Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Frings couldn’t read Macheda. He was nervous about something, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was lying. Maybe it was the sudden change in the tenor of their conversation.

  “How did you come to pick him for the scene?”

  “They were just people around the Tech, students who were willing to spend a couple of hours, had the right political outlook, you know. But they weren’t anything special.”

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “I don’t remember her name.”

  “Come on, Andy. You’re not going to forget her name, a girl that looks like that.”

  “It was, what, a couple of years ago? I was taking some pretty heavy drugs at the time. I was shooting a lot of footage with a lot of different people. No, I don’t remember her name.”

  “But you remembered Sol’s.”

  “Only because you told me. You tell me her name, I’ll probably remember it, too. But not off the top of my head.”

  Frings knew he was lying, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now; just ride out the conversation and go after him again, later, when he had some more information and could probe some more. “How about the other men, you remember any of their names?”

  Macheda shook his head. “Like I said before, I didn’t see much of any of them after the shoot. They were just people who helped me out, wanted to be in a film.”

  “Listen, Andy, I’m not a cop. You know where I’m coming from. Hell, you probably know my own book better than I do. Sol’s uncle is a close friend of mine, and he just wants to know that Sol’s okay; maybe see him, maybe not, but the not knowing is eating at him. He’s an old man. Do you get that?”

  Macheda nodded, not meeting Frings’s eyes.

  “It would be great if you could think on that. Maybe you could ask some of your friends if they’ve heard from Sol or know what he’s up to.”

  “Yeah, sure. Okay.”

  “I’ll come find you and we can talk about it.”

  At this, Macheda brought his eyes back to Frings’s, and they stood like that for a moment, wordless.

  24

  DORMAN HADN’T BEEN TO THE SVINBLAD INDUSTRIES OFFICES BEFORE, and was fascinated by the furniture in the waiting room. The chairs had upholstered seats with curved backs and tapered arms. The end tables were circular glass tops placed on three-branched pedestals. The receptionist’s desk was made of blond wood and chrome, the edges rounded. Behind the desk sat a beautiful young woman, engaged in typing out something that had been written on a yellow legal pad.

  The marble floors gleamed.

  Dorman decided not to sit. Instead, he looked out the window at the construction taking place some twenty blocks away, in what would be the new City Center. Half-built skeletons reached toward the sky, the tallest ones with blinking lights at their apex. At moments like this, the New City Project’s completion seemed inevitable, regardless of his own successes or failures. But this, Canada would have been quick to point out, was a misapprehension. His continued success was still crucial.

  A quick double-ring emitted from the phone, and the receptionist picked up the receiver wordlessly. She listened for a moment, then set the receiver down.

  “Mr. Svinblad is ready for you,” she said and returned to her typing.

  Dorman walked past her and opened the heavy oak door.

  Svinblad sat behind a huge glass desk shaped something like a kidney. The walls of his corner office were dominated by enormous windows, which afforded an even better view of the new City Center than the waiting room.

  “How are you today, Mr. Dorman?”

  Dorman returned the greeting and took a seat in one of three identical armless chairs, the seats constructed like L’s, set slightly reclined on chrome legs. He adjusted his posture in the chair, but couldn’t find a comfortable position.

  “My wife had me buy those,” Svinblad said. “Danish. You wouldn’t believe what they cost.”

  Dorman felt sure that this was true—this was not a world he understood, nor one he found particularly interesting.

  “I saw you at the dinner at the Leopold a few nights ago,” Svinblad said. “You know, the one for that jack-off Schermer, the fundraiser for his Council run. I was surprised to see you there, figured it was important enough for Nathan to come himself, but maybe I’m wrong.”

  Dorman had seen Svinblad as well, but had avoided him, not eager for another round of the condescension and verbal abuse that characterized their interactions.

  “My wife was there, too. Have you met my wife, by the way? She’s a nice piece of trim. Not like Elaine out there,” he said, nodding toward the door to the waiting room, “but she was in her time, and she’s still better than 99 percent of the women you’ll find in this city. But she says to me, who is that?—and she points to you. And you know what I say?”

  Svinblad waited for Dorman to ask him what he said, but Dorman wasn’t going to assist in the belittlement that he knew was coming.

  “I say, that young man—I take a shit, Nathan Canada sends him to wipe my ass.” He paused again, looking at Dorman with a pleased expression. Dorman met his gaze neutrally.

  “Nothing to say to that, huh?”

  “Not much to say, is there?”

  Svinblad grinned nastily. “You’re a tough guy, right?”

  Dorman stayed quiet.

  “War hero, from what Nathan tells me,” Svinblad pressed. “You look too young for World War II. What, Korea?”

  War hero—this was how Canada liked to refer to Dorman, like he was a Kentucky Derby winner. Himself, he couldn’t see all that much heroic in his service.

  “Caught the end of Korea. I was in Lebanon.”

  Svinblad looked him over. “Thing is, you don’t look so tough from where I stand. Just because you wore the uniform—”

  Dorman stood. He wasn’t actually going to do anything, but he was getting tired of Svinblad’s bluster. He was gratified to see Svinblad push back in his chair a little, his eyes betraying surprise. Dorman stayed standing for a moment, staring down Svinblad, before sitting again.

