Chapter 19
Chapter 19
The image burned in Dan’s brain from his visit to the Sistine Chapel isn’t the frescoes on the ceiling (though they were stunning, better than any picture in any book, to the chef’s earlier point); it’s the view he had when he first walked in: the bent-necked tourists, all gawking at the sky like a group of baby sparrows waiting for their mother to drop bits of regurgitated worms in their mouths. It’s how Dan imagines he—and everyone else in the restaurant—looks now, staring at the blank restaurant ceiling, the air thick with a buzz, an energy, the same restlessness that emanates from a crowd at a concert in the seconds leading up to the band taking the stage.
A noise jerks everyone’s attention (also like a flock of birds, Dan thinks) to the hallway entrance, and then a sense of disappointment permeates the air when they realize it’s only Isaac and Jane and Sissy, though no one could be as disappointed as Dan. It’s a relief to see them for sure, as he spent the entire ten minutes they were gone frantically worried about what they were doing, but he somehow managed to entirely convince himself Jane would find a way to get Sissy out, away from this mess. That she would fix it. And it occurs to Dan that for all Jane’s infuriating lack of constraint and bullheaded nature, he still counts on (and often admires) her ability to get shit done.
Brick holds his fist up to Isaac, in an approximation of a military sign for them to stop, stand still, and Isaac does, putting his hand in front of Sissy and Jane so they can’t walk into the room.
Frustrated, Dan catches Jane’s eye and raises his eyebrows exaggeratively in the universal expression: Well? and Jane sighs and shakes her head, as if she doesn’t know where to begin. Or maybe it means nothing new came to light? Or perhaps she’s so mad at Sissy, she can’t see straight. It’s anybody’s guess, really.
A thud from the roof wrenches all the bird heads again, up and to the right. Then a clomping—Otto coming down the stairs, perhaps?
Brick locks eyes with Caden and Lyle, whom he stationed on either side of the entrance, and nods, which Dan interprets as an encouragement to be ready to pounce the second Otto walks through the doors.
And they do. In a span of what couldn’t be more than two seconds, the door opens, Otto takes a step into the restaurant, and Caden and Lyle spring to either side of him, each grabbing one of his arms, causing Otto to let out a half-strangled noise somewhere between a gasp and a whoop. His eyebrows climb halfway up his forehead. He’s known for them, his eyebrows. Einstein-like, they’re bushy, unmanicured, unruly: as recognizable in the pop culture zeitgeist as Cindy Crawford’s mole or Will Smith’s ears. Hundreds of memes, TikToks, and an entire Twitter handle are devoted to them. And—like most celebrities—they’re not nearly as impressive in person.
“What the—” he says, moving to yank his arm out of Caden’s grasp, but Brick steps forward, holding his gun level with Otto’s face. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Otto’s eyebrows fall. “Who are you?” he demands. “What is happening?” And Dan feels a flash of sympathy for the man—Dan’s had two hours to get used to the circumstances, but this is all brand-new to Otto. Like someone who’s coming in halfway through a movie and is trying to parse out the plot. And then, as if Otto suddenly remembers why he’s there, he drags his gaze from Brick’s gun and frantically searches the room for his wife and daughter. When he lands on them, sitting at a table near the window, he says: “Vaughn, what’s the meaning of this?”
“I believe we’re being held hostage,” she responds dryly, and it’s clear to Dan the two have likely been married for some time.
“What do you want from me?” Otto turns back to Brick, his voice betraying no fear, and Dan can’t tell if he’s an excellent actor or is truly unafraid, likely thanks to years of feeling impenetrable when you have loads of power and money.
“Oh,” Brick breathes, an exhale of air more than a word. He’s looking at the man with thunderous murder in his eyes. Pure hatred. Dan’s not sure he’s ever been on the receiving end of a look like that in his life. Except maybe when he leaves the toilet seat down in the middle of the night and Jane returns to bed from using the bathroom. “It’s simple, really,” Brick says. “But we’ll get to all of that. Have a seat.”
