City of Dreams (32 page)

“I’m one of the top brokers in Boston. He’s tops in New York. Same class in B-school. So we do business. And we’re both committed to securing our national future by reducing the deficit.”

“I’m familiar with their work,” said Peter blandly.

“Too bad you missed out on that bond business, eh?” said Wedge. “Or did you?”

“If I told you,” said Peter, “I’d have to kill you.”

Someone caught Dorothy’s attention, so she excused herself.

Wedge said to Peter and Evangeline, “I’m here to meet the fiancé who will father the children who inherit my wealth—”

“You’d better be good to him then,” said Evangeline.

“I want to be,” said Wedge, “but he’s from India. And you know what our British cousins called them. ‘Bloody wogs.’”

“Well, look at me,” said Evangeline. “I’m marrying an Irishman, and you know what our British cousins called
them
.”

Wedge gave a big braying laugh, as if he didn’t quite get that the joke was on him. Then he said, “Really great to see you both. Hope to see you again soon,” and he headed for the far corner of the great hall, where his daughter was embracing a handsome young man with a very dark complexion.

“All those kids coming to New York to make their fortunes in publishing,” said Evangeline. “Let’s hope the Punjab interloper has an MBA.”

They sat again, and Peter said, “We should dig up the 501(c)(3) for the nonprofit Paul Revere Foundation. I’d love to see if there are a lot of Harvard men on the board.”

“Why?”

A waiter replaced their drinks, then quietly left.

“Arsenault is Harvard Business School. Wedge is Harvard, too Just a hunch.”

“Your hunches usually get us into trouble.” Evangeline took a sip from her second glass and noticed another man stopping at the entrance.

He was tall, skinny, nervous-looking.

Evangeline turned to Peter, whose second glass of New Amsterdam was at his lips. “I think that’s him.”

The man scanned the room until his eyes fixed on the far corner.

Evangeline glanced over her shoulder and saw Will Wedge looking toward the entrance. Was he puzzled? Surprised? She could not tell, but Wedge began to stand.

She looked back at the man in the doorway. He was looking at Wedge with an expression that said he, too, was puzzled or perhaps surprised.

Evangeline said to Peter, “I know this man from somewhere.”

“Somewhere? Where?”

She ran the facts of the man’s face through her memory bank: bland features, square, conventional . . . nothing to stand out in a lineup or on a police sketchbook.

Then Carl Evers began to walk toward Will Wedge with a long stride that seemed more frightened than confident.

As he passed Peter and Evangeline, she said, “He was on the Bowling Green the other night.”

Evers was moving more quickly now, as if he had made a decision.

And Will Wedge was standing but not—for once—smiling.

Evers had gone about a third of the way across Harvard Hall when Peter thought he heard a champagne cork pop.

An instant later, Evers pitched forward, as if he had been struck from behind. He slammed into one of the waiters, sending a tray of Gibsons and green Heinekens flying into the air and shattering onto the stone floor.

The waiter fell back onto a sofa and landed on an old alum, who jumped up and cried, “Goddamn it! Look what you’ve done to my suit.”

The echo of breaking glass and discord stopped conversation all across the hall.

Carl Evers was standing again, steadying himself with a hand on one of the pillars that supported the grand fireplace.

And the surface of that calm leather sea went choppy. People were turning, standing, looking . . . first toward the alum, then toward the man who was once more lurching forward.

Peter could see the hole in his gray suit, just below the right shoulder blade.

And from the end of the hall, Dorothy Wedge cried, “In the balcony! He’s got a gun.”

Peter looked up, saw the silencer, the barrel of the gun, then the gunman—white, gaunt, balding, disguised in a crimson waiter’s jacket and black bow tie . . .

A woman screamed, so Peter did not hear the pop of the second shot.

But Evangeline was still turned to Evers, so she saw the shot hit the back of his head. He spun forward, slammed into one of the pillars, and dropped to the floor.

And now, people seemed to understand what was happening. The nervous choppy movements became waves of fear. People were jumping up, diving down, or running for the exit.

But the man on the balcony scanned the room as calmly as if he were choosing a place to sit. Then his eye fell on Evangeline.

Peter grabbed her by the arm. “Come on. If we’re caught in here, we may never explain our way out.” He dragged her into the stream of people pouring toward the exits.

