Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

by David Levien

  Behr found the garage security office, an offshoot of the building’s main security center, through a battered metal door near the elevator bank. He knocked and entered a cramped space that was dominated by a desk, which was crowded with black and white monitors blinking views from one area of garage to the next.

  “Help you with something?” Sitting behind the desk was a middle-aged square badge in a rent-a-cop uniform. His glasses sat loosely on his face, the arms bent wide from being removed too often.

  “Yeah, it’s about that incident the other night,” Behr began. In his experience security guards were either buffs, who could be induced into enthusiastically sharing all their information, or scared bureaucrats, who wielded their scrap of power like a truncheon. He wasn’t sure which he had in front of him.

  “What about it?” square badge asked.

  “Were you on duty?”

  “Go ask your buddies,” the guard said. “Buddies” implied the cops, and Behr smelled some resentment there.

  “I’m not with the cops,” Behr bit out. Instead of this information opening the man up, it closed him down.

  “Then why would I tell you anything about our system?” the man said with some edge, crossing his arms.

  “Not asking you for state secrets,” Behr said, “just wondering if you were around.”

  “Are you suggesting some failure on the part of building security or garage security in specific?” the man said, his voice thinning to an almost aggressive whine.

  Great, Behr thought, shut down, self-important, and paranoid—the perfect subject. There was a time when Behr would’ve grabbed the geek by the neck and shaken him until the information fell out, but nowadays, as a Caro boy, Behr was doing things differently. He was trying to, anyway. So he spread his feet and settled, as if he had no plans to leave anytime soon.

  “But for your information, no, I wasn’t on. I’m the day man. I punch out and another guy handles the afternoon and early evening. There used to be an overnight shift, but that got trimmed because of budget. So, you know, what does management expect if they don’t pay for coverage?”

  Behr pictured the guard, had he been on duty, armed with a flashlight, rounding the corner into the firefight. That would’ve done a lot of good.

  “So it was just the cameras, then. They get a pretty good look at the whole thing? What’s the storage length on the footage?” Behr asked as lightly as he could.

  A cagey look came to the guard’s eyes. “Why’re you so interested?”

  “I know the guy involved.”

  “You work for him?”

  Behr just shrugged.

  “I was in charge of burning copies to a disk for the police,” the guard said. “You can ask them what was on the tape. As for storage, we used to run thirty days—probably would’ve had footage of guys casing the garage. But now it’s seventy-two hours, because they took a bunch of our hard drives for the lobby. Lobby guys get it all. New cappuccino makers, new chairs, extra hard drives …”

  Behr cut a glance at the bank of monitors, wondering what he’d be able to pick up if he saw the footage from the shoot.

  The guard leaned forward. “I think we’re done here,” he said.

  Behr was headed back to his car when he saw a janitor, a Hispanic kid wearing earbuds and pushing a rolling garbage can.

  “Hey, man,” Behr said loudly, tapping his own ear. The kid stopped and pulled out the left earbud, allowing the tinny sound of congas and trumpets to spill into the garage.

  “Yo,” the janitor said.

  “What happened here the other night?” Behr asked.

  “That throw down? Some Bs flew.” The kid shifted his weight and a thick ring of keys clinked.

  “You think it’s on the security tapes?” Behr asked.

  “How much?” the kid responded.

  “How much what?”

  “How much you got?”

  A hundred bucks. It was more than he could afford, but it was still the standard unit of measure for bribery in matters of any import on the street, and that’s what Behr paid him. The kid thought the security guard was a prick, and knew he was headed to lunch in an hour. He told Behr to go get a cup of coffee and meet him back at the security office in an hour and ten exactly, so that’s what Behr did.

  When he returned, it was in time to see the kid leave the security office with a wastebasket, dump it into his rolling garbage can, and replace the basket in the office. When he exited, however, he left the door slightly ajar and rolled off into the recesses of the garage. Behr knew the area was probably on camera, but the kid’s actions would look like a mistake, some youthful, sloppy work. His entry, on the other hand, would not. Behr tipped his chin down and walked briskly inside.