As Caden and Lyle escort Otto to a lone chair against the wall across the room, Isaac brings Jane back to Dan’s table. When she sits, Isaac kneels beside her, pulls out a zip tie, and binds Jane’s ankles together as Jane mumbles: “Geez. How many of these things do you guys have?”
When Isaac finally walks off, Dan whispers to Jane: “What happened with Sissy?” at the same time Jane hisses: “I think they’re stealing from Otto St. Clair.”
“ What? ” Somehow this revelation is even more disquieting than the initial realization that she was part of this…gang. Or maybe it was the additional fact of it, on top of her bursting into a restaurant carrying a weapon. And he realizes he didn’t allow himself to theorize the possibilities for why she might be there, as if his brain could comprehend only one horrific fact at a time. The idea that Sissy would break the law at all is preposterous, but to steal? He tries to think back over the whole of her childhood, looking for signs he was raising a bona fide criminal, and he gasps in horror when he recalls the Snickers incident. He hasn’t thought of it in years—the time when he took Josh and Sissy on Sunday errands and, on the way home, saw Josh in the rearview chomping the full-size candy bar he had asked for, but Dan had refused to purchase.
“Where’d you get that?” he asked.
“Sithy,” Josh said in his three-year-old lisp.
Dan pulled the car over into the nearest parking lot and turned to look at his six-year-old daughter in the back seat. “Sissy, did you take that candy bar from the store?”
“No, Daddy,” she said, her brown eyes wide and brimming with innocence. “Josh did it.”
“I did not!” Josh said, the melted chocolate evidence smeared all over his face and fingers. The two argued the entire ride back to the store—their voices escalating, both framing the other—where Dan made Josh come clean to the manager, which took a very dramatic and embarrassing ten-minute scene of snotty, deep-heaving sobs and lispy denials. It was so dramatic, Dan more than once doubted himself. Had Sissy taken the candy bar? She looked so innocent! She’d never done anything wrong in her life! Whereas Josh, even at the tender age of three, already had signs of rebellion written all over him.
Now he hears Jane’s earlier accusation ring in his ears: You’re so permissive! Always trying to be her best friend, never giving her consequences for anything . And he wonders if Jane (as she so infuriatingly often is) was right: Was he too lenient with Sissy? The truth was, Dan couldn’t stand to see Sissy upset. Worse, he couldn’t stand to be the cause of her sadness. Josh as well, to a point, but it was something about his daughter’s eyes, the way she could just level him with one forlorn look. He knew it made him weak on her, but Jane could be so tough, so stubborn and unrelenting in her parenting, he convinced himself it all balanced out in the end. And anyway, is it a crime to want your own children to like you? He doesn’t think so.
Unless, of course, it inadvertently turned them into criminals.
“We can’t let it happen,” Jane whispers. “What she’s done is bad enough, but armed robbery ?”
Oh God. Is that the inevitable track he set Sissy on, years ago when he let her get away with stealing a candy bar? Dan swallows. “Right.” He nods. They can’t let her do it. But he has no idea what Sissy is stealing and therefore no idea how to stop it. He opens his mouth to ask.
“Why is the chef still here?” Jane whispers. “I thought they were letting him go.”
Dan thought so, too, but in the middle of the neurosurgeon offering his professional thoughts to Brick on how to get the chef safely out of the dining room and into a (hopefully) waiting ambulance, the faint chop-chop-chop of helicopter blades permeated the air and Brick’s attention turned elsewhere.
“Ow,” Otto says, irritated, as Lyle finishes binding Otto’s ankles to the chair legs. “Careful.”
“Get his cell phone,” Brick instructs. “And his wallet.” As Lyle pats Otto down, finding first the cell phone in his suit jacket pocket and then the billfold in the back of his pants, Otto looks up with a quirked eyebrow. “All this to steal my wallet?”
Brick ignores the question, taking the cell phone and wallet from Lyle and pocketing both. “The helicopter you flew here—is it one of your self-flying inventions?”
