Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

  “Just trying to make myself clear. You’ve been stalled downtown for over a year. How much you have sitting on the ground losing you money? One point five, one point eight? What’s that costing you a month?”

  “I’d have to look at the figures. But I know for a fact I couldn’t offer you more than ten percent, and that would be stretching it.”

  “You have two days to close the deal.”

  “Impossible.”

  “After that, I lose interest.”

  Macdonald scratched his head and rose from the padded chair. “Let me see what I can shake. We agree chat you’ll hold off of any commercial development out here for at least seven years?”

  “My word on it.” Haverill knew that this, above all, was his bargaining chip. Macdonald couldn’t risk taking on Yankee Green. It was what had stalled the project for the last year. What Macdonald didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that the new wing had run over budget and increased the debt load to nearly unbearable proportions. There was no way the Green could even attempt expansion for at least another decade, and only then if they were extremely lucky and all the pieces fell into place. It was another reason why filling that anchor space was so important.

  A number of the mall’s five-year leases would expire in a matter of months. Renewal of these leases depended on a strong financial forecast. Without an anchor in the new wing merchants might panic and leave the Green, which in turn could create a glut of empty retail space—space that couldn’t be given away.

  Haverill and Macdonald shook hands. “I’ll see what I can do, Marv.” Haverill smiled.

  As Macdonald left the office, Haverill shut his eyes and sighed. If anyone in this town could close a real estate deal in two days, it was Alex Macdonald. The man had a Midas touch.

  6

  Mykos Popolov knew that Mother was right: if change was going to come, he would have to set the example. For the last two months the youth groups had disturbed business in every pavilion.

  Security was hand-tied because the techniques used by the groups rarely broke any of the rules, they simply intimidated customers, discouraging them from shopping wherever the young people decided to congregate.

  Compromise was needed. And compromise was at hand.

  As he rubbed down the tables with his one arm, Popolov looked over at his plump wife, who was busy preparing a tray of pastries.

  They had met in a small makeshift hospital in a village in northern Italy. He noticed her immediately, a finely postured woman who never stopped working. The church basement was crowded with young, wounded resistance fighters like himself who had been brought to the small village. The people working there were taking as much risk as the people they tended. If the Germans ever discovered them, certainly all inside would be shot without questions or trial.

  One day during her rounds, the then firm and lovely nurse stopped amid the crowded cots and inquired, “How are you feeling today? You look better.”

  “You work so hard,” he had said immediately.

  “No, not really.”

  “Yes. I have watched you. You should rest every now and then.”

  “I rest.”

  “Not enough.”

  “How is the arm?”

  “What arm?” he said, making a joke.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “A joke. A joke is all it was.”

  She sat on his bed and looked into his eyes. More than a few of the other boys took notice, several rising up on their elbows. She was one of only three younger women acting as nurses; the remainder were older matrons. Several of the young resistance fighters had crushes on her. “All of you, you’re so brave,” she said.

  “I was running from the Nazis when I lost this,” he said, lifting the stump. “I wasn’t being brave, I was running. If I was truly brave, I would have turned and tried to kill a few before they killed me. That is bravery.”

  “No, that is stupidity. Too many young men confuse the two.”

  “Do you believe in God?” he had asked her.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So many don’t anymore, what with all the killing. I’m glad you do.”

  “Why do you ask me this?”

  “Without God I wouldn’t be here,” he said matter-of-factly. His eyes lost their focus. He had yet to explain this to anyone. “You see, they were right behind me. I could hear them in the woods. In my fear—yes, in my fear—I became disoriented and left the path. I had lost my group. At least I thought I had. I came out of the woods, and I was face-to-face with a train. I knew the Brownshirts were right behind me. I stared at the moving train. I knew what had to be done, but I could not find the courage. It was a strange feeling. I had been on many operations, had never faltered for even a second, and suddenly there I was facing that train, knowing I had to cross the tracks. To me it seemed that Death was behind me and Death was in front of me. Yet I was not prepared to die. I was afraid to die.

  “We Greeks have a saying, do we not? If you associate with the wise, you become wise yourself. So I said a prayer, though a short prayer it was,” he said, making her chuckle, “and put my life in God’s hands. Then I dove beneath that train and rolled out the other side. I am alive because of the hand of God. He gave me a hand… so I gave him mine back.” Tears filled his eyes.

  She bent down and kissed him on the cheek. “God did not make you dive under that train,” she told him. “Your love of God, your faith in him, allowed you to.” Then she whispered, “Amor con amor se paga.” One pays for love with love. She rose and walked away.

  Two months later they were married upstairs in that same church, and a year after that, when the war had finally spent its last energies, they boarded a ship for the United States. Her constitution, her devotion to work, never allowed her a moment’s rest. On the ship she helped cook and tended to the ill children, attempting to nurse them back to health before their arrival in the United States, where ill heath could mean detention or even refusal.

  They worked together in a vegetable market in New York City’s little Italy for several months, Mykos, despite his handicap, doing the work of two. Even so, Mykos was fired with the words “There’s no use for you here,” words that would haunt him the rest of his life.

