by Tim Green
19
JAKE MADE IT TO the back wall of the cavernous space and raced along its edge like a rat, praying and feeling for a way out, sweat breaking out under his arms and on his brow. One of the men retrieved a flashlight from a vehicle and their shouts were now accompanied by the sweeping probe of light. When his hands found a doorframe, he cast himself through it just as the beam flashed past. Metal stairs went only down and he took them, placing his feet as carefully as he could and with no idea how far down the stairs would go and seeing absolutely nothing now.
Even the lightest step of his feet sent a faint echo through the stairwell. Cool dank air filtered up at him and a petroleum odor laced the rancid smell of standing sewage water. When his feet stumbled on the last step, he splashed forward, groping for a handhold, finding a broken wall, and keeping himself from falling face-first into the filth. A faint circle of light cast a gloomy pall through the factory basement. Pipes the size of storm drains lay in ruin and scattered about like a child’s toys. Jake sloshed toward the source of light and reached the three-foot opening just as he heard the voices above enter the stairwell.
Feet clanged on the metal stairs and the flashlight’s beams created a panic of shadows. Jake scurried into the piping without hesitation, relieved by the strong smell of the river. The slight decline and decades of oily slime made it hard for Jake to keep upright even on his hands and knees. He was halfway to the light when he heard and felt the monstrous pulse of a freighter out on the river. The damp air pounded into Jake’s ears. He slipped and slid and crawled, frantic to get out. With just five feet to go an explosion of foam blasted him in the face. Water filled his mouth and nose and the force of the surge pumped him backward and halfway up the pipe.
Jake choked and banged his head on the top of the pipe, catching the smallest gasp of air before being sucked back out toward the river. He turned over and grasped with his hands for anything to hold, catching nothing, plummeting down, slamming his head on a rock, everything turning dark, then nothing.
20
CASEY APPRECIATED Jake’s concern but couldn’t get too worried about it because she smelled success for the Freedom Project and that diminished the TV reporter’s conspiracy theories. She spent the afternoon on a conference call with Stacy and the rest of her staff. They covered a slew of issues, from an appeal for a deportation case to a woman the DA was charging as an accessory in a robbery, even though the police knew she was nothing more than the unsuspecting driver for her husband and his friend. Casey lost track of time, and the sudden, harsh knock at her hotel room door made her gasp.
“Are you okay?” Stacy asked.
“Of course,” Casey said. “Just someone at the door. Hang on.”
She set the phone down and quietly swung the security bar over the latch, peering through the peephole. The distorted figure of a man in a suit shifted from one foot to the other. When she saw him extend a pinkie finger and go for his ear, she threw aside the security bar and threw open the door.
“Marty?” she said, loud enough so that he jumped. “What are you doing here?”
Marty stammered for a moment, then said, “I told Ralph I’d help with anything you need.”
“Ralph?”
Marty nodded. “He said he had to do something, and he wanted me to just hang around like he does and give you a ride if you need one. So I’ve been down in the lobby and it’s almost six o’clock and I got worried about you. They said you didn’t order room service or anything. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Who did you ask about me ordering room service?” Casey asked, folding her arms across her chest.
The red blotches on Marty’s face deepened. He shrugged and said, “I went to school with the manager.”
“You’re spying on me? Asking questions?” Casey said, still angry at being startled.
“Not like that,” Marty said. “I just wanted to help. I heard you raised hell with the judge and I thought you might want to eat. There’s a pizza place up on Main Street. I could bring you some.”
Casey sighed and said, “I’m fine, Marty.”
“Okay,” Marty said, jamming his hands into his pant pockets and backing away. “Do you want to just call my cell phone if you need something, then?”
“That will work great,” she said. “And please, don’t hang around the lobby.”
“But Ralph-”
Casey held up a hand. “Ralph’s not my boss and he’s not yours. Please. Go home. I’ll call if I need anything.”
“Like a ride to the courthouse tomorrow?” Marty asked.
“If I need it,” Casey said, thinking Jake was sure to be back. “Good night, Marty. Thank you.”
Marty hung his head and turned to go.
“Marty,” she said, and he spun on a dime. “Thanks for your help with the hospital brief.”
“I thought I was bothering you,” Marty said, wrinkling his nose.
“You asked some good questions,” she said, “and that’s what a good lawyer does.”
Marty blushed and thanked her and walked away. She watched him go, then finished up with her team on the phone, snapping it shut before turning her thoughts to Jake. When the phone suddenly rang, she snatched it up without looking at the number.
“Hi,” she said warmly.
“Holy shit, they fucking tried to kill me.”
“Jake?” Casey said, puzzled by the busy-sounding background. “What happened? Where are you?”
“Graham. His thugs. I’m at the emergency room in Buffalo smelling like the ass end of the river with twenty-seven stitches in the back of my head. They think I’m nuts, but one of the cops recognized me.”
“Police?”
“I staggered up into the parking lot at the Naval Museum covered in blood. This guy’s kids thought it was Dawn of the Dead.”
“Are you okay?”
