The Gods of Greenwich (41 page)

“You sound like a lizard on a hot grill, Kemosabe.” She could not help but add, “I wish you’d stop calling me.”

“Have you finished your business?”

“No,” answered Rachel.

“Good.” Cy exhaled, sounding relieved. “Abort everything, now.”

Rachel turned left on the path. “Abort. What are you talking about?”

“Cusack didn’t resign.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Don’t you see?” snapped Leeser. “They don’t know. Cusack wants to buy his father-in-law’s company.”

“I know what I heard,” countered Rachel. “They know.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No way,” she snorted, her voice low, barely audible, but loud enough to register anger.

“Then why didn’t Cusack resign?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m telling you, Rachel. Something’s fishy. If you strike now, we have problems.” He added cautiously, “No telling what the police will do.”

“Emily Cusack can ID the scar on my hand.”

“Wear a glove. You’re the one who told me about prosopagnosia.”

“Not worth the risk.”

“I order you to leave her alone, Rachel.”

“You’re ordering me. I don’t think so,” barked Rachel, locking horns. “I’ve yet to receive one dollar from LeeWell Capital. All I get are your promises about my partnership interest. So don’t go telling me, ‘I order you.’ I’m doing Emily Cusack to settle my nerves.”

“I’m sorry,” retreated Cy. “But we’ve got to think straight. Otherwise, this thing will bite us in the ass.”

“Like you say, Kemosabe, ‘not my problem.’ I have no links to your employee’s wife.”

“Just wait. I’m on my way.”

Rachel held the cell phone away from her mouth and faked the crackling sound of static. “You’re breaking up, Cy.”

“Back off. I’m telling you, back off.”

More fake static.

“You’re breaking up, Cy.” Rachel punched the End Call button on her cell phone. This assignment had turned fun. She loved the challenge. She loved asserting her will, just to spite Leeser.

Cy heard dial tone and cursed, “You stupid…” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. He stepped on the gas pedal.

Back at the Bronx Zoo, Rachel Whittier saw Emi Cusack leaving the World of Reptiles. This time there was no mistake. Rachel adjusted her sunglasses and began stalking the target.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

LEEWELL CAPITAL
 …

Bianca pushed through the etched-glass doors. She wore crisp blue jeans and a baggy black sweater, by no means Greenwich couture, but comfortable and appropriate for the weather. She had a tall man, six one, maybe six two, in tow.

He was buff, ten years her junior. He wore an off-the-rack suit, a dozen or so natural fibers beyond plastic bag. And he carried an almost-leather briefcase from one of the office supply superstores. Just above the right eyebrow, his forehead looked like it once played catch with something other than a baseball. Maybe a glass pitcher from an Irish bar.

Amanda stood up from behind her reception desk. “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Leeser.”

“Hey there, sugar,” Bianca greeted, warm with no hint of business whatsoever. “Where’s my husband?”

“He stepped out.”

Bianca rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“No, maybe Nikki knows.”

Bianca pulled out her cell phone and dialed Leeser. His voice mail reported that it was full and not taking messages, which she took to be a good sign. Bianca turned to the tall man and said, “Come on, hun.” And the two pushed inside LeeWell’s inner sanctum.

“Do you know when Cy will be back?” Bianca asked Nikki.

“He didn’t say where he was going.”

Bianca cocked her ear around the corner of Leeser’s doorway and listened to the rapid-fire pings from arriving e-mails. “Been like that long?”

“All morning,” Nikki reported.

“Nice,” exulted Bianca, now looking inside the office and admiring the empty walls Siggi left behind. “But I can’t reach Cy,” she complained to Nikki and the man by her side.

“That’s because he has my phone,” Cusack announced, walking out of his office, where he had been paying attention.

Bianca hugged him hello and asked, “What’s your number, hun? We’ve got papers to serve.” Bianca nodded toward the tall man.

*   *   *

Cy mashed his foot on the accelerator, hard as he dared. Seventy miles per hour. Sometimes eighty. Every once in a while he throttled back. The cops loved to ticket Bentleys. Six-figure cars brought extra bragging rights back at the station houses.

Jimmy’s cell phone rang, and Leeser thought,
Why not
. He answered, “Yeah.”

“Do you like my present?”

“Where the fuck is my art?”

