Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  Sol shook his head. “No. A couple I knew a little. Loners, guys that kind of kept to themselves. Like me.”

  “What was the study, Sol?”

  “The study? I don’t know. I’m not sure what they were trying to accomplish.”

  “But what happened? What did it entail?”

  “Tests. Lots of tests—written tests—that they paid me to take.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “Psych tests. Personality tests. IQ tests. Shit like that.”

  “Okay.”

  The record reached the end and the needle bounced rhythmically off the center. Sol walked over, turned off the record player, replaced the arm on its stand.

  “They had me write, like, a personal statement, a philosophy of life, what I believed in. It took a couple of sessions, and there was an assistant that helped me with it, posed questions, that kind of thing. Prompts, I guess.”

  “You remember his name?”

  Sol shook his head. “Then they started giving me the drug.”

  “What drug?”

  “LSD, I think. Maybe mescaline. They didn’t specify. They’d give me the drug and take me into a room and then they’d do things like ask me to tell them when a minute had passed.”

  “How’d that go?”

  He chuckled ruefully. “I’d either forget the question before the minute was up—you know, get distracted by something—or else I’d nail it, right to the second. They’d have me estimate distances or try to throw a ball into a bin, or they’d show me ink stains, ask me what I thought they looked like. Things like that.”

  “But there was more, right?”

  Sol didn’t seem to question how Frings knew this. “Sure. That was just the warm up.”

  “Hold on. Before you go further, these rooms where this project was taking place, were they in Bristol Hall?”

  Sol raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, actually, they were.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Why the fuck am I telling you about this?”

  “Why not? Why’d you come here?”

  “I told you, I heard you were looking for me.”

  “But you came to see me. Why, Sol?”

  Sol was silent, thinking.

  “You knew we’d talk about this, right? That’s why you came. You didn’t come so you could see Panos. So why else?”

  Sol paused for a moment, probably gathering his thoughts. “Fuck. Okay. One day they said they were going to have a guy ask me about my philosophy, the one I’d written up for them. So, sure. No problem. But they gave me the drug first, waited until it really kicked in, and this time they’d given me a lot. I mean, you can’t really tell when you take it, ’cause it’s just a sugar cube, but you can definitely tell when it hits you. So,” he paused for a moment, trying to remember what he’d been saying. “Right. They took me to this one room that I don’t think I’d been in before, and it was weird because it was all pitch dark except for this chair that was in a spotlight. I couldn’t see anybody behind the light, but I could hear people whispering back there.

  “This one guy, he must have read my paper because he starts asking me questions about it, you know, a couple of basic ones at first—what did I mean by this, is this what I meant by that—then he starts in on really dissecting it, arguing against what I’d written, the things I believed. And he was good at it, too, really made his case.”

  Sol paused.

  Sol’s account tracked with Lester Finch’s. This was Ledley’s experiment—a systematized routine—giving the subjects the drug and then undermining their sense of self. Frings asked, “What did you think about this? How did you respond?”

  Sol cocked his head. “You ever taken LSD or mescaline or anything like that?”

  “No.”

  “Well then it’s going to be hard to understand how it felt, because it’s so tied into the drug. The setup itself, it was the kind of thing that really fucks with you when you’re on the drug. The light, the people that you can’t see, the talking that you can kind of hear, and your mind can get really turned wrong by that, it can run away with thoughts. So, it’s not a great situation to begin with. But when you add that guy and the hostility, it’s like a waking nightmare. This went on for a while, too, man, and it got to the point where it broke me.” Sol stared at his hands.

  “What happened?”

  “I freaked out, couldn’t take it. They tried to ask me some questions, I think, but you can’t think when you’re like that. You’re run over by what you imagine.”

  “Okay,” Frings said, “I get it. What happened after that?”

  “Nothing. That was it. They just let me go.” Sol was rubbing his hands aggressively, his discomfort tangible.

  Frings nodded. “Do you know what happened to the other people in the project?”

