The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set (12 page)

Curtains of rain were billowing down the avenue, lashing the windows and the reporters on the sidewalk.
 
She turned to ask a doorman for an umbrella and came face to face with the man from security who gave her Leana’s message.

He nodded at her.

Celina moved in his direction.

“That message you gave me—you’re certain it came from my sister?”
 

“She told me herself she was your sister.”

She had to be certain it was Leana who did this.
 
“Describe her for me.”

“Long dark hair and she’s pretty.
 
I only talked to her for a few seconds.”

“What she was wearing?”

“A white dress, I think.
 
It left one of her shoulders bare.”

Celina turned away from the man, her stomach sinking.
 
She was about to leave when she saw her father moving in her direction, sifting through the crowd, his expression grim.
 
“We need to talk,” he said.

She wanted out of here, but she didn’t want to tip him off.
 
She followed him to an area just behind the waterfall.

“I just got off the phone with RRK.
 
They’re worried about what happened today.
 
I think they’re going to back out of the deal.
 
They’re waiting to see what the police find.”

“And?”

“If there’s even the slightest hint that those spotlights were rigged in protest of our deal with WestTex, they’ll pull financing.
 
Richards says it’ll be a public relations nightmare if we takeover that company in lieu of what’s happening in the Middle East.”

“Maybe in the beginning,” Celina said.
 
“But when the public learns what we’ve done, we’ll be fine.”

“They’re panicking,” George said.
 
“They know that until WestTex is ours, our agreement with Iran is only verbal.
 
They feel there’s a strong possibility the Navy won’t move into the Gulf on the date we’ve been given.
 
They’re going to pull out.
 
I can feel it.”

“So, we find someone else.”

“Agreed.
 
I’m having lunch with RRK tomorrow.
 
If it falls apart, how do you feel Ted Frostman at Chase?”

“I like Ted,” she said.
 
“He’s a good guy.
 
Think he’ll play?”

“Maybe.
 
And God knows he owes us.
 
I’ll set up a meeting with him.”

“Are we good here?” she said.
 
“I’d like to go home.”

George looked at her in surprise.
 
“Home?
 
Are you all right?”

If she told him what had happened, it would ruin his evening.

“Today was pretty intense,” she said.
 
“And I’m feeling every bit of it.”
 
She looked over the crowd.
 
“The party will wind down soon.
 
I’ve spoken to everyone I needed to speak to.
 
If you don’t mind, I’d like to call it a day.”

It was pouring when she left Redman International. Those members of the press who hadn’t been invited inside immediately started to take her picture.
 
She nodded at the short, white-haired doorman standing beneath the canopied entrance and together, they hurried toward the limousine parked at the curb.

The press followed, recording her exit for the world.
 
Lights popped.
 
She stepped into the back of the car, told the driver to get her out of there and was home fifteen minutes later, packing Eric’s belongings.

CHAPTER NINE
      

The morning after the party, George Redman was showered, shaved and in his black track suit at a time most people were still in bed asleep.
 
Before meeting RRK for lunch, he planned on running three miles in Central Park.

He stepped out of his dressing room and moved to where his wife lay motionless in their bed.
 
They had made love last night and the sheets were now twisted impossibly around her pale legs. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” he said, bending to kiss her on the cheek. “Will you be up?”

Elizabeth murmured something in her sleep, lifted her head from the pillow and kissed him awkwardly on the chin.
 
“You smell good,” she said, and turned onto her side.
 
“Don’t forget to stretch.”

He went to the elevator at the end of the long hallway.
 
The apartment was quiet. Besides Isabel, the family cat, who was washing herself on top of an ormolu table, he was the only one up, which was not surprising considering it was just a little past five.

He stepped into the elevator and pressed a button.
 
As the floors sped by, George wondered again how the meeting with RRK would go.
 
If they decided not to back him, he would have to move fast on Ted Frostman at Chase.
 
He had come too far to miss this deal with WestTex.

The elevator slowed to a stop.
 
The doors slid open and George stepped out, pleased to see the lobby nearly back in order.
 
The cleaning crew had arrived not long after the party ended and they had worked throughout the night.

George left the building, checked the time on his watch, dutifully stretched his legs and started uptown.
 
Soon he was running along the nearly barren paths of Central Park, and musing at how far he had come since graduating from Harvard.

When he graduated in 1977 and moved to Manhattan, it seemed everything he tried failed.
 
Banks were reluctant to trust a newcomer and so they ignored his requests for loans.
 
Instead, they chose to finance the established developer over the rookie.
 
