Smoke, page 9
She tilted her head. “No. Should I?”
Smoke noted the mischievous spark in her eyes. He grinned, relieved, then selected a strip of tenderloin and dropped it into his mouth.
“Never,” he said, chewing. Then he slid off Aloïs’s Ferragamo loafers and stretched his toes.
Chapter Twenty-Two
His mouth tasted sour from the previous evening’s food and alcohol, and he regretted not brushing his teeth before dropping into the plush, cozy bed around a quarter past three. He’d been exhausted. Exhausted and elated.
Gabrielle was safe.
For now.
Smoke kept his eyes closed against the early morning glare as he kicked off the sheets and fingered his molars to extract a sliver of beefy Korean BBQ. He was oddly disoriented, not yet awake, unable to recall saying goodbye to Lucy or strolling the several blocks back to The Hotel. A dull pain pulsed in the depths of his skull, mirrored by the tender ache of morning wood rising from his groin. He wondered if he’d ever share a bed with Lucy, though he’d be content even if the friendship remained as it was—fresh, simple, and reassuring. He was dreaming and he knew it. If she ever found out who he was, that he was connected to the case she must surely be working, he may as well just hold out his wrists for her to slap on the cuffs. Still, he could dream. Still, he could hope everything might work out. Still...
He slid his hand down the shaft of his cock to pull back the subtle sheathing of his foreskin. He was hard, sticky, and hypersensitive. More than aware of the elevating beat of his heart. The crawl of flesh and rippling of nerves. The escalating, rhythmic catch of breath at the rear of his throat. And the intensifying tremors throughout his musculature that crested in unison with his easygoing effort. He finally gave in to the convulsive release of tension that had been building since he’d crawled from the secure warmth of Eleonora’s bed.
For several moments he did not move, did not breathe, could not sense the beat of his heart in his chest. Then he sucked in a deep breath and held it within him before slowly exhaling, biting down on the side of his lip. The gentle thud of his heart became apparent once more as he relaxed into the familiarity of spent calm, the soothing easiness and warmth of splattered semen dripping down the sides of his abdomen and chest. His cheeks. Sluggishly drifting back toward sleep, through barely parted eyelids he glimpsed the twisted, crumpled bulk beside him on the bed.
Dead eyes staring. Accusing. Less than a breath from his own.
He scuttled sideways in alarm and fell awkwardly from the mattress to the floor. He landed on his butt and heeled himself backward, away from the bed toward the wall, yanking the top sheet with him. Elgan Glyndwr.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Smoke took several deep breaths to compose himself. A myriad of impossible explanations swirled in his head.
“How the fuck?”
Elgan still wore his suit and buffed Diors. And he was still very, very dead. Slumped on his side, with his face partially buried in the pillows, his pale baby blues had turned a milky white, staring at Smoke. Through him. Reproachful and wretched. The sharp jawline and cheekbones highlighted the sunken skin between them, the deepened wrinkles on either side of his mouth, his lips slack and bloodless. Blue.
There was a knock at the door.
The only door to Suite 1737. There were no adjoining suites. No windows that opened. The well appointed floors, walls, and ceiling were solid. Fireproof, soundproof, escape-proof.
There was a second rapid rap-tap-tap. “Room service,” said someone who, Smoke surmised, was most likely not room service.
He crept toward the door, dragging the sheet with him, wiping at his chest and face. The distorting fisheye peephole revealed a young man in a starched black uniform and cap, a trolley at his side.
“You can leave it there,” Smoke called through the door.
The young man turned to look down the hall.
“Sorry, sir. I’m not allowed to do that. Hotel health and safety codes. I won’t be but a moment in the suite.” Again, he glanced down the hall. Smoke caught his squint and a slight lift of his chin.
Smoke saw no other option than to let it play out. He pulled the duvet over Elgan’s body, gathered the sheet around his own naked bulk, flicked the chain and latch, and pulled open the door. He tensed every muscle in his body, ready to evaluate and swing with whatever came next.
