From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set (26 page)

When he was feeling good, as he was today because of how he’d
helped Carmen, he sometimes zipped around his apartment, as if he were the boy
he used to be.
 
What did he have to
lose?
 
His body may have failed him
years ago, but Gelling’s sense of adventure never had left him, even if it was
only racing around his townhouse’s fourth floor at speeds that Frank often
paled at because he worried that the chair might topple over, regardless of the
fun Gelling was having.

Gelling sat in his chair and listened to the house.
 
His ears weren’t what they used to be,
but they weren’t bad and if he were a betting man, which he was, he was certain
that was he heard downstairs was Frank in the kitchen, probably fixing himself
the turkey sandwich he usually had around this time of day.

Knowing that Frank would scold him but not really caring if he
did because, in truth, if Frank did reprimand him, it meant that he cared for
Gelling, which was a human need he especially craved at one-hundred-and-three,
Gelling looked to his right and saw the long gleaming hallway that led out of
the fourth-floor room he’d turned into his second parlor.
 
In his condition, it was more convenient
to have another parlor on the fourth floor, where he lived, than on the first
floor, where he rarely spent his time.
 

He listened to the house again, heard nobody on the stairs and
then, with a smile, he propelled the wheelchair forward.

The chair was fast and robust.
 
Soon, he was free, racing from room to
room, hallway to hallway, at such speeds that he couldn’t help a laugh and a
gasp.
 
He cut around tables and
furniture, nearly toppled over, but somehow righted himself and went forward
faster and faster, his usually pale face flushed pink with grinning excitement
until the wheelchair malfunctioned.

It all happened so quickly, Gelling wasn’t sure what to do as
he raced down the long hallway that opened into the parlor, which dead-ended at
a large window that overlooked East Sixty-First Street, just off Park, four
stories below.
 

While trying to steer in a straight line so he wouldn’t topple
over, Gelling yanked back on the handle, which was stuck in its forward
position and thus shooting him forward.
 

The fourth-floor parlor was a large room, about fifty-feet
long, but Gelling already was past the half-way mark and he wasn’t strong
enough at this speed to do anything more than to watch the inevitable bloom
before him.
 

So, this was it.
 
His death wouldn’t be natural, as he always thought it would be.
 
He wasn’t going to open his eyes one
morning and realize that the white ceiling actually was a bright light that
opened into another world.
 
He
wasn’t going to slump over dead in his chair while sipping his soup.
 
He wasn’t going to expire from the sheer
embarrassment of watching Frank wipe his ass and change his diaper, which he
detested and caused him great stress.
 

Instead, his death ironically was going to end with great
disfigurement, just as it might have if his hips and knees had been replaced,
as he had wished.
 

The idea of disfigurement was something he couldn’t bear, but
with death so close, he knew it was the case.
 
The wheelchair slammed against the
bottom of the window, catapulted him through the glass and into the open air,
which felt so cold to him, it was as biting as everything now happening to him.

At that moment, when he was airborne, his body so rigid from
age that he couldn’t lift his hands in front of his face to keep it from
directly connecting with the sidewalk, James Gelling shit his pants a final
time, a further humiliation met at life’s end.
 
He shouted out for Frank, such a gem,
whom he was sad he wouldn’t see again.
 

And then it was over.
 

While people stopped on the sidewalk to shriek or to stand
transfixed in horror or to turn away for the same reason, he became an
unfortunate part of the pavement, with Carmen’s list of names left behind him
on his desk.

CHAPTER TWEN
TY-FOUR

Carmen sat with Babe and Jake in the parlor, occasionally
checking her watch, worried beyond worried for Chloe, but trying to keep her
emotions in check so she could stay focused and resolve the issue when she had
the opportunity to do so.
 

The hour they’d given Katzev to respond had dwindle by half,
with no response from the man who held Chloe captive and whose family’s welfare
was on the line because of it.

“What’s taking him so long?” Babe asked.

“He’s playing the game, Babe.
 
He’s making us sweat.
 
But he’ll call.
 
Just a matter of time.”

Five minutes later, the cell phone she held in her lap
buzzed.
 
All looked at Carmen, who
looked down in surprise to see that it was Spocatti calling.

“It’s Vincent,” she said.
 
She clicked on the phone and held the receiver to her ear.
 
“This is Carmen.”

“So formal,” Spocatti said.
 
“This is Vincent.”

She could hear the distinct rumblings of a plane.
 
“Where are you?” she asked.

