Free Hide and Seek by James Patterson Page B

took her life in eighteen months, her spirit long before that, and he was left, at age fifty-four, with nothing except wealth, their rebellious son, Peter, and the tremendous sympathy of friends.
    Now he was building his most magnificent hotel around the shell of an antique mansion, much as Helmsley had done with the Palace. At completion, there would be four hundred rooms, including seventy suites, some with original marble from Witherspoon House. Guests would have a pick of styles: Renaissance Italian; eighteenth-century French; ultramodern American.
    And in every room in The Cornelia—O'Malley wondered why he had not settled on the name sooner as he envisioned the hotel—there would be Pears soap and Porthault towels. It was going to be a truly Grand Hotel, the way they used to build them in the best of times, before the invention of accountants.
    He spent the entire day at the hotel, meeting with Freund in the morning, personally directing the centimeter-by-centimeter polishing of the marble columns in the lobby, checking the seating and lighting in the Gold Bar, and then, at noon, meeting with the chief architect, Michael Hart.
    Their conversation lasted through lunch. Hart went through several crucial items, most important, the gilding of the Renaissance ornamentation of the main lobby and the filigree above the windows at the entrance on Lexington.
    Alone once more, O'Malley moved into the kitchen, at last hearing the sweetly satisfying racket of hammering and drilling—the stainless steel stoves, warming ovens, and counters were finally going in after a fourteen-week wait for materials. There were already enough copper pots, O'Malley noted with pleasure, to open the largest supply store in Manhattan.
    At seven-thirty, O'Malley found himself once again passing beneath the lobby's antique clock, a timepiece that had once adorned the Winter Palace of Catherine the Great.
    At the center of the hotel atrium in the rear of the lobby, an original Bernini fountain, imported from Rome, had been restored to its matchless splendor. That afternoon, plumbing had finally been completed by Timothy Sullivan of the Bronx Local 41, who called O'Malley to announce that all systems were go.
    “All ready for lift-off,” O'Malley muttered, unlocking the knob that controlled the spigots and spray.
    The water rose in gentle bends and bows. O'Malley's face shone like a child's on Christmas Day.
“Damn
but that's fine,” he said aloud in the deserted garden.
    But the spray had to go higher still, he considered as he studied the fountain. He turned the knob. The water remained at its level.
It would never catch the afternoon sunlight
, he thought. It was like the ejaculation of a ninety-year-old man.
    That bastard Sullivan. All systems go my ass! I'll fix it so he never ejaculates again
.
    Already, Patrick O'Malley had made his first mental note for the next day.
    He passed under the lobby clock again, then stopped and checked his own watch.
Eight-sixteen! The lobby clock was three minutes fast!
    He felt murder in his chest. “Slow down, Pat,” he imagined Nellie's voice telling him. “Careful, careful.” He didn't give a good, flying fuck about “careful.” With incompetent kiss-asses all around him—and with Nellie gone—what good was living anyway?

CHAPTER 27
    W HEN JENNIE WAS thirteen and it was almost time for her to go to high school, I bought a beautiful house on Greenbriar Road in Bedford, New York. It was time for both of us to have a real home. More important, I wanted Jennie settled into a good school.
    I wanted stability, and peaceful surroundings, both for Jennie and myself. We picked out the house together. Both of us loved it, the sprawling grounds, and the town of Bedford. We finally had a home again.
    I was already infamous for being extremely selective about playing concerts and being on the road. I think I had my priorities straight, and my head screwed on as well. I'd never wanted to think of myself as a star,