Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

If it hadn’t been for his nontelegenic horselike features, he might very well have made it into the White House already, Chayefsky thought. Bob was a player, all right, not to mention Gabe’s oldest and closest friend since they’d killed the three girls on their business class trip to Prague in ’93.

It was ironic, really, Gabe thought, that with all his money, he actually had a senator in his pocket for free.

“Sorry I’m late,” said the senator, “but as I’m leaving the house for the chopper, that bitch of a wife of mine demanded that I actually change Amanda’s shitty diaper.”

“No apologies, Bob. Relax. Unwind. You haven’t missed anything. She just came around.”

“Oh, shit, don’t tell me that,” the senator said, his cold gray eyes shining like metal in his long, sharp-featured face as he took a sloppy hit of his drink. “You know how much I love standing there when they wake up. The look on the face. Like that cute little black one in the Bahamas when she figured it out. That one was a classic.”

Gabe smiled at the memory from two Christmases before. Classical music and the taste of cool, dry Riesling as he sat on the still-warm sand with his friend before the huge bonfire on the private island’s rocky beach. Alberto, in his pristine, glowing chef whites, sweating as he turned the roasting black girl on the spit.

“You and your theatrical ruins,” Bob said, looking up at the foyer’s crumbling rotunda. “What the hell is this place, anyway? A school?”

“An old courthouse,” Chayefsky said.

“What? How much you pay for it?”

“It was a steal. One dollar. Actually, my foundation bought it.”

“What? A dollar? I know this is the Bronx, but—”

“I promised to turn it into a preschool.”

“You? That’s hilarious. When’s that gonna happen?”

“Never,” Gabe said, and laughed as he put his arm over his friend’s shoulder. “Enough grab-assing, Senator. This way. We’re set up in one of the holding cells downstairs.”

“A holding cell? No effing way, man,” Bob said, slamming him a wide-eyed high five. “Now that’s what I call a hardcore setting. If the holdin’ cell’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!”

They were halfway down the candlelit basement stairs when there was a chirp from Chayefsky’s Bluetooth.

“What is it, Alberto?”

“A car is at the fence. Three men in it. They look like cops.”

Gabe fidgeted with his antique cuff links as he thought. He was not nervous. He was as incapable of nervousness as he was of compassion. Everything was a matter of thought. The speed of his thought, his ability to stay several steps ahead.

He considered the heist earlier today, the fact that he hadn’t heard from Rylan yet. But he wasn’t supposed to hear from Rylan for another two days anyway. He had people at the networks and two of the city’s rags, and there hadn’t been the hint of an arrest. And if Rylan had been arrested and had decided to cooperate with the police, why send only three men?

It was nothing, he decided as he continued down the stairs. No need to hit the panic button. Just a coincidence. He had spent a year setting this up. It was time to reconnect with his old friend.

“Send O’Brien out to deal with them. That fat bastard is NYPD, isn’t he? I pay that asshole enough. But stay alert, Alberto, as I know you will. If there’s further interference, we simply go to abort mode.”

“As always, sir,” Alberto said.

CHAPTER 108

“CAN I HELP YOU, GENTLEMEN?” said a big-gutted white-blond guy in a black Windbreaker behind the chain-link gate as we got out of our unmarked.

The fence surrounded the Luminous Property next on our list, a massive, beautiful old square building at 161st Street and Third Avenue in the South Bronx. Behind the fence, parked next to a crane in a cleared-off lot beside the building, were two vehicles, a dark-gray Ford Expedition and a dark-blue Mercedes limo.

Doyle, who was a car nut, had already pegged the Merc as a Maybach, a half-million-dollar billionaire’s car. I took a breath as I stared through the fence up the steps of the templelike old building.

Chayefsky was in there. I just hadn’t thought there would be a security team protecting him.

“Yeah, hi,” I said, smiling as I showed the blond guy my shield. “What’s going on here tonight? Why are those cars here?”

“Hey, chief. How’s it going? I’m on the job, too,” said the guard as he flashed his own shield back at me. “There’s a private party here tonight by the property owners. A discreet party. A lot of rich folks and celebs will be here, I’m told. I actually just got here. I’m working security.”