Tower of Babel

by Michael Sears

  “I’m fired,” Ted said. “She didn’t want to talk to me. Go ahead; you give it a shot. Maybe you’ll do better. Here’s a tip: ask her about the giant.”

  -30-

  First order of business on Monday morning was to tell Lester the play was over. Ted owed it to him. The man had pulled rabbits out of hats, forded impassable rivers, climbed towering mountains, and bought Barbara Miller cake.

  Ted checked the records room first. Lester had some research to do on two surplus-money deals he had unearthed. There was no sign of him. He wasn’t on the main floor either. Ted immediately thought of the aroma of vodka and breath mint that Lester carried with him the first day.

  There was only so much time Ted was prepared to expend on being considerate of the feelings of an employee who seemed to have decided to blow off the morning shift. Hangovers were for weekends. Everything changed on Monday morning. Ted gave up the search and moved on to the next order of business.

  The file was in the hands of the judge’s clerk. Ted had never met the man. Clerks could be touchily protective of their charges. It could take years to develop a relationship. Courthouse regulars made it a point to schmooze these gatekeepers. Ted was going in blind.

  It was rush hour for the elevators. He wriggled forward, but he was an amateur, a part-timer. The regulars were unafraid to use knee-high briefcases as weapons of persuasion. Teamwork might have been effective, but it was not in evidence. This crowd couldn’t maintain simple good manners. Ted naively assumed that if he remained upright, the flow of humanity would eventually bring him to an elevator door. Not so.

  A door opened and the current shifted, catching him off-balance. A heavy shoe clipped his ankle and he stumbled. He found his footing and swung around to face the offender. A strong hand gripped his arm, and he felt a three-fingered jab in a kidney. His back went into a spasm, and he thought he might fall to the floor. This was no accident; he had been attacked. Another pair of hands grabbed his other arm.

  The frenzied crowd thinned momentarily, and Ted finally got a glimpse of his assailants. Ivan the Terrible and his pal—the Russian salt and pepper set. Ted tried to pull away, but they frog-marched him through the crowd.

  Ted yelled. “Get your—” was as far as he got. The rest of his sentence was swallowed in a gasp of pain when those fingers jabbed again. He was surrounded by police, lawyers, and various officers of the court, yet he was as vulnerable as a baby.

  They thrust him up against the wall opposite the elevators. Not one person, anywhere in the lobby, was looking in his direction; everyone else was staring at the lights over the elevator bank, handicapping which car would be next to arrive empty. The poker-faced man held Ted upright easily while the guy with the boxer’s nose stepped in close, giving himself enough room to swing a fist. It was a short jab—a hook to an inch south of the solar plexus. Ted brought both knees up to protect his stomach. It worked for a nanosecond. The boxer closed in, brushed Ted’s legs aside, and threw another punch, putting his full weight behind it. Ted folded like a damp dishcloth. He thought he was going to die.

  The first man spoke in Ted’s ear. “You make mistake, Eddie. I give you good advice, but you don’t take it. You file papers and now people are very upset. Many people.” He slapped Ted’s face. Not hard enough to bruise, but he had Ted’s full attention. “Are you scared now? Good. That is good. You should be.”

  “No, no,” Ted whined. “You don’t understand.” He hated the sound of his voice, wheedling and near-hysterical.

  “Be a smart guy,” the man said. “Smart guys learn from others’ mistakes.”

  He let go of Ted, who slid down the wall holding his guts in place.

  They stepped into the crowd and were gone.

  -31-

  He had to find Lester. He had to get to the judge’s clerk. The first move, however, was the most difficult. He had to stand.

  Was there such a thing as a glass stomach? It seemed he had one. In ten years of wrestling, he’d never had to take a punch. He didn’t ever want to take another. Something felt broken. He pressed his back against the wall and slid upright. He didn’t vomit. That was a victory.

  “Are you feeling unwell, sir?”

