Fifth Ave 01 - Fifth Avenue (14 page)

Reluctantly, he told his father the predicament he was in.
 
And while Louis said he’d take care of everything, there was that tone in his voice, that calm tone his father used whenever he wanted something.

Now, Michael knew it had to do with the photographs he was given of Leana Redman and the appearance he made last night at George Redman’s party.
 
There was a reason his father demanded he meet her and it worried him.
 
His father had a motive behind everything.

He checked his watch and decided he had time to unpack a few more things before meeting with his father.
 
He sat beside Rufus, who knocked his arm with his nose, and reached for a box marked PERSONAL.
 
The first item he pulled from the box was, ironically, his first novel and best-seller.

Michael ran his hand over the faded dust jacket and thought back to when he started the novel.
 
He was eighteen years old, on a bus headed for Hollywood and running away from his father.
 
They had fought the night before and Michael decided then that no matter how hard he tried, he and Louis would never get along.
 
And so he left.

Even now, all these years later, Michael could remember how the fight ended.
 
Louis told Michael that he didn’t love him and never had.
 
He said that he wished it was Michael who died, not his mother.

Michael tossed the book aside and dug deeper into the box.
 
When he grasped the next object, there was a light tinkling of glass.
 
His heart sank.
 
He knew what it was before he pulled it through the many strands of torn newspaper and held it in his hands.
 
It was a framed photograph of his mother, Anne, something he had cherished since he was three years old.
 
The glass had pierced her face.

Michael was staring at it when a knock came at the door.
 
He put the picture down and glanced at his watch.
 
Puzzled, he looked at Rufus, who now was facing the door, his head cocked in such a way that suggested he too knew they weren’t expecting anyone.
 
There was another knock, this one sharper, more urgent, and then the sound of footsteps swiftly moving away.

Michael moved quickly through the maze of boxes and unlocked the door.
 
He opened it wide, stepped into the hall and nearly stumbled over the brilliantly wrapped basket at his feet.

The hallway was cloaked in a network of shadows and for a moment, he heard nothing but his neighbors, who were shouting again at their child.
 
He could sense a presence, knew he was being watched.
 
He stepped back into the safety of his apartment, bolted the door and waited.

Time seemed to stop.
 
His neighbors continued to shout.
 
And then, from the end of the hallway, came a clatter of metal striking metal as the gate to the freight elevator crashed open and someone stepped inside.
 

The gate slammed shut and the car hesitated only briefly before it began its noisy, sluggish descent.

Michael opened the door and ran down the hall, eager to see who was inside.
 
But by the time he reached the elevator and gripped the metal bars, the car already was a lost cage of rattling iron shadows.

For a moment, he stood there, listening to the faint wail of police sirens.
 
Just now, they were coming for the woman who was shot earlier.
 
He wondered if his death would mirror hers.
 
Would a stranger take him by surprise, draw a gun and silence him with a well-placed bullet?

Or did they have something else planned for him?

He returned to his apartment and brought the basket inside.
 
It was cocooned so tightly in sheets of red cellophane that he couldn’t see its contents.
 
Rufus nudged his leg and Michael patted his back, reassuring him that everything was all right--even though he knew it wasn’t.

Steeling himself, Michael removed the crimson shield and tossed it aside.
 

The stench was sudden and overwhelming.
 
Michael covered his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and took a step back, the haze of fruit flies lifting in front of him as if they were wavering veils of ash.
 
The basket was filled with rotten plums, peaches that were soft and brown and dimpled with mold, apples that had been gnawed to the core, bananas that were black and alive with maggots.

Michael knew who had sent it even before he reached inside and removed the envelope taped to the wicker handle.
 
Inside was a note, precise and neatly typed:
 
“Three weeks, Mr. Archer.
 
That’s how old this fruit is, and that’s how much longer we’re giving you to come up with our money.
 
By then, the sum will be one million dollars.
 
Please have the money by then.
 
If you don’t, our generosity will have run out and you’ll be giving your mother some unexpected company.”

Shaken, Michael crumpled the note and tossed it aside.
 
He had never mentioned his mother’s death to anyone, and yet somehow these people knew.
 
But how? And how did they know where I live?
 
I just moved here.

He looked at his watch and saw with a start that it was seven-thirty.
 
His father had requested his presence at eight sharp. As Michael rushed out of the apartment, the door locking shut behind him, he realized that if he was late for this meeting, it very well might cost him his life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The sun went behind a cloud and a shadow stretched across Manhattan, leaving Louis Ryan’s face gray in its presence.

“I want to talk to you about your mother’s death.”

Michael straightened in his chair.
 
