He finally stood up, left the East River Plaza complex, and headed west on 117th Street. Walking through the swirling snow helped clear his head, but he hadn’t dressed for the weather, and when he reached Second Avenue, he knocked on the window of an off-duty cab that had stopped at a light.
For two hundred bucks the man was happy to go on duty and drive him to 81st Street.
The house was warm and welcoming, and since Janelle’s keys were not on the foyer table, he knew that he had it to himself. He went straight to his study.
He heard the intruder before he saw him.
“Mr. Alden, I’ve been waiting for you. I took the liberty of making myself at home.”
It was Tripp’s teacher. He was seated in an armchair, sipping a drink. His face had been burned, but Hunter had no interest in the details.
“How the hell did you get in my house?” he demanded. “Did my wife let you in?”
“I don’t believe she’s home,” Madison said. “Your son let me in.”
“Tripp is here? Where?”
“Downstairs in the garage,” Madison said.
“Don’t move,” Hunter said. He went to his desk and pushed the intercom button on his phone. “Tripp. Get your ass up here.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Madison said. “Tripp is…” A self-satisfied smile spread across his face. “Tripp is all tied up for the moment.”
Hunter sat down and crossed his left leg over the right so that his hand was inches from the .38 in his ankle holster. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you better start talking fast and explain what you’re doing here.”
“I’m here to let you know that you were right.”
“About what?”
“Everyone has his price, Mr. Alden.”
“And every generous offer has its expiration date, Mr. Madison. Yesterday I was willing to pay you twenty thousand dollars to let me know when you heard from my—”
“Shut up,” Madison snapped. “I’m not talking about the twenty thousand. I’m talking about the hundred million, Leviticus.”
Hunter froze. “You’re Cain?”
“I’m done being Cain. All I am now is your son’s teacher from Barnaby Prep, and I’m sorry to tell you that Tripp is doing poorly in economics. I understand he’s asking a billion dollars, and all he’s offering in return is a promise that he won’t blow the whistle on you. A promise? From a teenage kid who hates everything you stand for? Caveat emptor, Mr. Alden. I, on the other hand, can make you a guarantee for a lot less money.”
“I’ve heard your offer. A hundred million.”
“That was Tripp’s idea. We were going to split it fifty-fifty, but since he’s no longer my partner, I’ll happily take my fifty. But the sale ends tomorrow night at 9:01—a minute after the Fed opens for wire transfers.”
Hunter rested his hand on the cuff of his pants. He could feel the gun on the other side of the fabric.
“Is that your plan?” Madison said. “Shoot me, run downstairs, shoot Tripp, then get rid of two bodies before your wife gets home for dinner? That’s not you, Hunter. You’re management, not labor.”
Hunter moved his hand to the arm of the chair.
“It would be arrogant of someone in my tax bracket to give business advice to someone in yours,” Madison said. “But the way I see it, you can give Tripp his billion and hope he doesn’t change his mind once he’s given it all away. Or pay me fifty million and get a lifetime guarantee. Tripp’s lifetime.”
Hunter reached over and picked up the picture of Marjorie and Tripp that had sat on his desk for fifteen years. He pondered it briefly, set it back down, and then looked up at Madison.
“I will give you twenty million dollars,” he said. “That’s my final offer. It expires in ten seconds.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Alden,” Madison said. “I accept your offer.” He stood up and reached out to shake Hunter’s hand.
“Fuck you,” Hunter said.
A smile—more like a smirk of victory—spread across Madison’s face. He withdrew his hand, took a step back, and exited the room.
Hunter sat in silence until he heard Madison leave through the front door. His eyes were still locked on the picture of Marjorie and Tripp. And then, without warning, it came. A flood of emotions that had been buried under years of cynicism and callousness welled up inside of him. Remorse. Regret. And, most of all, grief over the loss of his only child.
He stood, walked to the bar, grabbed the three-thousand-dollar bottle of Richard Hennessy, and returned to his chair.
Still staring at the picture, he tilted the bottle to his lips and took a long swallow. And another. And another, until he finally reached out to turn the photograph facedown on his desk.
But he couldn’t.
All he could do was drain the bottle dry…until the only thing he felt was numb.
Chapter 67
“It was a dark and stormy night,” Kylie said as she navigated the Maybach uptown.
“How about knocking off the comedy and focusing on your driving?” I said.
“For God’s sake, Zach, lighten up. And how about you focus on the fact that I am focusing on my driving?”
To her credit, she was. The snow, light and feathery a few hours ago, was now wet and nasty. Patches of black ice collected on the roadway like so many land mines, but for once Kylie was managing to keep her Smokey and the Bandit gene under control.
She stopped for a red light at 79th Street and Madison. “Taking one car was stupid,” she said. “Did you think about how we’re going to get back from Alden’s house?”
“I’m a policeman,” I said. “I’ll call 911. I’m riding with you because I had visions of you pulling into the garage, shutting the door, and ransacking the place while I’m outside in the chase car kicking myself for trusting you.”
“You really think I’d do that?”
“Not usually, but I know you, Kylie. Right now you’ve got this case between your teeth like a dog on a porterhouse, and you’re already on shaky ground with Cates. I’m just trying to protect you from yourself.”
