Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  Some of this new generation stood in a small group, bundled against the cold—the same group he’d seen before his visit to the film department. They’d positioned themselves in front of the entrance to the administration building, holding signs that read END ACADEMIC SEGREGATION. As he tended to do when apprehensive, Panos talked incessantly as Frings pushed his chair along the campus walkway.

  “Frank, how many times is it that I have asked you to put aside one of your crusades? In our thirty years together, how many times?”

  Frings shrugged, then, realizing that Panos couldn’t have seen the gesture, said, “I can’t think of any.”

  “That is, as well, my memory. So, please, do me the favor of considering what I now tell you. The New City Project—let it go.”

  This surprised Frings. It was no secret that Panos supported the project, but even when they differed, it was unusual for Panos to pressure him on issues of ideology. Unsure how to respond, Frings stayed quiet.

  “I have sympathy for what you write,” Panos continued, “you know that. But we need the Project. Our City is old. The country has moved on, and we have stayed the same. On our present course, business will leave the City and then what will we have? Frank, I ask you to look clearly at this, without your politics.”

  “You’re just making the same arguments that Littbarski and everyone else makes, Panos. You really think the choice is so stark? Either we accept the New City Project exactly as it is or face a derelict city? I don’t believe you really think that.”

  “I believe that we can either do something or let the City, as you say, become derelict. So yes, these are the choices. And, at this date, the New City Project is our only something. If you looked around, you would agree. I wish there was another way, but sometimes the other side has the facts. I don’t have arguments that are new, but I hoped that coming from me, who has always supported you…”

  Frings looked at the back of Panos’s bowed head, his shrunken back. He had been physically defeated by age and disease, and it seemed to Frings that he’d also been worn down by the arguments of the City’s elite, as though it took more energy than the old man had to defend his own philosophy. This thought tempered Frings’s annoyance.

  “You know where I stand,” Frings said, softly.

  “I do. That is why I tell you this, so that maybe you give it more thought.”

  “Okay,” Frings said—not because he would, but out of friendship and pity for an old man for whom he was now the closest thing to family.

  THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING HAD BEEN CONSTRUCTED WITHOUT ANY architectural ambition save for an arching clock tower. For the first decade of the Tech’s existence—the 1850s—this had been the school’s only building, where two-dozen young men were educated for the purpose of supporting the new web of railway tracks spreading like fissures on fracturing pond-ice.

  Frings helped Panos in his ponderous ascent of the first few steps, until two students emerged to help him up the final half-dozen and through the front door. Frings followed, pulling Panos’s wheelchair with him. They were met in the hallway by the Tech’s president, a soft-looking man named Estes Milledge—basset-hound eyes, reading glasses hanging from a chain around his neck, gray wisps of hair encircling his skull.

  “Panos,” he said fondly, stepping forward to shake hands. Frings introduced himself, and though they’d met before, Milledge didn’t seem to remember him—maybe the man only had eyes for potential donors.

  Milledge motioned to an open door to his right. “I had Records bring Sol’s file here, so that you could look at it in privacy. I know you understand that you can’t take anything from his file with you.”

  Frings sensed a transaction occurring between the two older men, a calling in of debts that might stretch back over decades. He followed Milledge into a meeting room dominated by a long, walnut table surrounded by high-backed cherry-wood chairs. The walls were floor-to-ceiling, glass-encased bookshelves save for the far wall, where a grand window, tall with a semi-circular top, looked out at an ancient oak tree shedding leaves in the wind.

  “You like this room?” Milledge said to Frings. “It is one of my favorites. People have been looking out at that tree since the Tech was founded. It gives a sense of the history of this place.”

  Frings nodded in perfunctory agreement. Milledge moved a chair to allow Panos to wheel up to the table.

  “Here they are, Panos, two folders’ worth.”

  Panos’s eyes were grim. A moment passed.

  “I’ll leave you to look through them. You’ll call me if you need anything?”

  Another pause, Panos still eyeing the files. Frings gave a discreet nod and Milledge smiled, possibly with relief. He closed the door behind him.

