“I don’t have kids.”
“Then think of your wife.”
“I don’t have one of those, either.”
“Then you and I need to talk. Later. My bedroom. When it’s just the two of us and a harness.”
The man screwed up his face and the goons looked at each other. The tallest of them said in a low voice to the hot one, “If you don’t do it, I will.”
“Okay,” the hot one said. “Write the check for one five.”
“Of course.” He winked at him. “And what a business sense. You’ve got a head on your shoulders. I like that.” Wolfhagen filled out the amount and then, turning slightly to the window, he said: “First the gun.”
The man hesitated, but then he handed to him.
No stranger to a gun, Wolfhagen checked to see if it was loaded. It was. He gave the men their checks, rolled up the window so they couldn’t pull anything on him, cut into traffic and roared off to the very place he knew Carra would be.
It was Saturday night. She’d be at her version of The Bull Pen. The club he created all those years ago was back in operation and apparently thriving-the few people who remained friends with him during his awful fallout with the world were members of it. They told him that Carra and Lasker were there once per month on a Saturday night. Though they’d moved the club to a new building after the federal crack down, Carra and Lasker had kept it going in his absence, obviously for the money it brought in, but more likely for the connections it offered.
He wondered if they videotaped the crowd as he used to do. If they did, he wondered how many favors they were sitting on now.
The address he was given would take him to West 83rd Street, which told him all he needed to know. While the location had changed, what was happening inside that club hadn’t. These people needed their playtime, but they also needed to play in a location that was safe, upscale, unsuspecting and in which they could do anything they wished in complete privacy. Whether the club was extreme as it was when he ran it was doubtful-Carra was a conservative little cunt. But she also was bright and he knew she wouldn’t be stupid enough to tamper with what once had worked so well.
The Bull Pen offered certain expectations.
Tonight, it would see those expectations lifted when he himself murdered Carra and Lasker in front of those who were there. Some would get off on it. Others would wonder why they did. And a few would be repelled.
That is, of course, if anyone was there. It wasn’t even 11 p.m. yet. It might be that only a few stragglers would enjoy the show, because like most of the darker clubs in New York, few got started before 3 a.m., which was just fine with Wolfhagen. In this case, the fewer people, the better.
To pull this off, he needed help. And so he took the cell phone the goons had given him and tapped out a number. As the line rang, he rolled down the window and sped uptown, the warm breeze stirring his hair. In the distance, he could see the orange, fiery glow hovering above the city’s Upper East Side.
When it came to murder, Wolfhagen had the best help in the city.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
10:42 p.m.
For Carmen and Spocatti, time was smashed by the chaos of what they’d created.
With the clock running against them, they now needed to beat the media, who soon would go public with connections that had become so obvious, it would start what they feared all along-a running of the bulls as Wolfhagen’s former bulls left the city.
And when that happened, it would prevent them from finishing their job and collecting the millions in bonuses that came along with it.
And so they moved. They had their distraction. There were people to kill. No time to lose.
They were now four blocks east of 75th and Fifth, where the Escalade ignited and leveled the buildings surrounding it. With only a fleeting exception, they hadn’t stopped running until now, when Spocatti slowed beside a car Carmen didn’t recognize and popped the trunk.
Sirens sounded everywhere. The night was so heavy with humidity, the smoke from the explosions hung low, choking the air.
Carmen looked at the end of 75th and Fifth, where buildings had fallen into the streets. Fires were burning. Helicopters circling. People were rushing past her and toward the damage in an effort to help those likely trapped beneath the rubble.
She was aware of people screaming. She was aware of her own heart racing. She kept hearing the word “terrorists” being shouted in a cacophony of fear and outrage. She watched Spocatti click the cap off his video camera and offer Wolfhagen a final shot of the devastation. Right now, he was everything she wasn’t. He was an automaton. He was cool. He was composed.
But Carmen? She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t shaken.
Spocatti stood next to her on the sidewalk. The video camera was poised in front of him, pointing down the street. She looked at him and swore she could see the hint of a smile on his face. He was getting Wolfhagen his money’s worth, but they needed to leave before the streets were closed. She’d give him 30 seconds.
Earlier, when Carmen called Pamela Dean, the woman did exactly what they hoped she’d do-she answered her phone, confirming she was home. For the last time in her life, she said “Hello” and listened to Carmen as she sent her Wolfhagen’s best. “You knew this day would come, Pamela. You ruined his life, and now he’s taking yours. He’ll be listening to this. Can you tell him how it feels?”
Before Dean could reply-but not so quickly that she couldn’t process what was happening-the cars parked curbside lifted from the pavement and started to flip in a fiery rush. Like dominoes, one car exploded and it set off the next car, and the next.
It was so engrossing, they hadn’t wanted to leave. Hollywood should have been there to see it if only because it would have understood that it got it wrong every time-this is how it looked. Better yet, in the midst of all of it, they’d watched a person in a white caftan turn into a funnel of flames as he stumbled toward Fifth. A hail of burning debris rained down on him and those running past him. When he fell, they each turned to run, knowing that the Escalade was about to explode and blow the surrounding area into nothingness.
They raced toward Madison, clipped around the corner and pressed their backs against the buildings just as the street flashed white, the buildings shook and somewhere behind them, other buildings fell. There was a rush of searing wind and then the fireball Carmen feared most whooshed past them down the street, incinerating those caught in its path. Then, with no tunnel to propel it, it lifted in the middle of Madison, rolled high in the wide-open space and evaporated.
There was no question that Dean was dead, so they continued to run, this time cutting through the traffic until they stopped at the getaway car.
She nudged Spocatti. “That’s it. We’re out of here.”
He clicked off the camera and put it in his bag in the trunk. She walked around the car as he pulled out his keys and unlocked the doors. “Who’s first?”
“Cohen is closest. We do him, then Dunne, then Casari.” His cell phone buzzed in his pants pocket. He removed it and looked down at the number, which he didn’t recognize. He hesitated, but answered it, anyway. Wolfhagen.
“It would help if you told me when you have a new phone, Max. I almost didn’t answer.”
“Sorry. Where are you now?”
“We just did Dean. We’re getting ready to do the others.”
“They’ll need to wait.”
“That’s a mistake.”
“There are two other people I need your help with first.”
“We don’t have time for two other people. Have you seen the news? Have you looked out your window? We told you this was happening tonight. They’ll be blocking the streets. If they haven’t already, the media will make the connections and report them. And when they do, the rest will run. If you want them dead, we’ve got a narrow window to make it happen.”