  Ted looked up into the cold eyes of a heavyset man in uniform. The words were right, but the tone was a hair this side of threatening. Ted focused on the words on the shoulder badge. new york courts. The bailiff was trying to determine whether or not he was a threat. At that moment Ted could not have threatened a kitten.

  “Two men assaulted me,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  The bailiff either hadn’t heard or hadn’t understood the words. It did seem incredible to Ted that someone had struck him with such violence in the midst of a crowd and there were no witnesses crying out. The perpetrators had melted away like wraiths.

  Ted gave up. “I’m fine, thank you. Low blood sugar.”

  “I understand,” the bailiff said. His tone had softened. “Would you like to rest for a minute?” He gestured toward a wooden bench down the corridor.

  “No. Thank you. I need to get upstairs. I’ll be okay.”

  “Let me give you a hand.” He cleared a path through the throng blocking the elevator—suits made way for the uniform—and made sure Ted got on board. “What floor?”

  Ted didn’t like having to take the man’s help but accepted that he needed it. “I’m good,” he said when he was safely in the car. He stabbed a random button while trying to remember where he had told Lester to take the damn filing.

  The Russians knew about the filing. The realization had no sooner hit him than he remembered that they also knew his name. More specifically, they had called him “Eddie.” Fear and pain had kept him from registering the real threat. These people knew a lot about him. If Cheryl was somehow involved—and who else called him Eddie?—the Russians would know his address, hangouts, and daily routine, such as it was. They could find him anytime they felt the need to jam somebody in the kidneys, or in the gonads, or upside the head.

  Ted didn’t typically get migraines, but something very like one descended on him at that point. The pain was instantaneous and blinding. A massive vise was pressing on his temples. His scalp crawled as if spiders were weaving webs there. His peripheral vision shrank so that the space in front of him—a crowded elevator—appeared through a pixelated tunnel, like a kaleidoscope. He needed air. The doors had opened and were closing again.

  “Getting off.” Judging by the snap of heads in his direction, he might have spoken somewhat more loudly than necessary.

  A man held the doors. People made way—not reluctantly as before, but scurrying out of the way of the pasty-faced man. Ted stumbled through the crowd. Once clear he rested his forehead against the government-green wall. It felt cool. Ted thought he might survive—if he could somehow get the pace of his heartbeat down to an easy jog.

  How had he let himself become involved in this asinine fool’s quest? What in hell had he been thinking? He was no superhero. No champion. He had violated his own set of commandments and had no one to blame but himself. Ted had to stop the madness. He had to find the judge’s office and talk to the clerk.

  “I’ve already stamped it received.” The clerk was practically rubbing his hands together with glee. If, in fact, “he” was the correct pronoun. So round as to be gender-neutral, the clerk had close-cropped grey hair, unadorned fingernails, and no sign of either having shaved or having an Adam’s apple. Despite the abrupt change in the weather that had produced an early heat wave, Ted’s happy tormentor was wearing a flannel shirt buttoned to the neck, well-worn corduroy trousers, and powder-blue boat shoes.

  “But it is still in your possession. You can release it.” Ted knew that he was asking for an exception. Only the person who had submitted a document could authorize its removal.

  “You should know that I can’t do th
at.”

  A minor rebuke. He would have been disappointed if the clerk hadn’t found some way of making him feel small. “I understand. But I am the one who signed the document. Lester McKinley works for me. I authorized him to submit a filing on my behalf. Now I would like it back.” The request seemed an uncomplicated one—to a sane individual whose life was not governed by mysterious and capricious rules of procedure.

  “Then you should direct Lester to come here and take care of this business himself. I’ve worked with Lester for years. He knows how things are done.”

  Where was Lester? Ted was teetering on that uncomfortable fulcrum of concern and annoyance. “What happens if I can’t find him?”

  “I guess you’d have a problem.”

