Fail

by Rick Skwiot

  “I don’t see how I can help.”

  “I saw your name on the list of invitees to Mayor Cira’s Christmas party. You go?”

  “Oh, yeah. Never know what you might learn if you stay sober when others don’t. Used to be more of an orderly Lebanese affair when their mob ran City Hall and doled things out under the table. Now it’s a free-for all and everyone has their hand out. Hard to separate the gangsters from the politicians from the businessmen.”

  “I’ve noted some crossover myself. How well do you know Ellen Cantrell?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning she’s not the warm fuzzy sort you want to snuggle with. Talk about ambitious. When she arrived on the scene fresh out of J-school she was aggressive and confident even though she didn’t know a damn thing. Sometimes we covered the same stories and girl-to-girl I’d try to steer her in the right direction so she wouldn’t make a complete ass of herself. Not that I ever got any thanks for it. Behind her back the newspaper people called her ‘Geralda.’ Didn’t take her long to make anchor babe.”

  “Because she was a good journalist?”

  “Please, we’re talking television here. She looks like a leggy model.”

  “You’re not chopped liver yourself, Laura.”

  “Thanks for the kosher diplomacy. I could buy the same tits as hers but I’d still be five-foot-two.”

  “Rumor has it that she’s been shaking those at Hizonor.”

  The jacketed waiter came to take their orders, and when he left, Berkman said, “That’s one thing about clever people—they’re never as clever as they think.”

  “At least not clever enough to fool you.”

  “I’m paid to keep my eyes open. Seems that over the past six months the mayor has been traveling a bit more and often including his press secretary in his entourage. Nothing wrong in that of course, just my observation. Maybe even justified in that he has a tough primary coming up in March against Aldermanic President Milton Jackson Holmes and any misstep could be costly. On the other hand it could be very, very bad, politically speaking, for him to be outted as a philanderer on the eve of that election.”

  “You pretty certain about the affair?”

  She shrugged. “A powerful politician getting a little on the side? Been known to happen. God knows he tries with most anything in a skirt, yours truly included. And if you’re wondering, I demurred. Bottom line, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t stepping out on his wife. And Ellen Cantrell would surely top his hit list.”

  “Any solid evidence?”

  “You mean like close-up penetration photos? Evidence in such cases a bit hard to come by, so to speak. But I keep reading the Evening Whirl in hopes they write something like: ‘WHO is the downtown power ranger dipping his pen in city ink?’”

  “Damn.”

  “What?”

  Gabriel took a drink of wine but did not taste it. “This complicates things.”

  “For you and your special assignment?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But such things aren’t an anomaly these days among politicians, CEOs, and football coaches.”

  “The same hormone that makes a man overly ambitious and aggressive also makes him overly horny,” Gabriel added.

  “Maybe. But in most cases I think the sex is a sideshow for all parties concerned. The real payback is power of one sort or another. For her, access to the mayor’s inner circle, the movers, and the money. For him, the preening self-satisfaction a man takes by bedding a beautiful local celebrity. But as I have no idea what your assignment is all about, I have no way of judging if this is really a complicating factor for you.”

  He studied her. “Between friends and off-the-record?”

  She nodded. Gabriel went on. “If I could locate a certain distraught someone who has taken a powder and return him to his wife without anything hitting the newspapers and/or the fan at a very inopportune time for the mayor’s political aspirations, I would be rewarded.”

  “No shit? When did this happen?”

  Gabriel counted on his fingers. “Five days ago.”

  “Well,” mused Berkman, “it certainly could complicate things if the errant spouse—that is, the one who disappeared—was aware of his wife’s unfaithfulness and the identity of her presumed lover. Particularly if he might file for divorce and make public certain facts that could compromise the mayor.”

  Gabriel smoothed a wrinkle in the white tablecloth. “Well, I guess there’s one way to find out.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Ask the wife.”

  “Are you serious, Carlo? I thought you were bucking for promotion, not plotting early retirement.”

