Fifth Ave 02 - Running of the Bulls (3 page)

He moved quickly and easily, suddenly euphoric as he shot past the Calle La Estafeta and the Calle de Javier.
 
He thought fleetingly of his grandfather and wished he could have been here to see this.

The crowd of spectators was screaming.
 
Shouting.
 
The terrific pounding of hooves filled the morning air with the intensity of a million small explosions.
 
Mark shot a glance over his shoulder, saw the American, the crush of young men behind him and the first of the twelve bulls that were rapidly closing the distance between them all.

He was delirious.
 
He was beyond happy.
 
He knew that not even the day he testified against Wolfhagen could compare to the rush he experienced now.

He was nearing the Plaza de Toros when Spocatti, fan of Hemingway’s lost generation, reached out and gripped his arm.
 

Startled, his pace slowed for an instant and he looked at the man.
 
Now, he was running alongside him, his face flushed and shiny, his eyes a shade darker than he remembered.
 
Mark was about to speak when Spocatti shouted:
 
“Got a message for you, Andrews.
 
Wolfhagen sends his best.
 
Said he wants to thank you for ruining his life.”

And before Mark could speak, before he could even react, the man plunged a knife into his left side.
 
And then he did it again.
 
And again, sinking the knife close to his heart.

Mark stopped running.
 
The pain was excruciating.
 
He looked down at his bloody side and chest, and fell to his knees, watching in dazed silence as the man named Spocatti leaped over one of the barricades and disappeared into the jumping, thrashing crowd.
 

He had fallen in the middle of the street.
 
Hundreds of men were darting past him, jumping over him, screaming as the bulls drew near.
 
Knowing this was it, knowing this is how he would die, Mark turned and faced the first bull as it loomed into sight and sank its lowered horns into his right thigh.

He was thrown effortlessly into the air, a rag doll tossed into the halo of his own blood, his right leg shattered, the bone jutting from the torn flesh.
 

He landed heavily on his side, so stunned that he was only dimly aware that more bulls were trampling him, their hooves digging into his face, arms and stomach.
 

The men rushing past him tried to move him out of the way, tried to grasp his shirt and pull him to safety, but it was impossible.
 
The beasts were upon them.
 
There was nothing anyone could do but watch in horror as twelve running bulls ripped apart a former prince of Wall Street.

When it was over and the bulls had passed, the thing that was Mark Andrews lay in the street--its body bruised and broken beyond recognition, its breathing a slow, clotted gasp.
 
It looked up at the narrow slit of blue sky that shined between the buildings on either side of it.
 

In the instant before its mind winked out, its failing eyesight focused on Lady Brett Ashley herself.
 
She was standing just above on one of the building’s wrought-iron balconies, smiling as she filmed its death with the video camera held in her outstretched hand.

CHAPTER ONE

Day One

New York City

One Month Later

At the Click Click Camera Shop on West 8th Street, Jo Jo Wilson cranked up the dial on the dented green oxygen tank between his legs and eyed the camera in Marty Spellman’s hands.
 
“Beauty, ain’t it?” he said through the mask covering his mouth.
 
“Just hit the market.
 
Knew you’d want it.
 
Called you first.
 
The strings I pulled.”

Marty looked over the camera.
 
It was the latest digital Nikon--the best and latest in their series--and it was impressive.
 
God only knew how Wilson got hold of it.
 
It had the sort of lens that was so powerful, it could capture a cheating husband’s contented look four football fields away.
 
Holding it made his heart melt.

The problem was that it had been used before.
 
There were hairline scratches on the black casing.
 
Oily smudges on the lens.
 
Marty gave it another once-over and shook his head.
 
There was no way he was paying twenty grand for this camera.
 

“Too bad it’s hot,” he said.

Wilson looked surprised, genuinely offended.
 
He sat back on the stool and blinked, his great round belly expanding before him like a comic strip balloon.
 
Seventy years old and he’d eaten himself into a three-hundred-fifty-pound birthday suit.
 
It was a medical wonder his heart continued to pump.
 
“What the fuck you talkin' about?” he said.
 
“That camera ain’t hot.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Marty said.

“I'm not lyin' to you.”

“Then show me the invoice.”

That silenced him.

“And where's the box?”

Jo Jo looked away.

“You can't keep lying to me, Jo Jo.
 
You're no good at it.
 
