“Listen up, everybody!” Quinn yelled. People stood up at their desks and looked over the partitions at her. “The police are here, and for good reason. I’ll explain that later. In the meantime, if Ed calls in, everything is as usual, got that?”

Everybody nodded. “I want Pierce, Williams, and Cohen in Ed’s office right now.” She got down from the desk and went back to Abney’s office. The three others came in, looking curious.

Dino stood in the door and listened.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “Ed is going to be arrested before the day is out, and you can guess why. This time, he’s not going to get away with it. I think the four of us can buy this business cheap, as soon as he realizes how much trouble he’s in. He’s going to need cash, and quick. Who’s game?” Three hands went up. “All right, let’s talk about your 401(k)s and mine,” Quinn said.

Dino closed the door and went out to the reception room, just in time to meet the pair of detectives who were arriving. He gave them their instructions, then turned to Rosie. “Let’s go. I’m taking you to the Hamptons.”

“Why, boss,” Rosie said, “I didn’t know you cared.”

“PULL OVER here,” Dino said. They were at a map store at Forty-third and Sixth Avenue. “I want to get a map of East Hampton.”

“Map?” Rosie said, looking at him askance. “A paper map? Didn’t you ever hear of GPS, boss?”

“Have you ever tried using a cell phone map in a moving helicopter?” Dino asked. “Maintaining an Internet signal at a hundred knots?”

She shrugged.

“I’ll be right back.” Dino bought a map of East Hampton, then Rosie used the siren, while Dino found the street on the map. When they got to the West Side heliport, a police chopper was sitting on the pad, its rotors turning.

Dino opened the pilot’s door, gave him the street map, and pointed out the house. “Put it down as close as you can get to the house.” He got into the passenger compartment with Rosie, and they put on headsets.

The chopper rose from the pad, turned out over the river, and gained a couple of thousand feet, then turned and flew over lower Manhattan. The view was spectacular. They crossed Brooklyn, got past the Verrazano Bridge, then followed the south Long Island waterfront east, toward the Hamptons. There was an overcast a few hundred feet above them, but as they flew, the sky cleared and the ocean shone beneath them.

“He’s going to be there, I know it,” Dino said.

“I’ve never flown in a helicopter before,” Rosie said.

Dino patted her on the knee. “They’re very, very dangerous,” he said.

48

DINK BRENNAN finished his breakfast, then went to his computer address books and began making calls. It took three before he got lucky.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Vanessa, it’s Dink.”

“Hey, Dink, how are you doing?” Her voice was bright and inviting.