Tower of Babel

by Michael Sears

  The same man answered. “I am trying to help you, Ted. When I tell you to forget about this, I am your friend.”

  “A name?” Ted said. “That’s all I’m asking.”

  The first man stepped between them, his face inches from Ted’s. “A rodent ask me that last week. I think he not so smart, like you. I tell him same thing. Don’t ask again. Be smart, Ted. Goodbye.”

  The two men sauntered away down the steps. The bubble burst, sounds returned, and Ted felt light-headed and shaky, like a man who’d stepped off a curb and had a bus miss him by inches. He turned to Lester, whose main contribution after introductions had been to stay out of the way. “These guys are buddies of yours?”

  “I never said that. I said I recognized the name Corona. I went inside and asked some people on the line, and they pointed me to those two goons. I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not. You wanted to talk with them. Now you’ve done that.”

  “And what do we have to show for it?” Ted asked.

  “We know that some nasty-ass mothers want you to stop looking into this.”

  -23-

  Ted felt his body begin to relax, but his mind was still buzzing with conflicting thoughts and possibilities. He gestured for Lester to walk with him, and the two men crossed the plaza and turned down Sutphin, skirting the edge of the ragtag group of protestors.

  “Any ideas? What next?” Lester asked.

  “We need Barbara Miller’s signature.” He stopped walking to search his pockets for the document.

  “Hey! Wise guy. Yeah, you. Hold up.”

  There was that voice again. A bit strident this time. It was the woman from the protest group, the one he had heard on the radio. He would have known that voice anywhere. And he knew that she was talking to him. At that moment Ted did not want to talk to her or anyone else. He began walking again.

  “You know that girl?” Lester asked.

  “I want to talk to you,” she called.

  Ted looked over his shoulder. The red hair streamed out around a face flushed with indignation.

  “She’s one of the protestors,” he said, lengthening his stride. The light at the corner was changing. Either they made a crazy dash for it through midday traffic, or they subjected themselves to a speech on good citizenship. Even if the message was to be delivered in a voice guaranteed to raise hormone levels in a male corpse, Ted still leaned toward running.

  “Maybe we should split up,” Lester said. The woman had broken into a trot and was covering ground.

  “She’s only after me,” Ted said.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Lester said.

  The absurdity of two grown men in suits being pursued by a single unarmed—and very attractive—young woman, steps from the courthouse, hit Ted. “You go,” he said to Lester, handing over the typed agreement. “Get to Seaside and get Miller’s signature. Find me at Gallagher’s when you’re done.”

  Lester made a gesture like tipping his cap and hustled away down the street. Ted waited for the woman.

  “Don’t run,” he called. “Please. I’m here.”

  She planted herself in front of him, hands on hips. “Why are you ducking me?”

  “We haven’t been formally introduced,” Ted said, giving her a blast of his most charming smile, a holdover from better days. He was prepared to endure her lecture, but he wanted it to be on his terms.

  She opened her mouth and closed it again. Perhaps he had overwhelmed her.

  “Ted Molloy.” He held out a hand. She ignored it. She had yet to smile.

  She found her voice again. “I want to know why you were talking to those two Russian mobsters. You do know they’re mobsters, right?”

  Then again, maybe he had read the situation all wrong. He retrieved the flagging hand and used it to point to her feet. “Your socks are cute.” She was wearing a button-down blouse and khakis with a pair of backless Merrells. Her socks were mismatched. “Port and starboard?” One red, one green.

  She looked down. “Oh, darn.” Her eyes met his, and she cocked her head to one side, challenging him, daring him to make further comment. “I’ve got another pair like these. They’re my clown socks.” She had pale blue eyes and near-translucent skin. Ted imagined she wore hats and 55 SPF all summer to avoid getting freckles. He wanted to tell her not to worry—she’d look great in anything, including freckles. He couldn’t remember why he had been in such a hurry the other day.