  He locked the door behind him. Not that it mattered. The cramped, hot space had no other way out. If square badge returned, Behr would be discovered. So he worked quickly, sitting down at the desk, and keyboarding in to the security archives. It took him a few minutes, but the log was fairly straightforward and clearly dated, and he soon found the time and angle he was looking for. Behr scrolled to 10:55 of the night in question. He estimated the shooting started within a few minutes of that time. The video ran, showing no movement, but at 10:57 it blinked forward to 12:31. This footage showed the police in the final stages of their investigation and cleanup.

  Confused, Behr scrolled back, thinking he’d perhaps hit a key commanding the system to skip. But he hadn’t. Behr assumed a copy had been made for the police. That’s what square badge had said. In the days of videotape it would’ve been conceivable that they’d handed over the original, but now everything was digital. While a CD may have been burned and given to the police, after that, either accidentally or intentionally, the material had been deleted. Behr knew enough about computers to understand that unless an elaborate scrubbing process had been followed, the footage was actually in the hard drive somewhere, because delete usually meant a repurposing of the memory space. But it would take him hours and a call to his computer guy to figure out how to pull it up, and he didn’t have that kind of time. At the moment he didn’t have much of anything.

  Behr drove out of the garage into daylight and a ringing cell phone. “Behr,” he said.

  “Frank, Neil Ratay here.” The reporter’s voice came back to him through the phone.

  “What’s up, Neil?”

  “Not much. Listen, about that story, my editor doesn’t have any appetite for it.”

  “I see,” Behr said. He needed to make a right onto Delaware to head back to the office, but he found himself turning left onto Capitol. “Did someone tell him not to, or is he just not hungry?”

  “Don’t know,” Ratay said, “but with the state of the newspaper business, it means the same thing to me. Sorry I can’t help you.”

  “Got it,” Behr said, “and thanks, Neil.” Behr hung up. He was on North Meridian now, the big dividing road that bisected the city. He passed stately homes behind wrought iron gates, including the ceremonial governor’s mansion. As he continued north and out of town, the city quickly released its grasp and gave way to thick trees that spread into a more open sky. He was headed toward Carmel, the well-to-do suburb that was Bernie Cool’s domain.

  16

  It shouldn’t be long, if what the prim, attractive secretary told him about the twenty-minute wait was true. Behr sat on a leather couch in a plush waiting area in Bernie Kolodnik’s office. There was an array of thick, glossy magazines on a well-waxed coffee table in front of him, but he was staring toward the opposite wall at a large photo of Kolodnik, dressed in golf togs, standing with Phil Mickelson in a tee box.

  Behr had found the business card Kolodnik had given him in his wallet as he walked back to his car. He hadn’t called that personal number, but it had inspired him to call Kolodnik’s company and ask for a brief appointment even though he was due back at the Caro office for a marketing and client service meeting. He wasn’t too busted up over missing it, though his bosses mi
ght be if word trickled back to them that he was absent. It turned out that Kolodnik wasn’t at his downtown location but was at the company’s satellite office in the tony suburbs, so he was headed in the right direction.

  Driving out, Behr had crossed a development of new town houses at 86th and North Meridian, which functioned as a border of sorts to a sleek, high-priced world of glassy business parks that seemed to house the medical practices of half the doctors in the state. Then he had passed under an arch announcing the Arts & Design District of Carmel, and he entered the picturesque town of low brick buildings, cobblestone crossings, and lifelike Seward Johnson–style statues of people on the sidewalks. On several corners were large churches that represented a range of Christian denominations. The surrounding thoroughfares of South Range Line and Carmel Drive were thick with chain restaurants—but the nice ones—and country clubs filled in the spaces between neighborhoods.