  Sol sighed. “I heard a couple of them killed themselves, I think. I don’t know. You know, they must be fucked up. I don’t see how they aren’t.”

  Frings nodded. “What was the point of this study? Do you know?”

  “Me? How the hell should I know? Do you know? ’Cause it sounds like you know something, and if you know what the point was, I’d really like to hear it. I’ve been trying to figure that out for a while, now.”

  “I’m sorry, Sol, I don’t. I wish I did. And I wish I could help you. I hope that I can at some point—maybe soon. But you can help me. What did it seem like they were trying to accomplish. Do you have any idea?”

  “To really fuck with people’s heads? Listen, Frank, I’ve read about brainwashing or whatever, but this was worse, this was different. They were destroying people’s minds. I don’t know, but it had its effect on me, man. I didn’t go into the Tech completely together, you know, because of what happened … but the study, I haven’t been the same since.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? I mean I can’t concentrate. I’m hit with these periods, like I’m on the drug even though I haven’t taken it. I’ve read a lot, Frank, trying to figure this out. I’ve read about madness, about how they thought people were haunted by whatever, and I know what that is. It’s like a presence. It doesn’t leave. I know the depths that this life can offer.”

  Frings rubbed both hands over his face to clear his head. Sol was getting agitated. Frings glanced at the gun on the coffee table.

  “You know Andy Macheda?”

  This seemed to catch Sol by surprise. “No. I mean, I did.”

  “How about Andre LaValle?”

  “LaValle? I knew him a little, back in the People’s Union days.”

  “You were in the People’s Union?”

  “Sure. A lot of people were, I guess. It’s not like you joined or anything. You just kind of participated. But you know that it fell apart.”

  “And some of those people formed Kollectiv 61.”

  “Kollectiv 61, huh? You ever met anyone from Kollectiv 61?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  Sol snorted a laugh. “There’s no Kollectiv 61.”

  “Come on, Sol. The graffiti, the vandalism, the manifesto? It doesn’t just appear out of the blue.”

  “It’s bullshit. Look, Frank, Kollectiv 61 is nothing, it’s a slogan, a way of making a bunch of pissed-off heemies look like a group. It isn’t real.”

  Frings wasn’t sure what to make of this. He was worried that Sol wouldn’t continue talking much longer. He seemed to be visibly losing energy. Frings wondered when he’d last eaten.

  “Did you know Ben Linsky?”

  “Everyone knew Ben Linsky. Did I know him well? No.”

  “What do you think about what happened to him?”

  “That he was murdered?”

  “That he was murdered and someone wrote ‘snitch’ on his wall.”

  Sol shrugged. “It’s too bad, him being murdered. Someone thought he was a snitch, decided to do something about it. I don’t know what else to think about it.”

  “But you don’t know who might have done
it?”

  Sol gave Frings a hard stare. “Frank, I like you. I respect what you’ve done, and you’ve inspired a lot of the heemie crowd and all that. But I don’t dig the fucking suspicion you’re throwing at me.”

  Frings held Sol’s eyes, trying to project calm. “I’m not suspicious of you, Sol. You live in that world and I don’t. That’s it. I just wonder if you have any thoughts.”

  “I don’t know anything about it, Frank. Sorry.” He leaned over and grabbed the pistol. Frings’s heart raced.

  “Don’t worry,” Sol said wearily. “I just need to go.”

  “Listen, Sol, do you want something to eat or a place to sleep? I won’t tell Panos, and I won’t ask any more questions, but you need to get some rest.”

  Sol fixed Frings with a long, searching look. “I appreciate it, Frank, but I’ve got to split.”

  Frings walked Sol to the door, leaning on his cane, his knee almost impossible to bend.

  “You’re getting old, Frank,” Sol said.

  “I am.” Frings tried to keep his voice light.

  “What do you think of Kollectiv 61?”

  “I thought they didn’t exist.”

  “I mean the things that get pinned on Kollectiv 61. It seems like the kind of thing you’d like. Fighting against the New City Project, just like you talk about in your book.”