  “Okay,” he said, “but you’re a happy clown.” How old was she? It was hard to tell. Younger than him by a decade, at least. She carried herself with a confidence that added a few years. Twenty-nine, he decided. Exactly a decade. She was too young for him. And too intense. But she was a beauty. And there was that voice.

  She frowned for an instant, possibly distressed that he was refusing to take her seriously. But instead of cutting him dead, she looked into his face. Then she surprised him by granting both the smile and an extended hand. “Kenzie Zielinski. I’m a community organizer.”

  “‘McKenzie from Ridgewood’?” He took the hand and was pleased by her strong grip. “You were on NPR yesterday. I knew I recognized that voice.”

  She smiled again. Ted thought it a very good smile.

  “You heard me? Yeah, Kenzie or McKenzie, I answer to both. I can’t believe they cut me off. Kevin Pak is such a crook. They’re all crooks.” She laughed and threw up her hands in a gesture indicating acceptance of inevitability. “It’s a thankless job, I know. Why would you be a city councilman if you couldn’t skim a little, right?”

  “I hadn’t given it much thought.”

  “Typical. You see? That’s exactly what I’m up against. People won’t recognize a threat until it’s too late to do anything about it. Now answer me. What were you doing with the Brighton Beach Banking Association back there? You don’t look their type.”

  “I suppose I should be flattered,” he said. So far, the charm assault had been a bust. On the other hand, she wasn’t preaching or lecturing. They were talking. Talking was good.

  She looked him over. “You’re not a regular here.”

  “I used to be. I’ve been breaking in a new research assistant.”

  “Lester. Yeah. Everybody knows Lester.”

  Did he detect a hint of dislike or disapproval? “That doesn’t sound like an endorsement.”

  “He’s all right. I want to know where you stand on the Spike.”

  “The tower? I think it’s both ugly and going to happen no matter what.”

  A flicker of a scowl. “You’re half-right. I hear you’re looking into the history on some of those properties.”

  Ted shouldn’t have been surprised. The courthouse was a petri dish for rumor. She could have learned about him from any number of sources. Lester may have been overzealous in his research, or Little Richie indiscreet.

  “Who’s been sharing my secrets?” he asked.

  “Oh, come on. People tell me things. It’s called trust. If I give them up, then pretty soon nobody tells me nothing.”

  Ted knew about trust. It rarely paid a dividend. “My interest in the project is very limited.”

  “You’re not an LBC guy.” She gave him another look over. “Or a lawyer. Your shoes are shiny, and your suit isn’t.”

  Without reason, he felt flattered. “Are you a lawyer?”

  “Organizer. I told you.”

  “So you did. Is that a real job?”

  “I’m not going to let up, you know. You’re going to tell me what you’re doing.”

  Ted realized that they were both enjoying the game. The same attitude from a man might have been annoying or worse. But as long as they were talking, this good-looking woman was focused entirely on him. What was there not to like about that? He made a decision.

  “Sharing trade secrets doesn’t help pay my beer bill, but for you I might m
ake an exception,” he said. “Are you willing to trade?”

  She tilted her head and squinted one eye. “I’ve been working to stop this damned project for two years. They have a big head start on me, but I’ve learned a lot.”

  She wasn’t going to give up what she knew without getting good value. He respected that. “So, it’s worth having a conversation. Are you free for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” she agreed immediately. “But we split the tab.”

  That meant choosing a place that a community organizer could afford. “Vietnamese all right with you?”

  -24-

  Ted overdosed on Galllagher’s iced tea that afternoon, earning himself a caffeine headache, but he reduced the stack of paperwork that had been building all week and returned all of the important phone calls. Lester managed to get the notarized agreement from Barbara Miller and filed it with the appropriate clerk before the courthouse closed for the weekend.

  “Quitting time, Lili,” Ted called out.

