Fifth Ave 01 - Fifth Avenue (71 page)

But De Cicco already was in his son’s room.
 
The door swung shut behind him.
 
For now, he was through with her.

*
 
*
 
*

Michael stared at the man standing in his entryway, stunned by the drastic change in his appearance, certain he couldn’t have heard him right.
 
“What did you just say?”

The man, who had flown from L.A. to see Michael, put a finger to his lips and motioned for Michael to follow him out of the apartment and into the hallway.
 
“Hurry,” he whispered.
 
“My plane leaves in an hour and I’m not missing it for you.
 
I’m tired of this bullshit.
 
Your father’s fucking crazy.
 
I’m out of here.”

Suddenly wary, Michael followed the man to the end of the hall, where there was an illumined wall of elevators, a window that overlooked Manhattan and a tall, potted plant that gleamed as though it had just been waxed.

The man went to the window, leaned against it and lit a cigarette.
 
He drew deeply on it, the smoke lifting like a veil in front of his face.
 
His name was Bill Jennings and he was Michael’s business manager--a man Michael hadn’t seen or heard from him since the banks foreclosed on him.

“What’s going on, Bill?” he asked.
 
“You’re not exactly putting me at ease.”

The man exhaled a cloud of smoke.
 
“We can’t talk in your apartment,” he said.
 
“The fucker probably has it bugged.
 
If I hadn’t shaved off my beard and dyed my hair blond, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

Michael was losing his patience. “What are you talking about?
 
And what’s this about Santiago?”

The man couldn’t look Michael in the eyes.
 
“He doesn’t exist” he said simply.
 
“There is no Stephano Santiago.
 
Your father made him up to scare you.
 
For the past year, Louis has been making me skim money from your accounts so it would look as if you’d gone broke.
 
He made me suggest that you try gambling at one of his casinos when the banks finally foreclosed.
 
He knew you’d lose and he knew that you’d eventually go running to him once he made you believe the casino was Mafia-controlled.”

There was a tension in the air, a disturbance in the silence. The man glanced at Michael, saw the disbelief on his face and screwed up his own.
 
“Ah, shit, Michael. Santiago doesn’t own Aura--your father does, at least part of it.
 
He arranged for you to be offered that loan, knowing you’d be scared shitless when you lost it all and had to pay back a man by the name of Stephano Santiago.
 
He’s been planning this from the start.”

It wasn’t possible.

Michael thought of the call he received only that morning, the call warning him to do as his father asked and kill George Redman.
 
And then he thought of his dog.
 
“But my dog,” he said to Bill.
 
“Santiago killed him.
 
He left a note saying he’d do the same to me if I didn’t come up with the money.”

“Your father killed your dog, Michael.
 
I’m telling you, Santiago doesn’t exist.”

Pieces of a puzzle he never knew existed began falling into place.
 
Michael thought back to the men who chased him out of his apartment--men Santiago supposedly hired--and realized once again what a coincidence it was that Spocatti had been there to help him.
  
But of course there were no coincidences.
 
His father was behind it all.

“I hate myself for this, Michael,” Jennings said.
 
“More than you know.
 
But your father said he’d kill me if I didn’t go along with it.
 
He promised he’d make me pay if I didn’t make you believe.
 
Now he’s got people watching this building--that’s why I changed my appearance.
 
If they knew I was here, they’d kill us both.”

Michael shot him a look.
 
“Am I broke?”

Jennings removed an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Michael. “There's a check in there and instructions.
 
Everything I skimmed was put into another account, under a different name.
 
You have about three million dollars your father said you wouldn’t be needing again.”
 
His last words lingered in the air.
 
Their eyes met and he nodded toward the envelope, now clutched in Michael’s hand.
 
“Everything you need to know is in there.”

He looked at his watch, saw that he had only an hour to get to La Guardia and swore beneath his breath.
 
He dropped his cigarette into the silver ashtray beside him, pressed the elevator’s down button and said, “I’m not going to the police.
 
I’m leaving that to you.
 
But if you need my help, you can count on it.
 
After what your father’s done, I want that son of a bitch behind bars.”

The elevator doors slid open and he stepped inside.
 
Michael was about to speak when he heard the faint ringing of a telephone coming from his apartment.
 
The sound echoed hollowly in the empty hallway.

“Where are you going?” he said.

