Traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway back from John F. Kennedy International Airport was reasonably light, and the rented BMW was luxurious and comfortable and maintained the right impression for possible clients, service providers, anybody who needed to be impressed; increasingly, that was everyone.

Carlo Ricci was a good match for Marcus in most respects, tall and handsome, the right age, graying hair of roughly the right texture. “We’re going to have to cut that ponytail,” Denise said, the man’s expression bending to a disgusted sneer as he spat out a litany of Italian expletives. Denise said, “Don’t give me any of your jabber, Carlo. The hair goes and that’s that.”

Carlo sat in the thick silence of Denise’s determination and authority, and he leaned back in his seat and looked out the window, knowing himself beaten.

“Quindi chi è il cliente per questo lavoro? Perché volare in Italia?”

Denise sighed and shook her head, muttering, “It’s gonna be a long weekend.”

“Cosa?”

“Look, Carlo, my Italian’s a bit rusty. How’s your English?”

Carlo tilted his flattened hand out in front of him. “Non parlo inglese.”

“Swell.”

But as Denise turned right onto 152nd Street, she spotted the big crowd in front of the hotel. In addition to the throngs of guests, there were also news crews and gawking pedestrians. This has gotta have something to do with Marcus and that McBride woman and their stupid contest.

But there was nowhere to park, and the traffic was moving at a crawl. Denise reached back to her purse and pulled out her smartphone, handing it to Carlo. “Can you use one of these?”

“Posso—? Naturalmente posso usare un telefono! Era un italiano inventato il telefono!”

“Yeah,” Denise muttered, “Marcus Pike, pull up Marcus Pike from the logs.”

Carlo nodded, knowing what she meant even if what she said wasn’t precisely clear. After a few swipes, Carlo handed the phone back to Denise. Her eyes fixed on the crowd as the car crawled past the hotel, Denise waited for Marcus to pick up the phone. His recorded message was all she needed to know about what happened.

Should I leave a message? If McBride’s got him, that’ll tip her off that I know. I guess there’s nothing I can really do about it now.

So Denise waited until after the beep to say, “Marcus, it’s Denise back from the airport. What happened here; where are you? Call me as soon as you can.” Denise ended the call, but she knew it was pointless. He’d have called me if he’d had the time, Denise knew, warned me something was up. If he didn’t call, if he didn’t answer the phone, it’s because he couldn’t.

But Denise had to make sure. Spotting a news crew across the street from the hotel, on Denise’s side, she stuck her head out the window. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Bomb threat to the Michelangelo Hotel. They think it’s terrorists maybe.”

Denise glanced back at the hotel, then at the chubby, bearded man with the video camera. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get hurt?”

He just shrugged. “Another terrorist attack on New York City? That’ll be the story of the year; well, one of them anyway. That’s TMZ, Huff Post, national exposure, five million views easy.”

“But hundreds, maybe thousands of people could be hurt or killed.”

“I know!” The man raised the camera back onto his shoulder, eyes locked on the digital screen jutting out of the side of the device.

Denise sighed, shaking her head while the cars honked behind her. Having little choice and no desire to stick around, Denise drove on, turning right on 6th to get out of the traffic. But no matter where Denise turned, she was trapped, locked in a series of circumstances of which she had little to no control.

Yet again.

“This is bad,” Denise said, glancing around as she crawled down the boulevard.

“Si,” Carlo said.

“Just…I gotta think this out, okay?” Carlo raised his flattened hands to appease her, turning to gaze out the window and ignore her altogether. “She’s got him, I know she does. Bomb threat. Terrorists? Please! But how did she know where we were? How did she know I wasn’t there?” But a mere glance at Carlo inspired a guess in the back of Denise’s imagination. “Unless she’s got service providers of her own on the case. Of course! She’s based here, offices in Boston, too. Cagey bitch, she’s been tailing us!”

Carlo looked over, shrugged, then turned back to the window.

“We underestimated her; well, I did anyway. And Marcus, I’ve never seen anybody get to him like this. He’s never slipped, not once. Now all the sudden this ginger bitch gets the drop on him? No, it’s…he must have wanted it, even if it was just subconsciously, ya know what I mean? He’d never have let anybody else nab him, no way. A bomb threat? How was he fooled by that?”

But the somber reality of the world in the early twenty-first century reminded Denise that such things did happen, and in New York nobody took them frivolously.

“Maybe there really was a bomb threat,” Denise thought aloud. “But no, he’d have answered his phone, or called me. He’d never just leave me out of the loop like that.” Denise shook her head, looking out over the traffic and honking her horn, shouting, “Move your ass, for chrissake!”

Carlo turned, an annoyed grimace on his aging face.

“Anyway, he’s slipping, that’s all there is to it. If she got him, they’re one for one. He could lose this bet, lose the whole company. Then I’m screwed! You don’t think she’s going to want me around once she’s in charge? I’ll be lucky to get a decent severance and a letter of fucking recommendation!”

Carlo muttered something in Italian, but Denise ignored him. “I could run the company; I could run both companies. You don’t think a black woman can break the glass ceiling? And it’s not that I haven’t thought about it, of course I have. I’m not some dizzy secretary, right? I’ve got a degree in business law. I’ve got a brown belt in taekwondo! But I’ve never had the chance; the time’s never been right.”

She stopped at an intersection, a parade of pedestrians crossing in front of her car. “I’ve learned a lot from Marcus, don’t get me wrong. But time comes when a person has to stop being the pupil, become the teacher. And this, now, this could be the time, Carlo, I’m tellin’ ya, this could be my time.”

The light changed and Denise pushed the car forward. “If I can take them both out somehow, now while they’re distracted by all this, by each other…but how? I can’t keep flying people in from Europe; he’ll find out. And I can’t afford to charge it on my own cards; where would I put everybody anyway? And what am I supposed to do with an army of European sex actors anyway? No, Marcus knows you all by face anyway. And he knows you’re here too, which makes you practically worthless to me.”

Carlo sneered, recognizing at least a few of Denise’s words and attracting her placating attention. “I’m sure we can make some use out of you. You’re here anyway, and Marcus is still the boss. You go back when he says you go back. ‘Til then, you’re working for me, is that clear?”

Carlo nodded and turned back to the window.

“Still,” Denise went on, “we’re gonna need help.”