Elevator Pitch (UK)

by Linwood Barclay

Bourque took some close-up shots.

  “I’ve seen those for sale somewhere,” he said.

  “Lotta places sell novelty socks these days,” Delgado said.

  They both stood. Bourque gazed along the High Line, first to the north, then the south. “So if this happened after hours, and this is all locked up, how’d our killer get away?”

  Delgado said, “Before you got here, I walked a block in each direction. One or two places, if you were really brave, you could jump onto a nearby roof. There’s some rooftop parking up that way. Get onto a roof, or a fire escape, work your way down.”

  “Like Bruce Willis in Die Hard,” Bourque said. The words came out in a whisper.

  “What?”

  Bourque repeated himself, louder this time.

  “Yeah, could be done,” Delgado said. “If you’re in good shape.”

  Bourque coughed, cleared his throat. “I don’t ever remember a murder on the High Line. Nothing bad happens up here.”

  Delgado said, “It’s lost its cherry.”

  Bourque put a hand to his chest, indicating he had a call or a text coming in. “Give me a sec,” he said.

  He took the phone from his pocket, glanced at it, put it to his ear as he came out from behind the bench and walked a few yards up the High Line, still within the area that was taped off, but free of police or any other city officials.

  Bourque nodded a couple of times as he walked, as though responding to whatever his caller was saying. But there’d been no call, and no text.

  And Bourque was not talking. He was wheezing. His windpipe had started constricting at the sight of those fingers with the missing tips.

  When he felt confident he was far enough away from the murder scene to not be seen, he reached back into his pocket for that familiar object.

  He brought out the inhaler, inserted it into his mouth, and inhaled deeply as he depressed the top of the tiny canister. A barely de-tectible puff of medicine entered his lungs. He held his breath nearly fifteen seconds, exhaled, and repeated the process.

  Bourque tucked the inhaler back into his pocket. He took a few breaths through his nose, waiting for his air passages to open up again.

  He turned around and walked back to have another look at the man with no fingertips.

  Three

  Barbara sank into a leather seat opposite the mayor and Valerie. Glover and the good-looking bald guy made space for her in the middle, so her feet had to straddle the driveshaft hump. Even though the car was roomier than most, she found her shoulders squeezed by the two men. She was picking up a cheap aftershave scent from Glover. But the bald guy was giving off something subtler, an almost coffee-like scent. Barbara wondered whether it was an actual cologne, or if he’d been in the Starbucks line for too long. Either way, she kind of liked it.

  She turned her head to face the bald man. “You’re new.”

  He smiled.

  “I’m Barbara Matheson, but I’m guessing you know that.” When he didn’t say anything, she looked at Headley. “Does he talk? Stomp his foot once for yes, two for no?”

  “That’s Chris Vallins,” Valerie said. “Say hello, Chris.”

  “Hello,” said Chris. Deep voice. If brown velvet could make a sound, Barbara thought, this would be it. “Nice to meet you.” He snaked a gloved hand around in the tight quarters and offered it.

  “A pleasure,” Barbara said, shaking it. “And what do you do for His Holiness?”

  “Part of the team,” he said. “Whatever the mayor needs.”

  Barbara didn’t see her new friend Chris as much of a chatterer, so she turned her attention back to those sitting across from her. She wondered whether to make anything of the fact that Valerie was sitting next to the mayor. There was a foot of space between them, but Barbara tried to read the body language. If Valerie found her boss as unappealing as Barbara believed she should, she’d be pressing herself up against the door. But there was a slight shoulder lean toward Headley.

  Maybe she was reading too much into it. And what did it matter, anyway? If Headley wanted to screw the help, and the help was okay with it, then what business was it of Barbara’s? Valerie was a grown woman capable of making an informed choice. Surely she had to know the mayor’s background, what a shit he reportedly had been to his late wife, Felicia. Everyone knew that, ten years earlier, the night Felicia died in their uptown brownstone after a long fight with cancer, Headley was fucking the brains out of one of her caretakers in a room at the Plaza. It was a young Glover who called 911 to report that his mother had stopped breathing.

