Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  Dorman walked toward the partially finished building and saw a man waiting by the construction lift. It wasn’t Wayne. Dorman hesitated.

  “Mr. Dorman.” The man yelled to be heard over the wind.

  Dorman walked again, but the nerves that he’d arrived with now lashed through him like venom. Why was there a second man?

  When he was within fifteen feet, the other man stepped forward.

  “Mr. Dorman, are you carrying a weapon?”

  “No.”

  “Wearing a wire?”

  “No.”

  “Mind if I pat you down?”

  Dorman held out his arms, let the guy give him an efficient search. Professional.

  “You a cop?” Dorman asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Name?”

  The man hesitated.

  “You’ve got mine.”

  The man shrugged, laughed a little. “Albertsson.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to Dorman. “Where’s Wayne?”

  Albertsson looked up.

  Dorman nodded. “Okay.”

  They ascended in the lift. With each passing floor the City revealed more of itself, glittering and monstrous. The wind was getting stronger as the shelter of the surrounding buildings gave way. Dorman looked at Albertsson, caught his eye, received a smile and a wink. Dorman wondered if this should worry him.

  They passed the top of the finished section. Dorman could see through the steel skeleton to the east side of the City now, the darkness of the Crosstown route a glorious, violent river of light. From up here, at night, the Municipal Tower seemed menacing, looming over the smaller buildings. The searchlight hit them, momentarily blinding Dorman.

  They were approaching the level of the landing. Dorman noticed that the safety lights were on. Maybe Albertsson or Wayne had turned them on from below, before they’d come up. He covered his eyes against the searchlight on its next sweep.

  They crested the landing. Wayne waited for them in the dim illumination, tall and pear-shaped.

  Albertsson stepped aside to let Dorman off. Dorman hesitated.

  Wayne spoke. “Come aboard, Mr. Dorman. We need to talk.” He spread his arms wide as if to indicate that he had nothing to hide. The searchlight lit him briefly in silhouette.

  Dorman stepped on to the platform and saw that he had a gun, holding it loosely at his side.

  “Why are we doing this up here?”

  “Away from prying ears, Mr. Dorman. Besides, we thought maybe you’d want a good seat, watch it with us.”

  “Watch what?”

  Lit in the pale glow of the security lights, Wayne was even more grotesque, like a wax figure partially melted. He wore a huge fur hat and a trench coat that flapped in the wind. When he smiled, his teeth were small and gray.

  “You’ll see. The surprise will be half the fun.”

  • • •

  THE SEARCHLIGHT LIT WAYNE FROM BEHIND AGAIN.

  “Why don’t I explain why I asked you here. It may turn out to render your conversation moot.”

  Dorman looked from Wayne to Albertsson, who had moved to the far edge of the small platform. Dorman didn’t like the feeling he was getting about this meeting. Wayne was an unnerving presence—he cast off malice like spores.

  “Our mutual acquaintance—and please let me know if you are unclear who I am referring to—asked me to talk to you, see if you’d be amenable to taking home a little extra monthly pay for representing his interests with Nathan Canada. He said he broached the subject with you, but couldn’t get a read on whether you’d accept such a proposition. So I made inquiries. No one seems to know you very well. You are an unknown quantity. So I thought I might meet you in person, see what my instincts told me.”

  Beyond Wayne, the Municipal Tower seemed too big and too close, giving him a slight feeling of vertigo.

  “Do you have anything to say about this?” Wayne asked.

  Dorman shook his head. It seemed the safest thing to do.

  “That won’t work,” Wayne growled. “You must give me an answer, one way or the other. Let me make this clearer. My understanding is that you had some interest in the three murdered Bulgarian security guards—the ones from the Kaiser Street site. Is that right?”

  Wayne waited until Dorman nodded.

