From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set (23 page)

CHAPTER NINE
TEEN

Liam Martin’s video of the Kester family was sent directly to
Carmen’s cell—and only to her cell—via Spocatti, the moment after
he received it from Liam and viewed it himself.
 
He attached to it a note:
 
“This should help,” he wrote.
 
“Stay in touch.
 
I’ll do the same.”

Carmen was sitting in one of the red chairs in Babe McAdoo’s
gilded parlor and thinking about Babe’s love affair with Katzev and what that
meant to her in this situation when her phone buzzed and beeped in her
pocket.
 
She removed it, clicked it
on, viewed the screen.
 
Babe and
Jake turned to her in interest.

“It’s from Vincent,” Carmen said.
 
“A video is attached.
 
And a note.”

Once again, Babe and Jake got behind Carmen and they watched
the video together.
  
For the
first time, they saw the Kester family and noted how weary they looked.
 
No one in the video was smiling.
 
The way it was shot made it look as if
they had been forced to assemble, not gather naturally.
 
One of the men fidgeted.
 
Another stared at the screen in
hostility—over what Carmen could only wonder.
 
Still, she was happy to see that nobody
here looked as if they were sending home a nice greeting to Iver.
 

“He met them,” Jake said.
 
“I thought he was just going to photograph them from afar so Katzev
would know that we had a man there who was ready to take them out if he didn’t
release Chloe.”

“Spocatti chose him,” Carmen said, watching.
 
“So, of course, he’s good.
 
Pay attention.”

Next came the money shot, along with the unexpectedly perfect
piece of audio that they could use against Katzev:
 
“You should be here now, Iver.
 
Take this man seriously and come
home.
 
Things aren’t good here.
 
Things are desperate.
 
We need you now.
 
Not tomorrow.
 
Now.
 
Before it’s too late.”

It appeared as if they were being threatened when that wasn’t
the case at all.
 
They were just
pissed off at Iver, who apparently lived his big life with little thought of
assisting them.

“That must be Katzev’s mother,” Babe said.

Carmen nodded.
 
“Likely.”

“How do you want to proceed with this?”

“We send it to Katzev,” Carmen said.
 
“We threaten him with it.
 
We tell him that if he doesn’t let Chloe
go now, we will kill his family and send him a video of that, as well.”

“But what if he can’t stand his family and would rather see
them dead than lose face now?”

“Do you know something we don’t, Babe?” Carmen asked.

Babe looked at her in surprise.
 
“What does that mean?”

“It was just so declarative, the way you said it.
 
I’m just wondering if you know something
about Katzev that we don’t.
 
You did
mention meeting him once.”

Babe waved a hand.
 
“That was twenty years ago.”

Carmen spun her web carefully.
 
“How well did you know him?
 
Was it long enough to give us insight
into what he might do when we send him the video?”

“Twenty years changes all of us, Carmen.
 
You.
 
Me.
 
Jake.
 
Vincent.
 
We’re all different.
 
The person I was twenty years ago has
radically evolved.
 
Back then, I was
a different person.
 
The same is
true for all of us.
 
How can I tell
you that the man I knew back then is the same man now when that can’t be the
case?”

On the surface, it was a fair enough response, but Carmen
didn’t overlook the fact that Babe still hadn’t answered the question.
 
She didn’t say how well she knew
Katzev.
 
She didn’t say she had an
affair with him.
 
She chose not to
divulge that information.
 
Why?

“I didn’t realize that you knew Katzev,” Jake said, startling
Carmen with the angry tone of his voice.
 
It was clear by his tense expression that he felt he should have know
this.
 
That she should have divulged
it.
 
And he was right.
 
“How did you meet him?”

Babe shrugged.
 
“Too
long ago,” she said.
 
“I can’t
remember.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jake said.
 
“The fact that you know him certainly
should have come up at some point since I’ve been involved in this.
 
You’ve never once mentioned knowing him
to me.
 
I think it’s important that
you knew him, regardless of how long ago it was.
 
