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THE NEWS CAME AS SUCH a surprise to Gia that she had to read the email twice on her untraceable TracFone before she believed any of it.
“He can’t be serious.” she said.
“Who can’t be serious?”
With a questioning look on his face, Carlo entered the living room from the kitchen with a cup of coffee for each of them. It was morning—just past ten. Both had already showered and dressed for the long and difficult day that lay ahead of them. Soon, they’d need to leave to stake out a parking spot outside the Witherhouses’ mansion.
“Rowe,” she said. “Look at the email I just received from him.”
She watched him as he moved toward her. To most women, her brother was the sort of man they either wanted to run away with—or fuck. Carlo was that charming, that good looking, that sexy and witty—and that smooth. With his dark stubble, hard body, curly black hair, light blue eyes, and thick lashes, he was a lady’s man to his core. But there was much more to him than people realized—he also was a terrific strategist, a gifted sniper, and a master with computers.
As he put her coffee down on the table in front of her and then sat next to her, she showed the email to him. He read it once, paused, and then read it aloud in disbelief.
“‘This morning, it came to my attention that Alex and Jennifer Wenn also will be at the Witherhouses’ party tonight. Given what you have in mind for the end of the evening, when the guests start leaving the building, I want you to forget what I said before about saving the Wenns for last. Tonight, I want you to kill them along with Diana Crane and Mike Fine. When that’s done, I want you to immediately turn your focus to Janice Jones, and finish her off in a way that will leave people talking about the manner of her death for years to come. Any questions? You know how to reach me. —S’”
When Gia lowered her phone, Carlo just shook his head at her. “We didn’t agree to any of this,” he said. “There’s a contract. We signed it. He was specific in his requests. He can’t just change things at will without our consent.”
“What are we going to do if he breaks our contract, Carlo? Sue him? Bring him in front of a court of law because he didn’t honor the contract? Please. He’s got us by the balls and he knows it as well as you and I do. We knew it the moment we signed that ridiculous and meaningless ‘contract’ of his.” In anger, she leaned forward and sipped her coffee. “If we deny him of what he wants, he will get rid of us and go elsewhere, and in the process, we’ll lose out on earning millions.”
“So, at the very least, we need to reason with him. Our whole plan for tonight has always been about timing and luck, the latter of which neither of us believes in. Will Diana and Mike leave the building together? We’ve already told Rowe that that’s doubtful, which is why we said we’d only guarantee that we could get one of them. As for the Wenns, obviously they will exit the building together, which will make killing them easier for us. If Rowe is going to change the game, then this is our opportunity to also change his expectations. I think what we need to sell to him right now is that since the Wenns will be there tonight, our attention should be on them—not on Diana or Mike. When the Wenns emerge from the building, we nail them. If Diana or Mike happens to be near them, great—we’ll take them out as well. But I believe that we have to reinforce the fact that it’s doubtful that we’ll get all of them tonight. We have to make him see that.”
Gia stood. “I agree. Let’s go and talk with him.”
* * *
WHEN THEY ENTERED THE media room, Carlo sat next to Gia in front of the computer and she nodded at him to call Rowe, whose face filled the screen within moments. It was as if he’d been expecting their call.
“What a surprise,” he said as he looked at them. “How did I know that I’d be hearing from each of you now...?”
“Good morning, Stephen,” Gia said.
“It isn’t morning where I am, Gia, but good morning to you, nevertheless.”
“Stephen,” Carlo said.
“Hello, Carlo.”
Choose your words carefully, Gia thought.
“I just received your email,” she said. “I shared it with Carlo, and we’d like to discuss it with you.”
“I had a feeling that you might.” He leaned back in his chair and shrugged at them. “What’s on your mind?”
“We have a choice when it comes to tonight,” Gia said. “Now that we know that the Wenns will be there, things have shifted.”
“How have they shifted?”
“I think you’ll agree with us that we can’t expect the Wenns, Diana Crane, and Mike Fine to all exit the building at the same moment. It’s unreasonable to think that they will, especially since you told us that hundreds of people have been invited to that party. Given what we’ve planned, we all know that we have only one chance to be successful tonight. From the start, when you told us that only Fine and Crane would be there tonight, I warned you that we might only be able to get one of them. But now, with the Wenns attending, everything has changed.”
“How so?”
“Unlike Fine and Crane, the Wenns will leave the building together since they’re man and wife. So, my question to you is this—should we take this opportunity to target them instead? I can assure you that when they leave the building, we can get both of them, especially because of the way we’re treating tonight.”
“As a terrorist attack,” Rowe said.
“Exactly. With Meredith having died just yesterday, all of us agreed that when we take down Fine and/or Crane only a day later, that we should also kill as many random people as possible so that it doesn’t look as if they were targeted. The same holds true for Alex and Jennifer Wenn. If they are going to be there tonight, my suggestion to you is that we focus on them first and take them out along with whomever happens to be around them at the time. Because if we accomplish that, the only conclusion one can make in the wake of so many deaths is that the Wenns were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It will look random, not intentional. As such, you will recede as a potential suspect behind their deaths. As you noted a moment ago, people will think that it was just a terrorist attack. So,” Gia said while she looked at Rowe. “How do we proceed?”