“I took a handful of painkillers and my head still feels like a seven-pound ham in a five-pound can. Are you okay? That’s what I’m worried about.”
Casey looked around her room and drew the curtains across the large window. “Fine. Yes. Tell me what the hell happened.”
Jake unraveled a story about following Graham, the people he met, and where.
“Then I tried to get closer to hear and they heard me and came after me,” Jake said. “I dove down this fucking huge drainpipe and I got flushed out of there and the next thing I know, I’m washed up onshore downriver and some toothless old whore is turning my pockets inside out calling herself the great Nelly Falconi. Thankfully, all she took was my cash, so I’ve got my cards. My cell phone is shot to hell, though. I have no idea how I didn’t fucking drown.”
“But,” Casey said slowly, unable to keep from playing the defense lawyer, “they didn’t hit you or anything.”
“I didn’t give them the chance. I ran my ass off and tried to lose them in the basement of this place. I don’t know if they opened some floodgates or what, but I got battered to hell.”
“I mean, were they doing anything illegal or anything?”
“I’m sure.”
“But you didn’t see any drugs or guns or anything, right?”
“You do this as long as I have and you don’t need to see the fire to know something’s burning. You can smell the smoke.”
Casey bit into her lip and asked, “Now what?”
“Well, you watch your ass,” Jake said. “I’m going to buy some clean clothes and a phone at the mall, then get back to my car and get on to those assholes Graham was with. There can’t be too many guys in wheelchairs getting shuttled around Buffalo in silver G55s. Once I find out how dirty this guy really is, then I go to my producers and plead my case. Then I nail him.”
Casey didn’t know what to say.
“You there?” Jake asked.
“Sure. What do the cops think?”
“I told you, that I’m off my sled,” Jake said. “The older one said his mom was a fan, so they kind of took me at my word on all the blood, but they got called
to a domestic dispute five minutes into my stitches.”
Casey went quiet again.
The silence continued until Jake said, “Okay, so, I’ll let you know, right?”
“Jake?” Casey said. “Honestly? I think you’re going off a little half-cocked. You sound a little…”
“Off my sled?”
“Well, overexcited.”
“What about all that stuff I heard him saying on the phone?” Jake asked, impassioned. “That he should have ‘taken care of you before’ and all that? What did you do?”
“You don’t know if it’s me he was even talking about.”
“Okay,” Jake said, pausing for a long beat and losing his steam. “I hear you. But you put the pieces together and they add up. This I know, so you be careful. Call me if you find out anything, or if you need me. I’m not that far away.”
***
Casey woke up the next morning after a fitful night of sleep. The wind had blown, and the noise of the trees outside and the creaking sounds from the roof cut her imagination loose. She splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth, and decided on a long run to think. High clouds caught the dawn’s pink glow and the purple shadows of the prison wall seemed to visibly fade as she surged up the hill on her way out of town. She reached her halfway point, a small ice-cream stand at a four-corner stop and circled back, deciding to call Robert Graham as soon as she returned to the hotel.
She would ask him straight up about Jake and confront him about what Jake overheard Graham saying on the phone to the man named Massimo. Part of her believed Jake, but another part of her thought he might be a little cracked. And Graham was her client. He deserved the benefit of a direct confrontation. Resolute, she churned past farm fields, smelling the rich scent of damp earth and crops nearly ready for harvest, her feet pounding out a steady tattoo on the gravel shoulder as the early traffic growled past, headlights on in the thin light.
Sweat poured down Casey’s face and she breathed deep. When she reached the modest outlying homes on the fringe of the small city, she saw a man with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled closed coming her way at a serious clip. She averted her eyes and focused on the road in front of her. The other runner closed in fast and by the time Casey looked up again, he was nearly on top of her. She felt a small jolt of fear in her core and pulled up sharp. As she did, she saw him pull up short, grin, and tug at the string that held his hood close.
The hood flew back and there stood Robert Graham.
21
MIND COMPANY?” Graham asked.
“Were you trying to run me over?” Casey said, frowning and setting off again, as though the intrusion were only a mild annoyance.
Graham laughed, shaking his head and falling in alongside her.
“My ex-wife used to tell me I had to grow up,” he said, “but when you act young, you stay young, and don’t we all want that? Nice pace you’ve got. About a six-minute mile?”
“It used to be six-ten,” Casey said, huffing and wiping the sweat from her eyes with the back of her arm. “When did you get into town?”
“Late,” Graham said, revealing nothing more than the smile on his unshaven face.
Casey nodded and said, “Because this whole thing is feeling like a game that I walked into the middle of.”
“Meaning what?” he asked, casting her a quizzical look.
“Things going on behind the scenes,” Casey said, dodging a cluster of trash cans someone had left near the end of their driveway. “This whole thing has an odor.”
“We’re making people think,” Graham said. “Challenging a mind-set. You think most people really care about a black man from the ghetto who got locked up two decades ago?”
Casey said, “Let’s talk about Jake Carlson.”
“I think that Sunday morning piece is going to come out real nice,” Graham said.
Casey kept up her pace, studying the profile of his face and the look of smug satisfaction she couldn’t decipher.
She let some road go by.
