Insane City (17 page)

an inch closer. He strained again and grabbed it this time, dragging it up to the bars.

The suitcase was too big to pass through the bars. But it was made of fabric, so it could be squashed.

And Trevor was strong. He got both hands on it and gave a hard yank. The suitcase came through the bars.

Trevor studied it, sniffed it. He could tell there were things inside it. He didn’t know yet how to get to

those things. But he had plenty of time.

17

The wedding rehearsal was held on the putting-green-perfect lawn behind the Ritz,

overlooking the ocean; this was where the ceremony would take place the next day, in the Wedding

Gazebo, currently being decorated for the occasion by workers.

In charge of the rehearsal was the wedding planner, Blaze Gear, a tall, thin woman with short-

cropped black hair who, when she woke up in the morning, inserted her Bluetooth earpiece even before

she went to the bathroom. She was dressed completely in black, as were her two assistants, Traci and

Tracee.

Blaze, clipboard in hand, was explaining the wedding procession.

“All of you will be starting out from inside the hotel, except our officiant,” she said. “Where is our

officiant, Mr. . . .” She looked at her clipboard. “Mr. Dazu?”

A short, balding man with an unkempt gray beard stepped forward. He was wearing sandals and a

white robe with a suit jacket over it. “I am Banzan Dazu,” he said. He had been born Norman Cochran, in

Avalon, New Jersey, and had worked as a record promoter in Philadelphia in the seventies before he

discovered how much easier it was to get laid if you were a holy man.

“And how shall I address you?” Blaze Gear asked Dazu.

“You may call me Your Holiness,” said Dazu. He smiled at Blaze with an expression reflecting

wisdom and deep inner tranquility. He practiced in the mirror.

Tina’s parents had not been happy about having Dazu do the ceremony. They wanted an Episcopalian

priest, because they belonged to an Episcopal church, which they attended faithfully every other

Christmas. But in this matter, as in virtually every matter involving the wedding, Tina got what she

wanted, and she wanted Banzan Dazu, whom she regarded as her spiritual mentor.

She had met Dazu at a lecture by the Dalai Lama, whom Tina regarded as the wisest person alive.

After she and Seth got serious, she’d taken him to a Dalai Lama lecture in Switzerland. Seth had not been

impressed. As far as he could tell, the Dalai Lama message boiled down to:
Be nice
. This didn’t strike

Seth as particularly profound. It was pretty much the same lesson he’d been taught by his preschool

teacher, Mrs. Wheatley, the difference being that people didn’t fly around the world and pay big bucks to

hear Mrs. Wheatley say it.

Of course Seth didn’t express this view to Tina. Nor did he object when Tina declared that she

wanted their wedding ceremony to be performed by Banzan Dazu, although Seth thought he was kind of

creepy, always looking up Tina’s skirt during their premarital counseling sessions.

“All right, Your Holiness,” said Blaze Gear. “At the start of the ceremony, you’ll be positioned on

the Wedding Gazebo, facing the procession. Now I need my groom and his parents.”

Seth shepherded Rose and Sid forward.

“There you are!” said Blaze. She extended her hand to Rose. “You must be Seth’s mother. I’m Blaze

Gear.”

“Blaze
what
?”

“Gear.”

“That’s your name?” said Rose.

“That’s my legal name, yes. I originally—”

“Who’s she?” said Sid.

“She says her name is Blaze Gear,” said Rose.

“That’s her name?”

“I just want you to know,” said Blaze, soldiering on, “that my job is to make this wonderful occasion

as enjoyable for you as possible, so if there’s anything you need, anything at all, just let me know, OK?”

“I could use a glass of water,” said Sid.

“Certainly,” said Blaze, signaling. “Tracee, would you—”

“He doesn’t need it,” said Rose.

“OK!” said Blaze, waving Tracee off and turning away to avoid any further interaction with Rose

and Sid. “Now, where’s my maid of honor?”

She got them lined up in processional order. Behind Seth and his parents were the groomsmen—

Kevin, Big Steve and Tina’s brother, Eric. They were paired up with Tina’s bridesmaids, all old friends

of Tina’s, all bombshells. Behind them were Meghan, the maid of honor; and Marty, the best man.

Kevin was paired with Tina’s Harvard roommate, a blonde named Kirsten. In heels, she was a good

three inches taller than Kevin, a fact that did not deter him in the least.

“It looks as though we’ll be spending some time together,” he said. “My name’s Kevin. And you

are . . .”

“. . . well aware of your reputation,” said Kirsten.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” said Kevin, raising his hands. “What’ve you heard about me?”

“That you’re married, for one,” said Kirsten. “Also that you’ll try to stick your dick into pretty much

any warm orifice.”

“Not true!” objected Marty, listening from behind them. “It doesn’t have to be warm.”

“Anyway,” said Kirsten, shaking Kevin’s hand formally, “I’m Kirsten. And please don’t take this the

wrong way, but the total amount of time we’ll be spending together is however long it takes to get up and

down the aisle, OK?”

“We’ll start there,” said Kevin, holding on to her hand, “and see what develops. By the way, you

have fantastic skin.”

“Wow,” said Kirsten, pulling her hand away.

Behind Marty and Meghan were Tina and her parents, dressed elegantly for dinner. Mike and Marcia

did not look pleased about the attire of the groom and his groomsmen, but they didn’t say anything.