“Crane and Fine are less important to me—but I still want them dead for what they did to me, Gia. So, in this case, I agree with you. Tonight is an opportunity. Focus on the Wenns—leave Crane and Fine for later in the week if you have to. Then, after they’re dead, what I want you to hand me is that cunt Janice Jones on a bloody platter. What we’ve just agreed upon is a new order of events. Don’t disappoint me. Don’t screw this up. If you do, I’ll go elsewhere. Am I understood?”
Before Gia could answer, Stephen Rowe leaned forward with a frustrated sigh and severed their connection.
* * *
THE WITHERHOUSES’ MANSION was just off Park on Sixty-Seventh Street. Gia knew from her research that their home was built in 1899 in the French Renaissance style for Ian Fletcher, a successful banker and railroad investor. The mansion was magnificent, complete with a clutch of gargoyles screaming into the night along the rooftop.
Gia thought that the gargoyles were particularly appropriate given what was to come by evening’s end, when so many would be screaming into the night themselves.
Yesterday afternoon, in Jersey, before they’d killed Meredith Rowe, she and Carlo had stolen the car that Carlo was driving now. It was an old, unremarkable, beige Toyota Camry whose engine could easily be wired to start without a key. The idea was to ditch the car by night’s end. And because the car was so bland and boring in its styling, each knew that few cops in this city would have it on their radar as a car in question. After all, it wasn’t as if they’d ripped off a high-end Mercedes.
But the car was serviceable...
“What about there?” Gia said to Carlo when they stopped in traffic just outside the Witherhouses’ mansion. “That car. Right there. Whatever it is—I don’t even recognize it.”
“It’s a Ford Taurus,” Carlo said.
“Fine—a Ford Taurus. It’s right across the street from the entrance to their house. And our car would fit perfectly there. Do you agree?”
“I do.”
“Then let’s get rid of it,” she said as she reached into her handbag for her cell. One of the great benefits Gia had as the niece of Niccolo Bassi was his wealth of devoted contacts, many of whom Niccolo had introduced her to personally—and whom she now considered as part of her family. She went through her contacts list, found his number, and dialed him up as traffic started moving forward toward Fifth.
“Mario?” she said when he answered. “It’s Gia. How are you, love? Good? I’ve missed you, too. Listen, I don’t have much time to talk, and I’m sorry for that. But I need a favor. I need you to tow a car for me. It’s just off Park and Sixty-Seventh Street. I know, I know—it’s a swanky neighborhood. Nothing like where we grew up. But the car is a piece of shit. It’s a black Ford Taurus.” She gave him the license number. “Can you reach out to one of your contacts and have it towed away for me? The sooner, the better. Tonight, Carlo and I have to have that spot. If we don’t, we’re screwed.”
She glanced over at Carlo while Mario—one of her uncle’s closest friends since childhood—asked her why.
“I think you already know why, Mario—and this car is in our way. I’ll pay you ten grand if you can make it disappear so that Carlo and I can take its place. Is that amount fair? Good. Call me when your man is near. We’ll get behind his truck, and when he removes the car, we’ll take the spot for ourselves.” She paused for a moment as she listened to him. “Please don’t worry about us, Mario. You always worry, and I hate it that you do. You know how much I learned from Uncle Niccolo. With your help, tonight will go off like a song. I promise.”
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, THE tow truck Mario had summoned to remove the Taurus was in the vicinity. Carlo found him on Park Avenue, drove up behind him in traffic, and honked once. He then followed him to the Taurus. When the car was gone, Carlo took the spot.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“It’s beyond perfect,” Gia said. “Money well spent, I’d say.”
“Agreed.”
She reached behind her for the two baseball caps on the back seat, and gave one to Carlo, who put it on while Gia swept up her hair and tucked it beneath her own cap. Each knew that, on this street, security cameras were everywhere and they would be caught on those cameras when they exited the car. Then, at some point in the aftermath of all that was to come after tonight, those videos would be scrutinized by police, which is one of the reasons they had dressed in such baggy, unremarkable clothing.
“Tonight we kill Alex and Jennifer Wenn,” Gia said. “If we get lucky—which I doubt because I just can’t see it happening—we might even take out Mike Fine or Diana Crane in the process. Whatever the case, our focus is on the Wenns.”
She pointed across the street.
“The moment they emerge through that door, our guns will be in our laps and we’ll be ready act, and when I give the word, we get out of the car and start shooting. If this is going to be considered a terrorist attack, we need to hit the Wenns first and then start spraying the rest of the crowd from left to right. Take down as many people as possible. Then, on my word, get back in the car and get the fuck out of here. Are you with me?” she asked.
“I’m always with you, Gia.”
“And I’m grateful for that,” she said. “More than you know.”