  “Coming up.” Lili was finishing her final prep for the first wave of happy hour devotees. Nearby shift changes set the pace. The nurses from the hospital up on Broadway stopped in for a white wine or vodka and tonic and a chance to meet up with the firemen from Engine 287, who showed up for a Guinness or a Bud and a chance to chat up a nurse. Paulie McGirk had hit his limit, but Tito, the Hungarian waiter who worked at Keens Steakhouse, had taken Paulie’s place, prepping himself for work with a brandy or two—“gasoline,” he called it. Later on, the retail clerks from Target and the Queens Center mall would arrive wanting cosmos and Long Island iced tea. Ted liked to be long gone by then.

  “Here ya ah,” she said, plunking down a pint of SingleCut lager and following it with his weekly tab. He peeled off two of Cheryl’s Benjamins and told Lili to keep the change.

  The beer was light and hoppy. A good beer for spring, with a promise of summer. He had earned it. There was nothing more he could do about the Barbara Miller case until a judge looked at the file. He was free to enjoy the weekend, and lunch with a beautiful woman on Saturday.

  The bar was already beginning to get loud, packed with firemen who all looked to be six foot three, broad shouldered, and handsome. One of them put money in the jukebox on the wall, and an old Allman Brothers tune began to play. A pair of nurses burst out in high-pitched laughter as another of New York’s bravest completed the punch line to a joke Ted had heard told a dozen times on Friday nights. He would have bet the nurses had heard it before, too. He finished the beer and stood. It was time to move on. The Mets were on the road, and if he hustled, he could put in an hour at the gym before game time.

  The front door swung open again, and another pair of tall men walked in and looked around. The happy hour lights were dim, and it took Ted a moment to recognize one of them as Detective Duran. Ted sat back down. The detective saw him anyway. He tapped his partner on the arm and pointed. Neither man was smiling.

  “How you doing, Mr. Molloy?” Duran said. “This is my partner, Chuck Kasabian.”

  “I was just leaving,” Ted said.

  Duran ignored Ted’s dubious attempt at escape. “Do you have a minute?”

  It wasn’t really a question. “Sit down,” Ted said. “Can I get you something? Lili makes a wicked Shirley Temple.”

  Kasabian could have passed for a fireman in a suit, if such a thing existed. He was tall and fit, with a face like one of the old Marlboro men from the days when rugged cowpokes smoked cigarettes while herding cattle against a background of Wyoming sky. Before they all got fitted for nasal oxygen tubes. He squinted at Ted and said, “What do you call a busload of lawyers going over a cliff?”

  “I don’t practice law,” Ted said.

  “A good start,” Kasabian said.

  “You need a snare drum if you’re going to keep telling jokes as old as that. Ask me if I know any detective jokes.”

  “Don’t be a wiseass, Molloy.”

  “I do know some, but I’d probably have to explain them to you.”

  Kasabian didn’t crack a smile. “Do you own a gun, Molloy?”

  “Without a permit? That would be against the law, Detective.”

  Duran had told Ted that if he had to come back, he wasn’t coming alone. And now Ted was facing the bad cop. He spoke to the good cop. “Am I now a target of that investigation we mentioned?”

  “You need to clear up some issues, and then we’ll get out of your hair,” Duran answered.

  “Oddly enough, I am not comforted,” Ted said.

  “If we’re going to be wasting our time,” Kasabian said, “I’d rather do it at the precinct. Let’s take him in.”

  “Mr. Molloy has no reason not to cooperate with us,” Duran replied.

  Ted took a small measure of comfort from that double negative. Duran was still playing good cop. “Why are you here?” Ted asked.

  “Murder,” Duran said.

  Kasabian was impatient. “You had dinner with the wife of the deceased last night. Was that a romantic meeting?”

  They were keeping close tabs on Cheryl—or him. “We went over this.” Ted glared at Duran.

  Duran was unimpressed. He’d been glared at before. “Come on, Ted. Let’s do it again, for Chuck,” he said. “He missed your story first time around.”

  Ted bit back a sigh. Stonewalling the cops only worked when you were in the power seat. He had nothing. They’d want to hear the story three or four times, looking for the tiniest inconsistencies, before they’d quit. He wasn’t going to make it to the gym, and if he wanted to get home in time for the first pitch, he had better get started. Putting off the confrontation until he had counsel was pointless. And he might learn something from the questions they asked.

