Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  Grip nodded, though he didn’t like the sound of it.

  “I’m going to hang Zwieg’s balls from the flagpole in front of this headquarters.” He exhaled smoke through his nose. “Nobody makes a move on me, detective. I’m frankly surprised that Lieutenant Zwieg lost sight of that.” Kraatjes ground his cigarette into the ashtray and, with a subtle nod to Ving, stood and walked out of the room.

  80

  PANOS HADN’T ACCOMPANIED FRINGS TO LEDLEY’S BASEMENT STORAGE room. Once Milledge had acquiesced, he had gone home, where he now slumped in his chair, engulfed in a kimono he’d bought when he was a hundred pounds heavier.

  Frings fought his fatigue, telling Panos about his trip to the locked hallway just past Ledley’s office. Panos listened with great concentration, his face drawn with the strain of it.

  “Milledge stuck it out for a little while, but he begged off eventually, said he had obligations.”

  Panos snorted in disgust.

  “I think he really did. Anyway, it was better to have him out of there, not looking over my shoulder. He was so disconcerted that he left these.” Frings shifted in his chair so that he could pull out a ring with five keys.

  “Are those Milledge’s?”

  “They’re the ones he needed to get to Ledley’s hallway.”

  Panos nodded.

  “It was incredibly quiet in there after he left. The place is practically soundproof.”

  The sound of papers being shifted had seemed to echo off the close walls, and the overhead light had barely held off the encroaching darkness.

  “So I started with the financials. He had two file cabinets basically full of ledgers, invoices, check stubs, bank statements, all that. I found the files for the incoming funds for the project, and they were drawn off City government accounts—prefix 610—the force.”

  Panos took this in. “Black budget?”

  Frings shrugged. “That’d be my guess. You’ll see. I think if this had shown up in a budget, there’d have been some questions. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I found a drawer filled with memos on City letterhead. Most of it was pretty tedious—requests for payments, notices for meetings, administrative stuff. But there was a folder with about a half dozen memos that had been partially redacted—names blacked out, routing initials—but the rest of it was there. I had to spend some time with them because there were a lot of identification numbers, and it wasn’t exactly clear what they referred to. But eventually I figured out that they seemed to be arranging to shut down a section of the water system. One block, I think.”

  “Vilnius Street?”

  Frings nodded. Traffic noise drifted up from outside. A siren howled somewhere in the distance.

  “The last interesting piece of the logistics was something I found buried in the middle of a stack of invoices and receipts—again, most of it pretty mundane: office supplies, receipts for take-out dinners. But with all that was an invoice from Consolidated Industries for”—he pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, consulted his notes—“five thousand gallons of lysergic acid distillate.”

  Panos said, “That’s the drug, right? Ebanks’s drug?”

  “Yeah. Ledley was interested in it, too, and at least one other guy at the Tech. But, yeah, that’s the one.”

  Despite his ill health and exhaustion, Panos spoke with a restrained excitement that Frings remembered from the days when they were working big stories at the Gazette. “Let me be sure that I’m straight with this one. The City police were funding this project by Ledley where he somehow pumped this drug—lysergic acid—into the water supply for this one block of Vilnius Street.

  “That’s how it looks to me. They quarantined the block for that period.”

  “What is it that happened when they did that?”

  Frings delayed his answer, wondering if other words would be more accurate, but knowing they wouldn’t. “According to the files, the people in the 5800 block of Vilnius Street went crazy.”

  81

  THE ARES CLUB WAS BACK TO NORMAL, THOUGH THIS IN ITSELF FELT somehow suspicious. Dorman paused at the maître d’s table, waited for his vision to adjust and peered into the shadows of the booths. He felt the maître d’s nervous eyes on him, turned, gave him a long look before nodding.

  “Usual table,” Dorman said and walked off.

  “Mr. Dorman,” the maître d’ called from behind him.

  Dorman was already slowing, a mixture of outrage and fear. “Yes?”

  “There is someone at your table tonight.” The maître d’ had his hands clasped before him, trying to placate.

