Invisible Streets

by Toby Ball

  “Frank?”

  “He wanted to know if I knew Grip because Grip had been hassling him and he couldn’t figure out why.” It would earn him a chit he could use later.

  Ving didn’t reply.

  “You still there?”

  Even through the phone line, Ving’s voice was taut. “Keep this conversation between us, Frank. Someday, it will turn out to be the right move for you, okay? You’ve got my word on that.”

  The line went dead, leaving Frings holding the receiver, trying to figure out how to read Ving’s last comment: as advice between friends, or a threat.

  He hung up, watched the men play out a last hand, and headed for the street.

  51

  DORMAN RODE THE ELEVATOR UP TO THE RESTAURANT OF THE HOTEL Leopold II with a group of three businessmen who’d been talking in the lobby, but now, with him in the elevator, they’d gone silent, exchanging glances and not quite restraining their smirks over some private joke.

  He followed the businessmen from the elevator lobby into the restaurant. The place was nearly full and hummed with conversation. A tuxedoed quartet played jazz quietly in the far corner. The crystal chandeliers glistened in the smoky air. The maître d’ seated the businessmen, who were back to their conversation. When he returned, Dorman told him that he was there to see Gerald Svinblad. The maître d’s professional manner couldn’t hide his confusion.

  “Mr. Canada couldn’t make it. He sent me.”

  The maître d’ gave Dorman a tight smile and, without a word, led him to Svinblad’s table, situated by one of the huge windows overlooking the City. Dorman saw that Svinblad had spotted his approach and, even from several tables away, could see his face redden with anger.

  “Mr. Dorman,” the maître d’ said with a brief nod.

  “My expectation,” Svinblad said through gritted teeth, “was that Nathan was meeting me tonight.”

  “Mr. Canada sends his regrets.” Dorman sat down and took a sip from the water glass at his setting.

  “I’m unclear why your boss thinks that he can take my money and then send you to meet with me, like I’m one of those serfs whose neighborhoods you pave over.”

  A waiter arrived, sparing Dorman from having to answer. Svinblad ordered them both whisky and sodas.

  DORMAN ENDURED A FEW MINUTES OF SVINBLAD’S IRE. HE’D KNOWN this would happen and kept his expression neutral, nodding occasionally in acknowledgment rather than agreement. The waiter returned with the drinks, and they ordered dinner. When the waiter had again departed, Svinblad seemed calmer. He’d apparently decided upon a new goal for the dinner.

  He regarded Dorman critically. “Since you’re here instead of your boss, let me ask you a question.”

  “Okay.”

  “Who else do you work for, besides Nathan?”

  “I’m sorry?” Dorman said, warily.

  “Who else? Who’s giving you a little something every month, helping you buy gifts for your girlfriend, keeping your wardrobe stocked with nice suits?”

  “Nobody else.”

  “Don’t screw with me. You’re not stupid and you’re not a saint, so don’t tell me you don’t get something here or there.”

  Dorman began to sweat under his suit. He flashed on Trochowski, wearing a wire in the back of the Double Eagle. Svinblad couldn’t be wearing a wire, though, could he? He’d been expecting Canada, not Dorman. Unless Canada had set Dorman up—sent him here to be tested, see if he’d take the bait. But that simply wasn’t the way Canada worked. It was paranoid thinking. So, if Svinblad wasn’t wearing a wire, he was feeling Dorman out, testing him, inquiring about his willingness to be his man inside Canada’s office. Plenty of people were on the take. Dorman himself had just this kind of arrangement with two-dozen people in strategic positions in government and business. He sometimes thought that the City wouldn’t function if it weren’t for these relationships.

  But Canada was a different story. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to anyone caught taking bribes in Canada’s office.

  “I don’t have any arrangements.”

  “Okay, then. What’s your price?”

  “I don’t have a price,” Dorman said, wondering if that was really true.

  Svinblad laughed disgustedly. “That’s precious. I throw fifty thousand on the table right now and ask you to look after my interests with the New City Project and you’re going to tell me no?”

