“Look, I gotta go. Let me leave you with one bit of advice.”
“Okay.”
“Take the stairs.”
Thirty-Nine
I don’t think you can wait any longer,” Valerie told the mayor. “You have to say something. A press conference.”
Richard Headley was circling his desk, pacing, running his hand slowly over his head. “Christ,” he muttered. “What the hell am I supposed to tell people? Don’t use the fucking elevators? In this city? Might as well them not to honk their horns.”
Valerie nodded sympathetically. “I know. If we put our heads together, maybe we can come up with something that—”
“And where the hell is Glover?” he asked, stopping and looking at the door, as if expecting his son to walk through it at any second.
“I don’t know,” Valerie said. “I’ll text him.”
Headley waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind. I don’t know what help he’d be anyway.”
Valerie, who had been standing in the middle of the room, took a step closer. “Mr. Mayor.” A pause. “Richard.”
He stopped pacing at the sound of his name, looked at her, and waited.
“It may not be my place to speak to this,” she said.
“I’m sure it isn’t,” the mayor said.
“I say this with the best of intentions.”
“Go ahead, Valerie. Just say it.”
“About Glover.”
“What about Glover?”
“I think … I’m worried about his self-esteem.”
The mayor cocked his head slightly to one side. His look bordered on amused. “Self-esteem?”
“I know we talked about this the other day, that his real talents lie in other areas, but you’re awfully hard on him. He’s trying so hard to please you, but he can’t seem to get anything right in your eyes. And I’m not just worried about him. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Why?”
“Things get out. People talk. People observe. Moving forward, we’re working very hard to craft an image of you that voters will like.” She cleared her throat. “Like more. They see the way you treat Glover, they form an opinion. That you’re, well, something of a bully where your own son is concerned. It doesn’t play well.”
Headley grunted.
Valerie stood a little straighter, steeling herself for the onslaught she thought was probably coming. “Look, you’re a complex individual. You can be tough, even cruel. But there is another side to you, and I’ve seen it. You can be compassionate. I know there are things you care about. The environment, for one. But it’s not enough to care about the planet. You have to care about the people on it.”
Headley looked bemused.
Valerie continued. “There are going to be more stories about you moving forward. Profiles. We’re looking for someone else to ghost-write your bio, now that Barbara Matheson has taken a pass.”
Headley snorted derisively. “One of Glover’s bright ideas.”
“Maybe it was a better one than we think. She could have done a good job if we’d agreed to give her a bit of leeway.”
He shook his head.
“As I was saying, there will be more profiles, many of which we’ll have no control over, and that means people who work for and with you will be approached. There’s a good chance a lot of them will speak off the record, especially if they feel they’ve been insulted or slighted by you. They’ll talk about what they’ve seen. How you’ve treated Glover might be one of the things that comes out. And it will reflect badly on you. The fact is, there’s already talk about it. There’s even a Twitter account that—”
Headley raised a hand, silencing her. He slowly wandered behind his desk and sat in his plush, oversized chair. He lowered his head briefly, placing his palms on his forehead before looking up again.
“Okay, so I’ll never win Father of the Year,” he said. “But the fact that I have him here, working in this administration, is to try to make up for the missteps I’ve made over the years. If he were anyone else … I’d have fired him by now, most likely.”
“He’s a bright kid, Richard. He’s the most tech-savvy guy I know. Policy, okay, that’s not his strong suit. He’s too young, doesn’t have the experience. Put him somewhere where he shines, twenty-four/seven. Like polling and data analysis. He just did a new hire down there. Liberate him from being part of the inner circle. Let him do his thing without having to make you happy every day.”
The mayor appeared to be considering Valerie’s words. He looked away and said, quietly, “He … humiliated me. It took me years to live that down.”
Valerie sighed. “You’re better than this.”
“You can bet, when and if I announce for anything, they’ll dig up that clip of him crying for the cameras.”
“He was a kid,” Valerie said. “He was a kid who watched his mother die while you were out—”
She stopped herself.
Headley gave her a cold stare. “—fucking her nurse?”
Valerie nodded slowly. “I might have put it another way. But yes.”
The mayor’s face softened. “My own father was a son of a bitch.”
“I know.”
“Treated me like shit.” He shook his head. “I hated him. I still hate him, and he’s been dead for sixteen years. The shit he made me do. But at the same time, I’m grateful, you know?”
“I … think so,” Valerie said.
“He gave me the strength to make hard decisions. I had to execute his orders or face his wrath. It made me tough.” He paused, struck by a memory. “One time, he made me evict this couple. The husband had lost his job and his wife had just had a baby. Had some sort of health complications. But they were four months behind in the rent. We were a business, not a charity. They had to go.”
Valerie looked as though she’d caught wind of a sewage leak. “Jesus, you tell that story like you’re proud of it. God help us if that finds its way into your bio.”
Headley blinked, as if not realizing how the tale made him look. “Yeah, okay, I take your point. But it was not the point I was trying to make. I learned to do what had to be done. I grew a spine working for my dad.”
