it through the immaculate rooms of his 25th Street Chelsea town house. Up a circular staircase on the second floor was his favorite place, his rooftop lounge.
Outside, the cold air was pleasant as he wiggled his bare toes on the tar paper. He remembered playing tag on the roof of his Inwood tenement when he was a child. Was that why he liked this rooftop lounge so much?
From the almost-empty street below, he heard a speeding cab’s tire slap off a road plate. He smiled, looking north at the green McGraw-Hill Building, which loomed like some landlocked Art Deco cruise ship. His smile departed as he turned toward the hint of dawn on the dark eastern horizon behind the Empire State Building.
The day was coming. It would not be stopped. Another tear rolled down his cheek. He wiped it away. He finally steeled himself with a breath and tipped his mug at the coming dawn as if in a toast.
Gray light was spilling down 25th Street as he locked his front door half an hour later. He always dressed well, but this morning of all mornings, he’d pulled out all the stops. He slid a hand down the sleek lapel of his best suit, a light gray chalk-stripe Henry Poole he’d splurged on when he was in London on business six years
