Celina moved closer to the door. “Look,” Leana said. “Why don’t you just lie down? You can sleep here tonight. Mom and Dad won’t mind, and I promise they won’t know that I was here with you. Neither will Celina. It’ll be our secret.”
At that moment, Celina stepped into the bedroom. Leana was sitting at the edge of the bed in a thin silk kimono and turned away from Eric to face her. While Celina noticed that her sister was naked beneath the kimono’s brightly colored fabric, she didn’t see the genuine flash of surprise in Leana’s eyes.
She shut the door behind her. “I got your message, Leana. Your friend from security gave it to me.”
Startled, Eric sat up in bed. He looked from Celina to Leana, then realized he was naked and drew a sheet to cover himself. “What message?”
Celina’s face was composed, but inside, she was furious. She leveled Eric with a look. “I don’t want to hear a word from you,” she said. “Not one word.”
“It’s not what you think,” Eric said.
“It’s exactly what I think,” Celina said. “And I don’t want to see you again. What we had is over.” She looked at Leana, who was standing now, holding the kimono shut with tightly clenched hands. “I just want to know one thing before I leave—what did I ever do to you to deserve this? Why did you tell that man to meet you here?”
Leana shook her head. She felt confused, embarrassed and ashamed. Never had she wanted this to happen. And yet it had. But how?
“Answer me,” Celina said. “I have a right to know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leana said. “I never gave anyone a message.”
The silence stretched between them like a dangerously fraying thread. Celina turned to leave. “I never expected you to tell me the truth,” she said. “You always were a liar, Leana. And a coward.”
Hand trembling, she opened the door and was about to step through when she stopped and faced her sister a last time. “You can pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, but I know you planned this. I know you told that man to have me meet you here. I think you’ve been waiting years for this moment. To see me hurt.”
Before Leana could say anything more, Celina was gone.
In the silence that passed, Eric looked across the room at Leana. She was dressing. Behind her, Manhattan pushed up a glittering wall of glass and concrete.
“Where are you’re going?” he asked.
“After her, of course.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” He slid off the bed.
“I’ve done nothing, Eric. That’s the point.”
He looked at her incredulously. “You call having Celina catch us in bed together nothing? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“If what she said is true, I call it being set up.” She slipped into her dress. There was a tiny rip in the back near the zipper. Earlier, Eric had torn it in haste.
“You know you’ve ruined whatever chance I might have with her, don’t you?”
Leana shot him a fierce warning look. “This wasn’t my doing, Eric. I’ve told you that. Now, drop it.” She stepped into her shoes, walked past him to the dressing table and fixed her hair. She had to speak to Celina, she had to find out who had given her that message, she had to clear her name.
A thought occurred to her while she brushed her hair. Leana had always wanted to see her sister hurt—but never like this.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. “I know you had nothing to do with this. It’s just that—”
“Apology accepted,” Leana interrupted. He was drunk. She didn’t want to hear him talk. She just wanted to leave this room and find Celina. Quickly.
“Who told her? Who knew we were here?”
She looked at his reflection in the dressing table’s mirror. “I’m not sure who told her. But I intend to find out.” She turned in front of the mirror, thankful that her hair covered the rip in the back of her dress.
“I’ll come with you,” Eric said, and Leana noticed as she faced him that he had put on his pants. The rest of his clothes were still on the chair beside him.
“You need to stay here,” she said. “Celina can’t handle seeing us both right now.”
She began to step past him. And as she did so, Eric pulled back his hand and struck her hard across the face with the belt he’d been hiding behind his back.
The blow took Leana by surprise and she fell to the floor. Blood sprayed from her nose and mouth, and spotted the beige carpet. Before she could defend herself, before she even knew what was happening, Eric was straddling her, swinging the belt, raining down blows on her thighs, shoulders, face and breasts.
Her dress ripped from the strain of their struggling. Her cries of pain and help echoed hollowly in the room.
“You fucking bitch!” he shouted. “You knew what she meant to me! You’ve ruined everything Celina and I could have had together!” He pulled back the belt and struck her once more across the face, leaving her cheek hot and swollen. A dusting of red stars flowered before Leana’s eyes as she skated closer to the gray edges of unconsciousness. Somewhere, far in the dark corners of her mind, she realized the blows could kill her.
And then Eric punched her. Hard. In the mouth.
Leana forced herself to think through the daze. If she tried to resist him, he would hurt her worse than he already had. She tried to move her arms, but they were pinned beneath his knees. And then her mind froze. Eric was forcing her legs apart. She felt his hand race up her dress and tear at her underwear. His fingers clawed and searched.
Leana struggled and was about to scream when Eric clamped an open hand over her mouth. She felt wetness and smelled a heady mixture of Scotch and blood. Her blood.
Eric pressed his mouth against her ear. “Just remember,” he said, as he ground his hips into hers, “you wanted this.”
