Sons of Camelot: The Complete Trilogy (34 page)

“Eh?”

“Getting quite drunk; probably the right time for some bastard to put on a move.”

“Probably.”

“So?” Albert frowned at him. “Either entertain me by making a move on one of them or pay the bill and let me get home.”

“But you'll have a look for those files for me right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't want the elite streets of DUMBO to be running with your blue blood, now would I?”

Chapter Two

The taxi dropped Donovan at the gate of his loft apartment in the DUMBO. He paid the driver using his Smartphone and suddenly wondered if he should start paying people in cash again. Who knows who could access his phone? If someone was out to get him, they could be trying to get onto his phone. He shook his head and decided he was just being paranoid.

He unlocked the gate with his phone as well. He pulled up the key program that would generate a random QR code that could be read by the scanner at his gate. An old college friend had developed the system, and Donovan was glad for it. The same program was used for the apartment itself, but it meant that nobody could ever open the gate or his doors unless he had sent them the app to open them.

And a secure system was needed as well. Not only was his trim physique the envy of guys like Albert, but this loft apartment was the envy of most, from the Upper East Side to Williamsburg. It had once belonged to the greatest gangster of the early 20
th
century. It had been owned by him at that time when no policemen dared to patrol that beat alone and to live in the apartment that housed one of the most talked-about gangsters of all time was something he could never tire of. William “Wild Bill” Lovett, in Donovan's opinion, was the greatest gangster of New York City. It was one reason he had bought this apartment.

The other reason for buying the loft was the eccentricities it was built with. He loved weird houses. Houses that were a bit odd. When he worked for the FBI, he had lived in a penthouse. It was one of the biggest, most expensive, most luxurious penthouses and the location was what any socialite dreamed of Upper East Manhattan, but it had not suited him. The layout was too standard, there were no surprises, and there was nowhere to hide.

That was the one thing he loved about this loft. There were places to hide. It reminded him of the great family home in Manhattan. It was one of those very old houses you can only find in certain areas of the city. It was large and full of nooks and secret places. The loft, owing to the Irishman it had been a home to, was just as intriguing.

Donovan entered the 19
th
century-styled elevator and went up to the loft. The door swung open with another generated QR code and he went into the large hallway. Immediately, he took a left, which took him into his library. The room was massive. The room was in fact two levels, with a mezzanine that allowed access to the top shelves. There was a massive fireplace, a large table and a writing desk. He walked straight through it and into the next room. This was his smoking room. A large humidor took up one wall of it, but there was also a piano and some other instruments.

He had learned to play violin and piano when he was young, and he was still fond of playing, but right now he had another fancy. And he made enough money with his firm to indulge his fancies. There were a few amplifiers which he switched on and then he grabbed the electric guitar from its stand. He had had it specially built by a guild craftsman in the UK and it was more expensive than the piano, but it sounded better than any instrument he had ever heard. He took up a pick and strummed a chord. He grinned, thinking of the rock star dream he had when he was a boy and then began picking the strings.

Not too long after he had begun playing, Donovan realized the tune he was playing was quite melancholy. He stopped picking the strings and put the guitar down. He looked at the grandfather clock and decided it was late enough. He turned the amplifiers off and walked back through the library. In the hallway, he made for the grand oaken staircase. It was the sort of thing you could see a woman in a ball gown walking down without too much imagining. At the top of the stairs were a number of rooms, including another sitting room and his breakfast room. There were several suites, all in the same classic style, including his own bedroom. But he ignored that bedroom and took another flight of stairs to the third floor, and there, below the ceiling, was the room he would use tonight.

This was his second master suite. Unlike the classical rooms on the floor below, this suite and the others on this floor were very modern. There was a flat screen on one of the dressers; the bed was large and luxurious, covered in black satin sheets. A door, in the wall behind the bed, led to a large en suite. Donovan stripped off his shirt and dropped his trousers as he walked through the room to his personal bathroom. He turned the shower on, waited a moment for the water to warm and got under it. He just washed with water, knowing the overuse of soap would dry out his skin. He was a vain man, something he was keenly aware of, but he had his limits. Smearing his skin with products to counter the effects of other products just seemed stupid to him.

He took a few minutes to wash, then stepped out and dried himself. Naked, he got between the satin sheets of the large bed. And even though he had plenty to ponder, he drifted into sleep very quickly.

In the morning he woke from the sound of his butler knocking on the door. “Sir, it is time to get up,” the butler's Oxford accented voice said. “Your breakfast will be ready in half an hour.”

Donovan rubbed his eyes and rose in the bed. He slowly swung his legs out of the bed and got to his feet. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled into his en suite and turned the faucet on. He placed his head under the cold water and suddenly felt himself wake up. He dried his short brown hair and wrapped the towel around his waist. He headed downstairs to his other suite, next to which was his private dressing room. He picked out a pinstripe shirt with a classic white collar, a pair of suit pants and suede loafers; he got dressed. To finish his look, he added a tie. Looking through his tie rack, he picked a simple one which complemented the colors in his shirt; he expertly tied a perfect Windsor knot.

His breakfast was already waiting for him in the breakfast room. His butler stood by the door with that day's copy of the
New York Times
in hand.

“Thank you, Johnson,” he said as he took the paper and sat down. His breakfast today was a selection of fresh fruit, muesli and Greek yogurt. It was the breakfast he ate most often. He liked fresh fruit from warm climates, even in the stubborn winters of New York, where snowstorms would prevent deliveries from getting to the city. He liked pancakes and a full English platter too, but on most days it was just too heavy for the strains and stresses he was expected to deal with throughout the day.