  “Good. They pinned it on some poor saps who work muscle for Smed Nanyan down in the Hollows. But they didn’t do it. I did. Or, I did one of them—credit where it’s due. So you see, I’ve got too much to lose to let you off this building without an answer. And there’s only one answer. You understand that.”

  “Why wouldn’t I bullshit you to get down?” He said, with all the bravado he could muster.

  Wayne smiled. “You can’t bullshit me, son. Let me explain something to you about how power works in the City, because I think you may be under some … misapprehensions. There is power like Canada and Kraatjes and the mayor have—the power to muster the City’s official forces; there’s the power that men like Svinblad have—the power to buy anything that has a price; and then there’s the power I have—because I’m smart, because I know things, because I keep my hand in everything, because I am not afraid to wield my power. Do you understand? I have my hand in everything, but I always have an angle. That’s something that you need to learn to do. Zwieg, Svinblad, whoever—they think they use me; but I use them. I am the only one with the big picture, and that is power.”

  Dorman looked to Albertsson, who seemed to be enjoying this, getting excited.

  “Okay. What’s the big picture? Where do I fit?”

  Wayne laughed. “Where do you fit? An arrangement. Svinblad wants to pay you to look out for his interests and you will do that, but you will also work for me—pass me information. You see, I have my hand in this, too. I make the payments—I’m the bagman. Svinblad pays you, and you work for both of us. Your assistance is about to be of even greater value.”

  Dorman was sweating hard. He believed Wayne when he said that he couldn’t be bullshitted. The power dynamic here was not in his favor, and at this moment he did not see how he was going to be able to talk himself off this building alive.

  The searchlight swept again, and while they were momentarily blinded, Dorman jumped off the platform onto a girder, jogging away in a crouch as fast as he dared. He heard shots fired behind him and kept moving in the dark, the frame of the building discernable as black lines against the background of the City’s lights. He heard more pops behind him as he came to a point where girders intersected with a beam coming down from above. He edged around as the searchlight swept across again. A bullet pinged off steel somewhere very near. He looked back toward where the two men still stood on the platform. They seemed to be talking, the wind carrying their words toward him, but too faint to make out.

  He looked out over the City, the lights brilliant and clear and almost all below him. Searchlight. Wayne and Albertsson were still on the platform. They were in a difficult situation, Dorman knew. They couldn’t afford to wait him out. In seven hours or so the first workmen would begin to show up on site. Then it would be over. But he doubted that they were eager to venture out on the girders. Not many people would do it in the best of conditions—but in the dark, the wind, it would take some nerve. Or desperation.

  “Mr. Dorman,” Wayne yelled from the platform. “I expect that your leaving us is your answer to our offer of employment.”

  Dorman kept quiet. He waited for the searchlight. It would be helpful if he could find a way either down or up a floor. Then he would most likely be able to hide. He got a moment of illumination, but saw nothing. This building was big. He probably couldn’t see everything from where he stood.

  He turned back to the platform. Albertsson seemed to be edging out onto the girder that led in his direction. He moved with awful slowness. He must have been terrified.

  Wayne was still shouting at him. “You asked why we brought you up here, and I alluded to a surprise best witnessed from this vantage. It’ll be quit
e a show, Mr. Dorman, regardless of whether or not you choose to accept our invitation.”

  89

  THIS IS THE WAY THEY HAD TO PLAY IT, DORMAN THOUGHT. LEAVE ONE man on the platform to prevent him from doubling back, and take the lift down. Wayne’s friend would get faster, he thought, either because he’d get used to walking the girder, or he’d realize that his only chance was to get Dorman, at which point he might be willing to risk the fall.

  Searchlight.

  Wayne continued to taunt from the platform. “You’ve done an admirable job in many ways. From everything that I’ve heard, you’ve stayed disciplined, not allowed your many disputes to become personal, never sought individual recognition. That’s why we would welcome you to our cause. You are discreet. Are you listening to me, Mr. Dorman?”