  Panos had been through the files four years before, when Sol had initially disappeared, and Frings wasn’t sure that a second look was going to be fruitful, but the old man had insisted, so here they were. Above them they could hear the squeak of floorboards under feet.

  “How do you want to do this Panos, split them up?”

  Panos shook his head. “No, Frank. You look at them with fresh eyes and pass them to me when you are done.”

  Frings took the first folder, the edges worn from frequent handling. He wondered if this was because of Sol’s disappearance—or maybe they’d been keeping an eye on him all along, given the suspicions that followed him around.

  The first folder held his academic file. He perused four semesters’ worth of decent marks, 3.2 grade point. The class selection seemed unfocused: Psych, Philosophy, History, Calculus, Philosophy, English Lit, Sociology, Biology, History, History, Philosophy, Religion, Psych, Art History, Sociology, Composition.

  “You know what he was going to major in?”

  Panos shook his head. “I don’t think he knew.”

  Frings flipped past these grade reports to several memos. He skimmed the first few. Apparently, his professors had been asked to keep a special eye on him and report their observations to the administration. He could understand the concern. It would be unusual, if not unprecedented, for the Tech to have among its student body a boy whom many people thought had gotten away with killing his parents.

  The first three evaluations were not revealing: Sol didn’t participate in class unless called upon, his work was of decent quality but not exceptional, he didn’t seem to be a threat to himself or others. The fourth was from a philosophy teacher who seemed mildly concerned about Sol’s interpretations of some of the readings that they’d had in class, though he admitted that Sol was far from the only student to be intrigued by these ideas, and without the context of his parents’ murders, he probably wouldn’t have been troubled. Someone had written in the margins, “Covering himself in case something happens.”

  He skimmed another bland note, and then a final one, from his English professor, who’d noted that it was “interesting” that he had written his final paper on Raskolnikov, even though Crime and Punishment had not been an assigned text. The professor went on to say that he thought it possible that Sol had written the paper with a certain irony, playing on people’s perceptions of him. A practical joke of sorts.

  Frings slid the papers over to Panos and opened the second, similarly worn, folder. This folder was very thin, a three-page ledger of payments received and paid. Panos had covered Sol’s tuition and room and board with monthly payments. There were also eleven payments to Sol, ranging from five to twenty dollars. The name of the fund from which the payments were drawn was blank. The only identifying information was an account number: 1TP0281.

  “Panos, do you know what the school was paying Sol for?”

  Panos looked over, his eyes suddenly light. “Payments to Sol?”

  “That’s right, eleven payments totaling a little over $150.”

  “When was this?”

  Frings went back to the ledger. “Looks like the second semester of his freshman year through his whole sophomore year.”

  Panos cocked his head, and Fri
ngs saw his eyes narrow slightly, taking in this new information.

  18

  GRIP LEANED AGAINST A SIDE WALL OF THE POLICE STATION, SMOKING with a small group of anti-communist cops who hunched over their cigarettes, shooting the shit. He was still trying to get a purchase on the papers he’d found in Ben Linsky’s satchel and, more importantly, figure out what, if anything, they had to do with either the stolen explosives or Kollectiv 61. Or, if he was lucky, both.

  Two detectives dominated the conversation, bitching about the Tech’s notorious refusal to allow City cops on campus.

  “The thing is, they’ve got no fucking sense inside those gates, letting those kids protest and intimidate the administration. They let us in, that’d end in a hurry. You can’t give these fucking kids any room.”

  “Bust a few heemie heads.”

  Grip tossed his cigarette butt, watched it fall to the ground and smoke listlessly. “You really want that campus shit to fall to us?”

  The detective smirked. “You know what I think? I think a couple days of the heavy stuff, it ain’t a problem anymore. Those kids aren’t tough—a bunch of rich pussies.”

  Grip snorted. “Maybe. Kids, though, the cops come down on them, they suddenly get it in their heads they’re something special. You see it on the street, no reason why it’s different for the Tech kids. Let the campus cops deal with them. If it doesn’t leak out into the City, who gives a shit?”

