Jason nodded. He watched as Bill walked briskly, and then broke into a trot towards a limousine that was idling near the warehouse about one hundred yards away. As he approached the driver got out and opened the back door, and a middle-aged man emerged. The gray streaks in his dark, slicked-backed hair had advanced beyond his temples. Well-dressed and heavy-set, he wasn’t really fat, but big in a way that suggested a certain toughness. He turned for a moment toward the driver, who walked toward the warehouse and entered through a large, rusted metal door.
The heavy-set man waited for the door to close, and then began talking to Bill. He quickly became animated, gesturing and shouting, with Bill nodding and apparently acknowledging. At one point he looked suddenly at the helicopter, and Jason studied the instrument panel intently. He counted to five and then stole a quick glance over—the chewing out, or whatever it was, had resumed and continued angrily for a few more minutes. Bill stayed cool—Morgan must have hired this guy for his stoicism—and eventually the older man had said his piece. He reached back into the limo and pulled out an oversized manila envelope, which he handed to Bill in exchange for the black briefcase. He then jabbed a thick finger at Bill’s chest, as if to emphasize a final point. Bill nodded again and then trotted back to the helicopter and climbed in.
“Let’s go!”
Jason pulled the helicopter up into the air. Looking back, he saw the heavy-set man walk into the warehouse. As they lifted higher, another car could be seen winding its way slowly across the empty industrial compound, which in its day must have been inhabited by hundreds of workers. He turned back to Bill.
“Where to?”
“Upper West Side.” Hints of warmth were no longer on offer.
Jason held his gaze.
“I’ll point it out when we get closer.”
The two men flew in silence for a while. Jason didn’t concern himself much with other people’s business, but the day was getting long and there was something about the heavy-set man that was sticking with him.
“I feel like I’ve seen that guy before.”
“Everybody looks like someone,” Bill said, looking out the window.
“He looked pretty pissed.”
“Nah, just a little frustrated.”
“Rich guy like that?” Jason questioned, fishing a bit.
“Yeah, his driver is getting on his nerves. Keeps asking him too many questions.”
It wasn’t an unfair analogy, but Jason didn’t like being called a driver. “Maybe he likes to know where he’s going.”
“Maybe he’s better off not knowing.”
“Yeah, well—Hey! Look down there!”
There seemed to be some sort of scuffle going on in the street below. Jason eased in to get a better view, and hovered in place. It looked like a fistfight, with four men surrounding an obscure figure. Actually, it looked rougher than a fight, which was usually plodding, and over quickly. Whatever was going on down there was more frantic.
“Tough city.” Bill was not impressed.
“Maybe we should do something.”
“Plenty of cops around,” Bill said, utterly uninterested. He pointed at a building about three blocks from the struggle. “That’s the Twenty-seventh Precinct.”
Jason snapped his head. “You a cop?”
Bill smiled for the first time. “I grew up there. Years ago it wasn’t a half-bad neighborhood.”
Jason hesitated and turned for one last look. One of the attackers was kicked violently backwards, revealing that the victim was a woman. Jason stared over at Bill, who didn’t flinch. He held up his arm, displaying his watch.
“Let’s go,” he said firmly, tapping it with his index finger. “In two minutes the place will be crawling with cops. They don’t like to see that sort of thing near the station. Too close to home—it’s bad for business.”
“No there aren’t! That may be the Twenty-seventh, but there are no cops anywhere! No cops, no cars!”
Jason looked around. There were long lines of gridlocked traffic, and lots of buses and taxis, but there were no police cars to be seen, not even near the stationhouse.
“Where the hell are they? I better radio for help!”
Bill grabbed Jason’s arm. “You can’t do that!” His voice was full of emotion, and that surprised Jason even more than the fact that he grabbed him.
“What do you mean?” Jason shot back.
“It wouldn’t do much good, would it?” The calm returned to his voice.