“Except when it came to standing up to him. You could have said no when he told you to put that family onto the street.”
Headley gave his assistant a withering gaze. She just wasn’t getting it.
“All I’m trying to do with Glover is make him tough, too.”
“I see,” Valerie said.
“God, you’re looking at me just the way his mother used to,” the mayor said.
Now it was Valerie’s turn to gaze witheringly. “You don’t have to make the same mistakes with your own son that your father made with you.”
The look he gave her was a mix of contempt and admiration. “You got some balls talking to me this way.”
“If you don’t want to hear the truth, Richard, hire someone else.”
His mouth slowly morphed into a crooked smile before his face once again turned grim. “Set it up. A presser, with the chief and that smug asshole from Homeland.”
“Maybe not Homeland,” Valerie advised. “We don’t want to scare everyone to death. You put Homeland on stage and we’re talking terrorism, no doubt about it.”
Headley gave that a thought. “Okay. And we better bring in what’s-his-name, our elevator guy, in case there are any technical questions.”
“On it,” she said. As she went for the door, it opened. Glover strode into the room.
“There’s been another one,” he said breathlessly. “Another elevator tragedy.”
Headley looked at his son pityingly, then at Valerie. “Breaking news.”
She gave her boss a sharp, disapproving look that said, You just can’t help yourself, can you?
Forty
Alexander Vesolov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, was walking through Grand Central Terminal when he turned into Hudson News.
He perused the front pages of the variou
s newspapers and settled on a copy of the Wall Street Journal. He picked it up, his eye immediately going to a story, above the fold, about the death of Dr. Fanya Petrov in an elevator mishap. Shouldered into the piece was a one-column sidebar story with the headline: “Is it Safe to Ride a City Elevator?”
He took a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to the woman behind the counter. Once he’d pocketed his change, he folded the paper once and tucked it under his arm. He did not head back out into the terminal, instead deciding to peruse the periodicals. Hudson News had hundreds of magazines to choose from, as well as a selection of books.
Vesolov first wandered over to the newsmagazines. He glanced at the covers of Time and The Economist, leafed through the pages of The New Yorker and read the captions on the cartoons and didn’t laugh at a single one. He’d never understood them.
He put The New Yorker back and moved to the car section. Articles about cars needed no cultural translation. Vesolov reached for a copy of Automobile, lightly bumping shoulders with another man who was glancing through the pages of Motor Trend.
The other man was several inches taller than Vesolov, and in much better physical shape. Vesolov’s shoulders were permanently hunched; he was round in the middle and thick in the neck, his skin sickly pale. The other man was lean and trim, tanned, and his black business suit fit him perfectly.
“So,” Vesolov said quietly, his eyes focused on the magazine.
“Yes,” said the other man, his voice low.
“It’s done. There’s nothing else for you at this time.” Vesolov flipped the page, saw an article about an upcoming, all-electric Porsche. “If we need you, we’ll be in touch. A deposit has been made in the usual account.”
“You didn’t need to do that.”
“We had a deal. Petrov is no longer a threat.”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t protest. We had an arrangement. Things turned out a little differently than expected, but we have the result we wanted. Maybe the next one, you’ll give us a discount.”
“Seems fair,” the other man said.
“You have a bit of extra time. See the sights.”
The man chuckled. “Maybe not the Empire State Building.”
“No, it does not seem like a good week for those kinds of attractions.”
“You know where I would like to go? Iowa.”
“Iowa?” said Vesolov. “Nobody comes to America and goes to Iowa.”
“You see Field of Dreams? It is my favorite movie.”
Vesolov shrugged. “Fine. Go to Iowa. See corn.”
The ambassador put the car magazine back, turned, and walked away without saying another word. The second man waited the better part of a minute before heading back out into the terminal.
A third man, who’d had his back to the other two as he leafed through the pages of a Sports Illustrated, took out his cell phone.
He entered a number, placed the phone up to his ear. Someone answered before the first ring had finished.
“Get me Cartland,” he said.
Forty-One
Jerry Bourque had staked out a spot on Grove Street, leaning up against a tree growing out of the sidewalk between Bedford and Bleecker. Beautiful old brownstones, tall, leafy trees. Plenty of interesting shops and cafés and restaurants. Bourque had always loved Greenwich Village and wished he lived here. You could almost imagine that you were in a world separate from the rest of New York City. Maybe it was the trees that worked to muffle the horns and sirens and growling engines that were only a block away.
Some mornings, like this one, he’d come here before the start of his shift to see how she was doing.
Amanda.
She would have had her second birthday by now. She was only a year and a half old when her mother, Sasha Woodrow, was shot to death by Blair Evans.
Bourque had been here enough times to know the routine. The nanny—a young woman in her twenties—would arrive at half past seven, on the dot, every morning, Monday to Friday. Sasha’s husband, Leslie, would leave roughly fifteen minutes later. The front door would open, and Leslie, dressed nattily in suit and tie, would carefully bring out a bike and gingerly roll it down the steps to the sidewalk. He would then mount it and pedal off to his Wall Street job.
