Austin went on. “This is the next generation that will be their permanent bridge between the U.S. and China. Which explains why they’re buying, why they’re investing in solid assets, here.”
As the SUV rumbled over a railroad track crossing, Lane noticed that the streets and roadsides now were coated in a white dust. And, after a moment, he saw why: next to a concrete manufacturing plant was a limestone quarry that looked like an enormous—at least twenty acres—white-rimmed pond filled with sparkling greenish blue water. Beyond it, there looked to be nothing but a swamp-like wilderness.
We’re out in the middle of nowhere, he thought. Or at least on the edge of it.
Just up the dusty road from the quarry Lane saw, far out in the middle of an open field, chain-link fence and concertina razor wire. It encircled what he thought, considering its institutional design of heavy cinder-block walls inset with very small windows, had to be a jail.
“That’s the correctional facility,” Austin said, having noticed where Lane was looking. He chuckled, and added, “No one tries escaping from there.”
“Because of the fences?”
“Because of the alligators, which the fences keep out.”
Lane wondered how much of that was true, as Austin sped though two more turns, passing distribution warehouses for a grocery store chain and an auto parts chain.
Finally, the SUV pulled through a gate and stopped before a two-story building, its sunbaked, corrugated-steel skin a faded blue. The manufacturing plant looked as if it covered at least four acres. Bolted to its front was a sign with bright lettering: FUTURE MODULAR MANUFACTURING, LLC.
Austin turned in his seat, and said, “I’m really glad you took Camilla Rose’s suggestion and made the trip to see this. You’ll get a good idea of how it will work in Philly.”
“The lady is quite convincing,” Lane said, nodding. “I’m happy to have her support. And, no surprise, she’s right again. So far, I’ve been impressed with what you’ve shown me here.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Austin said as he reached behind the seat into the cooler. “Another beer? Gets pretty hot here, even in January.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Austin passed one can to Lane, opening his just as his phone rang.
He took a quick sip, then answered the call. “Hey, Kenny. I’m showing Willie Lane around the plant.” He paused to listen, then said, “Yeah, he just said he was impressed. Look, I’ll call you back in a bit.”
He broke off the call, and said, “Benson said to give you his regards.”
As they stepped from the vehicle and walked toward the main door, Lane saw at the far end of the building that there were rows containing dozens upon dozens of multicolored, forty-foot-long metal boxes stacked ten high. He recognized them as shipping containers; he had seen them lined up in similar fashion on the docks at the port in Philadelphia.
“As you saw this morning,” Austin said, “the iron framework of the condo is only half finished. When it’s finally complete, that’s when all this comes into play.”
Austin pointed toward the back of the building.
“At that end,” he said, “the trucks deliver the intermodal containers that come off the freighters at the Port of Miami. The containers have all the building materials—metal framing, sinks, toilets, floor tiles, whatever—that we have fabricated in China. The pieces are fed to the assembly line down at that end of the building and come out this end of the building as complete units.”
He started walking toward the far front of the building, gesturing for Lane to follow. After a bit, Lane had a better view of the adjacent property. It was maybe ten acres, surrounded by chain-link fence, that contained giant rectangular-shaped pods stacked four high. He guessed each was twenty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and twelve feet high. They were individually shrink-wrapped, one section of what had to be at least fifty pods in blue plastic sheeting, the other section in yellow. There were large, four-digit numbers stenciled in white on their sides. Against the nearest fence line were a half dozen flatbed trailers, each with one of the shrink-wrapped pods strapped to it.
“So,” Lane said, “what exactly are all these mysterious plastic-covered things?”
“The blue ones are kitchens and the yellow ones bathrooms.”
“You mean, like, portable kitchens and toilets?”
“They’re modular units,” Austin said, nodding. He pointed at the trailers. “We load them on the trailers and truck them to the construction site, where we cut that shrink-wrap off and hoist them into place on each floor with the crane. Those numbers on the plastic are the numbers of the condos they’re going in.”
“Portable kitchens,” Lane said again, his tone making it clear he still did not quite comprehend it all.
“Portable for now,” Austin said, turning to look at Lane, “but not after they’re slid into place and installed. See, the kitchens and bathrooms are all built as modules.” He gestured toward the manufacturing plant. “They’re done on the assembly line here. It’s a helluva lot easier, and more efficient, to have the materials in bulk here than to bring the pieces on-site and send them piece by piece up into the building, where workers have to put it all together in each separate unit. That old way is highly inefficient.”
“So these finished modules go into the buildings sort of like those plastic building blocks that kids snap together?”
“Yeah. You ever notice how high-rise condos and apartments and hotels and the like all have pretty much the same thing on every floor? The bathrooms and kitchens, for example, are all situated in the same place on a floor plan so that the water lines all run in the same area and the sewer lines drain straight down.”
“How about that?” Lane said, glancing back at the stacked boxes. “I never really thought about it, but they really are in the same place on every floor.”