“Our art,” Bianca corrected, smirking from ear to ear. “And I understand you’ve heard from the fans of a ‘broken-down plagiarist who hasn’t published in sixteen years.’”

Leeser flipped her the bird, long distance, straining to check his anger. “Where are you?”

“At your office with the marshall.”

“Marshall,” bellowed Leeser. “Why’d you get a marshall involved?” He really needed to stop Rachel.

“We have the papers right here.” Bianca was onstage now, acutely aware that Nikki and Cusack were hanging on to every word. She added, “Where are
you
?”

“I have some business in the Bronx. I’ll be back in an hour, and we can talk.”

“Since when do you have clients in the Bronx?” asked Bianca.

Cusack’s eyes widened. He mouthed the words, “Where in the Bronx?”

“Just give me an hour,” Leeser pleaded, trying to buy time. “We can sort this out. And I’ll move back into our house.”

“You mean my house.”

“Your house?” The words angered Leeser. They confused him, too.

“Unless you forget,” Bianca replied, “Roundhill Road is under my control. It’d be a shame if you were arrested for trespassing.”

“I pay the mortgage. My lawyer will kick you out by the end of the week.”

“Don’t bet on it. Remember our estate planning?”

“Yes.” Leeser stepped on the gas pedal, now doubling as a release valve for his fury.

“A trust holds the estate for our girls,” explained Bianca. “You wanted it. You were the one who said, ‘Everybody else in Greenwich has a trust.’”

“So?”

“I’m the trustee.”

“Just hold on until I get back from the zoo. We can work this out.” Cy frowned and added, all oil and nose pores, “For our twins, babe.”

“Don’t you dare attack me with our girls,” she replied dismissively. “Finish your business and get back here. What are you doing at the zoo anyway?”

This time Cusack mouthed, “Bronx Zoo?”

“Forget about it,” snapped Leeser.

“The Bronx Zoo,” said Bianca while nodding yes to Jimmy, “strikes me as the perfect place to showcase your hedge fund.”

“Hey, the bitching hour came early,” barked Leeser, no longer able to control his temper. “You used to wait until I got home.”

“Say hi to Emi Cusack,” said Bianca, winking at Jimmy.

“What makes you—”

Bianca cut Leeser off. She had grown tired of their game. “Cy, there’s only one takeaway from this conversation. Dorothy Parker said, ‘The two most beautiful words in the English language are “cheque enclosed.” Think about it.” She clicked off her cell phone.

*   *   *

“What’s wrong?” Bianca asked Jimmy.

“What did Cy say about Emi?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Just that he’s driving to the Bronx Zoo.”

“Did he say why?”

“No, Jimmy. Why are you so upset?”

Thirty minutes ago Cusack had wondered how to get the Mac laptop from Bianca. Now he no longer cared. “I need to ask you something. My question may sound odd. But I want you to think long and hard before you answer.”

“Okay?” Her eyebrows arched high with concern.

The stress was beading off Cusack like sweat. “Have you ever seen Cy hanging out with a woman with a bad scar on her hand?”

“Sounds like one of my novels.”

“It’s not fiction.”

Cusack stared at her, waiting, his thoughts shifting to last Friday’s lunch with Emi. That afternoon the couple had agreed Cusack would resign. They changed tactics over the weekend, however, after confiding their suspicions to Caleb.

“Let me reconnoiter with my friends in the insurance industry,” he had said.

Bianca finally replied, “No, Jimmy. I can’t think of anybody.”

In that moment Cusack remembered the red-haired woman from Somba Village. He never noticed a scar. But she could hear their conversation, no question. Cusack blinked once, and his alarm bells exploded.

Emi’s in trouble.

Without warning, Cusack pushed through Bianca and the tall, gangly marshall. Nikki glanced up from her bank of files. Cusack burst past her, lunging, lurching, his feet scrambling for traction, desperate for pace, for acceleration.

“What got into him?” Nikki gasped, as Cusack’s slipstream sucked her tower of paperwork and sprayed it through the air.

“My husband,” Bianca answered, not missing a beat.

Jimmy blasted into the reception area. Headed for the etched doors of LeeWell Capital. At that exact moment, Shannon towered in the office doorway. He loomed in front of Jimmy Cusack, a large, hulking, menacing presence.

Cusack lowered his shoulder, shades of glory days from Columbia football, and plowed through Shannon. Caught him by surprise. Bowled him ass over elbows.

