by Toby Ball
“You are going to put the files in the Vaults on this machine?” Puskis asked, talking slowly and precisely.
“Yes, well, no. Actually, let me show you the other side. Actually, you can’t really see it, so let me tell you how it works. See how the type on these sheets is raised? When the correct record is found, the sheets are heated and then pressed against paper that’s treated to turn black where it’s touched by the heated surface. It comes out looking like type on a page. Like the pages that you have in your hand.”
“But how, let me see, how does it work with a normal sheet of paper?”
“It can’t,” said Ricks cheerily. “It needs to be on this special metal. All the information in the Vaults is going to be transferred onto these sheets.”
Heart racing, Puskis looked over at the Chief. The Chief smiled.
“We have fifty machines for typing on these sheets. We’ll have one hundred and fifty people working in three shifts around the clock. We think it will take two or three years to transcribe all the documents.”
Puskis closed his eyes. My God, he thought, they’re trying to destroy the evidence.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nora’s head rested on the flesh between Frings’s shoulder and his sternum. He gazed down at her tangled blond hair and the smooth back beneath it, rising and falling with each breath. They had made love in semiconsciousness, and she had fallen asleep afterward, and now he was hopelessly awake and wondering how to get out of bed without disturbing her.
The previous night was a reminder of how things had been at the beginning for them. He had returned from his meeting with Bernal to find her asleep on the couch, an open book spine-up on her stomach. She had listened with great interest as he told her about the meeting with Bernal and the impending meeting with the bombers. He watched her face, more beautiful without the makeup, brightening with excitement from the stories. This was the essence of their relationship in its best sense. She, entranced by the intrigue of his work. He, entranced simply by her—her beauty, her aura, the confidence she had as a star.
This morning he lay still, breathing shallowly so as not to disturb her, and wondered what it all meant. Was this the end of a period of discontent in a continuing relationship, or a brief instant where everything was as good as it could possibly be as their attachment eroded? He thought about the reefer in his coat pocket and the appeal of banishing these thoughts with the pleasant haze. He inched slowly away from her, eventually cupping her head in his hand and letting it down gently onto the pillow. She muttered something without actually gaining consciousness, and her regular breathing resumed. Frings rolled out of bed and walked naked to the kitchen to boil water for coffee.
He had finished a full pot by the time Nora came out to the kitchen. She was wearing a lavender silk gown and came over to kiss him at the table with half-shut eyes.
“That was nice last night,” she said, her lips close to his ear.
Frings nodded, and something in his manner made Nora straighten up. “Is something wrong?”
Frings looked up at her. “Don’t you keep your bedroom window locked?”
She nodded, her lips pursed in uncertainty.
“Because it wasn’t locked this morning.”
“That’s queer,” she said. “I haven’t opened it in ages.”
“I crack it sometimes.”
“To smoke.”
“To smoke. But I am absolutely conscientious about relocking it.”
“How can you—”
“I am conscientious about it because of who you are,” he said with a seriousness that made her pause. “It’s not locked now. Why isn’t it?”
“I . . .”
“Someone unlocked that window, Nora. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t you. Has anyone else been in here?”
“Oh, shit, is this some jealousy thing? Because, you know, if that’s an issue, then—”
“Of course not. Like you said, it’s queer. You have to be inside to unlock it, and if neither of us unlocked it, that means somebody else has been in here.”
“I think you’re getting all balled up over nothing,” she said. “Maybe it was Clarice.” The cleaning woman.
Frings hadn’t considered this possibility and it calmed him. The reefer was getting to him, he thought. He pulled her to him, his right hand bunched in her hair. They stood that way in silence, and Frings was overwhelmed with the feeling that this might be the last time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Puskis was in the men’s bathroom at Headquarters. He cupped his hands under the tap and doused his face with the cold, amber water. The drops that stuck to his lips tasted like rust. His hat rested on the sink next to him, and he ran his wet hands through his thin hair, plastering it back against his skull. His skin was stretched tightly over his cheekbones, nearly translucent except for the darkness under his clear, focused eyes. He locked gazes with his reflection in the mirror, staring himself down—finding that a focal point helped him slow the thoughts that were threatening to overwhelm him.
The final fifteen minutes of the Retrievorator demonstration were lost on him. He knew what was happening, and no further explanation was necessary. They were going to take the records in the Vaults and would, by transferring them to the sheets that were used by that odd machine, thoroughly cleanse whatever information they felt was so threatening. The actual sheets of paper would be lost, with the commentary in the different colors of ink, the telltale traces of files that had frequently been handled—the dog-ears, the coffee stains, the unintentional marks with pen or pencil—and the pristine condition of those that had been all but forgotten. These were pieces of information that at times were nearly as valuable as the actual contents of the files. They would be lost forever. Worse, Puskis could see nothing that would prevent files from being falsified without any possibility of detection. Puskis had asked Ricks what would happen with the files once they were typed onto the new sheets, and Ricks had looked at the Chief, who had shifted uncomfortably then mumbled that they would be burned. The Chief said there would be no need for them, knowing that this statement would crush Puskis. And it would have crushed him, had he not already known the answer.
