Triple Cross

“Your drinks, gentlemen,” someone said.

“Bless you,” Jenkins said.

“Phillip?” A woman’s voice.

The sound of ice tinkling against the side of a glass came over the receiver before Luster said, “Oh, hello, Paula. Nice gathering for midweek.”

Watkins said, “I try to make my life a celebration no matter what day it is.”

“I’m sure you’ve told that to Oprah on numerous occasions,” Luster said. “I’m just happy to be in your presence again, Paula. Twice in one week. Imagine that.”

“Yes,” Watkins said slowly. “Lucky you for knowing Brad.”

“Lucky me. He is a doll, isn’t he?”

“If you like your dolls that young.”

“And I do. Frances coming?”

“Frances is in bed in Greenwich, fighting a bug she picked up at the fundraiser.”

“Poor dear,” Luster said. “Send her my best, will you?”

“Of course,” Watkins said. “Enjoy the party, Phillip, but don’t forget that you have work tomorrow, and at your age you’ll need a lot of sleep if you’re going to try to keep up with a Ferrari like Brad. Ta-ta!”

CHAPTER 49

“TA-TA,” LUSTER REPLIED, THEN cleared his throat and said in a low voice, “Oh, the creative things I could call that woman. I hope you heard all that, Ms. Stone. I’m in and accepted, but I have not been invited to the after-party.”

Bree wished she could respond to the fashion designer over the wire. She sent him a text: Hearing you loud and clear. Try to get an invite.

She and Salazar listened as Luster weaved through the crowd. “There’s more beauty here than on South Beach. It’s like a delicatessen for well-scrubbed skin.” He paused. “What? No, I’m not going to try to get an invite to the after-party. You heard Paula’s subtext. I’m expected to have two drinks, nibble some gourmet tasties, and be gone before the real fun begins.”

Salazar said, “Tell Luster to take selfies around anyone he finds interesting so we can identify them later.”

Bree texted him the orders.

“That I can do,” Luster said.

For the next forty minutes, Bree and Salazar listened as the fashion designer mingled with people in the crowd, trying to engage in small talk with some of the older men and largely being rebuffed when he quizzed them about their backgrounds.

Luster said, “You’re not picking this up, I suppose, but there’s definitely a sense of lechery in the air in here.”

Bree texted, What about Victor? Or Katherine?

After a few moments, he said, “I haven’t met either of them yet, though Brad is engaged in a deep conversation with a thick-browed Russian sort at the moment. I’ll wander over.”

Salazar groaned, stood up, pushed her chair over by Bree, and sat by the rear window. “After-party or no after-party, ten minutes and I gotta go home, put my feet up.”

“Understood,” Bree said. “I’ll get you a recording of whatever you miss.”

Out the rear window, Bree saw two black Cadillac Escalades pull up in front of Watkins’s house. A big muscular man climbed out from the front passenger side of each car, both with their hands in their black leather jackets.

“More guests. These are wearing body armor, I think,” Bree said.

“Let me take a look,” the detective said. Bree handed her the binoculars. Salazar peered through them as each bodyguard opened the rear passenger door of a vehicle. A man climbed out of each one.

“Holy Mother,” Salazar said after a moment. “Will you look at that!”

“What? Who are they?”

The police detective did not reply, just kept studying the scene until the two men had gone inside and the bodyguards had been driven away. Then she lowered the binoculars in wonder.

“The guy from the first car? That’s Petro Ivanovic, reputed head of a violent Russian crew based in New York. I learned about him when I was involved in an investigation of Russian organized crime in Queens. The brush-cut tough from the second car is Rory Flynn, runs the Irish mob out of Brooklyn.”

Bree threw back her head and laughed. “Are you kidding me? Mobsters at Paula Watkins’s house?”

“And maybe at an after-party at Paula’s house,” Salazar said. “God, I wish we’d known those two were going to be here. The DA would have been all over—”

The receiver squawked behind them. Luster said, “It’s him—Victor. I’m sure of it. He and Brad are talking very, very intently.”

Bree texted, About what?

Salazar, who was still watching the street, said, “Who’s this now?”

Bree looked up in time to see a figure in a dark hoodie leave the sidewalk and jog up the stairs to Watkins’s front door. The figure stood there a moment, pivoted, then jogged down the stairs, back up the sidewalk, and around the corner.

Salazar said, “What was that about?”

Before Bree could reply, Luster said, “How would I know what Brad and Victor are talking about? It’s not like I can just worm my way in.”

Why not? Bree texted.

As she was about to hit Send, Luster said, “What the hell? Oh my God, no!”

The lights in Paula Watkins’s home died.

Nervous laughter poured from the radio receiver. Luster’s voice shook as he said, “I think that guy had a—”

They heard a woman scream, four loud thuds, and more shouting and screaming.