Too Close to Home

by Andrew Grant

  “You’re right. Rooney couldn’t know. He must have been observing Pardew, at least.”

  “And there’s this. When he was trying to reassure Spangler, he said that Pardew won’t be stupid enough to stick around. ‘Won’t be.’ Not ‘has already left.’ So he’s still here. Maybe.”

  “It’s possible.” Robson swung his feet onto the floor. “Shall we head over to Rooney’s house and convince him it’s in his best interests to share his buddy’s location?”

  “That’s tempting. But it’s too risky. I’m thinking it’s time for me to plant a seed. Can you be outside Rooney’s office at 0800, in case it grows?”

  * * *

  —

  At 0801 I was in the shelter of a dumpster at the east end of Pine Street, dialing Rooney’s office number on a pay-as-you-go phone. My call was answered after two rings.

  “Brian Rooney. Help you?” His voice was full of morning rust.

  “Good morning, Mr. Rooney.” I’d decided on an English accent for the occasion. “I’m calling to let you know that your houseguest is becoming extremely unruly. I happened to be passing and I heard him yelling and screaming and banging on things. It was hard to follow everything he said, but I definitely heard him mention the police.”

  “Who is this?” Rooney coughed. “I don’t have any guest. I don’t know what you’re talking about, you limey weirdo.”

  “Well, that’s very strange. The person clearly stated your name and business. He claims he’s part of a bribery ring involving you and a corrupt judge, and says he wants to confess.”

  “You must be insane. Don’t call me again.”

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t really have a good reason to go back to Klinsman’s office. It was unlikely that any useful information would have surfaced in the last twenty-four hours, with him being away in London, but I needed to fill the time until Rooney showed some kind of reaction to my call. And I also wanted to know how things panned out with Trevor Francis. The guy who was getting fired. In the event that he discovered his inner hooligan, I wanted to be a witness. And to cheer him on. So I took out the battery, tossed the phone in the dumpster, and made my way to the rear entrance of Klinsman’s building. The same guard was on duty. He seemed less hungover and this time he waved me through, if not cheerfully, at least without giving me as much grief as the day before. I took the same cart from the janitors’ room, despite the damaged wheel, which made it hard to push. I took the elevator to the sixteenth floor. Stepped out. And got no farther. The waiting area was crammed full of people. At least two dozen of them. Men and women, mid-thirties to early seventies. All were on their feet, milling around, muttering and chuntering and adding to the tension and hostility in the air. After a couple of minutes a guy, short, with ginger hair and a soccer jersey from a team I didn’t recognize, stepped forward and banged on the door.

  “Come out!” He banged again. “Francis, we know you’re in there. We saw your car in the parking garage. So come out. Face us. Or are you a coward as well as a backstabber?”

  A woman’s voice answered from behind the door. I recognized it as belonging to the skinny receptionist. “Mr. Francis is not coming out. You all need to leave. Right now. I’ve called security. They’re on their way. We’ll bring the police into this, too, if we have to.”

  “We’re not leaving till we talk to Francis.” The short guy banged on the door again. “Let us in. Send him out. We don’t care which.”

  “Neither of those things is going to happen.” The woman’s voice was strong and steady, if a little muffled by the wood. “You all need to leave before this gets out of hand.”

  “It’s already out of hand. It got out of hand when Francis betrayed us!”

  I eased my cart across to a woman at the edge of the group. “Everyone seems pretty upset. What’s going on?”

  The woman shook her head and sighed. “It’s probably a mistake to be here. It won’t change anything. I know that. It’s too late. All we can do now is look him in the eye. Make sure he knows how we feel about what he did to us.”

  “ ‘He’ being this Francis guy? What did he do?”

  “Stole our kids’ soccer field.”

  “He stole a field? How?”