  “As long as no one gets hurt, I guess.”

  “No one gets hurt?” Sol exploded. “How’re you going to make any change if no one gets hurt? Is that where you really draw the line, Frank? With everything that’s going on, the fucking subjugation of the people, you’re worried about a few people getting hurt? I thought you might be more of a revolutionary than that.”

  They were at the door.

  “I think”—Frings said carefully—“that you have to be very careful that what you’re doing is worth whatever pain you cause. Some things are, some things aren’t. Sometimes the goal is noble but what you’re doing isn’t … efficient.”

  Sol seemed to think this over.

  “How do I get in touch with you?” Frings asked.

  “You don’t. I’ll get in touch with you, or I won’t.”

  Frings spoke softly, trying to make his compassion tangible to Sol. “What’s going on Sol? What are you up to?”

  Sol looked at him, and Frings was reminded of Sol ten years ago, under suspicion for his parents’ murder, giving nothing away, even to the people who were on his side.

  “It was good seeing you.” And then, as he crossed the threshold, he said, “What am I up to? I’m doing your work, Frank.”

  67

  THE ARES CLUB WAS REALLY ON TONIGHT, MORE PEOPLE THAN USUAL, chairs lined up facing the stage, and a different singer—older, blond, husky voice. Dorman nursed a beer, held his head in his hands, massaged his temples with his thumbs. He didn’t like the club when it was like this—when it was different from what he had come to expect. He found himself on edge in the one place where he could ever relax.

  This morning, drinking coffee and choking down runny eggs at a diner near his apartment, he’d puzzled over Zwieg’s approach to the missing explosives. He did not seem to be expending much effort towards finding them. As far as Dorman could tell, Grip was the only one actively on the case, and even he had said that the murders of the guards were beyond his purview, which seemed … well, it seemed a bit half-assed. Dorman understood the advantages in keeping the investigation small, keeping it out of the headlines. But from what he knew of Grip—and it was mostly reputation—it seemed that there were plenty of other men on the Force who would be far less likely to draw attention to themselves.

  A woman approached his table, holding a wine bottle in one hand and two glasses by the stems in the other. She was tall and thin-shouldered, dark complected—a narrow face, like a cat’s. She smiled at him. “May I accompany you?”

  Dorman looked up at her. She was beautiful.

  “I usually sit with Anastasia.”

  The woman smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid she’s not at the club this evening.”

  Dorman closed his eyes. He was almost desperate to see Anastasia, to talk to someone familiar, whom he could trust. He opened his eyes to find the woman still waiting. She raised her eyebrows. He nodded, moving aside, anxiety raging.

  THEY FINISHED THE BOTTLE OF WINE. DORMAN WATCHED THE CROWD with drowsy eyes while the woman—her name, she said, was Fatima—leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed.

  He felt rooted there, overcome by a kind of inertia, as if by staying where he was he could stop time and the momentum of events. Canada had called him in to his office before lunch. It seemed that Reuther had made good on his promise to take his case over Dorman’s head. Dorman doubted that Canada ever actually experienced glee, but the closest he came was when he was able to exercise his power against someone who didn’t understand his capabilities, or the extent of his ruthlessness.

  “He characterized,” Canada said of Reuther, “his conversation with you. He told me that he thought I would be more reasonable.”

  Canada’s mouth was contorted into something between a sneer and a smirk. Dorman waited patiently to hear the outcome.

  “I slashed his neighborhood’s take by half and the others’ by a quarter.”

  Dorman nodded, though he didn’t think this was a wise thing to do. It was better to let these things go—don’t concede anything, but don’t be punitive. It just courted trouble. Canada, of course, wasn’t concerned about that kind of trouble. He would just crush that, too—or, in reality, get Dorman to do it for him.

  Canada’s mood had seemed so good that Dorman had broached the subject of Trochowski wearing a wire at the bar near St. Stanislaw’s.

  Canada’s demeanor instantly changed. “How do you know he was wearing a wire?”

