Night Watch (47 page)

“You got another twelve minutes to enjoy it, Alex,” Mercer said.

Mike started to sing while Mercer held the cupcake in front of me. I grabbed the pole with one hand and Mercer’s shoulder with the other, gliding up and down with my chosen pony.

“Close your eyes and make a wish,” Mercer said.

“Eyes wide open, guys. I have everything I want right here with me tonight.”

“You’ve got us for life, kid. The three musketeers.”

“They’re too French, Mike. Give me another image.”

“Well, did you hear the man?” Mike said, getting down on his knees, fumbling with something I couldn’t see. “Close your eyes. Wish or don’t wish, that’s up to you.”

I closed my eyes. And as long as they were closed, I made a wish. Then I opened them and blew out the candle that Mercer was holding.

I looked down and saw that Mike had uncorked another bottle of wine, and he handed us each a paper cup full.

“Cheers, Coop. Happy birthday,” Mike said.

“Happy birthday, Alexandra,” Mercer said, as the city spun around before me.

“What did you wish for?”

“If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”

“That serious?” Mike said, with a laugh, climbing up on the horse next to mine. “Then let me be the last to know.”

“You usually are,” Mercer said, leaning his back against my pony to take in the view.

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Mike said. “The ring.”

I sat bolt upright, like I’d been punched in the gut. “Look, I don’t know what you know about that, but this isn’t the night—”

“Keep your cool, Coop. Lean over next time around. The brass ring is yours if you can pick it off.”

The brass ring of the carousel, I thought to myself. Not Luc’s birthday surprise for me, that Joan Stafford had alerted me to.

Mike was talking about the classic carnival prize—happiness, long life, great friends, good luck.

“You just keep this carousel going till I reach it,” I said.

“Dizzy yet?” Mike asked.

“Not a chance of it. I’m just beginning to feel good again.”

I handed my cup to Mercer, basking in the lights of the city I loved so much. I could see the brass ring hanging from a leather strip on the carousel’s frame, and I grabbed for it every time we circled around.

Jane Stanton Hitchcock is one of my favorite writers. Since I first created Alex Cooper, Jane has helped me plot my way out of difficult corners at all hours of the day and night, allowed me to put words in her mouth as Coop’s friend, Joan Stafford, and feted me with every completed book. Her brilliant husband, Jim Hoagland, has generously tolerated endless conversations about our fictional alter egos. This time, Jane and Jim introduced me to Mohammed Gil-Darsin and set my backstory in motion.

Sometimes my readers ask which characters in my stories are real and which are not. This is a work of fiction, of course, so none of the people portrayed in these pages are “real.” Occasionally, I pay homage to friends for whom I have enormous respect, and they are named as such. One example is the incomparable Andre Soltner—and his wife, Simone—who truly built Lutèce into America’s greatest restaurant, as described in a book by one of my sources, Irene Daria (
Lutèce: A Day in the Life of America’s Greatest Restaurant
).

But Lutèce was actually created by my dear friend, Andre Surmain, who hired Soltner and later sold the restaurant to him. All
the “firsts” Luc Rouget lists to describe his father’s accomplishments were the brainstorms of Surmain—who has four wonderful children, none of whom resembles Luc, nor Luc’s estranged wife, Brigitte. Many, many years ago, I did spend countless delightful hours in the village of Mougins, dining at Le Relais and marveling at the difficulties of keeping a three-star restaurant at the top of its game. So a special thanks to Andre Surmain—a genius at that business, both artist and showman—for such a delicious introduction to the sometimes treacherous world of fine food and wine. And
merci
again to Andre, Jean-Paul Battaglia, and Mitch and Sarah Rosenthal for those death-defying trips on the Ducati from Mougins all along the Côte d’Azur.

Ken Aretsky’s Patroon is one of my favorite places in town. Though I take fictional liberties with a lot of my characters, it’s an understatement to say that Diana Lyne and Ken run one of the classiest eateries in New York and answered all my restaurant questions over divine food and first-class wine. Reserve now—you’ll love the wine cellar.