You know what the man looks like, for
Christ’s sake, which neither I nor Carmen know.”

Carmen looked at Jake differently.
 
He was genuinely angry, as he should
be.
 
She watched Babe take to one of
the red chairs and sit down.
 
She
folded her legs at the knee and was a portrait of calm.
 
“I met him through Jean-Georges,” she
said.

“Where?”

“Honestly?
 
I don’t
remember.
 
It probably was at a
party.
 
I used to go to a lot of
them back them.
 
Several a
week.
 
It’s something we McAdoos
were supposed to do.
 
Go to parties.
 
Attend the right social events.
 
Show up at the right showings.
 
We’re part of New York society’s old
guard, as they say.
 
Before my
father died and I became free to do as I pleased, he expected all of his
children to follow the rules or be left out of the will.
 
So, we lunched, we brunched, we went to
church, we took to the country to hunt, we went to suppers, we spent our
summers in Northeast Harbor, we mixed with our own kind here, there and
everywhere.”

“Laurent was your own kind?” Jake asked.

Babe laughed.
 
“Hardly.
 
He was an
upstart.
 
I can’t remember what
party I met him at, Jake, but it doesn’t matter.
 
He likely was someone’s guest at some
random event.
 
Same with
Katzev.
 
There always are going to
be those with new money who want to be one of us.
 
Those two were no different.”
 
She raised her hands in
frustration.
 
“But how is this
helping our situation now?” she asked.
 
“We need to focus on that video and on Chloe.”

“What confuses me is that you’ve said that you’ve met him and
that you know him.
 
There is a
divide there.”

“A very small one.”

“How well did you know him, Babe?”

And Babe McAdoo of the McAdoo family, who was no fool when she
knew she was being pressed for a solid reason, as she was now, resigned herself
to coming clean.
 
“Well enough to
have had an affair with him,” she said.
 
“Again, that was twenty years ago.
 
But we did have a little tryst.”

Incredulous, Jake looked at Carmen, then turned back to
Babe.
 
“A little tryst?”
 

“That’s right.
 
A
tryst.
 
It began at that party.
 
I was tipsy.
 
He wasn’t.
 
And I have to tell you, he’s very good
looking.
 
He took me to one of the
upstairs bedroom and we had a go of it.
 
Smallest penis I’ve ever seen—it was like a red berry resting in a
nest—but everything else was good.
 
His hands.
 
His tongue.
 
His aggression.
 
We met two times after that, but then I
cut him off.
 
He was just using me
and while he had a good build, the sight of him naked from the waist down was
revolting.
 
It ended uglier than you
could imagine, but who cares?
 
The
affair, if you even want to call it that, meant nothing.
 
I should have told you, but I was too
embarrassed to bring it up.”

“You should have,” Carmen said.

“Who told you?” Babe asked.
 
“Somebody did.
 
You pressed for a reason.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Probably Gelling,” she said.
 
“Gave him another reason to take another
breath.
 
Disappointing, really.
 
I thought I could trust him.”

“I never said it was Gelling.”

“My dear,” Babe said, her gaze falling on Carmen.
 
“You didn’t have to.”

“When did
you
hear?” Jake asked Carmen.

“A moment ago on the phone.
 
I also was surprised.”

“Gelling,” Babe said.
 
“Dear, sweet Gelling.”

“Babe, I hope you see how this information makes us question whether
we can trust you,” Jake said.

Babe nodded.
 
“Of
course, I do.
 
I didn’t come clean
with it.
 
My mistake.
 
I keep large parts of my life private,
as we all do.
 
I, for instance, know
practically nothing about you, Jake.
 
You just sit there and judge, but what do we know about you really?
 
Who are you?”
 

“Just an assassin, Babe.
 
You know how we work.”

“I do,” she said.
 
“And I get it.
 
I see why
you’re upset.
 
You can trust
me.
 
I’d like nothing more than to
see Katzev dead.”

“Why?” Carmen asked.