“Good morning, sir,” the attendant said, averting his gaze as he pushed the trolley. No one followed him into the suite.
“I didn’t realize my, um...” Smoke briefly took in the rumpled bed, “...ah, my husband had ordered breakfast.” He rearranged the sheet around himself and went to get Aloïs’s wallet, wary of the attendant’s every movement as he set up the dining area with a white tablecloth, silverware, and cloche-covered food. The young man leaned an envelope against a petite vase holding a single orange blossom.
“No problem, sir.”
Smoke slipped a hundred from the plastic wallet and pressed it into the attendant’s hand. “Tell me, when did my husband order breakfast?” he asked.
The attendant looked from Smoke to the messy bed, then down to the carpet. “It may have been within the last twenty minutes, sir. The kitchen is undeniably proud of its fast turnaround for our guests. Especially with such a unique order. Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.” He rolled the trolley out of the room.
Smoke dropped the sheet as he kicked the door closed. He pulled on Hugh’s pants and shirt and grabbed the passports, wallets, his burner, and the twins’ slim mini smartphones, sliding them into his jeans pocket. He reached for a hotel toothbrush and shoved that into a pocket as well. The Hudson had irreparably fucked his runners—he accepted that now—and he had blisters from the twin’s loafers worn the previous evening. He leaned against the edge of the bed and pulled on Elgan’s Diors. They were bespoke to Elgan’s measurements, about a Euro size 49. Over twelve inches of hand-cobbled elegance. Almost a perfect fit.
Smoke hesitated, scanning the room, trying to think, knowing he didn’t have the time. He needed to get the fuck out of there. But he also needed to know what he was missing. He lifted the two cloches. Both were a creamy Florentine dish of offal—chicken livers, hearts, and testicles, braised and adorned with the crest and wattle of a rooster.
Bile surged at the back of his throat, and then his eyes darted to the envelope resting against the vase. His name was scrawled in bold calligraphy. Smoke. He ripped open the envelope to find a full-color postcard from the Met: the Bronzino portrait where he’d first engaged Eleonora. He flipped the card over. There was a single word in the same rich scrawl as the envelope.
Medici.
“Fucking whores,” Smoke recalled Mathéo saying before ending his life.
He pocketed the Cartier lighter, nudged the open pack of Gauloises under the tight fit of his sleeve, and left Suite 1737 to run down the corridor. Away from the bank of elevators. He pushed through the fire escape door with his shoulder but stopped short at the stair rail. The heavy footfalls of a dozen or more men running up the concrete shaft echoed and bounced up the seventeen stories of the stairwell. He leaned back into the hotel corridor, pulled the four passports from his pockets, and flung them as far as he could down the hall. They flew past the door of Suite 1737, toward the main guest elevators and the other fire escape. Stepping back into the stairwell, he carefully closed the door and crept up to the next level. He hoped his pursuers’ destination was short of his location. It had to be. He knew it was. He stood in the shadows, motionless, as a SWAT Team mounted the landing and entered the seventeenth. They were kitted out in body armor, helmets, and eyewear, their torsos wrapped in assault webbing packed with ammunition and flash-bangs. He counted twenty submachine guns, carbines, and assault rifles as they rushed across the landing. Flash-bangs resounded from the hotel corridor, followed by the thump and roar and shout of the team as they entered the suite in full force. The smoke and stink of the grenades permeated the air.
Smoke wondered if he should climb down the stairs or up.
Up.
He took several deep breaths to compose himself before he pushed open the door on the nineteenth level and stepped out into the Penthouse Lounge Bar.
It was empty. Too early for a drink.
He was well aware of the clientele and prices of this luxury space once the sun fell below the horizon. He’d once dropped a cool grand on martinis for Gen X and millennial millionaires on the night “She who must not be named” exulted in high heels atop the bar, with a diamond-encrusted brassiere, corsetry, and a band new face. The group he’d eventually gone home with that evening had been similarly dressed. Similarly fabulous.