  “He tricked us. We’re all from White Plains. Our kids play for the White Plains Wanderers. It’s a small club. We had our own field, but not much else. Other teams, in other towns, they have much better facilities. Places to change. To shower. To get snacks and hang out. It’s hard to attract kids to our club. And hard to keep them. But it’s so expensive to develop, we didn’t think we could do it until Francis showed up with his proposal. He offered to broker a deal with a client of his. They would buy the land for a dollar. Keep one half and build houses on it. Pay for pitches on the other half, proper ones with drainage and nets and a clubhouse. They were to set up a trust so it could run as a nonprofit. The club would have been set for life.”

  “Sounds like a good arrangement, if there was enough room on the half they didn’t build on.”

  “You know what people say. If something seems too good to be true, then it generally is.”

  “So the deal didn’t happen?”

  “Francis’s buddy getting the club’s land for a dollar, that part happened. Nothing else did.”

  “If he’s dragging his feet, couldn’t you sue him? Force him to keep his obligations?”

  “Turns out he doesn’t have any. The original proposal was fine. It was clear, straightforward. But as time passed it all got super complicated. There were amendments. Riders. Qualifications. Conditions. Caveats. All manner of things that totally changed the picture. The upshot was, he gained, we lost. The final deal was watertight. It was legal. It just wasn’t fair.”

  “I’m sorry to hear all that. Isn’t there—” Someone banged on the door from the inside, then a man’s voice called out.

  “This is Trevor Francis. I’m coming out. I want to talk. I owe you an explanation. I know you’re upset, but please move back, give me a chance to speak.”

  The door opened a few inches and a guy slid out sideways through the narrow gap. He’d be in his late thirties, with thinning sandy hair and a charcoal suit that was only marginally more gray than his face. The door slammed behind him. The crowd surged forward, babbling and yelling. The guy was pressed back against the wall, but he just held up his hands and stayed still until the noise subsided to a background murmur.

  “OK.” His voice was quiet but steady. “I’m here. I’m not hiding. And I have four things to say.”

  “Apologize to us, you freak!” It was a woman’s voice, somewhere in the center of the crowd. “Give our kids their field back.”

  Francis paused to let that pass. “First thing. You’re right. All of you. I did betray you. And your kids. You’re right to be angry, and I don’t blame you for hating me. Second. I didn’t want to do what I did. I was forced to by James Klinsman, to keep my job. I get how that sounds like a lame excuse, but you don’t know what the guy’s like. He’s an animal. Third. Partly as a result of what happened with you guys, and the Wanderers, I no longer work for Klinsman. I no longer work for anyone, in fact. Which is OK. It was my decision. I don’t expect sympathy from you, or anyone else. Fourth. Finally, and most important, I’m sorry for everything that happened. You don’t deserve it. Your kids don’t deserve it. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to make things right, but I give you my word that I’ll help in any way I can with any legal challenge you guys choose to mount.” Francis took a moment to scan the faces around him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and tell my wife that as of this morning her husband is among the ranks of the unemployed.”

  Francis waited a moment, then launched himself forward and made for the elevator. The crowd mainly parted, though he did have to step around a few people. He got jostled a couple of times bu
t he kept moving, his eyes fixed on the sliding doors. Someone whistled. A few guys hurled some insults. When Francis had made it halfway I edged back and hit the call button. The doors opened just as he reached the threshold. I could hear his breathing as he passed me. It was sharp and shallow, and I could see beads of sweat dotting his forehead. He stepped inside and the elevator doors closed. I was happy he’d escaped the mob, but couldn’t help wondering if the conversation he was due to have with his wife would take place at their home, or back at the hospital.

  The crowd continued to mill around, but it felt like there was less air in the place, somehow. The common purpose was lost. The anger had evaporated, leaving the general mood sad and confused. A couple sat on the couch. Others drifted to the windows and stared out. Some slowly formed into ragged groups. No one showed any sign of wanting to leave, though, so I hit the call button again. There’d be no point in trying to get into the office. They’d be crazy to open the doors with the mob still there. Plus I had no desire to pick up Francis’s nameplate. I hoped he hadn’t done that himself. It should be left for Klinsman to deal with, himself. Though I doubted he would. He struck me as the kind of guy who expects others to clean up after him. And if I was going to clean anything that day, it would be at the courthouse. I had time before I was due to relieve Robson, unless he called to say Rooney was on the move first.