On the street below the woman had broken free from the group and was making a run for it. Her dress was torn and she tripped as she ran, with the men in pursuit. Jason abruptly veered the helicopter downward.
“What the fuck are you doing!”
The woman ran into and across a vacant lot, and then fell again. Jason brought the helicopter straight down the side street, interposing the copter between the woman and her attackers. The wind from the rotors threw newspapers and debris into the air. Jason moved directly at the attackers. Two of them fell to the ground for cover, but one stared up defiantly. Tilting the helicopter, Jason menaced him with the blades, forcing him to retreat as well. But the maneuver threw up even more dirt, and Jason was having trouble maintaining control. The copter was spinning, and the sound of shouting and honking horns pierced through the dust storm, sending all of the men scrambling from the scene.
“All right,” Bill shouted, “let’s get out of here!”
“Can’t do it! I can’t see—too much dirt. There are buildings on three sides of us, and I don’t know which three! I’m gonna try and find the ground!”
The helicopter hit the ground hard, unevenly, and everything fell to the left. Jason was thrown against the side on the cabin, and Bill fell on top of him. Jason hit his head hard, and when he reached up with his hand he felt blood. Bill climbed off Jason and pulled himself back into his seat. He grabbed the second briefcase, set it on his lap and opened it. It was full of cash, stacks of twenties neatly bound with bankers’ wrapping. He grabbed a set of twenties and stuffed them inside Jason’s jacket pocket.
“I was never here!” Bill shouted, and, hoisting himself out the passenger side, disappeared into the dust. Jason wasn’t sure what happened after that.
7
Adam had spent the early part of that morning making a few calls about the freshly departed Sid Maynes. It turned out all those flowery obituaries were swimming upstream against a pretty nasty undercurrent of ill will—he couldn’t find one person who didn’t use the word “asshole” at some point in the conversation. Looked like dying was as good a career move for politicians as it was for rock stars. And he still didn’t buy the suicide thing—nobody that vain and ambitious would punch his own ticket without a really good reason, and even then he would have done it in a more dignified way. Pills, probably. Image management is crucial, especially the last image. That definitely ruled out guns, to say nothing of slitting your wrists on the shoulder of the BQE. It wasn’t even an A-list road.
In between calls he was able to revisit most of the cuts from the new Led Zeppelin album, Physical Graffiti. He was going to trash it in the Voice, as soon as he could come up with a good synonym for “spent force,” a phrase he burned in his review of the Stones’ It’s Only Rock ’n Roll. Actually, neither album sucked, but the drop-off was painful.
He still managed to get to the Hall of Records precisely one hour after it opened, exactly as he had planned. City workers were so dolefully predictable; they would make great cult members. They watched the clock religiously, never starting a minute before nine or lingering a second after five, and they followed the rules without ever bothering to question them, or even really thinking much about them. At the DMV they’d renew Hitler’s license if his papers were in order. Assuming he passed the eye test.
The key to a successful Hall of Records visit was not attracting any kind of attention, and Adam thought through every detail, even putting on a suit for the occasion. There was always a long line wa
iting to get in when they opened, and it took about forty-five minutes for the first wave to clear. After that it was pretty much a steady trickle. Most of the clerks took a coffee break at ten-fifteen, so at ten o’clock they were settling down as the pressure of the morning crush waned, and looking to avoid any complications that might interfere with that upcoming doughnut.
Good timing or not, the suit, polite smile, and Village Voice ID was enough to get him over the first set of hurdles, and he was able to submit his requests and secure a table in one of the reading rooms. You had to know how much to ask for, and how to ask for it. Otherwise the system would crash, and they’d want you to explain the purpose of your visit, or worse, claim that the stuff you wanted was being held at “central archives,” a mythical institution and/or black hole that was often spoken about but quite possibly didn’t exist.
