by Adam Dunn
A holdover from the earlier days of better-funded green energy projects, the wave-turbine program had been resuscitated by Mayor Baumgarten after its initial failure in ’06. It was now generating enough electricity from the East River currents to light twenty thousand homes in Queens, one small victory for the beleaguered administration.
But someone had used it to send a different kind of signal. Rochester’s body had been carefully arranged so that the vanes of one of the turbines would collide with its head on each revolution. Ponk, ponk, ponk, Rochester’s skull was batted by the slow-moving blades, the flesh of the neck slowly splitting from the shoulders, for however many days he’d been down there, only the ME would know for sure. The head had finally separated from the corpse when the divers brought it to the surface.
Now the Narc Sharks had a hole in their chart for the middle management of the organization they’d titled Cabs, Clubs, and Cooze. The cabbies’ lawyers had done a surprisingly good job protecting their clients, who in any case didn’t know anything about the upper echelons—well, that was their story, anyway, and they stuck to it. There was only one other suspect the Narc Sharks could question.
“Can we see him today?” Turse whined.
Santiago shook his head. He had warned McKeutchen that if the Narc Sharks or any other investigator braced the kid before his hospital release, he would kill them. Renny was making slow but steady progress. He was off the bedpan now, but still struggling to regain full bowel control. McKeutchen had visited him several times. After the last trip, he’d reported to Santiago that they’d had a detailed discussion on fighting the effects of diarrheal chapping. McKeutchen had suggested cortisone and Tucks, the kid had countered with wet wipes and Aquaphor. It was a textbook case of old school meeting new.
McKeutchen was working his magic to help out with the kid’s medical bills, since the mother obviously didn’t have much, although she dragged herself to the hospital every day to hold Renny’s hand and stroke his hair when the nightmares brought him screaming out of what little sleep Dr. Lopez could provide. They were doing all they could, McKeutchen assured him. Santiago stared out the window and said nothing.
He did that more often these days, thinking back over the case and how it’d played out. Without More around, there wasn’t much for him to do, as he was confined to desk duty until the shooting under the bridge was resolved. IAB seemed more than willing to clear things, but it was taking longer with the Feds involved. Plus, someone in the ME’s office had been making a stink about the condition of the dead suspect’s body indicating a level of ordnance far more powerful than the standard arsenal of the NYPD, even that of ESU. He was asking for detailed ballistics reports on the weapons used on the night of the shooting. McKeutchen said he was on it, not to worry.
There was an e-mail message on his phone from Lina. It read: Y’S BEEN WALKING AROUND SMILING AND BEING NICE TO EVERYONE AND BUMPING INTO THINGS ALL DAY. THE NEXT TIME YOU GET PROMOTED, CALL ME! Her sig file photo was a baby seal, sound asleep.
There’d been no further word from nor about More, and nothing from Devius Rune. Santiago’d looked up the document Rune had mentioned, Department of Defense Directive 5525.5, and had found it interesting reading indeed, not least because it was much older than he’d thought, going back to 1986. The directive was almost as old as he was. Maybe it’d been a Cold War thing, set guys like More loose at home to smoke out some KGB mole or something.
Or maybe it wasn’t about enemies from overseas at all anymore. Maybe McKeutchen was right; sometimes you had to break the law in order to maintain it. Santiago didn’t know, and he didn’t like not knowing. He stared hollow-eyed out the window. He’d dropped almost fifteen pounds since that night under the bridge. At dinner, his sister had said he looked svelte. His mother had said he looked sick.
He remembered the phone. An Inspector Sigurdardottir from Interpol was on the line. Dimly Santiago listened to him describe, in better English than his own, human remains recovered by the Dutch police from a trap in a hydroelectric plant outside Rotterdam. DNA testing had identified the remains as belonging to a Reza Varna, a high-priority suspect in a large interagency investigation centered in New York. The Dutch cops figured Varna had gone into the sluice about a quarter-mile above the trap, which was made of strands of ultrathin high-tensile steel wires. The effect was similar to being slowly driven (by several hundred thousand tons of water pressure) face-first through a giant potato masher. Preliminary forensics indicated the victim had been alive, perhaps even conscious, when he’d gone into the sluice.
Sigurdardottir very courteously offered to e-mail Detective Santiago the file as it now stood plus any new reports as they were generated. Santiago robotically thanked him and hung up.
So much for Nightclub Guy.
He’d thought he could outrun the Slav.
Wrong.
Santiago felt lighter. He’d start getting his paperwork together for his OCID transfer request soon. His Plan was intact; his body would heal.
He wasn’t so sure about New York.
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Rivers of Gold is a work of fiction. May the world it describes never exist.
No book is written in a vacuum. The list of sources consulted that follows is abbreviated due to space constraints; no slights are intended to those omitted.