  The town represented the good life, and he had a momentary pang when he thought of Susan and pictured her and the coming baby eating at the restaurants, shopping at the many kids’ shoe stores, going to Nordstrom’s. The place was a little sterile. That’s what she would probably say. She didn’t care much about money or material things, but he knew the life they were leading wasn’t a result of choice but of limits. He wouldn’t mind giving her the alternative. He just didn’t see how that was going to happen. Maybe after five or ten years with Caro, after moving up into the supervisory ranks and partnership, there would be a possibility. He’d be in his fifties by then … but not now.

  There were plenty of big buildings going up around town, Behr noticed on his way to his destination: The Kolodnik Company, which was housed in yet another brand-new, sparkling limestone and glass pod. New developments. Ground broken. Foundations dug. Girder skeletons erected. Crane arms topping off roof pieces. The town must not have heard of the real estate crash or the wave of unemployment or the recession that had howled over the country like a tornado. Perhaps Kolodnik was responsible for all the work here. Maybe his company, with a fleet of bulldozers, was trying to turn the whole thing around single-handedly.

  The left-hander of a pair of mahogany double doors swung open, and there he was, Bernie Cool himself, in crisp white shirtsleeves and silk tie. His burnished custom-made shoes shone from what looked like three thousand coats of polish in an altogether different way than Behr’s Florsheims.

  “Frank, how the heck are you?” Kolodnik said, crossing to him.

  Behr jumped up, they shook hands, and he saw the energetic and intelligent gleam in the man’s eyes.

  “I’m under water today, but I’m really glad to have this chance to at least say hello,” Kolodnik went on.

  “I’m fine, Mr. Kolodnik,” Behr said. “How are you?”

  “Call me Bernie. Did you get that Harlan Estates?”

  “I did and I thank you. It was unnecessary.”

  “Did you try it? What did you think?”

  “Good stuff.”

  “They say you should lay up good wine for a while after it arrives. But I never do …” Kolodnik offered with a smile.

  “I didn’t happen to wait either.”

  As Behr traded the pleasantries he wondered if he was going to get invited into Kolodnik’s office where he could ask some real questions without secretaries and executives and a quartet of what were clearly his new security guys, with their blue suits and square jaws, hovering around. They were the matching set to a pair each on the front and back doors of the building outside. But it didn’t look like a private meeting was going to happen.

  “So, what can I do for you?” Kolodnik wondered. “Like I said, I’m in the weeds. The Senate seat and all.” The man was unbelievably easy and affable, as if he lived in a capsule of prosperity and lubricating charm. It was something Behr had noticed the first time he’d driven Kolodnik. The shooting had momentarily punctured the capsule, but now it was clearly resealed and Kolodnik was insulated once again.

  “Right, congratulations on that,” Behr said. The charm bubble made Behr somehow reluctant to roil the waters—any waters—and disrupt the serene good feeling that surrounded Kolodnik. Behr imagined the man would do well in Washington.

  “Thank you. Quite an honor.” A momentary quiet fell and Kolodnik looked at him expectantly. “So I imagine you’ve got a reason for the visit?”

  Behr dropped his voice. “Well, yeah, as a matter of fact. I want to find out why someone was shooting at you, because then I’ll know why someone was shooting at me.”

  Kolodnik nodded mildly. “Of course,” he said, “it was very troubling. Very troubling,” but didn’t continue further, which forced Behr to.

  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything about the police investigation. If anything came up on the security tapes.”

  Kolodnik shook his head.

  “I’ve followed up, but they’re not sharing much with me,” Behr continued.

  “I have people overseeing that. They’ll brief me at such time as there’s significant progress. Obviously this is something of great concern, and I’m taking it very seriously. But right now I can’t afford to shut down the works and dwell on it. I always look ahead, no matter the trauma of the past. Even the recent past. I credit a good portion of my success to that.”

  Behr felt ungrateful and unseemly for bothering the man, for continuing to ask the blunt, unattractive questions, and for so ignominiously being stuck in an earlier time. But he went ahead just the same. “It’s just the timing of it—do you have political enemies already?”

  Kolodnik laughed lightly, without mockery but with genuine amusement. “Those would be the fastest enemies a politician ever gained, wouldn’t they?”

