by Toby Ball
He rolled into a sitting position, stood up, found he’d left his shoes on while he slept. He walked to the window, edged the side of the curtain open, and looked out onto the empty street. He heard the distant rhythmic thud of the pile drivers.
He found a stale loaf of bread in his breadbox, chewed on it as he walked around, filling his flask with bourbon, pulling a heavy overcoat from his closet. The day was getting lighter, color started to appear, details became visible. Feeling a greater sense of urgency, he found his screwdriver and walked to the bathroom. He unscrewed the ceiling vent cover, reached his hand up, located the envelope, and screwed the vent cover back in place. He pulled the stack of tens from the envelope, counted them. Fifty. He put forty of the bills back in the envelope and dropped it in the inside pocket of his coat. The other ten he slid into his wallet.
Standing in front of the bureau, which still blocked the door, he performed a quick check with his hands: gun, flask, masking tape, envelope, wallet, badge, lock pick, hat. He pushed the bureau to the side, waited for a moment, his ear to the door. If someone was waiting for him out there, they wouldn’t be so stupid as to make any noise, but it seemed careless not to listen.
Hearing nothing, he pulled his gun, released the safety, and opened the door quickly. The hall was empty.
A HACK DROPPED GRIP TWO BLOCKS FROM BEN LINSKY’S BUILDING, the sun now risen above the buildings, long morning shadows reaching toward him from across the street. He walked, his head down, hands in his pockets. Ahead of him he saw students walking toward campus. Grip was the only one on the block. He crossed over into the shade and paused at the side of Linsky’s building to take a long pull from his flask.
The glass door to the lobby was locked, but a middle-aged woman in a faded dress was retrieving mail from a locked box. Grip knocked on the door. The woman turned, saw him, shook her head, went back to the box. Grip pulled his badge, and held it up to the door as he knocked again. This time the woman walked over, studied the badge through the glass, and opened the door for him. He muttered thanks, walked past her to the stairs. He didn’t like elevators.
On the third-floor hallway, he pulled the tape from his pocket, tore four squares off, and placed a square over the peepholes in each of the four doors. He stood with his ear at Linsky’s door and listened for three minutes, clocking the time on his watch. Nothing. He tried the door, surprised to find it unlocked. He slid in, closed and locked it behind him.
He scanned the room and instantly knew that something was wrong. The air was very still and in it hung a scent, very faint, that had the hairs on his neck alive, his gun out without even thinking about it.
His eyes fell on the lamps, and he wondered how he’d missed them on his previous visit. There were a number of them: on the tables at the ends of each couch; in the bookcase by the door; by the window. If the place was bugged, they’d done a thorough job. If Linsky was complicit, it would have been easy enough to set up—run the bugs off the lamps’ power; turn on the lamp and you turn on the bug. His pulse quickened.
He went through the open door to Linsky’s bedroom, and it took him a moment to realize what was wrong with the scene, the pillow hiding Linsky’s face, his motionless chest. On the wall above the bed, a single word was spray-painted in black—snitch. He flashed to the Kollectiv 61 graffiti at the construction sites, then put it out of his mind, focused on what was before him. He walked to the bed, pulled the pillow away to find Linsky’s sightless eyes open wide, his lips blue. Grip pulled off a glove and felt Linsky’s face with the back of his hand. Cold. He put the glove back on.
The other two bedrooms were empty. He walked back into the living room and grabbed a lamp, unscrewed the lampshade, found the little microphone attached to the bottom of the shade holder, brushing it accidentally with his glove. He put the lamp back down and replaced the shade. He’d touched the bug. They’d have heard him. He walked to the window, but no one was on the street. That, he realized could very well mean that they were listening from inside the building. In which case, he had to move very quickly.
Back in the hallway, he turned Linsky’s door-handle lock to its locked position and pulled it shut behind him, then dashed to each door, pulling the tape off the peep holes. He ran to the access door to the stairs, paused, and took his shoes off. He padded down the stairs from the third toward the second floor, gun in one hand, shoes in the other.
