Wade held her stare for 2 seconds. He blinked first. He turned. He walked back across Madison and through the brass door. The door swung shut behind him with a soft brass click that sounded in the autumn quiet almost polite.
Solomon and Nina did not stay on the bench long after that. They flagged a cab on 78th. Nina got in first. Solomon climbed in after her. He gave the driver the address of his apartment. He didn't say a word the rest of the ride.
Back in the penthouse, the coffee from that morning was still on the counter, cold in the mug. Nina opened her laptop on the kitchen island. She pulled up the corporate structure of Taylor Capital Partners. She typed in the address of 745 Madison Avenue. The system returned a record dated September 14th, 2019. Full purchase, all cash. Held by a holding LLC three layers down from the parent. The ground floor tenant, Sterling Advanced Timepieces, lease renewed March of the current year. The in-store security vendor, Coastline Loss Prevention LLC. Master Services Agreement renewed by Taylor Capital Partners 14 months ago. Authorized signatory on every document, Solomon J. Taylor.
Greg Whitfield was already on a Zoom screen by 1:15. "I have the lease, I have the vendor agreement, I have the staffing roster. I'm pulling the safe logs now. We need to talk."
Solomon and Nina sat on opposite stools at the island. Nina pushed her laptop toward the screen. "Tell me what I'm looking at," Greg said.
Solomon spoke first. "I'm not going to fire this man because he's a racist." Greg waited. "He is a racist, and there are a thousand racists working in retail in this country, and I cannot fire them all on a Saturday afternoon. I'm firing him because he put his hands on my wife, in my building, on my payroll, in front of my tenants, while the store manager watched from behind the counter and did absolutely nothing."
Nina was quiet beside him. She was rolling her wedding ring around her finger with her thumb.
"Greg," Solomon said, "I need you to be a friend for 1 minute, not a lawyer. Can you do that?"
"Yes. Ask me what you need to ask me." Greg took off his glasses. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. He put the glasses back on. "18 years I've represented you. I've never seen you wrong about a thing like this, but I have to ask, are you reacting because of Nina? Or are you reacting because of him?"
Solomon did not answer right away. Outside the window, a flock of pigeons lifted from a rooftop across the avenue. Nina put her hand over his on the marble.
"Both, Greg, and that's the problem. I need to know I'm not firing an innocent man on the worst day of my wife's year. I need data. I need numbers. I need an independent line of evidence. Because if I'm wrong about the safe, I still fire him for what he did this morning. That's not in question. But if I'm right about the safe, then he's not just a man with a bad heart. He's a thief who used a uniform and a racial profile to do his stealing. And those are two different men. And they get treated two different ways."
Greg nodded slowly. He wrote something on a yellow pad. "Monday morning, you'll have it."
"Monday morning."
The Zoom ended. Solomon closed the laptop. Nina put her head on his shoulder for the first time all day. He kissed the top of her hair. They sat that way for a long time.
Across the river, that same evening, in a third-floor walk-up in Astoria, Wade Greer kicked off his shoes and dropped his blazer over the back of a chair. He went to the bedroom. He got down on his knees. He pulled a fireproof safe out from under the bed. He spun the dial. Inside the safe, neat banded stacks of cash sat next to a small stack of folded receipts. Each receipt had the Sterling Advance logo in the corner. He pulled the top one off. He added a new band of bills to the stack, fresh from his blazer's inner pocket. He smoothed it down. He closed the safe. He stood up. He stretched. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a tall drink and laughed once at something on his television.
He had no idea as he sat down on his couch in his socks that 14 blocks across the East River, a 60-year-old lawyer was already on the phone with a contact at the Manhattan District Attorney's financial crimes desk. A meeting was being scheduled. A subpoena was being drafted. A camera angle that pointed directly at the back office of a luxury watch store was being copied frame by frame onto a secure server that Wade Greer could not access and could not delete. He took a long sip of his drink. He smiled at the ceiling. It was the last good night he was going to have for a very long time.
Monday morning at 7:48, Wade Greer pulled his Ford into the employee lot behind the building. The sky over Madison Avenue was the kind of clean autumn blue you only get in October. He whistled as he walked around the corner toward the front door. He had the kind of weekend in his rearview that a man feels good about. He'd taught a couple of grifters a lesson on Saturday. He'd added $1,400 to the safe under his bed on Saturday night. The Knicks had won on Sunday. Life was good.
He reached the front of Sterling Advance. The door was locked. Wade frowned. He checked his watch. He checked the hours posted on the brass plaque. He checked the door again. He cupped his hands against the glass. Inside, the lights were on. The display cases were lit. But the showroom floor was empty. No salesmen, no customers, no music. A piece of cream-colored cardstock was taped to the inside of the glass, level with his eyes. All staff, conference room, mandatory, 8:30 a.m.
Wade tapped on the glass. After a moment, a guard he barely knew unlocked the door. He didn't smile. He didn't say good morning.
"Upstairs, Wade."
"What's going on?"
"Upstairs."
Wade rode the elevator up to the third floor. He stepped out. The conference room door was open. Margaret Hollis was already seated at the long mahogany table. Her face was the gray color of wet ash. Beside her, at the head of the table, sat two men in dark suits. The older one had a yellow legal pad. The younger one had a laptop open and a leather folder closed in front of him. Wade did not recognize either of them. At the far end of the table, sat Beatrice Donovan. Her eyes were red. She didn't look up.
"What is this?" Wade said. Nobody answered him. He sat down anyway. He folded his arms.
The conference room door opened again. Solomon and Nina Taylor walked in. Solomon wore a charcoal suit cut close. White shirt, navy tie. The hoodie was gone. The jeans were gone. Nina wore a slate gray suit, her hair pulled back into a low knot at the nape of her neck. Pearl studs, a small gold pin on her lapel that Wade had no way of recognizing, but that the lawyer on the right of the table nodded at when she passed.
Wade's face did something complicated. Recognition first, then disbelief, then a small involuntary sound from the back of his throat that nobody pretended not to hear. Margaret Hollis closed her eyes.
Solomon did not sit down. He walked to the head of the table. He placed a leather folder on the wood in front of Wade. He did not open it.
"Mr. Greer."