The rendezvous with Todd Finley was to occur at the Dakota, the famed hotel where John Lennon was assassinated in 1980. Quaid and Mayor Diaz arrived by limo, instructing the driver and trail car to wait at street level. The mayor's head of security objected, but cursorily. He was practiced in looking away during the mayor's dalliances; from his perspective, tonight seemed no different than any other.
"I'll text him we're here," Quaid said in the lobby. "Drink order?"
Sergio said he'd take a caipirinha. The mayor was scarcely recognizable, his jet-black mane free about his shoulders, in a shimmery shirt instead of his workday suit.
Quaid tapped out his message to Finley. The operation had been his brainchild, floating the possibility of the city doing a Forceworthy trial in exchange for introductions to their supposed heavies, who might be connected to the Blind Mice. The mayor loved the idea—how better to resuscitate his approval rating than play a personal roll in nabbing the Mice?—but could not risk exposing himself with direction communication. Quaid had served as go-between instead. Finley had jumped at the chance—"Sure, I'll gitcha in a room with them."
Was it a high-probability op? Not high-high. Finley could've been blowing smoke, saying whatever it took to generate interest in his wares. Still, Quaid believed—and frequently, over the course of Third Chance Enterprises's seven years, his belief had been enough to make a play like this work.
Finley took a while answering the text. Quaid and Sergio decided to head on up, figuring it must be too loud to hear a phone chime. A gold-plated elevator ferried them to the 7th floor. The suite hosting the party featured a three-story balcony overlooking Central Park.
Quaid scored a prairie fire—his signature drink—then joined the mayor on the balcony. The view was sublime, joggers and bikers weaving beneath park foliage, framed by skyscrapers on all sides.
"This'll do, yes?"
"Outlaws are living well," Sergio agreed, checking himself in the balcony door, a sine wave of gently-rippled glass the owners had swapped in for the Victorian original.
Of course they didn't know whether Finley's outlaws lived here. Probably not. Still, the idea that elements propagating unrest would be welcome here was unsettling; Quaid had already spotted two starlets and been told the mixologist had trained in Oslo. In his brief survey of Manhattan nightlife since the job had begun, Quaid had observed surprising support for the Blind Mice among the glitterati. There was righteousness in it but also nihilism, a sense that the society had so deteriorated—not just wealth distribution but culturally, politically—that we all deserved this.
They mingled substantially before bumping into Todd Finley.
"Gentleman!" The salesman broke off speaking into the ear of a petite redhead. "Now it's on, am I right?"
His mighty handshake from their first meeting became a bro-worthy embrace here.
They secured a fresh round, it being necessary to do a bit more conventional socializing before business. Finley's redhead was part of a trio. Her friend Contessa took up with Quaid. As she laughed at his musings on what the park carriage horses did in their downtime, hand light upon his sportcoat sleeve, Quaid felt a twinge of guilt.
Molly hadn't answered his text informing her the Dakota operation was a go. Undoubtedly she and Durwood were sore at him. Things between him and Molly were in a good place. They'd been clicking, and more than once he had considered telling Durwood to take the Vanagon at the end of the night—he would find his own way back to the hotel.
He had resisted. This American Dynamics gig could take months, and an entanglement with Molly, pleasurable as the tangling itself might be, would complicate matters. To say nothing of the dampening effect on that nightlife survey.
Quaid and the mayor were chatting by themselves on the balcony's middle floor when a conversation above got loud.
"Time Warner, let's do it!" a voice gushed through the deckboards. "They're at 10 Columbus Circle—straight shot south. Six people, six guns."
"Why them?" said another voice. "How about Fox?"
"Nah, cable's the delivery channel. The filter, how they control minds."
The exchange veered from fake news to ingrained patriarchy to where guns might be gotten. Quaid heard at least four distinct voices.
"Should you be cluing your people in about this?" he asked the mayor.
Sergio rubbed a hand down his face. "It is talk. Fashion."
Quaid supposed he was right—NYPD must be swamped with false leads nowadays. Still, hearing such revolutionspeak tossed off not ten feet overhead was chilling. Younger generations were always bolder, more recklessly confident in their own ability to affect change, but this felt different. The air felt different—charged, tinged with some social-media gasoline that put any sort of upheaval in play.
"Whatever happened to wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt?" Quaid said.
At 11:00, Todd Finley handed them drinks (#7? 8?) with new sparkle in his eye. "You boys ready to talk turkey?"
Sergio excused himself from a discussion of shelter reforms with a woman in a backless dress. "Your friends have arrived?"
"If I'm being honest," Finley said, "they aren't friends. Not paid to be friends. Not mine, not yours. Not anybody's."
The salesman skidded past the topic and rolled straight into his Forceworthy pitch, laying out the value proposition of early intervention, intimating that Boston and Newark would be signing preliminary agreements soon.