“Is that what this is about?”
Dan wonders this, too. Obviously they’re not stealing his wallet—anyone with half a brain knows you wouldn’t get far trying to use Otto St. Clair’s credit cards—but the helicopter on the other hand…Is Brick stealing the prototype and then selling it to an international espionage organization? Dan feels a quick kick in his heart at the thought that he could be witness to something so exciting, like something out of an action movie. Then he frowns, remembering his daughter’s involvement and the very real danger facing his family. He looks at Sissy with new eyes. Is she some kind of James Bond supervillain? He and Jane always used to joke that Sissy was so preternaturally intelligent she’d either be president of the United States or end up in jail. But it was a joke!
The more likely (but less interesting) explanation is this is Brick’s backup escape plan. The more Dan turns that theory over, the more sense it makes. The police are likely crawling all over the hillside by now, and the only chance Brick has to thwart them is by air.
“Answer the question,” Brick says.
“Yes, of course.”
“Is it easy to fly?”
Otto scoffs, the sound thick with arrogance. “A child could do it. You just set the destination and then the AI CloudPilot handles everything else, including interfacing with ground control and other aircraft and getting permission to land. It’s going to revolutionize cities, the way people travel. Traffic on the 605 will be a thing of the past.”
“Great,” Brick says, and claps once, a sharp THWACK . “We’re moving the chef. Jeremy, Lyle—you’ll carry him the way Rahul detailed earlier, using a chair for stability and going slow so as not to jostle him.”
Otto looks at the chef on the floor by the wall, as if only just noticing him. “Is he bleeding?” His eyes go wide in horror. “No, absolutely not. It’s, uh…the helicopter isn’t equipped for medical transport.”
And Dan remembers the other piece of latent trivia he knows about Otto, a rumored character trait that defines him as much as his eyebrows in the collective social conscience—that Otto has severe OCD and cannot stand germs and bodily fluids. Apparently, he couldn’t even be in the hospital room when his daughter was born. He remembers Jane at a dinner party years ago deriding, along with the other women, Otto’s seemingly old-fashioned, definitely sexist, and perhaps—they’d go so far as to say—even heartless and inhumane decision. What kind of monster didn’t want to be present at the birth of his own daughter?
Dan would certainly never have said it out loud, but he thought Otto might have been onto something there. The things he witnessed when Jane gave birth were images he could never scrub from his mental data bank, and he would have been just fine to go back to the days of cigars in the waiting room and being brought in when everything was clean and tidy and stitched back in place.
But to not want to save a man’s life because you don’t want blood in your vehicle? Well, that is inhumane.
“You”—Brick points at Rahul—“you’ll go with him.”
Rahul nods, as if he thought as much, but his wife looks stricken. “We’re not riding in that thing. Didn’t one just crash in the San Fernando valley? We’ll all be killed.”
It’s an opening—an opportunity for Otto to agree it’s unsafe and not sully his helicopter—but apparently his ego won’t let the insult stand. “That was an unfortunate human error—one! Out of hundreds of test runs. A mistake in code. No one was injured and it’s since been fixed.”
“You don’t have to go,” Brick says pointedly to the wife. “He does. Let’s move. We don’t have all night.”
Lyle and Jeremy spring into action, cutting Rahul’s ankle ties and then—with the neurosurgeon’s help—carefully moving the chef onto a horizontal chair, using the back for stability. The three of them lift the chair, keeping the back of it parallel to the ground and carrying the supine chef like they’re handling a palanquin carrying a queen.
“Wait!” Ayanna shouts as they get to the door. “I’m coming.”
Brick nods at Caden to cut her ankle ties, and she runs to the door, holding it open for the transport. Dan watches with a stab of jealousy that the couple gets to leave, going scot-free out into the night, even if it is in a slightly dangerous helicopter. And he’s simultaneously grateful it’s not him and Jane in the contraption. Jane’s so terrified of heights, she’d never survive it—and Dan would never hear the end of it.