  The clerk was enjoying themself way too much. Ted remembered that the Russians had known about the filing. Who had Ted told? Kenzie and the Preacher. Neither could have, or would have, passed along that information. Yet the Judge had known almost immediately. The only other two individuals who knew that a motion had been filed were Lester and this clerk. For a heartbeat or two, Ted allowed himself the bitter luxury of assuming that the missing Lester had been the one to tip off the Russians, the Judge, or both. But the smile on the clerk’s face told a different story.

  Ted felt failure washing over him. “Lester doesn’t seem to be around this morning.”

  The clerk looked up at a wall clock identical to every wall clock in every bureaucrat’s office Ted had ever seen. “I can give you until noon. That’s when I put all new filings in the judge’s inbox.”

  He had fewer than three hours to produce the only man capable of keeping the Cossacks from making good on their threat.

  -32-

  The informal arrangements that Ted maintained with those few who had worked for him had their drawbacks. Other than a cell phone number, he had no way of contacting Lester—and his phone went straight to voice mail. Ted left a message that he hoped conveyed the seriousness of the situation.

  The pain in his gut flared into a wince-inducing stab only when he took a deep breath. The bathroom mirror revealed a deep purple mark with tendrils snaking faintly across his belly. Was there internal bleeding? How would he know? An inch or two higher and he might have had a ruptured liver—if there was such a thing—or a busted sternum. A couple of inches lower and the Molloy genetic trail would have reached a sudden and tragic end.

  He rode the elevator down to the lobby, his mind jumping between ideas for locating Lester. Kenzie knew who he was. Would any of her protestors be of help? Lester had once mentioned a sister. Could Ted locate her? Damn. This was inconvenience squared. What would he do if the case file ended up in front of a judge? The Russians would not like that. Ted would have to hire a lawyer to lose a case.

  The crowds downstairs had dissipated—morning deadlines were over—and he walked out past security and down the steps. He scanned the loiterers out front for the two Russians, half expecting to see them glaring back at him. There was no sign of them.

  The plaza held a tall sculpture that vaguely resembled a twentieth-century subway token. Around it were a series of knee-high concrete mushrooms—each representing one of the original towns of the borough—that served as less-than-comfortable seats, resting points for weary litigants. Lester Young McKinley was sitting on Howard Beach.

  “Thank god, I found you,” Ted said. “Jesus! What happened to you?”

  Lester looked up. Large sunglasses—the kind you see on Floridian retirees—did not entirely hide the stitches and bruises on his face. His right hand was encased in fiberglass and suspended in a blue sling. He looked very small.

  “Morning,” he said. The word slurred, but it wasn’t from vodka. Ted could see wires holding his teeth in place. “Sorry I’m late. I’m feeling a little under the weather this morning.”

  -33-

  Ted had all the right information but had come to the wrong conclusion. Fear will do that. He could admit that he was afraid of so much—physical pain, Jill’s disapproval, the power of her grandfather and his cronies, and, not least, failure. He had surrendered at the first blow struck—or before. But seeing Lester, a pawn on this battlefield, reminded him of something—someone he used to be.

  Once upon a time, Ted had been a young man from an undistinguished background, his father an absent alcoholic and his mother a striver who had lost all pretensions. Ted had studied long and hard and finished law school at the top of his class, proud to be chosen to begin his career at the feet of an eminent judge. Someday, he thought, he would champion the poor, the unlucky, the pushed aside, thumbing his nose at those in power, the corrupt, the uncaring. That guy had become lost along the way. Power, money, and prestige had turned his head. And when they were taken away, he was back to where he had begun.

  Lester was no threat to anyone. The sole reason he’d been given a beating was to send a message—to Ted.

  “You want to tell me about it?” Ted said, taking a seat next to him.

  “Russians.” He swallowed saliva before continuing. “Two. They broke in the front door and came straight to my room.”

