Georgia picked her way across the laundry on his floor and sat on the edge of his bed. She kept her gaze on the Mets poster on the wall. She was sure Richie had been crying, and she was just as sure he’d rather she not make issue of it.
“I made a mistake bringing Mac into your life so quickly,” she said softly. “It was bad judgment on my part, and I’m sorry.” She sighed. “You two got along so well and I…I wanted so much for you to have something resembling a dad…I hope you can forgive me.” She reached out and squeezed his hand, then rose to leave.
“Mom?” Richie straightened up and rubbed his eyes. “Do you still love Mac?”
Georgia swallowed hard. She’d been with Mac Marenko for four months, and she’d never actually asked herself that question. Did she love him? Now? Ever?
“Yes, Richie,” Georgia whispered, giving words to something she’d not been willing to acknowledge in her heart. “I guess I do.”
Richie flopped back on his bed. “Me, too,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Me, too.”
41
Georgia managed to calm Richie down later that evening and eventually get him to bed. What would happen to them all tomorrow—and the day after that, and the day after that—was another matter. Georgia popped open a beer and sat on the front stoop watching the fireflies dance in the humid night air. Her mother joined her for a while, but eventually grew tired and went to bed. There were no words of comfort for anyone tonight, it seemed.
A car drove down the street, the headlights bouncing off the line of parked cars along the curb. One of them was Georgia’s—parked just two car lengths from her front door. She squinted at her windshield now, illuminated by the passing headlights. Something was lodged under one of the front wiper blades. Not an advertisement—more like a big envelope.
She put down her beer and pushed herself off the stoop to investigate. It was a plain nine-inch-by-thirteen-inch manila envelope. It couldn’t have been there all day—there had been a lot of rain in the afternoon, and the envelope was dry. There was no address or markings on the outside. She opened it and slid the contents out. The top sheet was a mimeographed copy of a typewritten letter. There was a signature at the bottom. Lieutenant Edward Delaney, FDNY Division of Safety. Georgia scanned the rest of the sheets. It was the complete record of the 1984 Bridgewater investigation—not the original, but a very old copy. The paper was faded—almost translucent—and it had yellowed to the color of a smoker’s teeth. There was no note inside, nothing to indicate who had sent it to her. But she didn’t need a note to know: Seamus Hanlon.
Georgia walked back to her stoop and slowly read through the materials. The language was lifeless but the words, even disguised in the most bloodless prose, were chilling. The firefighters who’d been at the Bridgewater blaze described flames in blue and green, smoke so thick they couldn’t find the door and bursting drums that flew like missiles through the air.
Piece by painstaking piece, Delaney had managed to assemble the documents, interviews and lab results necessary to prove that then-mayor Hank Berman had orchestrated the cover-up of a huge toxic dump site and lent political protection to the companies most at risk for liability: Empire and Tristate. Nineteen men—soon to be twenty—died horrible, lingering deaths so that a handful of powerful men could save face and protect their interests.
Georgia didn’t even know whom to be angry at anymore. Berman was long dead. Tristate had gone out of business. The men at Empire who’d helped facilitate the cover-up were probably retired or dead by this time. Even if someone made restitution at this point, how could any of the firefighters’ families recoup what they’d lost after twenty-five years? Indeed, how could Robin Hood?
It wasn’t cold out, but Georgia began to shiver as she put the papers away. She stared at the envelope and pictured the destruction Delaney’s computer simulation could only hint at yesterday. And she knew: The money won’t be enough for Robin Hood. He’s going to explode the bomb. Hood had viciously burned two doctors who had denied the firefighters line-of-duty pensions. He wasn’t simply going to take the money and run.
Seamus. I’ve got to ask him if he knows any other family members connected to Bridgewater who might want revenge. He gave me the report. He’s bound to want to help.
Georgia went inside and dialed Engine Two-seventy-eight. Hanlon sounded breathless when a firefighter handed him the line.
“It’s me, Georgia. I just wanted to thank you,” she said.
There was a long pause. “You mean for our uh…conversation the other day?” asked Hanlon.
