The Patriots Club Page 2

  “Taxi,” he yelled, because he was feeling happy and full of himself, even though there wasn’t a yellow cab in sight. “Where should we go?”

  “Let’s go dancing,” Jenny suggested.

  “Dancing it is!”

  Spotting a cab, he put his fingers in the corners of his mouth and whistled. It was a five-alarm whistle, capable of spooking visiting sluggers from the upper deck at Yankee Stadium. Bolden stepped into the street to hail the cab. The taxi flashed its brights and slid over a lane. Turning, he stretched out an arm to Jenny.

  It was then that he saw them. At first, they were a blur. Figures moving fast, approaching aggressively along the sidewalk. Two men running. He recognized them at once. The two that had followed them from the hotel. He rushed toward Jenny, jumping onto the sidewalk to shield her with his body. “Get back!” he shouted.

  “Tommy, what is it?”

  “Watch it! Run!” Before he could get the words out, the larger of the two men collided with him, a shoulder to the sternum knocking him into the street. Bolden’s head struck the concrete. Stunned, he looked up to see the taxi bearing down on him. It braked hard, tires squealing as he rolled toward the curb.

  The other man grabbed Jenny.

  “Stop it,” she screamed, flailing her arms at her attacker’s head. She caught him with a roundhouse to the jaw and the man stumbled. She stepped forward, swinging wildly. The man blocked the punch, then slugged her in the stomach. Jenny bent double and he held her from behind, locking her arms to her sides.

  Woozy, Bolden forced himself to a knee. His vision was mixed up, clouded.

  The man who had knocked him down grabbed Jenny’s wrist and turned it upright, so the new watch buckle pointed at the sky. Bolden saw his hand rise. He was holding something gray, angular. The hand descended. Blood spurted as the knife cut her forearm and sliced through the strap of the wristwatch. Jennifer cried out, clutching her arm. The bigger man pocketed the watch and ran. With a shove, the other man released her, stooping to snatch the silver plate. Then they were gone, charging down the sidewalk.

  Bolden ordered himself to his feet. Head reeling, he hurried to her side. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Jenny stood with her right hand clamped over her wrist. Blood seeped between her fingers, dripping to the sidewalk. “It hurts.”

  “Let me see.” He peeled back her fingers and examined the wound. The gash was four inches long and deep. “Stay here.”

  “No, it’s just a watch. It’s not worth it.”

  “It’s not about the watch,” he said, and something about his tone caused her eyes to open in fright. He handed her his phone. “Call a cop. Have him take you to NYU Emergency. I’ll find you there.”

  “No, Thomas, stay here . . . you’re finished with all that.”

  Bolden hesitated a moment, caught between past and present.

  Then he ran.

  2

  The men crossed Fulton against the light, slowing to dodge an oncoming car. Bolden followed a few seconds later, sprinting blindly through the crosswalk. Somewhere, brakes howled. Tires locked up. A driver leaned on his horn. Maybe he even shouted something out the window. Bolden heard none of it. His head throbbed with a single thought. Catch them. It beat like a tom-tom, drumming out every other sound.

  The thieves weaved through the pedestrians as if they were pylons on a driving course. They had half a block on him, maybe seventy feet at most. They moved fast, but they weren’t sprinters and he closed half the distance before they looked back. He saw their eyes widen, heard one of them swear. Thirty feet dwindled to twenty. He stared at their backs, deciding which to go after. Rule 1: Always take the biggest guy down first.

  Bolden followed the track set by the slower man. He saw himself racing through the back alleys of Chicago. Blue jeans. Stones T-shirt. The lanky kid with the wild crown of hair. Mean-spirited. Unsmiling. Unreachable. No one ever caught Tommy B.

  At Delancey, the men hugged the corner and headed right, down the cross street. The block was dark, less crowded than Broadway. He was gaining on them and he tried to pick up the pace. Come on, he urged himself. He pumped his arms, pushed out his chest, but the gas wasn’t there. Seven years behind a desk had softened his legs. Weekly games of half-court basketball were hardly enough to keep his lungs in any kind of real condition. Half a minute and already they were burning. The back of his mouth was dry, his breath scratching his throat like a match striking flint.

