Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

  Listening to his headset, Perkins commented, “She’s headed for the elevators.”

  “Or the stairs, or a car. Is Robinson with her?”

  Perkins shook his head in disappointment. “No. We’ve lost her.” Jacobs leaned back. Brock attempted to bring the dead cameras onto the lower screens with no success.

  “I want to circulate copies of the printout to all guards immediately.” He interrupted himself. “Speaking of which, any sign of our tunnel rat?” he asked Brock.

  “No.”

  “Speaking of rats,” Perkins added. “We heard that scratching in the walls again. Can’t Maintenance do something?”

  “I’ll try them again. And listen, I want that kid in my office right away. How long have the Flock been in here?”

  “First I’ve seen of them,” replied Brock.

  “Check this out,” said Perkins, pointing out two more members of the Flock in one of the lower monitors.

  “Goddammit, who asked for their help?” Jacobs said roughly. “Find Civichek. Our media people may know where to reach him. Set up a meeting immediately through my office.”

  “Right,” Brock acknowledged. He’d only seen Jacobs like this a few times before. When he hit these moods, you stayed clear.

  ***

  “You interfered with my people.”

  “Shit. How was I supposed to know youse people saw her? Hunh?” The man, in his early twenties, had stringy hair and bad skin. “I saw her make the hit. I chased her down. You got your job. I got mine. What’s the difference?”

  “Chasing her down is my job, that’s the difference.”

  “I didn’t see no one even following her. Shit, you have problems with me being here, you call Les. He’ll straighten this out. Talk to Les.” He hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets. “You can’t keep me here against my will. I know my rights.”

  “You do, do you? Get lost.”

  The boy walked out of the office slowly, insolently.

  What the hell was going on? One thing he didn’t need was a squad of vigilantes trying to do his job for him. At least the man was a witness. If they could catch her now, they would have a shot at putting her behind bars.

  Outside his window, a bright, clear summer afternoon shone down on the cars in the parking lot. Blinding spits of sunlight reflected off the chrome and glass. This was one of those rare days. It would be a beautiful afternoon for fishing.

  Carmine DeAngelo knocked on his door, his cigar chewed raw and gripped tightly in his teeth. The moon-shaped sacks beneath his eyes held the color of a bad bruise. His hard, stubby fingers with their blackened, disfigured nails yanked the stogie from his lips. He wore a two-day beard and his eyes were disturbed.

  “Carmine?”

  “I been taking a look at that explosion. I think Rappaport is right. The cops are going over it again.”

  “Go on,” Jacobs said.

  The man looked tired. “We get tested on our pours every so many days. Never had any problems. I didn’t think much of it when Rappaport got all excited about the stairway, but I went over his paperwork this morning and it sure looks like he’s right to me. Our cement may be below code. The building isn’t going to fall down, but we got problems. Even if the whole thing was poured this way, it’s still structurally sound. You know how overblown the government regulations are. But if it gets into the courts before we have time to correct it—to inspect it, for that matter—we’ll be in big trouble.”

  “What’s next?”

  “We wait for the results of that other test he sent out-of-state for. That’ll tell us. I have a feeling he’s right. That’s one place to shave costs, you know. On a project this size the sub could pocket over a hundred grand by shorting us. I’ll tell ya something: my name is on this job. It’s my goddamned career, if this building is bad. I’m the one in charge. Truth is, I never pay much attention to the cement men or the lab tests. They come in, they do their job. Romanello’s as good as any of them. Least I thought he was.

  “You’re in charge of safety,” he continued. “I think we should run some additional tests before we get all out of joint. We can drill some core samples and run them to independent labs as well. It may be an isolated problem. Thank God most of the structure is precast.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We used a combination of precast sections tied to support columns that we poured. In certain places we poured sections of walls too, depending on the size and shape the plans called for. The upper-level staircases were poured by us as well. There are a million reasons for cement going bad. But there’s no excuse for a lab failing to detect the problem. At the very least we’re going to have to shore up some walls.”

  “At the worst?”

  DeAngelo shook his head. “I hesitate to think. I’ll tell you one thing: No one, but no one, had better hear about this. If word gets out, we may not have time to think through a plan. You and I both know there are people downtown who would love to see this new wing fail. If there’s bad cement throughout—well, I think you get my point.”

  Jacobs leaned forward. “This could close it down?”

  “Of course it could. It could be condemned overnight. That’s why I say we better get some samples, and we better keep a lid on it.”

  “The explosion. Was it in a precast piece or a section you poured?”

  “It was in precast.” He paused, then added, “As a matter of fact it’s about dead center between two of our columns.” His brow knitted. “You don’t have to look so disappointed.”

  “For a minute there, it began to make sense. Arrange for a bad pour, set off an explosion to tip us off to the fact. It would all fit neatly into a plan to sabotage us.”

  “It was a precast section for sure.”

  “Get some samples for testing, Carmine. I’ll brief Haverill.”

  “Right.” DeAngelo turned to leave.

  “Carmine,” Jacobs said, stopping the big man. “Have any of your men been using the utility tunnels or shafts in Pavilion C?”

  “C? Not that I know of.”

  “No electricians? Nobody?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about the elevators in C. Any of your guys over there?”

  “None of my guys. Maybe your Maintenance people,” DeAngelo suggested.

  “No. It’s not us.”

  “You got someone in your tunnels?”

  “Maybe.”

  “The bomber?”

  “Could be. That’s why I asked.”

  DeAngelo looked at the ceiling. “I can’t think about it. I got too much to do. But I’ll tell you something. I’ll sleep a lot better when you have someone under arrest. It was my locker, you know.”

  Jacobs nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

  DeAngelo left in a hurry, his tension apparent in his stiff walk.

  ***

  A few minutes later DeAngelo phoned Jacobs and called him down to the new pavilion. Jacobs spent nearly an hour walking the pavilion with a group of bomb squad police who had brought explosive-sniffing German shepherds along at Shleit’s request. No bombs were detected by any of the various means the police used to test for them.

  At eleven o’clock that Thursday morning, the new pavilion was declared free of any explosives, and the bomb squad departed, confident the building was safe.

  13

  Despite the light from his headlamp, the man had a hard time seeing in the tunnel. The air-conditioning ducts rumbled throughout the utility tunnels, making him imagine that he was inside the throat of a dragon with heartburn.

  The pipes hung low, making the narrow tunnels difficult to move through and occasionally blocking much of the light. Only practice had afforded him his keen agility. He was not new to this.

  He fixed a piece of tape to his wires. A fine job it was, too. They blended in with a variety of other wires that had been added over the years.

  He thought he heard someone cough. He remained absolutely still. Alert, and moving cautiously away from the so
und, he headed down the tunnel, bent over and unable to see very far ahead of himself.

  There! Again. That was no cough. That was someone speaking. Someone in the tunnels. A beam of light swept over him from behind without warning. He moved quickly, in an odd duck-like run.

  Breathing heavily he continued his flight, pipes and conduits to his right, mounted to the wall. Yellow light from behind stretched his shadow before him, the hand-held flashlight jiggling with his pursuer’s movements. Jesus, they were gaining on him!

  He reached an intersection and turned right, leaving the path of the flashlight behind. This tunnel held more pipes than the others and was therefore more difficult to move through quickly.

  His glasses began to fog from his exertion. It happened every time he hurried like this. His vision blurred. He pawed at the thick glass, still duck-walking at a full clip. The yellow light flooded him again.

  They were right back there, moving along.

  He crouched and began to move along himself, apelike, bent over severely to avoid hitting the pipes, shifting his weight between the balls of his palms and the soles of his feet, speed-crawling on all fours in a kind of primitive canter. He doubled his speed.

  He continued down the narrow tunnel. But then the light from behind grew stronger and he realized his pursuer was again gaining on him. He stopped, turned, and began kicking on a pipe marked with a red arrow. The man behind him gained ground. The bomber continued to strike out against the pipe. It flexed with each kick but resisted breaking.

  He isolated a connection in the pipe, reared back his foot, and kicked hard. The junction broke and steam spewed out, blocking the way for his pursuer.

  The bomber went back to his ape run, feeding off pumping adrenaline, pulling away quickly.

  Reaching an intersection with a vertical shaft, he began a hasty descent, taking chances by skipping several rungs with each step. A fall would mean injury, quite possibly death. He paused and looked up. No one there. He reached up and switched off his headlamp, angry at himself for not having thought of it sooner.

  If he remembered right, there was a room off Sub-level 3 that connected with the storm sewers. He was real familiar with the maze of sewers. If he hurried, he could be lost before they figured out where he had gone. Down into the darkness he sank, hand over hand, the dragon still growling high overhead.

  14

  “May I come in?” Susan asked from the door to his office.

  “Please.” Jacobs stood and moved toward her. She shied away, offish.

  “Thank you for the flowers. I called home,” she explained. “I’m told they’re beautiful.”

  “My apologies.”

  “Accepted.” She sat lightly on the edge of the chair, as if she expected to leave quickly. It made Jacobs feel uneasy. “And I also accept your dinner invitation. Social amenities over, we have some business to discuss.

  “First, I haven’t been able to see Russo. I doubt if I will, but I’m still trying. I’ve had two meetings with a former Russo employee, a man named Proctor. A friend in the DA’s office sent me to him. He was evidently set up as a scapegoat, and he isn’t too pleased about it. At the same time, he’s scared of Russo. I met with him last night, but it was fruitless. He was too afraid to talk. Thanks to some pressure from my DA friend, applied through Proctor’s attorney, he was more willing to cooperate today.

  “Proctor claims,” she continued, “that Russo had several meetings with a man named Danny Romanello. Romanello took over the concrete work on your new pavilion when DeAngelo effectively broke the union. Now, one would think that would grate on Russo’s nerves, and in fact he evidently pretended it did—”

  “Pretended?”

  “Ranting and raving around the office, that sort of thing. Come to find out, one afternoon when Proctor showed up at Russo’s office door, he overheard Russo and Romanello getting along like buddies. And why not? As it turns out, the two are brothers-in-law. When Proctor knocked, they put on a show. They argued, and Romanello stormed out. Proctor claims that just before the arguing he overheard them talking about someone here at the Green who was in on something with them.”

  “Could be one of the workers Russo planted to keep an eye on things.”

  “Proctor thinks it’s someone in management.”

  “What?”

  “I’m just telling you what he said.”

  “How reliable is he?”

  “Unfortunately, not very. I’m under the impression he’ll do about anything to get out of his legal problems.”

  “It does tie into something else….”

  “You look worried.”

  “I am,” he admitted. “I’m not sure which way to go with this. If it’s what I think it is, we’ve got some big problems. Big. Capital B.”

  “Russo fits into it?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  She flipped through her small pad and said, “Okay. Point two. I did some more library research. I’ve modified the list I gave you yesterday. Anderson, the first name, spread himself over a three-block area a few months ago. An investigation by the FBI revealed he was trying to make his own plastic explosive. He’s out.

  “Number five, Greenwood, was arrested in New Haven on a drug charge. He’s in on a twenty-year sentence. No chance of parole for another four years. He’s off.”

  “You do take your work seriously.”

  “You told me to read between the lines. I’m doing the best I can. This is all from the newspapers. The three names I added are arsonists who have been implicated in crimes having to do with explosives. No convictions. Thought they should be included in the club. There are a couple of things on the other list that are still eluding me: the rent-a-car bombing, the explosion on the yacht, and the killing of the judge. I have access to a computer later on today that should allow me to do some keyword searches. The indexing system for the periodicals isn’t all that extensive. The computer should help out considerably.”

  “Do you have a spare copy of your new list?”

  “You bet.” She handed it to him.

  “I really am impressed, Susan. And I’m deeply sorry for jumping to conclusions.”

  She pursed her lips, clearly uncomfortable.

  He said, “If your Mr. Proctor can find out anything more about who at Yankee Green might be connected to Russo and Romanello—”

  “He’s looking into it. He’s desperate. I think he may come up with something.” She hesitated, blushing. “Is dinner tonight for real?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Time?”

  “How would you be with an hour’s notice?”

  “Hungry, I’m sure.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll call.”

  “Do that.”

  She left. Jacobs called Haverill immediately. “I have to talk with you as soon as possible…. No, I’d rather it be just the two of us. Before the afternoon meeting, if possible…. No, it’s about the cement…. Yes, that’s right….” After a long pause on Haverill’s end, he added, “I think we can expect a visit from Russo soon, and if we’re not prepared for it, it could turn against us…. Good, I’ll be right up.”

  15

  Rappaport had yet to see the full picture, but he knew that both his discoveries were important. He couldn’t be certain the bad cement was tied to the explosion. Where the hell was the connection? Without core samples, he couldn’t even be sure the cement was a problem. If a single isolated pour had failed to cure properly it would hardly be anything new. On a job the size of FunWorld that could be expected. If only the emergency stairway failed to meet code it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. One afternoon, a few yards of cement, and everything would be back to normal.

  He pulled down the garage door. The Caddy was tucked in nice and tight. Light flickered at the corner of his eye. “Who’s there?” he questioned.

  The neighborhood was quiet. Hot afternoon sunlight beat down, warming the cement underfoot. Rappaport could feel it coming through his sh
oes. “Hello?” he said, feeling a presence nearby. “Anybody there?”

  He pushed open the gate on the high fence that connected the garage to the small house. A strong hand grasped him from behind and shoved a rag into his mouth. Rappaport struggled, but to no avail. A heavy man stepped in front of him wearing a ski mask; another held his arms from behind, restraining him.

  He knew what was coming.

  “Stop poking your nose in other people’s business, or you’ll find your fat wife carved into little bits,” said a gravelly voice. This man struck Rappaport hard in the stomach. “As far as your wife’s concerned, you got mugged for your wallet,” the man instructed, hitting him repeatedly above the groin, where the pain was intense but evidence of a mugging minimal. There would be no bruises. No cuts.

  As the man behind released him, Rappaport slumped to the flagstone walkway clutching his abdomen, pain shooting through him. The two hurried off.

  Rappaport dragged himself toward the back door, a gargantuan effort that required all his strength and presence of mind. The few feet felt like a hundred yards. He struggled up the steps, one by one, finally collapsing on the small back porch alongside a stack of old newspapers and a yellow plastic bowl of cat food.

  Reaching up, he tried for the doorbell and fell short, skidding back down the molding. He pounded on the porch, but little sound resulted. Again he forced himself to his knees and directed his finger toward the lighted button mounted in the molding. Come on, Jessi, he mumbled.

  He could picture her watching the tube.

  His finger stabbed the button.

  A moment later, Jessi opened the door, looked down, and screamed.

  “Call an ambulance,” he hissed.

  “Marty! You’ve had a heart attack. Oh, my God, you’ve had a heart attack!” She slapped her pudgy hands across her breasts, feeling her own heart race out of control.

  “I was mugged,” he managed to gasp. “Call the ambulance. Quick.”

  He watched his panicked wife turn and scurry back inside. He heard her demanding an ambulance. “Atta girl,” he said as their cat joined him on the porch, rubbing against him for attention.