  “I didn’t like the way he was talking. It seemed like he was trying to lead me into saying something. So I ripped his shirt open.”

  “Have you run into this again—somebody wearing a wire?”

  “No,” Dorman said, then amended it to, “I don’t know.”

  Canada thought for a moment before speaking again. “This is not something for you to worry about. I’ll take care of this.”

  He’d found the words unsettling—almost threatening—though, looking back on it, it seemed as though he should have been reassured. But even now, at the Ares Club, the memory unnerved him.

  HE RUBBED HIS PALMS AGAINST HIS EYES.

  He thought about Anastasia, wondered where she was tonight, what she was doing. He needed some sleep to clear his head so he could think this through. He tapped gently on Fatima’s shoulder to wake her up, and moved to slide out of the booth.

  68

  THE WIND HAD PICKED UP, BLOWING AN EARLY SNOW NEARLY HORIZONTAL, eddies formed by the skyscraper canyons whipping the snow into wild vortices under the street lights. Grip shook from the cold. His forehead hurt just above his eyes—an intense, precisely located pain. The streets were empty, and he left footprints in a quarter-inch of virgin snow. He saw Ben Linsky’s building a block down. The promise of warmth had him picking up his pace.

  He pushed the buzzer for the manager, waited. Despite the static on the intercom, the weariness in the voice was clear.

  “What is it?”

  “Detective Torsten Grip. Police.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need to have a look at the tape room.”

  “I didn’t hear nothing about that.”

  Grip put some menace in his voice. “You think we need to clear this shit with you?”

  “No, it’s …”

  “Unlock the fucking door. Bring a key so you can let me in the room.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  This had been a guess on Grip’s part, though not a blind one. There had to be a place where the bugs in Linsky’s apartment were monitored, somewhere the wires led. They could have been transmitting to a truck on the street, but when he’d touched the bug the last time he
was in Linsky’s apartment, the cops had already been inside the building. So he was pretty sure there was a room, and there was nothing to lose by checking—even if he wasn’t optimistic that he would find anything useful.

  An older guy appeared in the hall, his hair sticking off to one side, his body thick above skinny, bowed legs. He walked to the door and stopped. Grip pressed his badge to the glass. The guy opened the door.

  The heat came as a relief to Grip. His ears burned with the temperature change. He brushed the snow from his coat.

  “Nasty out there,” the old guy said.

  “The fuck would you know about it?” Grip said, and the guy looked down. “Come on, I need you to open that door for me.”

  The old guy led Grip down a flight of stairs into an airless basement. The floor vibrated with the furnace’s hum. It must have been close to ninety degrees down there.

  “Keep waiting for you guys to come back, finish clearing the place out.” The old guy unlocked a windowless door, reached inside to flip the light switch.

  Grip stepped in. The place was small, clearly a utility room. A little table and two chairs were pushed against a wall under a chart of some sort. A small hole had been drilled in the wall above the table, and wires ran into the hole and presumably up to Ben Linsky’s apartment. This was one of the problems with the fiefdoms—sloppy follow-up, a lack of accountability. He didn’t think anyone would be coming back here soon, maybe ever.

  Grip turned to the old guy. “Okay, you’ve done what you need to do. Piss off.”

  The guy slumped away, and Grip closed the door behind him. He took off his wet jacket, hung it over one of the chairs, then removed his shoes and his socks. The concrete floor was warm, and he felt the sting as sensation returned to his toes.

  THE CHART ON THE WALL SEEMED TO BE A CALENDAR WITH THE NAMES of the cops on duty at specific times, along with a number that Grip knew from experience referred to the identification number of the tape recorded during that period. He thought that maybe he’d run across a name that he was familiar with and was rewarded when he saw the name Albertsson, Wayne’s clean-cut young friend. He thought about this for a moment, trying to remember the conversation they’d had in Crippen’s, how Albertsson had kept his mouth shut. His jaw tightened. He checked his watch, just after two in the morning. Crippen’s would be empty by the time he made it over there.