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Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
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the issue, Nguyen would have found some way to lure him on board. Any way the deal went down, McKnight hadn’t been meant to live through the night.
Nicholas took a deep breath; he had come to the place where the American had so recently been drowned. Extending his psyche, he could feel the black weight sinking down, down into the muck of the Sumida from which he would never resurface. Wherever Nguyen was headed, Nicholas reasoned he’d have to pull into shore sometime. Doggedly, gritting his teeth, he continued running, following Nguyen, paralleling the river lights and the dark blight heading down it, his mission now set firmly in his mind.
Margarite Goldoni DeCamillo emerged from her shiny new Lexus onto Park Avenue and Forty-seventh Street. New annuals had been planted in the avenue divider, and halos of green were just beginning to wreathe the English plane and ginkgo trees. Though it was after five, the afternoon light was still strong, a surer sign than the still chilly wind whistling among the skyscrapers that spring was on its way. She told Frankie, her armed driver, to wait; then, accompanied by Rocco, her bodyguard, she entered the glass and steel skyscraper.
On her way up to the thirty-sixth floor she had time to collect her thoughts. This respite, even so brief, was a blessing because over the past fifteen months she had had little time to devote to her business. Ever since her brother, Dominic Goldoni, had been brutally murdered, she had been thrust into a maelstrom of another life so alien and anathema to her that it had initially set her reeling. Even though Dom had tried his best to tutor her, introducing her to many of his most important contacts in New York and Washington, still she had been unprepared for the Machiavellian complexities of taking over his position as capo of all the East Coast Families. Her husband, Tony D., the highly successful show biz lawyer, had been her mask. Ostensibly, Dom had chosen him to be his replacement, but all along it was Margarite who was pulling the strings like a ghost from the shadows. She not only had to keep the peace among her own galaxy of Families but continually to fend off the advances of Dom’s bitter enemy, Bad Clams Leonforte, who, now that Dom was dead, was avariciously bent on expanding his domain from the West Coast eastward. In the last several months, he had, over Margarite’s protests and best defenses, maneuvered and manhandled his way to controlling the Chicago and midwestern Families. She knew he would never have dared attempt such an usurpation of power – let alone been successful at it – had Dom still been alive. Always now, there was the metallic taste of bile in her mouth as she struggled with the fact that she had failed her brother and all the Families he had devoted himself to shepherding.
The elevator slowed to a stop, a tiny bell rang, and the doors slid open. As she and Rocco strode down the gray and beige hallway toward the offices of Serenissima, her highly successful cosmetics company, she felt with a physical pang the heavy burden of responsibility Dom had placed on her shoulders. How she had missed being immersed in the excitement of her own business, the thousand daily decisions that would keep it on course, the triumphs and, yes, the failures, as well, because they were also part of the learning process.
She and her partner, Rich Cooper, had built Serenissima up from a small two-person mail-order business to the burgeoning international organization it was today. The company now had boutiques in Barneys, Bloomie’s, Bergdorf, and Saks in New York and all across the country through a newly formed subcompany that doled out franchises. The French loved the products, as did the Italians and the Japanese. Later this year, Rich was planning an all-out assault on Germany, and there was talk of going into the former Eastern Bloc countries.
Thank God for Rich, she thought. He had been minding the store while she had been busy
Nicholas took a deep breath; he had come to the place where the American had so recently been drowned. Extending his psyche, he could feel the black weight sinking down, down into the muck of the Sumida from which he would never resurface. Wherever Nguyen was headed, Nicholas reasoned he’d have to pull into shore sometime. Doggedly, gritting his teeth, he continued running, following Nguyen, paralleling the river lights and the dark blight heading down it, his mission now set firmly in his mind.
Margarite Goldoni DeCamillo emerged from her shiny new Lexus onto Park Avenue and Forty-seventh Street. New annuals had been planted in the avenue divider, and halos of green were just beginning to wreathe the English plane and ginkgo trees. Though it was after five, the afternoon light was still strong, a surer sign than the still chilly wind whistling among the skyscrapers that spring was on its way. She told Frankie, her armed driver, to wait; then, accompanied by Rocco, her bodyguard, she entered the glass and steel skyscraper.
On her way up to the thirty-sixth floor she had time to collect her thoughts. This respite, even so brief, was a blessing because over the past fifteen months she had had little time to devote to her business. Ever since her brother, Dominic Goldoni, had been brutally murdered, she had been thrust into a maelstrom of another life so alien and anathema to her that it had initially set her reeling. Even though Dom had tried his best to tutor her, introducing her to many of his most important contacts in New York and Washington, still she had been unprepared for the Machiavellian complexities of taking over his position as capo of all the East Coast Families. Her husband, Tony D., the highly successful show biz lawyer, had been her mask. Ostensibly, Dom had chosen him to be his replacement, but all along it was Margarite who was pulling the strings like a ghost from the shadows. She not only had to keep the peace among her own galaxy of Families but continually to fend off the advances of Dom’s bitter enemy, Bad Clams Leonforte, who, now that Dom was dead, was avariciously bent on expanding his domain from the West Coast eastward. In the last several months, he had, over Margarite’s protests and best defenses, maneuvered and manhandled his way to controlling the Chicago and midwestern Families. She knew he would never have dared attempt such an usurpation of power – let alone been successful at it – had Dom still been alive. Always now, there was the metallic taste of bile in her mouth as she struggled with the fact that she had failed her brother and all the Families he had devoted himself to shepherding.
The elevator slowed to a stop, a tiny bell rang, and the doors slid open. As she and Rocco strode down the gray and beige hallway toward the offices of Serenissima, her highly successful cosmetics company, she felt with a physical pang the heavy burden of responsibility Dom had placed on her shoulders. How she had missed being immersed in the excitement of her own business, the thousand daily decisions that would keep it on course, the triumphs and, yes, the failures, as well, because they were also part of the learning process.
She and her partner, Rich Cooper, had built Serenissima up from a small two-person mail-order business to the burgeoning international organization it was today. The company now had boutiques in Barneys, Bloomie’s, Bergdorf, and Saks in New York and all across the country through a newly formed subcompany that doled out franchises. The French loved the products, as did the Italians and the Japanese. Later this year, Rich was planning an all-out assault on Germany, and there was talk of going into the former Eastern Bloc countries.
Thank God for Rich, she thought. He had been minding the store while she had been busy
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