Run Away(14)

“Uh-huh.”

“One of the best, I hear.”

“Right. And she wouldn’t want us talking.”

Fagbenle arched an eyebrow and crossed his legs. “No?”

“No.”

“So you’re refusing to talk to me?”

“I’m not refusing. I’m waiting for my attorney to be present.”

“So you won’t talk to me right now?”

“Like I said, I’m going to wait for my attorney.”

“And you just expect me to do the same?”

There was an edge in his voice now. Simon glanced at Yvonne. She’d heard it too.

“Is that what you’re telling me, Simon? Is that your final answer?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, are you really refusing to talk to me?”

“Only until my attorney gets here.”

Isaac Fagbenle sighed, uncrossed his legs, and stood back up. “Buh-bye then.”

“You can wait in reception.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

“She should be here soon.”

“Simon? Can I call you Simon, by the way?”

“Sure.”

“You take good care of your clients, don’t you?”

Simon glanced at Yvonne, then back to Fagbenle. “We try.”

“I mean, you don’t waste their money, right?”

“Right.”

“I’m the same. My clients, you see, are the taxpayers of the city of New York. I’m not going to waste their hard-earned dollars reading financial magazines in your reception area. Do you understand?”

Simon said nothing.

“When you and your attorney are available, you can come down to the precinct.”

Fagbenle smoothed down his suit, reached into his jacket pocket, and plucked out a business card. He handed it to Simon.

“Bye now.”

Simon read the card and saw something that surprised him. “The Bronx?”

“Pardon?”

“It says your precinct is in the Bronx.”

“That’s right. Sometimes you guys in Manhattan forget that New York has five boroughs. There’s the Bronx and Queens and—”

“But the assault”—Simon stopped, hit rewind—“the alleged assault took place in Central Park. That’s in Manhattan.”

“Yep, true,” Isaac Fagbenle said, flashing the dazzling smile again, “but the murder? That took place in the Bronx.”





Chapter

Five



When Elena Ramirez limped into the ridiculously large office with the ridiculously over-the-top views, she braced for the inevitable. He did not disappoint.

“Wait, you’re Ramirez?”

Elena was used to this skepticism bordering on shock.

“In the flesh,” she said. “Perhaps too much of it, am I right?”

The client—Sebastian Thorpe III—openly studied her in a way he would never openly study a man. That wasn’t being sensitive or any of that. It was just a fact. Everything about Thorpe stank of money—the “III” at the end of his name, the hand-tailored pinstripe suit, the rich-boy-ruddy complexion, the slicked-back ’80s Wall Street hair, the sterling bull-and-bear cuff links.

Thorpe kept staring at her with what someone must have told him was his most withering glare.

Elena said, “Want to check my teeth?”

She opened her mouth wide.

“What? No, of course not.”

“You sure? I can twirl for you too.” She did so. “Plenty of ass back here, am I right?”

“Stop that.”

Thorpe’s office was decorated in Early American Douchebag, all white and chrome with a zebra-skin throw rug in the center as if he might strike a pose on it. All show, no work. He stood across a white desk large enough to garage a Honda Odyssey. There was one framed picture on the desk—a too-posed wedding photograph of a tuxedoed Thorpe wearing a shit-eating grin standing next to a firm-bodied young blonde who probably called herself a “fitness model” on Instagram.

“It’s just that you come highly recommended,” Thorpe said in way of explanation.

Meaning he expected something a little more polished for his money—not a pudgy Mexican barely five feet tall in mom jeans and practical shoes. These guys heard her name and expected Penélope Cruz or a lithe flamenco dancer, not someone who resembled the summer help at their beach house.

“Gerald says you’re the best,” Thorpe said again.

“And the most expensive, so let’s get to it, shall we? I understand your son is missing.”

Thorpe lifted his cell phone, tapped it, spun the screen toward her. “This is Henry. My son. He’s twenty-four years old.”

In the image, Henry was dressed in a blue polo shirt and gave an awkward smile, the kind where you’re trying but it’s just not in you. Elena leaned forward for a closer look, but the desk separating them was too wide. They both stepped toward a window that offered a killer view of the Chicago River and downtown.

“Nice-looking boy,” she said.

Thorpe nodded.

“How long has he been missing?” she asked.