  * * *

  —

  There was no word from Robson while I took the short walk from Klinsman’s building to Centre Street. Nothing while I got changed. Restocked my cart. Rode up to the third floor. And cleaned two corridors and three courtrooms. I was tempted to head up to the fourth and put some work in there, but I knew that would make it tough to reach Rooney’s office by the agreed time. Specially with the extra stop I’d decided to make. It would partly be in the best interests of the operation—ensuring that the same vehicle didn’t have to be parked outside Rooney’s office all day—but my motivation was mainly selfish. I didn’t want to have to sit in Robson’s mangy Cadillac for hours, let alone potentially have to chase another vehicle in it, so I stopped at a car rental office on Lower Broadway and picked up a silver Chevy Impala before heading over to Queens.

  I ground my way through the silted city streets until I reached the strip mall that housed Rooney’s business. I pulled off the main drag to access the row of parking spaces and rolled past Robson’s Cadillac. That left me with two options. Stopping outside the church, or the pawnshop. I chose the church. It was a little farther along the strip, but offered a better angle to watch Rooney’s door. I reversed into the space and adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see the office. There was less chance of Rooney catching a glimpse of my face if he walked by, that way. And it would be easier for me to pull out quickly and follow him, if it became necessary.

  Robson took off after six minutes, so it wasn’t too obvious that he’d been waiting to be relieved. I watched him go, then settled in to wait. The driver’s seat in the Impala was actually less comfortable than the one in the old Cadillac. That set my mind wandering. Form versus function. Cause versus effect. Intention, result. The abstract thoughts were welcome, helping me to quickly reach the state I was trained for. A small portion of the brain remains hypervigilant, alive to any change in the target, and the rest of the mind and body becomes languid and relaxed, able to stay on post for hours. For as long as necessary.

  That day it was only necessary to stay there for forty-seven minutes. Then two things happened simultaneously. A blue van with a gold shield emblazoned on the side turned in to the parking area, moving fast so that its tires gave a slight squeal as it stopped opposite Rooney’s door. And Rooney emerged from the office, pulling on a suit jacket as he strode forward and jumped up into the passenger seat. Then the van was moving again before the door had even closed all the way. I let it pass me, then pulled back out onto the street, surging into the traffic and joining the stream, three cars back. That was a workable distance, given the size of the van and the weight of the traffic. The vehicles around me ebbed and flowed, but I made sure to maintain a position no fewer than two cars behind the van, and no more than four. We weaved through the streets, an unwelcoming blend of residential and commercial, for just shy of twenty minutes. Then the van pulled over to the side and stopped. I continued, made the next right, pulled a fast U-turn, and took up a position the moment I regained visual contact.

  Rooney and a guy who I’d not seen before were standing in a small yard in front of a modest, tidy row house. Its door opened and a man emerged. I guessed he’d be in his late sixties, and he walked with a stick. He refused Rooney’s hand. It looked like he started yelling. His body was stiff and hostile. He was doing lots of gesticulation with his free hand. After a minute he turned and pointed at an alarm box on the wall between the first- and second-floor windows. Rooney seemed to be trying to calm the situation down. For several minutes he had little effect. Then gradually the other guy became less aggressive. Eventually the wind dropped from his sails altogether and he grudgingly accepted Rooney’s hand. They talked for another minute, then he started back toward his door. Rooney and his driver made for the van. I figured I could safely discount the encounter—if Rooney had Pardew stashed in the older guy’s basement, I doubted he’d be dumb enough to yell about it on the street—but I was left with a decision. Should I head back to Rooney’s office independently, so that I could get there first and avoid any risk of being spotted tailing him? Or continue to follow, in case he had another destination lined up? One that might be of more interest? I was leaning toward following when my phone rang.