  Several years later, Gaea received an invitation from her brother for the Popolovs to join their cousins in Providence. They took the next train. In Providence, where the four of them ran a pizza shop, Mykos’s good nature proved an invaluable asset to business. Customers came in as much to talk with Mykos as to eat. While Mykos worked furiously in front of the ovens, talking a blue streak, Gaea served customers and prepared dessert.

  Twenty years later, when Gaea’s jet black hair began to show gray, her brother sold the restaurant, split the money with his sister, and moved his family to Fort Lauderdale.

  Within a few weeks of her brother’s departure, both the Popolovs wanting a change of scenery, Gaea boarded Mykos on a train and rode with him to Hillsdale. When a cab delivered them to a concrete cubicle in a sea of asphalt, Gaea pulled Mykos anxiously through the open—as yet to be completed—doorway and pointed amid the scaffolding, whispering, “This, Mykos, is our future.”

  That had been seven years ago.

  ***

  The Green’s mailman arrived and Mrs. Popolov stopped her work and hurried over to receive the mail, as was her custom. She leafed through the pile quickly, hoping to see the letter from the Italian consulate. She had phoned for the third time on Monday, and they had assured her that the committee’s decisions had been mailed. She had entered her husband’s name for consideration of a medal of honor. After all these years he still secretly longed to be recognized for his bravery. For Mykos Popolov, pride was everything.

  She found no letter from the consulate in the pile. She leafed through again, and again there was no letter. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Would they dare refuse a man who had given his arm to the cause? Would they not give an old man the recognition he deserved
?

  ***

  Earl Coleman entered The Greek Deli with an Afro comb stuck in the back of his hair. His T-shirt had the word RAD in big bold letters stenciled across the front.

  “Mr. Paplav?”

  Popolov looked up and blinked. “Mr. Coleman?”

  The young black handed Popolov a blue card. “You have to sign that and make a call to Security, or they gonna come looking for me.”

  Popolov took the pass and excused himself to go to the back, where he placed the phone call to Dispatch, assuming responsibility for Coleman. When he returned they took a seat in the far corner. “It’s taken care of,” he said softly.

  “They say me and the boys ain’t allowed in here for two more weeks. It’s all that manager’s fault. If he hadn’t had us arrested, none of this would be a problem.”

  “That’s partly what I want to discuss,” said Popolov.

  “That man is asking for trouble.”

  “No more trouble, Mr. Coleman. We’ve had enough trouble. I was hoping you, as a kind of leader of the young people in the Green, and me, as leader of the retailers, could work out a mutually acceptable solution.”

  “Mr. Jacobs tried that too. We had a good thing going with Mr. Jacobs. He tried to help us out, and then that manager gone and screwed it all up. What you got in mind?”

  “I want to offer you a job, Mr. Coleman. I’ll pay you minimum wage for the first two weeks. If you show me you can handle the job, I’ll give you a raise. If it works out, I can hire a couple of your friends, maybe find some jobs at some of the other stores. It’ll be hard work, and I’ll expect you to be on time and work a full day. If you can’t do the job, or if you give me trouble, then you’re on your own again.”

  “You know about the fines?”

  “What fines?”

  “The judge say we got to pay back the market for the cost of cleaning up. Each of us owe a hundred and fifty bucks. Is that what this is all about?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I’m offering you a job, Mr. Coleman. This is between you and me, no one else. You’ve got to give me a decision right now, one way or the other.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “It won’t be pretty. Stocking shelves, cleaning the floors. I’m an older man. I need someone with a strong back and two arms. There are plenty of people in Hillsdale who need jobs. If you don’t want it I can have the position filled with a phone call to the employment service. What’s your decision?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Paplav. I need the green, but—”

  “Yes or no?”

  Coleman looked across the table. “Stocking shelves? Mopping floors?”

  “To start out with, yes. If you can show me you’re good with people, you can move up to waiting tables.”

  “I keep the tips?”

  “You keep the tips.” Popolov smiled.

  So did Earl Coleman, who nodded and said, “You got a deal.”

  The two men shook hands.

  7

  “Nice office,” Shleit said, positioning his chair to face Jacobs, who came around from behind his desk and sat in one of the padded chairs.

  “Can’t complain.”

  “You saw ours. Maybe I ought to be in mall security.”

  Jacobs couldn’t tell how Shleit intended the remark. The tone of voice seemed sarcastic; Shleit’s facial expression seemed sincere. The more Jacobs got to know him, the more the detective seemed a confusing mix of two different people: the hard-ass and the human being.

  Jacobs carefully removed the pasted-up note from his desk, cradling it on a piece of typing paper. “I received this in the morning mail. I kept my prints off it, though no telling how many times the outside was handled.” Jacobs leaned forward and shoved it across his desk.

  Shleit read the note. “Doesn’t say much.”

  “No telling if it’s connected to the bombing, but I thought your people should run the usual tests.”

  “Could be a crackpot. This thing’s gotten a lot of press. I’ll have it looked at.”

  “He scratched out the box number and wrote in mine. Those business-reply envelopes are used by our promotion department—”

  “So he knows your box number.”

  “That’s what occurred to me.”