  Dorman saw the couple in his booth—his booth. Their features were hidden, but the man was broad and the girl next to him was thin as a sylph. She wasn’t Anastasia, though.

  “Who is it?”

  The maître d’ opened his hands. Dorman knew he couldn’t betray their anonymity.

  “Why my table?”

  “I do not make the decisions, Mr. Dorman. This comes down from upstairs.”

  “It’s Gerald Svinblad, isn’t it?”

  “Mr. Dorman,” the maître d’ said, soothingly.

  “It’s Svinblad,” Dorman said. He made a move toward the table.

  The maître d’ put a light hand on his arm—somehow, its calmness stopped him. The moment of irrationality passed.

  “Please, Mr. Dorman, Anastasia is waiting for you.”

  He indicated a table to the side of the room.

  Dorman looked that way, saw Anastasia’s silhouette. “Okay.” The initial outburst had been defused, but the nervous adrenaline still raged inside him.

  Anastasia smiled as he approached, the maître d’ trailing behind him. She wore a black, strapless dress and a thin necklace that hung just below her collarbone. Her hair was up, mascara making her eyes look long and thin.

  Dorman picked the vase of flowers off the table, looked under the base, handed it to the startled maître d’. He took the wine bottle off the table, placed it on the floor. Anastasia picked up on what he was doing and grabbed the two wineglasses. Dorman tipped the table back.

  “Mr. Dorman,” the maître d’ said, troubled. Dorman became aware of a change in the music. Some of the musicians had stopped playing and were watching him, as was most of the clientele. There was never a flap in the Ares Club. It was what made the Ares Club what it was. He found nothing attached to the bottom of the table, flipped it back up. He took the wine from the maître d’, held his eye for a moment, but saw only confusion.

  “Okay,” he said again and slid into the booth next to Anastasia.

  ANASTASIA TRIED TO SOOTHE HIM, RUBBING HIS ARM, KEEPING HIS GLASS full, listening, asking perfectly weighted questions. No, she didn’t know who had his table; no, she didn’t think he was strange for wondering. Let me help you.

  “With what?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know, Phil. But something. You need help with something.”

  The band was playing a new number now, very slow.

  Could he talk here? Could he explain his isolation—that everyone he knew in this goddamn city had knowingly or, mostly, unknowingly betrayed him in some way? Everyone except her. That, like quicksand, the more he attempted to sort through the complications—the Crosstown, Svinblad, the Ukrainians, the City Center, the Kaiser Street heist—the more hopelessly entangled he became.

  So he said nothing. They drank in silence for a while, the music flowing, Anastasia apparently able to watch him endlessly in silence, a worried twist to her mouth.

  Finally, she said, “Take me home.”

  • • •

  LATER, DORMAN SLUMPED, BACK AGAINST THE BEDFRAME WHILE ANASTASIA slept silently next to him. He looked out over his room, the light from the street angling up through the blinds, brightening things just enough that he could see the shapes of his furniture, like shadows. He’d barely changed a thing since the day that he’d moved in. He felt no connection here, no permanence.

  He looked down at her tiny frame and
thought, Is this how it worked? Did she wait until you had reached your limit and then, for just a few moments, she took the pain away?

  82

  “I BROUGHT A BLANKET FOR YOU, FRANK.”

  Frings needed it. Up on the roof of this tenement, there was no shelter from the freezing wind. Sol wore a heavy coat, a wool hat pulled low over his ears, his hands in his pockets.

  “Why are we here?” Frings sat on the cornice, sharp, hot pain needling through his knee, first from the effort of ascending the access stairs, and then from the cold. The moon was setting, the scattered night clouds lit purple from beneath. Frings’s phone had rung just after midnight—Sol calling from a payphone with an address. Meet me there as soon as possible. Frings had pulled himself out of bed, dressed, called a cab. The address hadn’t registered with him while he was still groggy with sleep, but in the cab he triangulated in his mind, realized that it was near the Municipal Tower where he and Nathan Canada had stood just days ago. This was confirmed as they approached the building, the silhouette of the Tower black against the crowded, urban sky. Sol had been waiting for him in the empty lobby. The elevator stank of urine as they rode it to the top floor. They’d then taken the access stairs up to the roof, where they now stood.

