I did have cousins but we saw each other rarely, at family occasions. I did have a mother-in-law but she lived with her married daughter in Buffalo and she would never understand the whole idea of camp anyway. In her day, Italian kids didn’t go away to camp. That was only one of the many things about my life she did not understand, but she was the only grandmother left. It was a tie I would never break, but no, not today.
My house was a mess, no place in it seemed comfortable, the unread Sunday paper was bound to have disturbing news, and even my garden was too hot to hold any appeal.
I finally got fed up with my own mood. Since I couldn’t face housework, I headed to my desk to tackle professional work to keep my brain occupied for a few hours. My e-mail had a note from the helpful librarian at Leary’s old paper
.
“I did it! I found someone here who’s been around as long as I have. Pete Miller. He said to call him at home any time.” I thought, why not?
A friendly man’s voice said, “What do you want to talk to Leary for? I’m a lot more fun.”
So I explained, yet again, and he said, “I’d give a lot to hear that conversation!” I had the disconcerting impression he was laughing. “Look. Leary doesn’t like talking to many people—we were drinking buddies for a couple of decades and I still never know if he’ll speak to me—but, on the other hand, the guy does have an ego. Always did. There’s a chance he will be flattered. What the hell. Your name and number checked out at the museum.”
“You checked up on me?”
“Sure. I was a reporter. I’m paid to be suspicious. I’ll give you his phone number. He never answers his phone anyway, so leave a message. And let me know how it goes.” I was sure he was chuckling as he said good-bye.
In a few seconds, a cigarette-roughened voice was saying, “Leary here. If you’re selling or soliciting, hang up now. If you’re offering money, leave a message.”
I managed to blurt out, “I’m looking for Brendan Leary, who used to be a well-known reporter in New York. I’m with the Brooklyn History Museum and I’d like to interview him. If this is the right number, please…”
The voice broke in. “This is Leary. How the hell did you find me? And what the hell do you want?”
“Uh, Mr. Leary, I’m Erica Donato. We’re doing an exhibit at the History Museum on tenant-landlord issues over the years, and you covered that extensively, back then.”
“So what?”
“I was hoping I could talk to you about it, use you as a source for the project?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
OK, I sighed. A curmudgeon. I answered, as sweetly as I could. “Most people enjoy sharing their expertise, and we would be so grateful if we could….”
“Grateful doesn’t pay my rent. And it was a hell of a long time ago. Different life, different me. Who needs to go back?”
I could have come right back at him, but I doubted it would be productive. I smiled and hoped the smile would get into my voice. “Well, we do. That’s our job. What would be an inducement for you?
“Money talks.”
“Mr. Leary,” I said gently, “you must know we’re a nonprofit. Money is the one thing we don’t have, but I could probably take you for a nice lunch to say thanks.” On my deeply stressed credit card, if it had to come to that. “And wouldn’t you like to have your name and picture up in the exhibit? Have people remember you?”
“Couldn’t care less. My name used to be in more important places than your exhibit. And now? I made a few enemies in my time—I’d rather be forgotten. Lunch doesn’t do a thing for me, either. I’ve got diabetes—can’t eat anything I like.”
He was the opposite of friendly. I could even have called him hostile, and yet he wasn’t hanging up.
“Aside from cash, which I don’t have, and food and fame, which you don’t want, what would tempt you? I bet there’s something?”
“Time was, it could have been Scotch. Or even rye. Now doc says it will kill me. My barfly days are long over. In the words of an Ellington song you probably don’t even know, I don’t get around much anymore. And who needs it anyway?”
I thought I heard a little something there and went with my hunch.
“Would you like an outing? I have a car. We could take in a movie, or a music club, even without drinking?”
There was a long silence, and then he said abruptly, “Tell you what. I’m sick of the sight of my own four walls. Take me for a ride out to Coney Island, buy me a hot dog at Nathan’s, and we’ll talk. Maybe I’ll tell you something. Throw in a kasha knish and maybe I’ll even tell you something useful.”
“Sounds like a deal to me. When?”
“Tomorrow is good. My calendar isn’t exactly crowded these days.”
“It’s a date.”
Then the house went deeply, emptily silent again. I tried to glue myself to my work, but some other part of my mind was fixated elsewhere, becoming nearly desperate enough to consider calling my dad, or doing some house cleaning. When the phone rang at last, it was an unfamiliar Manhattan number.
“Ms. Donato? It’s Steven Richmond.”
Darcy’s friend. The Wall Street guy. On a Sunday. This was not a phone call I wanted.
“I apologize for calling you on Sunday and if you tell me you are too busy, I’ll go away until it’s working hours, but if you are not…?”
“I am not too busy at the moment now. I have a few minutes.” Technically, I wasn’t busy at all, as I was not actually doing any of the things I should have been doing. My instinct, however, was caution. Something about our previous meeting made me think he would take favors for granted.
“Excellent. Something has come up, in connection with the project we have been discussing.” That was an exaggeration. We’d only had that one brief meeting, but now I was curious. “Would you happen to have time to go over it now? It would be on the clock, of course. I could pick you up and go to a café, or whatever you would prefer?”
I’d been up since five o’clock. What I would prefer was a nap or perhaps a long soak in a tub. No, a nap. I would definitely not prefer going anywhere. Actually, I would prefer to say, go away.