“No. I mean for that envelope—the one you left on my car.”
Another long pause. “Spit it out, lass. I’ve just come back from a bad fire, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The copy of Delaney’s report—the one I asked you for,” Georgia stammered. “It was on my car tonight. Didn’t you put it there?”
“You have the report?” Panic edged up Hanlon’s voice. “Listen to me, Georgia. Get rid of it. Don’t tell anyone you have it—please. I didn’t give it to you. I wouldn’t give it to you. I want you to live a long and happy life. And that thing? That thing kills men.”
“It didn’t kill you.”
“I was a drunk with a sick brother when it came out. I had so many other problems, I was no threat to anybody.”
“It didn’t kill Delaney.”
“You don’t know what it did to Ed Delaney. Let me tell you. He tried to make a difference with it, and he couldn’t. And then Pat Flannagan…” Hanlon’s voice faltered. “Burn the report, lass. Burn it. They got to Flannagan; they can get to you.” He hung up.
42
Georgia stared at the phone as if Seamus Hanlon’s fear could still radiate through the receiver. Whom was he so afraid of?
A part of her wanted to shelve the report. It wouldn’t help her find Robin Hood—not at eleven-thirty P.M. on the eve of his promised explosion. And yet, someone had risked his life and career to get the report to her—someone who knew her car, or had staked it out, or had access to motor vehicle files. Georgia debated calling Carter, but she knew he couldn’t help her on this one. He’d already told her to leave Bridgewater alone.
While she was deciding what to do, her pager went off. A tremor rippled through her body when she saw the number: Chief Brennan’s cell phone. Robin Hood has contacted the city about the drop. She dialed his number.
“Skeehan,” he grunted. “I’m at City Hall. Can someone stay with your kid?”
“My mother’s here. I’ll talk to her, Chief.”
“Good. I’ve just instructed Fire Marshal Kyle to pick you up and escort you to City Hall. You’ll be briefed when you arrive. You’re to stay at Manhattan base for the duration of this operation.”
Georgia frowned at the receiver. I don’t need an escort. And if I wanted a partner, I’d ask Randy. But she had a sense of why Brennan had chosen Kyle over Carter. The chief wanted someone watching Georgia whose loyalties were greater to the department than to her.
Georgia wanted to ask about the bomb. She wanted to tell Brennan about the report. But she knew better than to trust such important conversations to an unprotected line. She’d bring the report along and show it to him when she saw him. “I’ll be ready when Marshal Kyle arrives,” she said and hung up.
Andy Kyle picked her up in a department-issued Chevy Caprice about twenty-five minutes later. On the trip into Manhattan, he filled her in on what he knew of the operation so far. “Tomorrow’s drop is supposed to be in Chinatown. Robin Hood sent a tape to the mayor’s office, spelling it all out. Brennan will tell you where exactly. I understand A and E is setting up the stakeout now.”
Georgia raised an eyebrow. Kyle sounded well informed. “Were you just briefed?” she asked him. “Or did you know before this?”
He gave her an amused look. “What you’re really asking is, do I have some kind of inside track with the brass.”
“Well…yeah.”
“I
found out about this whole operation about three hours ago,” he explained. He caught her dubious look. “Georgia, I was a warm body standing around Manhattan base, and I’m new enough to do everything by the book.”
“That’s true,” Georgia had to admit. She ran through the roster of marshals on duty herself. Giordano had too big a mouth to trust on something like this. McClusky was too paranoid. Suarez was dependable, but likely to handle things his own way.
“For what it’s worth,” Kyle added, “I think this Robin Hood is going through a lot of trouble for a million dollars. People who set up securities frauds make this kind of money with a lot less personal risk.”
They were rolling through mid-Manhattan now. Even at half past midnight, the streets were filled with people. Theatergoers in suits. Tourists in shorts, clutching their cameras and pocketbooks tightly. Suburban teens with tie-dyed hair and more body piercings than a voodoo doll. There were rows of yellow cabs, store windows filled with Statue of Liberty replicas and street guitarists hammering out tunes on opposite corners beneath a sky so dark and thick, you could run a butter knife through it.
