Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  “Si and I were there together, the first years of working with consciousness-altering agents.”

  “He was experimenting with LSD?”

  “LSD, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin, all of the above. He still is, for all I know. It was a strange time. We had these new drugs, and it became a priority in the department. The priority for us. That was why I was there, more or less—because I’d been working on it down in Central America. You remember when I was down there?”

  Frings nodded. Ebanks had since settled down, but in the years before he’d joined the Tech faculty, he’d been consumed by boredom when he was in the City, leaving whenever he could for whatever remote destination caught his eye. It was during his occasional periods back in the City that he and Frings had been closest. Once he had returned to stay, they had, for whatever reason, grown apart.

  Frings knew that Ebanks had trekked through the highlands of Central America, meeting with shamans and traditional healers, convinced that there was something to be learned from their knowledge of the native flora. Before his decision to study hallucinogens under the auspices of the Tech, Ebanks had considered himself a connoisseur of intoxicants—the more exotic, the better.

  “Si, he had his students, but he kept it real quiet. He’s always been like that, everything secret until he publishes a paper and blows the world away, the motherfucker. So, he was doing what he was doing, and Ralph Landon was working with alcoholics, seeing if psychedelics could help them beat the liquor, but he ended up dying a couple of years ago. Heart attack, I think. And I was doing my own experiments. No one was collaborating. Part of it was that everyone was trying to make breakthroughs on their own. The other part was that we didn’t like each other very much.”

  “And that’s what got you in trouble, right?”

  Ebanks laughed, his bitterness tangible even through the hash veneer. “You ever watch a bird flying and wonder what he thinks about us, only being able to walk on land? He’s got a whole extra dimension on us, Frank, and sometimes I look at that and I feel so goddamn trapped. And LSD is like being that bird, but mentally, spiritually. You don’t study birds by watching what they do on the ground, Frank, you have to watch them in the skies. Si, he wanted to use the traditional methods: designing experiments, observing behaviors, talking to people who were actually taking the drug. But he didn’t have any personal experience with the stuff. He had no idea what he was working with. I wanted to adapt our methods to the realities of the drugs. I wanted to study the birds from the sky, Frank.”

  “You took the drugs yourself.”

  “When had I not been taking drugs? Look, I took the drugs, other people took the drugs. The point is that we weren’t observing subjects, we were observing ourselves, our own experiences. There was a method, Frank, but it was the kind of method that psychedelic drugs required, not the kind that traditional-minded people like Si used.”

  “It didn’t get out of hand?”

  “What got out of hand was the scrutiny I was put under for using innovative techniques to address this new capability.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t know. You can’t imagine unless you’ve experienced it for yourself. Let’s try another metaphor. LSD, it’s like a continent, the last unexplored place on earth. You can’t explore with control groups and samples and models. You have to go yourself, and explore and map and record. That’s what Si didn’t understand. None of them understood.” Ebanks recited all this with a quiet intensity, his pupils huge. Frings couldn’t read Ebanks’s mood, couldn’t tell if he’d shifted almost imperceptibly to anger.

  “So Ledley ran you out.”

  Ebanks pulled his hand slowly down his face, sighing. “He charged me with unsound research methods, endangering students, violating research ethics.” He laughed at this last one. “I went in front of the board, and I told them the truth, Frank. I told them what I just told you. These drugs, they are the key to understanding the spirit or the soul or God or whatever you want to call it. To think that you can study it using the same methods that you use with lab rats and drug trials? But if you haven’t been there, if you haven’t trod that ground, there’s no point in trying to explain it because it defies words. That’s the challenge of what we were—are—trying to do, explain the unexplainable, quantify the profound.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, the record needle skipping rhythmically against the label, Ebanks staring at Frings. Frings tried to get a handle on this zealous side of Ebanks, who—naively, it seemed to Frings—was proselytizing for this new drug, LSD.

  “I’m meeting with Ledley tomorrow.”

