The Silent Second

by Adam Walker Phillips

  “Mr. Restic, we ask that you respect the time of everyone in this room and please get on with your comments.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I believe there are improprieties involved with this zone change that you should be aware of.” I rattled off all the details Mike and I had discovered in as coherent a fashion as I could, having been put on the spot on such short notice. During my five-minute-plus speech, not a single committee member took notes. When I finished, all six members at the dais stared at me and said nothing. We remained in that uncomfortable silence for nearly half a minute until one of the members finally spoke up.

  “Are you finished?” he asked.

  “Well, did you understand what I just laid out?”

  “We did,” he remarked. “Have you concluded your remarks?”

  “I, I don’t know. Are there any questions?”

  “There are none. Have you concluded your remarks?” he repeated.

  All eyes in the room willed me to state that I had finished. There seemed to be no debate over what I had said, but also no real acknowledgment of the facts I had brought to their attention. It was an unsatisfying conclusion. Just as I was about to confirm that I was done, the tired voice of the security guard a few feet from me whispered, “Request a formal review.”

  I looked over at him. He still appeared half-asleep and stared dully at some spot on the far wall. I don’t think anyone else in the room heard him. I leaned back into the microphone. “I’d like to request a formal review of the proposed change.”

  Apparently my somnolent friend was a bit of an expert on procedural rule, because those simple words sent the committee into a tizzy. I believe I heard Claire curse me out from across the room.

  “Could you please repeat that?” asked one of the committee members, but the woman to his right cut him off.

  “What are you making him repeat it for? We all heard it,” she said.

  The clerk took the councilwoman’s lead, and pronounced a deferment of approval on the proposed change until a formal review of the revision was completed.

  “Wait,” said a befuddled Carlson. “What happened?”

  “By rule, we must conduct a review by an independent party.”

  “Well, how long is that going to take?” he asked.

  “Sixty days.”

  “You’re acting like a child,” Claire remarked as we made our way through the lobby and around the security checkpoint. She seemed to finally notice the extent of the damage on my face but then used it as further proof of my adolescent behavior. “You’re getting into fights now, too?”

  “I got this by asking too many questions,” I replied. “But if exposing the truth is deemed childish, then I am happy to take up the mantle.”

  “Come down off the cross. We need the wood.”

  “That’s Mike’s line.”

  She stopped and stared me down. “Now it all makes sense.”

  “What does?”

  “Why you’re making an ass of yourself in public forums and generally acting like an overall nuisance. Is this Mike’s doing?”

  “No.”

  “It sure smells like him.”

  Her tone was grating. She reverted into lawyer mode. “What is your interest in the Arroyo?”

  “Stop speaking to me like it’s a deposition. And you know why I am interested. Because it’s connected to Ed’s disappearance.”

  “There’s no proof of that.”

  “Come off it, you know there is. And the more you play dumb, the stronger the connection gets. Did you architect the zone change?”

  “I would choose another word to describe it, but we did have input on the final decision.”

  “Why?”

  She paused. “It would be beneficial to our client. And it’s perfectly legal. We would never knowingly put our client in any risk of future legal complications.”

  “What about Langford? Have you ever worked with him before?”

  “You know I have,” she said.

  “On the Deakins Building?”

  Another pause. “Yes.”

  “Do you know Ardavan Temekian?”

  “No.”

  “Are you involved in any deals with properties on Holcomb Street?”

  “Where? No, I don’t know those properties,” she said. “Now who’s making this out to be a deposition?”

  “How well do you know McIntyre?” I asked.

  “Why?” she asked warily.

  “Come on, Claire, I’m not an idiot. I know about you two. But how well do you know him?”

  “You have no right to ask me these things.”

  “These guys are not kids. They play a grown-up game, and they play rough. Look at what happened to Ed. To Langford. Look at my face! Three thugs broke into my home and beat the living shit out of me the other night. Because I’m finding stuff out that someone doesn’t want me to. And you see how they handle those situations. Don’t get yourself wrapped up in something you will later regret.”

  “Todd doesn’t have anything to do with…with that murder. With whoever attacked you.”

  “Glad to see you and Todd know each other so well that you can read each other’s thoughts.”

  “Screw you, Chuck.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Claire suddenly got very aloof. “Apparently you can’t accept this marriage ending.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I shot back.

  “Why else are you running around doing everything in your power to annoy me? I’ve moved on, Chuck. And none of this is going to change that.” Like a good defense attorney, she stopped speaking when she knew she was ahead.

  But Claire was Claire, and she couldn’t resist the urge to pile on. “One more thing,” she said by the exit. “Break into my house again and you’re going to get your ass bitten off by a Doberman.”

  THE AQUARIUM ON THE HILL

  The black sedan with just its parking lights on idled in front of my apartment. I walked up to the passenger door, but the driver never got out. I was forced to knock on the window.

  “Are you here for me?” I asked as the window rolled down.

  The driver was an elderly Latino man with dyed hair slicked straight back. He wore the standard attire, a starched white shirt and black pants. The interior of the car smelled like vanilla air freshener.