“On my way to New York.”

“You’re coming here?”

“I’ll be there in a few hours.”

“What for?”

“To help you.
 
I
contacted Katzev.
 
I understand
you’ve given him one hour to offer up this Chloe girl you’re so concerned
about, but I need you to back off.”

“Why?”

“I’m not asking you to back off forever, Carmen.
 
Just until I get there.
 
Then, in exchange for the safety of his
family, he’s agreed to release Chloe and let her go.
 
Turns out sending Liam there was the
right thing to do—Katzev is shaken.
 
He’s agreed to meet at a neutral place, still unannounced by him, but
which we’ll both agree upon soon.
 
He will come with her and one of his men.
 
Both Katzev and the other man will be
armed.
 
I told him that I would
arrive only with you, and that we also would be armed.
 
So, at the very least, when it comes to
artillery, we’re even.”

“If we can trust him, which is a stretch.”

“I think we can, but you’re right—we’ll never know.
 
That said, I heard his voice.
 
He knows you’re serious.
 
He especially doesn’t want anything to
happen to his mother.
 
I don’t think
he cares much for the others, but his mother does mean something to him.
 
She’s the one he wants to protect.”

It’s what Carmen sensed.
 
“So, Chloe’s safe,” she said.
 
“What happens to me?”

“That’s where things get sketchy.”

“How?”

“We’ll all be armed, Carmen.
 
The mood will be tense.
 
I don’t know what he’ll do, but you need
to keep your eyes on him throughout the process and be prepared for him to shoot
you, because he will if he has the chance.
 
If you sense that he or his man are about to go for their guns, you
shoot them.
 
Period.
 
If they don’t, we’ll back out of the
space.
 
I’ll also be watching him.
 
Together, we can take him out if he
tries something stupid, but there are consequences if we do.
 
When they learn of Katzev’s death, the
syndicate will put all of their resources into tracking us down and killing
us.
 
We will be their number-one
priority.
 
They won’t allow two of
their chief members to be murdered by anyone, especially since it means that
you’re closer than ever to learning who they all are and thus exposing
them.
 
It will be war.
 
If it happens, we’ll need to seek out
each member and end this for good.”

“Why are you doing this, Vincent?”

“Doing what?”

“Helping me and Chloe when you yourself will become a target?”

“Because I want to.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Carmen, you’ve come to mean something to me.
 
I know the risks.
 
I’ve made my decision.
 
Would you rather I step out of it?”

“No.”

“All right, then.”

“I think I might have an edge when it comes to learning who the
syndicated comprises.”

“How?”

She thought of her conversation with Gelling, who was using his
resources to learn who the syndicate comprised.
 
If he pulled through for her with their
names, addresses and whatever else he could find out about them, the balance
would shift in her favor.
 
The
syndicate either would have to back down or risk death or exposure.

“I’ll tell you when you get here.
 
And, Vincent, I have to reiterate, the
syndicate is my problem, not yours.
 
I’ll take them out.
 
There’s
no need for you to risk your life for me.”

“I don’t offer assistance to just anyone, Carmen.
 
Especially for free.
 
Just like you, I’ve worked with the
syndicate for years.
 
They’ve grown
too powerful.
 
They’ve become
arrogant, which is dangerous.
 
I
think it’s time to end them before they end us, as they started to do with
Alex, and now with you and Jake.
 
Who knows?
 
I hardly walk on
water.
 
I might be next.”

“All right,” she said.
 
“But hear me on this.
 
They’re responsible for Alex’s death.
 
If only for him and also because of what
he’s done to Chloe, I want the pleasure of taking out Katzev myself.”

“He’s yours.
 
But we
both know that if you go for Katzev, his guard will go after us.”

“I don’t see that as a problem.”

“I do.
 
We don’t
know how skilled he is.
 
We’ll need
to act swiftly.”

“Call me when you arrive?”

“I will.
 
This ends
tonight.
 
By the time I land, Katzev
and I will have agreed upon a location.
 
Let Babe know I’ll be coming by to pick you up, but also let her and
Jake know that they won’t be accompanying us.
 
They’ll be disappointed, but those are
the terms.”

“Understood.”

“And Carmen,” Spocatti said, a new note to his voice.

“Yes?”

“This all could go wrong in ways that neither of us expected or
wanted.
 
I want you to know that no
matter what happens, I’ve always admired you.”

