Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  “Bobby, unless there’s something you haven’t told me, there’s no need—”

  He cut me off with a shake of his head. “This isn’t about my health, son. As far as I know, it’s fine—not that it matters when…” He looked off, lips pressed together as if holding in an unrefined fury that had poured into the spaces purged by his crying. “This is about preparation for the inevitable, about putting my affairs in order. When a person can be attacked at random, when complete strangers need no reason other than…” He trailed off again, pushing his glasses up. Then he chuckled with uncharacteristic bitterness. “You know, I’ve been stomping around this slush ball for more than seven decades. I still can’t explain whether my being on it matters or why the world should hang in space at all.”

  “Your students would say you were put here to teach.”

  “In forty-plus years, I probably had five thousand students. Five thousand in a world of seven billion—a remorseless world.” He tsk-tsked. “Like most dreamers who grew up in the Sixties, I thought I would change the world. Now I can’t help wondering what the point of it all was when some dumb kids in the Midwest have a Nazi-themed senior prom and their teachers don’t stop it. When a college fraternity in California throws a blackface party and has to be told why it’s wrong. Now I understand all that truly matters is the family you leave behind.” He avoided my gaze for a breath or two. “My DNA and all it could have been goes into the urn with me...”

  I nodded. I hadn’t expected his preference for cremation to change. We had talked before about his and Evelyn’s failure to have children. However good they had been together, however many foster children they had taken in over the years, however much they had loved each other and Mira and me, however much they had given of themselves to the community, there was a hole in Bobby’s life beyond repair.

  “But I couldn’t be prouder of you and Mira if I were your biological father,” he said as if reading my mind. “You are my family, and you mean everything to me. If my being here, being alive, meant anything, Evelyn and you two are the best parts of it.”

  “We owe you everything,” I said.

  “You owe me nothing.” He sat up straighter and sniffed before exhaling. “Now, can we get down to business? With property, life insurance, and savings, I have a sizable estate—not enough to pay a death tax but enough to do some good for the people I love.” He flipped open the top copy on the pile of papers in front of him. “My estate still goes to you and Mira. You’re still co-executors who share in the apartment building, whether you keep it or sell it. But there are carve-outs. If you keep the building, I want Sam to have a free apartment, even after he can’t work anymore. Nine units take in money now. After me, there’ll be ten. If you sell, Sam gets a monthly stipend to help with rent wherever he goes.”

  “Bobby…”

  He held up his hand. “Let’s stick to business. Please.” He waited until I murmured my agreement. “Another portion of my estate has been diverted to a trust fund for Shakti. It’s not much, but it’ll give him a solid financial foundation. College, grad school, maybe a down payment on a house. Of course, if I know Mira, it will be college and grad school.”

  Smiling because I knew he was right, I found the page and skimmed it.

  He turned to another page. “Kayla has her own money and doesn’t need anything from me, but I want her to have a modest cash gift and I want to make a donation in her name to the women’s law clinic. I’m also leaving a cash gift to her daughter Alaila. Most actresses in New York need money to make ends meet.” His finger moved down the page. “Also, I’ve set up an account to help Eddie, should it become necessary. If the idiots driving the DC bus can’t figure out DACA, the money is in his private defense fund until it runs dry. If DACA is settled, the money can be used to reunite him with his family. If his people are deceased or unreachable, it’s his to spend as he wants.”

  I scanned a few more lines. “Generous,” I said.

  “My personal possessions, including my books, films, art, and music, should be given away to friends, sold, or donated, whatever you think is appropriate.”

  Bobby had hundreds of films on disc and tape, hundreds of audio recordings on LPs and CDs, over two thousand books on shelves so high they required a rolling library ladder, and at least eight original paintings. Selling them or choosing which friend got what in an age of streaming music and movies, digital books and posters, would be a nightmare. Donating everything would be complex and time-consuming. Maybe if we hired estate specialists…

  But my godfather’s gaze pulled me back from my thoughts. “My rare books are to go to the Central Library downtown.” His eyes seemed to brighten. “Their Rare Bookroom is one of the finest special collections I’ve ever seen—Twain’s original Huck Finn manuscript, Shakespeare’s First Folio, a complete first Audubon, first printings of pivotal science texts, early atlases, illuminated manuscripts, a 600-volume anti-slavery collection. Do you have any idea what a fine library we have?”