And then Leana unexpectedly relaxed against him. Eric looked at her with such surprise that he involuntarily relaxed with her.
It was then that she made her move.
She bit hard into his hand and shoved him off her when he recoiled. Her heart thundering, her sense of direction shattered, Leana stumbled to her feet. The door was across the room, a million miles away. She ran for it.
Tried to run for it.
Eric grasped her ankle and she lost her balance. The room whirled. Leana knew it was over at the same instant her forehead struck the carpet.
But Eric did nothing. He was on his feet, suddenly aware of what he’d just done. How could he have lost control like that? What had gotten into him?
He looked at Leana. She was lying motionless on her stomach, her head buried in the crook of her arm. The area of carpet surrounding her was stained with her blood. A wave of nausea overcame him and he wondered how badly she was hurt. She wasn’t moving….
He glanced at his watch. How long had Celina been gone? Four minutes? Five? If she told George what she had seen, he would be coming up here now.
His drunken haze lifting, he stepped over Leana, locked the bedroom door and hurried into his clothes.
Leana waited. She listened to the sound of Eric dressing and peered across the room. He was standing in front of the dressing table, tucking in his shirt, quickly checking his appearance in the oval mirror. He was fully dressed now—except for the belt, which was still clutched in his hand.
He faced her. There was a moment when their eyes met, when a universe of hatred passed between them, and then Eric said calmly, “These are your options—you can either get yourself cleaned up and pretend none of this happened, or you can run to your father and tell him everything.” He moved toward her, the belt swinging like a pendulum by his side. “And doing that, Leana, would be a mistake.”
As he approached, Leana recoiled, her eyes riveted on the belt. A section of it was stained with her blood. “Get out,” she gasped. “I’ll call the police.”
“You can do whatever you want,” Eric said. “But I promise you this—if you do call the police, or go t
o your father, I’ll have a contract put out on you so goddamned fast it’ll make your head spin. You hear me? I hope so. Because I will do it. I’ve got the money and I’ve got the contacts. If anything happens to me, you die. It’s that simple.”
* * *
The elevator door slid open and Celina hurried out. She slipped through the crowd, avoiding the questioning stares, not stopping until she came upon the twin glass doors that were across the lobby.
Curtains of rain were billowing down the avenue, lashing the windows and the reporters on the sidewalk. She turned to ask a doorman for an umbrella and came face to face with the man from security who gave her Leana’s message.
He nodded at her.
Celina moved in his direction.
“That message you gave me—you’re certain it came from my sister?”
“She told me herself she was your sister.”
She had to be certain it was Leana who did this. “Describe her for me.”
“Long dark hair and she’s pretty. I only talked to her for a few seconds.”
“What she was wearing?”
“A white dress, I think. It left one of her shoulders bare.”
Celina turned away from the man, her stomach sinking. She was about to leave when she saw her father moving in her direction, sifting through the crowd, his expression grim. “We need to talk,” he said.
She wanted out of here, but she didn’t want to tip him off. She followed him to an area just behind the waterfall.
“I just got off the phone with RRK. They’re worried about what happened today. I think they’re going to back out of the deal. They’re waiting to see what the police find.”
“And?”
“If there’s even the slightest hint that those spotlights were rigged in protest of our deal with WestTex, they’ll pull financing. Richards says it’ll be a public relations nightmare if we takeover that company in lieu of what’s happening in the Middle East.”
“Maybe in the beginning,” Celina said. “But when the public learns what we’ve done, we’ll be fine.”
“They’re panicking,” George said. “They know that until WestTex is ours, our agreement with Iran is only verbal. They feel there’s a strong possibility the Navy won’t move into the Gulf on the date we’ve been given. They’re going to pull out. I can feel it.”
“So, we find someone else.”
“Agreed. I’m having lunch with RRK tomorrow. If it falls apart, how do you feel Ted Frostman at Chase?”
“I like Ted,” she said. “He’s a good guy. Think he’ll play?”
“Maybe. And God knows he owes us. I’ll set up a meeting with him.”
“Are we good here?” she said. “I’d like to go home.”
George looked at her in surprise. “Home? Are you all right?”
If she told him what had happened, it would ruin his evening.
“Today was pretty intense,” she said. “And I’m feeling every bit of it.” She looked over the crowd. “The party will wind down soon. I’ve spoken to everyone I needed to speak to. If you don’t mind, I’d like to call it a day.”
It was pouring when she left Redman International. Those members of the press who hadn’t been invited inside immediately started to take her picture. She nodded at the short, white-haired doorman standing beneath the canopied entrance and together, they hurried toward the limousine parked at the curb.
The press followed, recording her exit for the world. Lights popped. She stepped into the back of the car, told the driver to get her out of there and was home fifteen minutes later, packing Eric’s belongings.
CHAPTER NINE
The morning after the party, George Redman was showered, shaved and in his black track suit at a time most people were still in bed asleep. Before meeting RRK for lunch, he planned on running three miles in Central Park.