Quaid sighed. The situation was delicate. All they cared about was Finley's in with the Blind Mice, but he and the mayor couldn't show outright disinterest in Forceworthy.
"How long has Forceworthy been around?" he asked.
"Nine years," Finley said. "Founded by a four-star general named Dane Packer, who recognized the dearth of high-end security options in the private sector."
Quaid made a mental note to ask Durwood if he'd heard of Packer. "Seems it's grown well beyond private security."
"Different times. Nine years ago, wha'd'ya worry about, Islamic terrorism? Once every five years shot?"
"But the Blind Mice only showed up last year. When did Packer decide it made sense to start arming U.S. cities to the teeth?"
Finley stroked his goatee. "We, uh ... well, General Packer's no longer part of the management team."
"Who is?"
"It's complex. Packer sold out three years ago to private interests."
"And the shift in product offerings, this militarization—did that move originate with these 'private interests?'"
He screwed up his eyes. "The timelines more or less cross, yeah, but y'know I'm on the road talking to clients." He snapped the fingers of both hands in quick succession. "We don't get much visibility into those topline calls out in the field."
Finley then wrested back the discussion, asking the mayor about turnaround times on city contracts, whether the new Platinum tier of support, which added realtime satellite surveillance, sounded like something he'd want in the trial.
Quaid hiccuped. Satellites?
Sergio said, "I am intrigued. As you yourself have said, though, often relationships are as important as the physical product. Before we go further along this path, I would like to meet your associates."
Todd Finley held his drink at his lips. "I can trust you guys?"
"Of course."
"Not gonna—I dunno, scan my guys' faces and text them over to the FBI?"
Sergio: "Certainly not."
Quaid: "The FBI and I do not have a texting rapport."
Still Finley seemed reluctant. Less talky, fingers tight around the iron railing. Peering up and down Central Park West as though for G-men. It was odd because he had been so gung-ho leading up to tonight. What had changed? Why the sudden cold feet?
As he often would in politics in order to move forward, Quaid placed himself in his mark's head. Alcohol helped—it blurred interpersonal space and helped him leave behind the analytical for the emotional. Finley was wary. A week ago, the mayor had been disinclined toward his pitch, flush with reasons he couldn't hire Foreceworthy; now he was interested? Finley didn't trust it. He was worried they were using him.
"Look, cards on the table." Quaid showed his palms in a gesture of openness. "We have ulterior motives. The mayor wants to start a dialog with this element of the city, these troublemakers. He needs a back-channel. Could be through you and Forceworthy. Could be somebody else. If it works out and he needs to shuffle a little green your way to muddy up the waters, disguise the communication? He just might."
When Finley didn't answer at once, preoccupied scanning Central Park West, Quaid knocked back the dregs of his prairie fire. "Ah let's roll. It was worth a shot—"
"No, no!" the salesman said. "You're right—it's never pure. Nature of business. Give me one sec to touch base."
He suggested the powwow take place on the lower level—more discreet—then darted inside, wagging back a finger that he'd be quick. The trio of women had been talking among themselves; with a peek at Quaid and Sergio, they slinked off after Finley.
As the guys descended by winding spiral stairs, Quaid watched the tassels of his loafers swing to and fro. He felt pleasantly drunk. Face warm, periphery seeming to roll gently left, putting him in mind of an ocean liner's tossing. The mayor wore a similarly glassy expression. He'd had a good night, no being hounded for autographs or selfies, or by reporters asking about his abysmal poll numbers—not in this rarefied scene.
The lower level was certainly discreet. Deserted even.
They waited five minutes. Quaid had stray thoughts on how to approach the Forceworthy heavies—whoever, whatever they turned out to be—but did not now dwell on strategy. He'd dealt with some rough-and-tumble characters in prison after the Draktor frame-up, and later as face man for Third Chance Enterprises. Nubian master stick-fighters. Azerbaijanian separatists. The basic principles of negotiation varied little. When the time came to dance, he'd dance.
Shhhhlll-pop.
The sound of the door seal startled them—the interior of this level had been off-limits. They turned. The rippled glass parted and doors receded to the wings. From the dark within, the trio of women emerged.
"Did you miss us?" asked the brunette.
Quaid perceived a faint accent he hadn't noticed before. Français? The other two women stalked forward with alluring smiles, crooked elbows.
The mayor said, "Terribly," but in a cool, automatic tone. The woman in the backless dress took his arm.
Hesitantly, Quaid joined Contessa in walking forward to the interior. So these three were with the heavies? Advance spies?
Contessa was tugging them toward the suite a bit too insistently. Her grip seemed strong for a model, which she'd earlier claimed to be, and a tension in her cheek put Quaid on alert. His thoughts swam upstream against the two-headed fog of arousal and intoxication, groping for understanding.
It was too late.
Lights blinked on inside. A dozen commandos in ski masks aimed rifles at him and Sergio. On the ground before them, bound and gagged in a fetal position, laid Todd Finley.