Page 16 of King’s Ransom

The marble floors shone.

The ceiling was high, at least fourteen feet.

A broad curved white staircase spiralled elegantly down to the lower levels.

‘Three levels,’ Audrey said. ‘This top level has the master bedroom, kitchen and lounge/living area. Middle level is for entertaining: it’s got a dining room, a guest bedroom and the children’s bedrooms. Bottom level houses the private office, gym, sauna, steam room, golf simulator, and a panic room.’

Heidi snorted. ‘But is there a golf simulator in the panic room? I mean, why stop at all this insane luxury? Shouldn’t he be able to hit balls while hiding in it?’

‘Of course, we checked the panic room right away. Mr King never made it there,’ Audrey said. ‘Its door is wide open.’

I scanned the level we were on, the top one.

Picassos and other fine art adorned the walls of the entry vestibule.

One large painting depicted a Greek warrior standing in a giant Parthenon-like tomb, facing a crumbling ancient pyramid.

‘Nice painting,’ Bill said.

‘Rare, too,’ I said. ‘It’s called Alexander the Great Visiting the Tomb of Achilles by Robert Hubert. It was painted in the 1700s.’

Incongruously, beside all the fine art, I saw a small frame containing two coloured booklets.

I leaned in close to examine it.

They were comic books.

Very old and very rare comic books, one titled action comics with Superman holding a green car over his head. The other was simply titled bat man.

‘Holy shit,’ I said. ‘Those are Superman No. 1 and Batman No. 1 in the same frame.’

‘They’re what?’ Heidi asked. (Heidi is 25. Physical comic books are entirely alien to her.)

Bill Brewster answered. ‘They’re original editions of the comics that featured the first appearances of Superman and Batman. They’re worth millions individually, but together, I mean, sheesh.’

I thought that given our mutual admiration of Alien and Batman stories, maybe Aristo King and I would get along well.

Seriously, his apartment was awesome.

Every couch, vase and side table matched, all flowing together in a seamless mix of tans and that tone of off-white that Heidi calls ‘rich people’s beige’.

Matching most of all, however, was an entire bookcase filled with hardcover books that all had blank beige spines.

(To be honest, that piece of interior decoration was a bit douchey and not nearly as cool as the framed comic books. I wondered if the blank-spined books were blank on the inside, too.)

All in all, the style of the place was just right.

And that was before you beheld all the fourteen-foot-high floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the astonishing views.

It was like living in the sky, high above the city, above the rest of the population, above the world.

And this was just one floor.

Aristo King owned three.

A small cluster of officials were gathered in the vestibule.

Four cops in blue NYPD uniforms plus a plain-clothed detective; the building’s portly superintendent in pristine white coveralls (bushy moustache, glasses; with ‘59West’ embroidered on his ­cover­alls plus the name ‘Lenny’); and three junior FBI agents in (the usual) cheap suits.