by Toby Ball
Frings nodded. He’d heard about LSD, knew that Ebanks was an enthusiast, and that he’d been kicked off the faculty at the Tech because of it, though Frings didn’t know the details. The drug held a vague interest for him, the way certain kinds of exotica sometimes did, but he had no desire to actually try it—his time for that kind of experimentation had long since passed.
“I hate to do this, Will, because I’d rather chat, catch up a little. But I’m working on something right now that you might be able to help with. I was wondering if you could take a look at a few pictures, see if you can identify the people.”
He could see Ebanks’s disappointment that he wasn’t more interested in the drug.
“Sure Frank, you bet. What’s up?”
“You know a guy, Andy Macheda? Film guy?”
“Yeah, I know Andy. He shows up here every once in a while.”
“You know anything about the film he shows over at that little basement theater on the edge of the Heights? Film something-or-other.”
“I saw it, actually, back when it was Film 8, I think, or something like that. He’s got some ideas about a living film or some such, keeps changing it, he says, reflecting the moment or some shit like that. Weird hombre.” Ebanks had always possessed an offhand charisma, a knack for putting people at ease. Something about him now seemed beyond that, a kind of magnanimity that made itself felt just in his presence.
“These photos, they’re enlargements of a still from that film.” He pulled them from his jacket pocket and handed Ebanks one of the prints.
Ebanks squinted at it, shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, but I don’t think so. It’s really blurry.”
“I know.” Frings handed him the one of Sol Elia, Panos’s grandson.
Ebanks shook his head. “You know, maybe. There are so many people come through here, Frank.”
“Okay. How about this one?”
“No.” Ebanks shook his head, smiling. “Really, Frank, what do you expect?”
Frings didn’t know, but handed the picture of the fourth man to Ebanks.
“Yeah, not sure about him, either.”
Frings took the photos back. He assessed his friend, the gleaming eyes, the eager face, but despite his enormous charm, something was not quite in sync, like he’d felt downstairs.
“You know where I can track down Macheda?”
“I can find out for you. But … what’s up, Frank? What’s with the questions?”
“The second guy I showed you is a kid named Sol Elia. He’s Panos’s grandson and he’s been missing for a while.”
“Is that the kid …?”
“That’s him. Give me a buzz when you find out about Macheda, okay?”
Ebanks frowned, tilting his head back a little. The posture bothered Frings for some reason.
“Sure, Frank,” Ebanks said, sounding distracted, as if he was thinking something over.
13
GRIP’S USUAL BAR DIDN’T HAVE AN OFFICIAL NAME BUT WAS KNOWN AS Crippen’s, after the original owner, now deceased. Crippen’s occupied the basement of a building that had housed a number of businesses, at the moment a tobacconist who sold pornography out of a grim room in the back. In the months immediately following the tobacconist’s opening, the sidewalk in front had become a meeting spot for a group of seedy porn enthusiasts. The patrons at Crippen’s weren’t the type to ignore the sudden influx of perverts onto their block, and there followed a number of incidents where a group of drunks would emerge to chase off the pervs and hand out a beating to anyone unlucky enough to be caught. Yet they came back, stubbornly, pathetically. Grip eventually took the matter into his own hands, paying a visit to the owner, a near-blind old man named Krebs, who still had the arms and hands of a brawler, the type of guy who’d understand the realities of power. You want the morals squad paying you a visit every fucking day? No? Then keep the perverts off the block. The old guy got it, and the problem went away, the pervs doing their shopping and then making sure to get the hell out of there, if they wanted the store to be around when they came back.
Grip found Crippen’s peopled with its usual collection of old-timers drinking whisky at the bar and some off-duty cops shooting the shit. He didn’t go there for the atmosphere—linoleum floors, Bakelite tables with mismatched chairs, a bar made out of rickety, piece-of-shit maple. The place didn’t even bother to keep the lights down to hide the seediness—it was lit up bright, though this was mostly for the benefit of the old-timers reading Freedom’s Call, the weekly far-right rag, or the sports scores and obits in one of the dailies. Crippen’s was a gathering spot for a certain brand of committed anti-communist: men—because there were never any women—for whom the Red Conspiracy occupied a position of primary importance in their lives. The rantings of radio hosts blared from the back, the intensity of their bile monotonous.