George knew he could go back and work for his father, but that would mean giving up on his dreams.
 
And so he pressed on, determined to find success.

It didn’t come.
 
It seemed the harder George tried, the more often he failed.
 
It wasn’t until the fall of 1977 that things began to look up.

Louis Ryan, an old college friend, called and told him about Pine Gardens, a 1,000-unit apartment complex that recently had been foreclosed on. Would George be interested in going into a partnership?

George’s first mistake was saying that he would.
 
His second was sealing the deal with a handshake.
 
What began as the beginning of his dream, ended with years of fighting Louis Ryan in court—only to lose.
 
Miserably.

He finished his run in just under twenty-four minutes.
 
Winded, he leaned against the trunk of an elm and stretched his legs before leaving the park.
 
The city was coming to life.
 
Cars were shooting down Fifth, rich widows and hip divorcees were walking their well-groomed dogs on retractable leashes and the sun, visible now, gilded the cluster of limestone buildings surrounding Central Park, turning their beige facades to gold.

He bought the Times from a newspaper-vending machine, tucked it beneath his arm without looking at the headline and started down the avenue toward his building, which towered above its neighbors.

Just looking at it filled George with pride.
 
The new Redman International Building was as extravagant in design as its predecessor on Madison Avenue had been conventional.
 
Instead of having four straight sides, the new building sloped gently upward, narrowing from its base to its roof, producing a rather uneasy effect of a hill carved from glass and stone.
 
It trumped everything on Fifth Avenue—especially Louis Ryan’s Manhattan Enterprises Building, which was two blocks south.

Before entering Redman International, George stopped and looked at Ryan’s building.
 
Despite the years that had passed, anger still seized him when he saw it.
 
To this day, he could remember Ryan telling the court that there had never been a partnership between him and George. To this day, George could remember Ryan standing up and calling him a liar for saying so.

*
  
*
  
*

While waiting for Michael to arrive for their eight o’clock appointment, Louis Ryan stood high above Fifth Avenue in his corner office, his hands clasped behind him as he looked out a wall of windows and took inventory of his empire.

From where he stood, he could see the many hotels, condominium and office complexes that he had either owned for years, or were presently under construction. There was the new hotel he was building on the corner of Fifth and 53rd.
 
It would be the city’s largest, it would open shortly and it was nearly $13 million under budget.
 

He learned how to control his costs years ago.
 
When they worked together, George Redman taught him well.

On Central Park South, ground was being broken for Louis’ new condominium complex.
 
The demolition of the two prewar buildings had been completed four weeks earlier, the foundation one.

He still had to laugh at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who asked if he would donate the four demi-relief Art Deco friezes that decorated the exterior of each building. At first, Louis agreed, seeing no reason why he shouldn’t donate them.
 
If anything, it would be good press and free publicity for the new building.
 
But once he learned that it would take weeks to remove them properly—not to mention hundreds of thousands of his own dollars—Louis had the friezes torn down, not wanting or willing to pay for what he considered worthless art.

He moved away from the window and walked the few steps to his desk.
 
His office was large and filled with things he never had as a child.

Born in the Bronx, Louis came from a poor, working-class family.
 
He looked across the room at his parents’ wedding picture.
 
In it, his mother was seated on a red velvet chair, her hands arranged in her lap, a faint smile on her lips.
 
She was in the simple, ivory-colored wedding dress her mother and grandmother wore before her.
 
She was seventeen in that photo and Louis thought she was beautiful.

Standing behind her was Nick Ryan, wearing one of the few suits he ever owned.
 
It was dark blue and a few sizes too large for his slim frame, but the smile on his face and the defiant way he held his head made one notice not the suit, but the man himself.

He wished his parents could have witnessed his success.
 
In the fall of 1968, Nick Ryan had been killed while on duty in Vietnam.
 
On the day Louis learned of his father’s fate, he quickly learned his own.
 
At the age of thirteen, he was thrust into the position of provider and nothing was the same for him after that.
 
While his mother took in laundry and became a seamstress on the side, Louis worked forty hours a week washing dishes at Cappuccilli’s, the Italian restaurant at the end of their block.
 
He pulled straight A’s in school.
 
He and his mother planned budgets together and managed to put something aside for a future they were hesitant to face.

As a team, they were invincible.
 
It was in his eighteenth year, only days after Harvard offered him a full scholarship, that his mother became ill.
 
She was tired all the time.
 
There were lumps in her neck and groin.
 
Her joints ached.
 
“I’ve lost a lot of weight, Louis.
 
There’s blood in my stool.”