The bar extended onto an open-air roof deck, a score of hotel guests reclining on chairs and oversized ottomans scattered across the artificial turf. They were taking in the morning sun. Admiring the unobstructed million-dollar views encompassing all of southern Manhattan, the sky and harbor a deep blue above and below the Statue of Liberty.
Smoke pulled the fire alarm.
“Fire on the seventeenth! Fire on the seventeenth!” he shouted.
The panic amongst the guests was immediate, intensifying when the siren split the early morning silence. It was a loud clarifying whoop whoop whoop, accompanied by a cyclic, commanding, robotic voice ordering evacuation. Then the roof-mounted pressurization fans kicked in. Their drone swiftly grew into a high-pitched whir as they forced air into the fire escapes. Heavy fire doors slammed shut throughout the penthouse. The frantic mob crowded down the closest escape, Smoke amongst them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He’d spent an hour pacing the grand halls, corridors, and tunnels of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Doubling back. Retracing his steps. Ensuring no recurrent or familiar faces before he retrieved the leather satchel containing Elgan’s laptop from a locker. Even then, he dawdled on a train platform below Times Square for another hour. Watching it fill and empty with commuters, again and again, noting any stragglers. Satisfied he wasn’t being surveilled, he climbed the stairs to the surface of Manhattan and headed east toward the library. It was a place where he felt safe. A place with many people. Many exits. Many cameras.
But then, so had been Chelsea Piers Fitness.
He’d always considered Astor Hall, the main entrance lobby of the New York Public Library, as nothing short of spectacular. But he’d long thought its marbled grandeur to be little more than a prelude. One to whet the appetite for the treasures held within the building and, perhaps above all, within the breathtaking Rose Reading Room on the third floor.
He settled into the farthest corner of the room at one of its large oak tables.
Deep in thought, the unsettling images of Elgan’s sagging corpse beside him on the bed pulled at Smoke’s attention. He needed to get it out of his head. He looked toward the sumptuous ceiling that spanned the length of two New York City blocks. Opulent plaster moldings framed a vast mural of fleeting clouds, the scene punctuated by dramatic tiered chandeliers. He allowed himself to fall amongst the clouds, his thoughts gradually relaxing with the ambient noises of literary relief. The ruffling of pages being turned. Wooden chairs scraping across the tiled floor. The soft, mesmerizing intake and exhalation of breath. The subtle hum of students, academics, and reverent tourists scattered throughout the room. The smell of books and knowledge. Finally, his mind cleared, though he could hardly hope the scene in suite 1737 wouldn’t forever skim just beneath the surface of his thoughts. He needed to focus.
He pulled the laptop toward him and tapped the Enter key. Again, no password or biometric protection. The lack of security infuriated him.
The laptop flared on, displaying a desktop backdrop of three gold balls in a triangular configuration against a blue background.
“Palle! Palle! Palle!” Smoke muttered and he pulled the Cartier lighter from his pocket to confirm its inscription. “Balls! Balls! Balls!” he translated out loud. The symbol on the laptop’s background had something to do with the Medici. He figured that much.
He clicked the email icon, but the device had no email account registered.
Next, he selected the document icon. It led to hundreds of sub-folders, Word docs, PDFs, and spreadsheets. Folders within folders within folders. Thousands of artifacts. He glanced up at the clouds, took in a deep breath, and clicked on the first file.
The sunlight beaming through the arched windows above slid slowly across the floor and tables. The rays climbed the opposite wall, until they shone right through the space, from window to opposite window, highlighting the chandeliers and muraled clouds to an impossible brilliance. He’d spent the better part of the day, into the very late afternoon, trolling through the laptop contents. The spreadsheets documented extreme wealth. Astronomical numbers in multiple currencies. Many of the Word docs profiled companies and forecast financials. One folder held copies of title deeds for buildings and land scattered across Manhattan. Across the Americas. Across Europe and Asia. Thousands of deeds. Dating back through the centuries. The two dozen he eyeballed were all stamped with variations of crests, shields, and logos, all with one thing in common: three dots, circles, or balls. One crest interpreted them as oranges, another as gold rings, and another as planets.
