The Finder: A Novel

by Colin Harrison

  "Questions about what?" came Violet's voice.

  "Just things." He poured out ten pills, wrapped them in a piece of toilet paper, and slipped them into his pocket.

  "You doing some stuff these days now, Vic?"

  He came back to the bed. "I'm always doing something."

  She lit a cigarette. "What's he look like?"

  "Regular guy. Built."

  "Cop?"

  "Doesn't have the swagger."

  "Not confident?"

  "No, no, very confident. But lone-wolf confident. Like that."

  Violet was quiet. "I heard about those Mexican girls who got killed out by the beach."

  He started pulling on his shirt. "Oh, yeah? I did, too."

  She smoked her cigarette, wouldn't look at him. How did she know? he thought. How could she know? "Vic, they got killed with a load of sewage." She looked at him meaningfully. "Whoever heard of that?"

  "Pretty tough to track sewage. Stuff degrades quickly."

  "But the truck."

  "Trucks can disappear. Guys in Queens buy them for scrap, crush them an hour later."

  "But you said there's a guy—"

  "Not a cop, like I said. Somebody's fucking with me."

  "I can ask people," she said.

  He found his shoes. "Don't ask. Just listen." He checked his watch. "Gotta go."

  She looked at him. This was the moment when he used to give her a little kiss on the cheek, a momentary gentleness that recalled their shared childhood, her brain-damaged brother, the dead baby, the life together that never happened.

  "Yeah," said Violet. She turned her back.

  Downstairs he knocked on the glass. The Nigerian guy looked up from his freaky African newspaper.

  "Hey, I forgot to ask you, you seen Richie?"

  "He was here couple days ago, boss."

  "Cash his check?"

  The Nigerian shook his head. "Just paying us a social visit, Mr. Vic."

  Fucking Richie, did he come and bang Violet twice a week, too? Did he tell Violet about the girls? It was quite possible.

  Victor fingered the ten pills in his pocket, again checked his watch. The day had a plan. A goal. And to achieve that goal, he needed to go mix some chemicals.

  21

  She waited in the shadows, across the street from the truck bay on Fifty-first Street. She was dressed in the CorpServe uniform she'd last worn on the evening of the attack, yet now it was washed and pressed, all evidence of those events gone. She reached into her pocket and affixed her CorpServe ID badge. Straggling workers on their way home hurried by her, men and women thinking about dinner, the children, what was on TV tonight. A few minutes after seven p.m., the forty-four-foot CorpServe mobile shredder pulled up, #6 as usual, and the truck bay door was lifted by the security men. The truck was driven by old man Zhao, who always drove it. He had a perfect safety record, she remembered, not bad considering his age. His eyesight was excellent, too; she'd ordered him to be tested six months earlier. She had a soft spot for him; maybe he reminded her of her grandfather.

  The two floor cleaners would have arrived by the service entrance already and would be upstairs at work in the Good Pharma offices. The truck was now parked for the evening in the truck bay, and Zhao had started up the actual shredder unit, which ran off an electric battery, not the diesel engine. The reason, of course, was that some trucks needed to operate within completely enclosed facilities and could not be a danger for asphyxiation by diesel exhaust of the operator as well as those nearby.

  She darted across the street and found Zhao. He was surprised to see her, and she put a finger to her lips and drew him out of sight of the security camera.

  "They said you were killed!" he exclaimed in Mandarin.

  "Of course not," Jen Li answered him.

  "They say all the operations must stay normal. Orders from the big boss in China."

  Her brother, of course. "That's good."

  "But everybody is nervous."

  "Tell me, how did the other Mexican girls react to the news?"

  Zhao shook his head. "Oh, they were very sad. I think some of the girls quit."

  "What about on this job?" she asked.

  "Well, they shifted some of the others. Just cleaning, I think."

  "No one at the company upstairs said anything about the girls to us?" said Jin Li, scarcely able to believe it. "Did the police ask anything?"