Raising two fingers to the bartender, Grip walked over to a table where a former cop named Ed Wayne drank beer with a younger guy Grip recognized from the Force, a clean cut, blond kid named Albertsson.
Grip shook hands with the two men, Albertsson’s grip hard, trying to prove something. Wayne’s hand lay in Grip’s, soft and damp, like an eel.
“How’re things, Ed?”
Wayne shrugged. In truth, it was hard to imagine how things could be good for Wayne. A half-dozen years ago he’d been a cop—not a model cop, though effective in his own way—but then something had happened to him, some kind of rapid physical decline. He’d lost all of his hair, right down to the eyebrows, and his chin seemed to have dissolved, his head tapering into his neck. He’d never been thin, but loose fat now hung sickeningly over his belt.
He’d been booted off the force several years back for conducting interview room interrogations that were bloody, even by the Force’s loose standards, and then, less than a year later, lost his wife to a divorce and a restraining order. Since then, he’d more or less fallen off the mental cliff, too. But, somehow, he managed to remain in the center of things. If something happened in the City’s tight, vocal world of ultra-conservative patriots, he knew about it—was often responsible for it. He had a considerable number of friends still on the Force, and he worked as a bagman for various people, including a multi-millionaire named Gerald Svinblad. A significant amount of the vandalism and violence against radicals could be traced back to Wayne or the cadre of young, impressionable men who followed him around in search of ideological guidance.
Today he wore a porkpie hat on his bald head and tinted glasses, which had the odd effect of making him look like he was in costume.
“I was talking to Albertsson here about the olden days.”
Grip glanced at Albertsson and was struck by how young he seemed, his expression credulous as he listened to one of the most shameless exaggerators and liars that Grip knew, which was saying something. This was what bothered Grip about the right-wingers that hung around Crippen’s—their diagnosis and goals were spot-on, but their self-aggrandizement and conspiracy-mongering rendered the whole effort less serious.
“Great,” Grip said without enthusiasm.
“You did some damage in your day,” Albertsson said admiringly, trying to suppress a country accent.
In his day?
Wayne leaned in over the table, his breath rank with alcohol. “Tor, here,” he said to Albertsson, “is a fucking patriot, a real fucking American. He will kick the shit out of any stinking commie you point to. But he doesn’t have the fucking brain, you hear? He doesn’t see things too well. He’s a soldier, Tor is, not a general.” Wayne leaned back in his chair and laughed, drunk off his ass.
Grip eyed him from behind his tilted beer bottle. Wayne—the bully turned into a goddamn demon by whatever it was that had happened to him, transforming him from an asshole into something else, something even less pleasant—something that Grip didn’t really understand.
“You seem happy about something.”
“Happy?”
Maybe happy wasn’t the word. It was more like W
ayne’s approximation of happiness—energy, concentration, a particularly focused meanness.
“You’ve got something in your head.”
Wayne grinned, showing his strange little teeth. “I always have something in my head, Tor.”
“Something new.”
“Since you mention it”—Wayne said, with a sly glance at Albertsson—“I’ve been doing a little research, talking to some people about the New City Project. I’ve found out things. Did you know that Nathan Canada’s given name is Toporov? He changed it to Canada back in the thirties. He’s Russian.”
“He’s not fucking Russian, Ed. You ever heard the guy speak? He went to the Tech, grew up in the City. All that shit was proved wrong half a decade ago—pretty much when it first came out.”
Wayne laughed in disgust. “Proved by who? Someone you trust? The Riverside Expressway, you ever look at the back of the road signs? Codes. Letters. Numbers.”