Now he realized that there was greater urgency. Once the conversion began, nothing would prevent them from starting with the most threatening files. According to the vague timetable that Ricks had indicated, Puskis had maybe a week to get what he needed, if, in fact, those files had not already been altered. He needed to make headway, and the first step would be to talk to a person who might know what was going on. For the first time in nearly twenty years, Puskis did not feel that he could rely on the accuracy of the files, and this realization struck him with the force of excommunication.
For seventeen years Puskis had maintained an indirect relationship with the transcribers. Transcriber was not, actually, an accurate description anymore. The transcribers were initially—and this went back fifty years or more—the men who created the official records of trials from the shorthand taken by court clerks. As the technological advances in typewriting machines obviated the need for this step, the transcribers became commentators. They—as a rule, only four of them at any time—read over the transcripts of trials and the content of other sworn testimony and wrote comments on the events or people that they contained or referenced. They also produced the cross-referencing lists for each file that Puskis would then turn into an index with actual file codes to replace the names and cases indicated by the transcribers.
By tradition, each transcriber used a different color of ink, and that color was passed to a new transcriber in the instance of a retirement. The ink colors were black, red, blue, and green. In Puskis’s seventeen years as Archivist, there had been only one black transcriber, but two reds and two greens, and three blues. Puskis felt he had come to know the transcribers to an extent through the mountain of notes that he’d read over the years. The current red transcriber, for instance, was suspicious of names. He apparently harbored a theory tha
t a number of people changed the form of their name based on the ethnicity of the people with whom they were dealing. So, for instance, a man with the last name Brown might be Braun for the Germans and Bruni for the Italians, and Brunek for the Slavs, Bronski for the Poles, and so forth. A name fetishist, the current red transcriber, Puskis thought.
But though the constant analysis of the written commentary on the records and the selection of files requested had rendered each of the four transcribers (indeed, eight total during Puskis’s tenure) distinct and tangible as individuals, Puskis had never met any of them. Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, Puskis decided that he needed to introduce himself immediately.
The Transcribers’ Room was tucked toward the back of the fourth floor at Headquarters, among evidence-storage rooms. Stepping inside, Puskis felt a rush of familiarity. It took him a moment to realize that it was because, like the Vaults, this room did not have the stink of cigarette smoke that was omnipresent in the rest of the building. The room was spare—bare white walls and a black-and-white-checkerboard tile floor. In the middle of the room stacks of files were piled on a square oak table. Fanning out from the table were four desks, and at each desk was a man, leaning over papers either reading intently or scrawling comments in one of the four colors of ink.
“Excuse me,” said Puskis. All four men looked up, apparently startled by the unfamiliar voice. “I’m Arthur Puskis.”
The man at the desk closest to Puskis stood up. He was the youngest and corpulent, his shirt untucked and his pants held up with suspenders. “Mr. Puskis?” he asked, the awe in his voice evident.
“Um, well, yes.”
The other three men were up now. Between them they defined the states that a body takes when deprived of physical activity. One, seemingly the oldest, was skeletal and stooped—not unlike Puskis’s own appearance. The second was not particularly fat, but even beneath his suit Puskis could tell that his body lacked muscular definition. He was like a sausage and his suit was the intestinal lining that held the meat together. The last had the frame of a large man but without any extra weight, so that it appeared that his suit was hanging from a rack rather than adorning a body. They all wore black suits and the dazed expressions of people for whom interaction is a rare and difficult endeavor.
The fat one shuffled past Puskis, leaned out into the hall, checked both ways, then closed the door. The other three had gathered around Puskis, a little too close for a man unused to physical contact. He gazed at them uneasily and for a few long moments there was silence.
The older, stooped man spoke. “What brings you here after all this time?”
Puskis had rehearsed his response, and for once the words flowed smoothly. “I am interested in speaking to the man who used green ink seven years ago.”
The transcribers looked at each other significantly. The fat one spoke. “That was Van Vossen. He left, let’s see, he left five years ago. He was my predecessor.”
Puskis had known that he would not find the man here. The handwriting in green ink had changed since the false DeGraffenreid file was created. Now he had a name. “Do you know where Mr. Van Vossen is now?”
This request led to another round of exchanged glances before the oldest again spoke. “Why do you want to speak to him?” His voice seemed somehow to come from a distance.
“There was a . . . discrepancy in the files. To be clear, it was just one file, but one with a discrepancy that may, well, hold some significance. The pages are marked in green ink. I am hopeful that the person who marked the pages can, um, lend some insight into the discrepancy.”
“What file?” The men leaned in, eager for the answer.
“The file for the murder of Ellis Prosnicki. The trial of Reif DeGraffenreid.”
The old man nodded and the others began to fidget, rubbing hands together or scratching ears. The old man turned to the fat one. “Write down the address for Mr. Puskis.”
The fat man returned to his desk and wrote on a piece of white paper. The large man seemed to lose interest and drifted back to his desk and began rummaging through his drawer, half-looking for something. The man with the sausage body moved closer to Puskis. He smelled of gin. “Do you know what they plan to do with the files?” he whispered.