  "A detective came around last night." The old man pulled out a card and handed it to Jin Li. She fingered it, felt the hard edge of it. Detective Peter Blake, the lettering said, Brooklyn Homicide Division. The man who had called her. She slipped it into the pocket of the coveralls.

  "What'd he say?"

  Zhao straightened up, ready to make his report. It was evident he'd sought to memorize the conversation. "He asks if we saw anybody follow the little Japanese car with the two girls in it. I say no. He asks if you were in car with the girls. I say I do not know. He says why you do not know. I say I did not see where you go, I drive the truck. He says where does Jin Li go most nights? I say I think to her apartment. He says where is that. I say I do not know. He says does Jin Li have American boyfriend named Raymond Grant and I say I do not know but I think maybe yes. He says that he thinks I know. I say yes, I have heard about this American boyfriend but I have never seen him. He says did the Mexican girls smoke pot? I say that I think they did, because of smell in the car. He says how do you know smell of pot? I say this is smoked in China except in my village we called it the pig that floats. He laughed. I liked this detective, I know you are sorry to hear this. A very professional man. He says, where else did these girls work? I say well mostly in this building but sometimes other places, too. He says why and I say because sometimes we do not have enough people in each place. He says did these Mexican girls get in any trouble on the job? I say no, I don't think so. Very good workers. He says what about their boyfriends, do they sell pot to people in company? I say no, Jin Li will fire everybody who buys pot in company. He says can I read English good. I say no, just traffic signs and beer bottles. He likes that. He says he reads beer bottles, too. He says why do I think somebody kill some Mexican girls. I say I do not know. He says maybe Jin Li kill Mexican girls then run away. I say I do not think so. He says why not. I say you are nice to those girls. Everybody think you are best boss they ever had. He say he think Mexican girls sell some drugs to everybody, maybe drugs from their boyfriends. He say Mexicans getting big in the drug traffic in New York, most people think it is other people. I say I do not think so. He says he wants dog to sniff me and sniff the truck. I say okay. They bring in the dog and he does not say I have pot. He smelled me, he smelled this truck. I like this dog, very good number-one dog. He says he thinks Jin Li knows how come some Mexican girls died. I say I think you good person, not like that. He says why are you not very upset about Jin Li. I say I think she is okay, she is smart. He—"

  "Okay," Jin Li interrupted. "Next time you hear something like this, you call me. Anything you think I need to know. You have my number. Leave a message in Chinese if I don't pick up. Okay?"

  "If you say so."

  "Now, I want you to take me upstairs."

  "But you can go up."

  "No, I don't think so. I don't want the elevator camera on me. Just put me in the roller bin, throw an empty bag on me."

  Zhao did not like this, but he allowed her to climb into the bin. He dropped some empty garbage bags over her, then summoned the freight elevator. She heard him call one of the CorpServe workers on his radio. A moment later the elevator arrived and he wheeled in the bin.

  "Floor number two-four," he said in English, then left.

  Jin Li heard the doors close.

  "MeezaJin?" came a voice. One of the Mexican girls.

  "Don't talk to me," she answered. "The camera is on us. Don't look inside the roller, just look at the door, okay?"

  "Okay, jes."

  "Just roll it through the lobby, through the main door, and stop
it next to the little kitchen."

  Which the woman did. Jin Li climbed out into the kitchen, where there was no security camera. She knew this kitchen well, had used the coffee machine in it many times. The CorpServe worker stood there, waiting for instructions. Jin Li also knew that the security man moved ceaselessly from floor to floor, appearing on every floor once every half hour or so.

  "In ten minutes I want you to be here with five or six full bags. You are going to put them on top of me and take me down, okay?"

  "Jes."

  "Leave the roller here."

  Jin Li knew this floor, had walked it dozens of times, knew its layout, who worked where, and what the best sources of information were. The floor had four sections: executive, legal, fiscal, and research. The best information usually came from research and fiscal, but she figured that she would search in the executive section. She wanted an indication that someone at Good Pharma was worried about CorpServe spying on it. Then she could tell Chen to stop doing whatever he had done that had alerted them, or to cover his tracks, if possible.

