Fifth Ave 02.5 - From Manhattan With Love (10 page)

And they did.

Carmen looked at Alex.
 
His hand was resting inside his jacket and he was ready to take action when the time was right.
 
They watched Tootie step over to Jean-Georges and hand him the crystal award for philanthropy she and Addy had formed years ago.
 
When he took it, he seemed surprised by its weight, which generated a polite chuckle from the crowd.
 
The award was tall and solid and gleamed in the light of the snapping cameras and the orange light filling the room.
 
He took the microphone from Tootie just as Carmen’s cell phone buzzed in her hand.

The next few minutes were a blur.

Carmen placed her hand on Alex arm, giving him the signal.

Beneath them on 53rd Street, at the entrance to the parking garage that was directly below the Pool Room, a car packed with explosives rolled inside and the driver ran out.
 

Exactly only minute later, the car exploded just was Leana Redman was about to address the room.
 
The explosion shook the building with such force, it blew out the windows and hurled pieces of jagged glass into the crowd, cutting them, including Leana, who fell to the ground just as balls of fire rolled into the room.
 

Those who were close enough to the far right windows, where the car was parked below, were scorched by the fire.
 
People shielded their faces and staggered back while others either screamed in fear or because they were hurt.
 

Alex looked at Laurent, whose own hair had caught fire.
 
He was spinning like a top near the windows, his hands batting at his head and trying to put out the flames while those around him did nothing so they could look out for themselves.
 
The sound he was making wasn’t human.
 
It came from his gut but somehow, on the way up, it managed to twist itself into a kind of girlish shriek.
 

The moment he stopped turning, Alex removed his gun and pointed it at the man’s head.
 
Jean-George’s hair no longer was on fire, but shock was setting in.
 
When Alex fired, the man’s face took the impact, but it was his head that released the pressure.
 
It exploded onto Leana and Tootie Staunton-Miller thanks to the hollow-point bullet he used, which expanded when it hit bone.
 

It was over in an instant, but in that instant, Laurent seemed to stagger, his arms twitching at his sides while his ruined head let loose a torrent of blood that fountained toward the ceiling.
 

When he fell backward, dead, Leana Redman moved away from him and screamed.
 
Her face was awash with blood, bone and brain matter.
 
Her silver dress was spattered with gore.
 
The moment Tootie Staunton-Miller touched her own face, she smeared the clotted glop that covered it and fainted when she looked down at her hand.
 
She collapsed on top of Jean-Georges, her face buried in what was left of his own.
 

A beat of stunned silence passed before the press gathered themselves and started to take photographs.
 
Smoke started to fill the room from the broken windows.
 
The glow of the fire raged from below, making the room’s trees appear as if they were whithing in the shadows cast by the flames.

Alex lined Leana up in his sites but a man came beside her and led her away.
 
He fired, but missed when Carmen slammed into him thanks to the people shoving and pushing in an effort to escape through the packed corridor.

“We need to get out of here,” Carmen said.
 
“Now.”

“Do you want her dead or not?”

The car’s gas tank exploded and more windows blew into the room.
 
Alex was knocked off balance again just as the room gave itself over to the pure panic of pandemonium.

The place was starting to fill with smoke.
 
People were shouting, screaming, gagging.
 
Carmen looked up at the ceiling and saw the smoke roll above her head and spread into the room.
 

Security was talking into their cuffs while an avalanche of people raced to the Pool Room’s exits.
 
Some fled into the kitchen.
 
Others pushed into the corridor.
 

Alex looked for Leana and could see her moving toward the exit at the top of the staircase.
 
She was one with the crowd, her head lowered, her dress the giveaway.
 
He could get her.
 
He knew he could.
 
He shrugged off Carmen’s arm just as the masses reached the emergency exit up the stairs, the door to which wouldn’t open because it was bolted shut.
 
Men started to throw their shoulders against it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Come with me,” she said to Alex.
 
“If nothing else kills us, it’ll be the smoke.
 
There’s still time.”

But before she could say anything more, Alex started to fight his way through the crush of people now coming his way.
 
He still could see her.
 
That dress belonged to no one else but her.
 
His gun was concealed.
 