  “They knew where to find you.” Ted wouldn’t have known where to find him. Lester had once mentioned an SRO in Hollis but not an address. They’d followed him or put a lot of effort and energy into running him down. Which meant they had resources and were willing to use them.

  Lester nodded, saving his words.

  “Was it the same two? The ones we saw right here?”

  Lester shook his head. “Never seen ’em before.”

  “What did they want? Did they say anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “When?” Ted asked, unconsciously copying Lester’s terse style.

  Lester took a moment to answer. “Yesterday afternoon.”

  While Ted was sleeping off his hangover. “Thank god somebody got you to a hospital.”

  He nodded again. “Neighbor. Drives a cab. Took me to Great Neck.”

  “What the hell? Why’d you go all the way to Nassau County?”

  “You ever been to an ER in an outer borough? People die there.”

  “This guy must be part angel,” Ted said.

  “Son of a bitch wanted me to pay double the meter when we got there. I told him to go ffffuck himself.”

  “Sounds right,” Ted said. “What did they look like? Can you describe them at all?”

  Lester answered with a dismissive shrug. “We didn’t take a long time getting acquainted. I had my feet up and might have been dozing off. They came in, took care of their business, and got out.”

  “Yes, they’re quick. I ran into the two guys from Friday just now.”

  Lester’s expression shifted to exaggerated disbelief.

  Ted’s bruises didn’t show. “They went easy on me.”

  “I’d say so.” Shay sho.

  Ted looked for the Russians again. If they were all in a forties B movie, this would have been the cue for the bad guys to reappear. There weren’t many people around at all. The line of protestors that morning was sparse. Mondays. There was no sign of Kenzie. He found he very much wanted to see her.

  “What are we going to do?” Lester asked.

  “I came here this morning prepared to ditch the whole thing. Pull the file. Screw it, I thought, there’s easier ways of making a buck. What do I care if that tower gets built or if some developer bought off a politician or two? I’m sorry Richie’s dead, but I have to watch out for myself and the people I care about.”

  “Understandable,” Lester said.

  “But I don’t want to do that now.” Both the Judge and the Russian mob wanted him to pull that file; therefore, he would do the opposite. “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

  “Well put.”

  “I don’t know how, but I want to fuck them up.”

  “I like it,” Lester said.
r />   “Got a plan?” Ted asked.

  “No, but I wouldn’t mind a little get back. Besides, I made promises.”

  “To Barbara Miller?”

  “And Anora. She wants that green card,” he said.

  They both stood. “Okay,” Ted said, “but she’s got to wait in line. We have other priorities.”

  “Agreed. You got any ideas?”

  “Not yet, but it’s early. Let’s get some coffee.”

  -34-

  “I need to talk to him, Jill.” The cell phone was both conduit and barrier. Ted wanted to reach through it and shake her.

  Gallagher’s was his fortress. He was in his usual spot, the back booth by the window, with a partial view of the street. The front door and the whole tavern were wide open in front of him. The bartender had the desk sergeant at the 110th Precinct on speed dial. Russian mobsters were not welcome.

  The noon deadline had passed. Ted had been trying to connect with the Judge for hours. Calling Jill was his Hail Mary pass.

  “Call his office,” she said.

  “I tried that.” When Ted had told the secretary he wanted to speak to Con Fitzmaurice, she had said he was in luck because the Judge had “just walked in.” But when she came back on the line a minute later, he had not yet arrived. Ted gave her credit for trying to sound convincing. “He’s not taking my calls.”

  “I don’t want to be involved in anything like this, Ted.”

  “Like what? Just give him my message, and tell him I’m ready to talk. He’s going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  “Will this help Jacqueline?”

  Jackie deserved everything coming her way, but Ted wasn’t going to lie to Jill. If she thought he was lying, he would lose her—and he wasn’t ready for that. Besides, Ted needed her.

  “She’s in trouble,” he said. “I don’t think that’s any secret. If I don’t talk to the Judge, she will take the fall.”