Fifth Ave 01 - Fifth Avenue (85 page)

The machine was hovering just beyond the office windows.
 
Furious, Louis turned to look at Spocatti, but instead came face to face with George Redman as he lunged for the gun in Louis’ hands.
 
George tried to wrench it free, but couldn’t.
 
And so he tackled Louis so hard, the gun slipped from the man’s hands and spun across the floor.
 
With everything he had in him, George kept moving, kept pushing Ryan back until he was mashed against the great panes of glass.

The police were pounding on the office door.
 

Nerves wired, heart pounding, Spocatti backed away from it.
 
He looked briefly at Leana and Michael, then across the room at George and Louis, who were struggling against the glass, the gun somewhere between them.
 

He had an impulse to shoot them both, to finish this once and for all, but there was no time.
 
He darted to an area of the office where there were no windows and ripped the cover off a heating duct.
 
He threw it aside just as Ryan’s gun rang out.

Spocatti watched George Redman slump to the carpet, his face caught for an instant in the brilliant glare of the helicopter’s spotlight.
 
Louis shot him in the chest.
 
George fell on his side and lay there, his eyes opened and unseeing.

Ryan pointed the gun at the man’s head.
 
He said something Spocatti didn’t hear and was about to fire when the office door crashed open and the police burst into the room.
 
Their guns were drawn.

“Put the gun down!”

In that split second, Louis made his decision.
 
He fired the gun--and saw the bullet go into the floor beside George Redman’s head.
 
He missed!
 
Missed!

He was about to shoot again when the police peppered his stomach and chest with a flurry of bullets.
 

Louis’ mouth gaped open.

The gun jerked from his hand and fell to the floor.

He took another bullet in the chest and stumbled back against the trembling windows--just beyond them the helicopter roared.
 
One of its doors was open and two men with sniper rifles were tethered to a rail and leaning out.
 
Their guns were pointed at Louis.
 
As he turned to them, they let loose a hail of bullets, which splintered the glass and sent Louis stumbling backward.
 
Spocatti felt nothing.
 
How many times had he asked Louis to keep the blinds closed?

Louis sank to his knees, his crown of silvery gray hair caught by the helicopter’s sharp beams of light.
 
He was on the cold rails of death.
 
He was leaving himself.
 
There was no pain, only a dull, spreading warmth in his chest and stomach.
 
He knew he was dying and he didn’t care.
 
He looked across at Michael and saw Anne staring back at him in horror.
 
His body was nearing weightlessness.
  
He was wondering if this was all an illusion when his brain flickered out, he fell forward and his face struck the floor.

Spocatti shrank into the shadows.
 
He was standing at the opposite end of the office, watching the police watch Louis Ryan die before their eyes.
 
He said something into his cell phone and then listened to his men in the neighboring building empty rounds of bullets into the helicopter’s gas tank.

Spocatti leapt into the heating duct and began the rapid plunge.

In spite of all the noise, there was a moment when it seemed that everything went quiet, when the helicopter’s glinting blades hesitated, and then the machine sank, it ignited and exploded into the building.
 

SIX MONTHS LATER

EPILOGUE

Diana Crane, Chief Attorney
 

Redman International

49th Street & Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10017

(212) 555-2620

Dear Jack:

So, here we are again.
 
Will you receive this letter?
 
Will you answer it this time?
 
I have sent you about a dozen letters over the past few months, only to have them returned unopened.
 
Where are you?
 
I send the letters to your parents and they tell me they forward them to you.
 
Are they?
 
They only tell me that you’re well.
 
Are you traveling?
 
Has it gotten easier?

I don’t know if you’re connected to the world or if you unplugged yourself from it.
 
Knowing you, I’ll assume the latter and hope for the former.
 

Wherever you are, do you get the news?
 
Are you aware that the stock market crashed?
 
We survived it.
 
That Monday, while Wall Street was crumbling, we were signing a deal with Anastassios Fondaras for $8 billion.
 
Iran insisted he buy more ships to keep up with demand and we were happy to offer up WestTex.
 
After a massive round of layoffs and restructuring, Redman International’s stock is now trading in the high fifties.
 
Not where it used to be, but better.

If you’ve been reading any of these letters, then you know that George made a full recovery.
 
What you might not know is that Elizabeth was indicted last week.
 
Ten years.
 
I think she’ll do five.
 
Maybe three, if she’s lucky.
 
I did my best.