  The searchlight again swung across the steel skeleton. Dorman stayed quiet, watched Albertsson make his slow progress.

  “Mr. Dorman?” Wayne repeated.

  Dorman walked quickly down a girder parallel to the platform, getting some more distance between him and Albertsson. The searchlight hit him, he ducked, didn’t hear a gunshot. The brief moment of illumination might have allowed Wayne to locate him. The next sweep and he’d shoot. Dorman moved quickly to the next intersection and stepped around the vertical girder for cover. The searchlight flashed by, but he was shielded from the platform.

  When it had passed, he stole a look around the girder to find Albertsson approaching the first intersection. Dorman leaned back against the vertical support, taking a moment to calm himself and listen to Wayne rant.

  “Do you ever doubt what you’re doing, Mr. Dorman? Are you so convinced of your own righteousness that you could not be swayed otherwise?”

  Wayne seemed to wait for a response as the searchlight swept through.

  “Nothing to say?”

  Dorman saw Albertsson’s silhouette moving across the beam toward him, steadier now and faster. Dorman jogged across a girder leading away from the platform, the vertical girder shielding him from Wayne. He was less concerned with Albertsson out on the beams. Between the trouble with balance and the brief intervals of light, Albertsson would need time to ready himself, and be close to have a chance to hit him.

  He no longer heard Wayne, and though he was further away, he would surely hear something if the guy was still yelling. He looked back to the platform and saw lights descending then stopping. The lift. Wayne was one floor below. The lift was inaccessible now unless he could find a ladder down. He paused for a moment, thinking this over.

  Searchlight. A bullet pinged off the bottom of his girder. Wayne had an angle now. How many rounds would he have? Would he have another clip? It didn’t make sense to doubt it. Dorman needed to move further away from the platform and from where Wayne was perched below it. He walked quickly along the girder. Another searchlight, another ping off the steel underside. He was putting some distance between himself and Albertsson but needed more distance to make Wayne’s angle more difficult. He couldn’t imagine Wayne walking out on the beams.

  Two searchlights passed without the sound of a gunshot or a ricocheting bullet. Maybe he was conserving ammunition. Dorman kept moving until he reached the far edge of the building. He’d lost track of Albertsson, somewhere back behind him. He sat with his back to a vertical girder, looked for a silhouette. He scanned systematically, left to right. The searchlight swung through when he was halfway across. He didn’t see Albertsson. He might be resting. He might have fallen. Dorman’s chest tightened with the uncertainty.

  Dorman let the searchlight illuminate the scene a couple more times, trying to locate a ladder up or down. There must be a way to get between floors other than the lift. It was impossible to see, though. The light was too quick. He thought it would be safer to keep moving, so he walked along the outermost girder, heading toward the corner. The Municipal Tower was to his immediate right—nothing between him and it at this height. The Tower seemed to pull him slightly in its direction, as if through gravity. He felt his balance become less steady, and shortened his steps.

  Still no sign of Albertsson.

  He stopped again, one intersection from the corner. The corner seemed dangerous, as if it would pen him in too much. He walked in the opposite direction. The searchlight swung around again, and Dorman felt himself tense. He’d caught something in the periphery. He froze, not sure where to look. Above, it was nearly pitch black, just the blinking of the red warning lights. The searchlight swung through again, and he saw someone—it must have been Albertsson—on the next level up, getting closer, about a hundred feet away. The light swept past and Dorman could see nothing. He knew, though, that he was visible to Albertsson, silhouetted against the city lights.

  Dorman moved as fast as he dared toward Albertsson. He needed to get under his girder, to avoid giving him an angle for a shot.