  An alley ahead opened to his right. The men ducked into it. Dumpsters lined the walls on either side. Steam rose from a grate. Water dripping from a broken pipe had formed a puddle in the asphalt. Bolden turned the corner a second behind them. With a last burst, he closed the distance. If he could just stretch out his arm, he could grab one of them by the collar. . . .

  And then the two men stopped and turned to face him.

  The bigger man was Hispanic with a broad, simian face. The bridge of his nose had been flattened more than once. His hair cut short on the sides with plenty of greasy kid stuff on top, his glaring eyes screaming for a fight. The other man was blond and angular, his pale gaze as placid as the other’s was violent. He carried the sterling-silver dish under his arm like a football. A star-shaped patch of scar tissue pinched his cheek. A cigarette burn. Or a bullet wound.

  Bolden realized it was a trap. He also realized that it was too late to worry about traps, and that he’d committed himself to this course the moment he’d left Jenny.

  Always take the biggest guy first.

  Bolden crashed into the darker man, shoulder lowered like a rugby half. He hit him solidly and followed with a jab to the solar plexus. It was like slugging a block of cement. The man retreated a step, grabbing Bolden’s fist, then his arm, using his momentum to flip him over his hip onto the ground. Bolden rolled to the right, avoiding a vicious kick. Skittering to his feet, he raised his hands. He jabbed once, twice, connecting with the jaw, then the cheek. The Hispanic man took the punches and moved closer, batting away Bolden’s hands. His own hands, Bolden noted, were meat cleavers. Bolden clutched at his shirt collar, ripping it, then fought his shoulder free and threw an inside uppercut. Suddenly, the man was no longer there. Bolden’s fist struck air. And then his world was turned upside down. His feet were at his head, the ground had taken a flyer, and the sky was doing a barrel roll over his head. For a moment, he had the sensation of falling, and then his shoulder hit the ground.

  He lay on his back, fighting for breath. He struggled to pick himself up, but by then both men were standing above him. Their arms hung easily at their sides. Neither appeared winded or in the least fatigued. The knife was gone. A silenced automatic took its place.

  “Okay,” said Bolden, taking a knee. “You win. But that watch is engraved. There’ll be a police report filed on it by morning. You won’t be able to pawn it anywhere worth a damn.” He was speaking in bursts, like a telegraph operator sending Morse code.

  The Hispanic man tossed Bolden the watch. “Here you go. Keep it.”

  Bolden held it in his palm. “Am I supposed to thank you?” Mystified, he looked past the man’s shoulder as a Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the mouth of the alley. The rear door opened, but no one stepped out. “What do you guys want?”

  The blond man with the scarred cheek lifted the nose of the pistol. “We want you, Mr. Bolden.”

  3

  The five men had gathered in the Long Room, and now stood around the stout, burnished table waiting for the clock to toll midnight. Meetings were to begin with the new day. The new day offered hope, and hope was the cornerstone of the republic. No one drank or smoked. Both were forbidden until the meeting had adjourned. There was no rule, however, against speaking. All the same, the room was silent as a crypt. A problem had arisen that none of them had foreseen. A problem unlike any the committee had ever faced.

  “Damned clock,” said Mr. Morris, shooting an irritated glance at the ormolu ship’s clock set on the mantelpiece. “I’d swear it’s s
topped ticking.”

  The clock had come from the Bonhomme Richard, John Paul Jones’s flagship, and remained in its original condition. Jones, in his ship’s log, had lamented its tendency to run slow.

  “Patience,” counseled Mr. Jay. “It won’t be but another minute, and we can all speak our conscience.”

  “Easy for you to say,” responded Mr. Morris testily. “I suppose court is out of session. You can sleep all day.”

  “That’ll do,” intoned Mr. Washington, and it was enough to quiet them both.