“But, Peter—”

“And I think we might be targets, too.”

In an instant they were rushing back through the Grille Room as diners looked up from their steaks and salads at the wave of frightened people. Peter kept Evangeline moving back to the lobby, where two young black men in crimson sport coats, club security, were hurrying toward the noise.

Peter said to them, “In the balcony. Gunman. Be careful.” And he kept going, with Evangeline on his arm, right out onto Forty-fourth Street.

The doorman, oblivious to the scene inside, said, “Taxi, sir?”

“Here comes one now,” said Peter. “Thanks.”

The door of a yellow cab was swinging open under the crimson awning, and a long female leg was swinging out.

Peter led Evangeline toward the cab, pushed the female passenger back in, jumped in himself, and pulled Evangeline in right after him.

“H
EY!” SAID THE
cabbie. “Let lady out!” He was wearing a turban. A Sikh.

“It’s all right,” said Kathy Flynn. “He’s a friend . . . I think.”

Peter said, “Take us to the Flatiron Building. Fifth Avenue and Broadway.”

“That okay with you, lady?” the driver asked Kathy.

“Wherever he wants,” said Kathy.

Peter closed the little slider between the front seat and the back.

As the first police sirens started to wail, the cabbie rolled toward Fifth Avenue.

Kathy leaned around Peter and said to Evangeline, “Long time, no see.”

If Evangeline hadn’t been shaking, she might have come up with something sarcastic, something cool and cutting at the same time. But all she had was direct, blunt, and cold: “Your accountant is dead.”

Kathy sat back. “Dead? How?”

“Somebody just put a hit on him in there,” said Peter.

“Jesus Christ! A hit?” Kathy looked out the window. “There goes my source.”

“That’s all you can say?” demanded Evangeline. “A man’s dead and you’re worried about your source?”

“This could turn out to be a huge story,” she said. “And he was at the heart of it.”

Evangeline looked out at the people hurrying along. She felt tears welling, shock and anger. She had been around Peter Fallon long enough that she had seen a few shootings, but it was not something that she ever got used to.

Peter took two deep breaths, trying to get cool and stay cool. As the cab pulled around the corner, he glanced back up Forty-fourth Street. The blue lights were flashing and cars and cabs and delivery trucks were making way. The wail of the sirens was echoing down Fifth Avenue, too.

A shooting at the Harvard Club was no ordinary 911 call.

But Peter wasn’t concerned with the police. He was looking for familiar faces, unfriendly faces, anyone he might have seen on the Bowling Green or anywhere else. But he saw no one he recognized on the sidewalk or in any doorways.

The cab was one of those Nissan hybrids that were replacing the city’s fleet of gas hogs. It had a little backseat television. It did not have a ton of iron to protect you as you hurtled through intersections and slammed over potholes. So whenever he got into one of these little cabs, Peter put on his seat belt, but it was impossible when he was the buffer between two women so ready to dislike each other.

Kathy pointed to the TV screen. “The Dow went down another two hundred today. The technical resistance didn’t hold. And now China is saying that if the American bond market receives any more shocks, they might consider
selling
Treasuries.”

“What kind of shocks?” asked Peter.

Kathy shook her head and watched the screen.

Peter answered his own question: “The kind that the Supreme Court would send with a decision that forces the federal government to pay out billions of dollars to individuals and institutions holding 1780 bonds?”

“Billions?” said Kathy. “Arsenault really thinks there’s billions out there?”

Evangeline elbowed Peter in the ribs, as if she didn’t trust this Kathy Flynn about love or money or anything else.

Kathy didn’t seem to notice. She said, “Well, however much money it is, it could be a shock either way.”

“How?” said Peter.

“If the court upholds Arsenault’s claim, the Chinese may decide it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And if the court finds against, the buyers of U.S. Treasuries may decide that if we’re willing to deny payment on the last debts of American Revolution, what else are we willing to default on?”

“A nice little dilemma,” said Peter.

Evangeline leaned around Peter. “That still doesn’t explain why you wanted us to have a drink with that guy in the Harvard Club.”

“I didn’t,” said Kathy. “
He
did. Carl Evers did. He was laying low, staying in the club accommodations. He said he hadn’t left in five days.”

“He might have been laying,” said Evangeline. “He was also lying.”

