The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(71)

He counted half a dozen black swans among them, but for the most part, the people of color were there to serve. He fit right in.

With his shoulders slumped, his jaw slack, and a cheap pair of clearlens nerd glasses to dial down the intensity of his piercing black eyes, he was practically invisible, and definitely forgettable.

The only human contact he’d had in the three hours since donning the uniform was with a besotted old patrician who’d slurred, “Hey fella, where’s the men’s room?”

Shortly after nine, the lights dimmed, the chatter died down, and the commanding voice of James Earl Jones piped through the sound system.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the cofounder and chairman of the Silver Bullet Foundation, Mr. Princeton Wells.”

The staff had been instructed to stop work during the presentation, and the busboy dutifully stepped into the shadows near a fire exit as Princeton Wells bounded onto the stage.

Wells was his typically charming, still-boyish-at-forty, old-moneyed self. And lest any man in the room suspect that someone that rich and that good-looking wasn’t getting laid, Wells kicked off the festivities by introducing his current girlfriend, Kenda Whithouse, to a captive audience.

Ms. Whithouse stood up, waved to the room, and threw her billionaire boyfriend a kiss. She was only twenty-three, an actress who was not quite yet tabloid fodder, but who clearly had the talent to fill out an evening gown. Those who knew Princeton Wells had no doubt that the gown would be lying crumpled on his bedroom floor by morning.

Having trotted out his latest eye candy, Wells got down to the serious business of reminding all the do-gooders in the room how much good they were doing for the city’s less fortunate.

“And no one,” he decreed, “has been more supportive of Silver Bullet than Her Honor, the mayor of New York, Muriel Sykes.”

The city’s first female mayor, her approval rating still sky-high after only four months in office, was greeted by enthusiastic applause as she stepped up to the podium.

The busboy did not applaud. He slid his smartphone from his jacket pocket and tapped six digits onto the keypad.

One, two, two, nine, nine, seven.

He stared at it, not seeing a sequence of numbers but a moment in time that had changed his life forever: December 29, 1997. His finger hovered over the Send button as the mayor began to speak.

“I’m not a big fan of giving speeches at rubber chicken dinners,” she said, “even when the chicken turns out to be grade A5 Miyazaki Wagyu beef.”

Everyone but the busboy found that funny.

“On the second day of my administration, I had a meeting with the four founders of Silver Bullet. They showed me a picture of an abandoned old warehouse in the Bronx, and I said, ‘Who owns that eyesore?’ And they said, ‘You do, Madam Mayor. But if you sell it to us for a dollar, we will raise enough money to convert it into permanent housing for a hundred and twenty-five chronically homeless adults.’

“I accepted their offer, framed the dollar, and am thrilled to announce that next month we will start construction. I’m here tonight to thank you all for your generous contributions and to introduce one of the four men who spearheaded this project. He is the brilliant architect whose vision will turn that dilapidated monstrosity into a beautiful apartment complex for some of our neediest citizens. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Del Fairfax.”

Fairfax, architect to the one percent, stepped onto the stage to show off what wonders he could create for the indigent. Spot-on handsome and aw-shucks personable, he rested a laptop on the podium, flipped it open, and said, “I know how fond you all are of PowerPoint presentations, so I put one together for you. Only ninety-seven slides.”

The half-sloshed crowd warmly gave him his due.

“Just kidding,” he said. “Princeton told me if I showed more than five, you’d start asking for your money back. The new facility will be called Tremont Gardens. First, let me show you what it looks like now.”

He picked up a wireless remote and pushed a button.

The explosion rocked the Cotillion Room.

Del Fairfax’s upper torso hurtled toward the screen behind him, while the bomb’s jet spray of ball bearings, nails, and glass shards chewed into his lower half, scattering bits and pieces across the stage like a wood chipper gone rogue.

Thick smoke, flying shrapnel, and abject fear filled the air. The busboy, standing far from the backblast, slipped through the emergency exit, leaving in his wake sheer pandemonium, as four hundred New Yorkers found themselves caught up in the nightmare they had been dreading since September 11, 2001.