First and foremost my deepest thanks go to the cabdrivers of the Stan 55 Operating Corporation in Long Island City, Queens. None of them wanted their names used, and I will respect their wishes. But I will list the names of those not behind the wheel who did allow me to name names: Lincoln Stevens, Jerry Nazari, Richard Wyssak, and the incomparable Stanley Wyssak, who has been guru to other taxi-obsessed authors before me.
Delving deeper into New York’s taxi world: at the Taxi Workers Alliance, deep thanks to the canny Javaid Tariq; to Biju Mathew, author of Taxi! Cabs and Capitalism in New York City (New Press, 2005); and, as always, to the sagacious Bhairavi Desai. At the League of Mutual Taxi Owners, thanks to Richard Curtis and Vincent Sapone. At the Taxi and Limousine Commission, special thanks to former chairman Matt Daus and the chimerical Allan Fromberg.
Bruce Schaller’s frightfully detailed study The New York City Taxicab Fact Book (published online by Schaller Consulting in conjunction with the TLC in March 2006) is the most recent, most intensive, and last industry-wide study for New York City’s taxi business I could find. I wish there were others. The industry desperately needs more statistics-obsessed taxi geeks, and I mean that as the highest compliment possible.
Sergeant Richard Khalaf of the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau was enormously helpful to me during the writing process, as was John Kelly at the office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information. Special thanks to Detective Investigator Chris Saffran (ret.), a true chameleon in a ruthless urban jungle.
I am most grateful to Mark Zeller of UBS Investments for vetting the financial aspects of this manuscript for accuracy.
Thanks also to the following on the New York Times Metro desk: Ian Trontz, Sewell Chan, William Neumann, and the prolix James Barron. (Can I have an expense account?)
No New York story can be told in one language, as New York is not a monolingual town. My translations began with software and were checked by native speakers wherever possible. A special reserve of gratitude is hereby served up to my team of translators, who kept my manuscript from sinking into onomatopoeic ooze: Michael Adjiashvili, Aniruddha Bahal, Pria Bala, Jaspal Singh, and Thomas Thornton. Any mistakes in translation are my own.
I am deeply indebted to Dr. Graham Hodges of Colgate University, author of Taxi! A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007) for reviewing the manuscript. Likewise, special thanks to Dr. Burton Peretti of Western Connecticut State University, author of Nightclub City: Politics and Amusement in Manhattan (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). I also delved deeply into Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (Harvard University Press, 2007
) by Dr. Michael Lerner of Bard College for my research.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Steve Call of Broome Community College, author of Danger Close: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq (Texas A&M University Press, 2007) for giving selflessly of his time to help me with the manuscript, including schooling me in the finer points of airstrikes.
Bertil Lintner’s Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) was essential in creating the backgrounds of Reza and the Slav, as was Misha Glenny’s McMafia: A Journey through the Global Criminal Underworld (Knopf, 2008). Special thanks to Jeffrey Robinson, whose book The Merger: The Conglomeration of International Organized Crime (Overlook Press, 2000) forever soldered my attention to the intersection of the world’s light and dark economies. Likewise, reading Lords of the Rim: The Invisible Empire of the Overseas Chinese (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995) by the indomitable Sterling Seagrave pinned back my eyelids to allow for a non-obnubilated gaze to the east. Loretta Napoleoni’s intricate study Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (Pluto Press, 2003) helped carve the mechanics of Islamic finance into a mind not built for numbers.
Apart from my own meanderings around New York City, I relied upon several books for background detail: The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher (Penguin Press, 2005); Invisible New York: The Hidden Infrastructure of the City by Stanley Greenberg (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte (Graphics Press, 1990); and Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1999). I have taken liberties for story’s sake with some details of the locales; there is no long stairway down the hill behind George Washington High School in Inwood, for instance, and the Eyrie is actually called Studio 450. More’s route from LaGuardia Airport across the Queensboro Bridge is as I drove it, though I would not recommend taking the Manhattan-bound lower roadway at high speed on a weekday morning to anyone who values his or her life.
Jeffrey Dunn and Topher Cox gave me my first hints that there were unsavory elements in the photography business, but it took James Sullivan of 1Prophoto.com to explain how supremely seedy the fashion-photo racket in particular can be (to him I attribute Renny’s Moral Slide Rule). Thank you thrice.
For my allusions to the neverending nightmare that is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the starting point was my 2008 interview with Bryan Mealer, author of All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo (Bloomsbury, 2008). For additional research I relied upon the International Crisis Group’s Africa Report Number 26, “Scramble for the Congo: Anatomy of An Ugly War” (12/20/2000), as well as reports from the U.S. State Department, the United Nations, and global news dispatches too numerous to be listed here. Any mistakes involving dates, place names, or translations regarding this material are solely my own.
Those interested in reading more about interagency operations in Afghanistan should consult Jawbreaker—The Attack on Bin Laden and al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo (Crown, 2005), or First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan by Gary C. Schroen (Ballantine, 2005). Also helpful were Leigh Neville’s Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan (Osprey, 2008) and Marine Force Recon by Fred J. Pushies (Zenith Press, 2003). Thanks also to Lawrence Korb at the Center for American Progress.
