Part 14 The Resurrection of Samuel J. Speedman #2
My voice was saying: ‘You were a new woman, fit and gorgeous, and now you were banging him every chance you could get.’
Winnie: ‘Ari is the smartest and most charismatic man I’ve ever met. He’s the most brilliant person in any room. I never stopped loving him, not even after we divorced all those years ago.’
Me: ‘And so this year, when you started sleeping with him again, you thought you could get him back. And you’re a billionaire, which means you’re used to getting what you want.’
Beside me, FBI Deputy Director Longmuir swapped a glance with Trey Hooper. ‘What is this?’
‘Speedman brought it, sir.’
On the screens, Winnie and I were still talking.
Me: ‘But Yasmina Ivanova was in your way. You’d never met Yasmina, but you despised her because she had something you wanted: Aristo King.
So you found a company on the darknet, Modern Alchemical Solutions, and submitted your proposal to them, a proposal to get her out of Aristo’s life.
And Modern Alchemical Solutions took on your case. ’
Winnie: ‘You said he was clever. Solve this. Now.’
Now, the crowd was whispering animatedly.
Winnie—exposed in front of them—looked like a trapped animal.
On the TVs, the off-screen Unperson said: ‘Hello, Samuel.’
Me: ‘Have you got a name or do you just want me to stick with “Unperson”?’
Unperson: ‘I quite like Unperson. It suits me.’
On the TVs, Winnie turned to him. ‘You said this would be clean. That it would never be traced back to me. You said I would get satisfaction. Now this fucking private eye turns up at my house!’
Unperson: ‘He won’t be staying long.’
Winnie: ‘He knows fucking everything!’
Unperson: ‘Not everything. Isn’t that right, Samuel?’
Me: ‘I know you had three clients on the 21st and, so far, I’ve found two of them: the Chinese Ministry of State Security working out of Doyers Street in Chinatown and now her. There’s still one to go.’
Winnie: ‘I want him dead and buried and never seen again.’
At that, the watching crowd gasped audibly.
Me: ‘Like you wanted with Yasmina Ivanova?’
Winnie: ‘Yasmina Ivanova is a stupid classless Russian whore. A dipshit model! No education, no substance, just sharp cheekbones and a hot body. She banged everybody on her way up, from modelling agents to Russian mobsters. I have three degrees in computer engineering. I have a brain. Can you imagine what it feels like to see the love of your life married to a woman like that? I needed her gone, forever, out of Aristo’s life.
So, I hired him to set her up on December 21st. And it all worked great until you came along. ’
Me: ‘What about all the people who died? The cops, the bodyguards, the FBI people?’
Winnie: ‘Who cares? They were inconsequential people, human rounding errors, nobodies with meaningless lives who the world won’t miss. People like Ari and me are important, we change the world.’
The crowd reacted angrily to that.
Me: ‘And Ajax King?’
Winnie: ‘He was the son Shelby had to Aristo when Aristo was cheating on me. His death was a bonus.’
At that, a man in the watching crowd exclaimed, ‘Fuck . . .’
Me: ‘You’re a really nasty lady, you know that?’
Winnie Tan: ‘Cut this little four-eyed shit into tiny pieces and dispose of him. I want him gone. Gone. That would give me satisfaction.’
Unperson: ‘As you know, Samuel, the customer is always right. As you wish, ma’am.’
The TVs froze on a still image of Winnie’s furious face glaring straight down the lens of my pen’s camera.
The room was silent.
Aristo King was staring at Winnie Tan.
All the guests were staring at Winnie Tan.
And then Winnie Tan saw me over by the elevators at the back of the crowd.
‘You . . .!’
I gazed back at her with level eyes. ‘Your man buried me, just like you asked, but now I’m back from the dead.’
Director Longmuir shoved Hooper forward. ‘Arrest that woman, now.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I walked with Hooper as he made his way through the shell-shocked crowd toward Winnie Tan and Aristo King at the picture window overlooking Central Park.
As we did, Longmuir called, ‘All right, folks! Please stay still for a moment! We’re going to take care of this!’
As Hooper and I reached Winnie Tan, I saw Aristo King staring slack-jawed at his former wife.
Beside him, Merritt Garrett and Mia Kimura also watched, speechless.
King said, ‘Winnie, really? Did you arrange it all?’
‘Ari . . .’ she said. ‘I did it for you—’
I glimpsed a brief distant flash of light from outside the picture window an instant before it happened.
Crack—
Shlap!
The crack was the sound of a sniper round penetrating the picture window behind Winnie Tan, creating a small hole.
Shlap was the sound of the round slamming into Winnie Tan’s head and making it explode like a smashed watermelon, her blood and brains splattering all over Aristo King’s face.
The guests screamed.
Hooper dived to the floor.
Aristo King stood frozen in place, his face splashed with his ex-wife’s blood.
Some guests lay on the floor, covering their heads.