“I don’t think Robin Hood’s pulling this blackmail for the money,” said Georgia.
“You think he’s doing it for revenge,” said Kyle. Georgia gave him a startled look. Kyle might have been told the who, what and where of this operation. But the why wouldn’t be part of any standard briefing.
“You asked me about Tristate and Northway,” Kyle reminded her. “I kind of put two and two together from what my father could tell me about Tristate.”
He turned his eyes from the wheel and searched Georgia’s face. “That’s why Empire’s paying this Robin Hood off, isn’t it?” he asked. “The city thinks a bomb on the pipeline will make investors and the public skittish about having a river of gasoline so near the new football stadium. It’ll open up a can of worms about that piece of land and stop the whole project.”
Georgia didn’t answer.
“I know.” Kyle sighed. He made a face and tried his hand at a heavy New York accent. “‘Don’t tell An-dy an-y-thing. He’s the neeeww fish.’”
Georgia laughed. “Not even close on the accent.”
Kyle grinned. “No. But right on target with the sentiment, right? Hey, Georgia—I’m on your side here. I think the whole payoff-coverup idea stinks.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I think the city should’ve told the ATF about this—brought in the heavy guns. I think they should do an investigation into Empire and Northway and stop the stadium project until all these bastards pay restitution for the damage they’ve done.”
She shook her head. “Nothing anyone can do about it.”
“Not unless you’ve got the goods to fry the bastards,” he agreed.
But I have the goods, thought Georgia. Right here. Right in my bag. I can do something about this.
The Federalist columns of City Hall gleamed white under the spotlights as Kyle drove the department car into an underground garage. He and Georgia showed ID to a police officer on duty.
“The lady comes with me,” the officer grunted, then looked at Kyle. “You stay here.”
Georgia rifled through the gym bag of spare clothing she’d packed and found the envelope with Delaney’s report. She tucked it into a notepad to take to the briefing.
An elevator delivered them to the second floor. The hall was empty except for the commotion coming from one conference room with another police guard by the door.
“It’s a zoo in there,” said the officer as he left her by the doorway. Georgia quickly saw what he meant. The room was large but felt small because of the frenetic activity and blacked-out windows. There were men and women in suits with cell phones at their ears and grimaces on their faces. Some had guns on their hips—police detectives. Others were jotting notes and calling out orders. It looked like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the start of a sell-off. A flurry of paperwork was flying across a conference table—maps and charts and memos. But nothing prepared her for the face in the center of the knot: Mayor Franco Ortaglia.
Ortaglia was a small man with thin lips and dark, wary eyes. He had the look of a coiled spring about him. He tried to smile, but the tightness in his pressed lips reminded Georgia of someone with heartburn. He looked over the head of one of his aides and frowned at Georgia as if she were a smudge on a streak of glass he had just cleaned.
“You’re doing the drop,” he grunted. “Hmm…yes…well.”
Georgia didn’t know if she should extend a hand or sink into a corner. Brennan solved the dilemma.
“Take a seat over there somewhere, Skeehan,” said Brennan, gesturing to some empty chairs away from the conference table. “We’ll get to you in a minute.”
Ortaglia grunted out a few directives to some of the people in the room, then disappeared with four or five of his entourage. Brennan walked over to her when he had left.
“We’ve gotten word from Robin Hood,” he said. “The drop is going to be at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow at the corner of Mott Street and Bayard, by a fire alarm box outside Tung Hoy Takeout. Lieutenant Sandowsky’s crew from A and E is there now, setting up the stakeout. You will stay at Manhattan base tonight with Andy Kyle and await my orders. Stick around for a while, in case there’s anything else I need you for.” He turned to go.
“Chief?”
“What?”
“I…I need to run something by you,” Georgia stammered. “Something that ties this whole situation to Robin Hood.”
“What?”
“I have a copy of that nineteen eighty-four Division of Safety Report. When you have a moment, perhaps you could take a look at it.”