Jennings shrugged.
 
In his eyes was a look of fear.
 
“As far away from your father as a plane will take me,” he said.
 
The doors started to close.
 
“I suggest you do the same.
 
Leave New York.
 
Take Leana with you.
 
I don’t know what your father is up to, I don’t know why he’s done this, but I do know he’s dangerous.
 
And I know you’re at risk.”

*
 
*
 
*

As Michael stood looking at himself in the division of the elevator’s brushed steel doors, he thought he looked like an apparition, a ghost hovering between two separate realities, two worlds of lightness and darkness.

His father had been manipulating him from the start, playing on his fears and his love for his mother.
 
Although Michael never fully trusted Louis in the weeks that had passed since their reunion, he was starting to do so and it was this that sparked his rage now.

How could he have allowed himself to be drawn in by the very man who once said he wished it was his son who died all those years ago, and not his wife, Anne?

Why had he believed in him?
 
Had he been so hungry for the man’s acceptance that he would believe and do anything?
 
Marry a woman he barely knew?
 
Agree to kill a man responsible for his mother’s death?
 
And what if that, too, was a lie?

The telephone rang again.

Michael considered ignoring it, but realized it might be his father and so he left for his apartment to answer it.

“Yes?” he said sharply.

“Mr. Archer?”

It was the front desk.
 
Michael closed his eyes, willed himself to relax.
 
“What is it, Jonathan?”

“You have a visitor, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s George Redman.
 
Shall I show him up?”
 

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The knock came almost at once.

Michael stopped pacing and looked across the foyer to the door.
 
It was in shadow.
 
A narrow beam of interrupted light shined beneath it.

George Redman was beyond that door.
 
The man accused of murdering his mother was about to enter his apartment.
 
Michael wondered again why Redman was here and then realized it really didn’t matter--he was glad he was here.
 
Though they’d met only briefly at the opening of the Redman International Building, he now had the chance to stand face-to-face with the man.
 
Alone.

As he went to the door, it occurred to him that if this apartment was indeed wired, his father would eventually hear every word about to be spoken.
 
And that thrilled him.

He opened the door and the two men stared at each other.

Although Redman was well over six feet and had a broad, rugged build, he was somehow different from the man Michael remembered.
 
He seemed smaller, less threatening.
 
His resemblance to Leana was striking.

An awkward silence passed.
 
Michael could hear one of his neighbors playing a piano.
 
Then Redman extended his hand, which Michael shook.
 
“Thanks for seeing me,” George said.

Michael stepped aside and asked him to come in.
 
George went to the center of the foyer and looked around.

“Is Leana here?” he asked.

“She’s at the hospital.”

“Then she knows?”

“We saw it on the news.
 
I tried telling her there wasn’t anything she could do, but she wouldn’t listen and went to the hospital, anyway.”

George looked disappointed.
 
He wanted to break the news to Leana himself.
 
“I’m not surprised,” he said.
 
“That man meant the world to Leana.
 
She loved him fiercely.”

While Michael knew that Leana once had an affair with Mario De Cicco, she never elaborated just how deeply those feelings went and he was surprised now by the jealousy it sparked within him.
 
Given De Cicco’s notorious lifestyle, it also seemed odd that her father understood it.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a drink, would you?” George asked.
 
“I’m still a little shaken, myself.”

Shaken about De Cicco?
 

They moved into the large room with its tall windows and red curtains, its paneled mahogany walls and illumined paintings and leather-bound books.
 
Michael motioned toward the rosewood chairs arranged in the center of the room and asked George to have a seat.
 
“What can I get you?”

“Scotch, if you have it,” George said.

Michael stood at the unfamiliar bar, his gaze sweeping over rows of glinting bottles, deeply etched Faberge glasses, a shining, empty ice bucket.
 
He had used this bar only once since he and Leana moved in and it was a moment before he found the appropriate bottle, which was half-full, its label scratched, as if it had been used.
 
You’re a clever son of a bitch, aren’t you, Dad?
  
As he poured, he wondered where in this room the microphones were hidden.
 
Who was listening to them now?
 
Spocatti?
 
His father?
 
Both?

Drinks in hand, he came across the room and noticed that Redman was watching him.
 
His gaze was almost scrutinizing, as if he was looking at someone he hadn’t seen in years.