Elevator Pitch

by Linwood Barclay

  Until it hit bottom.

  One

  Barbara Matheson was impressed by the size of the crowd. The usual suspects, more or less, but the fact that they’d turned out meant her story had made an impression.

  This was a TV event, really. Get the mayor walking out of City Hall, lob a few questions his way, get video of him denying everything. The Times, the Daily News, the Post could all write their stories without being here. But NY1 and the local ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates had crews waiting for Richard Wilson Headley to show. He might try sneaking out a back way, or leaving in a limo with windows so deeply tinted you wouldn’t know whether he was inside or not. But then the evening newscasts would say he made a point of avoiding the media, imply that he was a coward, and Headley never wanted to come across as a coward.

  Even if he could be one at times.

  Barbara was here on the off chance that something might actually happen. And yes, she was enjoying the shit she’d stirred up. This show of media force was her doing. She’d broken the story. Maybe Headley would take a swing at somebody who put a camera in his face, although that seemed unlikely. He was too smart for that. The TV stations were here for a comment, but she’d already gotten one and put it in her column.

  “That’s a load of fucking horseshit,” Headley had said when Barbara ran the allegations past him. Her editors at Manhattan Today printed the response without asterisks to disguise the profanity, but that was hardly daring these days. The Times still avoided curse words except in the most extreme cases, but even The New Yorker, that staid institution, didn’t blink an eye about f-bombs and hadn’t for years.

  “You really put his dick into the blender this time.”

  She turned. It was Matt Timmins, instantly recognizable by his multidirectional black hair and glasses thick enough to see life on Mars. He worked for an online site that covered city issues, but she knew him back when he worked for NBC, before he got laid off. He had a phone in hand, waiting to take video, which would be good enough for the political blog he wrote.

  “Hey, Matt,” Barbara said.

  “Wearin’ Kevlar?”

  Barbara shrugged. She liked Matt, vaguely remembered sleeping with him nearly ten years ago when they were both in their early thirties. The local press had been camped out in front of the house of a congressman in the midst of a bribery scandal. Barbara and Matt had shared a car to keep warm while waiting for the feds to arrive and walk the politician out the front door. After, they went to a bar, had too much to drink, and went back to his place. It was all a bit foggy. Barbara was pretty sure Matt was married now, with a kid, maybe two.

  “Headley won’t shoot me,” she said. “He might hire someone to shoot me, but he wouldn’t do it himself.”

  A woman with a mike in one hand looked up from the phone in her other. She’d been reading a text. “Dickhead’s on the move,” she said to the cameraman standing beside her, loud enough that it created a low-level buzz among the collected media. The mayor was on his way.

  Of course, Mayor Richard Wilson Headley always went by “Richard,” sometimes “Rich,” but never “Dick.” But that didn’t stop his detractors from referring to him that way. One of the tabs, which had it in for him nearly as much as Manhattan Today did, liked to stack DICK over HEADLEY on the front as often as it could, usually with as unflattering picture as they could find of the man. They also took delight in headlines that coupled GOOD with HEADLEY.

  Headley knew it was a losing battle, so sometimes he’d embrace the word so often used against him, particularly when it came to the city’s various unions. “Am I going to be a total dick with them on this new contract?” he asked the other day. “You bet your ass I am.”

  “Here we go,” someone said.

  The mayor, accompanied by Glover Headley, his twenty-five-year-old son and adviser, communications strategist Valerie Langdon, and a tall, bald man Barbara did not think she’d seen before, was coming out the front door of City Hall and heading down the broad steps toward a waiting limo. The media throng moved toward him, and everyone stopped halfway, allowing Headley a makeshift pulpit, standing two steps above everyone else.

  But it was Glover who spoke. “Hey, guys, we’re on our way to the mansion, no time for questions at this—”

  Headley shot his son a disapproving look and raised a hand. “No, no. I’m more than happy to take a few.”

  Barbara, hanging at the back of the pack, smiled inwardly. Standard operating procedure for Headley. Overrule your aides; don’t hide behind them. Act like you want to talk to the press. The whole thing would have been rehearsed earlier. Valerie touched the mayor’s arm, as though asking him to think twice about this. He shook it off.

  Nice touch, Barbara thought.

  Even though the bald guy was standing back of the mayor and trying to be invisible, Barbara was sizing him up. Trim, over six feet, skin the color of caramel. Of the three men standing before the assembled media, this guy had the most style. Long dress coat over his suit, leather gloves even though it wasn’t that cold out. Looked like he’d stepped off the cover of GQ.

  A looker.

  She thought of the people she knew in City Hall, the ones who regularly fed her information. Maybe one of them could tell her who this guy was, what the mayor had hired him to do.

  Then again, she could just go up and introduce herself, ask him who he was. But that would have to wait. NY1’s correspondent, a man Barbara knew to be in his fifties but could pass for midthirties, led things off.

  “How do you respond to allegations that you strong-armed the works department to hire an independent construction firm owned by one of your largest political donors for major subway upgrades?”

  Headley shook his head sadly and smirked, like he’d heard this a hundred times before.