Also, I’ve written this before but the status hasn’t changed.
 
Leana is still missing.
 
No one has seen her since she left New York Hospital last August.
 
She disappeared, though we know she’s alright.
 
At a benefit last Saturday, Helen Baines told me that Leana has called her, but she refuses to tell anyone where she is.
 
I’m thinking she’s with Mario De Cicco.
 
I checked and he’s no longer in New York.

I’ll leave you with this.
 
Three weeks ago, I was on Wall Street when I saw Vincent Spocatti in the crowds on the street.
 
I know it was him, just as he knew it was me.
 
We looked at each another and then he lifted his head and smiled before turning the other way.
 
I reported it to the police, but there’s little they can do and Spocatti knows it.

There’s nothing more to tell you, really, only that I miss you and wish you were here in your office at Redman International.
 
Nothing is the same anymore.
 
Everything’s changed.
 
I don’t live at Redman Place.
 
I sold my apartment and moved to the West Side. Now, I have a different view of Central Park, a cat for company and...what else?
 
Nothing, really.
 
Thank God for work.
 
As my father used to say, work saves us.

If you receive this, please write.
 
You’ve had time.
 
I need to know that you’re all right and that at least one of us is moving forward.

With love,

Diana

P.S. I still think about him, you know?
 
Given all that he did, it’s ridiculous.
 
But after all this time, Eric is still part of me.
 
Do you still think of Celina?
 
Sometimes, it’s as if they never died, isn’t it?

*
 
*
 
*

Jack Douglas folded the letter in half and returned it to its envelope, which he’d carefully opened with a knife.
 
Like all the letters Diana sent, he would return this one to his parents and they would forward it back to her.
 
He sealed each letter in such a way that suggested he’d never opened it or read its contents.
 
Jack wasn’t ready to renew their friendship.
 
He would contact her again, but he would wait a while longer before doing so.

Just now, he was sitting in the back of a dusty white Jeep, his skin brown from months in the sun, the top of his sandy hair bleached with streaks of blond.
 
He was leaner than he had been in years, his body hard and toned from hiking through the jungles of Venezuela.
 
Above him, he could hear the faint but familiar shrieking of macaws and cockatoos.
 
Below him was the sound of rushing water.
 
He was thousand of miles away from New York City and he loved it.

He thought of Diana’s letter.
 
Of course, he still thought of Celina.
 
A day didn’t go by that he didn’t think of her and all that could have been.
 
He loved her.
 
With Elizabeth Redman now going to prison, he wondered if he ever would see the Redman family again.
 

He wondered if he cared?

He left the jeep and walked to the center of the long, rickety bridge that stretched before him.
 
A woman had just jumped from its rotting planks and now was screaming as she plummeted to the roiling river below.

Jack moved to the wooden rail and leaned forward.
 
He watched her bounce thanks the bungee cord strapped to her ankles and her long dark hair cracked like a whip in the humid air.
 
Watching her and listening to her jubilant cries, he felt strangely at peace and knew what he was doing was right.
 
This was part of his own healing.

Beside him, a young Venezuelan woman began pulling the frayed bungee cord back to the bridge.
 
She was tall and slim, her arms and shoulders taut with muscle.
 
Her bare feet dug into the gray wooden planks as she continued to hoist up the heavy cord.
 
Once the cord was retrieved, she turned to him.

“Listo?” she asked.

Jack nodded.
 
“Listo.”

“You do this before, yes?”

“I’ve done this before,” he said.
 

From his pocket, he removed the blindfold he promised to wear when Celina jumped all those months ago.
 
He showed it to the woman, who shrugged.
 
She helped him over the wooden rail, attached the bungee to his ankles, pulled hard on the nylon strap and checked the buckles.
 

Jack put the blindfold into place.

With the sudden darkness, his senses became acute.
 
The river was louder, the sun somehow stronger.
 
He could feel the thrum of nature and then his heart beating in his chest.

The woman touched his arm.
 
“Jump,” she said.
 
“Fly.”

Poised at the edge of the bridge, Jack took a breath, nodded and let go of the wooden rail.
 
For a moment, he just stood there, perfectly balanced with his arms held out at his sides.
 
His hair stirred in the breeze.
 
His palms faced a brilliant, cloudless sky he couldn’t see.
 
He was aware of everything and nothing.
 
The faint, exotic smells of the jungle enveloped him, consumed him and for the first time in months, he smiled.