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Sterling silently applauded Billy’s demeanor throughout the half-hour meeting. He looked and sounded confident, and, while appreciative, he did not grovel when Holmes offered a substantial contract and promised that he would have the kind of backup support he needed.
“We’re teaming you with one of our top producers. He wants to get to work with you as soon as possible. By this time next year you could be a star, Billy.”
The meeting ended with handshakes and a fervent expression of gratitude from Billy.
Good move, Sterling thought. During the discussion, you impressed him with your composure, but it was time to let him know how happy you are. I know his type. He loves having the role of kingmaker.
In the lobby, Billy consulted his train schedule and looked at his watch. Looking over his shoulder Sterling could see that he was going to try to make the 6:50 from Jamaica. A little tight, Sterling worried, but it’s an express train, and the next one is a local.
They covered the seven blocks back to Fifty-ninth Street in half the time it had taken them to get to the hotel. Billy must be walking on air, Sterling thought. For the moment, at least. I’m sure that instead of thinking about the Badgetts, he’s reveling in what the recording contract means to his future.
They hurried down the subway steps and onto the crowded platform. Consulting his watch again, Billy made his way to the edge and leaned forward, hoping to see a headlight emerging from the tu
It happened in an instant. Sterling saw a burly man suddenly materialize, and with a slam of his shoulder send Billy teetering over the tracks. Anguished, Sterling tried to grab Billy, knowing that he could not regain his balance on his own, but his arms went right through Billy’s body.
The train was rushing into the station. He’s going to fall, Sterling thought helplessly. A woman screamed as the same burly man suddenly pulled Billy back to safety, then disappeared into the crowd, headed toward the exit.
The doors of the train opened. Numbly, Billy stepped aside as exiting passengers rushed past him.
“Are you all right?” someone asked him anxiously as he boarded the train.
“Yes, I’m all right.” Billy grabbed the center pole near the door and held on tight.
An elderly woman admonished him. “Do you know how lucky you are? You should never stand that close to the edge of the platform.”
“I know. It was stupid,” Billy agreed, then turned away, struggling quietly to normalize his rapid breathing.
It wasn’t stupid, Sterling wanted to shout, dismayed that he could not warn Billy. Billy doesn’t realize he was pushed. The platform was so filled with people, he must think that the press of the crowd caused him to lose his balance, and that somebody grabbed him in time.
Sterling hung onto the center post with Billy as the subway bounced and swayed down the tracks. They arrived in Jamaica just in time to make the 6:50 to Syosset.
All the way home, chilling thoughts kept ru
Lee Kramer sat alone in the small hospital waiting room reserved for the families of people in intensive care. Except for the few minutes at a time that she had been able to stand at the foot of Hans’s bed, this was where she had been since before dawn, when she had followed the ambulance to the hospital.
A massive heart attack. The words echoed dully in her mind. Hans, who in the twenty-two years of their marriage had hardly ever had a cold.
She tried to remind herself that the doctor had said that Hans was stabilizing. He said that Hans had been lucky. The fact that the fire department was at the scene and had the equipment to shock his heart and start it beating again had saved his life.
He’s been under too much stress, Lee thought. The sight of the fire put him over the edge.
She glanced up when the door opened, then turned away. A number of her friends had stopped in and sat with her during the day, but she did not know this sober-faced, dark-haired man.
FBI agent Rich Meyers had come to the hospital hoping that he would be allowed to speak to Hans Kramer for a few minutes. That was out of the question, the nurse had told him firmly, but then added that Mrs. Kramer was in the waiting room.
“Mrs. Kramer?”
Lee whirled around. “Yes. Is anything…?”
The strain on Lee Kramer’s face was obvious. She looked as though she’d been punched in the stomach. Her short, ash-blond hair, blue eyes, and fresh complexion told Meyers that, like her husband, she was probably of Swiss extraction.
Rich introduced himself and handed her his card. A look of alarm came over her face. “FBI?” she asked.
“We’re investigating the possibility that the fire at your husband’s warehouse was deliberately set.”
“Deliberately set? Who would do that?” Her eyes widened.
Meyers sat down in the vinyl chair opposite her. “Do you know anything about loans your husband may have taken out?”
Lee put her hand to her mouth, and the thoughts that had tormented her all day tumbled out. “When everything turned and the business started to go bad, we took a second mortgage on the house for every cent the bank would lend us. There’s a mortgage on the warehouse, but only as much as we could borrow on it. I know it’s underinsured. Hans was so sure that if he could tough it through a little longer, the business would take off. He really is brilliant. The software program he designed can’t miss.” Her voice faltered. “And now what does all that matter? If only he makes it…”
“Mrs. Kramer, in addition to the mortgages, were there any other loans your husband may have taken?”
“I didn’t know about any, but this morning, after we got the call about the fire, he said something like, ‘I borrowed a lot of money…’ ”
Meyers’s face remained impassive. “Did he tell you who it was borrowed from?”
“No, that was all he said.”
“Then you probably wouldn’t have known if he made a phone call yesterday evening and left a message for someone about repaying a loan?”
“No, I don’t know anything about that. But he was very agitated last night.”
“Mrs. Kramer, does your husband have a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“We’d like to have your permission to check his cell phone account and home phone records to see if he made a call last night.”
“Who would he have been calling?”
“People who don’t give extensions on loans.”
Her insides churning, Lee was afraid to ask the next question. “Is Hans in any trouble?”
“With the law? No. We just want to talk to him about that loan. The doctor will tell us when it’s possible to see him.”
“If it’s possible,” Lee whispered.
Charlie Santoli had left the Badgetts’ office as quickly as possible after he’d been excoriated for not succeeding in his mission to buy Billy Campbell’s silence, but at four o’clock Junior sent for him again.
He hastened down the corridor and around the corner to the executive suite shared by Junior and Eddie. Their long-time secretary was at her desk. Years ago, Charlie had decided that even as a baby, Lil must have had pugnacious features. Now that she had passed the fifty mark, they had settled into a permanent scowl. Still, he liked Lil, and she was probably the only person in the building who was not afraid of Junior.
She looked up, her eyes magnified by her oversized glasses, and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, always the sign to go right in. Then in a voice made hoarse by years of chain-smoking, she rasped, “The mood is slightly better.” She paused. “Ask me if I care.”
Charlie knew he didn’t have to respond. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
Junior and Eddie were sitting on the zebra chairs, glasses in their hands. Toward the end of the business day they often had a drink together before getting into their limo and heading home. If Charlie happened to be there, he was usually told to help himself from the bar.