Running of the Bulls by Christopher Smith

Author:Christopher Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Wall Street, suspense thriller, mystery and detective, suspense and thrillers, thriller and suspense, Suspense, suspense action, mystery detective, mystery series, Thriller, thriller suspense
ISBN: 1463548397
Publisher: Christopher Smith
Published: 2011-05-27T14:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

6:26 p.m.

Helena Adams’ home was four houses to the left of DeSoto’s and almost directly across from Wood’s. It was three stories of bricks and shiny casement windows, black shutters pressed with winding ivy, a carved mahogany door with stained glass and reinforced, Marty suspected, with at least two inches of steel.

He looked down the street, toward the Park that was so close at the end of it, and watched the dozens of people rushing by on the sidewalk. They were either hurrying up Fifth or hustling to move down it. He pressed the glowing buzzer and waited while trying to clear his mind of the scene he’d just had with DeSoto.

“Those rodents are going to eat you, too, Spellman.”

As he played their conversation over in his head, there was a part of Marty that now thought DeSoto told him more about Wood than he’d originally thought. The man spoke in code. Who were the rodents?

A young Asian woman answered the door.

“Mr. Spellman?” she asked. By her expensive, fitted pale blue suit, Marty guessed she was Adams’ secretary.

“Yes,” Marty said.

“I’m Theresa Wu, Mrs. Adams’ personal assistant. We’re having tea in the library. Mrs. Adams would like you to join us there.”

She stepped aside so he could move past her, then closed the door and motioned for him to follow her down a cool hallway lined with delicate antique tables and paintings on the walls. Marty looked at the tables and saw without surprise the silver-framed, black and white photographs of film stars from another era. Most were signed with love or affection, and none were studio shots. These were from Adams’ personal collection. Somewhere, a central air conditioner whirled cool air into the room.

They turned right at the end of the hall and entered a library whose walls were filled from floor to ceiling with books.

At the far end of the room, where the light was flattering, sat Helena Adams. She rose from her seat to greet him. “Marty,” she said. “God, it’s good to see you. Please, come in.”

Except for her hair, which was now a shorter, elegant silver bob that hugged her famous face, she looked no different from the woman he’d spent an evening with two years ago, at a fundraiser for AIDS research. Tall and slender, still striking in her eighth decade, she had the kind of grace and elegance that could only be natural, not learned or practiced. He took her hands in his own and squeezed them gently. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“I had little choice,” Helena said. “Gloria told me this was important. Have you ever turned that woman down? Awful. All that tense silence. I don’t have that kind of courage anymore.”

But of course she did, and they both knew it. Throughout the 1940s, Helena Adams starred in nearly three dozen films, two of which earned her Academy Awards for Best Actress and turned her into a legend. Hollywood occasionally courted her, but Helena turned her back on them forty years ago to marry Cecil Chadbourne, the billionaire investor.

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