Adam had asked for all the campaign contribution records, everything, for all candidates in the 1968 mayoral election. He really cared only about the contributions to the Cohen campaign, and was more interested in the last election, but ’72 was too recent and singling out the Mayor would have raised red flags. The camouflage worked, and it was not long before Adam found himself surrounded by boxes filled with binder notebooks.
They were classified by donor, not by candidate, which was a setback, but Adam was still happy to have it all in front of him. He knew exactly what he was fishing for—evidence that the Mayor was involved in some sort of unspecified corruption, most likely involving organized crime in some way. Unfortunately, the mob wasn’t listed as one of the categories of contributors, so Adam started with the Union book for any entries related to dock workers, restaurant and hotel employees, and the teamsters—three organizations whose donations might be used for the same purpose. But there was nothing there, at least as far as he could tell.
Three hours later he had scanned every promising binder, with nothing to show for it but tired eyes. Cohen’s financing looked just like everybody else’s, except, oddly, there was a lot less of it across the board. That didn’t make sense; usually everybody loved a winner, and a guy with Cohen’s connections should have been swimming in cash. Big business usually hedged their bets and coughed up some tribute to both sides, even if they had to hold their noses to do it. But there was almost nothing from the high rollers—at least no contributions big enough to report. No wonder Cohen seemed so casual about the City’s finances—he was used to getting something for nothing.
It was probably another dry well. Maybe Cohen spent a little more time with reputed gangsters than he should have, but Adam didn’t find anything close to a smoking gun; he wasn’t even sure he’d seen any smoke. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the ceiling, which was vaulted, double height, and the remnants of a mural were still visible. The room must have been something in its time. Large oil paintings, begging for restoration, adorned the walls. Shafts of light exposed particles glittering in the air. Adam slipped out of his chair and quietly left the room by the back door in search of a water fountain, breaking two rules in the process. You weren’t supposed to leave until you were done, and you had to use the main door. But Adam wasn’t sure he was finished and didn’t want to get into a debate with that scary looking clerk in the red dress.
Cruising the hallways to stretch his legs, Adam gave himself a little unauthorized tour in the process. Turning one corner and then another, he noticed a door marked NEW DOCUMENT PROCESSING, adorned by a newer sign posted below that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He kept walking but stopped about two doors down, resting his hand against an old steel ladder. The New Document room was calling; he had a vision of fresh, unedited documents showering the room like a geyser from a just-struck oil well. He slipped back down the hallway and gently tried the knob—locked. A glance up revealed that the lights were not on in the room. And that the transom was ajar.
Adam went back to the ladder, which was probably left by someone servicing the open light fixture hanging above. No one else was in sight; a check of the time supported the theory that the maintenance man had probably taken a late lunch. Acting quickly, Adam took off his jacket and tie, mussed his hair and rolled up his sleeves. He checked the coast before quietly carrying the ladder down the hallway, only scraping the ground once, and set it up near the New Documents room. Estimating there would be almost a half-hour before the real maintenance man got back, he climbed up the ladder and tried to remove the light fixture. Failing that effort after a short struggle, he poked one of the ceiling squares out of place and pushed it into the crawl space above. Ducking back down and using a dime as a screwdriver, he tried to coax the transom open the rest of the way. It took a few minutes, but he was able to get it open enough to try to crawl through.
Leaning in, he poked his torso into the room, trying to figure out how to slip the rest of the way though the transom without landing on his head, which at that moment seemed like the most likely—and possibly inevitable—outcome. Fate intervened in the form of a firm tapping on his leg, still dangling in the outer hallway. He froze. There was no chance to stick his head in the crawl space and pretend to be working on the wires. “I’ll be with you as soon as I finish fixing this,” he said gruffly. “Wait for me at the office.”
Another tap. “You’re finished now,” said a voice, even gruffer than his. He lowered his head and looked down to find a man in a dark green outfit, presumably the maintenance man, along with two large uniformed security guards and, perhaps most frightening of all, the clerk with the red dress. Her arms were folded angrily across her chest and with her small black glasses pulled up over her forehead, from Adam’s angle she looked a little like Catwoman on a very bad day.
