Christopher Smith - Fifth Avenue

“I haven’t seen Celina.”

“And I haven’t seen Harold. Look at poor Helen over there, sitting by herself, having to talk to that awful Mamie Fitzbergen and listen to one of her dull conversations about how splashes of Holy water are restoring her youth. You’d think Harold would be more considerate of her.”

“Something isn’t right with Harold,” he said. “He seems distracted lately. Not himself. I’m going to talk to him soon and see if anything is wrong.”

“And when you do,” Louis Ryan said from across the table. “Make sure you give him my thanks.”

His voice cut across the table like a blade. Silence lingered as those seated at the Redman table-and those seated at the tables surrounding it-stopped talking and started listening.

Elizabeth and George turned to Ryan. It was clear by his amused expression that he had been listening to them.

“What do you mean by that, Louis?” George asked.

Louis lowered his chin and peered over his eyeglasses. “I wish I could put it in simpler terms, George, but I can’t. It means that I’d like you to give Harold my thanks.”

George ignored the sarcasm and kept his tone light. “What for?”

“For finding someone to run my new hotel for me.”

George hadn’t become successful in this crowd without possessing the ability to act. He remained calm, even though denial was rising up in him that his best friend would talk to this man. “It’s good that you and Harold have been chatting.”

“Actually, we had a meeting,” Louis said. “And I have to hand it to him-I couldn’t be happier with his choice.” He smiled. “Of course, I should probably be thanking you and Elizabeth, as well. Without your efforts, the young woman Harold brought to my attention wouldn’t be alive today.”

George was slipping, beginning not to care. “Maybe we should talk about this later?” he said. “Another time?” He held up his glass of champagne, lifted it to Louis and drank. “For me, talking business ended a few hours ago.”

It was as if the suggestion went unheard.

Louis eased back in his chair and said, “What strikes me about this young woman is how closely she resembles my dead wife. Do you remember Anne, George? Do you remember how long and dark her hair was? How tan she would get in the summer? How beautiful and stubborn and strong she was? How alive she was?” He paused. “Probably not. I would imagine that killing someone and getting away with it must force a person to stuff down any memory of it. I, on the other hand, have never forgotten.”

At the same instant a reporter stepped forward to take their picture, Louis leaned forward and locked eyes with George. The camera flashed.

Elizabeth Redman looked at the reporter with such hatred and stood so quickly that her chair toppled over and crashed to the hardwood deck.

Excitement rippled through the crowd.

The reporter took another picture. And another.

Elizabeth reached down, grabbed her glass of water and threw it in Ryan's face. It caught him by surprise, but his initial reaction was to laugh at her.

And now everyone was watching. George reached out and gripped Elizabeth’s arm before she did something else she would regret. All around them, cameras were popping.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Ryan,” he said.

“You don’t even know just how much nerve,” Louis said, wiping his face with a silk napkin. “The person I’m talking about is your daughter, Leana. I’ve hired her to run my new hotel for me. She starts next week.”

While her parents and sister were dining on the world’s largest privately owned yacht, Leana was standing at the corner of Mulberry and Prince. It was dark, a light rain was falling and traffic from the two streets hummed in her ears.

Twelve hours had passed since she was sent the gun. Twelve hours of decisions and indecisions had passed through her mind. Twelve hours left to go before the man carried out his threat.

She glanced around her.

Age-worn brick buildings lined the block. Somewhere in the distance, a woman was crying, shouting, screaming. Leana was aware of the men passing her on the street, and she was aware that they were aware of her. Although she had gone through great lengths to come to this spot and not be followed, she knew that any one of these men could be the man who sent her the gun.

She removed her cell phone from her inside jacket pocket and felt the gun she concealed there earlier. If for some reason the man decided to make his move tonight, she would kill him with his own gun. If I get the chance.

She punched numbers. There was a click and the line began to ring. She waited for someone to answer. Rain whipped against her in sheets, soaking her clothes, chilling her to the bone. She could no longer hear the woman screaming. It was as if her voice had been snuffed. A man walking past her slowed his pace and smiled a smile that had long since ceased being a smile.

Leana turned away. She felt the gun pressed against her ribcage. She began to tremble.

Finally, the line was answered by a woman. Leana recognized the voice instantly and knew that once she spoke, the woman would recognize her voice as well. Still, she didn’t hesitate to ask for the one man she should have phoned earlier-the only man who could now help her. “I need to speak to Mario,” she said to his wife. “Tell him it’s Leana Redman. Tell him it’s urgent.”

But the line went dead.

“Who was that on the phone?”

Lucia De Cicco turned in surprise as Mario entered the kitchen from the foyer. His hair, face and black leather jacket were dripping from the rain. In his hand was the gallon of ice cream she asked him to get.

“I asked who that was.”

“It was no one,” she said. “Whoever was there hung up.”

She moved away from the phone, carefully wiping clean from her face any sign of the anger she felt only moments before. Lucia knew that if she was going to keep her husband, she would have to still whatever rage and jealousy was within her and pretend a woman by the name of Leana Redman didn’t exist.

“You know I don’t want you answering the phone,” Mario said as he removed his coat and shoes. “Not after what happened last week.”

It was a moment before Lucia could dispel the image of the three dozen black roses she received by messenger. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Don’t you think it’s time we did?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

In her bare feet, she crossed the room and took the ice cream from her husband’s hands. For years, she was a woman who moved with the confidence beauty inspires, but now she seemed oddly aware of it and herself.

“What kind did you get?”

“Heath Bar Crunch,” he said. “And don’t change the subject. We’re going to talk about this.”

She went to the large island that dominated the center of the kitchen, removed two bowls from a cupboard, a silver spoon from a drawer. As she began scooping the ice cream into the bowls, she looked at Mario, then over at the phone, which was across the room. Mario took the stool opposite her. She sensed him staring at her and said, “Look, Mario. I’ve spoken with your father, I’ve talked to your brothers. As far as I’m concerned, what happened last week never happened.”

“But it did happen.”

She focused on the ice cream.

“You were sent a death threat, Lucia. Somebody wants to kill you and we need to talk about it.”

She glared at him. “And for what? Because of something I did? No, Mario. Because of something you or your goddamned family did. How do you think it makes me feel knowing I might be dead in a week because of my association with this family?”