“Look,” Graham said, pointing up ahead at a decaying clapboard building on the corner by the next traffic light, “the place where Hubbard ran into those hillbillies twenty years ago. Maybe Hubbard stops to tie his shoe, or one of those bastards decides to take a leak before he leaves for the night. A million things that could have let him walk right by. Chance is a bitch, isn’t it?”
They passed the old corner bar and its plastic sign, hung crooked above the door and advertising Pepsi and a new name. They crested the hill and the walls and watchtowers of the prison appeared. A tide of human shadows ebbed and flowed in the early morning light, guards changing shift.
“Jake,” Casey finally said.
“It went well.”
“He overheard you talking at your offices,” Casey said, puffing from the effort to speak and run. “Who’s Massimo?”
Graham grabbed her arm and stopped. He gave her a look of shock, finding her eyes with his. In the early light their dark brown looked almost black and beetlelike.
“You’re spying on me?” he said.
Casey set her jaw and shook free from his grip. “I don’t want to dance around with you or anyone. Jake heard you talking about taking care of someone-a her-like you should have before and ending some charade. What charade? Me? The Project?”
“No good deed goes unpunished, right?” Graham said, looking slightly hurt. “All I did was offer to give you a million dollars a year for your clinic to get some help with another good cause.”
“So I work for you and that means I don’t get to think or ask questions?” Casey asked, the words sounding weak and confused.
Graham inhaled and pushed the air out through tight lips. “Do you know how unprofessional this is of Jake Carlson? Does he? You don’t sneak around a man’s office listening to phone conversations when he’s welcomed you and agreed to do an interview.”
“You think I give a shit about Jake Carlson’s manners?” Casey asked.
“Don’t you think, as a lawyer,” Graham said, “that listening through a keyhole or behind a wall or whatever he was doing, you could mix things up?”
“Of course,” Casey said, still keeping her chin high.
“So, he heard me talking with Massimo?” Graham asked.
“Apparently.”
“A ship,” Graham said, nodding.
“What ship?”
“That’s the her I should have taken care of,” Graham said, splaying his fingers and holding up his hands. “Do you see how ridiculous this is, now?”
“I don’t see anything,” Casey said, her voice wavering.
Graham grimaced and shook his head, then turned and began walking away, down the hill. “The Charade is a ship anchored in Lake Erie.”
Casey followed him. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s full of machines from an assembly plant that got shut down in Michigan,” Graham said. “I told the city they can either give me the tax breaks I want and pay for the environmental cleanup of this old mill or the equipment and all the jobs that go with it can keep going to China, where the government has a new facility waiting if I want it. I’ve left the damn thing there for almost a year, thinking they’d be hungry for the deal. It’s a publicity stunt to get the politicians off their asses, but I still don’t have a deal. I should have shipped her off to Shanghai a long time ago, but I thought I’d try to save some American jobs.”
Casey walked with him and asked, “What about this Massimo?”
“Massimo D’Costa runs an environmental cleanup company,” Graham said. “He’s supposed to be making this whole deal happen and if it does, he’s got about ten million in cleanup work. He’s supposed to be using his contacts to make the whole thing happen. You see, now?”
“And you had to meet them yesterday?” Casey asked, her face flushed now from more than just the run.
“That was one of several meetings I had,” Graham said. “Evidently, the only one Carlson could hear about through the do
or, or however he heard. Maybe he’s tapping my phones. I don’t know.”
Graham stopped again and touched her arm. “Was that-he didn’t follow me to the warehouse, did he?”
Casey felt her throat tighten.
Graham snorted in disgust, shaking his head.
Casey pressed her lips together and kept up with him, dodging the shift change and hustling between cars queued up to get out of the guards’ parking lot. They crossed the bridge over the Owasco River, then the railroad tracks before passing Curly’s Restaurant.
As they turned left onto the sidewalk that ran along Route 20 toward their hotel, Casey said, “I am so sorry. Do you know how stupid I feel?”
Graham reached down and gave her hand a small squeeze. “Forget it. He’s charmed a lot of other people, too. I’m sorry I haven’t been as involved as I’d hoped.”
“I don’t know how much you’ve gotten from Ralph,” she said eagerly. “But I think by the end of the day I’ll have a swab sample from the hospital here in town that will give us the DNA we need to set Dwayne Hubbard free.”
Graham took her hand again and stopped, looking intently at her. “He did tell me, and how good would that be?”
“I still feel stupid.” Casey said, letting her hand linger before removing it from his. “Can we just put that behind us?”
Graham smiled warmly, reached out with his other hand, and touched her shoulder. “For you? It’s already done.”
22
JAKE AWOKE WITH a groan, not knowing where in the world he was. His mouth felt like dry dirt and the back of his collar was sticky and damp. The pain in his head brought back the scene in the drainpipe, and he touched the oozing wound, removing a red-stained finger as he sat up and fumbled with the bottle of Advil lying on the floor of his rented Cadillac. After gulping down four tablets with the help of a warm bottle of water, Jake studied the narrow and crooked city home from across the weedy park and its rusty chain-link fence.