After thirty years as a prosecutor, it’s impossible for me to turn off my imagination when I read about cases in the morning news. And when sex crimes become high-profile matters, I’m often called on by national media to discuss the facts and issues. To this day, wherever I go, people ask me about the man known to the world as DSK—the prominent Frenchman who was charged with a crime in a Manhattan hotel room. I had no inside track on the investigation—no leaks at all—but I had the same intense curiosity as much of the world, and so I decided to create a fictional case with similar issues, working it with my own experience and my own “dream team” of colleagues. Cyrus Vance, the District Attorney of New York County, is my great friend. He is
not
the DA in this series of books. Paul Battaglia was created fifteen years before Vance was elected to the job, and it is Battaglia’s oversight of the DA’s office that shapes Alex Cooper’s investigation, as it has in every previous book in the series. The actions Battaglia takes are entirely fictional. None of
them are based on real events, which were no more than a spark of inspiration for something that would have been within my characters’ legal jurisdiction. There are no similarities between the scenes in this novel and reality.

There were so many articles and books—most of them mouth-watering—that I relied on for detail in creating this story. As always,
The
New York Times
was an invaluable source of information. In particular, articles by Liesl Schillinger, Al Baker, Eric Asimov, Sean Wilsey, Douglas Martin, Ben Schott, David Segal, Joyce Wadler, Lizette Alvarez, and J. David Goodman all enlightened and amused me. Benjamin Wallace’s
Town & Country
piece about “Buried Treasure” was invaluable, too. The books I most enjoyed were William Grimes’s
Appetite City
, H. Peter Kriendler’s
21: Every Day Was New Year’s Eve
, and Marilyn Kaytor’s
21: The Life and Times of New York’s Favorite Club
. Though the books by Anthony Bourdain didn’t make it into my novel, they make superb reading on the subject of food.

I’m so happy with my Dutton family—their expertise and their kindness—Brian Tart, Ben Sevier, Christine Ball, Jamie McDonald, Jessica Horvath, Carrie Swetonic, Susan Schwartz, and Dick Heffernan. And the same to my Little, Brown group in the UK, to David Shelley, Catherine Burke, and all.

Esther Newberg of ICM, great friend and fearless agent, negotiated me through a year of very rough waters, aided by the extremely efficient and ever-cheerful Kari Stuart. Mark Gordon and Josie Freedman—thanks, too…and keep trying, will you?

It is impossible for me to express, in the cold type of the written page, what friendship has meant to me in the months that I was trying to create this book. There are too many meaningful names to note them all, but how fortunate Justin and I were to have been embraced by such loving friends.

To Matt and Alex Zavislan, Lisa and Marc Fairstein—who gave us sunshine and hope with every call and visit.

To the women who are my proudest legacy in the law, for their
stories and evenings out, dining and wining me with TLC—Martha Bashford, Ann Donnelly, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, Audrey Moore, Melissa Mourges, and Kerry O’Connell. And to the eight great ladies who have lunched with me once every month for twenty years, “dressing the window” at table #1 at Michael’s Restaurant, cheers!

To my favorite doctor, Stanley Schrem, whose skill and compassion allowed Justin to thrive against all odds for so very long; and to doctors Jeff Zack and Sean Kelly—our island medical miracle workers—who partnered with the fantastic nurses at VNA to give us one more spectacular Vineyard summer.

To Louise Grunwald, who has a gift for friendship that is unparalleled. Not only did her “angel flight” to the Vineyard with Ann and Donovan Moore provide days of laughter and happy memories, but she was beside me in the darkest hours, without fail. To Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, who gave new meaning to the expression “night watch” at a most vulnerable moment in my life. Martin and Pinks London, Karen Cooper, Alex Cooper, Susan and Allison Davis, Ann and Vernon Jordan, Alex Denman and Ben Stein, Joan and Bernie Carl, Nancy Clair and Ric Patterson, Cyrus and Peggy Vance, Patty and David Schulte, Colleen McMahon and Frank Sica, Ann and Mike Toth, Alan Levine, Tessa Sookran, Bill Solon, Peter O’Hayer, Allan Howe, and my family—Fairsteins, Feldmans, Zavislans, and David Braunstein—I smile again because of you.

Rabin Sooklall is simply the best person on this planet—and I think of his exquisite care, his loyalty, and his grace every single day.

For my beloved Justin—your dignity, courage, wisdom, brilliance, humor, joy, and boundless capacity for love will live in my heart forever.

Linda Fairstein
is America’s foremost legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence. She led the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for twenty-six years. Her thirteen previous Alexandra Cooper novels have been critically acclaimed international bestsellers, translated into more than a dozen languages. She lives in Manhattan and on Martha’s Vineyard.