The light turned green. She drove to 81st Street, turned left, and stopped a few doors away from Alden’s town house.
“Which one of these buttons do you think opens the garage door?” she said, looking up at a control panel above the rearview mirror.
Before I could say “I have no idea,” the garage door started to go up. “You got it,” I said.
“What do you mean ‘You got it’? I haven’t pushed anything yet.”
The garage door opened wide, and light flooded the interior.
“Holy shit,” Kylie said.
“Holy shit” was an understatement. There, sitting in the spot reserved for Alden’s dream car, was a beat-up old clunker, a blue van—the blue van. And standing behind it, lashing the rear doors together with a bungee cord, was our kidnapper-killer, Ryan Madison.
I bolted from the car, drew my gun, and started running toward him, yelling as loud as I could. “NYP—” Before I could get to the “D,” my left foot hit metal. Maybe a manhole, maybe a road plate—all I know is it was as slick as a brass fire pole, and half a second later I was on my ass in a pile of snow and road grime.
It may have been the luckiest accident of my life, because as soon as I hit the ground, Madison fired a shot directly at where I had been standing.
I crawled through the slush and got behind a parked car. My gun was in my hand, and I could see Madison standing in a pool of light, but I knew better than to fire. One mistake and the first question they’d ask at the inquiry would be, “Why would you discharge your weapon at a private home in a howling snowstorm?”
Kylie was out of the car and crouched behind the open door. She also had a gun in her hand that I knew she was too smart to use. “NYPD,” she yelled. “You’re surrounded. Don’t move.”
He moved. Fast.
He scrambled into the van, threw it in reverse, and skidded onto the street. He tur
ned the wheel hard, hit the gas again, bounced off a parked car, and fishtailed toward Fifth Avenue.
“Get in,” Kylie screamed, diving behind the wheel. I slogged my way back into the Maybach.
“Hang on,” she said, giving it gas. The tires spun, then caught, and we pitched forward. The van turned left on Fifth Avenue just as the light went from yellow to red.
Kylie hit the horn, ran the light, skidded into the turn, and managed to get the car under control just before we hopped the curb and plowed into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“This is definitely not an all-weather car,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the hang of it.”
I grabbed my radio. “This is Detective Zach Jordan. My partner and I just took fire from a private residence at Two Eight East Eight One. Send units to secure the building. Shooter is on the run in a blue Dodge van heading south on Fifth Avenue at Eight Zero Street. Need all available units to cut him off south- and eastbound. Advise responders that officers in pursuit of shooter are in a civilian vehicle, a black limo.”
“Damn it, Zach,” Kylie said. “Why did you have to call it in so fast?”
“If we’re lucky, there’s a unit that can stop him before he gets to the transverse. Why wouldn’t I call it in?”
“Because the last thing we need is a bunch of cowboys in blue uniforms slipping and sliding all over the place like they’re chasing O.J. down the 405. We’ll be lucky if they don’t all pile up like a demolition derby at a county fair.”
“I’m soaking wet from my ass to my elbow, and the last thing I need is a partner who wants to do it all on her own and second-guesses every goddamn decision I make. So why don’t you back off and take out some of that pent-up hostility on the son of a bitch who just tried to kill me?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. And even though I could barely hear it, I was pretty sure she meant it.
She gunned the engine, and the custom-built limo lurched forward in hot pursuit of the junkyard van.
Smokey and the Bandit rides again.
Chapter 68
“This beast is like the world’s most expensive toboggan,” Kylie yelled as we went slip-sliding through one of the most expensive zip codes in the city. “For a million bucks you’d think they’d include four-wheel drive.”
We were less than a block behind the van, but I could barely make out the taillights through the snow. And then at 76th Street they disappeared.
“Son of a bitch killed his lights and pulled in front of that bus,” Kylie said.
“Get in front of him,” I said. “Cut him off.”
“This damn car doesn’t have lights or sirens either,” Kylie said. She sped up to pass the bus and leaned on the horn. Big mistake. New York City bus drivers don’t appreciate horn blowers—especially assholes driving limos.
The bus went faster, and the driver looked down and gave us the finger. We were side by side, and I rolled down my window to flash my badge. But it’s hard to imagine that the maniac in the rich-boy car is a cop, and the driver must have figured I was going to reciprocate with my own finger, so he steered the bus into our lane.
Kylie pulled to the left, and just as we sailed past the intersection of 72nd and Fifth, we heard the crash. It took only a second to process that it wasn’t us, and it wasn’t the bus. It was the van.
Madison had turned right, smashed through a sawhorse, and was heading west through Central Park.
Kylie hit the brakes, and the car did a complete 360. She threw it in reverse, backed up half a block, and barreled through the 72nd Street Inventor’s Gate entrance to the park, maneuvering around the chunks of sawhorse that were scattered across the roadway.
The van was still moving, but the bungee cord hadn’t survived the crash through the barrier. The rear doors were open.
With our high beams on, all we could see in front of us were the two doors swinging wildly in the swirling snow. Then Kylie dimmed the lights, and we had a clear view inside the van. Tripp Alden, arms and legs tied, was struggling to work his way to the open doors.