He was just another person scrambling to get out.

Behind him there was another explosion, this one greater than the last, and it shook people to their knees while the smoke above them set off the sprinkler system.
 
There was a series of pops as the sprinklers sprang into action and began to douse the room in ways that would make the floors so slick, escape would prove even more difficult.

“Alex!” Carmen shouted.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

He shoved his way forward, never losing sight of the silver dress.
 
She was at the base of the stairs trying with others to get to the blocked exit above.
 
Men still were pounding against the exit door, but because they were so closely packed together, there was no room for momentum to truly give the doors the push they needed.

It was difficult to stand.
 
The room was slick with water, which had smothered some of the smoke.
 
People were calling for calm, but no one was listening.
 
Jean-George Laurent had just been shot in the head.
 
Tootie Staunton-Miller was still lying on top of him, her face squarely lodged into the hollow core of his meat face.
 
Addison Miller was trying to lift her up.
 
His face was grief-stricken, slick with water and shining because of it.
 
There was a killer among them, people feared it and they wanted out.

“This doesn’t happen to people like us!” Lorvenia Billiups screamed.
 
“Why is this happening!”

“It’s Leana Redman,” Frieda Zulrika Teeple said.
 
“That bullet was meant for her.
 
She’s always been trouble.
 
She’s the one they’re after, just like last time.
 
Keep away from her!”

“Somebody help me,” Count Luftwick hollered.
 
“I can’t see.
 
You fucking people know I’m blind.
 
Where’s my wife?
 
Where’s the countess?
 
Why isn’t she helping me?
 
She wants me to die, I know it!”

As ropes of insanity spun out to form nooses in the room, Alex inched closer to his mark, who now was washed clean thanks to the sprinklers.
 
Her hair was falling down her back in thick wet curls.
 
The man she was with earlier was assisting the others in putting all of his muscle behind the door, trying to force it open.
 
Security was making an effort to gain some semblance of control, but they might as well have been talking into a vacuum.
 

Alex looked at Leana and reached for his gun.
 
If he held it low and concealed it against his side, no one would know it was he who shot her.
 
There was too much confusion.
 
He looked behind him to see his way out.
 
With all the scrambling, it would be difficult to get to Carmen and the corridor, but not impossible.

Leana Redman was thirty feet away from him.
 
He removed his gun, held it low and was about to shoot when the room was plunged into darkness.

Alex whirled around and waited for the generators to kick in.
 
They didn’t, at least not immediately.
 
Instead, the security lights flickered and dimmed as if a child was playing with a switch.

Above the crowd, far to Alex’s right, a gunshot rang into the room, causing shrieks of fear as people either fell to the floor or tried to find a way out.
 
It was Carmen.
 
He knew it was her.
 
She was calling to him.
 
She was asking him to come with her.

His hand was in the same position it had been when he had the gun poised at Leana.
 
Had she moved?
 
He wasn’t sure, but he nevertheless fired four quick shots in similar directions.
 
He heard the buckling of knees, the falling back of those who were either injured or dead, and hoped that one of them was her.

He turned around and took flight in the dark, shoving people out of his way as he neared the corridor and shouted out Carmen’s name.

Another gunshot cracked, this time not far in front of him.
 
He ran to it while people openly started to weep at the sound of it.
 
Everything appeared to be happening in slow motion.

The lights started to flicker and for an instant, he saw her face.
 
It was the most welcomed sight he’d ever seen.
 
He did love her.
 
She was pointing above the crowd toward the corridor, where people were moving more freely now.
 
They could escape through the side exit, which would lead to the front of the building, but the moment he reached Carmen, she stopped him.

“The Grille Room,” she said.
 
“We take those stairs and exit on the side of the building.
 
Not the front.
 
The side.
 
Hurry!”

He grabbed her wrist and steamrolled forward with her.
 
Together, they trampled people in an effort to get to the stairs, down over them to the foyer below and then to the exit.
 

Other people were rushing alongside them.
 
Outside, the night was alive with the sound of sirens.
 

Carmen and Alex joined the flood of those leaving this hell they created and as they did, the lights behind them spit at their backs, almost as if they were aware of their escape and cursing the injustice of it.