  “Are you Mr. Restic?” he asked me.

  “I am.”

  “Then I am here for you.”

  He made no move to open the door for me. Neither did he give any indication of where I was supposed to sit. Since I have a natural discomfort with the vestiges of hierarchy and a class system, I sat in the front seat. It was clearly the wrong choice.

  “You’re welcome to sit in the back,” he offered.

  I got the call that Valenti wanted to meet me the night after the incident at the public hearing. Mike and Cheli were with me in my apartment when the unregistered number came up on my cell. I assumed Claire had given my number to her client. We were recapping an eventful day that had Easy Mike placing calls to all the participants in this drama with the hope of getting quotes for his soon-to-be-published article. Everyone stuck to the script. Carmen Hernandez fell back on “necessary care for the underserved.” For McIntyre, it was all about “job creation,” and Councilman Abramian spouted off concerns about “the dangers of high-density projects.” When the call came, the young woman didn’t ask me to meet as much as she instructed me when the car would arrive to pick me up.

  “I’ve been summoned,” I told them. “Anyone want to join me?”

  Mike declined. He had a lead on the buyer of the properties on Holcomb—the elusive Salas. Cheli had to meet with the assistant district attorney over Temekian’s upcoming arraignment.

  “I guess I’m going solo then.”

  We caught a light on Griffin and were forced to wait at the intersection. At this time of night there was little traffic and even fewer pedestrians. A homeless man with a shopping cart full of meme
ntos crossed in front of our car. He paused in the headlights to stare at us. His gaze went from the driver to me and then back to the driver.

  “I give up, officers!” he shouted.

  The driver scowled and hit the accelerator, sweeping his sedan dangerously close to the shopping cart. He ran two more red lights before we reached the freeway.

  “How long have you worked for Mr. Valenti?”

  “A long time,” he said.

  “You must have seen a lot.”

  “I haven’t seen nothing,” he replied curtly.

  “What’s Mr. Valenti like?” I probed further.

  His silence clearly indicated there would be no more idle chitchat. We drove the rest of the way in silence. We glided across the flats of Los Angeles to the Westside, where we took the 405 North a few exits and then fell into the tree-lined streets of Bel-Air and then Beverly Hills. From there we worked our way up to the top of Benedict Canyon and Mulholland Drive.

  The driver instinctively guided us along the dark and winding road. It felt like he could do this drive with his eyes closed. We eventually took a cutoff that was all but invisible from the street. This led to a large gate that opened automatically as the sedan approached. A uniformed man stood watch in a small, well-lit structure nearby. We tracked a narrow driveway lined with looming cypress trees that stood like tin soldiers in silhouette against the night sky. Then the house appeared before us.

  It was a massive structure of glass and stone and undulating waves of polished steel that represented all that was wrong with form over function. Two-ton steel girders muscled into twisted shapes jutted out over the canyon and served no other purpose than the aesthetic. Every section had dedicated accent lights. The spectacle would make Hollywood cinematographers blush.

  I found myself in awe more at the volume of material that went into the building than of the building itself. It was as if they encased the entire structure in burnished steel for no other reason than “because I can.”

  I waited for instructions but received none.

  “Good talking to you,” I said as I got out of the car and headed toward the main entrance.

  I took the few steps up to the twelve-foot door that was either teak or mahogany and most certainly expensive. Through its glass panel, I saw a young woman patiently waiting in a cushioned chair in the foyer. Before I could ring the bell, she sprang to her feet and hefted the giant door open. She wore a tight-fitting sweater and pencil skirt. She had cold blue eyes and such perfectly white teeth that they almost looked fake. In business, your brand is determined by how others perceive you. Placing this little minx at the front door sent a clear message—Valenti ran an elegant, sophisticated operation that could rip your face off with a single swipe.

  “Welcome, Mr. Restic,” she purred and led me into a large room just off the foyer. “Can I get you a sparkling mineral water, cappuccino?”

  “Do you have any organic soda?” I asked, if for no other reason than to be an ass in the face of pretense.

  “Mango or blackberry?” she countered.

  “Strawberry?” I tried again.

  “I’m afraid we ran out,” she replied.

  “Thank you,” I said, sounding disappointed. “But I think I will pass.”

  “Very well,” she replied and drifted out of the room.

  I looked around the impressive space. The entire far wall was a floor-to-ceiling window, an expansive sheet of non-reflective glass that gave the illusion that you were out in the open air. I drifted over like a leaf in a slow-moving stream. The entire city of Los Angeles lay at my feet—from the garish lights of the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier, to the grid work of suburban dreams across the great plain of the city, to the lighted matchsticks of the downtown skyscrapers winking in the far distance.

  “Nice of you to come, Chuck,” said a smiling Mc-Intyre, who strode across the room to greet me. He squeezed my hand just to the point of the knuckles cracking and held it a quarter-second too long to make it feel genuine. He had the confidence of a man who could stare another in the eyes for a prolonged period and feel no awkwardness.