More’s arsenal is a mix of the real and the imagined. To the best of my knowledge, there is no Heckler & Koch P2000SK chambered for .45 rounds; however, I have no doubt the gunsmiths at the RTE shop in Quantico could produce one. Stek knives are very real and very expensive, hardly standard issue. The parts for More’s modified rifle are all available on today’s aftermarket for assault weapons. PLGR and SIDS systems are real enough; by now there are probably civilian versions on the market.
The inspiration for all my political characters may be found in Carl Zimmer’s magnificently repugnant book Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures (Free Press, 2000).
At my last count, there were thirteen diesel taxicabs in NYC’s yellow fleet, all of them Volkswagen Jetta TDIs.
The Posse Comitatus Act and Department of Defense Directive 5525.5 continue to coexist, albeit uneasily.
A special round of thanks to those novelists who read my manuscript and lent me their craft: John Lawton (author of Second Violin, Grove Press, 2008), who lent his name to Renny’s favorite textbook; the latitudinarian and recondite Aniruddha Bahal (author of Bunker 13, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), the source of Arun’s I LOVE GRAVITY T-shirt; and the lissome, lofty Dinah Lee Küng (author of Under Their Skin, Halban, 2006).
David Smith, formerly of the New York Public Library, was essential in helping me obtain research materials and for finding me a quiet place where I could nail my hands to the keyboard and finish the manuscript before incontinence and dementia set in. Craig Finn and Tad Kubler are (as far as I know) alive and well at the time of this writing; their band The Hold Steady continues to publish music under the Vagrant label. I sincerely hope that Bea Goldberg (aka Bertie Goldstein) is still with us. The shark is named after Carl Hiaasen. Arnaldo Mazur appears courtesy of Arnie Mazer.
These last few are part of a group of real people (or, at least, their names) inhabiting Rivers of Gold, alongside Dr. Ralph López, Matthew Hamilton, Akhtar Nawab, Delius Bune, Raghuram Rajan, Tony Judt, John Conn, Tomonori Tanaka, and the Slav. If you should happen to meet them on the streets of the city, be polite, especially to the latter.
A word about the Narc Sharks. The phrase sounds so natural people may wonder if I haven’t seen it before. For the record, I have not. The closest I’ve come to it is on p. 76 of the 1982 Bantam/Perigord mass-market edition of Joseph Wambaugh’s legendary police novel The Glitter Dome, where the term “nark ark” refers to an undercover police car, but not to the narcs driving it.
Likewise, the term “Dark Secret” used in the intelligence report on More is not taken from someplace else; it just sounded right to me.
Visceral thanks are due to my editor at Bloomsbury USA, Anton Mueller, for his strong vision and stronger stomach. I sing the praises of my agent, Jane Gelfman, without whom this book would never have seen life outside of my hard drive. And I must give very special thanks to John Burdett, who made much merit by introducing me to her.
Deep and humble thanks to the people who helped shape this book along the way: designer Archie Ferguson, copyeditor Thomas Thornton, proofreader Mindy Myers, photo researcher Meg McVey, and photographer Michele Serchuk. Semper Freelance.
Finally, the Squirts. They are not of my making, but are enjoyed by all. I first came across the Squirts in a novel I was reviewing for Publishers Weekly, but that was a decade and several computers ago, and I have been unable to find the correct source. However, proper credit must be given when due. Therefore, I say to the anonymous author of the untitled satirical golf novel published by an unknown press sometime around the turn of the century: Thank You for the Squirts.
A N O T E O N T H E A U T H O R
Adam Dunn is a freelance writer whose byline has appeared in eighteen publications in four countries, including the South China Morning Post, BBC News Online, CNN.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times. He lives with his family in New York City.
Copyright © 2010 by Adam Dunn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
“Angela” by the Verlaines written by Graeme Downes copyright © 1982, 1993 by Flying Nun Records. Reprinted by permission of Graeme Downes.
“Fairytale of New York” written by Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer copyright SPZ Music, Inc. (BMI) and Universal Music-MGB Songs (ASCAP). All rights reserv
ed. Used by permission.
“Killing An Arab” and music by Robert Smith, Laurence Tolhurst, and Michael Dempsey copyright © 1983 by Fiction Songs Ltd. All rights administered by Universal Music-MGB Songs. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
“Mah Nà Mah Nà” written by Piero Umiliani. Used by permission of Edward B. Marks Music Company.
Excerpt from The Finder by Colin Harrison copyright © 2008 by Colin Harrison. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Dunn, Adam.
Rivers of gold : a novel / Adam Dunn.— 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1 60819-307-3 (hardcover)
1. Photographers—Fiction. 2. Drug dealers—Fiction. 3. Organized crime—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.U557R58 2010
813'.6—dc22
2010011002
First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2010
This e-book edition published in 2010
E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-428-5
www.bloomsburyusa.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part I
Stepping Out
On the Set
In the Shadow of the Titty Bar
Fish Face