She moved into the left lane and pulled alongside the van.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I was going to ram him from behind,” she said, “but if the kid falls out, I’ll run right over him.”
We took the curve onto the East Drive, and we were only inches from the van when Madison pulled his wheel to the left and smashed into the Maybach’s right fender.
“Back off him,” I yelled as Kylie managed to steer through the impact. “I’m calling it in. We can have every exit to the park shut down in thirty seconds.”
“You can close off the vehicle exits,” she said, “but if we lose him, he’ll abandon the car and hop over any wall from here to 110th Street.”
She pulled alongside the van again, and this time Madison turned hard to the right, jumped the curb, and hopped onto the lawn, which in July is lush and green, but in the dead of January glistened like glass in the headlights.
The van spun out of control and went fishtailing down a rolling hill. The Maybach didn’t do any better. Kylie hit the brake, but there was nothing for the tires to grab on to, and we whizzed down the icy slope like a million-dollar hockey puck.
Our car was heavier than the van, and we were gaining ground as we moved downhill faster. We could see Tripp clearly now. He had twisted his body sideways and inched his way to the rear. The doors had stopped swinging. With gravity pulling them one way and the wind blowing them the other, they were sticking straight out like fins.
Tripp rolled to his right, then left, then right again trying to build up momentum.
“He’s coming out,” I yelled.
And out he came. With one final roll, he toppled out of the van directly into the path of his father’s car.
Kylie pulled the wheel to the left, missing him by inches. As far as I could tell he’d be all right. But the Maybach wouldn’t.
As a kid I’d been to this section of the park hundreds of times. It’s the best place in the city to sail model boats.
“We’re headed for the drink,” I yelled as we bore down on Conservatory Water, the landmark oval boat pond inspired by those that grace the parks of Paris.
“It’s January,” Kylie said. “They drain it for the winter. There is no water.”
The van, only twenty feet ahead of us, disappeared into the empty boat pond. Seconds later, the Maybach followed, and we nose-dived into the pitch-black concrete hole.
We hit hard. The front bumper took the impact, and in a nanosecond the air bags exploded.
On the plus side, the nylon bag that exploded from the dashboard kept my skull from crashing through the windshield. But I felt like I’d been kicked in the face by a mule. My ears were ringing from the blast, my lungs were filled with chemical dust, and my brain was still reeling.
But I was alive. And so was Kylie.
“Zach,” she said, her nose bloodied, her breathing labored. “Madison at eleven o’clock.”
Our headlights were still working, and I could make out the van on its side to our left. Madison was pulling himself up out of the passenger window.
“He’s getting away,” she said, fumbling to find her seat belt button release.
She was wrong. Madison wasn’t trying to escape. He jumped off the van and charged toward us, gun in hand.
He was enraged, his face bloodied as he staggered up to Kylie’s window, and pointed the gun directly at her head.
As a cop I can think of no greater failure than watching helplessly as someone murders your partner in cold blood. Neither of us was wearing a vest, but had I been on my feet I know I’d have thrown myself between Kylie and the bullet without giving it a second thought.
But I was still harnessed to my seat, unable to move. The deflated air bag clung to my chest, and I shoved my hand under it, desperately grabbing for my own gun. It was too little too late. Kylie was trapped.
She couldn’t move, and Madison couldn’t miss.
He t
ook one step back, screamed something unintelligible into the wind, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 69
I braced myself for the explosion, knowing that there were only two possible outcomes. Either Madison would kill us both with a single shot, or he’d take Kylie down and use his next bullet on me.
But there was a third possibility I’d never even considered.
Madison fired, and the window blossomed into a giant spiderweb pattern. But the glass didn’t shatter. He fired two more times, but the bullets didn’t penetrate.
And then I remembered the casual remark Silas Blackstone had dropped when he was trying to impress us with how rich his client was. This was no run-of-the-mill four-hundred-thousand-dollar set of wheels. This one was tricked out with armor plate and bulletproof windows.
Hunter Alden’s Maybach had saved our lives.
Ryan Madison was as surprised as we were. Realizing he now had two very pissed off cops on his hands, he did the only thing he could do.
He ran.
There was a set of stairs on the east side of the pond, but it was at least two hundred feet away, and the pond floor was patched with ice. So he opted for the same spot where his van had gone airborne, firing over his shoulder as he ran.
I radioed for backup, and the two of us got out of the car and crouched behind our steel-plated doors.
“He needs both hands to get up and over the side of the pond,” I said. “As soon as he holsters his gun, I’m going after him. You cover me.”
Madison fired another shot in our direction.
“And if possible, I’m going to try to take him alive,” I said.
“Now,” she said.
Madison had reached the western edge of the concrete pond, tucked his gun into his jacket, and put his hands on the stone wall.
I darted out from behind the door and ran toward him.
I thought he’d have trouble getting over the wall, but he pushed up, threw one leg over the side, and within seconds he was standing on the edge of the pond, pointing his gun right at me.
I hit the ground, and a bullet splintered the concrete less than a foot from my head.