  But where, exactly, to look? The CEO of the company was a tall, elegant man named Lewis Henry who seemed never to be there. The people who seemed to really run the company were the vice-president, a man named Reilly; the comptroller, a woman named Moritz; and the director of research, a man named Brenner. She inspected Moritz's office first—not her trash but the papers on her desk. Nothing there but long printouts of manufacturing costs at a plant in Puerto Rico. What am I looking for? she wondered. A note, a report? It seemed unlikely she'd find anything like that.

  She entered Brenner's office. His desk was piled with neat, spiral-bound research reports. She flipped one open. It had to do with a new product for "sexual response enhancement in females." Tested on 406 women aged twenty-two to sixty, median age forty-one, the results showed that "71 percent of the respondents had enjoyed an increased—" This isn't what I'm looking for, thought Jin Li, keep moving. She studied the papers piled on the man's windowsill. Apparently he was a pack rat of sorts. The reports were organized by clinical trial date and research product. I could spend a year reading in here, she realized. She retreated out of the office, looked at her watch. Four minutes.

  Next came Reilly's corner office, a large room with a conference table to one side and matched set of sofa and chairs at the other. Four windows. Private washroom. Framed photos and articles on the wall. From the earlier papers she'd seen, it seemed clear that he was the public face of the company, did a lot of deal making and communication with investors. Was quoted in the newspapers. She examined the picture on his desk. A smiling, attractive woman looked back. Probably was a high school cheerleader or something, Jin Li thought dismissively. She pulled open his desk drawers. Nothing of interest. As with the other offices, a computer hummed to one side of the desk. She assumed that all the computers were shut down automatically, but to test this notion, she pushed a key with her knuckle. The computer beeped and a prompt for a username and password appeared. Forget that, she thought.

  Not much on the desk. Printouts of sales figures broken down by region, research summaries, a copy of a legal settlement for a liability suit for one of the company's projects, a slim folder containing all the stories that mentioned the company in the major print media that day, and so on. And a call list on Good Pharma stationery, no doubt generated by his assistant. Next to each name and time of call received were several lines for him to record the essence of the conversation. She skimmed the names.

  Recognized one. James Tonelli. The building operations man who had hired CorpServe in the first place. Next to his name, the message: Knows you wanted to speak to him urgently. Reilly trying to reach Tonelli—why? The list had other interesting names. One of the messages said, We have received an inquiry from the NYPD regarding the death of the two Mexican workers in our CorpServe cleaning service.

  She folded the list into a small square, unzipped the coveralls, and slipped it into her pocket.

  The CorpServe worker was probably back at the kitchen with the roller bin filled with bags now, wondering where Jin Li was.

  I haven't found anything good, she told herself. She stole into the private bathroom. Flicked on the light. Tiled shower. Toilet. A small closet with an extra suit, several pairs of shoes, and a selection of pressed shirts and ties. Pretty nice life, she thought. She opened the medicine cabinet. One bottle of pills. Beta-inhibitors. Used to remove anxiety in public situations. Half the executives in New York probably took them.

  She heard a noise and turned off the office light. Poked her head out the hallway. The security guard was walking away from her. The floor's layout had the lobby and elevator banks in the center, with rings of inner and outer offices circling it. The kitchen was at the other end of the floor, in the direction the guard was walking. But he was checking offices here and there, and Jin Li knew her way around. She ran as fast as she could down the hall in the opposite direction, turned left, ran that hall, and turned left again, working her way around the other side of the building to get to the kitchen before the security guard did. She turned left for the last time and saw the CorpServe worker standing there looking worried.

  "Quick!" ordered Jin Li.

  She lifted out five big bags of paper, then jumped into the bin.

  "Put them on me, quick!"

  "Jes."

  The worker did as asked.

  "Roll it to the service elevator."