When the door closes behind them, Brick turns to Otto, tugging the confiscated wallet from his back pocket. Dan feels the heat of someone’s gaze and turns to find Jane boring holes in his face with her eyes. This time her brow is raised, and she nods deeply, purposefully toward Otto and then lowers and raises her brow again at Dan. Does she think this is the theft? Surely she understands there’s got to be more to it than simply stealing a wallet. And even if there wasn’t, what does Jane want him to do—tackle Brick to the ground?
As Brick flips through the wallet, Otto stares at him, studying what little he can see of Brick’s face. “Wait—you look…Do I know you?”
Brick freezes, and it’s his reaction that causes the air to shift in the room and Dan’s eyes to narrow.
“Oh my God…” Otto squints at him and tilts his head. A flicker of recognition lights in his eyes. “Theodore—is that you?”
Brick narrows his eyes. “ Who? ”
“Oh. I guess not.”
“Who’s Theodore?”
“I don’t know. Some kid that used to be my assistant. Years ago. I’m grasping at straws here—there aren’t a lot of Black guys in Silicon Valley, OK?”
Dan’s eyebrows fly skyward. Otto’s statement may be true on the surface, but who says that out loud ? Brick scoffs, echoing Dan’s disgust. “You are literally the worst person.”
“The worst?” Otto shrugs. “Nah. I’m not even the worst tech CEO. BuzzFeed named me second behind Elon Musk.”
The deafening sound of helicopter blades starting up on the roof fills the room, causing all the bird necks to crane up to the ceiling again. Thirty seconds later, Lyle and Jeremy reenter through the front door and the harsh chop-chop-chop slowly starts to fade as the helicopter leaves the roof and flies farther away from the restaurant.
Brick pinches a black credit card from the wallet. “Here we are,” he says. Dan knows of the Hyperion no-limit card, of course, but he didn’t know anyone who had one—not even the plastic surgeons who made six times his salary.
“What are you doing with that?” Otto says lightly. His tone is curious, amused, and Dan is once again awestruck by the man’s seeming inability to be rattled.
“It’s what you’re going to do with it that matters.”
“What am I doing with it?”
“You’re going to make a purchase.”
“What am I buying?”
“Dessert.”
Otto narrows his eyes. “I doubt you came all the way out here to have me pay for cake and ice cream.”
Brick makes a tutting sound with his tongue and the top of his mouth. “Aren’t you clever? You’re right. It’s not just any dessert you’ll be buying. It’s the Semlor Guld, Chef Lars’s specialty.”
“Ah! The eight-million-dollar delicacy.” Otto grins, as if he’s not only intrigued, but downright enjoying being held hostage and robbed at gunpoint.
Brick nods and Dan blinks. Otto’s strange manner notwithstanding, something about this exchange feels oddly familiar—as if he’s seen it in a movie or dreamt about it.
“It comes with a Harry Winston diamond bracelet, correct?”
Brick nods deeply again.
“What are you going to do, steal the bracelet?” Otto stares at Brick, studying him, and Dan can almost see the wheels turning in the eccentric genius’s brain. “No, because you would have already done so. The bracelet would ostensibly be in the kitchen and you wouldn’t have needed me here.” Otto cocks his head. “What’s your plan?”
Dan watches the exchange, equally intrigued and also bewildered that he somehow knows the answer to Otto’s question. Brick is going to run the credit card for the cost of the dessert and then hack into the restaurant account and move the money to untraceable offshore accounts, which is why he has the computer set up that Tink is sitting at. How does Dan know this? Was it a movie plot? Dan racks his brain, and all at once it comes to him: Jane’s book! That’s how the terrorists in the teahouse stole from the billionaire, by having him “purchase” the $36.3 million Ming dynasty teacup on display in the London tearoom. His mouth drops open, and he swivels his head toward his wife, who is staring at Brick and Otto and not at him.