There was nothing interesting in the paper, he decided fairly quickly, and he handed the paper back to Johnson. He was mighty pleased with his decision to hire the butler. It suited him and his lifestyle to have a butler in the first place, but he had always been hesitant to hire too many servants. He liked the good life and could afford it, but he did not want to appear like the rest of the elite that chose to live in the thick of it in Manhattan’s Upper East Side: pretentious. Of all the people in the part of town he lived in, he was one of the very few who actually had the breeding as well as the riches. As a result, he remembered that he could not, nor wanted to, display his wealth too much. He just showed it enough to make everyone aware of it. That was the reason he only had four people working for him in the loft. There was his butler, Johnson; Miss Graeme, the housekeeper; Juan, the janitor; and his cook, Emily Harkness. In his eyes, the latter was the most indispensable.

After his breakfast, he went to brush his teeth and then he gathered his briefcase and went out. He walked to the eastern wing of his 3,800 square foot home and went down a flight of stairs. At the bottom of those stairs was his underground garage. He jumped into his favorite car, a British racing green Jaguar E-type. He turned the key and the engine coughed. He turned it again and this time the engine roared into life. He pulled up the key app again and opened the garage door. Moments later, he blasted out into the street. He laughed. There was nothing like the joy of driving a car like this.

Forty minutes later, he pulled up in the garage of his office building in Midtown East Manhattan. He took the stairs up to his office at the top of the building. Most people would take the elevator, but he liked walking the stairs. He had long decided he felt better starting his day in the office by walking all those floors up than by taking the lift. Only when he was running late did he use the elevator now. It took him ten more minutes to reach his office.

On the floor his law firm occupied, his office was at the end of the building. From the stair and lift lobby, there was the kitchen on the left and the rest of the office on the right. His partners all had their offices along the main passageway, as did their assistants and their support staff. Then there was a library, completely dedicated to the law. It contained row upon row of almanacs and law books. Most of the changes in the law and the consequences of the decisions of judges were now conveyed digitally, but Donovan liked having the books as well. He figured nobody could mess with them once they were printed. Besides, they looked good. Then, next to the library was his office. It was neighbored by his secretary, his assistant and by his private gym, complete bathroom suite and small walk-in closet.

Donovan swung into his secretary's office and bid her good morning before cheerfully taking himself to his own office. He opened his laptop and began looking through his emails. It was a chore he hated to do, but a necessary one. The first thing he looked through was the updates from the courts, the updates from the New York Assembly, Senate and Governor, and finally the Congress and White House updates. The next thing was the emails from his clients and business partners. One of them took his particular attention. It was from the Greek shipping magnate who had recently taken a controlling stake in American Stevedoring Inc.

Donovan had never specialized in any particular field, but of course he employed specialists in his firm. He liked being a jack-of-all-trades attorney. It meant he could take cases and clients of all sorts and deal with quandaries like the one Gregoris Sedakis posed him now. He pondered it for a moment. His firm had represented Sedakis in New York since his company’s takeover; it was a prestigious contract. But the question was a strange one. He was not sure he wanted to be associated with it.

Another email was from the agent of a young Canadian singer who had just been arrested for drinking under the influence. The girl had been arrested for it before and this time, she had been charged with disturbance of the peace as well. Her neighbors in the prestigious Williamsburg area had finally had enough of her spoiled and extravagant behavior.

He pressed the button of the intercom and let it go immediately. It would be sign enough for his secretary to know she was needed.

It took a while for his secretary to show up, but eventually he saw her appear from the other side of the office, walk to her desk, notice the blinking light and come over to his office. She was holding an envelope. “Yes, Mister Donovan?”

“Can you set up meetings with Sedakis and the agent of Justine Lavoie? Seems she's in trouble again.”

“Yes, I heard about it this morning on the radio.”

Donovan nodded. He did not really listen to the gossipy news on the radio or television and was frankly not interested in it either. He knew a lot of the people that were commonly discussed personally. He preferred to get the stories from the source.

“Will that be all?”

“For now, yeah. Thank you, Rachel.”

The secretary walked up to his desk and handed him the envelope. “This just arrived for you. And your friend Albert called.”

“Ah, thank you, Rachel.” He grabbed the envelope and reached for his phone. He put a Bluetooth headset on and selected Albert's number on his screen.

“Agent Wylders.” Albert's voice boomed in his ear.

“Fuck, why are you shouting?”

“Sorry, hold on.” The line went silent for a moment, then Albert was back, speaking normally. “Fucking dead guy in the harbor. Engines and shit.”

“Right. You called earlier?”

“Yeah, I found the file on your brothers.”

“Yeah?” Donovan asked, picking up a letter opener and ripping through the sealed edge of the envelope. “Anything interesting?”

“Bad news. Denny Lang is AWOL.”

Donovan pulled the letter from the envelope and folded it open. “And Quinn?”

“Released on parole earlier this week. Just a minute...” Donovan heard Albert speaking to someone in the background. “Donovan...” Albert came back. Donovan did not answer. The letter was written in what was obviously blood. It had run slightly from the letters.

“Donovan. The dead guy in the harbor. It's Denny Lang.”

“You took years off my life. I will take the rest of your life. Lang,” the letter read.

Stormy Weather

is available at:

Amazon Kindle
*
Amazon UK
*
Amazon AU