“You’re welcome here any time. Why don’t you stay for a little while?”
“Not today. I have to get to Water Mill.”
“Busy, busy boy,” Trevor said, taking from Juan the plastic Duane Reade bag in which Juan had carried two shoe boxes.
“Thanks,” Juan said. He smiled at Trevor. He didn’t want to antagonize a customer because word of that might get back to Oscar Caliente.
“I’ll be in touch soon,” Trevor said.
And then briefly, glancingly, he kissed Juan’s lips.
Juan stepped back but didn’t flinch. Trevor could not gauge this handsome, exotic man’s reaction. Juan was cool, motionless, waiting. Finally, he said, “The money.”
“Of course.” Trevor picked up a brown envelope on a table next to the door. “This is for you.”
In the back seat of an Audi driven by a man he knew only as Jocko, Juan counted the two thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills that were in the envelope. He had just earned three hundred dollars for five minutes of work. And this was just the first of four drops on this hot night.
7.
Joan Richardson was with Senator Rawls at the party for major donors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when her cell phone, deep in her purse, started vibrating. Attended by three hundred people, the party was closed to the public. The grand museum was suffused with soft, flattering light. Torches burned. On the mezzanine above the entry hall a tuxedoed quartet played Boccherini, Mozart, the Beatles. Because of the sounds of the voices and the music, she could barely hear the ringing cell phone. She was reaching for her second fluted glass of champagne, as was Senator Rawls. She ignored the cell phone. She knew it was Brad Richardson because the ring-the steel guitar portion of the original James Bond theme-was unique to him.
Hank Rawls had spent the entire afternoon at her Fifth Avenue apartment. For hours they had touched each other everywhere, licked each other, and had sex on her bed, in the kitchen, and in the room-sized shower before they dressed for the party. But at this glamorous party they hadn’t even touched hands.
Within thirty seconds of the first ringing, her cell vibrated and rang again. More than a hundred miles away in East Hampton, Brad was being more persistent on the cell phone than he had been in years. It rang as many as six times while she and the Senator spoke with the aristocratic, perfectly dressed, dulcet-voiced Phillipe de Montbello, who for twenty-five years had been the director of the museum. He was more a connoisseur of fund-raising than of art. He made a donor feel as if he were granting a favor by accepting the gift. Again she ignored the faint, persistent ringing from her sequined purse.
As soon as de Montebello glided to a group of people that included Bill Clinton and Caroline Kennedy, Joan made her way to the bathroom. Other than the bathroom matron in a blue uniform, no one else was there when her cell phone rang again. Exasperated, she snapped open her purse, composed herself to sound calm and neutral, and evenly said, “Brad?”
An unfamiliar man’s voice asked, “Is this Joan Richardson?”
She was startled. “Who’s this?”
“Detective Halsey, Suffolk County Police Department.” Halsey was a common name in the Hamptons. Some of the original settlers in the 1600s in Southampton and East Hampton were named Halsey. By now there were dozens of Halseys on the East End-plumbers, electricians, policemen, lawyers, teachers.
“Oh, hello. Has there been a break-in?” The Bonac’s state-of-the-art security system was linked to three police stations in Suffolk County.
“Is this Joan Richardson?” he repeated.
“Yes, it is. Has there been a break-in?”
“No, no break-in.”
“Are you in my house?”
“We are.”
“Why are you using my husband’s cell phone?”
“We used it to find you.”
“Where is my husband?”
“Mrs. Richardson, where are you?”
“Has there been an accident?”
“Where are you, Mrs. Richardson?”
She was now very nervous, confused. She pressed her left index finger into her left ear and leaned forward, as if to reduce the level of noise in the quiet bathroom. Raising her voice, she said, “Where is my husband?”
“Your husband is dead, Mrs. Richardson.”
Sensing that all the blood in her body had instantly drained away, she said, “That can’t be true. You can’t be who you say you are. This is a sick joke, isn’t it?”
“No joke. He is dead, Mrs. Richardson.”
She leaned against the marble counter, bending forward because her stomach was suddenly painful. “My God, how?” Her voice shook.
“Murdered.”
“What?”
“Someone killed him earlier today, probably this afternoon.”
“How do you know that?”
“We got an anonymous 911 call about half an hour ago. We got here as soon as we could. The front door was unlocked. We found him in his office. There was cold coffee in a mug in the kitchen, so we think he was dead for a few hours when we got here.”
“My God.” Joan Richardson noticed the women’s room matron staring at her, a questioning and sympathetic look on her face. “How did it happen?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.” The detective paused. “Is there any way for you to get back here tonight?”
“Yes.” And then she repeated, “Yes.”
“Please do it as soon as you can. We don’t want to disturb the crime scene until you have a chance to look around.”
“I’m at a party in the city. I’ll find my driver and get out there.”
Even in the marble, stainless steel bathroom, she heard the murmur of hundreds of people and the tinkle of glasses from the party. And the Mozart music, that empty, cocktail party music.
“When can I expect to see you?” he asked.
She hesitated. “I don’t know. Four or five hours.”
“Can’t you do it faster? Our forensic people are already here. Things are getting stale.”
“I’ll try. But I’ve got to change first. I’m at a party.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Do what you can. We’ll be waiting.”
Lightheaded, trembling, Joan Richardson went into one of the stalls and sat on the toilet. Her mind felt as though it would burst. She was so profoundly distracted that she couldn’t urinate. She reached through her purse for the brown bottle of Valium she always carried. She called out to ask the bathroom attendant to pass her a cup of water under the stall door. She swallowed three of the always neat, miraculous pills. Gradually, even as she washed her hands and ran her wet fingers through her hair, the pills began working their magic. She took a twenty dollar bill from her purse and handed it to the bewildered Malaysian woman.
In the vaulted entryway to the museum, where hundreds of candles cast their glow from candelabras, Joan Richardson roamed for almost five minutes as she searched for Hank Rawls. She smiled tautly and brushed past the many men and women who tried to engage her-Michael Bloomberg; Jamie Dimon; the pudgy, oval-faced Steven Cohen; and ancient, owlish Felix Rohatyn.
Surrounded as always by people, Hank stood near the hallway that led to the Temple of Dendur. He was happy. He was in his element. He was now sipping scotch. He always enjoyed himself. When he saw Joan wave at him, he slowly disengaged from the men and women around him. Taking his hand, Joan Richardson led him to one of the unoccupied alcoves not far from the coatroom. A statue of a Roman goddess, with robes of gauzy marble draped over her shoulders, rose above them in the alcove.
She said, “Brad is dead.”
“Come again?”
“I just got a call from the police. Brad is dead.”
“Brad is dead?”
“Killed.”
The Senator repeated as if he didn’t understand, “Killed?”
“I have to get out there,” she said. “We have to get out there. Davey will drive us.”