“Lying?” said Kathy.

Evangeline decided to throw out a bit of information and see what it attracted. “Carl Evers was on the Bowling Green on Monday night. I saw him there.”

“The Bowling Green?” said Kathy. “Did a bag lady have anything to do with it?”

“She got us into this,” said Evangeline. “In Oscar Delancey’s bookstore.”

“Delancey?” said Kathy. “He sold the bonds to Arsenault. Have you talked to him?”

“We’ve tried,” said Peter. “But he seems to have gone underground.”

“Permanently?” asked Kathy.

“Hard to say,” answered Peter. “So why did Evers want to talk to us?”

“Because I suspect you’re doing the same kind of work for Arsenault that Delancey’s doing. Evers must have had some kind of information for you. I was facilitating it”—Kathy looked out the window—“to pick up something for my story.”

“So you were using us?” said Evangeline.

“This is the big city, honey,” said Kathy. “Everyone uses everyone else.”

“I’ll remember that next time I need to
use
a financial reporter,” said Evangeline.

“I do what I have to on a story,” answered Kathy. “I work the club rooms. I work the boardrooms. I work the street.”

“You used to work the library stacks, too.” said Evangeline.

“Hey, listen—”

Peter jumped in. “If Evers wanted to see us, why did he walk right past us and head straight for Will Wedge?”

“Will Wedge?” Kathy pulled out her BlackBerry and typed something. “There’s someone worth an interview. I bet Evers had something for Will Wedge, too.”

“Can you speculate?” asked Peter.

“I think that Evers was going to spill whatever he knew about Avid,” answered Kathy, “like how much they have under management, where they’ve been investing, how they do their accounting and monthly statements . . . whether he was just signing off on his audits or actually certifying them . . . stuff like that.”

“Are you saying Arsenault is in trouble?” asked Peter.

“It’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“So . . . you really don’t know much about anything,” said Evangeline, “but you don’t mind pulling us into it.”

“I didn’t pull you in,” said Kathy. “The bag lady did. She came to me, too. She said it was time to investigate Avid Austin.”

Evangeline looked down the length of Fifth Avenue. The cab had gone five blocks, so they were already below the angle of the Empire State Building. She laughed and said, “And all this time, I was thinking
you
were the bag lady.”

“That does it.” Kathy threw open the slider and told the cabbie to pull over.

Peter looked at Evangeline and made a small gesture with his hand—stay calm.

Kathy said to Peter, “Next time we’re supposed to have a drink, come alone.”

The cab stopped. Kathy stepped out and stuck her head back inside. “On Friday, I run a story on Arsenault and Avid Investment Strategies. It’s about the bonds, the Supreme Court decision, and the board of the Paul Revere Foundation, which includes Will Wedge, another Harvard man. It may also be about you. So take care of yourself between now and then.”

“You, too,” said Peter.

“You know where to find me.”
Slam
. Kathy shut the door and went off.

“I just had a thought.” Evangeline watched Sally stalk off. “She set us up.”

“For a hit?” said Peter. “Ridiculous. But she’s lying about Evers. He wanted to see her. She wanted to see what he did when he met us.”

“What he did was not pretty.”

T
HE FAMOUS OLD
Flatiron sat where Fifth Avenue and Broadway intersected to create the triangular lot that gave rise to the wedge-shaped building.

Whenever Peter looked up at it, he remembered something H. G. Welles had written: “I found myself agape, admiring a skyscraper—the prow of the Flatiron Building . . . ploughing up through the traffic of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in the late-afternoon light.”

But as they got out of the cab that afternoon, Peter was thinking only of looking around to make sure that they were not being followed.

They hurried in, smiled for the camera at the security desk, then rode one of the exquisite old art nouveau elevators up to the office of Magee & Magee.

Most of the Flatiron was occupied by a publishing conglomerate. There were a few literary and theatrical agents, too, along with galleries and a few artists. But the firm of Magee & Magee had occupied one of the upper floors since the forties.

And who would ever surrender that view, thought Peter as the secretary ushered them into Owen T. Magee’s office in the prow of the building, right at the apex, the point of the wedge. The rounded window behind Magee offered one of the best views in town. You felt as if you were standing on a rock as two fast-moving streams of cars and people flowed past. And when the headlights began to blink on, the effect was even more dramatic.