Grip looked to Albertsson, who was taking this in with great interest.
“Okay, Ed, what do they mean?”
Wayne shrugged. “Fucked if I know. Still looking. But Zwieg—you know him.”
Grip nodded. He certainly did.
“Zwieg says he saw a memo that went through Canada’s office, said that these codes were directions for foreign troops when they roll in. The Riverside, the Crosstown—they’re being built to allow troops to enter the City more efficiently. Did you know the elevated sections are designed to hold the weight of a battalion of Russian T-54s? And the top of the Municipal Tower, the observatory—they’re wiring it up. It’s going to be the command center for the whole fucking thing. Right upstairs from Canada’s office. The electricians show up at night in unmarked vans. I know guys at the site who’ve seen them.”
“Huh, that’s really interesting,” Grip said without enthusiasm. More bullshit from Wayne, who was even edgier than usual. The New City Project brought it out in the lunatics of all persuasions—Kollectiv 61 on one side, the Freedom’s Call crowd on the other.
Grip stayed busy with his beer, ignoring Wayne for the most part, watching the old men at the bar—World War I vets, most of them—and wondering if this was how it would end for them: drinking every day in this dingy bar, talking shit about things they’d never act on. Grip lit a cigarette. Wayne was seeking his input on something, but Grip hadn’t been paying attention and waved it away with a flick of the wrist.
Albertsson got up to use the bathroom, leaving Grip alone with Wayne. Wayne’s eyes were watery with drink, his head cocked slightly back, stretching his pale jowls.
“Anything interesting lately, Ed?” Grip didn’t think that the Crippen’s crowd was involved in the dynamite theft, but Wayne would know for sure.
“You’re a sly one, Tor. Casting the line. If I were to say yes, that word is there’s a missing stash of TNT, would that count as a big one?”
“You got any thoughts on who might have it?”
“None of ours. I’d know. But you’ve figured that out, right? I think you’ve figured it all out. Our friends in the Kollectiv 61, right? But the problem you have is: who the fuck is the Kollectiv 61? Who are they?”
Grip frowned, acknowledging the accuracy of Wayne’s thoughts.
Wayne took a shot of whisky, wincing as it went down. “Where to look? Where to look?” he mused.
“You have a thought or you just like hearing yourself talk?”
Wayne laughed, cynical and phlegmy. “Right, Tor, down to business.”
“Before your friend gets back.”
Wayne raised the mound above his right eye where an eyebrow had once been. “Not trusting the new blood? Okay. Ben Linsky. If it was me, that’s where I’d start.
The name was familiar. “The poet?”
“The faggot poet.”
Grip nodded, remembering now that Prometheus had run Kollectiv 61’s manifesto a year back or so. The Force had looked into it, tried to figure out if there was a more solid link between Linsky and the group, but had come up empty. Zwieg, Grip thought, might have been on that case.
They sat without speaking for a minute, Grip listening to Wayne mouth-breathing, remembering that there was something wrong with his nose, that he couldn’t breathe out of it for some reason. Albertsson came out of the restroom, tucking his shirt into his khakis, looking, to Grip’s surprise, fairly sober. He sat back down in his seat, forearms on the table.
“What’d I miss?” he asked, grinning.
14
DORMAN HAD A REGULAR TABLE AT THE ARES CLUB, A SEMICIRCULAR booth around a half-moon glass-top in a dark corner of the dark room. The house band played their usual languid jazz, backing a woman who sang in Portuguese, her voice weightless. From where he sat the band was hard to make out beneath the red spotlights and the haze of smoke. He sat alone, some papers on the table, his briefcase on the bench beside him. His martini glass was empty.
