Page 254

I’m done keeping her there.

I don’t say all of that to Niko. All I say is, “Call Gershon.”

Gershon Ellis keeps a two-office suite on the ninth floor of a building on Fifty-Third Street. He’s the best in the business. Sharp as a blade at seventy-one and he has never once asked me a question he didn’t need the answer to.

When I finish talking, he takes off his glasses and cleans them on his tie and puts them back on.

“Say it again,” he says. “Slowly. All of it.”

So I do.

Withdraw the enforcement permanently. I don’t want a stay or a forbearance or anything that can be reversed on a whim. Kill it. Kill it all.

Record the release of lien with the city so 4412 Fourth Avenue comes back unencumbered.

Cancel the guaranty. Void, retroactive to the date it was executed, with an acknowledgment on the face of it that the guarantor never signed and never consented.

Draft me a sworn statement, notarized, in my own name, saying that Delilah A. Dorsey did not authorize the loan, did not sign the guaranty, never received a dollar of the proceeds, and that I became aware her signature was not her own and took no steps to correct the record.

Gershon puts his pen down when I finish the second go-around. “You understand what that document is, right? It’s an admission. Not criminal on its face, but a decent prosecutor could build a case from it. A civil lawyer could start a nine-figure conversation. If she ever wants to come at you, you’re handing her the evidence.”

“She won’t need to come at me. I’m not going to defend anything.”

He considers that, then picks the pen back up.

Every entity connected to the loan will sign a waiver. V Haven Holdings first, then Harrow Nine, Terminal Row Realty, Bright Anchor, and the rest of them from Niko’s list, in numbered order. Ninety-odd companies. Every one of them will waive any claim, present or future, against the property, the owner, the equipment, the business, and the name.

“And the assemblage?” Gershon asks. “Everything you’ve been working toward?”

“Lot 22 comes out of it.”

He sets the pen down again and rubs his temples. “There’s a purchase option,” he says. “There’s a right of first refusal in the side letter. There’s a recorded memorandum that gives you first position on that parcel for eleven more years.”

“Burn it all to a crisp.”

“Kane, have you considered⁠—”

“All of it goes, Gershon,” I interrupt. I stand and gather my belongings. “When you’re done, I want a woman who owns a two-story brick building in Sunset Park to own it free and clear. And I don’t want a damn person on this earth—not even me—to be able to take it from her.”

On Tuesday, I sign for six hours at a conference table with two of Gershon’s associates bringing the pages in stacks and taking them out again.

On Wednesday, the release goes to the register’s office and gets recorded.

Wednesday night, Gershon’s paralegal drives an affidavit out to a notary in Bay Ridge.

Thursday, I call the developer myself.

He’s a greedy man named Fletcher who has been waiting years for the corridor. I tell him the assembly will no longer be complete, and that the block at Forty-Fourth and Fourth has a hole in it that is not for sale and will not become for sale.

He’s stunned at first. Then he talks for a long time. He uses the word “unworkable” repeatedly. He tells me what the number was and what the number is now, which is significantly lower.

“I understand,” I tell him.

Then I hang up.

Friday, Niko finds me at the dining table with the map unrolled and the crystal ashtray holding down the curled corner.

He stands over it. Green from Thirty-Ninth to Forty-Fifth, water on one side and Third Avenue on the other, with one gleaming white square in the middle.