  “And we’ve got a handwriting sample. I doubt it’s the same guy. No motive apparent in the message. Doesn’t make any sense. I’ll have it looked at, but I have a hunch it’s nothing. Got an envelope that’ll hold this?”

  Jacobs gave him a legal-size envelope, and Shleit placed the note carefully inside. “I talked with the guys who went over your elevator car,” he said. “Obviously, there were hundreds of prints. They’re concentrating on that rubber band and fishing line, and on the roof of the car. Found some prints up there. We’ll need to print your maintenance people to narrow the field. That okay with you?”

  “I’ll need the approval of the department head. And Haverill. I don’t foresee any problems.”

  “Good.”

  “Was the dynamite from the case that was stolen six weeks ago?” Jacobs asked, hoping to catch Shleit off-guard.

  “You’ve been doing your homework,” the detective replied calmly.

  Jacobs shrugged and waited him out.

  “Could be. Fact is, we think so. Yes.” Shleit said, “Do you mind?” and held up his pack of menthols.

  Jacobs shrugged again.

  Shleit noticed there were no ashtrays on the desk and returned the cigarette pack to his pocket. “Shitty habit anyway.”

  “Anything else from the investigation of the explosion?”

  “Not yet. Not that I know of.” Shleit toyed with something in his coat pocket. Probably a lighter, Jacobs thought. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that the ATF lifted a partial when that case of dynamite was stolen. File arrived this morning. It’s not a good print. They pulled it from the inside of a torn surgical glove they found on the scene. It’s why we’re taking this elevator car seriously. If we can pull a good set of prints from the top of the car, we might be able to get a match. It’s a long shot, agreed, but we don’t have much more than long shots at the moment anyway.”

  “How about past offenders? I have a small list here.” Jacobs searched in his inside breast pocket and found Susan’s handwritten list. He held it for a second too long. How close he had felt to her yesterday. How far from her today. He passed it to Shleit, who unfolded it.

  “I’m impressed,” said the detective, scanning the list. “You really have done your homework. As I hear things, I’ll pass them on to you so you can narrow your list. Best I can do.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “It might be best to leave the police work up to us.”

  “Might be.”

  “Okay. I hear ya. Just so we understand each other—it’s illegal to interfere with an active police investigation.”

  “Right. No offense, detective, but I’ll do whatever I can to speed up the investigation.”

  “We’ve never been known for our speed. Rarely, I should say. But we’re thorough. Can’t fault us there.”

  “Just so we understand each other.”

  Shleit grinned. “You struck me as a real prick at first, Jacobs. I’m glad I was wrong.”

  “Likewise.” Jacobs smiled for the first time since reading the morning newspaper. He’d been preoccupied with thoughts of her all day long. Anger came and went in him like a low-grade fever.

  “The more I look around, the more people I find unhappy with Yankee Green. That doesn’t make things any easier.”

  Jacobs let the comment go. “Stolen explosives, surgical gloves—don’t those indicate a professional job?”

  “Could be. That’s certainly one way we’re looking at it.” Shleit appeared tired. “Could have been hired out, if that’s what you’re driving at. I have my doubts. A professional would have used a light acid to burn off the date-shift code. We wouldn’t have been able to trace the dynamite that way. It was an oversig
ht typical of an amateur. And this elevator thing—”

  “Which may not be connected.”

  “But it could be. And if it is, then all the more proof the man’s an amateur. Fishing line and a rubber band? You gotta be kidding!”

  “Using the elevators isn’t so dumb, actually. There are only a few ways into those utility shafts and tunnels. The doors require a security pass. The service hallways are kept under surveillance by camera. Using the elevator shafts to enter the utility tunnels is something I hadn’t thought of. Clever, actually. I doubt if it’s the work of kids. To make it work, it would require perfect timing and a hell of a lot of planning. That’s not typical of the kind of troublemakers we get around here.”

  “You searched the tunnels?”

  “Yes. Nothing. We’re reviewing some videotape now—which reminds me….” Jacobs searched through a pile of paper on his desk. “Where the hell?” He continued to dig.

  “My guess is that we’ve either got someone hired to give your Mr. DeAngelo something to think about, or we’ve got an amateur with an unclear motive. The bomb in the locker could have been a warning. If it was, only DeAngelo knows what it’s about, and he hasn’t given us squat. It could also have been a mistake. DeAngelo could have put that bomb in his locker for all we know.”

  “Here we are,” Jacobs said, locating the computer enhancement. “My dispatcher got a pretty good picture of a guy who was in and around that elevator this morning.” He handed Shleit the photocopy. “I’d sure as hell like to have a talk with this man.”

  “Ugly son of a bitch. Can I keep this?”

  “Sure. It’s a copy.”

  Shleit pocketed it. “Are your people alerted?”

  “He sets foot in here again, and we’ll have him. All the pavilions are being watched carefully.”

  The office door opened. Marty Rappaport shook Mary-Jo off his arm and said, “It has to be now.”

  Shleit and Jacobs looked up.

  “I’m in a meeting,” Jacobs said.

  “Sorry,” said Mary-Jo.

  “I’ve got to see you right now,” Rappaport insisted. “It’s about the bombing.”