Russell Andrews - Midas

He was on his way to the shower, but he stopped before leaving the bedroom, stood in the doorway and looked down at the woman in his bed. The blanket was only pulled up to the middle of her back. She slept on her left side and he could see most of her right breast and a tattoo on her right shoulder. A purple, black, and red butterfly. Her skin was remarkably smooth and soft. His gaze moved down her arm, which was perfectly proportioned, toned and muscular but not too thin. Just the right amount of flesh. It was an arm you wanted to touch. To stroke. Looking closer, he saw that she had elegant fingers. Long and perfectly manicured. In sleep they were relaxed. When she’d been awake last night, he realized her hands had been clenched much of the time.

Justin couldn’t take his eyes off her, pleased by her loveliness, touched by the soundness of her sleep. Finally, he forced himself to turn away, went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, felt the stubble on his chin and cheeks, decided against shaving, then stepped into the shower stall and let the heavy stream of hot water do its best to cleanse him.

When he was dry and dressed he almost felt like a new man-something he knew could only be an improvement. He went back downstairs to the front door to pick up the various newspapers he had delivered every morning. Before opening them, he headed into the kitchen and made a large pot of coffee. He had a feeling Reggie Bokkenheuser would match him cup for cup and he didn’t like to leave the house without having at least four large mugs of very strong, black French roast.

He couldn’t face the real news, not right away, so he went immediately for the Daily News sports pages. It was a slow sports period. Justin searched for some good news about the Knicks, saw that Houston was hurt again. Near the beginning of the season, second leg injury. He read Doonesbury and Dilbert , then glanced at the front section. There was little about the bombing that he hadn’t picked up from CNN. The lunatic, Muaffak Abbas, had come into the restaurant in Manhattan and strode up to a table on the left side of the room. Several survivors said it looked as if he’d gone to a specific spot, as if it had been choreographed. There was no mention anywhere that anyone had heard a cell phone ring this time. But that didn’t mean one hadn’t rung. It was the kind of detail that could easily be overlooked. One survivor said that Abbas yelled out the words “I am ready,” and the device went off. End of story.

Justin wondered why Abbas had picked the specific spot he’d chosen in the restaurant to unleash the explosive. He remembered Billings telling him about the kill ratio-the range in which a bomb is certain to destroy whatever is in its path. If that were the rationale, then Abbas would have chosen the center of the restaurant, wouldn’t he? That’s where the damage would be sure to be greatest. It didn’t make sense.

Hell, Justin thought. Nothing made sense. Not anymore.

He turned to the Times front page, began to read through their coverage. At the jump, on page eighteen, there was a box that listed, in alphabetical order, the victims of the La Cucina explosion. His eyes quickly ran down the list. It was habit. Cops always looked for the dead.

About a third of the way through he stopped scanning and froze, staring at one name. For a moment he thought he was rattled and disoriented because he’d just discovered the death of a friend. But although he recognized the name, he quickly realized that this man who’d been killed in the La Cucina explosion was no friend.

Martin Heffernan.

That was the name on the victim list.

The FAA agent. The guy who’d boarded the downed plane in East End Harbor, stolen the pilot’s identification and wiped his fingerprints clean. The man who told Ray Lockhardt the result of the FAA investigation-before any investigating had begun.

Justin ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed his eyes, trying to ease away the headache he could feel starting to swell up inside. What the hell was going on? A coincidence? A cruel twist of fate? This asshole does his best to sabotage a murder investigation and he winds up randomly blown to bits?

Or was it something else?

Justin’s father had said that what things boiled down to, always, every time, was money. Follow the money, he’d said, and everything will fall into place.

Okay , Justin thought. To follow the money, you have to know the players. There ain’t no stakes if nobody sits down at the table. In his mind, he ran down the list of names that seemed to be in play.

Bradford Collins. The CEO of EGenco.

Hutchinson Cooke, the pilot of the small plane.

Chuck Billings, the FBI agent investigating the first bombing.

And now Martin Heffernan.

Justin felt a stream of bile rise up through his throat. What was the connection between those four men? Other than the fact that they were all dead. Was there a connection?

Yes. Now he was fairly sure that there was. Cop instinct: what he wasn’t sure about was whether or not he wanted to know what that connection was.

Justin walked into the kitchen, poured himself a mug of coffee. He sipped it slowly, letting the too-hot liquid quickly scald his lip, then slide down his throat. He wanted a whiskey instead of black coffee. He wanted another shower, to have jets of hot water wash away the slime that suddenly seemed to be building up all around him. He wanted to get into his bed and stroke the smooth neck and warm, naked back of the woman still lying there, wanted to kiss the tattoo on her shoulder blade, watch her eyes open, see her smile when she saw him. He wanted to touch her, kiss her, make love to her.

He wanted a lot of things.

And not one of them was the thing he was about to do.

Justin forced himself to walk calmly over to the phone, dial a number, and wait until a sleepy Gary Jenkins answered on the fourth ring.

“Gary.”

“Whazzit,” the young cop mumbled.

“Your little brother, is he still hacking away?”

“Jay?” He cleared his throat. “I mean, Chief?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me. Listen, I want to hire your brother. What the hell’s his name? Ken?”

“Ben.”

“Tell Ben he can name his price, same as last time, but he’s got to do this thing for me now . Can you reach him?”

Gary cleared his throat again, came awake. “Yeah, sure. I mean, I guess. He probably hasn’t left for school yet. I’ll call him right away.”

“Write him a note for his teacher if you have to. If he’s already left, go get him and take him out of class. And if need be, let him use a computer at the station. But I want it done now, got it?”

“Got it. What do you want him to do?”

“I want him to see if he can hack into the computer setup that stores the reservations at La Cucina.”

“The place that got blown up? What do you-”

“I don’t have time to explain. The FBI found similar information in the Harper’s computer. I need to know if someone named Martin Heffernan had a reservation. And if he did, I need to know what table he was sitting at. If the kid can get me a seating chart showing me where all the tables are, I’d particularly like that, too.”

“I’ll call you right back.”

Justin hung up the phone, exhaled for what seemed like the first time in minutes. He needed some more coffee.

“What’s going on?”

He looked up, surprised. Reggie was standing on the bottom stair, still half asleep, peering into the living room. She was wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts. That’s all she was wearing. Her bare legs curled to lean in against the railing.

“I thought women only did that in the movies,” Justin said. “Put on the guy’s shirt and look so sexy.”