  Headley was already one of the most famous, if not most notorious, businessmen in the city, so when the media picked up an emergency call at his address, a couple of TV vans were dispatched to the scene. What ended up on the news was a shot of a weeping Glover, his father nowhere to be seen and not reachable by phone. Headley claimed later he had muted his cell because he’d been meeting with a possible investor whose name he was not at liberty to reveal. No one believed it for a second.

  Barbara had wondered if that was when Headley’s relationship with his son had soured. The boy had humiliated him. Unwittingly, of course, but that was what he’d done. Headley had been on the cusp of a mayoral bid way back then but delayed it, hoping that as time passed his reputation would be rehabilitated. When he finally did announce his candidacy, he had created a myth about himself as the sad widower who had raised his teenage son on his own.

  Felicia had been a looker in her day, a onetime model who worked her way up to a senior editor position at Condé Nast. Valerie had some of Felicia’s attributes, at least those the mayor valued. In her late thirties, she was younger than him by more than a decade. Long legs, busty enough without being too obvious about it, dark, shoulderlength hair. Probably bought all her clothes at Saks, went to some trendy salon like Fringe or Pickthorn to get her hair done. Unlike Barbara, whose salon was the bathroom sink, did quite well pulling together a wardrobe at Target, and whose makeup budget was a pittance compared to what she spent on pinot grigio.

  More than once, at political events, when Valerie was looking the other way, Barbara had observed the mayor checking out his communication director’s ass as if it harbored some mystical secret. Not that hers was the only one.

  But now, in the back of this limo, Headley had a very different expression on his face as he sized up Barbara. He was scowling at her, like she was a teenage daughter who’d ignored curfew for the fifth night in a row.

  “So what’s happened uptown?” Barbara asked, looking out the window. The driver had found his way from City Hall to the FDR and was making good time heading north.

  Beside her, Glover said, “Some kind of elevator accident.”

  Barbara was underwhelmed. Elevator accident, crane collapse, subway fire. Whatever. It was always something in a city this big. It’d be news if something didn’t happen. If Headley felt a need to attend, it had to be more serious than usual, but still. Headley liked being seen at catastrophes. Say a few things for the evening news, give the impression he knew what he was talking about, show his concern.

  Barbara was willing to cut him some slack on this. It was something all mayors did, if they were smart. A mayor who couldn’t be bothered to show up when New Yorkers endured something particularly tragic would be pilloried. Rudy Giuliani had set the standard, way back on September 11, 2001, as he walked through the rubble, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Say what you wanted about the guy’s shenanigans since, you had to give him credit for his service back in the day.

  Barbara doubted Headley had it in him to be that kind of mayor. She just hoped he—and the city—would never be tested like that again.

  “They’re saying four dead,” Valerie said.

  Barbara nodded again. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. But industrial accidents, car crashes, drive-by shootings, apartment fires, these just weren’t her thing. She covered city politics. Let the youngsters chase ambulances. She’d cut her teeth on that kind of stuff, an
d it was valuable experience, but she’d moved on.

  “Nice of you to give me a ride, but this isn’t the way to my place,” Barbara said to Headley, who was still looking at her through narrowed eyes. “So, what? Am I grounded? Being sent to bed without my dinner?”

  “Barbara, Barbara, Barbara,” Headley said, looking weary and disappointed at the same time. “When’s it going to stop?”

  “What?” Barbara asked. “Your love of quid pro quos or my love of writing about them?”

  “You think you can keep poking the bear and never get a scratch,” he said. “You’re not untouchable.”

  Untouchable. Interesting choice of word.

  “Well, you told everyone you’re suing me and Manhattan Today. So I guess I’m not untouchable. But while we’re on that issue, how’s the suit against the Times for saying you were registered to vote federally in three different districts? And how long’s it been since you threatened to sue that actress who said you had performance anxiety?”