  “There is absolutely nothing to that allegation,” he said. “It’s pure fiction. Contracts are awarded based on a long list of factors. Track record—no pun intended—and ability to get the work done, cost considerations, and—”

  The NY1 guy wasn’t done. “But yesterday Manhattan Today printed an email in which you told the department to hire Steelways, which is owned by Arnett Steel, who organized large fund-raisers for your—”

  Headley raised a shushing hand. “Now hold on, right there. First of all, the veracity of that email has not been determined.”

  Barbara closed her eyes briefly so no one would have to see them roll.

  “I would not put it past Manhattan Today to manufacture something like that. But even if it turns out to be legitimate, the content of that message hardly qualifies as a directive. It’s more along the lines of a suggestion.”

  In her head, Barbara composed her next piece.

  “Headley alleges the email uncovered by Manhattan Today could be phony, but just to cover all his bases, says that if it turns out to be the real deal, it’s not that much of one.”

  In other words, suck and blow at the same time.

  “Everyone knows that Manhattan Today has an obsession with me,” Headley said, waving an accusing finger in Barbara’s general direction.

  He’s spotted me, she thought. Or one of his aides alerted him that she was there.

  Headley’s voice ramped up. “It’s been involved in a relentless smear campaign from day one. And that campaign has been led by one person, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of repeating her name before the cameras.”

  “You mean Barbara Matheson?” shouted the reporter from the CBS affiliate.

  Headley grimaced. He’d walked into that one, Barbara thought.

  “You know who I’m talking about,” he said evenly. “But even though this vendetta is being led by a single individual, I have to assume this kind of character assassination is approved from the top. Maybe the opinions of this journalist, and I use the term loosely, are slanted the way they are because of direction from upstairs.”

  Barbara yawned.

  “That’s why I’m announcing today that I will be fil
ing a defamation suit against Manhattan Today.”

  Oh, goodie.

  Textbook Headley. Threaten a lawsuit but never actually file. Act outraged, grab a headline. Headley had threatened to sue every news outlet in the city at some point. He’d used the same tactics back when he was in business, before he embarked on a political career.

  “Furthermore,” he said, “I—”

  Headley noticed Valerie waving her phone in front of Glover, who winced when he read what was on her screen. The mayor leaned her way as she turned the phone so he could see it. While he was reading the message, there was a stirring in the crowd as some received messages of their own. The NY1 guy and his cameraman were already on the move.

  “Sorry,” Headley said. “We’re going to have to cut this short. You’re probably getting the same news I am.”

  With that he continued on down the steps, Valerie, Glover, and the bald man trailing him. They all got into the back of the waiting limo, which was only steps away from Barbara. But she had her eyes on her phone, attempting to learn what it was everyone else already seemed to know. She was vaguely aware of the whirring sound of a car window powering down.

  “Barbara.”

  She looked up from her phone, saw Glover at the limo window.

  “The mayor would like to give you a ride uptown,” he said.

  Her mouth suddenly went very dry. She glanced quickly to both sides, wondering if anyone else was witnessing the offer. Matt, to her left, was smiling.

  “I’ll always remember you,” he said.

  Barbara, having made her decision, sighed. “How kind,” she said to Glover.

  She made as though she was turning off her phone, but set it to record before dropping it into her purse.

  Glover pushed open the door, stepped out, let Barbara in, then got back in beside her. The limo was already pulling away as he pulled the door shut.

  Two

  The stairwell on West Twenty-Ninth Street that led up to the High Line, just west of Tenth Avenue, was blocked off with police tape, a uniformed NYPD patrolman standing guard.

  Detective Jerry Bourque parked his unmarked cruiser directly under the elevated, linear park that at one time had been a spur of the New York Central Railroad. He got out of his car and looked up. The viaduct was only about one and a half miles long, but it attracted millions of people—locals and tourists—annually. Lined with gardens and benches and interesting architectural features, it had quickly become one of Bourque’s favorite spots in the city. It cut through the heart of lower Manhattan’s West Side, yet was a ribbonlike oasis away from the noise and chaos. When it first opened, Bourque jogged it.

  Not so much these days.

  There were half a dozen marked NYPD cars, some with lights flashing, cluttering the street. As Bourque approached the stairwell entrance he recognized the patrolman standing there.

  “Hey,” Bourque said.

  “They’re expecting you,” the officer said, and lifted the tape.

  Bourque still had to duck, and the tape brushed across his short, bristly, prematurely gray hair. He was a round-shouldered six foot three. When circumstances demanded he stand up straight, he pushed six-five. He started up the stairs. Halfway, he paused for several seconds, a slight wave of anxiety washing over him. It was still hanging in there, this sense of unease before he reached the scene of a homicide. It hadn’t always been this way. He reached into his pocket, feeling for something familiar, something reassuring, and upon finding it, he carried on the rest of the way to the top.

  When he reached the High Line walkway, he looked left, to the north. The path veered slightly to the west, where the High Line crossed West Twenty-Ninth Street. A gently curved bench hugged the walkway on the left side, with a narrow band of greenery between the back and the edge.

  This was where everyone—police, the coroner, High Line officials—were clustered.