Bourque thought it was foolish of him not to wear a helmet. Amanda had already lost one parent. Why was he willing to take the risk that she might lose two? It was all he could do, every morning he was here and saw this, not to say something to him.
But he held his tongue, because if he were Leslie Woodrow, his comeback would be, “Well, maybe if you hadn’t dived out of the way, Amanda wouldn’t already be down one parent.”
Bourque surmised that Leslie got Amanda up and dressed, and that he also gave her breakfast, because most mornings that he was there, he witnessed the nanny emerging from the brownstone within twenty minutes of the father’s departure. Clearly, there was not enough time for the nanny to accomplish all those things. Bourque often imagined Leslie sitting at breakfast with his daughter, sharing a piece of toast with her, giving her some Cheerios to play with, hopeful that more of them would end up in her mouth than on the floor.
The nanny—Bourque wished he knew her name, and even though he had the skills to find out, he had resisted doing so—liked to take Amanda out for a stroll first thing every morning, unless it was raining.
Today was no exception.
The door to the brownstone opened and out came the nanny with Amanda in one arm, and a small, folded-up stroller in the other. Once she had locked the door and made her way down to the sidewalk, the nanny set Amanda down briefly and quickly unfolded the stroller before the child could wander off. Once Amanda settled into it, the nanny buckled her in.
Very smart, Bourque thought.
Bourque believed the nanny was from France. Here on a visa, perhaps, maybe a student taking courses at night while she worked for Leslie Woodrow through the day. Bourque often heard her speaking French to the child as they went past. How nice for Amanda, to acquire some proficiency in a second language at such an early age. Too bad about the way it had to happen, of course.
Bourque was discreet. He kept his distance. He turned away, or crossed the street, when the nanny approached with the stroller. He knew he shouldn’t be spying this way, but Bourque needed constant assurance. He needed to know Amanda was okay.
He needed to know she was happy. That she was not traumatized.
Like him.
If Amanda happened to be kicking her feet, or babbling cheerfully, or looking at the world with wonder and curiosity, Bourque felt hopeful. Those were all good signs, weren’t they? If you were consumed with the memory of your mother being shot, of her blood spilling directly onto you like warm, red rain, those things would not be possible, right? Bourque wanted to believe Amanda had a chance of being a normal, healthy, happy child. Sure, not having a mother put her behind the eight ball from the get-go, but Bourque had to believe that eventually she would get past that. And who knew? Perhaps, one day, Leslie would find someone else. A new wife, a mother for Amanda.
Hell, maybe he’d marry the nanny. It had happened before.
Bourque watched Leslie for signs every morning, too.
Those first couple of months, Leslie did not ride his bike. After the arrival of the nanny—and Bourque believed the woman had been hired only after the mother’s death—he would come down the steps to the street like a dead man walking. He shuffled more than walked. The man was visibly consumed with grief.
The next time Bourque staked out a spot in the morning, Leslie had the bike. To Bourque, the bicycle represented some level of recovery. A desire to face the day with more energy, to embrace it with speed.
In fact, as the weeks and months went on, he took off from his Grove Street residence with what struck Bourque as enthusiasm.
Good, Bourque had thought. That’s good.
Guilt-ridden as he was over the woman’s death, he was desperate for evidence that L
eslie and Amanda were moving forward. Not that Sasha’s death wouldn’t haunt them forever. It certainly would Bourque. Maybe he was kidding himself. Seeing signs that were not there in a bid to ease his conscience. He wasn’t looking for forgiveness. He had no reason to expect that. But if Leslie and Amanda could build a future together, maybe Bourque could breathe a little easier.
Literally.
As the stroller approached, Bourque saw Amanda was playing with something. It was a small rubber airplane, and Amanda was zooming it around, holding it up against the sky, imagining it up there.
Her lips vibrated as she mimicked the sounds of the jet engine.
The lips that tasted her mother’s blood.
Bourque felt his windpipe tighten. He stood up straight, no longer using the tree to support himself. He reached into his pocket for his inhaler. Just one quick shot. That was all he needed. He uncapped it and brought it up to his mouth.
“Hey,” someone said.
Bourque brought the inhaler down and shoved it into his pocket as he turned to find the nanny looking at him.
“Yes?” he said.
“Who are you?” she asked. She enunciated perfectly, but her French accent was impossible to miss.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ve seen you before. Are you watching us?”
“No, I’m just waiting here to meet a friend. I—”
“I know I’ve seen you. Next time, I’ll call the police.”
Bourque, feeling his air passages constricting further, said, “I am the police.” He quickly flashed his ID. “I’m keeping an eye on someone farther down the street. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything.”
The nanny’s mouth went round in an Oh! gesture. “Sorry,” she whispered, and moved along, red-faced.
Bourque put the inhaler into his mouth and squeezed. He’d initially thought he only needed one shot, but now he took two. He fumbled as he tried to put it back into his pocket and dropped it instead. He bent over, snatched it up off the sidewalk, and dusted it off before tucking it away.
He could never do this again. If the nanny spotted him a second time, he’d have too much explaining to do.
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