  He waved away her objection. “I’ve handled tougher customers than Ellen Cantrell. I might ruffle her feathers a bit but I can smooth them. Anyway, she’s not my client, the mayor is.”

  “I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you ask her.”

  Gabriel laughed coldly. “Sadist.”

  - 9 -

  After lunch Gabriel killed a few minutes at Police Headquarters catching up on City Hall scuttlebutt but learning nothing that might relate to his problem. He said his goodbyes and walked across the street to City Hall. There he passed through security, mounted the marble staircase to the second floor, and sidled through the doors of the Board of Aldermen Kennedy Hearing Room. He stood at the back. Positioned at the front on long tables were artists’ renderings and a model of a proposed residential/commercial development, Stadium Towne, that would encircle the new ballpark. The mayor’s pet project but not yet a done deal. It would have to get stamped by the Board of Aldermen. Meaning that public posturing and backroom dealing were about to commence and continue unabated until Election Day.

  North Side aldermen, led by Milton Jackson Holmes, most likely would demand African-American investment and construction jobs at a significant level. South Side aldermen would suggest focusing on residential neighborhoods and their diminishing city services instead of dubious high-profile downtown projects designed to aggrandize the mayor and enrich his supporters. Other aldermanic fiefdoms would send up howls of protest hoping to be thrown a bone. Ultimately, once everyone got a shank to bury, things would move ahead nicely.

  Ellen Cantrell, in a gray suit that did not clash with the colorful renderings, emceed the news conference, fielding questions from reporters and dishing them off when appropriate to the architects and developers. Always conscious of the TV cameras when answering, standing straight and still, she spoke in short, punchy sentences that could be easily edited into sound bites. She was a pro.

  Laura Berkman sat alone in the second row perusing a press kit in her lap, looking bored, ignoring Cantrell. She always waited until the TV lights went out and the cameramen began packing up their gear before asking the serious nuts-and-bolts questions that might make someone squirm. This time they concerned financing and interest rates, languishing tax revenues, and the actual economic impact of the project—questions that Cantrell herself addressed but didn’t really answer. Difficult to make projections and give hard numbers when you don’t yet know who you have to pay off.

  Afterward, Gabriel ambushed Cantrell in the hallway outside the conference room as the attendees exited.

  “Ms. Cantrell, do you have just a minute? I have some good news and a question.”

  She looked over her shoulder and raised a finger toward her secretary, who melted away. Cantrell turned back. “You’ve located Jonathan?”

  “Not yet, I’m sorry to say. But we found no foreign fingerprints inside the Jeep, just yours and your husband’s. Meaning no evidence of a carjacking or such.”

  She blew out a breath through pursed, painted lips. “How did you get my fingerprints?”

  Gabriel smiled. “Off your husband’s computer.”

  She studied his eyes for a moment then nodded as if granting ex post facto permission to lift her prints. Gabriel continued:

  “His prints were the only on
es on the keys, nice and clear. Keys in the ignition, as if he had left the car there for you.”

  “For me?”

  “It is your car, right? Registered in your name. Nice ride.”

  She shifted her weight to the other foot. “A leftover from my journalism days. You had a question for me, lieutenant?”

  “Yes, I have. Please excuse me for being blunt, but there are rumors floating around City Hall that you and the mayor are romantically involved. I was wondering if you knew whether your husband was aware of those rumors.”

  At that moment, even though she was a white woman, she reminded him of his ex. Something about the eyes. It made him glad that he carried a Smith & Wesson on his belt and she was unarmed and not vice-versa.

  “Detective…,” She spat the word out like a rotten grape. “Your job is to find my husband. Not to chase malicious and unfounded rumors spread by political opponents. Stick to your job or I’ll see you won’t have one.”

  Ah, hardball. He tilted his head to the right as if in obeisance.