  Bourque walked on with a steady pace, his head extending slightly ahead of his body, as though tracking a scent. There was no need to run. The subject would still be dead when he got there. Bourque had turned forty only three months earlier, but his creased and weathered face would have allowed him to pass as someone five or ten years older. A woman had once told him he reminded her of those trees that grow out of the rocks up in Newfoundland. The relentless winds from the ocean caused them to lean permanently to one side, the branches all going in one direction. Bourque, the woman said, looked like someone who’d been worn down by the wind.

  As he got closer, another detective, Lois Delgado, saw him and approached. Seeing her, his anxiety receded some. They were more than partners. They were friends, and if there was anyone Bourque trusted more than Delgado, he couldn’t think who it might be.

  And yet, he didn’t tell her everything.

  She had an oval face, the way she let a curl of her short dark hair fall across her upper left cheek where she had a port-wine stain about the size of a quarter. Bourque understood why she tried to disguise it, but he found it one of her most beautiful features. She pulled her hair back on the right side, usually tucking it behind her ear, giving her face a kind of lopsided quality. She was a year older than Bourque, but unlike him she could have passed for someone younger.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Dead male,” she said. “No ID on the body. If I had to guess, late forties, early fifties. Early-morning jogger noticed something behind the corner of the bench that turned out to be a foot.”

  Bourque looked around. The High Line wound among countless apartment buildings. “Somebody must have seen something,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, that part of the bench is up against a nearly windowless wall on the left, and an open area on the right, and then there’s the rink just up there, so …”

  Delgado shrugged, then continued. “Had to have happened in the middle of the night when there was no one going by. Tons of pedestrian traffic up here through the day. Thousands of people walk along here.”

  “High Line closes at what, ten or eleven?”

  “Yeah,” Delgado said. “They roll down the gates at all the access points then. Opens up again at seven in the morning. Wasn’t long after that that the body was discovered. You couldn’t do this to someone during the open hours.”

  Bourque gave her a look. “Do what?”

  “Easier if you just come and see for yourself,” she said.

  Bourque took a breath.

  I’m fine.

  As they approached the bench, he saw the dirty white rubber sole of the shoe the jogger had spotted.

  “We think he got dragged into the tall grasses and that was where it happened,” Delgado said, pointing to all the vegetation at the edges of the walkway that made it such a popular place for people to stroll. “I guess, just before they close the High Line and security does its walkthrough, someone could hide in the grass and not be seen.”

  A couple of other officers made some room for the two detectives, who stepped off the main part of the path and into the greenery at the left edge. Bourque knelt down close to the body.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Delgado.

  “Did a real number on the face.”

  “Hamburger,” Delgado said.

  “Yeah,” Bourque said, feeling a tightening in his chest.

  “Check the fingers. At least, what’s left of them.”

  Bourque looked. “Fuck me.”

  The fingertips on both hands were missing.

  “All cut off,” Bourque said. “What would you need for that? Small pruning shears? The kind you use in the garden? Who walks around with one of those, unless it’s one of the people who maintains this area.”

  “Don’t think he used pruners,” Delgado said. She parted some grass to reveal a rusted ribbon of steel, one of the original tracks when the High Line was used to bring rail cars into the heart of the city. “See the blood?”

  Bourque slowly nodded. “He holds the guy’s fingers over the rail, using it like a cutti
ng board. Could have done it with a regular pocket knife, although he’d have had to press hard to get through bone.”

  “Our guy would have to have been dead by then, Jer,” Delgado said.

  “Would make it a tad easier,” Bourque said. He paused to take a breath. “You cut the ends off ten fingers, you’re going to get some objections if your guy is alive.”

  They looked back from the bloody rail to the body.

  “Why?” Delgado asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ve seen a finger get cut off as a way of getting someone’s attention, of making them talk, of punishing them, but why cut ’em all off after he’s dead?”

  “Identi—”

  “Of course,” Delgado said. “So we can’t take fingerprints. And the smashed-in face keeps us from knowing who he is.”

  “Maybe the killer’s never heard of DNA,” Bourque said, pausing to take another breath.

  “You okay?” Lois asked. “You comin’ down with something?”

  He shook his head.

  Delgado said, “DNA takes time. Maybe whoever did this wants to slow us down. Or maybe our guy here isn’t in the database.”

  “Could be.”

  “Why not just cut off the hands? Why all the fingers? Why ten cuts instead of two?”

  Bourque thought about that. “If he just had a simple knife, cutting through fingers was easier than sawing through wrists.”

  Delgado nodded. “Yeah.”

  Bourque raised his head over the top of the bench and looked down the walkway. “You walk off with ten fingertips, maybe you leave a blood trail.”

  “It rained around five this morning,” Delgado said.

  He sighed, looked at the body again. He took out his phone and started taking pictures. His gaze wandered farther down the body. The man’s tan khakis had inched up one leg far enough to reveal his socks.

  “Check it out,” Bourque said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  They were novelty socks, imprinted with several images of the shark from Jaws.

  “Daaa-duh, daaa-duh,” Delgado said.

  Bourque took some close-up shots.