Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (50 page)

“How can anything be
worse than that?”

James Cullen furrowed his
brow.
 
“Isn’t it obvious?
 
If I die, I’ll be cheated out of finding
out what’s going on and why I was murdered in the first place.
 
Now, look.
 
You’ve upset me.
 
I’ve given you my time.
 
I’ve told you what little I know.
 
Do you have any other questions?”

“Not for you.
 
At least not now.
 
I might need to see you again.”

“I’d be happy to answer
any of your questions.
 
Whatever you
learn might help me.
 
I don’t want
to die, Mr. Spellman.
 
If I can
assist you, I will, because it very well might be you who ends this.”

Marty got up to
leave.
 
“Thanks for the coffee and
for seeing me.”

“It was my pleasure.
 
I wish you luck.
 
Please call at any time.
 
I hope I’m still here to answer.”

CHAPTER
SEVENTY

When Spellman left,
Spocatti and Carmen stepped through a side entrance and moved into the room.

“Well?” Cullen said.

“You handled yourself
well,” Spocatti said.
 
“But he’s
smart.
 
We were watching.
 
He’ll continue to nose around.
 
There’s a chance that he might involve
the police.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“Nothing can be traced
back to you.
 
Even if he did go to
the police, they’d have a difficult time trying to figure out your motivation
for killing off Louis’ beneficiaries.
 
Why?
 
There is nothing in it
for you.
 
You have no motive.
 
Louis did.”

“He was wise to leave
them that money,” Carmen said.
 
“It
was a way to throw people off.
 
He
planned for everything, didn’t he?”

“It appears that way.”

“I would have liked to
have known him.”

“No, you wouldn’t,”
Spocatti said.
 
“Trust me.”

“So, what’s your
opinion?” Cullen asked.
 
“Do we just
let him snoop around, or do we eliminate him?”

“What we don’t know is
whether he told someone that he was coming here today.
 
If he did and if he dies, it wouldn’t
bode well for you, to say the least.”

“If he unearths something
that could incriminate me, it will be worse.”

“There’s nothing to
unearth.
 
The money you paid us came
from your offshore account into our offshore accounts.
 
It’s untraceable.
 
Leana Redman, George Redman, and Michael
Archer will be dead in a matter of days.
 
Then this will be behind you.”

“Or be smack in front of
me.”

“I don’t see how,” Carmen
said.
 
“To the world, you’re
innocent in all this.
 
You come from
one of New York’s most prestigious families.
 
You may have blood on your hands because
of what you’ve carried through for Louis, but what’s in your favor is that
your
blood is blue.
 
No one will suspect
you of this.
 
You and your family
are revered in this city.
 
I don’t
see it happening.
 
As Vincent said,
you have no motive.”

“Everything ends in three
days,” Spocatti said.
 
“Let’s wait
and see if Spellman causes a stink before we overreact.
 
If he does, we take him out.
 
If he doesn’t—and I don’t think he
has time to do any damage even if he wanted to—then we just walk away
from it.
 
Killing more people is
only going to generate more attention, especially a private investigator who
may have told someone he was visiting you.
 
If we murder him, there’s every chance that the police will come to
you.
 
You can handle their questions
the same way you handled Spellman’s questions, which was spot on, but why
subject yourself to them if you don’t have to?
 
Right now, the worst thing you can do is
act irrationally.
 
That’s where Louis
went wrong—he didn’t listen to me—and look where it got him.
 
Just let us handle this.
 
We need you to be just as you were with
Spellman.”

“I never commended you
for what you wrote on the tarp covering Leana’s hotel,” Cullen said.
 
“Or how you wounded her by blowing out
that storefront.
 
Louis would have
appreciated that.”

Spocatti didn’t look at
Carmen.
 
Instead, he nodded at
Cullen.
 
“Just trust us.
 
Everything is coming together.
 
Carmen and I have a solid plan.”

“Which is?”

“We stop putting pressure
on them.
 
Right now, we lie
low.
 
Give them a chance to
breathe.
 
Maybe drop their guards a
bit, though that’s unlikely.
 
Still,
Carmen will take care of Leana and Michael at the opening of her hotel.
 
I’ll take care of George on the same
night, when his hotel opens.
 
Then
everyone on Louis’ list will be dead, you can transfer the rest of our money to
our accounts, and we’ll be done with this and gone.”

“I have your
invitations,” Cullen said, walking around to the front of his desk and
retrieving them from a drawer.
 
“My
name is good for a lot of things in this city, such as securing these.
 
I hear they’re not easy to come
by.”
 
He handed one to each of
them.
 
“One is for the opening of
Leana’s hotel, the other is for George’s.
 
I made up the names for you.
 
I hope they work.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re sure this will
work?”

“Oh, it’ll work,” Carmen
said.
 