  Searchlight. Two shots from close range. He ducked reflexively, almost lost his balance. He scrambled forward, heard the ping of a bullet ricocheting off the girder behind him. Then he heard a loud noise coming from below in the near distance, and turned to see a red ball of fire bursting skyward from the base of the Municipal Tower. The building structure shook. Dorman saw the searchlight jerk so that it shone straight up, and then it went out. So, he thought vaguely, that’s where the Kaiser Street explosives ended up. After the explosion, the City seemed unnaturally quiet—only the sound of rubble falling in the distance, and, seconds later, sirens from all directions. The Tower remained standing, but smoke was billowing from a gaping hole in its side.

  He kept moving to get under the girder, but he felt a punch in his arm, knocking him backward, his sleeve suddenly wet with blood. The next one found his leg above the knee. He took a step back to steady himself, found nothing but air.

  EPILOGUE

  90

  FRINGS STOOD OFF TO THE SIDE OF THE CROWD AT THE OPENING OF AN exhibit held to memorialize Ben Linsky, which had been created by a cadre of young artists. The younger faction of the crowd—which was the vast majority of the hundred or so attendees—wore white. Frings wore a houndstooth jacket and brown pants.

  The exhibition, he thought, was actually pretty dire. The idea had been to ask young artists to respond to different poems that Linsky had written, but the connections between the poems and the work—displayed side by side—were forced and unenlightening. Both the poems and the art suffered.

  Ironically, Wendy Otis, whom Linsky had so harshly criticized, had created the most interesting piece of work. She had enlarged and combined a half-dozen photographs of a section of the City dominated by tall office buildings, and transformed the image through collage and paint. The sky was made of dollar bills; tiny, identical men in gray suits and hats had been painted entering and leaving office buildings in a seemingly endless single file, like lemmings. The colors of the buildings were muted and somehow flattened, exaggerating the sense of sharp angles and rigid lines. In the top right corner were pasted three typewritten strips of paper, each with a line from one of Linsky’s poems:

  You can be employed in any system

  If you are convinced

  That it doesn’t exist

  Rappaport, the old art critic, was there, and he wandered over to Frings.

  “Frank, you must have the inside scoop, why have they not arrested anyone yet in the Tower bombing? Surely they won’t get away with it?”

  Frings smiled weakly. “They’re closing in, from what I hear at the paper.”

  “But they would say that, wouldn’t they? They can hardly say, ‘we’re flummoxed.’”

  “No, I guess they can’t.” But Frings knew that Zwieg would eventually name names to save his own skin. It was just a matter of time.

  “And the Tower still stands—a triumph of modern engineering. I was thinking that I might—”

  Frings was saved from having to respond by the flickering of the lights, announcing the imminent start of the main event. Rappaport went off to find Wendy Otis, and Frings followed the
crowd through a large white-walled room that held only one work: a huge enlargement of a film still showing Simon Ledley, sitting in a chair, his face blank. You could, Frings thought, project any emotion that you wanted onto that expression, but knowing what he knew of that night, he felt certain that behind Ledley’s opaque stare was a feeling of profound dread.

  The crowd filtered through a second door into a long, narrow hall where folding chairs had been set up in rows facing the far wall. Frings sat toward the middle of the room. He saw Joss Eastgate take a seat next to a young man with artfully tousled hair. At the front of the room he saw Andy Macheda speaking with two men wearing white button-downs and heavy-framed glasses. Macheda, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, gestured broadly, laughing, smiling, a different man than the one Frings had seen in the Kesh and in Ledley’s basement lab.

  Announcements were made, the gallery owner thanking all manner of people, then giving a breathless introduction that Macheda had the grace to find embarrassing. When his turn came, Macheda spoke quickly, reading prepared remarks, slurring his words a little, his eyes tearing, talking about what an influence Ben Linsky had been on his art, and so on and so on. At the end he set down his piece of paper.

  “This film is dedicated to Andre LaValle and Paul DeBerg, and to all the others who have sacrificed in the battle to preserve some semblance of humanity in our society. But, mostly, this film is dedicated to my friend Sol Elia, who is in prison now, awaiting trial for crimes that he has committed. I hope that this film helps in some way explain his actions.”