He leafed through a report on the upcoming destruction of the neighborhood surrounding St. Stanislaw’s church—who would handle the demolition, the waste removal, the infrastructure improvements, and so on. In each of these contracts, extra funds had been allocated, though they would never make it to the contractor. This was the grease, the money that ensured that everything ran smoothly. It wasn’t even a matter of keeping two ledgers. The contractors simply invoiced for more than they needed and didn’t complain when they only got their actual price. Not complicated. The hardest thing about it was keeping Canada far enough removed from these deals that he couldn’t be implicated. Canada was always worried about this distance. He needed it both for (obvious) legal reasons, but also to avoid having the petty corruption used as leverage against him.
Dorman was always protecting Canada, had been for more than two years since he’d taken the job as Canada’s right-hand man, straight out of the Navy. Dorman had come out of the service with a big reputation, and Canada had brought him in to interview based on what he’d heard from people who’d met him. Canada had pitched him—you will be an integral part of the most important urban planning project in a century. We need someone uncorrupted in this position—someone incorruptible.
But why him?
Canada had leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers over his fleshy middle. “There are plenty of untouchables out there, Mr. Dorman, but few who know how to persuade and fewer still who have both these qualities and are willing to play the hard game, as well.”
So Canada had hired him—the man who could not be corrupted—dropped him into a sea of corruption and told him to navigate without getting wet.
A THIN BLONDE SHEATHED IN A BLACK COCKTAIL DRESS APPROACHED WITH a bottle of wine and two glasses. Dorman sat back, took in her big, heavy-lidded eyes, her cupid’s-bow mouth, her slender legs.
“Care for a 1923?” She spoke with an accent, something Eastern European. Dorman had never asked her where she was from, exactly, and she’d never offered.
“Sure.” He watched as she put the glasses down, uncorked the bottle with unhurried grace. She poured wine into the two glasses and slid in next to him, crossing her legs so that her foot barely brushed his thigh. His mouth went dry.
“Still working?” She sipped her wine. He knew her as Anastasia, though he was sure this was not her real name. The only women inside the club were employees, and they all used fake names. It was a house rule.
“I could work all day and all night. I just need a reason to stop.”
“Like me?”
Dorman nodded and took a sip. Anastasia nearly always came to sit with him when he was here, maybe four or five nights a week. A couple of times in the past another girl had come because Anastasia was out, but the club liked to pair each member with the same girl every visit, build a certain kind of relationship—a mix of discretion and ambiguity.
“You are tired,” Anastasia said, her lips shining as candlelight reflected off the sheen of the wine.
“It’s been a long day.”
It was always a long day. She waited, running her
finger around the rim of the glass. She was patient; she would listen when he was ready to talk. Discretion is what they sold at the Ares, billed as a place for men to unburden themselves of their secrets to women who would keep them.
But Dorman couldn’t make the leap. “Complications at work.”
WHAT HE DIDN’T TELL HER:
Before lunch, Canada called him into his office, Dorman noting the dozen or so cigarettes already lying crushed in the ashtray. Canada sat still in his chair, looking over his reading glasses at Dorman, lit cigarette in one hand, the fingers of the other drumming on his desk. He knew. No point in trying to finesse it.
“I wanted to wait, try to get some information.”
Canada snorted, pissed off. “More information,” he said quietly.
“Before I told you, Mr. Canada.”
Canada took a deep breath, responded in a voice tight with anger. “You think I’m willing to fucking wait to hear that a trailer full of dynamite was stolen? You think I want to hear it from that goddamn spic … Jorge, what the hell was his name … Goddamn it. It doesn’t matter. What matters is I get this goddamned call about a fucking explosives robbery, and I’m caught with my shriveled cock in my hand.”
Dorman waited, knowing there was more.
“While you’ve been doing whatever the fuck it is you’ve been doing, I’ve been working your goddamn job for you, and it hasn’t been pretty. I had to call that fuckwit Ving, ask him to send over Zwieg. Ask him, for the love of Christ. Ving doesn’t even know what the fuck’s going on, but I tell him, send the stupid Neanderthal over. Zwieg comes in here and I have to explain to him in minute goddamn detail the method by which I will castrate him if there is a leak. I don’t deal with shitheads like Zwieg. That’s why I have you.”
