The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth Page A

to be outdone, I say: sure, based at the E.M. Tower building on Park Row.
    ‘Right,’ says Mr D. ‘Well, it may just be that the extremely reclusive personage controlling the E.M. Corporation could be called Mr Muhlheim.’ Now when a guy like Charlie Delmonico says ‘it may just be’ he means he has heard something but you never got it from him. Two minutes later we are back on the street, I hail a passing hansom and we are trotting downtown towards Park Row.
    Now do you guys see why being a reporter can be the best job in the city? I started trying to help out a Frenchie with a problem and I am facing the chance of seeing the most elusive hermit in New York, the invisible man himself. Do I get to do this? Order up another pint of the golden brew, and I’ll tell you.
    We arrive at Park Row and drive up to the Tower. And boy, is it tall? It’s enormous and its tip is damn near in the clouds. All the offices are closed, it’s now dark outside but there is one lit-up lobby with a desk and a porter. So I ring the bell. He comes to enquire. I explain. He lets us into the lobby and calls someone on a private telephone. It must be an inside line because he does not ask for any operator. Then he speaks to someone and listens. Then he says we should leave the letter with him and it will be delivered.
    Of course, I’m not having any of this. Tell the gentleman upstairs, says I, that Mon-sewer Dufour has come all the way from Paris and is charged to deliver the letter in person. The porter says something like that down the phone, then hands it to me. A voice says: Who is this talking? I say, Charles Bloom, Esquire. And the voice says: What is your mission here?
    Now I’m not going to tell the voice that I am from the Hearst Press. I already have the impression that this is a recipe for going straight out the door. So I say I am the associate in New York City of Dufour and Partners, notaries of Paris, France. ‘And what is your mission here, Mr Bloom?’ asks the voice, sounding as if it came straight off the Newfoundland Banks. So I say again that we have to deliver a letter of signal importance into the hands personally of Mr Erik Muhlheim. ‘There is no person of that name at this address,’ says the voice, ‘but if you leave the letter with the porter, I will ensure it reaches its destination.’
    Well, I’m not having any of this. It’s a lie. I could even be speaking to Mr Invisible for all I know. So I try a bluff. ‘Just tell Mr Muhlheim’, says I, ‘that the letter comes from …’ ‘Madame Giry,’ says the lawyer. ‘Madame Giry,’ I repeat down the phone. ‘Wait,’ says the voice. We wait again. Then he comes back on the line. ‘Take the elevator to the thirty-ninth floor.’
    We do that. You guys ever been up thirty-nine floors? No? Well, it’s an experience. Locked in a cage, the machinery clanking all around you, and you’re going up into the sky. And it sways. Eventually the cage stops, I pull the grille to one side and we step out. There’s a fellow there, the voice. ‘I am Mr Darius,’ he says. ‘Follow me.’
    He takes us into a long, panelled room with a boardroom table set with silver pieces. Clearly this is where the deals are struck, the rivals crushed, the weak brought out, the millions made. It’s elegant, Old World style. There are oil-paintings on the walls and I notice one at the far end, higher than the rest. A guy in a wide-brimmed hat, moustache, lace collar, smiling. ‘May I see the letter?’ says Darius, fixing me with a stare like a cobra sizing up a muskrat for lunch. OK, I’ve never seen a cobra or a muskrat, but I can imagine. I nod to Dufour and he puts the letter on the polished table between him and Darius. There is something strange about this man that sends the hairs on my neck straight up. He’s all in black: black frock-coat, white shirt, black tie. Face as white as the shirt, thin, narrow. Black hair and jet-black eyes that glitter but do not blink. I said