He noticed an office, its door locked. Maybe this was the nerve center. He took the crowbar and made quick work of the door, broke it down. One large desk, with huge file cabinets. Each was devoted to a company in midtown. There was a lot of confidential information, he saw, sales reports, office memos, legal reports, all kinds of stuff. What was it doing here?
He continued to paw through the paper on the desktop. He looked quickly at every piece. Nothing much here-except, wait, a faxed form letter from a Norma Powell that said, "Your previous tenant, NAME: Jin Li, has applied to be a tenant in my building, and listed you as her previous landlord. Kindly confirm that-"
He checked the date. Sent just a few days earlier. An address? Yes, in Harlem. The street address was just off Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. Jin Li was in Harlem? Okay, he said to himself, I'm coming. Maybe she'd already moved in. It was the best lead he had. He took the paper with him, so that no one else would find it, and hurried through the building, not worrying about turning off the lights, and wedged himself back through the broken door.
He hauled himself up the rope to the water tower, arm over arm, kicking away at the fence again, found the catwalk, and threw the rope and tools down to the ground, then he lowered himself down the rusty ladder and dropped heavily on the other side.
A moment later he was back in his truck, speeding toward Harlem, barely noticing the old Chinese man on a bicycle who had witnessed Ray's impressive penetration of the lot by way of the water tower. The man had spent a few minutes inspecting the truck, too. Seeing Ray's hurry, he wondered whether to pull out the phone in his pocket. Jin Li had told him to call her, so he would.
27
Oh, timing really is everything! Martz waited a second longer, looked back at Phelps, who nodded. Phelps had arranged their entry into the East Side hotel, knew the security manager. It was a very nice place but Martz was surprised that Tom Reilly wasn't using the Pierre, say, or the Peninsula. Or the Ritz Carlton. He'd used it a few times, back in the day. The women always liked that, were enthused by the atmosphere.
Martz knocked on the glossy white door.
No answer.
He knocked again, politely.
The door opened a few inches and the face of a beautiful young woman appeared.
"Yes?"
Martz pushed in.
"Hey!"
Phelps came quickly after him, shut the door, began to gently explain to the young woman that she needed to dress and leave quickly.
The big bed was empty. Martz saw steam coming out a doorway, heard the shower. He stepped into the bathroom, saw Reilly in the large glass-walled shower soaping his dick reverently.
"Not bad," Martz said.
"What? Hello?" cried Reilly at the sound of a man's voice.
Martz pulled open the shower door. "See what you've made me do?"
"Get the fuck out of here!" yelled Reilly.
Phelps stepped into the bathroom doorway.
Martz reached in and turned off the shower, getting his sleeve wet.
"I've been trying to talk to you, Tom. I've called many times. I've had you followed to Yankee Stadium. I've invited you to my house. Which somehow resulted in your wife sticking her fingers in my butt. She and I had a little chat. I'm sure she told you about that. Yes, I've done a lot to get your attention. But you know what?"
"What?" said Reilly in his naked misery.
Martz looked at Reilly's crotch. "You've lost a little of your exuberance. How come? I don't excite you, Tom? Even after all the trouble I've gone to? I don't make your heart go fucking pitter-pat?"
"What did you tell my friend? Where is she?"
"Gone," said Phelps. "Dressed and gone."
"What do you want, Martz?"
Martz looked back at Phelps. "You can leave and close the bathroom door now."
Which he did. Martz leaned into the shower stall. "It's very simple, Tom," he said quietly. "You know there's been a serious security breach at Good Pharma." He stepped into the shower, his eight-hundred-dollar shoes on the wet tile, forcing Tom backward, and then lowered his voice to whisper. "It affected the stock price. But you didn't tell anybody. That was very illegal."
Reilly studied Martz's sun-damaged face, the droopy malevolent eyes.
"The SEC guys in Washington would enjoy buttering their toast with you, Tom," continued Martz. "Take it from me, I've been around long enough to see it happen. Given your behavior, it wouldn't take much to get them started. They butter the toast and then they take a lot of careful bites until the toast is gone. But that's just the government lawyers, Tom. Think of the investors, the lawyers they can afford!" he hissed. "Think of the cost of the lawyers you'd have to hire! That lovely young woman who just left? Some plaintiff's lawyer will want to depose her. See what the pillow talk in the hotel room was. What corporate secrets got mixed in with the juicy stuff. Come on, man, this is New York City! Where blood gets turned into money! Think of the articles in The Wall Street Journal! Think of your wife! The hit to her reputation and practice. The looks her patients will give her. I mean, the multiplier effects just go on and-"
Reilly allowed a slow nod of his wet hair, his eyes never leaving Martz's.
"But-to get back to my point-though it was illegal of you not to immediately tell the many trusting investors who own thirty billion dollars of Good Pharma stock, it was also smart."
"Why do you say that?" asked Tom, surprised.
"Because you have a good friend who can help you with your little problem if only-if only you would talk to him."
"Who, you?"
Martz gave a silent nod. "Me."
Tom exhaled through his nose, studying Martz.
"It's simple," Martz continued. "You and I will revert to our anthropological origins. We either hunt big prey together or we hunt each other until one of us wins."
"You're hunting me now."
"Nope, this is just tracking." Martz smiled a big, fabulous, glad-eyed grin, his teeth bright. "Hunting is when you actually make the kill."
28
Once fair, now foul, someday fair again? The Gowanus Canal in South Brooklyn is a green vein of seepage, a topographic remnant of what was once a burbling creek, and the nineteenth-century brick factory buildings on either side slowly crumbling into its sluggish shallows are the source of endless speculation by local investors who dream that the canal will soon be discovered as the next hot zone in New York's real estate market. No less a man than the great American trickster Donald Trump is rumored to have bought up large swaths on the sly. Indeed, nearby neighborhoods have begun to draw people with trendy eyeglasses and laptop computers, but for the canal the question as to who will dredge and remove the thousands of tons of toxic sludge within its banks-mud laced with heavy metals, PCBs, and nearly every other cancer-causing chemical ever dumped by American industry-is a question that no one can quite yet answer.
Which is why the neighborhood is mostly still home to car repair businesses, carpentry shops, a casket company or two, and other not so well specified enterprises that may or may not be legal. A perfect place for a little conversation with the driver of the white limousine that had ferried around the Chinese men.
He was a small man named DiLetti, fat in the middle, thin in the arms, with a dimple in his chin. He sat in a wooden chair in a nearly empty room.
"We know you're nervous," said Victor, standing on the warped floorboards. "That's expectable."
"You guys grabbed me." He looked at Victor in abject bafflement. "What, what did I do?"