  “I do,” I said, smiling. Growing up in Bobby’s orbit and often visiting libraries with him, I couldn’t help but know the value of the system long before he began to serve on its board.

  “Finally,” he said, “I have smaller bequests for groups and causes I support. NAACP. Urban League. Public education funds. Women’s shelters. Adoption assistance. Literacy programs. A few others.” He sat back and looked at me. “Sorry to make you go through all this, but you’re the one I talk to about things like this. Sorry, too, I lost it for a bit.”

  “That’s okay.”

  After a few seconds, he smiled. “I know I can’t save the whole world but I can make a sliver or two of it less ugly.”

  “You’re a good man, Bobby,” I said. “A better man than I’ll ever be.”

  “No, Gideon,” he said. “I’m a calculating man in search of a cold balance, of righting the scales on my own terms.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Pre-emptive atonement. Doing something good before I may have to do something bad. Something I may even enjoy, God help me.” Elbows on the table, he leaned forward, lowering his voice. “No, this won’t kill the monster I’ve seen, but it might bring a spoonful of justice to a moment. Maybe response in the moment is a kind of radiation treatment to help stop the spread of the cancer that produces the monster.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “I’m talking about metastasis,” he said. “It’s easy to say we shouldn’t let hate change us, but it does. So I’m talking about that change, about being ready for it, about finding the strength and inner peace to do what must be done with it in that moment. To stop the spread of hatred. The interfaith services I’ve gone to these past few years? They always had armed security, people like you who know somebody has to bear the burden of protecting others, with lethal force if necessary. We civilians have to bear some of the burden ourselves.” His usual silky tenor became as cold and sharp as a scalpel left in a freezer. “The next time thugs attack me and say there’s still room in the Jew oven for ragheads, fags, and niggers like me, they better kill me because I will damn sure kill at least one of them.”

  8

  One afternoon the following week I accompanied Bobby to the next interagency conference planning meeting. He had missed two during his recuperation and was eager to resume his share of the work. When I insisted on tagging along, he did not object. Nor did he suggest attire more like the new gray suit he wore when I slipped my black denim jacket over my shoulder holster. Knowing he might have done so under other circumstances, I was prepared to tell him I did not wish to blend in. I wanted to look like a bodyguard, like someone tough enough to carry and too short-fused to tolerate disruption. But there was no need to explain.

  The Alliance for Public Progress rented a suite of offices on the fifteenth floor of a downtown building overlooking Canalside. The meeting was held in a rectangular boardroom with a long table surrounded by mesh-backed office chairs. The room had a floor-to-ceil
ing window for an exterior wall, frosted glass in the upper half of the corridor wall, an abstract painting on the wall at either end, and plastic shell chairs for overflow seating. After those already there gathered around Bobby to welcome him back with hugs and handshakes, I sat in a shell chair in a far corner and opened my pocket notebook as if I were going to keep the minutes. As the well-dressed participants took their seats, Catherine Cathcart stared at me as if trying to remember where she had seen me before. I smiled. She smiled back but the confusion was still there, even as the balding man I recognized as her grandson William helped her into a chair.

  Having spoken with Rory Gramm the day before, I had got an emailed list of those expected to attend and would match faces to the names already in my notebook. After each name was enough space for me to jot down any information worth following up. Of course, I had already begun looking into them and had no expectation anyone at this gathering would provide a link to the men who attacked Bobby, or to Dr. Lansing, unlikely to crash a private meeting. But I believed in being sure. Ten were present, with five more still to arrive. One of those who had not yet come was Judge Marlo Vassi. With all the faces she must see in court, I wondered if she would give me the same uncertain look I’d got from Mrs. Cathcart.