———
Less than a mile away, Alison was trying, with mixed results, to get her office into shape. “Temporary” was the key word in her life, and she was getting sick of it. She’d managed to move from the temporary office she’d been in for several weeks, but everything else was still in transition; a temporary sign instead of a name plate, a lamp until they fixed the overhead light, and a phone that didn’t have a number written on it, but at least it worked.
She spent the morning trying to figure out the best configuration for the office. She much preferred the warmth of desk-chair-chair to the conventional chair-desk-chair format, but realized that the standard style was so ingrained that any change might freak out the students, and decided reluctantly to go with tradition. Nobody wanted to turn on the “Tonight Show” to find that Johnny had moved the desk. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to back off the whole plant thing, at least not completely. She hadn’t seen a single plant in any of the offices she’d visited, or in any of her profs’ offices in grad school for that matter, but she was going to draw the line at plants. There was nothing gendered about plants; they even reproduced asexually.
She grabbed two yellow pads—one so overworked and disheveled it looked like it might have been dropped in the bathtub and dried out, the other tight and neat—and clipped her way downstairs to the department’s main office. Three secretaries were typing away busily, and Alison stood for a while, waiting for one of them to notice her. They didn’t look up.
“Excuse me…Miss Steinlitch?” she said, sounding out the nameplate of the woman who appeared to be in charge. She was older than the other two, had a phone crowded with extension buttons like campaign ribbons on a general’s chest, and her desk implied the authority of a command post. It was a larger, old-school wooden affair, the kind you would see at an interwar law firm, and it contrasted with the uniform green-gray metal desks seen everywhere else.
Steinlitch glanced up at her, peeking over her reading glasses, still typing. “Yes?” she asked impatiently.
“I need to have my syllabus typed and mimeographed,” Alison said, holding out the neater of her two pads.
“Don’t you know how to type?” she responded, without removing the cigarette from her mouth.
“Yes, I do.” Alison waited for a
response, but didn’t get one. “Do the professors type their own syllabi?”
Steinlitch stopped typing and took the cigarette from her lips, hesitating for an almost imperceptible moment. “Put it in the workbox on Cindy’s desk,” she said, waving across the room with the two fingers that held her smoke.
“Thanks. By the way, do you know if there’s a ladies room on the fourth floor? I need some water for my plants.”
“There’s one just down the hall, to your left. I don’t know about any of the other floors,” she said, just audible over the sound of the keys.
Alison got back to her office and dug out her dissertation award, and decided to hang it up after all, even though she’d given her folks enormous grief when they’d had it framed. She liked the way it said “A. Monroe,” the name she insisted on using when it was submitted to the awards committee. She didn’t care what people thought. One third of her department would have hired her even if her work wasn’t that good, and another third wouldn’t take her seriously if she walked on water. But it was nice to know that according to the American Historical Association, A. Monroe had written the best dissertation in 1974.
She sat behind her desk and looked around; things were slowly falling into place, and she celebrated by reading The New York Times. There it was on page one: MAYNES DEATH TO BE RULED SUICIDE, but it was the subhead that caught her eye: “Questions remain about motive, money.” She scrunched her nose and stared at the ceiling, wondering what she might be able find out with a few phone calls.
8
Jason woke up in the hospital. He was okay, nothing broken, but he had this big white bandage on his head that made him look like an extra from “M*A*S*H,” and they wanted him to stay overnight for observation, since he probably had a concussion. Alone in a semi-private room, a TV, a telephone, and a call button were his only links to the outside world. He’d missed dinner, and he learned when he tried to call Adam that the phone wouldn’t let you make outgoing calls. So that left the TV—a big black-and-white job mounted to the wall. The Mets were off, which meant Channel Nine would probably show an old movie.
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