  “I understand your anger. I’m just as sensitive as you are, Ms. Cantrell, to anyone besmirching my good name. But I’m trying to help. I thought to bring this up as a favor to you and the mayor. Malicious and unfounded rumors can be just as damaging as the truth. If someone, say, a political opponent, was shooting at my ass, I’d want to know so as to cover it.

  “Secondly, if your husband had heard the rumors, no matter how untrue, it could certainly alter his mindset, perhaps dramatically—particularly coupled with losing his job. If I’m to find him I need to know all I can about what might be motivating him and his state of mind at the time of his disappearance.”

  She pressed the portfolio she carried to her chest. “I see what you’re saying. I am worried about Jonathan. If he’d heard such rumors, he made no mention of them to me.”

  “To your knowledge did anything occur at the mayor’s Christmas party last Friday night that might have agitated Jonathan? Maybe someone trying to get to you and the mayor through your husband.”

  “I don’t know. I was busy. We hardly talked…” She looked down. “He’s always been serious-minded, but I’ve never known him to be depressed or to.…” Her breath seemed to catch in her chest.

  “I understand,” Gabriel said. “We’ll find him. He’s likely just lying low and thinking things over. No one just disappears.”

  The usual cop crap, kin to “Help us and we’ll help you” and “We’re doing all we can.” Phrases that make the job somewhat manageable.

  Next morning, just like he figured, Gabriel got a call from the mayor’s secretary. His phone buzzed as he stood in his robe with his coffee cup watching the sun rise over the silhouetted Arch. At times in the evening it glowed golden as the sun set behind his building. Then it looked like a great gilded handle affixed to the riverfront awaiting the hand of God to yank the city to heaven or hell.

  Within the hour he was again mounting the marble staircase at City Hall. On the second floor he marched into the red-carpeted suite on the building’s north side where the mayor’s assistant told him to go on in, he was expected.

  In the mayor’s office, tall windows overlooked Market Street and the park there. A block over he could see the Soldier’s Memorial with its staunch columns and beyond it another two blocks the arched entrance to the Central Library.

  Angelo Cira—Mad Angelo—sat behind his desk talking on the phone, an unlit cigar seated between forefinger and middle finger of his left hand. In summertime he often wore colorful Hawaiian shirts with palm trees and such, gabardine slacks, and Italian loafers sans socks. But today it was a nice charcoal hound’s-tooth suit that Gabriel envied, a French-blue dress shirt, and silk tie—navy with gray crosshatches. He was in fine form. Cira gestured with his cigar toward a chair across from him. Gabriel folded his scarf and topcoat on an adjacent chair, sat, smoothed his own tie, and pretended not to listen.

  “I don’t give a damn what Holmes is saying publicly. Once we’ve handed him his ass in the primary he’ll come along … Not to worry. I know how to take care of him … Okay, see you then.”

  The mayor hung up the phone and shook his head. “Politics! People! If I could just be Dictator for a Day I’d fix everything, Carlo. Well, it might take a year or two. Just tell everyone what to do and it gets done or else. But no, everyone’s got their own agenda and their own ideas. You got to wheedle and cajole the bastards to get them to lift a finger.”

  “I’ll try not to fall into that category.”

  Cira laughed. “No, you’re a team player, my friend. Always have been. That’s why I brought you in on this.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “I want you to push ahead as hard as you can to find this guy.” Cira made a fist.

  “I am.”

  “But just keep to the task. Don’t stray.”

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t want anything to hit the media at a bad time. I’ve got the primary in March. I need this resolved. And I need Ellen Cantrell focused on her job and not worrying about her old man.”

  First person singular: I, I, I. The mayor was still the same self-involved Angelo Cira he’d always known, albeit now with silver hair and mustache instead of black, tailored suit in lieu of SLPD blue.

  “She doesn’t seem too worried.”

  Cira puffed on the cold cigar and studied Gabriel with deep-set eyes. “Look, Carlo. The public’s memory is about as long as my dick. By next summer they won’t give a damn who you thumped or how hard. We can bring you back downtown. Put you back in place. Like old times. Maybe we can even work together again. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Gabriel sat with legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. “More than anything.”