  “Are you offering me fifty thousand dollars?”

  “I am asking you a question. Would you turn down fifty thousand?”

  “I would have to give that some thought.”

  “You’d have to give that some thought.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let me continue this hypothetical, if you will. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I do offer you fifty and you decide to accept it. Now, if something should come up—and I can’t think of anything off the top of my head—but if something should come up and my best interests and Nathan Canada’s best interests were in opposition, how would you decide whose interests you would give weight to?”

  Dorman looked outside, to where the City’s lights shone like a galaxy. “That’s a lot of ifs, and that’s one of those things that I’d have to think over as I considered whatever offer you hypothetically made me.”

  “You’re not inclined to answer my questions, are you?”

  “I think I’d be answering a question that you haven’t really asked.”

  Svinblad frowned, but seemed to accept that this was as much as he was going to get out of Dorman for the time being.

  52

  AT NINE IN THE EVENING, THE EIGHT BLOCKS OF PRUSSIA BOULEVARD known as the Hard Mile were a confusion of drunks, hookers, hoodlums, and the occasional cop. Grip, half in the bag, exhausted, walked through the crowd, shoulders squared. The pros wore threadbare coats over their scant clothes, trying to balance enticement with warmth. In the artificial light of the street lamps, their painted faces seemed ghoulish, like distorted masks leering out at Grip from the crowd.

  He made his way past dive bars whose stale beer stink wafted out into the street and hot sheet hotels that advertised hourly rates on their grimy windows. He kept his eye out for uniformed beat cops, adjusting his spot in the crowd to avoid any he saw. Finally, he came upon the White Rhino Hotel, a dingy place, metal grill on the plate-glass storefront, a sign advertising rooms for a dollar an hour or five a night. The girls loitering outside recognized him, a couple making a go at an enticing smile. Grip kept his head down, pushed through the entrance and into a lobby that smelled of piss and cigarettes.

  A couple of older prostitutes stood in the relative warmth, talking to two aged perverts whose faces glowed with perspiration. Grip walked past them to the front desk, guarded by a window of bullet-proof glass with a money slot cut into the bottom. Ed Wayne sat with his feet up, his porkpie hat tipped back on his pale, misshapen skull, reading a true-crime magazine. He had a beer in one hand and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  Grip knocked on the window, the glass streaked with hand prints and filth. Wayne looked up, annoyed, then smiled his awful smile as he saw Grip.

  “What brings you to my fine establishment, Tor?”

  “I need a room for the night.”

  Wayne squinted at him. “Here?”

  Grip nodded. Wayne shook his head as if it made no sense. Which, in fact, it didn’t.

  “You heard anything about me on the street?” Grip asked.

  Wayne laughed. “I hear people are looking for you.”

  “Who from?”

  Wayne shrugged. “I don’t remember. Maybe Albertsson, my young charge.”

  “What, that little fuck from the other night?”

  “He’s a patriot, Tor. Reminds me a little of you back in your frisky days.”

  Grip scowled at him. “Why don’t you find out from your charge what they want from me.”

  “You don’t know?”

  If the glass weren’t t
here, Grip wondered, would I bust his jaw or just think harder about it? “I’d like to get it clarified.”

  Wayne snorted a laugh. “I’ll talk to him, see what he knows.” He wiped his nose on the shoulder of his yellowed shirt.

  Grip stared at Wayne, wondering how it had ended up that this crazed freak was his best ally. For the first time in a while he found himself desperately wishing that Larry Morphy was still alive. Morphy wouldn’t be giving him shit in a situation like this—laughing and smirking. Morphy would damn well start knocking some people around until he found out what the story was. Then he’d put an end to it. Grip wondered if maybe that was what he should do. But people didn’t fear him like they used to fear Morphy. Hell, they didn’t fear him the way they feared him ten years ago. There was too much to sort through, and he was too exhausted. In his mind, questions seemed to swirl, unmoored from any connection or logic: Who had killed Linsky? What was Kollectiv 61? Where exactly did Zwieg and Kraatjes fit in, and what did they have to do with Patridis and Linsky? He was overwhelmed, unable to sort his thoughts. He needed a few hours of shut-eye, a clear head.