Smoke pulled at his lip in frustration. He didn’t understand what he was looking at, or for, and it felt like he was getting nowhere. It seemed like stuff a hedge fund manager would keep on their laptop. He clicked into the computer’s C drive and drilled past the usual folders of software and application data. There wasn’t anything out of place. It all appeared pretty basic, at least to his rudimentary computer knowledge.
The abrupt screech of a chair at the far end of the room pulled his attention. He tensed, his back straightening, as a young woman strolled the length of the reading room, her gaze drifting from side to side but always hesitating when cast in his direction. She was fit. Athletic. An ease of movement. She wore nonrestrictive khakis and a jacket that could easily hide a Glock or knife. Several tables away, she casually reached behind her neck, and Smoke’s muscles tightened, ready to spring from the hard wooden seat. He rose to his full commanding height, breathing deep and slow, filling his lungs and bloodstream with oxygen. His limbs were simmering with a spike of adrenaline, his focus sharpening, the pulse of blood through his veins grounding him, providing a beat to accompany any required movement.
But then she was close enough for him to read her face, and he relaxed. The hand at her neck flipped a long mane of hair across her shoulder. She smiled at him as she passed. When she stopped and turned, Smoke felt comfortable with her outside his immediate field of vision, no need to confront her as she took out her phone and snapped a picture of the room. Of the light streaming in through the windows. Of the motes of dust lifting from generations of knowledge. Of people seeking answers. He was just one of them.
He settled back into his chair and knuckled the Pictures icon on the touchscreen. The folder contained a single jpeg—a group photo of seventy or more people across multiple generations. Some shared obvious familial characteristics, but many didn’t. All were gathered around a banquet table on a grand terracotta tiled terrace overlooking the ocean. The menacing slopes of Mount Vesuvius rose on the distant horizon, confirming the broad curve of coastline behind them was the Bay of Naples. Smoke pulled out his burner and snapped a picture of the photo.
There, standing near the right side of the group in the photo, was Eleonora di Toledo. He squinted and leaned closer to the screen. Yes, it was her. She was resting her hands on the shoulders of the two people sitting in front of her.
Daan and Angi Stuyvesant.
Smoke stroked the stubble on his jawline as he studied the three of them and their placement within the larger group. He doubted Daan could be Eleonora’s son. His complexion and features seemed unrelated, and the family name was clearly different. He thought back to his time with the young couple. The softness of their lips and touch. The pleasure of tongue against flesh. Of flesh between tongue and palate. Of flesh within flesh. The tender moment when...
He shook his head, realizing Angi could be Eleonora’s daughter. Or niece. Surely, she was one or the other.
But Eleonora had proffered no awareness of their deaths. Their murders. He tried to recall her face as they studied the Bronzino at the Met. As they had talked. There was some emotion there he’d incorrectly read.
The crack in her voice, the glisten in her eyes, the slight tremor in her hand, curling toward a fist at the edge of his vision.
He felt the blood drain from his face, then he suddenly flushed with guilt.
“What the hell am I doing?” he muttered. “What have I been doing?”
He clicked on the web browser to search for Angi di Toledo, wondering if that could be her maiden name. The browser kicked him into the NYPL intranet to input his library card number and password.
The instant he made the connection beyond the library’s firewall, Elgan’s laptop emanated a high-pitched pop and died.
* * *
It was after 8 pm. The vestibule of the Plaza Residences felt unexpectedly daunting in its opulence, but also in light of what he knew—and didn’t know about Eleonora. Smoke held his back a little too straight as he gripped a bottle of merlot by the neck. He attempted to rake his curls into place, but they were wild and greasy against his scalp. He was looking more than a little disheveled when he checked his reflection in the hotel’s main lobby doors. His clothing was a little too stretched, a little too rumpled, a little too stained. And the shoes, as magnificent as they were, needed more than a fifty-buck shine. He’d severely scuffed them during his dramatic departure from The Hotel.