  They came from government, industry, and finance. They were lawyers, businessmen, politicians, and policemen. For the first time, a member of the Fourth Estate had been offered a place at the table: a journalist with close ties to the Executive and a Midwesterner’s unvarnished honesty.

  They knew each other well, if formally. Three of the five had been sitting, standing, and, as was often the case in this room, arguing, across the table from one another for twenty-odd years. The newest among them, the journalist, had been inducted three years earlier. The last—by tradition their leader, and as such prima inter pares—had guided them the past eight years, the longest period the Constitution permitted one in his position.

  Tonight, they had convened to discuss his successor.

  Just then, the antique clock struck the hour. The men took their seats around the table. When the final chime had rung, all heads were lowered and the prayer read.

  “We now make it our earnest prayer,” said Mr. Washington, “that God would have these United States of America in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens at large, and particularly for their brethren who served in the Field, and, finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demand ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

  “Amen,” murmured the collected voices.

  It was given to Mr. Washington to preside over the meeting. He stood from his place at the head of the table and drew a breath. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I bring the meeting to order. . . .”

  “About time,” murmured Mr. Morris. “I’ve got a six A.M. flight to New York.”

  4

  What’s this all about? You got me. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Thomas Bolden leaned forward, picking at a shard of glass embedded in his palm. His pants were torn where he’d slipped on the sidewalk, the flesh peeking out raw and bloody. The blond man sat to his right, the pistol resting on top of his leg. The Hispanic man took the jump seat. Tinted windows blocked out all view of the passing cityscape. A partition separated them from the driver.

  “Mr. Guilfoyle will answer your questions as soon as we arrive,” said the Hispanic man. His shirt hung open where Bolden had ripped it, revealing a tattoo on the left side of his chest. A rifle of some kind.

  Guilfoyle. Bolden tried to place the name, but it meant nothing to him. He noted that the doors were locked. He considered kicking out the windows, but then what? He turned his mind to the men around him. Neither had been the least bit winded after leading him on a six-block chase. The larger man was obviously a master of judo, or a related martial art. He’d thrown Bolden to the ground as if he were as light as a feather. And, of course, there was the pistol. A Beretta 9 mm. Standard issue to army officers. The silencer, however, was nonstandard. He had no doubt that the blond man knew how to use it. He observed their bearing, their upright posture, their steady, assured eyes. He guessed that they were ex-military. He could hear it in their clipped voices. He could sense the soldier’s rigid discipline.

  “Sit back. Relax,” said the darker man.

  “I’ll relax when I get back to my girlfriend,” Bolden snapped, “and see to it that she gets to a hospital.”

  “She’s being taken care of. You don’t have to worry about her.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you?”

  “Irish, make a call.”

  The blond man seated to Bolden’s right pulled a cell phone/two-way radio from his coat and put it to his ear. “Base One to Base Three. What’s the status on Miss Dance?”

  Miss Dance. They knew Jenny’s name, too.

  “Base One,” growled the response, amid a burst of static. “This is Base Three. Subject en route to NYU emergency room with an NYPD cop. ETA three minutes.”

  “How bad is the wound?”

  “Superficial. Ten stitches at most.”

  He slipped the phone into his pocket. “Like Wolf says, you don’t have anything to worry about. Put your mind at ease.”

  Wolf and Irish.

  Bolden looked from one man to the other. Who were these two well-trained, capable thugs? How did they know his name? Who was Guilfoyle? And what in the name of Christ did any of them want with him? The questions repeated themselves endlessly. “I need to know where you’re taking me,” he said quietly. “What’s this all about?”

  Wolf stared back at him. His eyes were yellowish and faintly bloodshot, flickering with a barely controlled animosity. The will to violence radiated from him. It was a force as bracing and impossible to ignore as a slap in the face. “Mr. Guilfoyle will explain everything to you,” he said.

  “I don’t know a Mr. Guilfoyle.”

  “He knows you.”

  “I don’t care if he knows me or not. Where do you get off attacking my girlfriend and forcing me into this car? Who the hell are you guys, anyway? I want an answer!”