  “Okay, Ed. I need a room. A clean room.”

  “Hell, Tor. You want a clean room you’ll have to find yourself another hotel.”

  53

  LESTER FINCH’S APARTMENT WAS ABOVE A PAWNSHOP, THE STREET number hand-painted in yellow on a black metal door. Frings had taken a cab from the News-Gazette building, watching the blocks flow past, people carrying umbrellas or putting their chins to their chests against the steady rain. Frings looked for a buzzer, or some other way to get in touch with people in the apartments upstairs, but the wall around the door was empty. He looked up, rain catching him in the face. He jiggled the doorknob and the door opened slightly. Pulling the door open, Frings saw a thin man, maybe in his fifties, standing in the stairwell, a sleeveless tee shirt revealing well-muscled arms, his hair graying and wild, his eyes red. Too old to be Finch.

  Frings folded up his umbrella, excused himself as he walked past the man, and started up the stairs. He glanced behind him to see the man still at the bottom of the stairs, watching him ascend to the dim landing. Two doors led to two apartments, one overlooking the street, the other probably facing an alley. Frings knocked at the door of the rear apartment.

  A voice from inside yelled, “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Finch?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Frank Frings, from the News-Gazette.”

  After a pause, the voice said, “What d’you want?”

  “A quick chat. A couple of questions.”

  Another pause was followed by footsteps moving toward the door. The door opened a crack, and Frings saw an eye peering out. The door closed again, and Frings heard the chain lock being undone. The door opened: a wiry gink, dark complexion, stubble, brown hair shaved nearly to the skin, holding a gun.

  Frings showed the man his palms, keeping his cane upright with his wrist, but dropping his umbrella. The guy gave him a long look, frowned to himself, lowered the gun.

  “It’s alright. Come on in.” He spoke quickly, as though he only had a limited time to get the words out.

  Shaken, Frings picked up the umbrella with unsteady hands, and walked into the tiny apartment, the man pulling the door shut behind them. The thing that hit Frings first were the guns, the sheer number of them. They were propped on nails driven into the wall above the spare, single mattress lying on the floor—at least thirty of them: rifles, pistols, shotguns, the whole range. Frings didn’t like guns, especially in the hands of a man who Frings thought was probably unstable. The adrenaline from his fear made him jittery.

  “You’re Lester Finch?” Frings asked, making sure.

  “Les,” the man said, nodding to a single kitchen chair pulled up to a chipped Formica table. Frings sat. Finch reclined on his mattress, slouching so that his upper back was propped against the wall. He laid his gun on the bed next to him. Frings felt some of the tension ease.

  “You here about the study?”

  “Why would you say that?” Frings asked.

  “What else would you be here for?”

  Frings nodded at him. “You’ve got a lot of guns.”

  Finch looked around the room as if confirming what Frings had said. “Yeah, I guess I do. It’s a hobby, guns. I like to clean them, take them apart, put them back together.”

  Rain slammed against Finch’s window like radio static. Frings saw dirty dishes sitting in the tiny metal sink, beer bottles on the counter.

  “You’re right though, Les”—Frings said, his voice almost a parody of calm—“I came here to talk about the study. Ledley’s study.”

  Finch’s eyes bore in on Frings. He blinked in spasmodic bursts and then stared. “What d’you know?”

  Frings shrugged. “Not very much. That’s why I came to see you.”

  Finch shook his head a couple of times. “Where do you want to start?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  Finch stood up from the mattress and walked to the window. “You see a guy on the stairs?”

  “I did.” Frings’s adrenaline spiked again now that Finch was up.

  “The guy’s there a lot. I ask him if he lives here and he says no. I ask him if he’s here looking after me or maybe he wants to kill me and he says maybe. And I ask him, maybe what? Are you here to look after me or to kill me, and the guy laughs like there isn’t much difference, you know?”