Others stampeded for the elevators.
Still standing, I just peered out the window at the source of the brief flash: the sniper who’d fired the fateful shot.
He was two blocks away, but I could see his outline clearly.
A silhouette with a long-barrelled rifle . . .
. . . on the roof of 59West.
There was movement all around me:
Merritt Garrett yanked his catatonic boss behind a concrete pillar, out of the line of fire.
The guests were variously fleeing for the elevators and the fire stairs, lying on the floor or cowering behind the sofas.
I remained in front of the picture window, defiantly out in the open.
‘He only wanted to kill her,’ I said to Garrett. ‘So she wouldn’t reveal anything about him.’
‘Who are you talking about?’ Garrett said.
‘The Unperson,’ I replied, gazing evenly out at the sniper atop 59West.
‘Sam!’ Audrey called as she and Heidi hurried toward me, pushing against the flow of guests with Director Longmuir.
Trey Hooper still lay at my feet, among a dozen other guests also on the floor.
‘Speedman! What’s going on?’ Hooper yelled.
‘Winnie’s hired assassin just assassinated Winnie,’ I said.
Right then, Audrey, Heidi and Longmuir arrived at my side.
Which was when Longmuir’s phone rang.
unknown caller
‘It’ll be him,’ I said.
Longmuir answered the call on speaker.
We heard the Unperson’s voice, emotionless and calm.
‘Hello, Samuel. My, you are impressive. Dug yourself out of a concrete grave. Director Longmuir, send Dr Speedman over to the roof of 59West now or I kill everyone else remaining in that room.’
As if to prove his capability, a burst of automatic gunfire smacked through the window and raked the floor of the apartment, narrowly missing the guests.
‘Come on over, Samuel.’
I could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on me.
Either I went or they died.
Aristo King’s eyes were the widest. He was totally freaked out.
Longmuir and Hooper just stared at me. They knew they couldn’t make me go, but they knew I had to.
I made my decision.
I turned on my heel and strode toward the elevators, my eyes laser-focused.
Audrey and Heidi caught up with me.
‘Sam,’ Audrey said, ‘he’ll kill you.’
‘If I want to end this, it has to be done.’
‘I want to go with you,’ Audrey said.
‘You can barely stand up, Audrey.’
‘Then I’ll go,’ Heidi said.
‘No, Heidi,’ I said softly but firmly. ‘I can’t let you do that. Your father, the rabbi, would kill me.’
‘This psycho will kill you first,’ Heidi said.
‘No.’
Then another voice interrupted.
‘Well, I’m not letting you go over to that building alone. I’m coming no matter what you say.’
It was Merritt Garrett, my fellow detective turned security professional.
‘He’ll kill anyone who comes with me, Merritt,’ I said.
‘I’ll take that chance,’ he said, patting his hip holster.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
Then the elevator arrived, and like a condemned man going to the execution chamber, I entered it.
Nine minutes later, we arrived on foot at the street entrance to 59West.
Drunken New Year’s Eve revellers sang and toasted each other as they danced past us, heading home. Midnight had just been rung in—some fireworks were still exploding over Central Park—and they were completely unaware of the drama playing out in front of them.
Vasha—the Unperson’s female colleague—was waiting inside the street-level lobby of 59West (the building was still empty, awaiting approval from the FBI and structural engineers to reopen).
She wore a plain jacket. I could see her gripping her CZ 75 pistol inside it.
She opened the doors with her spare hand.
We entered in silence, crossed to the open elevator, and stepped into it without a word.
The elevator’s doors closed.
Vasha stood behind me. Silent.
Garrett stood beside me. Silent.
I stared straight ahead.
‘So, Merritt,’ I said. ‘Are you gonna take my gun or what? And when do you plan on drawing yours?’
I turned to face my fellow detective and saw that his gun was already drawn and aimed at me.
Merritt Garrett quickly took my (Audrey’s) gun and patted me down for more.
But all my pockets were empty, save for little clumps of concrete dust. (Seriously, that stuff got everywhere.)
‘You can also stop pretending you don’t know her.’ I jerked my chin at Vasha. ‘You knew exactly who she was at the cemetery.’
‘When did you figure this out?’ Garrett asked as the elevator rose.
‘Stop the elevator,’ I said.
Garrett gave me a look, then he hit the emergency stop switch.
The elevator halted.
‘Talk,’ he said.
‘It was the only thing I couldn’t understand,’ I began. ‘Why bring five detectives to 59West and go to the trouble of arranging a bunch of riddles and elaborate deathtraps for us to solve?
‘I knew that Modern Alchemical Solutions had three clients that day and I’d found two: the Chinese and Winnie Tan. So there was still a third client to be uncovered.
‘Then I thought about Modern Alchemical Solutions and how they create transformations. I wondered: who benefited the most from the events of December 21st? Or put another way: who was transformed by that day the most?
‘The answer was you, Merritt.