  Wolf bolted out of his seat. Fingers pressed tightly together, his arm shot forward and speared Bolden in the chest. “I said to relax. Are we clear?”

  Bolden bent double, unable to breathe. Wolf had moved so fast that he hadn’t had time to react, to even register the assault.

  “There’s no mistake,” said Irish. “You, sir, are Thomas F. Bolden. You serve as the treasurer of the Harlem Boys Club Foundation and sit on the club’s board of trustees. You were awarded that silver plate right there on the floor earlier this evening for your work with the club. Am I right so far?”

  Bolden couldn’t speak. His mouth was open but his lungs were paralyzed. Far away, he heard the citation being read, the words a dying echo. “Thomas Bolden began his work at the Harlem Boys Club six years ago, taking part in the Wall Street Mentoring Program. Blessed with a natural rapport and genuine affection for our youths, he soon became a regular volunteer at the club. Three years ago, Mr. Bolden, in cooperation with the Gang Intervention Unit of the New York Police Department, founded Brand New Day to offer positive lifestyle alternatives to youths living in problem areas. Through an integrated course of counseling, mentoring, and academic and vocational instruction, Brand New Day provides young men and women in the Harlem area a way out of gang-related activities and a means to break out of the ‘circle of destruction’ that claims so many of the neighborhood’s youth.”

  Irish continued. “You graduated summa cum laude with a double major in math and economics from Princeton University. You were captain of the rugby team, but you broke your leg in a game against Yale your senior year, and that was that. You wrote an investments column for the newspaper called ‘Common Cents.’ You worked twenty-five hours a week at Butler Dining Hall. After that, you attended the Wharton School on a full scholarship. You turned down a job with the World Bank, and passed on a Fulbright scholarship to take a job at Harrington Weiss. Last year, you were promoted to director, the youngest to make it in your hiring class. Are we good?”

  “How . . . ?” Bolden began.

  Wolf slid forward and tapped Bolden on the cheek. “Irish asked, ‘Are we good?’ ”

  “We’re good.” It was a whisper.

  We want you, Mr. Bolden.

  The car drove at
a steady pace. Bolden guessed that they were heading north either on the West Side Highway or FDR Drive. They were still in Manhattan. Had they crossed a bridge or passed through a tunnel he would have noticed. He sat as still as a rock, but his mind was doing the hundred-yard dash. He had no grievances outstanding, past or present. He hadn’t violated anyone’s trust. He hadn’t broken any laws. He settled into the soft black leather and ordered himself to wait, to cooperate, to be ready for a chance.

  Bolden lifted the silver plate off the floor and placed it in his lap. A program from the dinner had fallen out of its protective wrap. Irish read it, then handed it to Wolf, who gave it a perfunctory look and threw it back onto the floor.

  “Why do you do it?” asked Irish. “Think you make a difference?”

  Bolden studied the man. His face was lean to the point of being gaunt, the skin drawn tight across his jaw. His complexion ruddy, windburned. The reckless eyes, a flinty blue. It was the face of a climber, a triathlete, a marathoner; someone who enjoyed testing the limits of his endurance. Bolden decided the scar on his cheek was a bullet wound. “You guys were in the army?” he asked. “What, Rangers? Airborne?”

  Neither man protested, and Bolden noted a change in their bearing. A camouflaged pride.

  “What’s that saying of yours?” he went on. “ ‘No man left behind.’ That’s why I do it. The kids up there don’t have someone looking after them to make sure they don’t get left behind.”

  He looked out the window, hoping for a glimpse of the street, but caught only his own reflection. Why did he do it? Maybe because his life had grown settled and routine, and with the kids, nothing was ever settled or routine. Every decision—from what color shirt to wear to school to which fast-food joint to do their homework in afterward—was liable to have a profound impact on their future. It was an existence lived on a razor’s edge, and it required the skill of a tightrope artist just to stay out of trouble. Maybe he did it for himself. Because he’d been one of them. Because he knew what it was like to live day by day, to think of the future as what might happen the week after next. Maybe he did it because he’d been the lucky one who got out, and you never forgot your brothers.