  “I know, Les. There’s not much difference,” Frings said cautiously.

  “You know that?” Finch turned away from the window, locked in on Frings, his eyelids fluttering.

  Frings frowned, nodded gravely.

  “’Cause that’s what I found out from Ledley’s study, you know? I found out that watching over and killing’s two sides of the coin. Killing you inside.”

  Frings nodded gently. “How did you learn this?”

  “Listen, this is how it went. I was a sophomore at the Tech, I got a letter from Dr. Ledley—the great Dr. Ledley”—Finch spit the words out—“says ten dollars a session to take part in a psychological study. Ten bucks a session? You bet. So I go and the first four, five times I just take tests, a whole bunch of them. They go on and on, some of them on paper, others with Dr. Ledley or one of his students asking me to do things, put pictures in the right order or repeat numbers back to them in a different order. That was, what, maybe four times. Four or five.

  “The first session after that, they give me a pad of paper and a pencil and they say, write your philosophy of life. I say, ‘What does that mean?’ and they say, you know, to do whatever I want. It means whatever I want it to mean. So I wrote about things that I thought were important at the time. Crap things like no nuclear weapons and ending diseases and other stuff like that. People being able to live how they wanted. So I did that and they gave me ten dollars again.”

  Frings nodded.

  “Next time I come back, they put me in a room with like a couch and some magazines and there’s some jazz music going, and they ask me to suck on a sugar cube until it dissolves into my mouth, which seemed like kind of a weird thing, but I did it. A half hour later and the whole world starts changing, getting bigger or smaller and anything that moves is leaving like a little trail.”

  “LSD?”

  “Yeah, LSD. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I figured what was going on had to be from the sugar cube, and I asked the man who was there watching, a little guy with glasses, I ask him if this is going to wear off and he smiled and said, yes, of course, so I went with it.”

  “What did you do?” Frings asked.

  “Different things. He wanted me to guess when a minute was up. Like he’d say, ‘go,’ and then I was supposed to say stop or something when a minute had passed. But I never got it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we tried three or four times but I always got distracted, forgot what I was doing. The little guy kept reminding me and then we’d start again.�
��

  “Then what?”

  “More stuff like that. He’d ask me how far away something was or to throw a ball into a waste basket, see how I did. It was hard, trying to get a hold of that stuff in my mind. Distances, time, all messed up.”

  Finch sat back down on the mattress, slouching again. He picked up the gun and turned it absently in his hands. Frings wondered if it was loaded.

  “Was that it?” Frings asked.

  “For that time, yeah. They let me go, and I was still, you know, not all there for hours, just walking around campus, looking at things: people, trees.” There was a pause. “But the next time was different.”

  54

  GRIP GRABBED A GYPSY CAB, FLASHED HIS BADGE AT THE GUY, SAID HE’D pay him a ten spot to drive him around for the morning. Plus, Grip wouldn’t turn him in for driving an unlicensed taxi. The driver wasn’t too happy about this arrangement, but he grudgingly did as he was told.

  Grip had him drive to the Tech and then by Ben Linsky’s apartment building. Grip saw the lights on in Linsky’s apartment, wondered if forensics was still working the place over or whether they’d let the roommates back in. He spotted an unmarked parked illegally at a fire hydrant and, not liking his odds, told the hack to keep moving.

  His priority was survival. It was hard to do much digging, and he could barely figure out what was going on. He could no longer tell when he was acting independently, and when he was being manipulated. Like with Linsky—how could anyone predict that Grip would have planted the memo, that it would have gotten into the hands of someone who’d take it as a reason to murder? He couldn’t talk to Zwieg—this was now clear—but he wasn’t sure that he could talk to Ving, either. The situation was too precarious. He needed to figure out what the hell was going on, first. Then he’d decide what to do.

  They drove to Cafe?, and Grip had the hack pull up to the curb, told him to wait. The cabbie’s eyes did a little shift, looking from Grip down the road, then back to Grip.