He was starting on the next flight when he heard the door open below him. He sprinted, two steps at a time past the third floor hallway and up to the fourth, nearly silent in his stockinged feet. He opened the door, heard the sound of people quickly ascending the stairs, and closed it quietly behind him, mind racing, trying to figure a way out.
45
Papers were stacked neatly on Dorman’s desk, awaiting comments, signatures, or objections. A pile of monotonous work, which, while necessary, felt far removed from the crucial tasks facing him. These were the little things that kept the project going, but they meant nothing until Dorman completed the final work: annexing the last neighborhoods for the New City Project. He spent some time going through the top documents, but realized that he was too distracted by the trouble with Svinblad, Reuther, and Trochowski—each man his own kind of problem. He was just going through the motions. This was the kind of thing that could come back to bite him later—even a small decision, if not thought through, could end up a huge distraction—or worse. So he put his pen down, got out of his chair, and turned his attention to the ultimate source of his anxiety.
An enormous map of the City took up nearly half a wall in his office. Though it covered dozens of square miles, stretching out toward the international airport, the focus was the City Center, the commercial district that would save the City. Dorman used the map to track the project’s progress—downtown blocks were colored different shades of gray, indicating when they’d been claimed for destruction and rebirth. The effect was that of an encroaching tide, the gray covering in gradations the entire projected area, with the exception of five neighborhoods, coded in different colors: Pickett East in dark blue, Pickett West in green, Monkton Heights in red, Corsican Square in yellow, and the line of Luxembourg Avenue in orange.
When Dorman had arrived, the areas that were now gray had been mostly a patchwork of different colors, each a different neighborhood requiring a negotiated arrangement to acquire their blocks, move their people somewhere else in the City—often into reclaimed blocks of shabby flats in the Hollows.
Dorman’s charge had been unambiguous, and evaluation of his work was simple. He had a budget and a geographic area to acquire, and he either succeeded in annexing the neighborhoods for the New City Project, or he didn’t. He’d been remarkably efficient up until now, and the colored neighborhoods of previous maps had turned gray, one after another. But while the tide of gray had taken over more and more of the map, the areas that remained colored—the last hold-out neighborhoods—dominated Dorman’s attention.
Which was why Reuther’s efforts were such a pain in the ass. Dorman had little doubt that if worst came to worst and a neighborhood or two proved intransigent, Canada would arrange to have the residents forcibly removed. But this would be an unpopular move—even the News-Gazette wouldn’t be able to support taking people’s homes at gunpoint. The extra money from Svinblad was thus a way to mitigate a potential problem—he could use the cash to close a deal with the minimum of trouble. Still, all of this took time and energy, and as he thought about the challenges still to come, Dorman leaned back at the waist, trying to loosen his back muscles, which were hopelessly bound up by stress.
46
AT THE STRIKE OF NINE O’CLOCK, THE FRONT DOOR OF THE PRAEGER’S Hill branch of Century Guaranty and Trust was unlocked by a slight man in an expensive gray suit. Frings shuffled in, his knee stiff. The ceilings were high, with intricate molding along the edges and an expansive chandelier hanging in the center of the room, about two-thirds of the lights in working order.
Frings let
half a dozen people pass him in their hurry to queue up at the teller counter. A secretary sat behind a desk that served as the gateway to the bank management offices.
“Hi”—he flashed the Frings smile at the woman, attractive, mid-thirties, no-nonsense eyes—“I’m trying to find Elgin Holland.”
The woman looked him over for a moment. “I’ll ring him.” She punched a succession of buttons. “Yes, Mr. Holland. There’s a man here to see you, a mister …” She looked up.
“Frings.”
“Mr. Frings,” she said and waited on the line for a moment. “Okay.” She hung up, shrugged. “Go on back.” She pointed to a door behind her.
Holland had the door open and a hand out as Frings approached. They shook, introducing themselves. Holland was a small man, heavy-set in a soft way, balding. His eyes were blue and seemed to jitter slightly.
