He stopped at a line of Verizon phone kiosks. He removed the vial of Ritalin that sat beside the 9-millimeter Browning at the bottom of his briefcase.
He’d been practically living on amphetamines for the past three weeks, Adderall, meth, bennies. He’d read somewhere that the air force gave its pilots amphetamines to keep them alert on long-range missions.
He was on a mission, too, wasn’t he? The most important mission the world had ever known. He needed anything and everything that could keep him going.
After he swallowed half a dozen pills, he took off his glasses and laid his forehead against the aluminum coin slot. The thunder of feet on the station’s marble seemed to triple in volume as the speed cut into his bloodstream. He put his glasses back on and made a laser line for the bustling station’s Lexington Avenue exit.
Directly across Lex, he entered the marble-and-stainless-steel lobby of the Chrysler Building. He shifted the latte to his case hand as he passed his company’s electronic pass over the security turnstile’s scanner.
His law firm’s shining brass ERICSSON, WEYMOUTH AND ROTH sign greeted him outside the elevator on the sixty-first floor. At twenty-nine, he’d been the youngest to ever make partner. There was a time he’d wanted, and probably could have gotten, the name Mooney added to that sign.
That time was long over. In fact, this was his very last day.
He made a quick left before the glass door that led to his firm’s reception desk and snuck in through the back way. He needed to keep a low profile. Calling in sick the whole week before, he’d caused a caseload logjam of startling proportions. At his Forbes 100, top-flight, bill-or-die corporate firm, erratic attendance was a sin equivalent to pissing on the senior partner’s desk.
His personal assistant, Carrie, almost fell out of her chair as he ducked into her cubicle.
“Francis! What a happy surprise. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to make it in. I was just about to call you. Your nine o’clock, Steinman, just called. Something came up at the studio, he said. He won’t be in New York until next Thursday.”
Francis breathed down a spike of anger. “Something came up at the studio” was Hollywood bullshit for “the check is in the mail.” He’d only decided to waste time and risk coming in because of the potential good that could have come out of the meeting with the multimillionaire movie executive.
He’d been stupid. He was trying to accomplish everything, but even flying on speed that was impossible.
“And, oh,” Carrie said, lifting a memo sheet out of her in-box, “I heard from reception that Kurt from New York Heart called last Friday. He said it was urgent.”
New York Heart was a privately funded antipoverty organization that Mooney did pro bono work for. He’d been advising them on a case about a destitute Harlem man who was on death row in Florida.
Francis winced. With everything else going on, he’d forgotten all about it. An urgent message about a death-row appeal couldn’t be good.
He thought about his plans. His time frame. It would be an incredible crunch, but he had to try. Even with everything he’d put into motion, he didn’t have a choice but to swing by the charity.
“Drop everything and cancel the rest of my meetings until further notice, would you, Carrie? I have to head up there.”
“Areyou sure you should, Francis?” Carrie whispered with concern. “You haven’t been here for a week. I think some of the clients, and even more so the junior partners, have been complaining, Mr. M. In fact, Mr. Weymouth is livid. Is there anything I can do? Do you need someone to talk to?”
Francis smiled at his personal assistant’s concern. Ever since she’d begun working for him seven years before, she’d been terrific, so smart and precise and loyal.
When it all came out, would she understand what he had tried to do? Would anyone?
That was beside the point, he thought, steeling himself. It didn’t matter what people thought about him personally. It wasn’t about him.
He planted a kiss on her forehead.
“You’re sweet to think about me, Carrie, but believe it or not, I’ve never felt better in all my life,” he said as he headed back for the elevators.
Chapter 39
THERE WAS AN unimpeded view of the empty wheelchair from the window of Columbia’s Department of Public Safety. Standing at the window, staring at the chair, Jesse Acevedo, the Campus Security chief, seemed incapable of doing anything except shaking his head.
“That’s going to be the cover of the Post,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “I mean, that’s my job, right? A handicapped student gets snatched on campus? Oh, I’m sorry, the handicapped son of one of the world’s most powerful men. My daughter goes here. Once I’m out, no more staff scholarship. What the hell am I going to do?”
I felt bad for the guy. I knew full well the kind of bullshit blame he’d be getting. But I didn’t have the time to sympathize.
“Tell us about the tunnels again,” I said.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, coming back to his desk. When his phone rang, he lifted the receiver and clicked it back in its cradle. When it rang again, he unclipped the phone cord from the back of it.
“The tunnels,” he said after a deep breath. “Right. The tunnels connect some of the campus buildings. Lewisohn, the one next to where we found the empty chair, has tunnels that go to Havemeyer, Math, and the Miller Theater. There’s another, older one that actually goes under Broadway to one of the Barnard College buildings on the other side of Broadway.”