I've been onto you from the first day we met, when you were stupid enough to try and sell me a directional microphone that had no direction.
 
Why haven't you smartened up by now?”

Wilson snapped his fingers on either side of his head.
 
“Can’t hear you, Spellman.
 
Emphysema’s eatin’ away my ears, too.”

Marty removed fifty $100 bills from his pants pocket and fanned them out on the dirty glass counter that separated them.
 
“Five thousand and you pay to have it delivered to my apartment tomorrow.
 
That’s a fair price, Jo Jo.
 
We both know it.”

Wilson had no trouble hearing that and he looked at the cash as though it were a great pile of stinking shit.
 
He gulped air and shook his pale moon of a head.
 
“You got more money than God, and this is what you offer me?
 
Five fucking grand?”
 
He pushed the mask aside and spat imaginary spit.
 
“Ten grand or nothing.”

Marty put a finger on one of the $100 bills and dragged it to the left.
 
“And my offer dwindles.
 
Your call.”

“That camera’s worth twenty grand and you know it!”

“And you probably got it for two grand.”
 
He dragged another bill aside.
 
“Look at that.
 
It's magic.
 
The money just disappears."

“Look,” Wilson said.
 
“Give me a break.
 
Doris went to the doctor last week.
 
She’s gotta have an operation.
 
I need the cash.”

Even if this were true, Marty knew for a fact that Jo Jo Wilson was far too clever a man to have reached seventy without having secured health insurance.
 
This was just another ploy.
 

“Times are tough for all of us, Jo Jo.
 
Have you seen the economy?
 
It's in the shitter. Just yesterday, I saw an elderly woman roasting a pigeon over a metal trash can in the South Bronx.”
 
He pulled another bill away, crumpled it in his fist.
 
“Imagine what she’d do with this money.”

"I can't even imagine you in the South Bronx."

Marty put a finger on another bill.

And Wilson caved.
 
He took the money and counted it twice before stuffing it in his shirt pocket.
 
“Generosity ain’t your middle name, Spellman, I’ll tell ya that.
 
What do you need a camera like that for, anyway?
 
You workin' another case?”

“I'm always working another case, Jo Jo.”

“What's this one about?
 
Another murder?”
 
He sucked air.
 
“Or are you hangin' some society slick for cheatin' on his wife?”

Marty didn't know.
 
The call came yesterday morning from Maggie Cain, a best-selling novelist whose books were currently enjoying critical acclaim.
 
She was his ex-wife's favorite writer.
 
In their brief conversation, Cain asked if they could meet today at six but offered nothing more.
 
“I'd rather speak to you in person,” she said.
 
“I have lots of reasons for not trusting telephones or cell phones.”

That interested Marty.
 
You got jaded at this job.
 
He got her address, said he'd be there and hung up the phone.

Six o'clock was forty minutes away.
 

He looked at Wilson, who was turning off the oxygen.
 
"Well, at least leave yourself a trickle," Marty said.
 
"I want you alive so that camera is delivered tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Love ya, buddy.”

"Bullshit.”

“It’s true.”

“Then recommend a movie for me.
 
The wife wants a heartwarmer."

"In your condition?
 
It better be 'Cocoon'."

“Fuck you, Spellman."

With a grin, Marty left his camera sitting on the countertop, stepped out of the store and took a right on Fifth.

*
 
*
 
*

Maggie Cain lived on West 19th Street.
 

When Marty arrived at the narrow brownstone, he noted at a glance the boxed summer flowers at each window, the bronze knocker on the carved mahogany door and what must have been a freshly swept walk.

He knocked.

When she met him at the door, he was faced with a mere slip of a woman in her early thirties with shoulder-length brown hair.
 
She wore clothes that suggested someone too busy to care about frills--faded jeans and a white T-shirt.
 
She wore no make-up, which Marty thought was unusual because if she had, it would have helped to conceal the faint scar that stretched from the corner of her left eye to the side of her mouth.

She extended her hand, which Marty shook.
 
“It's nice of you to come,” she said.

Her grip was strong and firm, as self-assured as her voice.
 
“It's a pleasure,” Marty said.
 
“I've been looking forward to this.”

“So have I."
 
She stepped aside and revealed an entryway that stretched before them in varying degrees of light and darkness.
 
“I know you're busy,” she said.
 
“Come in and let's talk.”