  “Mrs. Rubiano is a very strange woman,” he began. “She believes that I can somehow find out who killed her husband. She actually tried to hire me to do this.” The remaining hundred-dollar bills in his pocket suddenly felt like lead plates. “I am also working on recovering some abandoned funds—that’s what I do. Her husband started on the case after I said I wasn’t interested. At first she was very insistent that I go after this money, but as of last night, she told me to drop it. Flat out, no discussion. She is a forceful and resourceful woman, if somewhat inconsistent in her moods and desires.”

  “He’s lying. I don’t buy a word of it,” Kasabian said.

  Ted recognized this for the gambit that it was. The detective wasn’t challenging the facts; he wanted to provoke a response. Kasabian probably had a good side to him. Nice to his kids. Only beat his wife when she deserved it.

  “I wouldn’t in your shoes,” Ted said with an insincere smile. “But there’s more. Later on last night I was approached at the Mets game by a steroidal man who made vague but believable threats indicating that if I did not get this money for Mrs. Rubiano, I would be forced to endure his presence again.”

  “Did this guy have a name?” Duran asked.

  “We didn’t exchange business cards,” Ted answered.

  “Tell us about this abandoned-funds thing again,” Duran said.

  This was safe ground, and he now had enough information to make a story out of it. Ted recited his standard pitch about how he went about doing the research, making a deal, and petitioning the court. Then he described some of the oddities of this particular case, omitting any mention of Miller’s mental condition.

  “So you’ve got the missing pages from the court file, the fact that someone basically stole those buildings from Miss Miller, and the involvement of those Russian hoods. I think there’s something very suspicious about the whole thing.” Ted felt smug and didn’t mind if it showed a little.

  “Hoods?” Kasabian said.

  “What?” Ted said.

  “You said ‘hoods.’ Not ‘gangbangers,’ ‘thugs,’ ‘punks,’ or even ‘mobsters.’ You said ‘hoods.’”

 
“Guilty. I watch too many old movies.”

  “And you’ve got an active imagination, I would guess.” Kasabian’s sneer said that he didn’t have much appreciation for imagination.

  “I want to hear about this guy who talked to you at the ball game,” Duran said. “Describe him and tell me exactly what he said.”

  “I don’t remember the exact words,” Ted said. The “asshole” chant was all that came to mind. “But when I told him that Cheryl wanted me to drop the money thing, he didn’t believe it.”

  Kasabian almost rolled his eyes. “So, she’s Cheryl now?”

  Ted tried to ignore him and mostly succeeded. “He’s tall, broad, thick through the waist like a weight lifter, not a bodybuilder. Shaved head. Some tats on his neck, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. I’m convinced he’s the same guy who was hanging around with Mrs. Rubiano earlier this week. I mentioned him to you then.”

  “There’s a lot of guys like that around,” Duran said. “Anything else?”

  “He ties a Windsor knot with a button-down shirt,” Ted said, ticked that Duran hadn’t shown any interest in the troll.

  “What are you? The fashion critic?” Duran asked with a smile. Kasabian laughed without one.

  “Sister Alberta Marie would have smacked me on the head with a ruler for not tying a four-in-hand.” He was beginning to have fun tweaking these two.

  Duran nodded as though he recognized a fellow Catholic-school sufferer. “The guy wears a tie to a baseball game?”

  “He was definitely overdressed for the bleachers.” Ted was feeling much too comfortable, he realized.

  Kasabian was watching him, waiting for a misstep. “Have you got plans to see Mrs. Rubiano again?”

  “Have you got any other ideas as to who killed Richie? Or why? Or do you think if you bust my chops enough, I’ll confess just to shut you up?” Ted was fed up. He had cooperated—maybe not to the fullest extent but far beyond what any competent criminal defense attorney would have allowed.