The driveway curved four times, left and right, before ending at a gravel parking area and a four-car garage. The parking lot was half-moon shaped, the garage castle-like, with battlements along the roof and two small stone turrets. A miniature of the garage would have been perfect at the bottom of a fish tank.
Two other vehicles were in the parking lot, a silver BMW sedan, and an ambulance, its back doors open. A man and a woman, both thirtyish and dressed in matching blue uniform jackets, were sitting on the back bumper, chatting in the sun. They held magazines, Sports Illustrated for him, The New Yorker for her. Eddie parked beside them.
They nodded hello when he stepped from the car.
“Everything all right?” Eddie asked.
“We’re on call,” the man said. He had a deep voice, like the overnight disc jockey on a blues station. “Finally got a nice day, too. They say it might hit fifty this afternoon.”
“That’ll be nice,” Eddie agreed.
The woman added, “Better than freezing our butts off, crammed all day in the front seat.”
“You stay here all day? Every day?”
“Not just us,” the woman said. “Second shift gets here at three-o’clock.” She winked. “Nice to have money, huh?”
“The Soks hire you?”
“They hire our company,” she said. “Round-the-clock. Ted and I pull this detail a few days a month. Not much action, but it’s a nice break.”
Eddie pointed down a stone walkway. “The house down this way?”
“Past those trees,” the man said. “Across the chessboard. You’ll see.”
The path took Eddie along a knoll landscaped with bark mulch, and then through a grove of Douglas fir, each a little too big to be an indoor Christmas tree. It climbed the knoll, leading to a sculpture garden on a forty-foot checkerboard of red and white squares. Cement chess pieces as big as people—one side white, the other reddish like clay pottery, were positioned on the board and the sidelines, like during a game between giants.
More fir trees crowded the edges of the board, like spectators leaning in for a good view. Eddie strolled across the sculpture. From a strategic standpoint, the red pieces held the advantage; the white side had lost more players and was on its heels. A copper plaque bolted to a boulder made sense of the scene:
Final Positions before Checkmate
Merrimack Valley Chess Masters Club Championship
Sawouth “Samuel” Sok Defeated the Field and Named “King”
March 25
There was no year listed. Tarnish, the color of month-old bread, speckled the plaque.
Eddie laughed out loud at Sok’s personal monument to a third-rate amateur chess club championship. The wealthy were simply another species.
He was still laughing when a line on the plaque echoed in his head.
Defeated the Field and Named “King”
Had he read that before? He had skimmed scores of clips on Samuel Sok from The Empire’s library; several had mentioned Sok’s love of the game, but Eddie couldn’t recall reading about Sok’s club championship.
Danny’s story!
Eddie yanked from his wallet the notes from Nowlin’s home computer, the fragment from Nowlin’s story draft: …showing amazing instincts, he mated each of them in March and was crowned their King.
Danny’s secret story had been a profile of Samuel Sok. The scent of Danny’s trail was suddenly overpowering. Eddie hurried along the path.
The estate house was surprisingly modest. More charming than stunning, it could have been a bed and breakfast on Nantucket. It was three stories, mostly clapboard, pale yellow, and cluttered with windows, round, square and oval, and no two alike in size. The trim was white, as were the carved wooden pillars supporting the portico. The building’s peaks and gables complemented two small cupolas and a circular widow’s walk with a white railing.
Cold weather had blunted the front yard’s summer glory. It was landscaped with shrubs and fruit trees. Concord grape vines swarmed a wooden gazebo. There were cement benches in a rock garden and a dozen more Biblical sculptures, all men in robes. The Apostles, maybe?
Eddie walked under the portico, and up two stone steps to an imposing wooden door. Fixed to it at eye-level was an iron bell shaped like an army helmet, and a metal hammer dangling on a chain. There seemed to be no conventional doorbell. Eddie clanged the bell twice with the hammer. The tone was low and sweet. The two chimes reminded him of a movie, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Not one of his favorites. He rang a third time.
The lock mechanism clattered from the inside, and then the massive door jerked inward an inch, before momentum took hold and it swung open. A housekeeper, a woman of about fifty, no bigger than the average sixth-grader, greeted Eddie in a thin voice and led him down a hall to a sitting room.
The inside of the Sok house looked like a monastery run by monks who had discovered a loophole in the vow of poverty. The walls of the sitting room were angel-white, decorated with a chair rail and intricate moldings along the nine-foot ceiling. An Oriental rug was on the parquet floor in front of a fireplace. Religious figurines on pedestals prayed and wept and raised their swords. Seven paintings of the Madonna with child were hung around the room. There were three fabric sofas, each with an entourage of end tables, reading lamps and overstuffed pillows.
Eddie gasped.
On the wall above the fireplace hung a three-foot statuette of a bloody Christ figure, struggling from the cross. It was identical, except for size, to the crucifix hanging over the altar in abandoned St. Francis de Sales Church.
The housekeeper caught Eddie gaping at the cross. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said.
“Fascinating,” he answered, trying to be diplomatic.
“Mr. Sok is very talented.”
Eddie pointed. “Samuel Sok made this?”
“Mr. Sok made everything in this home, and on the grounds. These figures were his business.”
“I thought his business had to do with historic homes?”
She nodded. “He made custom molding for historic replication.” She gestured to the molding around the room until Eddie got the point and nodded. “But as you can see, a higher power asked him to expand his enterprise.”
She excused herself and promised to alert Peter and Matthew that he had arrived.
Eddie draped his coat over a sofa. Sok’s sons joined him in two minutes. One was built like a jockey. He wore brown suit trousers, a formal white shirt, and a buttoned, olive-colored vest. He camouflaged his receding hairline by shaving his head.
The other man was tall and bear-like, with sloping shoulders and a mess of black hair on a big oblong head. He wore a white T-shirt and a sports coat with jeans. Black chest hair curled over the shirt collar.
The bald one offered a hand with silver rings on each finger. “Welcome, Mr. Bourque,” he said. “I am Peter Sok. And this rather large gentleman—”
And then he just stopped.
Eddie gripped the outstretched hand and pumped it twice. Peter Sok held his smile, but the emotion behind it had drained away, leaving a corpse’s face. Then he recovered as suddenly as he had frozen. “—And this gentleman is my brother, Matthew. We’re pleased to be your hosts for our conversation this morning.”
Eddie thanked him and nodded. He shook Matthew’s hand. The big guy’s grip was powerful, but his hand too soft to make much of an impression. Matthew bit his bottom lip and squinted at Eddie. He asked, “Do I know you?”
“Of course not!” Peter scolded his brother. “Mr. Bourque is a writer for the newspaper. He is not a person we would have met before today.”
Matthew looked unconvinced, but dropped the matter. They sat down, each man on his own sofa.
Eddie declined their offer of tea. They chatted for fifteen minutes about the house and the grounds and the hope for a warm afternoon. Peter spoke for the brothers.
When they seemed loosened up, Eddie said, “Nobody has se
en your father at city functions in several years. Such an influential man is easily missed. How has he been?”
Matthew looked at his brother, who looked at Eddie and assured him, “He is very well.”
“Would it be possible, when we’re done here, for me to get a word with him?” Eddie asked.
No, it would not.
Peter gently explained, “Our father has come to treasure his privacy.” He pronounced the word priv-a-cee, with a short i sound. “He prefers to see no one. My brother and I are his spokespersons.”
That brought Peter to the point. “How may we help you today, Mr. Bourque?”
Eddie took out a note pad for the sake of maintaining a sense of authenticity, and then lied, “I’m researching a story on your father’s recent step into city politics with the formation of his own political action committee.”
“You know about that?” Matthew asked, alarmed.
Peter seemed comfortable, even relieved, by Eddie’s inquiry. He said to his brother, “Mr. Bourque is obviously skilled in the review of obscure public documents.” To Eddie, he said, “We had intended to remain anonymous on our first foray into politics, in case we were not successful. But you have found us out.”
Peter continued, offering long, corny quotes about the importance of being part of the democracy and contributing to the government of the people, blah, blah. Eddie had no need for his comments, but he jotted them down.
Matthew found his confidence and added his own platitudes. He seemed to enjoy participating on the same level as Peter, who was clearly the brains behind the Sok operation. Matthew was well spoken, but his thoughts came from shallow waters. He struck Eddie as a lunkhead with a million-dollar education.
Eddie asked, “But why give donations only to the incumbents?”
“They support our interests,” Peter said.
Added Matthew, “They’re behind our project.”
Eddie perked at that.
Peter hissed at his brother, “That’s enough!”
What project? Eddie could imagine only one, the redevelopment project for the Acre neighborhood that Councilman Eccleston had tipped him to. It was not much to go on. Even when he bluffed, Eddie preferred a better hand. After half-a-beat to steel his nerves, Eddie said with confidence, “The Acre redevelopment proposal—I’m aware of it. An undertaking that huge needs a majority of the council behind it. You’re right to think the incumbents would be with you.”
Matthew blanched. “Templeton said his reporters would not know until after the election!”
Peter popped up. “Enough!” He bowed to Eddie. “Pardon us one moment.” Then he took his brother by the arm and led him toward the door. He whispered to the big man, “If you tried all day, could you be any more stupid?”
Eddie dropped his notebook. His pen slipped from his fingers.
He recognized Peter’s words, spoken in his whisper. He had heard them in the Worthen Canal, as he lay half-conscious on the ice.
These men had thrown Eddie off the bridge.
No wonder Peter’s brain had short-circuited when he met Eddie that morning. He was seeing a ghost. And Matthew, big as an ox and just as smart, had recognized him too, but he couldn’t place the face of the man he had tried to drown.
A foul rage stirred inside Eddie. His hands trembled. He closed them into fists.
And Eddie suddenly realized why he hadn’t felt different after Chanthay had shot the hitman on the floor—the change had already taken place. Eddie had lost his boyhood nemesis, Fear, in Billings Mill. Her breath would never raise the chill it once did.
He grew angrier for all the times she had haunted him.
Peter ushered his brother from the room and snicked the door shut. He returned to his seat, explaining, “My brother is unaccustomed to forums such as this. He will tend to some business matters while we continue.”
Eddie willed his fury behind a calm façade, picked up his pen and notebook and concentrated on the task before him. He said, “Off the record—it’s obvious to me who’s really in charge here.”
Peter smirked and straightened his vest. “You have no idea,” he said, laughing and showing perfect teeth. “Those business matters I just sent him to attend? Unloading a truckload of paint.”
They shared a good laugh. And then Eddie pushed a little harder. “So how’s he supposed to help with the Acre project?”
Peter throttled back. “You can imagine my dilemma, if you know the scope of the project.”
He was testing Eddie’s knowledge. Eddie had to be straight; he didn’t know enough to fake it. “All I know is it’s big,” he said. “Tell me—how big?”
“I cannot discuss it until after the election.”
“Then you must expect controversy.”
“We can proceed through controversy,” Peter insisted. “God in Heaven created this entire world from chaos.”
“God didn’t need five votes on the council.”
“Precisely why I cannot speak of this now.”
“Then tell me off the record,” Eddie suggested. “I’ll be covering this story when it breaks. Having the background now will help me later.”
Peter frowned. He seemed about to turn him down, when Eddie added, “I can’t put this in the paper until Templeton, my publisher, says it’s okay. If I wrote it today, he’d just hold it until after the election.” He set the pad and pen on the couch.
Peter seemed to recognize the truth in Eddie’s argument. Maybe he even liked the reporter he had thrown from a bridge without learning his identity, and who now sat there like Irony himself, asking questions and going about his job. Peter relented, and told the tale:
Samuel Sok had proposed a total reconstruction of the Acre neighborhood. The city would use eminent domain powers to take ownership of blocks of tenement buildings. It would evict the occupants and sell the homes at cost to Sok, who would demolish them. Then Sok would solicit bids for the land from private developers, who would agree to build single-family homes and luxury condos.
What was in it for everyone?
The city would get rid of its most troublesome neighborhood. The lower density and the higher rental rates of new housing would attract the middle class, which would soon spread out and gentrify what was left of the older housing in the Acre. The developers would repay the city’s investment, so the taxpayers wouldn’t take a bath, and no politician could be criticized—God forbid—over the tax rate.
The plan depended on the incumbents holding their majority on the council through the election; the challengers would never approve such a radical destruction of low-income housing. For pushing the incumbents to victory with slanted news coverage, the brass at The Empire would get a new neighborhood of coveted middle-class readers. Boosting circulation would allow them to charge higher advertising rates, and that was good for the manager’s profit-sharing plan.
What was in it for Sok? He would profit as the middleman in the land transfers to private developers. And Sok got something else, too:
“The city will condemn St. Francis de Sales Church as unsafe, settle with the diocese, and sell the building to us for demolition and redevelopment,” Peter said.
It suddenly made sense why Councilman Eccleston had fed Eddie the structural report on the church. They needed to undercut that save-the-church group before it posed real opposition.
“What good is the church to you?” Eddie asked. “Is the land under it so valuable?”
Peter shrugged. “No more than any other. It’s my father’s old church. My brother and I were baptized there. Someone will tear it down eventually. We prefer to be the ones.”
“Just sentimental, are you?” Eddie asked, the doubt thick in his voice.
Peter raised an eyebrow at Eddie’s tone. “For family reasons,” he said.
“It might not work if that church group pitches a decent redevelopment plan.”
Peter scowled and smacked a tiny fist on his thigh. He insisted
, “It shall work.”
The tone of the interview suddenly lurched toward adversarial. Eddie badgered Peter, “What about the neighborhood? Do you really want to destroy the Acre?”
“The neighborhood will be reborn.”
“The buildings, maybe. But not the people. They’re getting the boot.”
“Persons displaced by the demolition shall have first choice of the new housing,” Peter said, sounding exasperated. “That will be in the plan.”
“Please,” Eddie said. “The folks in those tenements can’t afford better housing—that’s why they’re in those tenements. Your project will price them right out of town.”
“We are improving the quality of the city,” Peter insisted. “Where are social problems more concentrated than in the Acre? The crime? The drugs? Violence? That will all be gone. Let the suburbs offer some affordable housing. The city has done its fair share.”
“For a hundred and fifty years Lowell’s been a landing pad for new immigrants. Why screw with that kind of history?”
“History is for books,” Peter declared. He fidgeted and checked his wristwatch. “I believe our time is short, Mr. Bourque.”
“For books? You don’t believe that, Peter.” Eddie tapped into his anger and let it flow over him. “The people in the Acre are first and second-generation Americans, immigrants just like you and your father.”
“Bah!” Peter rose and jabbed a finger at Eddie. “They’re nothing like my family.”
Eddie stood and slapped the finger away.
Peter stepped back. The child of privilege was wide-eyed at the sting of physical contact. He backed away as Eddie advanced on him. Eddie spit his words. “I suppose they’re not like your family. They don’t have a warrior from the old country stalking the family patriarch, looking for revenge.”
“No!” Peter cried. He covered his ears to protect them from the truth. He backed into a wall and shrank against it.
Eddie grabbed two handfuls of the smaller man’s vest and hauled him upright. Peter struggled meekly; he was frail and quaking with fear.
Eddie spoke low and hoarse, and the words came out wet. “Goddam right, Peter. Your old man confessed something to Father Wojick, didn’t he?” Eddie got no answer. He shook Peter and shouted, “And Wojick freaked out.”
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