But Dan has a thousand more questions. Or namely, just two: How? And Why? He knows Jane thinks he didn’t, but Dan did read her book all those years ago. And though he’d never say it out loud, that Goodreads reviewer Stephen (Dan knows his name only because Jane keeps his printed-out review on a dartboard in her office) wasn’t entirely wrong in his assessment of the book, even if he was unnecessarily mean about it. It was implausible. Terrorists taking over a teahouse in the middle of the day in the middle of London just to steal money online —not gold bars or bags of cash—didn’t really make sense. The whole point of being a hacker is to commit crimes and theft covertly, without notice, and without resorting to violence. Their hacking skills are their weapons. Dan doesn’t know much about hacking, but he does know there has to be an easier way for a skilled hacker to steal money from Otto St. Clair. And if he knows that, surely Brick knows that, too. Why would he attempt such a risky and ridiculous plan in real life? And how could he expect to get away with it?
And most important—how is Dan supposed to stop it?
“Monica, correct?” Brick says, turning to the young woman sitting against the wall next to Dan’s waiter, Javier, at the end of the line of hostages. Dan blinks when he sees them. It seems so long ago that they were welcoming Dan and Jane to the restaurant, and he nearly forgot they were there.
“Yes?” she says in a small voice.
“I believe it’s your responsibility to run payment at the end of the night, correct?”
She clears her throat. “Y-yes. Yes, sir.”
“Wonderful. Mr.St. Clair is done with his meal here and I’d like you to close out his tab.”
Lyle walks over to Monica, snips her ankle and wrist zip ties in a now practiced motion, and helps her up.
“Where do you run credit cards?”
“Up front.”
Brick makes an After you gesture and then follows Lyle and Monica to the hostess stand. With a trembling hand, Monica takes the credit card from Brick and asks: “How much?”
Brick stares at Otto and grins as he says: “Eight-point-four million dollars. Heck, let’s round it up to nine.”
“Nine million!” Otto exclaims, grinning as if he’s enjoying the show. “Oh-ho! That’s quite a purchase.”
“It is indeed,” Brick says. “You’re quite the generous husband.”
Otto nods, as if to say, Carry on .
“Why are you smiling?” Brick asks.
Otto doesn’t respond.
“Oh, I know why,” Brick says, and he walks slowly toward the man. “Because nine million is nothing to you. A pittance.”
Otto doesn’t respond.
“Or maybe it’s because you think the purchase won’t go through.”
“Well, surely you know as well as I do, it will be flagged.”
“That’s true,” Brick says. “Fortunately for us, you’re no stranger to multimillion-dollar, self-aggrandizing spontaneous purchases. Remember Leonardo da Vinci’s journal? What was that—twenty-four million dollars?”
“Self-aggrandizing? It’s an artifact. I was preserving history.”
“What about your fourteen-karat-gold toilet seats? Were they historical artifacts, too?”
Otto doesn’t respond, and Dan has to wonder what it is with billionaires and their obsession with sitting on gold when they take a shit.
“And who could forget the seven million you spent on a thirteen-foot tiger shark preserved in a glass container of formaldehyde?”
“That was Steve Cohen! I don’t know how my name got mixed up in that story. You can’t believe everything you read.”
“And the island? Did the newspapers make that up?”
“Real estate is a smart investment. Look at Richard Branson! And I didn’t use the credit card for that.”
Brick waves a hand. “Regardless, there’s a track record. I don’t think your credit card company is going to bat an eye.”
“They’re going to call me.”
“They will. And you’re going to approve the purchase.”
“And if I don’t?”
Brick raises his gun level with Otto’s face, but Otto doesn’t flinch. “What, you’re going to kill me?”
“No, of course not,” Brick says. “I’m going to shoot you in the kneecap.”
Before Otto can respond, Brick moves the gun slightly down and to the right and squeezes the trigger.
POP!
Shrieks fill the air. “No!” Dan shouts—or maybe he just thinks it. A strangled scream from Paisley reaches Dan’s ears from across the room, but he barely registers it as he tries to comprehend what just happened.
“What the fuck?” Spittle comes flying out of Otto’s mouth. “You are absolutely insane , you know that?”