“So after we put them in place, we hook up the plumbing and electrical to the buildings and we’re done. Same goes for the exterior of a building. The panels are fabricated off-site, trucked in, hoisted into place. We use electric cranes so we don’t violate the city’s nighttime noise ordinances and can work past the typical eight P.M. cutoff. That gets the building finished in a fraction of the time—the modular units can be built even before the building’s steel framework goes up. Even better is the labor: there’s plenty of craftsmen here from Central America and Cuba looking for steady work, so there’s no threat of walkouts. We can run three eight-hour shifts forever.” He nodded toward the building. “C’mon, I’ll show you the assembly line.”
Willie Lane nodded thoughtfully as they began walking.
“This is really amazing stuff,” he said, glancing back at the field of blue and yellow modules. “Tell me again what’s the initial investment for getting in one of these funds?”
John T. Austin took a big swallow of his beer, then grinned.
“I think we can work out something for the next mayor of Philly.”
[ FIVE ]
The tractor-trailer rig with the blue-shrink-wrapped modular unit disappeared inside the construction fencing as John Austin approached the front passenger door of Willie Lane’s Mercedes SUV. Behind him, an unwrapped bathroom unit, hanging from the end of the crane’s cable, ascended.
After Lane pushed the master switch that unlocked the car, he noticed that Austin used his left hand to open the door and then, once inside, to pull the door shut.
He must’ve really messed up his right arm, he thought.
“How’s it going, Willie?” Austin said.
“Jesus, you look like you got the shit beat out of you, Johnny,” Lane said, his gravel voice sounding rougher than usual. “You okay?”
“It feels like I did. Thanks for asking. And, yeah, except for this nasty bruise and a hairline fracture to my arm, I’ll survive, I guess.”
Austin reached inside his jack
et and came out with an envelope. He tossed it in Lane’s lap.
“Fifty grand,” Austin said.
Lane, looking nervous, pulled up on the armrest between the seats and stuffed the envelope in the console.
“You shouldn’t have brought that here,” he said, his eyes scanning outside the vehicle.
“I thought it would be better if you gave it to your favorite uncle.”
Lane raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He looked at him, then realized that Austin’s massive bruising was making him uncomfortable.
“I’m trying to lay low,” Austin added.
Lane turned and looked out the windshield, and said, “What the hell is going on? First you get shot at and Kenny gets killed and then Camilla Rose dies.”
“I’m pretty damn aware of that,” Austin said. “But thanks for your concern.”
“You’re not worried who did that? You could be dead, too.”
“Yeah, I’m concerned,” Austin said, and shrugged. “But what the hell can I do? Except try to find out answers.”
Lane shook his head, and sighed. “Man, I really am very sorry about it all. Don’t know what to say. And she looked like she was fine when I left the bar last night.”
Austin cocked his head, and said, “So, tell me about that. Who were you with?”
“Just a small crowd that she’d invited,” Lane said, glancing at him. “There was Sue Thomas. Know her? She has that cake company.”
“Yeah, sure. She’s a member of the board of directors for Camilla’s Kids.”
“I didn’t know that. And that architect, John Broadhead, he was there.”
Austin nodded.
“Broadhead, too. His firm designed the camps for Camilla Rose. And the hospital wing for the cancer center.”
“You know,” Lane said finally, “I remember Broadhead talking with Aimee Wolter about that last night.”
“Her company’s handling the PR for the cancer research center, which is also being built with the modular units.” He paused, narrowed his eyes, then said, “So, it was you, Sue, John, and Aimee . . . Who else?”
“As far as I know, just Tony Holmes . . .”
“Camilla Rose must’ve been using Holmes there to draw donations from the football crowd.”
Lane nodded, and went on. “But there could’ve been others. I got there some time after ten, and Camilla Rose wasn’t there.”
“She’d already left for the night?”
“Not for the night. Aimee said that maybe an hour earlier Camilla Rose had seen Matt Payne—”
“The cop? That Payne?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“He came by the hospital with a detective this morning. They were asking all kinds of questions.”
“Really? I got a message they want to interview me.”
“They asked all about Kenny and Camilla Rose,” Austin said, paused, and then added, “Payne did want to know who had been in the bar, which doesn’t make sense now that you’re saying he was there.”
“As I understand it, Johnny, apparently Payne wasn’t there. In the bar, I mean. He was in the hotel. Maybe finished dinner there, or just work, I don’t know.” He sighed, and went on. “But Aimee said Camilla Rose left the bar when she saw him and didn’t return for maybe an hour.”
“What the hell?” Austin said, then, with a look of anger, stared into the distance. “I’ll have to talk with Aimee about that.”
He turned back to Lane.
“Look, Willie. There’s something bigger, something serious . . .”
Lane thought Austin sounded odd.
A bit crazy? Paranoid?
But he did get shot at. And Benson got killed.
