Guilfoyle removed his glasses and set them delicately on the table. The discipline that had governed his entire life fell round him like a cloak, smothering his irritation, dampening his anger. Still, it was only by the utmost self-control that he did not shout. Only Hoover noticed the tick pulling at the corner of his mouth.
Machines.
Wolf Ramirez sat quietly in a dark corner of his hotel room, drawing the blade of his K-Bar knife across the sharpening stone. A clusterfuck was what it was, he thought, as he reversed direction and drew the blade toward him. Too many people running in too many directions trying to get the simplest thing done. Well, what did they expect? You didn’t send a pack of hounds to do a wolf’s work.
Wolf’s eyes lifted to the cell phone he had set on the table in front of him.
After a moment, he concentrated on the knife again. To hone the blade as sharp as he liked, he needed to work on it for a solid hour. Only then would it be truly razor sharp. Sharp enough to slip into the skin as easily as a needle and cleanly separate the dermis from the sheath of fat below it. Only then could he lift the six layers of tissue off a man as neatly as if he were filleting a trout. Straight, unfrayed lines. That’s what he liked. Precision.
Wolf didn’t like to leave a man messy. When he was finished with the bad guys, he wanted their souvenir of their time with him to be a work of art, geometric in its precision. The pain would soon pass. But the scars would be with them forever. Wolf was proud of his skills.
He stared at the phone.
This time it rang.
He smiled. Sooner or later Guilfoyle always came back to him.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Can you find him?”
“Maybe. But you have to level with me.”
“What do you need?”
“Just one thing. Tell me what you don’t want him to discover.”
40
Bolden walked past the entrance to Harrington Weiss’s world headquarters. Tall glass windows allowed him an unobstructed view inside. At one-thirty, the lobby was moderately busy, a thin but steady stream of people flowing in and out of the building. By now, Weiss’s body had been removed, the office cordoned off, and hopefully cleaned, witnesses interviewed, and reports taken. Other than the usual building security, he didn’t see a single police officer.
Like a messenger who’d overshot his address, Bolden turned right back around and walked inside. A white marble floor, high ceilings, and stout granite piers gave the lobby the look and feel of a train station. He presented himself to the reception desk.
“Ray’s Pizza. Delivery for Althea Jackson. HW. Forty-second floor.” He plopped the brown paper bag holding the pizza and soft drink on the counter, and slipped a business card he’d taken from Ray’s along next to it.
“Let me make that call,” said the security guard. “Althea on forty-two?”
Bolden nodded, and looked around.
Less than ten feet away, a dozen uniformed police officers stood huddled around two plainclothes officers, listening intently to their instructions. He kept his face turned away from them.
After seeing his picture on TV, he’d spent the last of his money on a cheap baseball cap and some even cheaper sunglasses. He had no doubt that Althea was in the office. Any normal place of business you’d get the day off after seeing a man’s brains blown out. The whole firm might be expected to shut down, if for no other reason than to show respect for the boss, a founder no less. But investment banks were anything but normal. No nine-to-fivers need apply. Currencies did not halt trading when a country defaulted on its loans. Deals didn’t fall out of bed if a principal dropped dead. The march of finance was unsympathetic and unstoppable.
Bolden was point man on the Trendrite deal. He might be MIA, but the deal had a momentum of its own. He was certain that Jake Flannagan, his immediate boss, had taken up the reins, as he had on a past occasion when a senior partner had suffered a heart attack and been put out of commission for a week. Jake would be all over Althea to supply him with the proper paperwork and phone numbers, and generally to bring him up to speed.
“I don’t care if you didn’t order pizza,” the security man was bellowing into the phone. “Someone ordered it. Now, come and get it, or I’ll eat it myself. Smells good, hear what I’m saying?” He lowered the phone and looked at Bolden. “What kind?”
“Pepperoni.”
The guard repeated the words. “Darned right you’ll be right down.” He hung up. “She’s coming.”
Bolden threw an elbow onto the counter. On one of the napkins, he’d written Althea a note. It read, “Don’t believe a thing you hear or SEE. I need a favor. Do a LexisNexis search on Scanlon Corporation and Russell Kuykendahl. 1945-Present. Meet me in front of the kiosk at the southwest corner of the WTC subway station in an hour. I need $$$!!! Believe in me!” He signed it “Tom.” As much as he wanted to leave the bag and the pizza inside with the security guard, he had to stay to get paid and collect his tip.
Behind the counter, a ten-inch television was tuned to the news. The station was showing the footage of Sol Weiss’s murder over and over, with short breaks to discuss it with an analyst. A few guards gathered, watching with something between enchantment and horror. Someone tapped on Bolden’s shoulder. “Hey.”
Bolden turned and looked at the policeman.
“Got any extra slices? Outside on your bike or something?”
Bolden shook his head. “No, Officer. I’m sorry. You want to place an order, here’s the number.” He handed the business card to the cop.
The policeman pulled Althea’s bag toward him and opened it. “Smells good,” he said, rooting around inside the bag. “Sure she don’t want to split it?”
“Ask her. I’m just the delivery guy.”
“Jesus!” shouted the cop. “It’s him. It’s the fuckin’ doer. Guys, check this out. Got the doer cold.”
Bolden froze, then realized a moment later that the cop had just gotten sight of the television. Another cop ambled over. When he figured out just what he was watching, he whistled and yelled for his buddy to get his ass over there. Pretty soon all ten police officers were crowded in a horseshoe around Bolden watching the television.
“Guess he didn’t get the bonus he expected,” said one.
“Naw, he wanted that corner office.”
“Hey, boss, here’s what you can do with that evaluation form.”
The laughs grew louder with every comment, the policemen pressing him against the reception desk. The tape ended, and was replaced by a full-screen photograph of the suspect. Trapped, Bolden stared at himself. He kept his face down. He didn’t look around him. At any moment, he expected one of the officers to nudge him in the shoulder and say, “Hey, pal, isn’t that you?”
Glancing to his side, he caught Althea doing her power walk, barreling across the lobby. He couldn’t risk her reaction when she recognized him. Any attention could prove disastrous. “Excuse me, Officer,” he said, grabbing the bag and trying to shoulder his way through the policemen. It was like wading through concrete. The cops stood firm, their eyes locked on the television, waiting for the promised replay.
And then it was too late.
Althea placed her elbows on the far side of the desk. “Who placed this order?” she asked the security guard. “Wasn’t me. I didn’t order any pizza.”
“Ask him,” said the guard, a finger pointed at Bolden.
“I said, who placed the order? I most certainly did-” Althea’s words dropped as cleanly as if they’d been chopped off by the guillotine. “Oh yeah,” she added. “That’s me, all right.”