  “So no idea who could have done it?” Behr asked. When interviewing victims of anonymous violence, Behr didn’t ask “Who do you think did it?” That was a limiting question, one that forced the victim to confront his attacker directly in his mind. The “could’ve” made it almost a game. Behr liked to sit them down and make a list of could’ves and assign possible motives to each person on the list, as if it were a creative exercise, and eventually the actual “who” and “did it” would often end up staring him in the face. But that took time and cooperation, and it didn’t look like Behr was going to get much of either.

  There had been an arrival in the offices while they talked. Three men and two women. There were roller briefcases, computers, and an audiovisual projector.

  Behr felt his little window of opportunity closing.

  “Disgruntled employees? Ex-employees?” Behr had the unfortunate sensation he was peppering the man. “Business? Personal? I wonder if it would be possible to interview your staff?” Behr was hoping for a developed source, some third party that a staffer might mention, whom he could question when he or she was unprepared, in the hopes of jarring loose some information.

  “Old business saying goes, ‘It’s not a deal unless both parties are sore about it.’ I’ve always gone about it the exact opposite way. It’s stood me well,” Kolodnik said. “And I’ll tell you something else, and it’s how I’ve avoided all this recent unpleasantness in the economy. I never bought into the idea of overleveraging, and I’ve tried to avoid people who do. What I’m saying is: my business life is very … balanced.”

  A secretary ushered the group toward Kolodnik’s office, then leaned over to Kolodnik and said, “The Trachtenberg group, sir.” Behr couldn’t tell if they were political lobbyists, real estate developers, or from a law firm.

  “Be right in,” Kolodnik said, and then turned apologetically back to Behr.

  “You said you had people on this. I wonder if I could confer with them?” Behr asked.

  “I asked an old senator I count as a friend for some advice when the appointment came in. You know—how to manage the demands on my time, weigh the equities, all that. And you want to know what he told me?” Kolodnik paused for emphasis. “ ‘Learn to hold it, because you’re not going to have a chance to take a squirt for th
e next six years …’ Well, four in my case, but you get the idea.” Kolodnik was using his folksy gentleman’s idiom to give Behr a message: he was too busy to deal with the matter further.

  Just then an exceptionally well-tanned man in his mid-forties with blond hair going to gray, and a suit jacket sporting shoulder pads that were a shade too big, strode up.

  “You ready to get in there?” he asked Kolodnik with great familiarity in his tone.

  “Yep, right in, Shugie,” Kolodnik answered, then made the introduction. “Frank, this is Shugie Saunders, my political consultant. Shugie, this is Frank Behr, the reason you still have a client.”

  “No, no, no,” Shugie corrected with a porcelain-veneered smile that creased the suntan, “the reason I still have a friend.”

  Saunders shot out a manicure-soft hand, which Behr shook, as Kolodnik wrapped things up.

  “You should come by the house, Frank. Not now. I’m about ready to decamp to D.C.—”

  “We’re going to get the seat. We’re going to be confirmed right away,” Saunders informed.

  “But at the end of the summer, Labor Day, I’ll be back for a bit,” Kolodnik continued.

  “So the attempt,” Behr tried a last time.

  “That’s been downgraded as a priority at the moment,” Saunders said with finality. “We appreciate all your efforts.”

  What could Behr say? Especially in the face of that powerful “we” that smacked of handlers and aides and institution, of government itself. Everyone he was dealing with was plural, from his client to his company and even Kolodnik. He thought about his own “we” for a moment. All it meant—all it would ever mean—was him, Susan, and his coming son.

  “Like I said, Frank, bring the wife over to the house for some tennis when I’m back in town. Do you have a wife? Do you play tennis?” Kolodnik smiled.

  “Not exactly,” Behr said, and after a cordial pat on the back, Kolodnik was on the move. Saunders gave a parting nod and followed his man through the double doors into the office. The doors closed behind them and Behr was left in the waiting area empty-handed and as inanimate as the Johnson statues lining the streets of the town.