“Yeah? What?”
“You almost didn’t get that envelope. And with what’s happened with Camilla Rose, that’s probably the last one . . .”
Lane involuntarily jerked his head toward Austin.
“Unless you pull some strings. Fast.”
Lane, anxious, shifted in his seat.
“Like what?”
VII
[ ONE ]
Tavern 1776
Logan Square
Philadelphia
Friday, January 6, 6:32 P.M.
William G. Lane, Jr., squeezed past a small circle of extremely attractive women as he entered the restaurant’s almost full lounge, glancing around the elegant room as he went. The well-dressed crowd of Center City business professionals was unwinding from their workweek, their animated conversations giving the place an upbeat energy.
There were more than a few familiar faces, which did not give Lane comfort. He was not there to work the crowd—as he otherwise would be doing, especially the extremely attractive women—and he really did not want to talk with anyone he didn’t have to.
A minute later, he saw a large mitt of a hand rise and wave above a group of three husky men standing at the end of the long black-marble bar. Lane then saw, peering around the group, the familiar white-haired, bug-eyed man he was here to meet. The beefy fifty-year-old wore his trademark gray-pin-striped three-piece suit and a maroon dress shirt with a white-specked blue silk necktie and matching pocket square.
—
Among the many legally recognized associations that represented Philly workers—for example, just as the Fraternal Order of Police looked after the best interests of its members, there also was an organized union for the city’s electricians, one for its plumbers, another for ironworkers, yet another for teachers, and so on—there was one union that was, more or less, “first among equals.” This was due to the fact that the head of United Laborers Local 554, while he had never held an elected public office, was as savvy a politician as anyone serving in City Hall.
Joseph Fitzpatrick, business manager of Local 554, had been raised Irish Catholic in South Philly. The son of an electrician, he had followed his father and older brother into the business, but only after “Fearless Joey Fitz” have given up on his dream of being a heavyweight boxer.
Joey Fitz still had his scrappiness—and a crooked, fat nose from having it broken twice—as well as a rough-edged charm that he used to rise in the ranks of the union. He knew everyone, and brought in business like no one else, while making the best deals for his workers. To show their grateful appreciation, the Local 554 union members—who earned thirty bucks an hour, or about seventy grand a year—saw to it that Joey Fitz took home a paycheck in the neighborhood of a quarter-million dollars a year.
Joey Fitz had learned early on the importance of cultivating politicians—from neighborhood-level ward leaders on up to state house and U.S. representatives—and knowing that they would return his telephone calls. That took investment on the part of the union, from endorsing candidates to contributing cash to their campaigns.
It also meant keeping an eye out for prospective candidates who would have the union’s special interests at heart.
One in particular had been the son of a politician whom the union had first supported for ward leader, then for a city council seat, and finally for mayor. Joey Fitz knew the name recognition among voters alone gave the son a solid chance of getting elected, and being an African-American democrat in a city with a population that was mostly black certainly didn’t hurt.
That young man was, of course, Willie Lane, who before deciding to go to Temple University and pursue a political science degree had been an electrician’s apprentice. His boss, who had handed him his first union card, was an engaging young man that Lane had come to call Joey Fitz with great affection.
Within a year’s time on the job, however, Lane had decided he didn’t really care for laying wires all day. And when he witnessed a coworker cross the wrong wires—one of which had been hot as hell, a deadly two hundred milliamps—Lane, then and there, experienced a moment of remarkable clarity.
First,
he became a faithful believer in the electrician’s often uttered warning It’s not the volts that kill you, it’s the amps. And, second, he realized he knew of no politicians—his father was at that time a freshman city councilman with his eyes on the mayor’s office—who were risking death by electrocution.
Soon thereafter, Willie Lane had enrolled in poli-sci classes at Temple.
Joey Fitz kept up with Willie Lane over the next ten years, often prodding him about when he was going to run for office. So when it came time for Lane’s first run for a council seat, he went to see his old friend at United Labor.
Joey Fitz announced that he was not only happy to support the candidate, he said he could also overlook the fact that Lane’s union card had been long expired and issue him a new one, and add him as head of Local 556’s Office of Public Policy. It was a new position, he told Lane, one paying sixty thousand dollars per year, and it reported directly to the business manager of Local 556.
William G. Lane, with the hardy public endorsement of Joseph Fitzgerald and the United Workers membership, was elected ten months later.
Philadelphia city council members each were paid an annual salary just over one hundred and thirty thousand. While the wage was one of the highest of any city council in the U.S., it had been decided that Philly’s members could not be expected to make ends meet on that amount in the country’s fifth-largest metropolis. Thus, the city charter allowed elected officials to hold outside employment in addition to performing their elected duties.
Members held one or more positions, some at for-profit companies, others at nonprofits such as charities, as a hedge against, God forbid, having to apply, as half the city’s impoverished population had, for food stamps and the like.
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