  “Did Mr. Canada explain why I’m here?”

  Svinblad shook his head, keeping his eyes on Dorman.

  “The Italians on Luxembourg Avenue, they held out for more money than we anticipated. They’d heard something about how much the Germans got in Pickett East, and they weren’t going to give in for anything less, so that’s thrown off our budget.”

  “The Italians wouldn’t settle?” Svinblad seemed to have recovered. “Why didn’t you just bulldoze their goddamn neighborhood?”

  “You don’t need me to go through this again with you,” Dorman said, catching himself before he added, “Mr. Svinblad.” They’d had plenty of similar conversations in the past. It was cheaper to settle with these neighborhoods, even if it involved more money than Mr. Canada felt was justified. Forcing people to abandon their homes and move unwillingly—this was costly, both in terms of money and bad publicity. It was much better to buy them off.

  “So, you’re coming to me for more money?” Svinblad said it calmly, but the outrage was clear.

  “That’s right.”

  “What if I tell you I don’t have any more to give? That’s going to happen at some point, right? I do have limits.”

  This was undoubtedly true, but what Canada was asking for was a pittance compared to what Svinblad was worth, and there would be a strong return on the investment in the not-too-distant future. Even Svinblad wouldn’t dispute that.

  “We’d go elsewhere. There are plenty of people who would be happy to get in on the west side of City Center.” This was a patchwork of old ethnic neighborhoods that, once the residents were relocated, would be the final piece of the new business district. Canada had arranged for Svinblad to buy this land—blocks that would be worth many millions once they were developed. And he would buy them on very favorable terms, in return for financing the bribery and relocation cost
s for a number of neighborhoods along the Crosstown. Canada had a number of such agreements with wealthy businessmen in the City—though, to Dorman’s knowledge, Svinblad’s was the most lucrative.

  “Is that your way of playing hardball?”

  “I’m telling you what Mr. Canada told me—that there are people waiting in line to throw money at the Crosstown if it means having a shot at those properties. If we reach your limit, it’s not a problem. We can go elsewhere. The upshot, though, is that you’ll no longer have the exclusive bid. Mr. Canada thought it would be courteous, given your past support, to give you the first opportunity to provide the additional funding we need.”

  Svinblad fixed him with a venomous glare, but Dorman was essentially immune to the man’s anger. Svinblad knew that no matter how many times Canada sent Dorman to extract more money, he would make the money back ten-fold when he had control of the properties. Dorman understood that the man needed to vent—to show the power of his personality—before he’d write yet another check. But that didn’t mean that Dorman liked being on the receiving end of Svinblad’s insults, or, for that matter, that he had anything but contempt for the man.

  Svinblad was up now, a man who in his early fifties was beginning to lose his powerful shoulders and athlete’s movements. He still looked strong, but the years were becoming more obvious, the line of his slicked-back hair receding, going gray around the temples. He walked to a window, but kept his eyes on Dorman.

  “I like these windows because every once in a while I look over at all that construction and remind myself what it is I’m getting for all this money I’m giving.” He shook his head. “How the hell did the Italians find out what the Germans were getting? I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  Dorman shrugged. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t have happened. But it was impossible to stay on top of everyone all of the time—though he tried.

  “Subversives,” Svinblad spat. “Probably communists, maybe anarchists, but definitely some anti-capitalist subversives. You know, I have a friend, a guy called Ed Wayne, who would be more than happy to put the fear of the Red Blooded Capitalist American God into whoever’s behind this. You just let me know.”

  “Sure,” Dorman said, thinking that that was the last thing he’d consider doing.

  25

  GRIP DROVE AN UNMARKED THROUGH CROWDED STREETS TO KLIMCHUK’S, making sure to avoid the security guards’ block with its impassable street. He found a parking spot down in front of a religious bookstore, a few doors down from the bar. Two vagrants squatted against the cement wall, muttering to each other in their native language.

  He pounded the door, found the same big man as the other day. Grip smiled at him. The bouncer sighed in resignation.

  “You going to let me in?” Behind the big man, it looked as if about a quarter of the tables were in use. This empty, the place seemed smaller than before. The bouncer looked back to the bar. Grip saw the bartender put his towel on the rail, have a word with one of the barflies, and head their way.

  “You again?”

  “Nice to see you.”

  The bartender sneered at him. “What do you want?”

  “I need a word.”

  The bartender maintained his belligerent glare.

  “Look, Ivan, we can do this now or I can come back in a couple hours with some of my buddies from Vice and take this place down. You want to give me a hard time? You understand?”

  The bartender tapped the bouncer on the shoulder, and the bouncer stood aside, uncertain. Grip followed the bartender to the bar.

  “Whisky and a beer.”

  He could see the bartender didn’t like this, which improved his mood slightly.

  “Go down to the end of the bar, you want to talk.”

  Grip eyed the barflies, glassy-eyed guys in their sixties and seventies, born in countries that hadn’t existed for decades. He’d bet they didn’t have fifty words of English among them. But he shrugged and took a stool at the far end of the bar.