Frings sat. “Mr. Holland, I don’t know if you’ve heard of me, but I’m a—”
“Newspaper guy. I heard the name and I thought that it couldn’t be that Mr. Frings, yet here you are. I’m honored that you’ve come to our modest bank.”
Modest was not the word for Holland’s office, which, though small, was appointed in leather and oak, an approximation of a study in an English manor house. An oriental carpet covered the space between the desk and the far wall.
“Well, it’s not actually the bank that I’ve come to talk to you about.”
“No?” Holland seemed neither surprised nor suspicious. His manner was professional and ingratiating. “What can I help you with?”
Frings noticed the absence of picture frames on his desk, the bare walls, not even a flag or a certificate. “I wanted to talk to you about your time at the Tech.”
“What about it?” Holland leaned forward over the desk, his genteel manner now gone, replaced equally by interest and caution.
“Did you know a student named Sol Elia?”
“A student named Sol Elia?” Holland laughed. “He was far from just a student, Mr. Frings, as I’m sure you know. Not very often that you have a kid at the Tech you could describe as ‘notorious,’ but that’s what he was. Did I know him? A little bit. We ran into each other occasionally. The Tech is a big place, but we were the same year.”
“Where did you run into each other?”
“Look, you mind if I ask what this is about?” He had the manner down pat, could have been asking about a down payment or an account balance.
“I’m just trying to track down Sol. I’m talking to his friends to see if they can help.”
“I wasn’t exactly a friend.”
“How did you know him then?”
Holland sighed. “We participated in a study together. There were always studies going on at the Tech, and you could earn a little coin by volunteering for this one or that one.”
“And which study did you both participate in?”
Holland thought about this for a moment, directing his eyes to the ceiling. “I’m not entirely sure. Maybe a drug trial. I participated in a few. My family wasn’t wealthy. Not like most of the kids there.”
Frings thought that he was probably being dishonest, rather than vague. “I think it was probably the study you did under Dr. Ledley.”
Holland grimaced and scratched his cheek. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m fairly sure that it was.”
Holland leaned back in his seat, clasped his hands over his belly. Sunlight came through a window behind him, forming a yellow trapezoid on the rug.
“Why are you fairly sure?”
“I’ve got a list of the people involved.”
Holland pursed his lips. “How did you get that?”
Frings shook his head.
“That’s confidential,” Holland protested. “There’s no way that information should be available. My privacy …”
“I’m the only one who has it. I just want to find out about that project, the one Dr. Ledley was running.”
Holland looked suddenly ill. “I’m not interested in talking about it. Even if I was, I signed waivers. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“Do you ever see anyone from the project?”
“How do you mean?”
“Socially?”
“No.”
“You know what happened to them?”
“Like I said.”
“Okay. Look, there were a dozen of you, right?”
This time, Holland shook his head, not willing to commit one way or the other.
“My list has a dozen. Four of those people committed suicide. Another one died, we’re not sure how. A couple more are working manual labor. Three are missing. You’re the only one we could find who’s got any kind of life. It’s a bit of a puzzle.”
Frings saw Holland’s jaw quiver, sweat bead on his forehead.
“Those guys weren’t my friends. We were just recruited for the same—”
“Recruited?”
Frings waited, but Holland didn’t elaborate.
Frings said, “Okay. They weren’t your friends. But you see what’s happened to the others? As far as I can tell, all of their lives have turned to shit. All except yours.”
“You think my life has turned out well?” Holland barked. “What do you know about my life?”
Frings held out his hands in a placating gesture. “I don’t know anything about your life. I’m saying that from where I stand, it looks like the people involved with this project didn’t end up so well. I want to know why. I want to know if the project might be the reason. Otherwise, it’s a huge coincidence. You see?”
Holland leaned forward, his head in his hands. “I’m not saying anything else.”
“Think about it, Mr. Holland.”
Holland looked up. “Think about it? That’s all I’ve done for five years: think about it. You need to leave before I call security.”