Puskis recoiled slightly from the smell of the man and the hiss of his voice. “Well, I suppose that I, I . . .”
“Don’t worry,” the sausage man continued, “we know. We know exactly what they are doing.”
The fat man returned and offered the sheet of paper with Van Vossen’s address. Puskis accepted it without turning his attention from the sausage man.
“What exactly are they doing?” Puskis asked.
“You know,” he said, his voice intense now. “You know and we know, and nobody else except for them. They are destroying the past. They are erasing their deeds from history.”
“What are they erasing? Why do they want to destroy the files?” Puskis asked with a pang of desperation. The sausage man stared at him, breathing hard, his eyes wide.
“Maybe,” the old man said, “Mr. Van Vossen has the answer.”
Footsteps were audible in the hall and the three other men scurried to their desks. The old man took Puskis’s head between his spidery hands. “Be careful, Mr. Puskis. They are going to great lengths to destroy this information. I don’t think they will allow anyone to get in their way.”
Puskis stared back into the man’s gray eyes. His head was hammering. “Who are they? Who are they?”
The man released Puskis’s head and turned to the table. The door swung open to reveal the Chief and a uniformed officer.
“Mr. Puskis,” the Chief said brightly, “we’d wondered where you’d gone. Why doesn’t Riordon here give you a ride back to the Vaults. I understand the boys have sent quite a bit of work over for you.” The Chief put a massive arm gently around Puskis’s shoulders and guided him out of the Transcribers’ Room and into the hall. The uniform pulled the door shut as they left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Excerpt from Van Vossen, A History of Recent Crime in the City (draft):
While the details of the Birthday Party Massacre are no doubt familiar to anyone interested in crime in the City, it is important to elucidate the pivotal role that this episode played in the cessation of the mob war between the White Gang and the Bristol Gang. In fact, it can and has been said that without the Birthday Party Massacre, the conflict had no prospects for a terminus.
It was an accepted truth among the officers of the Force and the City’s criminal underworld that the pursuit of justice for violence and homicide committed against criminals by criminals would not be pursued with the vigor that equivalent crimes against law-abiding citizens would. In this way, until the early to mid-1920s, there was a consistent and accepted attrition rate among members of the White and Bristol gangs and their associates. Around 1923, however, a marked increase in homicidal attacks between the gangs was observed. The period between 1923 and the Birthday Party Massacre in 1929 witnessed an increase in both the number of homicides and the lack of regard for public order on the part of the gangs. Thus, Eddie Peguese was murdered in front of a crowd of hundreds at the Independence Day parade in 1926, Piers DaCourt was ambushed by gunmen in front of the Opera House in 1926, and Justice Davies was pulled from his car during midday traffic in 1928, never to be seen again. These are but examples from the litany of outrages perpetrated by the White and Bristol gangs and their criminal cohorts.
But even against this ghoulish standard, the Birthday Party Massacre proved an act of such moral turpitude that the public, the Police, and Mayor Henry agreed that a new policy had to be pursued. The White Gang, as the perpetrators of the Birthday Party Massacre, were savagely eviscerated through the combined might of the Bristol Gang and the police force, especially the newly reconstituted Anti-Subversion Unit. The degree to which the ASU and the Bristols coordinated their assaults upon the Whites was a matter of some dispute in the newspapers and pubs o
f the City. While no conclusive evidence has ever been provided, there was, at minimum, a tacit understanding that the Bristols would not be prosecuted for crimes against the Whites. . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Gazette’s library maintained a copy of each issue going back the thirty-odd years of its existence. Lonergan, the librarian, was small and slight, wore his hair unfashionably long, and sported a neat goatee. As far as Frings could tell, Lonergan’s sole responsibility was to retrieve newspapers when so requested by Gazette reporters. It was hard to imagine an easier job. Panos had told Frings, with a laugh of disbelief, that he understood that Lonergan spent his free time in the library writing a philosophical treatise. Frings wanted to talk to Lonergan about this—his curiosity was part genuine interest and part amusement—but Lonergan was not approachable and Frings decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
Lonergan’s invaluable talent was his ability to recall with startling accuracy the date of even minor events. So when Frings asked him for the Gazette’s coverage of the murder committed by Otto Samuelson, Lonergan was instantly able to narrow the date down to within a week’s span. He retrieved all the newspapers for that week and the following four weeks and turned them over to Frings, who carried them down a flight of stairs, stacked them on his desk, and began to learn about Otto Samuelson and the murder of a small-time hood named Leto.
Cy Leto had been a runner for the White Gang. He collected on gambling debts, picked up protection money, and, on occasion, braced someone who had transgressed in some way against the Whites or, occasionally, against Leto himself. He had been a small man, according to the newspaper reports, but quick to anger and apparently with few qualms about perpetrating violence upon his fellow man. The second article about his murder mentioned a prior conviction for pushing a woman down a flight of stairs in front of her young children. This, because her husband, who had run out on her, owed the Whites gambling money.