  Which she did. Jin Li heard her punch the call button.

  "Hello," said the worker to someone.

  "Evening," came a male voice, relaxed but firm. "Headed down?"

  "Jes."

  "We got transition procedures coming," the security guard's voice said. "Tomorrow we will be explaining them to y'all."

  "Hokay."

  The service elevator doors opened.

  "Night now."

  The doors closed. Jin Li waited. When the elevator reached street level, the worker pushed the roller to the mobile shredder. Jin Li wriggled up through the bags and hopped out. Had this been caught on tape? Probably. The roar of the shredder made it hard to think.

  "He said there are new procedures coming?" she asked the woman.

  "Jes."

  The Mexican woman barely made eye contact. I scare her, realized Jin Li. She knows about the two dead girls.

  "Did you hear about them already?"

  "Jes. Yesterday they tell us."

  "What did they say?"

  "They say we no more do this building. They no want us anymore. So we go to other job. Something like that, I think."

  Jin Li studied the woman. She had no idea what she was saying. She simply did what she was told and did not question why Good Pharma was getting rid of CorpServe. But Jin Li understood why. And now she needed to tell Chen to be careful, assuming the company did not know about him already, or even that he was in New York. If they know he is here, she thought, they will do something to him.

  22

  She'd been enormously patient. She'd waited a few days before talking with Tom about what had happened at Martz's party, not that she hadn't kept going over the interaction, trying to understand what it meant for Tom. As soon as the old man had shaken her shitty fingers in front of Ann's face, she had gone cold inside—cold toward Tom, certainly cold toward Martz, whom she did not consider as a patient or worthy of her medical opinion. In fact, no medical opinion had been rendered directly to him. He had simply let go of her hand and then hoisted up his pants.

  "I know I got a fucking prostate problem," he'd grumbled.

  She'd pulled off her gloves inside out and thrown them in the trash.

  "Come on," she snapped at him. "Turn around, face me. I dare you to look me in the face!"

  But he had, and wheeled to confront Ann. "Your husband is in a lot of trouble, lady. Focus your attention on him." He cleared his throat. "So, by the way, what's your medical opinion?"

  What an asshole, she thought. And I just put my fingers inside it. "My
opinion is that you should fear chaos—in all its forms—cellular, psychological, interpersonal, and existential."

  Martz, an old warrior, smiled thinly in disgust. "That's it?"

  "That's all I'm saying to you."

  He grunted, seemingly irritated with himself as much as with her, then left the room, leaving the door ajar. She heard the tinkle of silverware and the murmur of party talk. She sat to collect herself, looked out the corner window. A beautiful view, the lights of Manhattan to the south and Jersey to the west. So high up she could see all the bridges and the Statue of Liberty. Money bought you a lot of sky.

  Connie Martz hurried in. "He said you didn't tell him anything?"

  Ann looked at Connie. How much did this woman know about her husband? How much did any woman know? And how much do I know about Tom? she thought.

  "He seemed eager to get back to the party," she said diplomatically, her anger receding as she saw Connie's anxiety. "I'm supposed to tell him directly but I'm going to tell you."

  "Please."

  "Given the bit of history you gave me plus what I felt, I think he needs an immediate needle biopsy of the prostate, as well as a PSA test. I'm sure he's had one in the past, given his age. But the lobes of the prostate are lumpy, irregular, and show what we call differential firmness—hard here, soft there. Not good. This is very consistent with prostate cancer, though not proof of it. Only a needle biopsy can tell you for sure. But I would have this done tomorrow."

  "Test for cancer tomorrow?"

  "Once prostate cancer escapes the gland, treatment is much more difficult. The cancer seeds itself. Treatment is no longer confined to the organ but is systemic. From a theoretical basis, the escape of one cell is the tipping point into advanced prostate cancer. If you get it before that first cell escapes, then—"

  "Yes, yes! I understand!" Connie's beautiful blue eyes became tearful, then she nodded in determination. "Thank you, Doctor."