  Ebanks shook his head slowly. “He won’t tell you anything.”

  “He won’t?”

  “No. He’s the God of his little world. He doesn’t do what he doesn’t want to do and he won’t want to talk to you.”

  “I guess I’ll see.”

  “I guess you will.”

  27

  PRESIDENT MILLEDGE WAITED AT THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, STANDING under the stone arch as Frings approached, carrying an umbrella against the torrent. Even the student protestors had been run off by the rain. Frings caught the unhappy look on Milledge’s face, as if he was about to perform some particularly distasteful task.

  “Is Panos not coming?” Milledge extended his hand to Frings.

  “He’s ill.”

  Milledge nodded. “There’s a complication, I’m afraid. Dr. Ledley decided that he preferred to meet with you in the company of an attorney.”

  Frings phrased his response carefully, trying not to appear as annoyed as he felt. “I’m disappointed that Dr. Ledley considers this meeting antagonistic.”

  “Oh no,”—Milledge said, hand up to placate—“I don’t think that’s it at all. We are dealing with sensitive issues here, legal requirements, confidentiality agreements. The attorney will be present to ensure that we are not in breach of these agreements. That would put the Tech in a very difficult position.”

  Frings pursed his lips, nodded skeptically. Milledge himself didn’t seem too sure of his own words.

  “We’re meeting here,” Milledge said, leading Frings inside and out of the rain. Originally, they had planned to meet in the conference room on the ground floor of Ledley’s building. Frings wondered why he was being kept away.

  Ledley and the lawyer waited in the same room that Frings and Panos had used when they’d examined Sol’s files. Ledley sat reading a journal of some sort while his lawyer bided time. As Frings entered the room, the lawyer—an aging, though powerfully built man—stood and extended an enormous hand.

  “Rolf Westermann,” the lawyer said. “I believe we’ve met.” Westermann was one of the City’s top lawyers, with a clientele that included many of the City’s most successful men. Their paths had occasionally crossed.

  “Yes, we have.” Frings didn’t bother to compete with the strength of the man’s handshake, and Westermann sat down with a look of vague satisfaction. Frings reached out to the sitting Ledley, who looked up from his reading, regarded his hand with little enthusiasm, and shook it limply.

  Milledge and Frings sat down opposite Ledley and Westermann—an adversarial arrangement, though with the president on Frings’s side.

  Ledley wasn’t as old as Frings had been expecting—probably in his fifties—but he cut an unusual figure, sitting in a way that indicated a profound lack of physical grace. He wore a threadbare, faded blue sweater over a collared shirt. Westermann was in an expensive suit.

  The two pairs of men stared across the table at each other for a moment, the room silent but for the drone of a fan blowing air through the vents cut into the ceiling.

  Milledge cleared his throat, nervous. “You received my memo, Simon, with the ledger items?”

  Ledley nodded.

  “I understand that these payments were most likely incentives paid to Sol Elia for participating in one of your studies. Can you fill me in on the study and the nature of his participation?”


  Ledley sat stone-still. Westermann said, “The study in question is subject to confidentiality agreements that prohibit disclosure of the information you are requesting.”

  Frings glanced over at Milledge, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “How about the name of the study, to start off with?”

  Westermann cleared his throat. “The study in question is subject to confidentiality agreements that prohibit disclosure of the information you are requesting.”

  Frings stared at Ledley. “You can’t even tell us the name of the study?”

  Ledley closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, radiating arrogance.

  Milledge’s voice was tight with anger. “Who was the sponsor of this program?”

  “The study in question is—”

  “We get it,” Frings interrupted. He turned to Milledge. “Were you expecting this?”

  Milledge looked back at Frings with a mixture of fury, embarrassment, and helplessness. “I was hoping that Simon would be more forthcoming.”

  Frings turned to Ledley. “You understand that Sol Elia is missing?”

  “Oh, really?” he said, eyebrows raised, voice bored. “Missing from whom?”