He stepped out of his dressing room and moved to where his wife lay motionless in their bed. They had made love last night and the sheets were now twisted impossibly around her pale legs. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” he said, bending to kiss her on the cheek. “Will you be up?”
Elizabeth murmured something in her sleep, lifted her head from the pillow and kissed him awkwardly on the chin. “You smell good,” she said, and turned onto her side. “Don’t forget to stretch.”
He went to the elevator at the end of the long hallway. The apartment was quiet. Besides Isabel, the family cat, who was washing herself on top of an ormolu table, he was the only one up, which was not surprising considering it was just a little past five.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed a button. As the floors sped by, George wondered again how the meeting with RRK would go. If they decided not to back him, he would have to move fast on Ted Frostman at Chase. He had come too far to miss this deal with WestTex.
The elevator slowed to a stop. The doors slid open and George stepped out, pleased to see the lobby nearly back in order. The cleaning crew had arrived not long after the party ended and they had worked throughout the night.
George left the building, checked the time on his watch, dutifully stretched his legs and started uptown. Soon he was running along the nearly barren paths of Central Park, and musing at how far he had come since graduating from Harvard.
When he graduated in 1977 and moved to Manhattan, it seemed everything he tried failed. Banks were reluctant to trust a newcomer and so they ignored his requests for loans. Instead, they chose to finance the established developer over the rookie. George knew he could go back and work for his father, but that would mean giving up on his dreams. And so he pressed on, determined to find success.
It didn’t come. It seemed the harder George tried, the more often he failed. It wasn’t until the fall of 1977 that things began to look up.
Louis Ryan, an old college friend, called and told him about Pine Gardens, a 1,000-unit apartment complex that recently had been foreclosed on. Would George be interested in going into a partnership?
George’s first mistake was saying that he would. His second was sealing the deal with a handshake. What began as the beginning of his dream, ended with years of fighting Louis Ryan in court—only to lose. Miserably.
He finished his run in just under twenty-four minutes. Winded, he leaned against the trunk of an elm and stretched his legs before leaving the park. The city was coming to life. Cars were shooting down Fifth, rich widows and hip divorcees were walking their well-groomed dogs on retractable leashes and the sun, visible now, gilded the cluster of limestone buildings surrounding Central Park, turning their beige facades to gold.
He bought the Times from a newspaper-vending machine, tucked it beneath his arm without looking at the headline and started down the avenue toward his building, which towered above its neighbors.
Just looking at it filled George with pride. The new Redman International Building was as extravagant in design as its predecessor on Madison Avenue had been conventional. Instead of having four straight sides, the new building sloped gently upward, narrowing from its base to its roof, producing a rather uneasy effect of a hill carved from glass and stone. It trumped everything on Fifth Avenue—especially Louis Ryan’s Manhattan Enterprises Building, which was two blocks south.
Before entering Redman International, George stopped and looked at Ryan’s building. Despite the years that had passed, anger still seized him when he saw it. To this day, he could remember Ryan telling the court that there had never been a partnership between him and George. To this day, George could remember Ryan standing up and calling him a liar for saying so.
* * *
While waiting for Michael to arrive for their eight o’clock appointment, Louis Ryan stood high above Fifth Avenue in his corner office, his hands clasped behind him as he looked out a wall of windows and took inventory of his empire.
From where he stood, he could see the many hotels, condominium and office complexes that he had either owned for years, or were presently under construction. There was the new hotel he wa
s building on the corner of Fifth and 53rd. It would be the city’s largest, it would open shortly and it was nearly $13 million under budget.
He learned how to control his costs years ago. When they worked together, George Redman taught him well.
On Central Park South, ground was being broken for Louis’ new condominium complex. The demolition of the two prewar buildings had been completed four weeks earlier, the foundation one.
He still had to laugh at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who asked if he would donate the four demi-relief Art Deco friezes that decorated the exterior of each building. At first, Louis agreed, seeing no reason why he shouldn’t donate them. If anything, it would be good press and free publicity for the new building. But once he learned that it would take weeks to remove them properly—not to mention hundreds of thousands of his own dollars—Louis had the friezes torn down, not wanting or willing to pay for what he considered worthless art.
He moved away from the window and walked the few steps to his desk. His office was large and filled with things he never had as a child.
Born in the Bronx, Louis came from a poor, working-class family. He looked across the room at his parents’ wedding picture. In it, his mother was seated on a red velvet chair, her hands arranged in her lap, a faint smile on her lips. She was in the simple, ivory-colored wedding dress her mother and grandmother wore before her. She was seventeen in that photo and Louis thought she was beautiful.
Standing behind her was Nick Ryan, wearing one of the few suits he ever owned. It was dark blue and a few sizes too large for his slim frame, but the smile on his face and the defiant way he held his head made one notice not the suit, but the man himself.
The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set Page 6