About two hours earlier, he had carefully ingested a combination of Adderall, Viagra, GBH (Gamma-Hydroxybutyric), and DOB (4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyamphetamine) along with slightly less than a half-pint of Stolichnaya vodka.

A precise amount of each ingredient had been consumed in a precise sequence in preparation for the sex session Markov had planned, ending with the Adderall crushed into a fine powder, placed in a small piece of toilet paper, and swallowed with water.

He knew it was impossible to achieve the exact effect he wanted, but Markov nearly always succeeded in bringing himself to a point where he was teetering between sensory overload and mental chaos.

Leonid Markov simply and always wanted more. Drugs were part of getting more. More sensations, more intensity, more phantasmagoria.

It also made him feel superior to be able to maintain control over the overwhelming sensations brought on by the dangerous combination of chemicals that coursed through his system.

When his phone began vibrating, Markov was naked, on his back, his flabby, 255-pound body splayed on top of a sturdy masseuse table, knees bent, his thick legs tented wide, his heels on the edge of the table while a black transsexual stood at the foot of the table, penetrating him anally with long steady strokes as she squeezed and stroked his erect penis.

For a moment, Markov thought the buzzing sound of the cell phone had something to do with his own moaning and grinding of teeth under the Adderall rush.

But he rallied enough to focus and realized the electronic noise came from the cell phone skittering around on the glass-topped side table next to the king-size bed.

Markov was working on the second orgasm of three he had planned, so he held up one hand, indicating that the prostitute should stop. Calls to his cell phone could not be ignored. They invariably involved money, and of all the things Leonid Markov wanted more of, money was at the very top of his list.

He reached over, picked up the phone. “Who?”

“Milstein.”

Markov grunted, “Call me in five hours.”

Without waiting for a response, he pushed the END button and dropped the phone on the hotel room carpet, turning his attention back to the transsexual.

Markov focused on the black she-male who called herself Natalie. She was beginning to look more masculine, but at the same time less human, more animatronic. Her abdominal muscles flexed and pulsed, looking like a set of dark, three-dimensional metallic plates. The shaved stubble of her pubic hair seemed to flex on the surface of her smooth abdominal skin, reminding Markov of tiny nail heads or rivets. The black wig she wore swayed as if it were made of plastic strands that had been covered in a resin that made each strand heavy and somehow dangerous. Markov suddenly felt that if she bent over and any part of the wig touched him, it would slice through him, cutting back and forth through layers of skin and yellow fat and making him bleed.

Markov avoided looking at her face, which had twisted into something like a mask made of twitching, flat, shining pieces of dark stone. He wanted to focus on her breasts, to turn his attention to something erotic, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from blinking and suddenly watering. Everything began to turn blurry. Her breathing sounded like the hissing spurts that would come out of a steam radiator. Or maybe it was his breathing. Or was it really the hissing of the radiator in the hotel room he had rented in midtown Manhattan?

*   *   *

Milstein checked his watch. He knew calling Markov back and venting his anger in a voice mail would be stupid and dangerous. Five hours. That would mean at about eleven-thirty.

He thought about trying Alan Crane again, but he already knew Crane would ignore him.

No, the hell with Crane, he thought. I’m going straight to Markov. He’d call Markov after he walked the dog.

What the hell was that goddamn Sanchez woman trying to pull? Who was that thug she’d sent?

Milstein slipped the small cell phone into his pocket. He would take it apart and throw away the pieces as he walked the dog.

Milstein took a few steps and sat down on the couch facing his marble fireplace. Now that he was home, now that there was nothing else he could do, Milstein suddenly felt weak and a bit shaky. A drink. He needed a drink.

Milstein walked into his kitchen, turning lights on as he moved toward the back of the apartment. He pulled a bottle of Lagavulin from the kitchen cabinet where he kept his liquor. He pushed glassware around in the kitchen cabinet, looking for a rocks glass, settling for a water glass. Fuck it.

He poured himself two fingers, tipped the glass back, letting the hot, medicinal whiskey fill his mouth and burn into his stomach. He took a deep breath. Returned to his living room.

The dog had decided to join him. The fucking thing is always hanging out in the kitchen with the housekeeper, thought Milstein. She ought to take the damn thing home someday and keep him.

The dog was a large, overfed Airedale named Tam. Another of his wife’s ideas. Not that she did anything to walk it or take care of it. She treated it like another piece of furniture. Cared for by somebody else.

While Milstein had been in the kitchen, Tam had curled up in his oversized Tartan plaid dog bed. Milstein’s wife had picked out the fabric with her decorator at a ridiculously inflated price. After much discussion, the dog’s bed had been placed under the large window facing Seventy-ninth Street, as if the dog and his bed were a design feature.

When Milstein entered the room, the dog lifted his head, stared at Milstein, waiting for an outburst that would send him scurrying out of the room.

Milstein ignored the dog, took another swallow of the expensive Scotch.

Take it easy, Milstein told himself. Again, his thoughts turned to Olivia Sanchez. Why am I surprised? A woman that good-looking could get plenty of men to help her. But that guy? Not her type. Way too rough. Too blue collar. But then again, maybe not. Maybe exactly her type. He wasn’t badly dressed. The coat looked expensive. He spoke well. Goddammit, who the fuck was he?

Milstein took another swig of the Scotch. All right, don’t let it rattle you, he told himself. You’ve got plenty of resources if this gets out of hand. Plenty of people who can handle someone like that. Walter already seems to be figuring out how to deal with him. Too bad that thug didn’t go after Crane. He’s the one who started this mess.

No, thought Milstein. Sanchez would have made it clear to whoever he was that he should go to the top. Although the guy did seem smart enough to figure that out for himself.

Milstein drained his glass and headed back to the kitchen. He looked at an indecipherable lump of food under plastic wrap inside the microwave.

“I’ll be goddamned if I eat that crap.”

He went back to the front hallway, got his coat, and set out to have a sit-down dinner and another Scotch. And think about exactly what he was going to tell Leonard Markov.

8

Even though Ciro Baldassare filled a good portion of the Mercury Marauder’s backseat, a passing pedestrian would be unlikely to notice him because he never moved. If Ciro did catch someone’s attention, they tended to look away quickly. He was that kind of guy.

Demarco Jones had parked the Mercury in the empty curbside space between the two ends of the half-circle driveway that led to and from the entrance of Milstein’s Park Avenue apartment building. Next to him in the passenger seat, Beck rummaged around in the glove box and pulled out a fake NYPD detective badge on a chain. He slipped the chain over his head and tucked the badge under his shirt.

He told Demarco and Ciro, “Sit tight. Let me see if I can arrange a visit with Mr. Milstein.”