  Valerie shot a glance at Barbara but said nothing.

  Headley forced a smile. “Well, I think we know which of those accusations was the more ridiculous.” The smile faded. “Anyway, these things take a while to work their way through the courts.”

  Barbara settled into the leather seat, taking advantage of the headrest. Don’t let them rattle you, she thought. Sure, there were four of them, not counting the driver, who was getting off at Forty-Second Street and heading crosstown. The one Barbara really wanted to know more about was this Chris dude beside her, who looked like he could get a job playing a Bond villain’s bodyguard if he lost his City Hall gig. Not that that was necessarily a knock against him. He was a handsome piece of work. Was being surrounded supposed to put her on edge? Did they know how much she was actually loving this? If Headley and his gang ignored her, gave no hint of how annoyed they were with her, well, that would be unbearable.

  “I honestly don’t know why you seem to have it in for me,” Headley asked. “Why so angry?”

  “I’m not angry,” Barbara said. “I just have this thing about hypocrisy.”

  “Oh, please,” the mayor said. “Hypocrisy is the fuel that keeps the world running. Let me ask you this. Be honest. Have you ever had a source who did something bad, something worth writing about, worth exposing, but you looked the other way because they had good intel that gave you an even better story? Something that would give you an exclusive? Are you going to sit there and tell me you’ve never done that?”

  Barbara said, “There are a lot of considerations when you’re working on a story.”

  Headley grinned. “That sounds as evasive as something I would say. We’re really not that different, you and I. It’s all a game, isn’t it? Politics and the media? And it can be great fun, I’m not denying it. But sometimes”—and at this point his face grew stern—“it all starts to get a little annoying.”

  “Am I annoying you?” Barbara asked, almost hopefully.

  He held his thumb and forefinger apart a fraction of an inch. “Just a titch. But,” he said slowly, “we’d like to give you an opportunity to redeem yourself.”

  Barbara eyed him suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Headley glanced at Glover and gave him a subtle nod.

  Glover said, “The mayor certainly has his differences with you, but he also recognizes your skills as a journalist, that you are an accomplished writer. And he respects you for that.”

  Headley looked out the window, watched the city go by as they traveled north on Third.

  “Needless to say,” Glover continued, “the mayor, and the rest of the team here, wish you’d at least occasionally focus on the things that are getting done. This subway story you’ve latched on to, that’s a really positive story. But instead, you’re portraying it in a negative light. The current signal system is based on technology from the 1930s and desperately needs to be overhauled. And then there’s the switchover to electric cars. The mayor wants every city vehicle to be converted to electric power within his first term. Soon you’ll be seeing those little green stickers on the back of every car and truck that’s—”

  “Glover, move it along,” Headley said to his son, still looking out the window, an edge of irritation creeping into his voice.

  “We’re not announcing anything at the moment,” Glover said, “but in due time it may be in the mayor’s interest to tell his story to a broader audience, so voters have a better sense of who he is. That there’s more to him than two-bit scandals and salacious headlines. That he’s a man who wants to make a difference, but on a broader canvas.”

  “Ah,” said Barbara, looking at Headley. “You want to move up the political food chain. After mayor of New York, there’s only governor, or president. Or going on TV endlessly to defend a corrupt president. How do you know someone wants to be the leader of the free world? They suddenly come out with a book, like the world’s been dying to hear their life story. Comes out, sells a few copies, then the primaries come, someone else gets the nomination, and the book ends up on the seventy-five-percent-off table at Barnes & Noble, and even then they can’t unload the copies. In the end, their life story gets pulped.”

  Glover waited to see if she was done. When Barbara said nothing more, he continued. “As I was saying, we’re looking for someone who can assist the mayor in telling his story.”

  Barbara nodded. “A ghost writer.”

  Glover smiled. “My sources tell me you’re no stranger to that kind of work.”