  “Look at it, Frank.”

  Frings didn’t need to ask what to look at. A river of illuminated destruction—rubbled buildings, empty expanses, motionless construction vehicles; all brilliantly lit by security lights—slashed rudely through the City’s manmade topography. The Crosstown path. Frings felt the dismay in his chest.

  “You ever been over here at night, Frank? Have you ever seen this?”

  Frings shook his head. The wind was brutal; his nose was becoming numb. He pulled the blanket up over his head to shield his ears. The view was stark, shocking.

  “We need to stop this.”

  “We?” Frings asked. “Who are we?”

  “Me. You. Everyone who understands the importance.”

  “The importance of what, Sol?”

  “This.” He gestured broadly to the panorama before them. “Goddammit, you of all people know what I’m talking about. We are ceding our humanity to this—commerce, machines. Every advance we make alienates us more from our nature, Frank. You know this. Our kind of progress is inherently destructive, it’s inevitable, and it’s accelerating. If you learn nothing else at the Tech, Frank, you learn that.”

  Frings nodded. He did understand. He’d written about it, probably been one of the sources of Sol’s inspiration.

  “It’s too late, Sol.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I wish it wasn’t.”

  “Maybe the Crosstown will be finished. Maybe. But we need to make the point that we understand what is happening. We need to inform others. People are apathetic because of their ignorance.”

  “What is Kollectiv 61, Sol?”

  Sol laughed. “Details, right? That’s your reporter’s mind, isn’t it? Kollectiv 61 is whatever you think it is.”

  “But you’re part of it.”

  “Sure, but anyone could be part of it. Everyone. It’s just an idea, an idea that is available to anyone.”

  “To oppose the New City Project?”

  “To oppose progress,” Sol snarled. “There’s no list, no clubhouse. Radicals in the City are so passive. Art. Protest. But what has that achieved? Nothing. Kollectiv 61 is about action. Kollectiv 61 is action.”

  “Who’s in charge? You?”

  “Nobody’s in charge.”

  Frings was getting frustrated. “Who started it? Who leads by example? I think it’s you.”

  Sol nodded. “Sure.”

  “You and Andy Macheda.”

  Sol narrowed his eyes. “You’re good, Frank. My grandfather always said that you got it. That’s why I wanted you to come here. That’s why I trust you. You understand. You appreciate that I, we, are doing your work.”

  “Killing Ben Linsky is my work?”

  “What, you’re accusing me of that?”

  “Am I wrong?”

  Sol stared at him, eyes blank.

  “Did you kill him Sol?”

  Sol was silent, staring.

  Frings thought about Ebanks claiming that someone had shot at him. “If you did it, if someone else did it, it’s counterproductive. It doesn’t achieve anything.”

  “That’s enough, Frank. Shit. I don’t get you. You can see it, maybe better than anyone, but you’ve given up or don’t care or something. What is that? You’re just willing to let this happen? I didn’t kill Linsky, but if he was a snitch, he was a traitor. And traitors are executed.”

  Frings stared at him. While he and Sol were in agreement on some very basic political level, they were terribly far apart on just about everything else. There was no common understanding from which he could reason with Sol.

  Sol was pacing the roof. Frings saw his breath come out as clouds of steam.

  “I’m just not sure that killing people is the answer,” Frings said, lamely. He knew how this would sound to Sol.

  Sol gave an exaggerated, frustrated sigh. His shoulders slumped. “Okay, I see this is going nowhere.” The anger had suddenly left his voice, replaced by resignation. “But I need you to do something for me.”

  Frings was shaking from the cold now.

  “Come on,” Sol said, taking Frings gently by the shoulders, guiding him toward the access door. “We need to get you inside.”

  Frings limped badly to the stairs, then descended one painful step at a time. Three stairs from the top-floor landing Sol stopped him and helped him sit on the step, blanket still around his shoulders.

