Transparency

by Charles Royce

  C h a p t e r 3 5

  A YOUNG WOMAN jogs along the Hudson River Greenway between 83rd and 84th street. She runs around the corner onto the waterfront strip that extends down to Battery Park. The sun hasn’t yet crept above the Manhattan skyline, so the boardwalk gratings and posts are still speckled with morning dew.

  Her broad shoulders are glistening, her brow and upper lip dotted in sweat. Out of breath, she takes a break on a nearby bench. She leans her head back. Directly above her to her left, she sees a small crane move a giant hook into position next to the 79th street river basin. Seagulls circle the crane, breaking through the peace of a city not yet fully awake.

  She exhales, takes in the view. The sun begins to filter through the skyscrapers, casting golden shards onto the boats, while deckhands unload giant wooden boxes onto the pier. Behind the workers, Brooklyn begins to awake in slivered splendor across the river, the blues and pinks of the sky circling the buildings like saltwater taffy.

  She takes her phone from her armband and begins to film the scene.

  Two anglers wrap chains around giant boxes marked COD and STURGEON in stenciled letters. After hoisting the chains onto the crane, they each give two thumbs up.

  The crane struggles to move the box from the boat to the dock, the fisherman confused why the crane can’t lift it. They rush around, try to push the boxes with their bodies. Finally, the crane jolts into submission, able to lift the fish into the air to clear the lampposts that surround the dock.

  The woman zooms her camera in on the box. She hears a commotion on the boat, voices speaking a language she doesn’t understand in a tone that frightens her. She shifts the camera to the fishermen, some waving their hands in front of their noses. She thinks it odd. She pans the camera back to the box, tilts down.

  A blackened body dangles from the bottom of the box, something hanging on a chain around the dead man’s neck.

  The woman screams, runs toward the basin, filming the entire time.

  C h a p t e r 3 6

  “JOSH!” TRACY YELLS from Josh’s living room. She closes the door, locks it. She walks past the kitchen. “Joshy, you okay? I know you’re here. Thanks for unlocking the door, I wasn’t sure my key would work in the new lock. Josh? I’m just trying to find you.”

  “In here.”

  She hears a voice coming from the bedroom down the hall.

  “There you are.” Tracy enters the room. A rancid stench fills her nostrils, the smell of unwashed sheets mixed with rotted food crumbs from the looks of things.

  The drapes are drawn, a splinter of afternoon sunlight slicing Josh’s bed right down the middle. Josh is facedown, under the sheets, his arm draped over the side of the bed like a corpse. Only a small bedside lamp is on. The shade is crooked thanks to an empty pizza box tucked between the bed and the side table.

  Josh’s television is on an episode of Golden Girls. Rose is telling some story about being back in St. Olaf while Blanche and Dorothy are rolling their eyes.

  Tracy grabs the remote, turns off the TV. She walks to the windows, rips open the curtains.

  Josh turns his face. “God!”

  “Jenna told me to expect something like this.” She begins picking up paper plates of half-eaten ham-and-cheese sandwiches and barbeque chip remnants. “But this is some next level bullshit.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Tracy jerks the sheets off of him. Josh’s naked butt stares at her.

  “Whoops.” She tries to put the sheets back on him. “Didn’t know we slept that way in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Stop.” Josh doesn’t move.

  Tracy grabs a bottle of pills next to the bed. “Xanax? Is this where we are?”

  “Yes.”

  Tracy looks at the bottle. “This is from that guy on the Upper West Side. Doctor Pre—”

  “Doctor Prescription. Yes, I know. It was an emergency. I was panicking again.”

  “You need a pill for that?” Tracy places the bottle back on the nightstand. “You people and your white people problems.”

  “White people problems? Someone shot at me.”

  “Three weeks ago. Did you die? No.” Tracy looks at her watch. “Josh, you need to get up. I have a surprise for you at three p.m.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “You’re gonna love this one.” She continues to pick up trash around his bedroom.

  “What is it?”

  “You have to get up to find out.”

  “Is it West? Fucker’s been calling me nonstop for the past two weeks.”

  “That’s because you’re in charge of New York’s most publicized grand opening in history, happening in less than a month.” She slaps the sheet covering his behind. “I’m surprised he hasn’t fired your ass.”

  “Or had someone kill me.”

  “Good thing you’ve hired the best and let them do their thing, otherwise this event woulda gone straight to hell.”

  “If you say, ‘Here’s to the West Way,’ I’ll kill you.”

  Tracy pushes the trash she’s collected into an overfilled garbage can in the corner, then lays the pizza box beside it. With the tips of her fingers, she picks up some underwear from a club chair and tosses it to the floor. The absence of the boxer briefs reveals a bowl of coagulated cereal lodged sideways between the cushion and the arm. She places it on the window ledge.

  “Time to take a shower.” Tracy sits on the chair and settles in. She can feel her jeans sticking to some sort of liquid leftover. “It’s over.”

  “What’s over?”

  “Billy.” She says the name matter-of-factly. “Billy Donovan. Haven’t you seen the video? It was all over the news.”

  “What video?” Josh flips over, tucks the sheet around him.

  Tracy pulls out her phone, searches. “New phone, no one knows I have it, so it’s safe.”

  “Glad I could teach you something.”

  She sits on the bed beside him, hits play. “Some random white girl on the Hudson Greenway, filming the sunrise.”

  She fast forwards through the sunrise, the men pulling the crate over the lampposts. She lets the rest play out.

  “Holy shit.” He watches the man swing from the hook. “That burnt man hanging from the box is Billy Donovan?”

  “Yep.”

  “The same guy who shot at me, the man you recognized on the steps the night Walter was killed? Are we sure?”

  “Wallet, phone, all Billy’s.” She zooms in. “See that?”

  “There’s something around his neck.”

  “That’s Lennox’s hard drive,” she says. “The one that was stolen from police evidence during Micah’s trial.”

  “My God.”

  “They scraped the char off the bottom of the drive, and the serial number was a match. Other than that, it was destroyed, unusable. They say Billy was probably still alive when they tied his hands, put the hard drive over his head. Then they torched him until he died, threw him in the water, then hooked him to a crate at the 79th Street River Basin. They knew he’d eventually be hoisted up for everyone to see.”

  He sits up in the bed, mouth aghast. “I guess that’s justice?”

  “Somebody wanted to make a statement.”

  Josh zooms in again on what’s left of the man’s face. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Honey, you know how I feel about that. You can say God, cunt-ass bitch, whore, motherfucking anything else, but you better leave my Jesus out of it. I am not even—” Tracy takes her phone back from Micah just as it rings. “Oh shit, here’s the surprise, here’s the surprise.”

  She clicks the FaceTime button, then holds up Shawn’s face to Josh.

  “How ya doin’, buddy?” Shawn says. “Whoa. You look like death.”

  “He smells like death, he looks like shit,” Tracy adds.

  “This is my surprise?” Josh asks, one eyebrow reaching for the sky.

  “No, this is.” Shawn steps out of the picture to reveal Jenna. “Say hi, Jenna.
”

  “Hi, sweet baby,” Jenna says.

  Josh grabs the sheets with his hands, pulls them tight. His face scrunches, his chest begins heaving in and out. He slumps his head.

  “Oh, honey, it’s okay.” Jenna’s big brown eyes are staring right at him. “It’s all gonna be okay. Just let it out, shh, shh.”

  Josh leans over, grabs a pillow, buries his head in it.

  “You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you? The responsibility of the party, the shooting, all the confusion of trying to help me. This has been way harder than the Lennox breakup, hasn’t it?” Jenna asks.

  He nods, brings the pillow down from his face. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you.”

  “It’s okay. Really. They transferred me, a much nicer place. I’m awaiting trial now, potentially. It’s a long story, but Shawn has been helping me the past few weeks. We have so much to tell you.”

  Shawn pulls the camera toward him. “Remember the six flash drives you got from Phish? Right before you slipped into your vegetative state, you went through the first one, sent me the information. Do you remember this?”

  “Yes.” Josh wipes his face with his sheet.

  “The extra videos with the time stamps really helped drive the investigation forward. Throw in some recent testimony from your Jenna here, and we have some compelling evidence to put the organization away. Or at least start to. The Feds are completely involved now. Actually I think they have been for a while, which is why Jenna’s trial was held up.”

  “What about the architectural plans? The secret room?”

  “Detective Penance looked at your plans, compared them to the newer ones.” Shawn shakes his head. “It was a bit of back and forth, but the warrant was finally issued. Just so happens the warrant came through the very morning Billy Donovan was found hanging for all of the Upper West Side to see. Once they ID’d him, the warrant was null and void. They didn’t get a new one.”

  “Funny how that happened the same morning, isn’t it?” Jenna interjects.

  “That’s not a coincidence,” Josh says.

  “No, no, it’s not.” Shawn holds his camera out to show Jenna again. “Working on getting this girl a plea deal. With all the information you guys have uncovered in your vigilante investigations, the Feds have been willing to negotiate.”

  “Josh, this is why we wanted to talk with you.” Jenna leans into the camera. “I need you, honey. The federal involvement is a blessing in the skies. Right, Shawn?”

  Shawn brings the camera back to him. “Josh, buddy, I have the name and number of an agent. They want to know what’s on the other five flash drives, and the underscore folder that Phish couldn’t help you open on the SSD. They want you to work with them, help bring in more evidence.”

  “No. Uh-uh. I’m done.”

  “Josh, please,” Jenna pleads. “There’s too much evidence against me in Lennox’s case. Maybe those other flash drives can hook Ghost to West somehow, to show that he framed me for Lennox’s murder.”

  “Speaking of Ghost …” Tracy turns the camera toward her. “You know how West pushed me off the Bastien Morrell story to focus on the Lily McGuire angle? Well, I’ve been looking into Bastien, to see if there’s anything there.”

  “Please. You’ve been looking into Ghost because it’s a personal mission,” Josh says.

  “His name is Bastien Morrell.” Tracy cuts her eyes to Josh. “Bastien Morrell was a former French Foreign Legionnaire from a Secret Ops division. He had extensive evasive training, forgery skills, chemistry expertise, not to mention some severe psychiatric issues. I’d say he had all the makings of someone James West would hire to kill Lennox. I’ve put in the request for Bastien’s psychiatric files, but I’m having to go through some bullshit channels.”

  “Keep digging,” Shawn says. “Jenna’s got a tough road ahead of her.”

  “Josh, you gotta help us,” Jenna says. “I love Tracy’s angle, but there’s got to be information in those flash drives. Maybe company chats about framing me. Something.”

  Josh looks around the room, notices the pigsty he’s created around him. He looks back to Jenna.

  “We’re all in this pretty deep, and we have to get out,” she says.

  “Look.” Tracy moves the phone directly in front of his face. “One, two, me. Three people you know you can trust.”

  He breathes in, lets the stale air fill his lungs. He exhales in submission.

  He snaps his fingers, points at the underwear on the floor. “Give me those.”

  “Get them yourself.” Tracy grabs a half-empty bottle of water with her free hand and has a seat back on the club chair, still pointing the phone at Josh.

  Josh sighs, wraps the sheets around him, stands up, picks the underwear off the floor. Underneath the mounds of fabric engulfing him, he slips them on. “Who’s this agent, Shawn?”

  “Her name is Agent Pillsbury,” he says.

  “No, it’s not.” Josh looks sideways at Tracy, who spits out her water.

  “She’s a little quirky, but she’s badass,” Shawn says. “I’m texting you her info.”

  Josh hears a ding but has no idea where his phone is. “What the heck does Agent Pillsbury want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. She’s very tight-lipped about it, but says she’s been working an Élan investigation for a while.”

  “Talk to her, Josh.” Jenna comes back on the screen. “Please. I know you’re frightened, but this is a chance to turn the tables, take back the power, be a whistleblower. You always love that kinda stuff.”

  “Yeah, watching it. Reading about it.” Josh grabs a T-shirt that’s been draped over his headboard. “Shawn, why the Feds? I thought Detective Penance was on this.”

  “The Feds came in because there are elements of cybercrime, and God knows what else. And according to Penance, both the Pub Murder cases have been solved, so he’s washed his hands. Thanks to Tracy’s eyewitness accounts, and emails between Billy and West you found on that first flash drive, Billy Donovan has been posthumously accused. Done. Gone. Wrapped.”

  “And what about Lennox’s murder? He doesn’t still believe Jenna had anything to do with it, does he?”

  “How do I put this? Let’s say Penance is opening himself up to the fact that Jenna had accomplices. But right now, he’s proceeding with caution, he says, now that the Feds are involved. And probably because the last time he proceeded without caution, he got his ass handed to him at trial. Remember who did that? Anyone? Anyone?”

  “And you, Shawn?” Josh asks. “What do you believe?”

  Shawn looks at Jenna, who looks away. “I believe my client.”

  Josh glances at Tracy, who shrugs her shoulders again.

  “I’d say Shawn is finally on our side,” Jenna offers.

  “It’s true, Josh,” Shawn says. “We need to get you representation. Attorney–client privilege. That way you can feel comfortable handing over the rest of the flash drives and the SSD to the FBI.”

  “Only you, Shawn, and only the flash drives. I’m keeping the SSD. It’s hidden away.”

  “You mean over there?” Tracy points to a wall next to his window. Clearly the dry wall has been cut in a rectangle then replaced, the edges frayed and uneven.

  Josh ignores her and addresses Shawn. “How much do you cost?”

  “Me? One dollar. Just sign some paperwork and I’ll represent you. I can have my assistant draw up the agreement. From the sound of things, the FBI needs you to get back on board with West and smooth things over, maybe help him with the image of the organization. They need the company back on track for some reason. What did Pillsbury tell me, business as usual? Something like that.”

  “What business?” Jenna asks. “I thought you told me Élan was in another free fall after the Billy Donovan murder.”

  “I can help with West,” Tracy says. “It’s true. Élan’s stock price is hemorrhaging as tenants are fleeing from the new development. Key sponsors of the event are running for the ex
its. West is losing his mind. But I’ve got an idea.”

  C h a p t e r 3 7

  TRACY SIPS FROM her Press logo mug while finishing her research. Being named anchor of a televised news magazine has been quite the coup given the white patriarchy of Élan International. Ever since she followed her passion from modeling into journalism, her consistent ability when it comes to timely news that reflects the culture of the moment has always been what has set her apart. Although, she often wonders if her salary is anywhere close to her white co-anchor’s.

  The news magazine is called Hard Press, an extension of Press magazine, and airs on Élan’s recently acquired ECN Network in the same time slot as 60 Minutes. To set it apart from its competition, Hard Press used to be live, and enjoyed winning its time slot for months. At the start of the political season leading up to the 2016 election, many a candidate was either ruined or propelled based on the questions and answers offered during the live feed.

  Out of the blue, West wanted to transition to recorded segments, stating he “didn’t like the feeling of being out of control of the narrative if things went sideways.” Tracy thinks he succumbed to political pressure. Ratings took a nosedive soon after and never fully recovered. She’s been searching for a way to get their ratings back ever since.

  A live interview with James West should be just the ticket. He’s already agreed.

  He must be desperate.

  Tracy puts the finishing touches on her questions, then mixes in West’s ridiculous mandatory questions for decent flow. Just as she hits the save button, she hears her personal email ding.

  At first glance it looks like a reply from the French Foreign Legion. Her brain quickly shifts from professional responsibility to passion project. In her mind, she justifies her personal study of Bastien Morrell as being key to freeing Jenna by the end of all of this, despite her activist angle. After all, surely West hired this guy to kill Lennox, and God knows who else.

  She opens the email.

  From: Laura@LégionArchives.fr

  To: TracyHeissman@secure.pinwil.com

  RE: Inquiry