“Out of my way.”

Shannon’s head snapped against the jamb. He collapsed on the floor. He wheezed, “Ugh,” as the Berber carpet greeted the back of his neck, “Hello.”

Cusack reverberated from the impact. Saw stars and did a 360. Pain surged through his shoulder from contact with the human wrecking ball.

Elevator.

Ground floor.

Cusack pushed through a cluster of dour-faced gods, the lobby usually empty at this hour, and burst into the gray October day. Twenty seconds later he was pumping the accelerator of his blue Beemer, screaming, “Shit, shit, shit.”

The motor turned over and over. Grinding. Not catching. The “adventure in precision physics” had run its course. Cusack tried the ignition once. He tried it a dozen times. No angle of the key worked as the engine ground round and round, deader than a med-school cadaver.

He smashed the dashboard in frustration. He turned the key one last time. Besmirching BMW. Beseeching St. Jude. Swearing and hoping for a miracle. The old engine hacked to life. It resurrected not in glory but with the throaty knock of a smoker’s cough.

Three minutes, and Cusack was flying down I-95. His speedometer hit eighty, ninety, one hundred miles per hour. Over and over, he checked the rearview mirror. He expected to see troopers any minute, their flashing blue lights. He waited for sirens to erupt. He wondered if his Beemer would lose a muffler. Faster and faster, he drove—his foot crushing the gas pedal.

Why did I give Cy my cell phone?

Cusack cursed himself. Once. Twice. A thousand times. Checking the rearview mirror, he spied a car closing fast. There were no sirens. There were no flashing lights. It was a white Audi. Jimmy stared hard and recognized the driver. He knew that perma-scowl anywhere.

Shannon was on his tail, sneering, gaining.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

BRONX ZOO
 …

The pregnant scientist walked west toward the Dancing Crane Café. The Goth-garbed cleaner walked east toward the World of Reptiles. In twenty seconds the two women would collide, and Rachel would make her move. Emi paused, however, to speak with a colleague.

Rachel stopped at the Bug Carousel. Through black sunglasses, she pretended to study the long-legged praying mantis. She hardly noticed the ride’s figurines. She had zero interest in the bombardier beetle or firefly. And forget about the ladybug.

Rachel rooted through her black bag, which now reeked from twelve hot dogs. She bypassed the 100-unit syringe, fingering this way and that for the pink trophy from Henrietta Hedgecock. Her cell phone vibrated and interrupted the search, though. It was Cy again.

She ignored the call, just as she had ignored his last five attempts. Leeser was becoming a thorn in her side. He was obsessive, compulsive, and flat-out wrong. There was no mistake. Emily Cusack could ID Rachel. She was going down today, baby and all.

Rachel decided to visit Cy later, talk things over and hold what her daddy called a “sit-down.” She hated surprises. She hated debates midway through the game. Last-minute deliberation was unprofessional. The more she thought about Leeser’s interference, the more he annoyed her.

Instead of reaching for the cell phone, Rachel pulled the pink C2 from her bag. Tasers, she decided, were more persuasive than syringes. Small, trim, and light, the C2 was shaped like a bent twig, no more than six inches long. The pink trophy looked like nothing special, like a load of empty postholes, but people were terrified of getting zapped.

Rachel had fondled the weapon a million times. She studied instructional manuals until she knew every feature cold. The pink personal protector was easy to use: Slip back the protective slide on top, aim using the laser pointer, and mash down the trigger button with your thumb.

The Taser fired two small probes, each attached to fine fifteen-foot wire lines. The probes could pierce clothes two inches thick and microwave the target a new hairdo. They delivered 50,000 volts, half the power of most stun guns. But Rachel’s personal protector zapped for thirty full seconds. That kind of power would drop anybody, especially a woman seven months pregnant.

One problem. Rachel hated to take chances, and the C2 was a big one. With each firing, the gun rained confetti traceable to the owner. The debris, according to Taser, prevented the wrong guys from using the gun for the wrong reasons. What if police connected the confetti to Henrietta Hedgecock, a woman who had drowned back in March? Would they ask questions? Would they investigate the insurance policy that LeeWell Capital owned?

“I hate loose ends,” Rachel told herself.

Still, the C2 made a compelling threat. It was more menacing than a syringe, no matter how long the needle or what the injection. Rachel knew the one threat guaranteed to make any mother comply: