The Bricklayer

by Noah Boyd

  “Then why was he fired? Apparently it wasn’t for a lack of courage.”

  “He hated—no, that isn’t right—he simply didn’t recognize authority, at least not incompetent authority. That’s what was so strange about his firing. He could have prevented it by giving up a thoroughly disliked assistant special agent in charge. It all started when a Detroit police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty. They didn’t have any idea who had done it. Vail always had great informants, so he goes off on his own to contact them. At the same time, he’s poking around the murder investigation, developing new sources. He finds this one local who, after a little, let’s say, cajoling, names the shooter and also tells Vail that the gun used is at the killer’s residence. Which was kind of a feat in itself because it turns out the informant was the killer’s cousin. At the same time, because killing a police officer is a federal offense, the Bureau offers a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward. Even though he would not have given up his cousin without Vail getting it out of him first, the informant decides that he might as well cash in and calls the same information into the FBI tip line. One of the ASACs at the time was Kent Wilson. Do you know him?”

  “By reputation.”

  “Then you won’t have any trouble believing what comes next. With the tip, Wilson has the same information as Vail—because of Vail’s work on the street. Vail was always that guy you called when you needed to get something done in spite of the rules. All full of himself, Wilson has Vail come in and reads him the tip sheet. Then tells him to do whatever is necessary to get probable cause for a search warrant at the killer’s residence. Vail leaves without saying a word. He already had everything in motion.

  “Because the informant had no track record, his credibility for a search warrant wouldn’t have been strong enough, so Vail calls one of his most documented sources and has him listen while he telephones the cousin and has him repeat the information. Then Vail has his old informant repeat it to him for probable cause on the search warrant. The Detroit police find the gun, get a confession and eventually a conviction.

  “Wilson tries to take credit for the arrest, but the brass at the Detroit PD goes nuts because Vail had also been keeping them up to speed all along, since it was their officer. He didn’t tell them about the sleight of hand with the sources. They call a press conference and give all the credit to Vail.

  “The most amazing part is Wilson thinks it was all Vail’s doing and calls in the Office of Professional Responsibility, telling them that Vail falsified information to obtain a search warrant. He gives absolutely no thought about how it could come back and collapse on him. Subsequently, Vail refused to talk to OPR.

  “Because of the inconsistencies in Wilson’s statement, they tell Vail what they suspected happened and even that Wilson had given him up. Still Vail won’t answer their questions. Not even after they offered him a walk if he flipped on Wilson would he say anything. They even went to the trouble of tracking down Vail’s old informant and threatened him, even tried to bribe him, but he wouldn’t give up Vail.”

  “That’s unbelievable. Why wouldn’t Vail just give Wilson up? He’s not exactly the kind of boss you’d waste loyalty on.”

  Kate leaned back. “Vail’s not that easy to figure out, but there is one very practical reason. If he admitted manufacturing probable cause, OPR would have had to notify the state prosecutor’s office, and the search, confession, and conviction would have been thrown out.”

  “So Vail let himself be fired so a cop killer wouldn’t walk.”

  “I think it’s even more than that. I don’t know. He seems to have this resentment for the way the rest of us lack commitment or something. He didn’t even show up for his last OPR interview, therefore insubordination.”

  “Too bad we lost him.”

  Kate sat silently considering something before she said, “Sir, Vail had this reputation for finding people. He handled all the federal fugitive warrants for Detroit homicide. They said whether someone was gone fifteen minutes or fifteen years, he’d find them. Like I told you, he wasn’t on my squad, but everyone knew about Steve Vail. Funny thing was he seemed oblivious to any kind of notoriety, that anyone would be interested in anything he did. I always thought it was an act—until just now watching him sneak out of that bank.”

  “Are you suggesting we bring him into this?”

  Kaulcrick said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’ve got more than enough resources at our disposal. You can’t bring a civilian into this. With each turn of this thing, it looks like we can’t protect ourselves from ourselves.”

  “Just to find Bertok,” she said. “Someone who doesn’t have to tiptoe around like the rest of us. So far we’ve got nothing. It’s pretty obvious that Vail can keep his mouth shut. What have we got to lose?”

  The director pushed the Play button and watched again as Vail disarmed the two bank robbers. “Think you can get him, Kate?”

  “Me? He despises men in authority. What do you think his reaction will be to a woman?”

  “I think you’d better find out.”

  FIVE

  STEVE VAIL SPLASHED SOME WATER ONTO THE MORTAR AND USED knife edge to sink the moisture deep into the mixture. The late-morning sun felt good on the back of his neck. It had rained the night before, leaving one of those damp Chicago mornings that felt cooler than the mid-seventy-degree temperature. Moving back into the shadow of the large circular chimney he had been hired to rebuild, he picked up a brick and flipped it over so its wire-cut face was in position and buttered one end with the softened mortar. He pushed it into place, tapping the top with the butt of the trowel handle, and then used a backhand sweep to scrape off the excess mortar, flicking it into the joint just formed. His eye checked the brick’s alignment as he reached for the next one.

  The ladder he had used to get to the flat roof started tapping rhythmically against the top of the wall. Someone was coming up. Flicking the excess mortar off the trowel, he threw it, sticking it into the pine mortarboard. He peered over the edge of the roof and was surprised to see a woman coming up the ladder. She moved quickly, her hands and feet finding the rungs instinctively. She was wearing a pantsuit and small heels, which should have made the climb more difficult, but they didn’t seem to slow her at all. Under her jacket, on the outside of her hip, he could see the bulge of a gun. Parked behind his truck now was a four-door sedan, one of those full-size government cars that were conspicuously nondescript.

  Kate Bannon came over the top of the ladder and was surprised to find Vail leaning against the chimney, apparently waiting for her, his stare mildly curious. She brushed her hands against each other, wiping away imaginary debris from the ladder as she composed herself. “Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m—”

  “Kate Bannon.” He took her hand.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Detroit.”

  “I didn’t think you’d remember me,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think you knew I existed.”

  “I knew.” His mouth tightened into a grin that she couldn’t quite decipher.

  “Even though I was some ‘management bimbo’ getting my ticket punched?”

  He smiled more completely. “Even though.”

  “I would assume that’s what most of the male street agents thought,” she said. “And looking back, I’m not sure they were wrong.”

  “Brutal honesty, and so early in this little—what is it we’re having, some sort of sales pitch?”

  “At least give me the courtesy of pretending you’re being fooled,” she said. “And it’s not about your performance at the bank last month if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  She was hoping to see some surprise from Vail that she knew he was the one who had disrupted the robbery, but his face had shifted into those unreadable planes she remembered from Detroit. “I’m not. I know they wouldn’t send someone all the way from Washington just for that.”

  “How’d you know I’m at
headquarters?”

  “Five years ago, you were some ‘management bimbo’ doing your field supervisory time. I haven’t been keeping track of the rate of promotion for women, but I would guess that’s long enough for you to be at least a unit chief.”

  “Actually, I was just promoted to deputy assistant director.”

  “Really,” he said. “You must be quite the agent because someone as brutally honest as you surely wouldn’t accept a promotion simply because you’re a woman.”

  She stared back at him, slightly amused. “Listen, Steve, if you’re trying to convince me that you can be an SOB, I remember. You’ll also find I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

  Vail laughed. “A deputy assistant director. And on a rooftop in Chicago. There must be a really big problem back at the puzzle palace?”

  “There is something we’d like your help with.”

  “Unless you’ve got some bricks that need to be laid, you’re in the wrong time zone, darlin’.”

  She looked at the chimney and the tools scattered around it. “You have a master’s degree in Russian history from the University of Chicago. How did you wind up being a bricklayer?”

  “Is there something wrong with being a bricklayer?” he asked, his tone half amused with the feigned indignation.

  “It just seems like there would be easier ways to make a buck.”

  “Fair enough. It goes something like this. First you have to get fired, and then if you wait long enough, you start getting hungry. The rest of it just kind of falls into place.”

  “I would have thought that you’d have looked for something a little more…indoors.”

  “My father taught me when I was a kid. It’s how I got through college. And if you’re going to snoop around my personnel file, please get it right. Soviet history. It’s an important distinction in case whatever brings you here depends on my ability to see into the future,” Vail said. “Thus…” He waved his hand to encompass the surroundings. “Actually, I kind of like the work. It’s real. There’s something permanent about it, at least in human years. Handfuls of clay being transformed into complicated structures. And then, of course, it was the only house that the wolf couldn’t blow down. Besides, there are too many bosses indoors.”

  “So you’re never going to take a job that has a boss?”

  “There’s always a boss. The trick is to never take a job you can’t walk away from. Especially when the bosses get to be insufferable, which I think is now a federal law.”

  “Is that what you did with the FBI, walk away when you didn’t like the boss?”

  “Seems like you’ve thought about it a lot more than I have.”

  “I’ve come with an offer that you can walk away from whenever you want.”

  He pulled the trowel out of the mortarboard and picked up a brick. “Then consider me walked away.”

  “I wouldn’t be here unless we really needed your help.”

  “One of the things my departure from the Bureau taught me was that the FBI will never really need any one person.”

  “I’m impressed. You’ve maintained a grudge for five years. You rarely see that kind of endurance anymore.”

  “Thanks, but the credit really should go to my father. World-class scorn was the sum total of my inheritance. Enough of it can get you through anything.” Vail started turning over the mortar on the board again.

  “Do you want it in writing? The Federal Bureau of Investigation needs the particular skills of Steven Noah Vail.”

  “You’ll find someone else.”

  Kate stepped in front of him. “I know something about you that maybe you don’t even know.”

  “Oh good, I was wondering when we’d get around to managerial insight. Will I need something to write with?”

  “You have to do this.” Her tone was not pleading but accusatory.

  He held up the brick between them. “I do this so I don’t have to do anything.”

  Her eyes carefully searched his face. “My God, you don’t know, do you? You really don’t know why you do these things. Why you have no choice but to say yes to me.”

  “In that case, no.”

  “Stop being so Vail for a minute.”

  “Why is ‘no’ such a difficult concept for women? You demand we understand it the first time, every time.”

  “Do you know why you stopped that bank robbery?” Ignoring her, Vail spread a bed of mortar and pushed the brick into it. “Because no one else could,” she went on. “Everyone else in the world is running around searching for their own self-importance, and you’re cruising around ignoring yours.” She smiled. “And let’s admit it, if you’re really that into revenge, what could be better than having the Bureau come crawling to you to fix some problem that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t?”

  Vail stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time. He turned and went back to work on the chimney. For the next half hour neither of them spoke. She sat down on the edge of the roof and watched him. There was an economy of movement to his work that she supposed was necessary for any task so repetitive, but still there was something about the way he did it that she found intriguing. The way his large, veined hands flipped over the bricks and found the right alignment instinctually. The way when he applied mortar, it was always the exact amount needed, never dropping any, never needing to add any. The flow never interrupted. How he was transforming perfectly rectangular bricks into a perfectly round chimney.

  The more she watched him, the more she realized he was working faster than he normally would. If the work was as rewarding as he had said, there should have been an occasional appraising touch or at least a glance when he finished a course, but instead he immediately reached for the next brick. She couldn’t tell if he was just angry with her or if he wanted to get done so that he could be rid of her for good.

  After the last brick was tapped into place and the joint scraped flush, Vail flicked the excess mortar off the trowel and then scraped both its sides on the edge of the board. She could finally see some reaction on his face. Even though the trowel was clean, he kept stropping it against the board absentmindedly. “What exactly is it that needs fixing?”

  “I’m sorry, I am not allowed to tell you.”

  “Who is?”

  “The director.”

  “The director?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What is it that you think I can do that the other eleven thousand agents can’t?”

  “Most important? Be discreet. Last month’s little bank robbery gave us a pretty good indication that you’re not interested in getting your name in the papers.”

  “And less important?”

  “You had a certain reputation in Detroit.”

  “For?”

  “Hunting men.”

  “So you want me to find someone without anyone knowing that the FBI’s looking for him.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, but those are the main concerns.”

  “Other than getting to polish my neglected self-esteem, what’s in this for me?”

  “It’s completely negotiable.”

  “Are you saying that as a deputy assistant director or as a woman?” As her face reddened slightly, the scar on her cheekbone started to glow white. He smiled. “That’s enough of an answer for now. When?”

  “I came in a Bureau plane. It’s waiting at Midway.”

  Vail picked up a ten-gallon bucket and started shoveling the unused mortar into it. “Give me a half hour to clean up.”

  VAIL’S PICKUP PULLED up in front of his apartment with Kate’s Bureau car close behind. He walked back to her as she opened the door. “I’ll make it as quick as I can.”

  She got out. “Can I use your phone?”

  “You don’t have a cell?”

  “I’d rather use a hard line.”

  “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  Kate wondered how bad it was up there. She found herself intrigued at th
e prospect of peeking into Vail’s personal life. “I’ll keep my eyes closed.”

  Vail opened the door and let Kate walk in ahead of him. The small apartment was not what she expected. It seemed newer, better constructed than the rest of the building. The walls were unpainted Sheetrock. The taped seams were visible but had been smoothed with the expert touch of a trowel. In stark contrast, the dark hardwood floors looked like they had been recently refinished and were buffed to a high sheen. The furniture was sparse, and the few tables and shelves scattered around held a couple dozen different sizes and types of sculpture, mostly the kind that were found at garage or estate sales or dusty way-out-of-the-way antique shops. Strangely, all the human figures were of the headless variety and had apparently been purchased for the detail of the torsos. She wondered if there was another reason. “I’m still working on the walls, but I guess that’s obvious.”

  On a worktable at the front window, to take advantage of the natural light, was an almost complete sculpture of a male torso formed by hundreds of thumb-size smudges of clay. “You live here alone?”

  “If you’re asking if it’s mine, the answer is yes. And yes to living alone.”

  She walked over to the two-foot-high figure and examined it more closely. The upper portion appeared completed and was heavily muscled. She glanced around at the other works in the apartment to see if any matched the style. “None of the others are mine if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Do you sell them or give them away?”

  “Actually, I throw them out when I’m done, or break them down so the material can be reused.”

  “Have you ever tried to sell them?”

  “They’re not good enough yet.”

  “Really, this seems like it has potential.”

  He pulled off his T-shirt. “That’s probably why you’re not working at the Guggenheim, and I’m a bricklayer. Beer?”

  “Sure.”

  “Glass?”

  “Please.”

  Her voice had an odd quality about it that Vail was drawn to. It was lilting, but at the same time gracefully incomplete, making him want to hear it again. “Not trying to be one of the guys drinking out of the bottle—refreshing.” He handed her a glass and twisted the cap off. After opening his, he took a long swallow from the bottle.