Brennan’s face paled—even the rosacea on his cheeks. It took him a moment to find his voice. “Where is the report?” he asked finally.
“I have it with me,” said Georgia, fingering an envelope inside her notebook.
“Let’s take a little walk, Skeehan. You, me and the report.”
Georgia silently followed Brennan out of the conference room, down a flight of stairs and through a hallway carpeted in slate blue and trimmed in white wainscoting. She was too nervous to take in the nearly two-hundred-year-old building’s long curved windows and ornate, white-plaster moldings.
They came to a door that opened into a formal, eighteenth-century-style room painted in Wedgewood blue. An oil portrait of Thomas Jefferson loomed over the lectern.
“Do you know what this room is, Skeehan?” asked Brennan. The room was large, and his booming voice echoed beneath a cut-glass chandelier.
“No, sir.”
“It’s called the ‘blue room.’ It’s where Mayor Ortaglia holds all his press conferences and other official events. Do you know why I brought you here?”
Georgia didn’t even try to answer.
“Because in this room, I believe, you can feel the power and greatness of the city of New York. And I’m not talking about Franco Ortaglia, either. I’m talking about the city—the entire fucking city.” He opened his fleshy palms. “It eclipses the power of the FDNY and the NYPD combined. And it certainly eclipses the power of the Bureau of Fire Investigation.”
“It shouldn’t eclipse the law,” said Georgia, sensing where this was leading.
Brennan raised an eyebrow at her. “You think the Bureau of Fire Investigation exists to put arsonists in jail, don’t you?” he asked.
“Well…” Georgia ran her hand along the solid white enameled edge of the room’s heavy wainscoting. “…Yes. I do.”
“It exists because the fire commissioner, the mayor and the men who run this city choose to let it exist. Fires have to be put out, Skeehan. Garbage has to be picked up, subways have to run. But some street mutt puts a match to a can of lighter fluid, nobody has to do a damn thing…Oh”—he shrugged—“the NYPD can arrest him, and maybe A and E can make a case against him. Or maybe not. Only we get to say if the evidence points to a crime or an accident. And we don’t do it by divine right
. We do it by privilege. You abuse that privilege, it gets taken away.”
Georgia’s hand froze on the wainscoting.
“Can they do that?” she whispered. “Shut down the bureau, I mean.”
Brennan frowned, suddenly aware of whom he was speaking to. Georgia caught the twitch in his beady blue eyes. The big, blubbery man with the silver hair and pitted skin suddenly didn’t look so imposing. Suddenly, he looked a little scared. He held out a hand.
“Give me the report, Skeehan. That’s a direct order.”
“But, Chief, our men died because of what happened at Bridgewater. And the city did them in.”
He snorted. “What do you think you’re going to do? Wave this in front of the mayor? He doesn’t care, Skeehan. It didn’t happen on his watch. All he wants are his seats on the fifty-yard line. You, on the other hand, have a lot to lose here.”
He took a small tape recorder out of his pocket. “Remember this?” he asked. He pushed Play:
“…I broke into Dana’s house. I saw the clicker to open his garage on his kitchen counter, so I slipped the lock. It was a stupid, rookie thing to do…I deserve charges.”
Georgia closed her eyes as she listened to her confession being played back at her.
“Think long and hard here about your career, Skeehan,” said Brennan. “Yours and Carter’s. ’Cause I’ll take you both down. You’d be throwing away two careers for a few pieces of paper that can’t help those firefighters anyway. It’s too late.”
Georgia narrowed her gaze at him now. The room seemed to close in. Her stomach went into free fall. “Why would you threaten my career like this? Or Carter’s?” she asked softly. “Do you hate me that much?”
“Hate you?” He laughed joylessly. “Believe it or not, Skeehan, I’m trying to do you a favor here—for Marenko’s sake, poor bastard—not yours.” He waited a moment for that to sink in, then held out a fleshy hand. “Marshal, give me the report,” he said softly. “I’m not trying to destroy your career. I’m trying to save your life.”
Flashover Page 27