Behind the Clarks, standing a few yards apart from the group and looking bored yet observant, were

Mike’s two massive bodyguards, Ron Brewer and Paul Castronovo, wearing khaki slacks, polo shirts and

navy blue sport jackets. Brewer and Castronovo were former New York City Police detectives, veteran

partners who had left the force under the cloud of an Internal Affairs investigation arising from the unusual

number of cases wherein suspects whom they were about to apprehend elected instead—according to

Brewer and Castronovo’s official reports—to leap voluntarily to their deaths from the roofs of tall

buildings. This had happened often enough that the other detectives had—not without a certain amount of

respect—nicknamed Brewer and Castronovo the Tinker Bells, in recognition of the magical power they

had to enable people to fly, at least for brief periods.

The Tinker Bells liked working for Mike Clark. He paid a lot better than the NYPD and he wasn’t

picky about how they handled problems as long as it stayed out of the news. In fact, Brewer and

Castronovo got the impression that Mike had hired them specifically because of their reputation. He

seemed to enjoy it when they got physical with people who dared to approach him in public or simply

happened to be in his way.

With the wedding party lined up in processional order, Blaze Gear led everyone across the lawn to

the Wedding Gazebo, which overlooked the section of beach where Seth had pulled Laurette and her

children out of the waves. The beach was dotted with groups of sunbathers, kids shouting, random music

coming from various devices. Motorboats cruised past offshore; closer to the beach, two young men on

Jet Skis chased each other in ever-tightening circles, jumping each other’s wakes.

Blaze gathered the wedding party around her and began going over the timetable for the ceremony.

The Jet Skis got closer, engines snarling.

“I can’t hear a thing,” Rose announced.

“What?” said Sid.

“I SAID I CAN’T HEAR A THING!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” said Sid.

The truth was, at that point, nobody could hear much over the din of the Jet Skis.

“Maybe we should do this inside,” said Seth.

“What if they’re here tomorrow?” said Tina. “They’ll ruin the wedding.”

“No they won’t,” said Mike. He walked over and said something to Brewer and Castronovo,

nodding toward the Jet Skiers. Immediately the two big men started lumbering toward the wooden

walkway to the beach.

“What’re they gonna do?” said Kevin. “Swim out there and punch them?”

As the wedding party watched from the gazebo, the Tinker Bells crossed the beach, stopping at the

water’s edge. Brewer waved an arm over his head, getting the attention of the Jet Skiers, who were now

about twenty yards offshore. Brewer made a shooing gesture:
Get out of here.
The Jet Skiers thought that

was pretty funny. One of them gave Brewer the finger. The other revved his engine and moved closer,

laughing, beckoning mockingly at Brewer:
Come and get me.

What happened next happened quickly and went unnoticed by almost everyone outside of the

wedding party. Brewer said something to Castronovo, who stepped a little to the right, shielding Brewer.

Brewer unbuttoned his jacket and shifted his position slightly. Then there was a faint popping sound,

barely detectable over the roar of the engines and the other beach noises.

“What the hell?” said Kevin.

As he spoke, the closer Jet Ski began sputtering and emitting smoke. Its driver, no longer cocky,

dove off and swam frantically to the other machine. He scrambled onto the back, barely making it aboard

before the driver gunned the engine and took off at full speed toward the horizon. Both driver and rider

looked back repeatedly and fearfully. The remaining Jet Ski bobbed in the swells. It coughed out a last

plume of smoke and died.

Brewer and Castronovo turned and walked calmly back up the beach, Brewer buttoning his jacket. A

dozen or so sunbathers were looking at them; several were applauding.

For a few seconds, the wedding party stood in stunned silence. Then Big Steve said, “Did he just

shoot
at them?”

“Of course not,” said Tina.

“Definitely,” said Meghan.

“Wait, he
shot a Jet Ski
?” said Kevin. “Even in Miami, that has to be against the law.”

“Well,” said Marty, “legally, he—”

“Legally, he works for Mike Clark,” said Meghan. “That’s really all you need to know.”

Seth was looking at Tina. “Seriously?” he said.

“First,” she said, “we don’t really know what happened.”

“I think we do. I think your father’s bodyguard just—”

“Second,”
said Tina, “nobody got hurt. And third, those idiots were disturbing the peace and

operating illegally close to the beach in a designated swimming area.”

“Illegally?” said Seth.

“Yes,” said Tina. “Somebody could’ve gotten hurt.”

Seth stared. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Seth, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. This is supposed to be our wedding rehearsal, so let’s

just focus on that, OK? We’ve already had enough distractions.” She looked pointedly in the direction of

the hotel.

Seth hesitated, then said, “OK.”

Blaze Gear resumed the briefing, which was pretty simple: Everybody would walk from the hotel to

the platform, Banzan Dazu would perform the ceremony, everybody would walk back to the hotel. It was

going to be wonderful, Blaze declared. A perfect day. She asked His Holiness Banzan Dazu if, as

officiant, he would like to say a few words about the ceremony and he said he would.

First he held his arms out and turned his face toward the sky, eyes closed, looking holy. He held that

pose for quite a while, long enough to make everybody else uncomfortable. Then he opened his eyes and

beamed at the group, especially at Mike and Marcia Clark, who were paying his fee plus expenses,

including first-class airfare. He found Tina with his eyes, beckoned and said, “Come here, my child.”

Tina came over and stood next to her mentor. Seth figured that, as the other half of the wedding

couple, he would be beckoned next and had taken half a step forward when Dazu instead beckoned to

Meghan. She came over and stood on his other side, she and her sister forming a holy-man sandwich.

Dazu put his arms around the sisters’ waists and squeezed them in a manner that could be seen as

affectionate and paternal but also could be seen as a way that an older man subtly puts his hands on two

attractive young women’s asses. Holding them tight, Dazu beamed at the group again—he was a skilled

beamer—and began to speak.

“We are all seekers,” he said. “We seek love and we seek happiness. We know that love is not

happiness and happiness is not love. But without love, it is not possible to be happy. And without