Read From Manhattan with Revenge (The Fourth Book in the Fifth Avenue Series) for Free Online Page B

slowing him down. Soon, they were in the library and she faced Gelling,
an ancient-looking man with a full head of white hair neatly combed back and an
inquisitive face that brightened when he saw her. In his plush, battery-powered
wheelchair, he buzzed quickly toward her.
    “Carmen Gragera,” he said in a voice that
wasn’t as frail as it was when she spoke to him last night on the phone. “I’m
so glad you came.”
    “Thank you for seeing me.”
    He stopped just short of her and looked up
at her with clouded green eyes that reminded her of the sea. He reached out his
hand and she shook it. Here is where she felt his frailty. His skin was soft
and papery. His fingers, twisted from arthritis, were so slender, she knew she
could snap them with a brisk shake. On the back of his hands were brown spots
and purple bruises. It reminded her of her grandfather’s hands not long before
he died.
    “My name is Gelling,” he said. “James
Gelling. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard about you, you know?”
    “I didn’t know.”
    “Vincent thinks a lot of you.”
    “I’m glad to hear that. It’s mutual. I’ve
learned a lot from him.”
    “Take it all in, my dear. Take it all in.
He’s the best. You’ve worked with him only once, correct? That Wall Street
job?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Didn’t go as planned, I hear.”
    “Sometimes, it doesn’t.”
    He waved his crippled hand in the air. “So
many things don’t. Look at me, for instance. Pretzels for fingers. Trapped in
this wheelchair. A slave to its batteries, not to mention to my own body, which
has betrayed me worse than my own children did.” He cocked his head at her.
“All of them are dead, you know? I outlived them all. Every last one. Isn’t
that unusual? And wonderful, given how they treated me. How old do you think I
am?”
    She knew better than to stretch the truth
with this man. She studied his face and gave it her best shot. “In your
nineties?”
    “High or low end?”
    “Depends on how young you were when you
had your children.”
    “I’m not saying.”
    “Then I’m thinking somewhere in the
middle.”
    “So, I’ve done well,” he said. “The
lotions worked. And you’ve fed my vanity, which doesn’t happen often enough.
I’m one hundred and three years old, Carmen. I could be gone during this very
meeting, so you should prepare yourself for that. I could just slump over in my
chair, shit my pants, and that’s it. Lights out. That’s what it’s like at my
age. You never know when death will hit. Being this old is the most surreal
experience. I go to sleep at night and think, ‘Well, that’s it. Surely, I’ve
snuffed the final candle by now.’ Then I wake the next morning stunned to
realize I have another shot to make a difference.”
    “How do you make a difference?” she asked.
    “In all sorts of ways. I believe one of
them is the reason you’re here. Come, come. Over to those sofas behind me. Have
a seat in one of them. If I’m going to help you, I want to get to know you
better. I want to know about you.”
    She felt her guard go up. Carmen rarely
spoke about her personal life. Since her early twenties, the only person she
fully let in was Alex.
    He whizzed over in his chair, which
whirred past her as if a gigantic bee had been let loose in the room. She
sensed he enjoyed the speed. Got a little thrill from it. “Would you like
something to drink? Iced tea? Coffee?”
    “I’d love an iced tea.”
    “Lemon? No lemon?”
    “Lemon.”
    “Sweetened? Unsweetened.”
    “Unsweetened.”
    “I figured as much. You’re trim.” He
looked up at her friend, Big Ben with the watch eye patch, who was standing
beside the sofa in which she sat, his massive forearms folded across the broad
expanse of his equally massive chest. “An unsweetened ice tea with lemon for Carmen
and the same for me, please. Don’t forget my straw. And stop looking so tense,
Frank. Carmen is a friend of Vincent’s and thus she’s a