“The reason our little fling ended so quickly?
 
I’ve never told anyone this, but I
suppose I owe you an answer.
 
Katzev
beat me.
 
I made the mistake of
giggling at how small he was down there.
 
I said it while we were showering after our final romp.
 
I thought he’d have a sense of humor
about it because he was so marvelous in ever other way, which I told him he
was.
 
But it turns out he didn’t
like that giggle at all.
 
He didn’t
like me calling it ‘Little Willie.”
 
And because he didn’t, he let me have it in such a way that I warned him
that if he ever came near me again, I’d have him killed.
 
We were a lot younger then.
 
He wasn’t as powerful as he is now.
 
He was just starting out.
 
But back then, he saw my family as
powerful and so well-connected that my threat carried real weight.
 
He knew he made a mistake.
 
We were at a hotel when he did it.
 
Some out-of-the-way place on the West
Side where I knew I wouldn’t run into any of my people.
 
Those things still mattered to me then
because Daddy was alive.
 
Katzev gathered
his things, left, and I’ve never heard from him since.”

“Is that it?” Carmen asked, knowing the truth when she heard
it.

“That’s it, Carmen.”

“You should have told us,” Jake said.

Babe turned and gave him a tolerating look.
 
“When a woman is beaten, Jake, it’s not
exactly something she wants to relive.
 
I’ve apologized.
 
I know I
should have divulged.
 
I understand
if any trust between us has been compromised.
 
Whether we go forward as a team is
something for you two to decide.
 
It’s simple.
 
Either we’re
going to work together to bring down that son of a bitch, or you both should
leave now and forget that we ever met.”

CHAPTER TW
ENTY

“We send him the video,” Carmen said.
 
“Together.”

“Carmen—”

“She told the truth, Jake.
 
I agree she should have come clean earlier—and I’m disappointed
that she didn’t given the circumstances at hand and her knowledge of how these
things work—but the truth is out and I believe her.
 
If you’ve ever been beaten by a lover,
and I doubt if you have given your size, you’d understand the shame that comes
with it.
 
You would have recognized
that shame in her voice when she spoke about it.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” he asked.

“I am.”

She looked at Babe.
 
“I’m sorry for what Katzev did to you.”

“As I said, that was years ago.
 
I went through it, I learned from it and
I’m over it.
 
Mostly.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I wouldn’t mind watching that bastard take a bullet in
the face, just like Laurent.”
 

“Laurent took a few bullets.”

“All the better.
 
I
could put a spare one between his legs and have a good giggle at the loss of
‘Little Willie,’ though my aim would have to be immaculate, which it
isn’t.”
 

Carmen smiled at her.
 
“Mine is.”

Babe edged forward in her chair.
 
“So, can we plan this and get it over
with?
 
Or am I out?”

“You’re not out,” Carmen said.
 
“We end this together.”
 
She took out her cell and wrote a
detailed note to Katzev before pushing the button that emailed it to him along
with the video.

“What did you write?” Jake asked.

“What Katzev’s mother said in that video could be interpreted
any number of ways.
 
He’ll see it as
a cry for help.
 
I told him that if
he didn’t contact me in an hour with plans on letting Chloe go, his mother and
the rest of his family would be dead.
 
I told him that if he contacted them, we would know and they would die
immediately.”

“You typed more than that.”

She nodded.
 
“I also
said that if he bothered either of us again, we know that he lives in a
penthouse on Fifth, that his real name is Iver Kester, and that truths about
him and the syndicate would be released anonymously to the police.
 
His childhood home would be burned,
along with the barns and all of the sheep.
 
I told him that if he tried to hide his family anywhere, we would find
them and slaughter them.
 
Then I
told him we’d do the same to him.”
 
She paused and caught a smile on Babe McAdoo’s lips.
 
“Essentially, I told him not to fuck
with us.”

“It’s video against video,” Babe said.
 
“Words against words.”

“That’s right,” Carmen said.
 
“So, let’s see whose video and whose
words carry more weight.”