  Rory opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and stating for the minutes how pleased he was to see Dr. Chance. Using only my first name, he identified me as the family member driving the still recovering Bobby to appointments. When all eyes turned to me, I lowered my pen and nodded a silent greeting, pleased to see an Aha! on Mrs. Cathcart’s face. Then Rory called on each one to share any personal news that had come about since the last meeting. Someone had celebrated a birthday, someone else the birth of a third grandchild. Other news included two forthcoming vacations, a promotion at work, an engagement, a grant to support a library program, an anniversary, and the sale of a home.

  When they were finished, the rectangular clock face I had drawn on a blank notebook page had a name beside ten numbers to indicate table position. With Rory at 12:00, late arrivals would be assigned remaining hours or half-hours as needed. In addition to Bobby, Rory, and the Cathcarts, there were Christina Donohue, host of the TV show Morning in Buffalo; Ann Marie Marciniak, director of the public library system; Will Johannes, owner of Talking Leaves Books; Buffalo State VP for Academic Affairs Migdalia Ramirez; UB Law Professor Brendan Downey; and Carly Flood, director of social work at Neighborhood Services United. Flood took the minutes on an IBM Surface Pro. Still to come were Judge Vassi, bank executive Bart Novak, billionaire James Torrance and his son Randall, whose namesake hotel would host the conference, and representatives from the offices of Erie County Executive Alvin Zachritz and my old friend, Buffalo Mayor Ophelia Green.

  As the meeting turned to committee reports on conference logistics, I shifted my gaze from those seated around the board table to the people on the Canalside boardwalk below—pedestrians, cyclists, dog-walkers, parents with children too young to be in school. I was here today to have Bobby’s back. My interest in the particulars of banquet halls and meeting rooms would come later, as I was mapping details for protecting Sam’s cousin Drea during her stay. Floor plans and occupancy capacities meant nothing until I could inspect the site myself. Raising my eyes, I looked beyond KeyBank Arena at Torrance Towers, with part of its footprint in the Cobblestone District where two twenty-story towers were connected by a ten-story central building with an event hall, meeting rooms, shops, and luxury suites above underground parking. It wasn’t the Atlantis in the Bahamas but it was damned impressive.

  Ten minutes later, Bart Novak opened the glass door and apologized as he shrugged off his spring topcoat. A large man with crewcut gray hair and broad shoulders, he squeezed in at 8:00. After him came the very pregnant Amari Lockwood, chair of the Erie County Legislature, and Judge Vassi. Lockwood took 9:00 and made room for the judge at 9:30. Before sitting, Judge Vassi looked over her shoulder at me for a few seconds. Then her lips parted in recognition and she smiled at my faint nod. Next came the mayor herself, a young female aide in tow. Ophelia Green wore a beige skirt suit that complemented both her figure and the glow of her bronze skin. For a moment, standing beside Rory and gesturing her aide into the shell chair behind the 12:30 slot, she looked startled to see me in the corner. Then she flashed me Buffalo’s most famous political smile, made sensuous by the beauty mark just above one corner of her mouth, and took her seat.

  The room was crowded when James Torrance arrived. With a bespoke blue suit, styled white hair, emerald eyes, and a perfect tan, Torrance was a refined-looking man who was accompanied by a dark-haired fortysomething version of himself in a gray suit and two large bruisers in black blazers—their personal security team. One bodyguard stood outside the room, back to the frosted glass. The other stepped inside ahead of the Torrances and locked eyes with me. He held up a hand to stop father and son behind him. Eyes fixed on me, he angled his head to whisper something to them. Then he cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.

  “The gentleman in the corner is armed,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I will not permit my employers to remain here.”

  “Good eye,” I said, meaning it because my jacket was still buttoned. “I see the line of your shoulder rig too. You might try a looser blazer next time.” I hated pissing matches but wasn’t afraid of them. I was about to close my notebook and get to my feet when Mayor Green held up her hand and stood.