  “So?”

  Grip took a drink from the bottle, looked past it at the bartender.

  “Yeah, those three guys I came looking for the other day: Zanev, Malakov, Petrov. You seen them yesterday or today?”

  The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “No. They haven’t been around here.”

  “See, that’s the thing. As far as I know, they haven’t been around anywhere.”

  “That right?” The bartender was good at this, acting unconcerned, but Grip could see the guy thinking hard.

  Grip drank again from his bottle, in no hurry. “Any thoughts about where they might be?”

  “How the fuck would I know that?”

  “I were you, I’d figure out something. This is the last place they were known to be. It’s also an underground gambling operation, which makes it a criminal enterprise. You got whores in here. I bet if we grabbed some of these dice and cards, we might find something interesting. What do you think?”

  The bartender shook his head at the unfairness of it all.

  “What the fuck do you think?” Grip repeated.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Grip smiled. He’d rattled the guy. “Tell me about these guys.”

  “I don’t know them too well. They’re just guys that come here to play cards, throw some dice.”

  “Why are you fucking with me, Ivan? You think I’m bluffing?”

  “I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

  “Okay. How about this? You must have known about their credit. Those guys in the hole to anyone?”

  The bartender pursed his lips, shook his head. “Not those guys, no. They always had money, made good money at their jobs. They …” He hesitated, not certain what he should say to a cop.

  “That’s better. Look, we know these guys were on the take, we’re not worried about that right now. You’re telling me they didn’t owe money to anyone?”

  “No. No.” He shook his head vigorously. “You ask anyone in the neighborhood. Those boys, they had problems, maybe it was because they had too much money.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Shit. I don’t know. I’m just telling you, they didn’t have money problems.”

  “What else? Why would they be missing? Do you think they made a big score, maybe blew town?”

  “I got no idea about that. They came in here the other day, there’s nothing different. They don’t throw money around. They don’t place big bets. They don’t go with any of the girls. They come in, play some cards, they leave.”

  “You said last time that Zanev came in and got the other two.”

  The bartender thought about this. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “He came in like what? He had something to tell them? He told them something, and they split?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Grip nodded, thinking. He wasn’t sure what else he could get out of this guy. “Any friends, girlfriends, anything like that?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. I only see them here. I don’t know those things.”

  “Yeah, alright. Any other cops been here, asking questions about those guys?”

  “Once. Two guys. They ask a couple of questions, then leave. Not like you.”

  Grip snorted a quick laugh. “Okay, Ivan. It took you a while, but you did okay. I gave you my card before, and I know you didn’t lose it. You give me a call if think of anything.”

  The bartender nodded his head, brooding. “And if they show up?”

  “Yeah, if they show up, you definitely call me, because then we’ve got a real problem.”

  The bartender looked at him, confused.

  Grip smiled. “Last time I saw them, they were dead.”

  26

  FRINGS FOUND EBANKS RECLINED ON A PLUSH DIVAN IN A GLASSED-IN porch off the second floor of his house. Smoke rose serenely from a hookah sitting on an oriental carpet. A girl in a sweater and skirt sat with her head back, eyes closed, listening to a record of a raspy Fr
ench duo harmonizing over strummed guitars. Ebanks rolled his head over, smiling lazily as Frings walked in.

  “Fraaaank.”

  Frings sat down in a leather chair, leaned his cane in the crook made where the arm met the chair back, and looked at the girl.

  “Laura,” Ebanks called to her in a soothing voice. “Laura.”

  The girl opened her eyes slowly, registered that Frings was there, smiled and then closed them again, her head falling to rest on the chair back.

  “Hashish,” Ebanks said, nodding at the hookah. “Help yourself.”

  Frings frowned and shook his head, though the smell was enticing. He looked to the girl, then back to Ebanks, a question in his eyes.

  “She’s not paying attention, Frank. She’s listening to the music, dreaming her dreams.”

  Frings shrugged. “What is it?”

  “The record? Church music from Martinique. A guy at City College was down there making recordings, slipped me a copy in exchange for some peyote. You dig it?”

  “I do.”

  With some effort, Ebanks propped himself on his elbow, swung his feet to the floor. The afternoon sun was coming in low through the remaining leaves on two large elms, casting faint shadows across the room.

  “What brings you here, Frank?”

  “You remember I came here the other day, looking for Andy Macheda? I found him, but that’s not why I’m back. I’m trying to find Sol Elia—I think I might have mentioned that. I went to the Tech, had a look at his files. It turns out that while he was there he was paid to participate in a study.”

  Ebanks nodded. “That happens.”

  “The file didn’t have the name of the study, but it listed a fund number and I had them figure out who was paying him.”

  “Sure, Frank. Who was it?”

  “Simon Ledley. I thought maybe you’d have some insight.”

  Ebanks straightened, as if trying to will himself to clarity. Frings was glad that he hadn’t tried the hashish.

  “When was this?”

  “’59. ’60.”

  “That’s an interesting time in the department, Frank.”

  “The psych department?”