  Frings took a moment to gather himself. “The police will be the next people to visit. They’ll bring a warrant to go through your files. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “On what basis, Mr. Frings? I looked into it when I received the request for this meeting. There is no missing persons case filed for Sol Elia. If there were, I fail to see how privileged files related to my studies would be germane to his whereabouts.”

  “That’s how you want to play this?”

  Ledley regarded Frings with meager interest, said nothing. Westermann slid some papers from the table into his briefcase. Milledge sat quietly, looking slightly ill.

  28

  AT THE DOOR TO THE DOUBLE EAGLE, A PUB LESS THAN A BLOCK FROM St. Stanislaw’s church, Dorman was met by two older men, whom he recognized from the previous meeting in the church basement. They reintroduced themselves, shook hands. Inside, the place seemed to be doing a decent business. The tables were full—mostly older people, mumbling to one another, sharing wine and meals. The bar was also packed, though with a younger crowd, all men: workers done for the day, having a drink or three before heading home to their families. Dorman followed the two men to the back, where a door led to a function room of sorts. Trochowski sat at a table for two, the chair opposite him empty, two cups of tea steaming. Three more of the men from St. Stanislaw’s were there, sitting at another table off to the side. Everyone looked up as Dorman entered.

  “Mr. Dorman.” Trochowski stood and beckoned Dorman over. They shook hands and sat. Dorman looked over at the other table where the five men talked quietly, so that they could also hear Dorman’s conversation.

  “The note you sent indicated that you had a change of heart, Mr. Trochowski.”

  Trochowski nodded. “Yes, this is right.”

  “What made you change your mind?” Dorman was sure that the answer was greed. It was easy to turn your back on that kind of money on the spur of the moment. Later, though, as you lay in bed and thought about the amount—how it could change things for you or even for your community—the moralistic objections suddenly seemed less and less convincing as the benefits became more tangible.

  “We spoke among ourselves after you left. The road will come through our neighborhood no matter what we do, yes? So, we talk and decide, why not get any good that we can see from this? It is not a fair recompense for our troubles, but it is better than nothing at all.”

  “I understand. What did you have in mind?”

  “The same deal that you offered before, the other night at the church.”

  Dorman felt his chest contract and sweat form on his upper lip, under his arms. He had to push this a little, see what happened next. “What deal was that?”

  “You don’t remember the details?”

  Dorman saw that Trochowski wanted him to say it, make the offer. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking.”

  The old man was stopped by this, unsure how to proceed. Dorman helped him along. “I don’t remember any kind of offer being made the other night at the church. If you remember such an offer, remind me.” He looked over to the other table where the conversation had stopped and all the attention was centered on Dorman and Trochowski.

  Trochowski looked him in the eye, and Dorman saw the hostility. “I cannot believe that you don’t remember, Mr. Dorman.”

  “I can’t remember because I didn’t make any offer.”

  Trochowski mulled over his next move. Dorman leaned across the table, grabbed Trochowski’s shirt, and ripped it open. He was wearing a wire. Dorman glared at Trochowski—who’d reddened considerably—but said nothing.

  The younger men were up now, advancing on Dorman. Dorman made a move for the door, but was cut off by two of the men. He feinted toward the table, then lowered his shoulder and barreled toward the door. He knocked one of the men back hard against the wall. The other one punched him twice in the back of his head and kicked him behind the knees. Dorman turned and swung wildly, missing everything. Behind his assailants he could see Trochowski, red-faced, rebuttoning his shirt. Dorman pulled on the door knob and wrenched the door open as he ducked to take a blow on the shoulder. He stumbled backward into the restaurant, where conversations immediately ceased.

