Even with light traffic on the FDR Drive it took us more than half an hour to get to Princeton Wells’s mansion on Central Park West.
“You realize he knows we’re coming,” Kylie said. “Hirsch probably called him the minute we left, so he’s had more than enough time to rehearse his answers.”
“Since when do people need time to rehearse the truth?” I said, ringing the front doorbell.
“Since when have any of these people been remotely truthful?”
I could see that Wells had a change in attitude as soon as he opened the door. The preppy billionaire was wearing jeans, a faded work shirt, a perfectly wrinkled hunter-green cashmere V-neck sweater, and bright red Nikes. But not a trace of a smile.
“I spoke to Nathan,” he grumbled, leading us up the stairs to his office. “He’s out of his mind.”
“Understandable,” I said. “He’s afraid he’s next on the killer’s hit list.”
“I didn’t say he’s out of his mind with fear,” Wells snapped. “I’m saying the man is out of his fucking mind. What was he thinking, sending you off to accuse Malique La Grande of those murders?”
“You don’t think Malique is responsible?”
We entered Wells’s office. “No,” he said, slamming the door shut. “I have no doubt that if Malique were in charge twenty years ago, he’d have killed us all. Luckily for us, Dingo called the shots. But I knew Dingo wouldn’t be around forever, so I reached out to Malique—quietly, privately—and over time we reached a peaceful accord. A détente, if you will.”
“So are we talking about a handshake agreement here?” Kylie asked.
Wells finally cracked a faint smile. “I didn’t so much shake his hand as grease his palm. Regularly.”
“You pay him not to kill you.”
“It’s basic street economics—the same as the local pizza parlor paying the mob for protection. It was an insurance policy in case Malique ever got to be the boss.”
“And now that he is, do you think he kept his word?” I asked.
“Yes. I don’t think he killed Arnie or Del, but now that Nathan has gone and sicced the cops on him, I hope he doesn’t go off the deep end and kill us for lack of respect. The Zoes are bad to the bone. They don’t resolve problems. They eliminate them. Malique’s son killed a total stranger in a bar just for looking at him funny.”
“Tell us about your friend Geraldo Segura,” Kylie said.
“Friend,” Wells said, spitting out the word. “More like a hustler, but none of us knew it at the time. He was the scrappy little scholarship kid from El Barrio, and we were the hot shit Upper East Side rich kids. You’d think that he’d idolize us—that he’d want what we had—but that’s not the way it played out. It wasn’t long before we all wanted to be him.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you’re nineteen, being rich and white with your future all planned out for you is like a death sentence. Geraldo lived on the edge. He was a street fighter, fast on his feet, and even faster with his fists. The girls loved him. When he was fifteen he was banging this eighteen-year-old, and her two brothers jumped him. They both wound up eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner through a straw for the better part of a year.”
“And you wanted to be him?” I said.
He nodded. “I’m guessing you were never a big fan of gangsta rap, were you, Detective?”
“Not my kind of music,” I said.
“It was mine—N.W.A., Tupac, Wu-Tang. It’s about struggling against life in the ghetto, and I identified. Geraldo and I just came from different ghettos.”
“Tell us about the drug run for Dingo Slide,” I said.
“We were coming up on Christmas break. I told Geraldo we were going to Bangkok on my father’s plane and asked if he wanted to come along. He said no. I said we’re gonna get drunk, we’re gonna get stoned, we’re gonna get laid, and he said, ‘Me too, and I don’t have to go halfway around the world to do it.’ The next day, he went from no to maybe. He knew Dingo was our dealer, and he told us he knew how we could get three, four months’ supply of coke free. All we had to do was bring back a small package from Thailand.”
“And you knew what was in the package.”
“Hell, yeah. That’s what made it exciting. I wouldn’t pick up somebody’s laundry for free cocaine. But smuggling heroin from Thailand? Do you have any idea what kind of a rush that was?”
“Malique said you’re the one who cut the deal with Dingo.”
“Dingo knew me. I was a good customer. I guess he trusted me as much as any Haitian drug lord can trust a rich white kid. It was all Geraldo’s idea, but I got to be the front man. I loved it.”
“How come he’s in prison, and you’re not?”
“My father paid the Thais a fortune to let us go. But they would only release four of us. They needed someone to stay behind. It’s their perverted way of showing their justice system works. The last thing I did before I left Geraldo was make a promise that we’d take care of his family. We have.”
“Did Nathan Hirsch tell you that Segura may have crossed paths with the man who designed the bombs?”
“Yes, but Nathan is an idiot if he thinks Geraldo’s abuela is funding these bombings.”
“Can you think of anyone here in the States who might be acting on his behalf?”
“No, but I’m not the right person to ask.”
“Who is?”
“Geraldo Segura.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Bullshit. Two of my partners are dead, and I’m starting to believe Nathan that he and I are next on the list. So do me a favor: get your glorified supercop asses on the next plane to Bangkok, and keep that from happening.”
“I don’t know what that would cost,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure the department isn’t going to shell out the kind of money it would take to fly us to Thailand.”
“You never know till you ask, Detective.”
“I wouldn’t even know who to ask.”
“Then we’re in luck,” Wells said. “Because as it turns out, I do.”