  Todd McIntyre fit the part of the real estate development executive down to the open-collar shirt and navy blazer they all seemed to wear. I checked to see if he was wearing socks with his loafers. Easy Mike often said that all men named Todd were jerk-offs, and he’d defy you to think of an exception. Few won that game. It was as if simply selecting that name for your baby predestined him to a life as a manipulative, whiny, self-serving brat.

  “I wish we could meet under better circumstances,” he said plaintively, “but I thought it was important to get together and maybe talk over some of the issues between us.” He spoke like we were rival haberdashery owners about to discuss a price war on derbies that was hurting both our businesses.

  “Where’s Mr. Valenti?”

  “He’s on a call with Asia and will be joining us shortly.”

  “Well, which issue should we start with? The business related or the personal?” Despite my attempt to remain calm, I was already introducing tension into the conversation.

  “Let’s start with the professional,” he said with a clipped laugh.

  “So you want to know why I objected to the proposed zone change.”

  “Do you have any legitimate concerns with the proposal?”

  “Define ‘legitimate.’”

  McIntyre let that one pass without commenting.

  “If legitimate means seeing that a power broker with his fingers in the city’s candy jar doesn’t manipulate his way into yet another sweetheart deal, then yes, I do have legitimate concerns about the zone change.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t understand. We have done nothing improper in our support—”

  “Come off it, McIntyre,” I interrupted. “You authored the proposal. Or at least my wife did. You and Valenti are bending people over to get what you want. And that’s fine if you want to play these development games with your country club cronies, except this time it’s affecting the people down at the bottom, the ones who bring you the clean towel after the squash match.” It felt good to play the martyr, and although tempting, I resisted the urge to use the phrase “blood on your hands.”

  “I don’t understand that last reference.”

  “The Arroyo,” I said. He studied me for a few moments. “Are you surprised I know about that?” Again he chose not to respond. “I know more about this project than you probably think.” I listed some of the details to prove my point, including the shady dealings around Carmen Hernandez’s women’s center and the Deakins Building.

  “We’re not building anything on those properties.”

  “Then why the zone change that happens to include two thin slivers where all those properties sit?”

  “I will reiterate—we are not building anything on those properties.”

  “Does the name Ed Vadaresian mean anything to you?”

  McIntyre studied me like he was formulating the well-calculated response that wouldn’t come back to haunt him later.

  “I’ve never met Mr. Vadaresian in person, but we are linked through that property you mentioned, the Deakins Building.”

  “You know he’s been missing for six months?”

  “Yes, I heard that.”

  I decided to gamble.

  “And that Mr. Vadaresian called your office the day he disappeared.”

  “Yes.”

  That threw me.

  “You knew that?”

  “I spoke to Mr. Vadaresian.”

  “What about?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t discuss that.”

  “Why not?” I asked. He was growing cagey, and I was growing frustrated with his quick, short responses. He added another.

  “It’s improper.”

  “Listen, Todd,” I said. “This man has been missing, and no one seems to be able or willing to find him. His family is searching for answers and finding none. And then we find out that he called
you the day he disappeared, and you aren’t willing to discuss the details? Whatever business concern you have pales next to a man’s life. Maybe you should reconsider, or I might be forced to involve the authorities in this.”

  “Mr. Restic?”

  I turned to see an elderly man with a shock of white hair approaching. Valenti was smaller than I imagined he would be. When images are formed through photographs in the media, people somehow take on the largeness of their personalities. Without the custom suit and the entourage, he was just an elderly man with a warm smile and gray, watery eyes—someone you’d be happy to have as your grandfather.

  “I was just about to explain to Mr. Restic that there is no need to involve the authorities—”

  Valenti cut him off with a casual wave.

  “Todd, maybe Mr. Restic and I could speak in private.”

  McIntyre didn’t like being dismissed, but he knew better than to challenge his boss. He didn’t get into that role by sharing his opinions too often. Once McIntyre had slunk out of the room to join the young minx in the hallway, Valenti turned his attention back to me.

  “Thank you for taking the time to meet this late in the evening,” he said, motioning me to a set of white couches while he sat in a low-back chair. We sat for a few moments in silence, each man sizing the other up. Valenti came to his conclusion first.

  “So this is the man who’s cost me money,” he said with a tinge of disbelief. For some reason I felt the need to apologize.

  “My intention was never to cause you personal loss, Mr. Valenti.”

  “And what was the intention, then?”

  “Find justice for a friend,” I answered.

  “I didn’t know you and Mr. Vadaresian were friends,” he replied. McIntyre clearly had done a thorough job of briefing Valenti before our meeting. Men like him always wanted to be the one in the room with the most information. “Plus, I am not sure I see the connection between your friend’s disappearance and an insignificant zoning change.”

  “If it was so insignificant, I don’t believe I would be here now.”

  “Indeed.” Valenti shifted in his chair. “Let’s be frank with each other, if we may. I’ve always found that negotiations go a hell of a lot quicker when people are forthright.”