  It was Robson. “I just slotted another piece into place. I’ve found the link between Pardew and Rooney.”

  “Excellent. What is it?”

  “Isn’t Pardew’s lawyer a guy named Steven Bruce?”

  “He is. I saw his name in Pardew’s file.”

  “Well, get this. I found a payment from Rooney’s company to Bruce four days after Pardew paid for his nonexistent alarm system. And the amount? Exactly fifteen percent of Pardew’s payment.”

  “Makes sense. Who knows a client better than their lawyer? Bruce could test the water, and when he’s satisfied, put his guy in touch with Rooney. The fifteen percent must be a kind of finder’s fee. Any sign of how they pay the judge his cut?”

  “Not yet. I’m still looking. But I did find something else. It could be big. Or it could be nothing.”

  “What is it?”

  “I figured with a scheme like this, Pardew can’t be the only client, so I looked for other payments to Steven Bruce, assuming they’re also finder’s fees. I found thirty-two in the last three years. Then I had to figure out who in Rooney’s books paid the corresponding original bribes. I couldn’t drive by all his customers to see which ones didn’t have systems installed. There are too many. So I hit on a different idea. See which ones Rooney visited. I figured they’d most likely be genuine. And people who paid without a visit from Rooney, they’d be the ones to be suspicious of.”

  “That’s a good theory. But how could you find out which clients Rooney visited?”

  “It’s not ironclad, but I did it by checking the addresses he searched for on Google Maps. Evidently it’s his go-to system for getting directions.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew how to get that search history.”

  “I don’t. Harry found it.”

  “Wait a minute. He said he was going to email that file to me.”

  “Right. And it’s lucky he did. It was very useful.”

  “You read my email?”

  “Duh. You left your laptop in the kitchen. I figured that was an invitation. What kind of Intel officer would I have been if I ignored things like that? Don’t you read mine?”

  “OK.” I let Rooney’s van pull one vehicle’s length farther ahead. “Moving on. What did you find on the map searches?”

  “In the same period
that he made thirty-two payments to Bruce, there were thirty-two customers that Rooney didn’t look up on the map. I started googling their names. Did the first ten. And guess what? All of them had been arrested. And all were acquitted.”

  “Atkinson will need to join the dots, but it’s sounding pretty conclusive. He’ll probably get a promotion off the back of it. It doesn’t help find us Pardew, though.”

  “No. But another thing I found might. As well as addresses for his legitimate customers, Rooney also searched three other places. All of them two days before the file went missing and Pardew walked.”

  “So what? They could be friends’ houses, where he’d been invited to dinner. Or prospective customers who didn’t like his quotes and signed with other companies. Or changed their minds. Or couldn’t scrape enough cash together to go ahead.”

  “No. They’re all addresses for stores. And what’s weird is when I googled them, I found that they’re all out of business.”

  “Maybe he’s sick of his crappy office in Queens and is thinking of relocating.”

  “That is possible. But Rooney lives in Queens, remember. Manhattan’s way less convenient for him. He’d gain a pain-in-the-ass commute, every morning and evening. It would be more expensive. There’d be nowhere for him to park. Or for his customers. And his business is doing fine where it is. No. I think this could be something else. Imagine you’re Rooney. What if you don’t just worry that your bribe operation might come to light during Pardew’s trial? What if you know it will, because Pardew decides to spill the beans? What would you do, aside from taking the file and removing the evidence?”

  “No question about it. I’d disincentivize Pardew.”

  “Right. In some places we’ve worked that would mean two in the head and a shallow grave. But this is New York, and that kind of thing might attract unwanted attention. So why not put Pardew on ice until you’re done sanitizing the file? Then you could safely let him go. Because as Rooney said, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hang around once he knew the file was back. All you’d have to do would be open the door, remind him his leverage has gone, and the proof of his guilt is back in the hands of the court.”