  The three younger men followed him out, kicking and punching at him as he scrambled toward the exit, bumping people at their tables in his retreat. He was aware that some of the men at the bar were taking shots at him as he passed and was thankful that no one grabbed him. He stumbled. A kick to the ribs hurt but knocked him back to his feet. He found the front door and shouldered it open, falling into the street. The three men stormed out after him and threw punches as he bent over and protected his head with his arms. He was pushed against a car and bounced off swinging, felt his fist graze someone’s face. He could feel blood running down his chin. Someone grabbed his right arm, and he tucked his face into his right shoulder to try to protect himself when he heard the chirp of a siren on the block. His arm was released. One of the men kicked him hard in the shin and Dorman went down onto the sidewalk and lay there, resting and in pain. All he could think was, who the hell had Trochowski wearing a wire?

  29

  THE TEMPERATURE IN THE SUN WAS PROBABLY TWENTY DEGREES WARMER than in the frigid shade. Grip checked his watch, saw it was eleven, and tossed his cigarette down a sewer grate. He kept an eye on the street for a prowl car. He realized he was pushing his luck by being here, on Lieutenant Boyer’s turf, for the second time in so many days. Normally, Grip didn’t mind confrontation. But it would be a hell of a lot easier if word didn’t get around—especially to Ving—about him being here, across the street from Ben Linsky’s building.

  Grip wasn’t sure about what he was doing. One of his strengths as a cop was his decisiveness. He generally thought things over, debated merits in his head, then acted without second thoughts. In his estimation, he took very few wrong steps, though his mistakes could be big ones. His instincts weren’t perfect, but he had a good sense of how much to mull over any decision—and the ability to banish doubts once he was in motion. Today, though, he wasn’t sold on his own plan, wasn’t sure that he’d go through with it. He had one lead. He needed to make something out of it. He sensed that time was beginning to run short, that whoever had the explosives wouldn’t sit on them for long and that Grip seemed to be the only one in pursuit.

  This had been his old partner Morphy’s method—if an investigation stalled, you had to jumpstart it. They’d done this kind of thing many times, planting evidence—drugs, money, guns—not as an excuse for an arrest, but for the suspects’ associates to discover. When it worked, the technique sowed suspicion—where did this money come from? Was someone holding out? Sometimes it was the catalyst that broke a case. He wasn’t confident that it would work in this situation, but
for the moment, there just wasn’t anything else.

  Grip had been working at his desk the previous night, typing up a backlog of reports with neither speed nor enthusiasm, when Zwieg had walked in, dominating the room with his sheer size.

  “Everybody out, except Detective Grip.”

  There’d been three other detectives, and they’d hesitated a moment, uncertain. Zwieg hadn’t said anything more, hadn’t even moved, but his posture, or some energy coming off him, had been enough, and the detectives got up and left without a word. Zwieg took up a spot where he loomed over Grip, casting a shadow.

  “I’ve got some bad news for you,” Zwieg said, smiling nastily. “The Bulgarians, we found the killers. A couple of enforcers for a bookie over in the Hollows. We haven’t nailed down the details, but it might be related to that middleweight fight at the convention center last month. Rumors have been flying around that Osmond took a dive.”

  Zwieg seemed fairly pleased to be imparting this information.

  “That’s great news,” Grip said, slowly.

  “I thought you’d be more interested.”

  Grip shrugged. “I’m working a different angle.”

  Zwieg tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. “Is that right?”

  “Yeah. Little Nicky Patridis had something.”

  “Patridis?”

  “Yeah, not sure how much stock to put into it. It’s Patridis, after all. But it’s better than dead security guards.”

  Zwieg seemed to think about this for a moment.

  “Why don’t I let you know if it comes to something,” Grip said, suddenly wanting Zwieg out of the room.

  “That sounds fine, detective. You do that.”

  GRIP TROTTED ACROSS THE STREET, HAT LOW, NO PROWL CARS INSIGHT. He looked through the glass door into the small, bare lobby of Linsky’s building. No one inside. He pulled his pick kit from his coat pocket and worked two picks in the lock, looking at the column of call buttons with apartment numbers and names next to them. 302: LINSKY. He noticed that the names of Linsky’s roommates were not listed.