  “Listen, I’m sorry to have to get you out here in the middle of the night. I heard you were at the Tech yesterday, that you got behind Ledley’s door.”

  Frings nodded. How did he know that?

  “I need you to go back there, get my file for me.” His voice echoed off the close, cold walls.

  “Why do you need it, Sol? What can it do for you?”

  “You don’t need to know that. I just need the file.” He was nearly yelling.

  Frings sighed. “I don’t know—”

  “Damn it, I’m owed this.” Sol’s yell was almost deafening in the confined space.

  Frings thought about this, about what he’d read on Ledley’s study, what he’d heard from Finch and Sol. Sol had been tortured in a way that Frings could not even begin to understand. If there was one thing that people kept telling him about the hallucinogens it was that, having never experienced them, he had no idea about them.

  “I don’t owe you them.”

  “It doesn’t matter who owes me them. I’m owed. I will get them any way I can. I trust you, Frank. You might think that I killed Linsky, but I trust you. If I can’t get them from you, I will try something else, fuck the consequences.”

  Frings was fatigued. His knee burned. He held up his hands. “Okay, Sol. I’ll try to get your records.”

  83

  GRIP HAD THE DOOR TO THE DETECTIVES’ ROOM CLOSED TO NO EFFECT against the noise from the booking area, filled with angry prostitutes rousted in some kind of sweep. Grip figured that there was something at work here—someone not paying their protection money—or maybe a councilor or even the mayor had sent a note that they wanted something done. Regardless, the din of dozens of whores yelling at equally pissed-off cops drove Grip upstairs to the cafeteria, where he worked on some overdue reports and drank stale coffee.

  It was here that a Negro lieutenant named Dominguez told him that Ving wanted him to ride along for an arrest run that Dominguez was going to lead. Grip left his cup on the cafeteria table and carried his paperwork downstairs to the detectives’ room, where he locked them in a desk drawer.

  “What’s this about?” Grip asked as they took the elevator down to the garage.

  “Buddy of yours,” Dominguez said, “Lieutenant Zwieg.”

  He rode shotgun in a cruiser that followed just behind Dominguez’s lead car. He thought
he counted six cars in all, which seemed like a lot. But arresting a lieutenant with Zwieg’s clout wasn’t something to take lightly. They didn’t use lights or sirens as they wound through the streets. The wind had shifted, and people on the sidewalks seemed in a hurry to get where they were going. Others, who’d read the forecast, carried closed umbrellas.

  Grip didn’t make small talk with the uniform who was driving, another Negro whose name he didn’t get. As he watched the blocks slip by, Grip, with his chest tightening, began to understand where they were heading. He’d been surprised that Kraatjes had seemed so quick to absolve him of any responsibility. Even though he’d come clean, it was hard to understand why the chief had barely even bothered to admonish him. But now he saw that Kraatjes had been waiting; he would punish Grip by isolating him even further.

  They turned on to the block that Grip knew they’d eventually arrive at, and watched the pervs on the street hustle away as the police cars pulled to the curb. It happened fast once they’d parked, since there was no way to conceal their presence, and they didn’t want to give too much forewarning. They assembled on the sidewalk, twenty officers in uniform in addition to Grip. More than half of the cops were Negroes. Grip shook his head—sending Negro cops to arrest a racist like Zwieg was a masterstroke of humiliation.

  He saw Art Deyna and a photographer loitering a few doors down from Crippen’s, watching the police assemble.

  Dominguez waved Grip over before they went in.

  “Why are we doing it here?” Grip asked, though he already knew the answer. It would have been much easier to arrest Zwieg when he arrived at work, or even at his home, but ease wasn’t the issue.

  “Ving said he wanted to send a message,” Dominguez said.

  Grip understood that he was supposed to be getting a message too.

  “Some of my guys,” Dominguez continued, “were real enthusiastic when they heard where we were headed. Ving wanted you inside, but once you’re in, you can just sit back and enjoy.”