*
 
*
 
*

Moments later, when Carmen delivered the news that Babe and
Jake were out and that she’d be proceeding alone with Spocatti, who was
en
route
to New York as they spoke, Babe’s butler Max entered the room with
unusual haste and bent down to Babe’s ear, where he whispered something Carmen
couldn’t hear.

Babe looked up at him.
 
Her jaw dropped.
 
“No,” she
said.
 

Carmen watched the woman’s face go pale.

“I’m afraid so, ma’am.”

“But it can’t be.”

“What’s the problem?” Carmen asked.
 

“It’s Gelling,” Babe said.
 
“Terrible accident.
 
Just
terrible.”

“What happened.”

“His wheelchair malfunctioned.
 
Somehow, the stick that moves it forward
got stuck.”

“What are you talking about?
 
Is he all right?”

She shook her head.
 
“No,” she said.
 
“Gelling
isn’t all right at all.
 
The
wheelchair shot across his fourth-floor parlor and sent him flying out of one
of the windows.
 
He fell to the
sidewalk and now he’s dead.
 
Poor
Gelling is dead.
 
Max just saw it on
CNN.”

Carmen sank back in her chair.
 
Beyond the fact that she had grown fond
of Gelling, with his death meant that whatever information he’d culled that
afternoon on the syndicate died along with him.
 
It was her one trump card against
Katzev, that one thing she knew she could use against him if the situation
called for it, which she knew it would.

Sitting there, stunned by the news, she knew that now she only
had Katzev’s family to use as a bargaining chip against him.
 
But already she knew that wasn’t
much.
 
What she saw in that video
was a family struggling to keep it together.
 
With Katzev’s money, why weren’t they in
a better situation?
 
Had he refused
to help them?
 
Obviously, he
had.
 
They meant little to him,
including his mother, whom he could have set up into a better life if he wanted
to do so.

Worse for Carmen, if they did mean nothing to him, would it
matter if she threatened to kill them?
 
And if it didn’t, what pull did she have over him now?

*
 
*
 
*

“Where are you meeting Katzev tonight?” Jake asked.

“I’m not sure,” Carmen said.
 
“Vincent said he’d know by the time he
landed.”

“You know you can’t go there alone.”

“I’m not going there alone.
 
I’m going with Vincent.”

“I should be there,” he said.
 
“Katzev will have his own people there,
wherever ‘there’ is.
 
It’s not going
to be just him.”

“Probably not, but I can’t risk it.
 
At the very least, I need to get Chloe
out of there.
 
You don’t understand
what she means to me.
 
She’s like a
daughter to me.
 
She’s in that
situation because of me.
 
Whatever
happens to me happens.
 
My main
focus is getting her out and following Vincent’s plan.”

“Even if you die?”

“Even if I die.”

He looked at her with disappointment, as if that fact that
she’d choose her death to save someone else’s life was an afront to his ideals
as an assassin.
 
“I’m not exactly an
amateur, Carmen.
 
They won’t see or
hear me.
 
Let me help you.”

What Carmen wanted to say but didn’t say is that she still
didn’t trust him.
 
She still didn’t
know who he was.
 
He was an enigma
to her.
 
Since they’d been together,
he had shared almost nothing about himself.
 
Who was he?
 
What did she know about this man that
was meaningful? Nothing.
 
There had
been opportunities for him to offer a glimpse into who he was when they were
conferencing with Babe, but he chose to remain behind a shadow of his own
making.
 

Part of her understood that.
 
It’s what they were supposed to
do—keep quiet.
 
Reveal
nothing.
 
He was honoring his profession.
 
She got it.
 
But she would feel a hell of a lot
better if he had offered them an honest glimpse into who he was.

She looked at him.
 
He said he had no idea why the syndicate wanted him dead.
 
Was that the truth?
 
She wasn’t sure, if only because he came
clean that he agreed to sell her out to them in an effort to buy time to get
out of the city and thus save himself.
 
Would he do so again?
 
Of
course, he would.
 
Worse, if she was
in his situation, she’d do the same thing, which complicated things.
 
To their core, survival was at the root
of who they were.
 
It’s all they
had.
 
To keep going, to stay alive,
they had to put themselves first.
 
How could she judge him for any of this when she likely would have done
the same thing in a different situation?

Frustrated with her, he leaned back in his seat and crossed his
legs, removing himself from any further conversation.
 
She felt conflicted.
 
Was she making a mistake by not seeking
his help?
 
She wasn’t sure, but what
she did know is that the man seated in front of her was someone she could never
trust the way she trusted Spocatti.