  It was true. Over the years, Barbara had ghostwritten three memoirs. One for a Broadway actress, one for a sports hero who’d lost both legs in a car accident, and one for a pop star who was once at the top of the charts but now would be lucky to get a gig singing in a SoHo night club. None of those assignments would have given her a shot at a Pulitzer, but they’d certainly helped pay the bills.

  When Barbara failed to confirm or deny what Glover had said, he carried on. “We’ve started speaking to publishers. We’re meeting later with Simon & Schuster. They’re looking for possible writers to work with Da—with the mayor, but we have final approval on that and can make suggestions of our own. We think you’d be a leading candidate.”

  “Seriously.”

  Headley cleared his throat, turned away from the passing scenery, and looked directly at her. “There’s a feeling that choosing someone who’s had an antagonistic history with me would lend the project considerable credibility. That it wouldn’t be a whitewash.”

  “It would be particularly credible if I were working for you at the same time you were suing me.”

  Headley grimaced. “I suppose we could let that slide. There’s still enough of a history of animosity, I should think.”

  Barbara nodded slowly. “Of course, you’d still have final approval on the manuscript.”

  “Well,” said Valerie, weighing in for the first time, “of course, but we’re looking for a fair and balanced portrait. Warts and all. The mayor wants to lay everything out on the table. America’s becoming accustomed to candidates who are less than perfect. If you’re running for office these days, it helps if you’re relatable.”

  “Warts and all,” Barbara said slowly. “Are you sure you want to go there?”

  “And I haven’t mentioned perhaps the most important thing of all,” Glover said. “You’d be looking at a mid-six-figure fee. With the potential for bonuses should the book stay on the bestseller list for an extended period of time.” He grinned. “Or if anyone ever wanted to turn it into a movie. You know. A biopic. Despite your little speech, it could happen.”

  Headley had the decency to blush. Barbara figured even he had to know that was over the top. She poked the inside of her cheek with her tongue. “Golly. That’s something.”

  Headley leaned forward, lowered his voice, as if they were the only two in the car. He locked eyes with her and said, “I believe, despite our differences, we could work together.”

  Barbara appeared to consider th
e offer as the mayor leaned back in his seat. “I could probably carve out some time from my Manhattan Today duties.” An eyebrow went up as she looked at the mayor. “Maybe weekends?”

  “Oh,” said Glover, who had glanced down for two seconds to read a text on his phone. “Working on this book would be a full-time proposition. At least for the duration of the project, which I think would take the better part of a year. Wouldn’t you agree, Valerie?”

  “I would,” she said.

  “Jesus.” It was the driver. They all looked forward up Third, through the windshield—Barbara and Glover and Chris had to turn around in their seats—to see the traffic stopped dead at Fifty-Eighth. Police cars blocked any further passage northward. The limo driver snaked the car between some taxis, heading straight for the makeshift barricade of emergency vehicles. He powered down the window as a police officer approached.

  “You can’t—”

  The driver said, “I got the mayor here.”

  The cop leaned forward to peer into the back to be sure, then nodded and waved them through. But it wasn’t possible to go much farther. Emergency vehicles clogged the street.

  Glover, waving his phone, said, “Latest is three dead, not four. Elevator dropped at least twenty floors. No word yet on the survivor’s condition.”

  Headley nodded solemnly.

  “We’ll walk from here, David,” Valerie told the man behind the wheel.

  The limo came to a dead stop. The driver jumped out and opened the door on the mayor’s side.

  Chris Vallins opened his door and, once out, extended a hand to Barbara to help her out. Her first inclination would have been to refuse. I can get out myself, thank you very much. But some other, perhaps more primal, instinct overruled that inclination, and she accepted the offer. His grip was strong, his arm rigid enough.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Vallins nodded.

  Glover had gotten out the other side and ran around to Barbara. Quietly, he said, “It was my idea.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “About the book. To see if you’d be interested. My father took some convincing. I think you’d be perfect.”