TV.
“What channel?” I asked her.
“Take your pick,” Courtney said. “I’m watching ESPN.”
She didn’t say another word.
Chapter 23
“ESPN!” I SHOUTED to Jimmy.
He punched the remote, the picture came up, and within a few seconds my heart sank down into the floorboards.
A reporter was talking, the street scene behind him not giving too much away. I could see a cop car, a bunch of people milling about.
But it was all summed up on the bottom of the screen in plain English.
DWAYNE ROBINSON IS DEAD .
The reporter was rambling on, but it was as if I’d gone deaf. Jimmy said something to me and I couldn’t process his words, either. I just kept staring at the TV screen in shock, getting numb all over.
The picture changed as a few words from the reporter finally began to sift into my ears.
Jump… building… apparent suicide… mystery man… now mystery death.
I snapped out of it to watch the TV screen fill with the shaky image from what looked like a handheld recorder. There was a hardwood floor—a hallway—and the pink slippers of the woman running with the camera. She was heading for a sliding-glass door off her living room.
Word for word, I could hear the reporter’s voice-over.
“What you’re about to see is dramatic home video shot by one of Dwayne Robinson’s neighbors right after she apparently heard the crash outside her apartment window. I must warn our viewing audience that this footage is very unsettling.”
The handheld camera finally stopped jumping around, the focus tightening from blurry to clear. Dwayne’s neighbor was shooting from her terrace high above the street below.
Dwayne Robinson’s six-foot-four body was sprawled facedown on the roof of a white van, the impact creating a crater of twisted and bent metal around him.
I went partially deaf again as the shot returned to the reporter standing on what was clearly the same street where Dwayne had lived.
And died.
“Guess he’s not coming,” Jimmy muttered, sounding as shaken up as I felt. “The poor son of a bitch. He blew us off again, huh, Nick.”
Chapter 24
BRUNO TORENZI OPENED the door to his room at the San Sebastian Hotel overlooking Central Park and gave a head-to-toe gaze at the five-foot-ten-inch blonde standing before him in the hallway. She was wearing a shiny red cocktail dress with matching high heels and strands of gold jewelry.
“What’s your name?” he asked. “Your real name?”
“Anastasia,” she answered. Her Russian accent was almost as thick as his Italian. “What’s
your
real name?”
Torenzi ignored the question and simply turned around, walking back inside.
“Nice to meet you,” the blonde said, closing the door behind her. “I’ll call you Sebastian, then. Like the hotel?”
“I get the joke,” Bruno Torenzi called back to the girl.
Torenzi’s preference was for Italian girls, but the ones on this side of the Atlantic were like eating at the Olive Garden: you would never mistake the experience for a home-cookedmeal. As for the American girls, they talked too much about themselves. And the Asians were too skinny for him, nothing to grab on to.
Thank God for the Russian girls. Or Polish, or Greek, for that matter.
“Take your clothes off,” said Torenzi, grabbing a beer from the minibar. There was no offer of anything for the girl.
“First things first,” she shot back.
“Sebastian.”
“Sure,” he mumbled, walking over to an open black duffel bag perched on a round table in the corner. He pulled out a stack of cash. “Two thousand, right?” he asked, removing the rubber band holding the wad together.
“Not including gratuity,” said Anastasia, hoping the Italian man, the apparently
rich
Italian man, didn’t know the rules of the game.
Torenzi peeled off twenty crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and stuck out his hand. “I wasn’t born yesterday…
Anastasia
.”
She took the two thousand and thought that would be good—for a start.
Then she nuzzled
“What channel?” I asked her.
“Take your pick,” Courtney said. “I’m watching ESPN.”
She didn’t say another word.
Chapter 23
“ESPN!” I SHOUTED to Jimmy.
He punched the remote, the picture came up, and within a few seconds my heart sank down into the floorboards.
A reporter was talking, the street scene behind him not giving too much away. I could see a cop car, a bunch of people milling about.
But it was all summed up on the bottom of the screen in plain English.
DWAYNE ROBINSON IS DEAD .
The reporter was rambling on, but it was as if I’d gone deaf. Jimmy said something to me and I couldn’t process his words, either. I just kept staring at the TV screen in shock, getting numb all over.
The picture changed as a few words from the reporter finally began to sift into my ears.
Jump… building… apparent suicide… mystery man… now mystery death.
I snapped out of it to watch the TV screen fill with the shaky image from what looked like a handheld recorder. There was a hardwood floor—a hallway—and the pink slippers of the woman running with the camera. She was heading for a sliding-glass door off her living room.
Word for word, I could hear the reporter’s voice-over.
“What you’re about to see is dramatic home video shot by one of Dwayne Robinson’s neighbors right after she apparently heard the crash outside her apartment window. I must warn our viewing audience that this footage is very unsettling.”
The handheld camera finally stopped jumping around, the focus tightening from blurry to clear. Dwayne’s neighbor was shooting from her terrace high above the street below.
Dwayne Robinson’s six-foot-four body was sprawled facedown on the roof of a white van, the impact creating a crater of twisted and bent metal around him.
I went partially deaf again as the shot returned to the reporter standing on what was clearly the same street where Dwayne had lived.
And died.
“Guess he’s not coming,” Jimmy muttered, sounding as shaken up as I felt. “The poor son of a bitch. He blew us off again, huh, Nick.”
Chapter 24
BRUNO TORENZI OPENED the door to his room at the San Sebastian Hotel overlooking Central Park and gave a head-to-toe gaze at the five-foot-ten-inch blonde standing before him in the hallway. She was wearing a shiny red cocktail dress with matching high heels and strands of gold jewelry.
“What’s your name?” he asked. “Your real name?”
“Anastasia,” she answered. Her Russian accent was almost as thick as his Italian. “What’s
your
real name?”
Torenzi ignored the question and simply turned around, walking back inside.
“Nice to meet you,” the blonde said, closing the door behind her. “I’ll call you Sebastian, then. Like the hotel?”
“I get the joke,” Bruno Torenzi called back to the girl.
Torenzi’s preference was for Italian girls, but the ones on this side of the Atlantic were like eating at the Olive Garden: you would never mistake the experience for a home-cookedmeal. As for the American girls, they talked too much about themselves. And the Asians were too skinny for him, nothing to grab on to.
Thank God for the Russian girls. Or Polish, or Greek, for that matter.
“Take your clothes off,” said Torenzi, grabbing a beer from the minibar. There was no offer of anything for the girl.
“First things first,” she shot back.
“Sebastian.”
“Sure,” he mumbled, walking over to an open black duffel bag perched on a round table in the corner. He pulled out a stack of cash. “Two thousand, right?” he asked, removing the rubber band holding the wad together.
“Not including gratuity,” said Anastasia, hoping the Italian man, the apparently
rich
Italian man, didn’t know the rules of the game.
Torenzi peeled off twenty crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and stuck out his hand. “I wasn’t born yesterday…
Anastasia
.”
She took the two thousand and thought that would be good—for a start.
Then she nuzzled
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