They were in his father’s office.
 
Louis was seated behind his desk; Michael in front of it.
 
He thought Louis had asked him here to discuss Leana Redman and the party he had been sent to last night, not his mother.

“Why?”

“There are things you don’t know.”

“What things?”

“A lot of things.”
 
Louis turned in his chair.
 
“But before I begin, I want you to know I realize you should have been told this years ago, when you were young enough to understand it.
 
Maybe, if you knew what I’ve gone through over the past thirty-one years, we could have been closer--as a father and son should be.”

He made an effort to smile but failed, his eyes belying the grief that still lingered within him.
 
“I would have liked that.”

Michael raised an eyebrow.
 
That was news to him.

“Do you remember what happened when your mother passed away?”

“She was in a car accident.”

Louis stepped to the far right wall of windows, where he watched workers remove the red ribbon from the center of The Redman International Building.
 
“It wasn’t an accident.
 
Your mother was murdered and what George Redman did to her was brutal.”

Michael couldn’t have heard him right.
 
The sudden roaring in his ears dulled his father’s words, making it difficult for him to hear everything Louis was saying.

“...George and I were friends at Harvard....”

“...my partner in a development called Pine Gardens....”

“...Yes, I admit I lied in court.
 
I even admit I used George.
 
But I grew up poor.
 
George had all the money in the world.
 
The only reason I asked him to be my partner was because I thought we’d need his father to cosign a loan for us.
 
When I learned I could buy Pine Gardens on my own, I did, and so he sued me....”

Michael shut his eyes.
 
This isn’t happening.

“For years George tried to get his share of Pine Gardens.
 
For years, he tried to prove we had a partnership.
 
I refused to let him have any of it.”
 
He paused.
 
“That decision cost your mother her life.”

Michael looked up at his father, his concentration intense.

“Your mother was murdered just two days after Redman lost his final appeal in court. It was late and it was snowing.
 
She was returning home from a friend’s house when George blew out her tires with a shotgun.
 
Your mother lost control of the car, skidded in the snow and tumbled over the bridge that led to our house.
 
It was a seventy foot drop.
 
She didn’t have a chance....”

Michael looked at his father for some sign of the lie he was sure he was telling, but there was none.
 
It was obvious he was telling the truth.
 
For Michael, it was as if someone had shot him.

“I was never able to prove it,” Louis said.
 
“But I know it was him.
 
George Redman killed my wife--your mother.
 
The moment I learned her tires were flattened by a shotgun, I knew it was Redman who pulled the trigger.”

“How could you know that?”

“Besides having the perfect motive--wanting revenge against me--George Redman is an excellent marksman.
 
Once, when we were in college, he took me skeet shooting on his father’s yacht.
 
Even with the rolling of the waves, George rarely missed.
 
But George is smart.
 
He got rid of whatever gun he used and made certain he had an alibi.
 
When the police questioned him, he told them he was with Judge William Cranston’s daughter, Elizabeth Cranston, now Elizabeth Redman, during the night of the shooting.
 

“I don’t know how he did it, but he got Elizabeth to lie for him.
 
Because when the police questioned her, she confirmed it and George was dropped as a suspect.
 
A week later, the police concluded that poachers were hunting in the woods on either side of the bridge.
 
They said a stray shot flattened your mother’s tires.
 
Despite pressure from me and a team of lawyers, the case wasn't reopened and George Redman walked free.”

It was as if all those years of never understanding his father came to an end.
 
Now Michael knew why Louis never discussed Anne’s death, why he became irritated whenever the subject was brought up, why he, Michael, hadn’t been allowed to attend his mother’s funeral.
 
Now he understood his father’s mood swings and those evenings, as a child, when he heard Louis weeping in his bedroom.
 
Now it made sense.

“Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?” Michael asked.

“Too many reasons,” Louis said.
 
“But the main reason is that I didn’t want to hurt you.
 
You were just a child when Anne died.
 
You barely knew her.
 
How could I tell you then what he did to your mother?
 
If you were me, would you have told your three-year-old son that his mother had been murdered?
 
Would you have brought him to her funeral, knowing how upsetting it would be for him to see her like that?
 
I doubt it.
 
And besides, you wouldn’t have understood.”

“You could have told me when I was older.”

“Agreed,” Louis said.
 
“And I wanted to.
 
But every time I tried to tell you, every time I thought the moment was right, I couldn’t find the words.
 
I couldn’t say that your mother was murdered.
 
I still find it difficult to say.
 
And so I allowed you to live in the comfort of not knowing the truth.
 
I know you won’t see it this way, but in a sense, I’ve spared you the anger I’ve had to live with for years.”