  “I wanted you handling this because you know how to play ball. Find a good resolution and your ticket’s punched.”

  The mayor’s eyes moved momentarily to Gabriel’s overcoat. He reached for it and stood.

  “Thanks, Ange. That’s good to hear.”

  Cira came around the desk and embraced him. He whispered in his ear. “We’ve always stuck together, Carlo. You’re my main man.”

  Gabriel jogged down the broad stairs to the first floor where Preacher Cairns had cornered a young couple who had come to City Hall for their marriage license. He paused to take in the scene, which took him back to more innocent times. Then he moved outside, stood on the steps, and tightened his scarf to buffer an icy north wind blowing down the boulevard. He should have felt good about his meeting with Angelo and the sizeable carrot the mayor had dangled before him. But he didn’t.

  Back at the North Patrol Division office Gabriel found The Gecko in the kitchen coaxing the last drops out of the coffeemaker. He never quite filled out his uniform, which always hung in disarray—collar of the blousy light-blue shirt wrinkled, black nametag crooked, dark-blue tie off-center, shoes scuffed. But today it looked like he had slept in it, his eyelids red, skin oily.

  “You look like hell, Gecko. You should give the little lady a rest once in a while. You’ll wear it out.”

  The Gecko sipped from a Washington University mug. He had taken a degree at the elite local school magnum cum laude in Computer Science & Engineering. But for some reason he wanted to be a St. Louis cop instead of a Silicon Valley potentate. Go figure.

  “Partying with Professor Stone—not Sarah—till four,” he said, “per your instructions to bear down, lieutenant. Come. I’ll show you what I found.”

  On the drive back to the office, Gabriel had wondered when a break might come. Stone had to be somewhere, dead or alive. Sooner or later he had to surface—figuratively or literally. The sooner the better for Gabriel’s purposes. Now, maybe The Gecko had turned up something. He followed his colleague down the hallway. “Something show up on his credit cards or bank account?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “I’m starting to think my man’s in the river. Under a log or an ice floe.”

  “I’m not
so sure.”

  He sat at his desk, where Stone’s laptop had been wired into his computer and oversized monitor. Gabriel pulled up a chair beside him. The computer geek began working his mouse and keyboard.

  “Looks pretty innocuous, right? Emails to students, visits to online libraries, paperbacks bought at Amazon, e-books downloaded from Gutenberg. Literary subscriptions and memberships. Damn few documents. Just the abandoned dissertation and a few book reviews and articles he’d written. Which got me curious. You indicated he was conducting some educational research, something to do with the schools. His office mate Dadisi said he had become ‘obsessed’ with it according to your notes. But none of it was here. Which suggested it must be somewhere else.”

  “Brilliant, my dear Watson.”

  The Gecko continued typing. “So I began poring through all his web history to see the sites he’d visited. He’d cleaned it out regularly, which might have fooled most lay people. But everything you do is there somewhere on the hard drive if you know where to look. And, bingo! There it was.”

  Gabriel focused on the screen and frowned. “Cloud eye ex? What the hell?”

  The Gecko cast him a disdainful look. “Cloud nine. An online drop-box where you can store documents and access them from any computer. He visited it only once from this laptop to set up the account. Which I have successfully hacked into. Here, lieutenant, is where Stone secreted all his research and apparently accessed from a second computer.”

  Gabriel read the file names aloud: “‘Corruption in academia.’ ‘Corruption in the public schools.’… ‘corruption, corruption, corruption’ … What’s he up to?”

  “Our man—if he’s still alive—is on a mission. Some pretty enlightening reading, Carlo.”

  “Sounds like just the thing for the weekend—a real page-turner. Can you get me copies?”

  The Gecko held up a two-inch-long leather sheath. “It’s all on this flash drive, lieutenant. Good luck with it.”

  Gabriel took it, stood then turned back. “You said ‘emails to students.’ Any one such student with a lot of traffic. Female maybe.”