  The conversation halted as the cops thought this over. A cold wind rounded the corner into the alley, leaves spinning, crazy, jittery.

  “Any of you guys run across a guy named Ben Linsky?”

  A uniform laughed. “What? The poof? You need a date, Tor, I can fix you up with my cousin Geoff.”

  “Fuck you. You know this guy?”

  “Sure. I ran into him a couple of times. Zwieg had us do a sweep of some queer bars one night. I remember him because he kind of did the negotiating during the bust, trying to keep us from hauling everyone in, throwing them in the tank. I asked another guy, who’s that, and he says Ben Linsky, some kind of poet. A fag poet. Go figure.”

  “That it?”

  “I see his name around, always pinko shit. And he had something to do with Kollectiv 61.”

  “That’s right,” another cop joined in. “That’s how I know that name.”

  Grip ignored this and asked the first cop, “You know him well enough to have an opinion on whether he might be in Kollectiv 61?”

  “Shit, Tor, that’s what you’re doing now, chasing down kids with spray paint?”

  Grip shook his head. He was about to protest that Kollectiv 61 was a hell of a lot more than spray paint, but this would only earn him more shit. “Yeah, exactly.” Sarcastic.

  “Well,” the uniform said, his heavy lips pinched in thought, “I don’t see him being the destructive type. He’s more of a heemie—smoke some grass, talk about Negroes.”

  “Okay, I can see that,” Grip said without conviction, stepping on his cigarette butt, putting it out of its misery.

  IN THE STATION LOBBY, GRIP FOUND A UNIFORM NAMED SUAREZ WHO had done some grunt work for him occasionally. He called the guy over.

  “You got time to do something for me?”

  “Sure, detective.” Suarez had been born in the City, but spoke with the trace of a Mexican accent, like everyone else in his neighborhood.

  “I need you to track down a security guard, works Crosstown sites for Consolidated Industries. He’s a floater, doesn’t have an assigned site, just fills in where he’s needed. Last name’s Patridis.” Grip was hoping that Nicky Patridis’s cousin—the one who’d witnessed the explosives heist—was on his father’s side. If they didn’t share a last name, he’d be impossible to find without getting the full name from Nicky, which Grip did not want to do.

  “Got it?”

  Suarez winked. “Sure thing, detective.”

  INSIDE THE STATION, GRIP TOOK THE STAIRS UP TO THE THIRD FLOOR, figuring he’d stop by his desk, see what had accumulated while he’d been out. A hallway ran the length of the third floor, doors on each side, white linoleum bouncing the light from the ceiling tubes right back up again. As he walked by, one of the three elevators in the middle of the hall opened and Deputy Chief Ving—tall, thin, a flattened nose ruining his gray good looks—gestured to Grip. Somebody must have tipped him when Grip had walked in the building.

  “Detective.”

  Grip wondered again how a guy with a soft voice like that could turn on the authority out in the street. Some guys climbed the ladder and a slow process took hold, after a while the guy would lose his fitness, his street sense; he became more and more like a manager in a business and less like a cop. Not Ving, though. As far as Grip could tell, Ving hadn’t lost a thing.

  “Sir.”

  “Let’s talk.”

  Grip tensed. “Okay.”

  “Upstairs.”

  Shit.

  Grip made a move for the elevator, but Ving nodded down the hall to the stairs. They walked shoulder to shoulder in silence, nodding to a uniform as he hustled past from the lavatory.

  Grip followed Ving up four flights of stairs, wondered why they hadn’t taken the elevator and came up with only one answer: the elevators had cameras. What the hell did that mean?

  They reached the seventh floor and Ving wasn’t even breathing hard, while Grip’s chest pounded from the exertion and apprehension. Why wouldn’t Ving want to be seen with Grip on camera?

  Ving led the way down a carpeted hallway, their footsteps silent after the echoing stairwell. Ving’s office was small, a nice view out toward the Theater District and, beyond that, the Hollows.