“We’ll see to it.”

*
 
*
 
*

Spocatti and Carmen left
Cullen’s office and moved through the industrial space, which was empty, save
for Marta, who was paid handsomely to be discreet and therefore never once
looked at them as they passed.
 

Carmen waited until the
elevator doors slid open before turning to Vincent. “So, we never tell him?”

“We don’t.”

“We just let him believe
that it was us behind the tarp and the shooting that nearly cost Leana Redman
her eyesight?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?
 
Doesn’t he deserve to know that someone
else is involved?
 
That those events
didn’t happen because of us?”

“That’s not my problem,
Carmen.
 
Nor is it yours.
 
It’s none of our business.
 
We weren’t hired to be
investigators.
 
We were hired to be
assassins.
 
There’s a difference.”
 

They stepped inside.
 
When the doors closed and the elevator
began its descent, he said, “We go by the contract.
 
We were paid to kill ten people, nothing
more.
 
Leana Redman, George Redman,
and Michael Archer are the last on the list.
 
If somebody else gets to them first, for
whatever reason, so be it.
 
There’s
nothing we can do about that.
 
We
are aware of it, we are on top of it, and that’s what matters.
 
I have a feeling that whoever else wants
them dead will also act at each hotel’s opening, if not before.
 
But if it hasn’t happened before those
events, we need to be acutely aware of their presence—we need to check
the crowd for anything that appears off.
 
If George goes down at his hotel’s opening, or if Leana’s goes down at
her hotel’s opening, and we’re not part of either of their deaths, we walk
away.
 
We get the hell out of
there.
 
Obviously, we’re not the
only ones targeting them.
 
Do I care
about that?
 
Only when it comes to
our own safety.
 
Otherwise, we
continue to turn a blind eye to it because the end game is the same—their
deaths.
 
It might be that the only
person we need to bring down is Archer since no one but us has targeted him
yet.”
 

“George hasn’t been
targeted.”

“Yet.
 
For whatever reason, they may just want
Leana and Michael.
 
If that’s the
case, we step in and take out George when the moment is right.”

“
You’ll
step
in.
 
I’ll be with Leana and
Michael.”

“That’s right,” he
said.
 
“And that’s fine.
 
I should have been allowed to kill
Redman three years ago, but look at me now.
 
At last—an opportunity for
closure.”

CHAPTER
SEVENTY-ONE

When Marty left Manhattan
Enterprises, he grabbed a cab, gave the driver an address on the Upper West
Side, and called Gloria, who lived there in an apartment overlooking the Park.

“This is becoming a
habit,” she said.

“I hope not a bad one.”

“We’re good.”

“It’s about Leana.”

“How can I help?”

“Are you home?”

“Your timing is
perfect.
 
I’m back from getting
groceries.”

“Would you mind if I
stopped by?
 
I need to discuss
something with you in person, not over the phone.
 
I need a favor.”

“You’re onto something?”

“I’m not sure.
 
I might be.
 
We’ll see.”

“You know where to find
me,” she said.
 

“I’ll see you in a few
minutes.”

*
 
*
 
*

When he arrived at
Gloria’s apartment, she opened the door and gave him a kiss on each cheek.

“How was Vegas?” she
asked.

“Let’s just say it was
good to get away.”

“And Jennifer?”

“She has put a pox on
video blackjack.
 
Otherwise, she’s
already back to work at Channel One.”

“She’s a workaholic, that
one.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But she’s sweet.
 
I like her.
 
And I especially like her for you.”

How many years had it
taken them to get to this point, where they could talk as they used to
talk—as friends with no baggage?
 
Too many.
 
They’d been
through a lot together, especially recently, which only had brought them
closer.
 
He stepped deeper into the
space and waited to be greeted by his daughters.
 

But he wasn’t.

“Where are Jack and the
girls?”

“I sent them to get ice
cream,” she said.
 
“I sensed this
was private and thought you’d want to talk alone.
 
I hope I’m right.
 
I know you probably wanted to see them.”

“I would have, but you’re
right.
 
This is private.”

“Come into the living
room.
 
Do you want something to
drink?
 
Iced tea?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

He watched her cross to
one of the chairs banked by a wall of windows that overlooked the Park.
 
She sat down, smiled up at him as he
took the seat opposite her, and with her pinky, lifted a finger of brown hair
off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear.
 

The way she tucked her
hair behind her ear was something that evoked a fond memory within him.
 
When he first met her years ago in
college, she had shyly done the same thing when he introduced himself to
her.
 
Only her hair wasn’t colored
then.
 
It was lighter, less
severe.
 
Long gone was the introspective
woman he fell in love with years ago.
 
Her hard-won success as an artist had given her entree into society’s
closed rooms, and had freed her to become the strong, opinionated woman she was
today.