Nele Neuhaus - Swimming with Sharks

Nick undressed and took a hot shower to relax his tense neck. He had been waiting two days to hear from Alex. Tate Jenkins had actually agreed to an amnesty, but on the condition that Alex contact him immediately. Time was running out, but Nick had no way of reaching her. For a brief moment, he thought that she might never return to New York again. She had plenty of money and a new identity. It would be easiest and safest for her to never set foot in this city again. Nick understood that, but the sheer possibility of never seeing her again caused him a sharp pain. He didn’t care whether he looked like a fool in front of Jenkins and Connors if Alex remained on the run. It would be much worse not to see her again, not even knowing where she was or how she was doing.

Nick slipped into his bathrobe, walked into the kitchen, and stared into the refrigerator. Although he’d had the opportunity to feast on an opulent buffet at the Waldorf Astoria, he had spurned the lobster, veal medallions, stuffed quail breasts, and Beluga caviar. Just as he pulled a bottle of milk from the fridge, the telephone rang. He almost dropped the bottle in shock. As he had so many times over the past few days, he hoped that it might be Alex on the other end of the phone. And this time it was really her.

“Hello, Nick,” she said. “It’s me.”

“Alex!” he exclaimed in relief. “How are you? I thought something had happened to you!”

“I could hardly call you from the airplane.”

From the airplane? Nick’s heart started pounding.

“Where are you now?” he asked.

“Back in the city.”

“I must speak to you, Alex. It’s very important. It was not without a fight with the FBI, but I managed to convince them to repeal your arrest warrant. When can we meet?”

Alex hesitated for a moment, and Nick feared that she would hang up.

“It’s already late,” she said, but then she seemed to change her mind. “Do you know the Portland Square Hotel in the Theater District? On Forty-Seventh Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues? I’m in room 211.”

“Okay,” Nick replied, “I know where that is.”

Nick hung up and took a deep breath. He should have called Lloyd Connors immediately, but he decided to go to Alex by himself. There would be enough time for all the interrogation in the coming days.

“Are we supposed to sit here all night?” Gino Tardelli complained. “It’s almost eleven. This guy isn’t gonna hit the road in this lousy weather.”

“Shut up,” Luca said. He had personally taken on the mayor’s surveillance and was in constant contact with two groups of twenty men via his cell phone. They took turns standing guard so that the mayor’s security wouldn’t get suspicious. They had been following him all over town for the past four days, observing him during his countless public appearances, but they saw nothing suspicious. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tap his highly secured phone line, but if he met with Alex, they would notice.

“We’ll stay here until one o’clock, and then the next shift will take over.”

Luca lit a cigarette.

“This is such bullshit,” the other man grumbled. “This guy lies in bed while we have to sit here in the freaking cold.”

The two men almost failed to notice the small side door of the mansion opening. A man stepped outside. He wore a leather jacket with a baseball cap and walked swiftly up East End Avenue.

“Look at that.” Luca straightened himself up and started the car’s engine. He dialed a number and let the car roll onto the street.

“It’s me,” he said a moment later. “There’s a guy with a leather jacket and a baseball cap coming up the street. You should be able to see him by now. Follow him and call me once you find out where he’s going.”

“Who is that?” Tardelli asked.

“I reckon it’s our Mayor Kostidis.” Luca put the cell phone away. “I bet that even his bodyguards don’t know that he snuck out of the house.”

Alex took a long shower and shampooed her hair, which caused most of the dark color to wash out. Her exhaustion was gone, but her nerves made her hands shake and her heart pound. Nick was on his way to her! Was it right to meet him in a hotel room? She was wanted for murder, and he would be in serious trouble if someone caught wind of their meeting like this. But despite her doubts, she looked forward to seeing him. She had been thinking about him for days.

Alex looked at her face, without makeup, in the dimly lit bathroom mirror. She still had a chance to get out. No one except Nick knew that she was back in town. She could leave New York and never be seen again. But what kind of life would that be? She never could have imagined how awful it was to be on the run with a false passport. She had trembled with fear at every passport checkpoint. Were the immigration officers holding on to her passport longer than other people’s? Were they examining it more closely than others? No, she wasn’t made for such a life. She could only hope that this nightmare would end. For the thousandth time since discovering Zack’s dead body, she found herself wishing that she had stayed away from this whole situation.

Alex walked back into the room and turned on the television. The hotel was simple and clean. No one had wanted to see her passport when she registered as Mr. Bernard Chambers from Tallahassee. She’d bought a bottle of champagne and some sodas from the nearby liquor store to accompany her two limp shrink-wrapped sandwiches and a bag of chips. She needed the alcohol to fall asleep. One or two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach calmed down her jittery nerves. She would be safe from Sergio here for at least one night.

Nick had a feeling that Vitali would have him watched: not because he wanted to know what he was doing all day, but because he hoped that Nick would lead them to Alex once she was back in town. For this reason, he had the taxi drop him in busy Times Square and accepted that he would get wet from the walk. He had to avoid putting Vitali on Alex’s trail. She might be safe at the Portland Square for one night, but she would have to change locations tomorrow. If Vitali had the slightest suspicion that Alex was staying somewhere around here, he was capable of having his minions search all of Midtown Manhattan.

Nick entered the unimpressive lobby of the Portland Square Hotel. It was filled with people. The Broadway shows were over, and people were returning to their hotels to escape this terrible weather. The elevator was full, so he took the stairs up to the second floor. His heart hammered in his chest as he approached room 211. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” he heard Alex’s voice though the cheaply made door.

The door was ripped open seconds later, and she stood in front of him. Nick felt a cheerful, wild bounce in his heart when he saw her. She was pale, but beautiful as ever. The stress of the last days had left its mark on her face. She wasn’t the ice-cold, hard-nosed person the press had described, and she most certainly wasn’t a calculating murderer. The woman standing in front of him was frightened and confused and just as lonely as he was. She wouldn’t have come back to the city if she had done what she was accused of. Alex was an innocent victim in this intrigue.

He stepped inside, and she locked the door behind him. Until this moment, he had not realized how much he longed for her. They looked at each other silently for a few seconds, searching for the right words. Neither could think of what to say.

“You’re completely soaked,” Alex said.

“It’s snowing outside,” Nick replied numbly.