  “Have a seat, Detective.”

  The voice was calm, but Grip knew that whatever was coming couldn’t be good. He sat in a high-backed maroon leather chair. Ving’s desk was no larger than Grip’s own—but neat, no papers to be seen, a photo frame turned away from Grip. Room decor was typical cop: map of the City, photo of the president, three framed certificates, flag in the corner.

  “I’m told you rousted Ben Linsky yesterday.”

  Grip became more confused. Ben Linsky? Why the big secret about him? “Sure. Just gave him a warning, possession of a controlled substance.”

  Ving nodded as if this was completely reasonable. “That’s fine. I’m also told that you confiscated Mr. Linsky’s bag.”

  “I did, yes,” Grip said slowly.

  “I need you to return that bag to Mr. Linsky.” Ving opened his drawer, retrieved a small piece of paper and a pen, and wrote while Grip watched. “This is Mr. Linsky’s address,” Ving said. “You will return the bag and all its contents to Mr. Linsky. After that, you will not contact him again. Am I clear?”

  Grip, startled beyond words, nodded dumbly.

  “Say it, please.”

  “You’re clear.”

  Ving nodded. “Thank you, Detective Grip. I appreciate your prompt compliance.”

  “You running some kind of operation with Linsky?”

  Ving stared at him. Grip nodded, realized that the meeting had ended, stood to go.

  “Two things,” Ving said, pulling a folder from the top drawer of his desk. “First, everything that has been said here stays in this room.”

  “Okay.”

  Ving was leafing through papers in the file folder now, reaching absently for the glasses in his breast pocket. “And take the stairs.”

  19

  THIS MORNING, FRINGS RODE IN UNEASY SILENCE IN THE BACK OF A black Lincoln next to Nathan Canada, who was chain-smoking Camels. Frings did not like Canada. Not only was Canada the man behind the New City Project, but he was also, if not corrupt himself, tolerant of the corruption that kept the project on track. Frings further suspected that Canada was responsible for an incident years ago that had left a man dead and him with a bullet in his knee. No proof, of course, but strong suspicions.

  Canada, in turn, hated Frings for his high-profile opposition to the project. Canada, in Frings’s ex
perience, made no distinction between the personal and the professional. He harbored personal animus toward anyone who worked against him.

  The Lincoln came upon a high chain-link fence, the gate padlocked, huge yellow signs—WORK ZONE KEEP OUT—hung at close enough intervals to show that the owners meant business. Before them, on the far side of the fence, loomed the Carl S. Patterson Municipal Tower, or, as it was usually called, the Municipal Tower, or just the Tower.

  When Frings had first heard of the concept for the Tower, it had seemed like the height of folly: two buildings—one on each side of the Crosstown—supporting a larger building, twenty-five floors from the ground, that spanned the Crosstown and tapered, pyramid-like, as it rose another twenty-five floors. Atop the structure, a spire rose a hundred feet into the air, ringed at its peak by a circular observation deck. And yet, here it was, the exterior completed, though the interior wasn’t yet ready for occupancy. In his column, Frings had dubbed it “The Colossus of Roads.”

  Two cops stood at the gate. One approached the driver’s window. The driver, a city employee paid to chauffeur Canada around, rolled down his window.

  “I’ve got Mr. Canada and a guest to take a look at the site.”

  The cop, eager to be seen asserting his authority, nodded at the other uniform to unlock the gate. Frings saw the driver give the cop a tight nod as he pulled past.

  They’d had these meetings before, tense affairs where Canada made his case while Frings listened, valuing, if nothing else, the insight he received into Canada’s thinking. Frings wasn’t sure if Canada expected to sway Frings’s opinions through the sheer force of his personality, or if he just liked keeping up a connection with Frings, staying in his head.

  They drove down a gravel road to the front entrance of the northern tower. The driver stopped, the car idling. Canada took a last drag and ground the butt into the ashtray slotted into the door. “We’ll be a few minutes.”