  “Mr. Rimes is retired law enforcement and a licensed investigator,” she said. “He’s done contract work for City Hall but he’s here today for personal reasons.” She gestured toward Bobby. “You all know Dr. Chance was assaulted outside Temple Beth Zion. Mr. Rimes is his godson—here, I’m sure, to guarantee his safety as he recovers from injuries that required surgery.” Now she looked at Torrance. “Full disclosure, Jim. Mr. Rimes served with my husband in Iraq. Gideon was even one of Danny’s pallbearers.”

  The senior Torrance touched the security man’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Matt. If the mayor vouches for him, this fellow isn’t here for us.”

  “No sir,” I said. “Just protecting my family.” I hoped a gesture of polite humility would defuse things. Still, I held the bodyguard’s piercing blue gaze. Broad forehead, jaw set in determination, fullback shoulders, massive hands, middle-aged but young enough that his black hair was still thick and curly. He would be a hard man to take down.

  Randall Torrance studied me with eyes as green as his father’s, as if appraising livestock. “Might even be someone to interview, Matt. He looks like he’d be up to the job.”

  “I insist on remaining in the room, sirs.” Matt moved to the corner nearest mine and, ignoring the shell chair, stood with his arms at his sides.

  James Torrance looked at Rory and Ophelia. “Mr. Donatello has considerable latitude in how he guarantees our safety. He will repeat nothing he hears in this meeting.”

  “Neither will Gideon,” Bobby said.

  Before Torrance sat at 10:00, he touched Judge Vassi on the shoulder and smiled down at her. As his son pulled up a shell chair behind him, I put their names on my clock face and in a bottom corner jotted Matt Donatello, DPS—the letters on his blazer pocket.

  The meeting lasted another hour and a half. Agenda items included the closing brunch menu, tech requirements of the national media, four days of increased downtown police patrols, and the number of shuttles needed to carry speakers and registrants between the airport and the Torrance. A year in development, NCADI would be one of Buffalo’s biggest national conferences ever. My eyes glazed over from the minutiae of such a massive undertaking. I turned to the window, but the word security pulled my attention back into the room.

  “Security will be an ongoing concern,” Rory said. “As you know, several of our featured presenters and our keynote speaker are high-profile public servants, intellectuals, entertainers, or authors. A few of them regularly receive death threats for their views or activism. Some may come with personal secu
rity but others may depend upon us for it.” He turned to the hotelier. “Mr. Torrance.”

  James Torrance leaned forward, elbows on the table and thumbs under his chin. “In addition to stepped-up police patrols the mayor promised, our hotel will have its own small force on duty for the entire conference. Ordinarily, we have five or six officers from Donatello Protective Services on-site at all times, most to patrol the property and respond to incidents, with one or two to evaluate the monitors in the CCTV control room. For the conference, we’ll have at least fifteen, all ex-cops or ex-military.” He nodded toward Matt, still standing in the corner. “Mr. Donatello and his brothers screen their hires very well.”

  Legislature chair Amari Lockwood shifted in her seat, perhaps trying to get comfortable in the blue maternity suit that matched her headwrap. “What about metal detectors? They’re in County Hall. Other public buildings. Sports events. Even the Chicken Wing Fest at Sahlen Field.”

  “Everybody’s used to them these days but they’re impractical for every meeting room,” Torrance said. “We can use them outside the main convention hall.”

  Christina Donohue pushed aside a shock of shiny auburn hair and focused her dark eyes on Torrance. “What about off-site protection?” She sat next to William Cathcart, owner of the TV station where she hosted Morning in Buffalo. “I plan to have conference speakers in the studio Thursday and Friday, five live cut-ins of out-of-towners visiting Canalside every day, and lots of exterior shots of the waterfront and the hotel, courtesy of our drone fleet.”

  The eyes peering above Cathcart’s lowered glasses were on Torrance as well.

  “We can protect staff and guests when they’re on the property.” Torrance’s voice was firm. “I know long shots are good publicity, but we can’t cover anyone off-site.”