“Mr.—”
Frings saw Holland feel for the button under his desk. Frings stood up, adjusted his cane in his hand and prepared to be escorted out by the two armed guards he saw heading his way.
47
GRIP DREW THREE SLOW BREATHS, WILLING HIS HEART TO SLOW DOWN, his mind to focus. Four doors on this quiet hallway, one floor above Linsky’s apartment. He moved to the first on the right, put his ear to the door. Kids’ voices. No good. The next door, some kind of humming from inside—not human, mechanical. The seconds were ticking off in his head. He pulled his pick set, worked the cheap lock, no problem. Pick set back in his pocket, gun back out, shoes in his left hand, he slipped slowly into the apartment, shutting the door behind him with his foot.
Grip squinted at the scene before him. The place was lit by several unshaded lamps with red light bulbs. Two mattresses were kicked against the wall. A bearded guy slept on one, curled up in a ball, rasping slightly with each inhalation. Against the window sat a machine that Grip, after a moment spent adjusting to the strange, red light, identified as a shortwave radio. Wires fanned out from the back like so many tentacles, tacked to the ceiling, the walls—some even snaked out the window. The speaker hummed with soft white noise.
Grip left his shoes by the door, headed to the three doors off the living room, two open and one shut. The two open doors led to a filthy bathroom and what must have been intended as a bedroom, but seemed to function as a storeroom of sorts as well: boxes, books, piles of clothes. The final door was closed. Grip listened but heard nothing. He carefully eased the door open and found another bedroom, this one occupied by a woman sleeping under a sheet, a man next to her. The man sat up slowly, staring at Grip in a daze, hair greasy and lank.
Grip put a finger to his lips, showed the man his gun, though the guy didn’t seem to register it. Grip fished for his badge and showed that, too, but, again, to no effect. He tried to catch the guy’s eyes, but they seemed locked on something else, something Grip couldn’t figure out. Grip looked for a telephone, but didn’t see one. The guy seemed too out of it to be a threat, so Grip closed the door again, went to the living
room windows.
Past the fire escape, he saw a single prowl car on the street, lights going, two uniforms leaning against it, watching the building. No way they would miss him if he took the fire escape, even to the roof. A sudden noise from the radio startled him. A Woody Woodpecker laugh, a blast of static, then back to the humming. Grip felt lightheaded from the panicked rush of blood to his head. Fuck.
The guy on the mattress hadn’t stirred. Grip walked back into the bedroom. The man from the bed was up now, naked, so thin that Grip figured he could break the guy in half over his knee. The guy was just standing, staring at something in the corner. Grip looked and saw a big-leafed plant of some sort. He turned to the guy, put his gloved hands on the guy’s bony shoulders. The guy’s collarbone stood out alarmingly.
“Hello? You awake?”
The guy met his eyes. Huge pupils. No one home.
“Can you hear me?” Nothing.
“Listen. I need to stay here for a little bit. I’ll just sit in the next room. If someone knocks, I need you to answer the door and just be exactly like you are. You get it?”
The guy looked toward Grip’s face without focusing. Grip took him by the shoulders, laid him down on the bed with the girl, who rolled her back to him without waking up.
Grip walked back out into the living room, looked at the mattress and decided to sit on the floor with his back to the wall. He listened to the policemen’s footsteps as they searched the floor below, thought about Ben Linsky, about the memo he had left on Linsky’s table the other day. He thought about the word spray-painted above Linsky’s bed. Snitch.
THIS WAS THE SECOND TIME THAT A SUSPECT HAD DIED IN THE MIDDLE of one of his investigations. During the crazed weeks that followed the chief’s assassination by Andre LaValle, Grip and Morphy had lost all their restraints. In their off-duty hours, the pair had always made a habit of menacing communists and unionists—often with their fists—but once LaValle was linked to the radical movement, the badge was no longer a deterrent to violence. Even though the mayor and Kraatjes had both ordered the Force to refrain from retaliation, no one listened. It was open season on radicals, heemies, organizers—anyone on that side of the political spectrum—and Grip and Morphy led the way with a concentrated fury.