“Come here. My house is a construction mess, I’m renovating, but I have a deck where we can be comfortable. Does that work?”
‘I’ll be there in ten. And thank you.”
I looked down at the now-wrinkled and very random cut-offs and t-shirt I had put on that morning, and my bare feet, considered more professional or merely more adult attire for a split second and thought, the heck with it. He is intruding on my down time; he can take me as I am.
Eight minutes and he was ringing my doorbell, juggling two luxurious iced drinks and his computer bag, and saying, “Sorry again for barging in. I hope these help make up for it. I didn’t know your favorites, so I brought one chocolate, one mango.”
A bribe? Why not?
“Come on in, and excuse the mess. We can sit outdoors.”
My house was certainly not at its best. Construction debris was everywhere. I was trying to hustle him past the mess, but he stopped in front of the fireplace. The construction mess around certainly was attention getting, and so, perhaps, were the remaining shreds of bright yellow police tape.
“Darcy told me what happened here.”
I hoped he didn’t see me flinch. I didn’t want to talk about it with every random stranger. So I didn’t.
Instead I led him straight out to my sunny deck. As in most of these renovated brownstones, the garden floor, with its separate entrance tucked under the high front stoop, had been turned into a rental unit, now needing major work and vacant at the moment. The deck was built out from the back of the raised parlor floor, giving access to the garden by a long flight of steps.
Of course that means we look out over our neighbors’ gardens, all up and down the back of the attached houses. True, there is a loss of privacy, but I get to look at the pink climbing roses, grape arbor and gently splashing fountain on the Pastores’ side and enjoy an oak tree’s shade on the other. It’s not a bad tradeoff.
Richmond looked around. “This is nice. You know? Cozy. My apartment is large, and, oh, very decorated, in a very good building. It’s a legacy from my marriage, but it’s about as homey as a hotel suite.”
It seemed natural when he asked, “Do you feel differently about this house now? Maybe I’m out of line even to be asking that?”
It didn’t seem out of line. It seemed perceptive.
“I don’t know yet. I hope we’ll get over it, if I can sidetrack my daughter from being too interested. In a few hours she went from being, as she would say, totally grossed out, to wanting to investigate it.” I responded to his puzzled expression by adding glumly, “Teenagers are like that. The mood swings are faster than the speed of adult thought.”
“But why would she want to do that at all
?”
“There were some items buried there with her. It. The cops thought it was a young girl, like Chris, and she feels some kind of kinship. I guess.”
I didn’t want to talk about it any further with this stranger.
“What did you want to discuss with me?”
“First, here is your consulting contract. It’s very standard. Read through it and sign, please.”
I glance over it. The hourly fee was satisfactory. Actually, it went way beyond satisfactory. There was a cap on how many hours they would need and the work I produced would belong to them, Hudson Investors. Had I ever seen such a contract before? No. Was I going to sign it in any case? Of course. He handed me a pen, heavy, gold, engraved but I already had a Bic from my pocket.
He had opened his notebook computer and was pointing to a familiar page. It was that annoying Brownstone Bytes blog, headlining the question: “Who is gobbling up parkside property?” The story went on to discuss the purchase of the rundown neighborhood movie theater and several nearby older apartment buildings, all around the attractive traffic circle at a park entrance. This was the less gentrified end of the neighborhood. The buyers were several nameless, faceless companies, shells within shells, all different but with a heavy implication that they were actually the same buyer. It ended with a promise that “our tireless researchers would track the companies’ names back to actual people, back as far as it took.”
There was nothing very disturbing about the facts, but there was a heavy undertone of suspicion, that there were nefarious doings to be uncovered. There were already some flaming reader comments, repeated references to octopus-grip developers and destructive, heartless tycoons.
“Your clients’ project?”
Richmond nodded. “They wanted to stay under the radar for awhile. These writers don’t seem to know who they are but they certainly know more than we wanted them to.”
“I don’t know what I can do for you. Or them. I mean, I—is there a reason for local people to be upset?”
Richmond looked stunned and then he laughed. “Well, our goal is to convince people that this project is going to be worthwhile, exciting, and an enormous asset to the neighborhood. But we weren’t planning to have that process now. “
I thought, I bet you’d like to keep the prices depressed for a while too. Then I said it, and he replied with a terse, “Of course. It’s business. The goal is to both be creative and make lots of money.” For the first time, he looked unsure of himself. It was an improvement.
“It’s an unusual project for my clients, and for me. We usually deal with things you can’t see, financial instruments, and putting it all together is like a puzzle. Challenging and exciting, but more abstract. My client and a friend, a famous architect, hatched this idea to build something together, something big and beautiful.”
“Does that make any business sense here?” It didn’t to me.
He shrugged. “Only time will tell. It’s an exciting change for them and for me. They are certainly people who expect to succeed at everything they do. For now, my role—one of my roles—is to try to make the process as smooth as possible. No muss, no fuss. They want me involved not because I know anything about this, but because they are used to me.” He added quickly, “Of course we are hiring expertise all over the place.”
“I don’t fully understand.” I was trying to sound suave. “What are you most afraid of?”
“We are not sure. To be honest, I don’t comprehend the hostility in this article.” He tapped the computer. “We see huge untapped potential—housing with park views on one side, views all the way to the harbor on the other, and far better shopping and dining choices. To us, it seems to be a win for the neighborhood. At the quality level we have in mind, merchants and buyers will be fighting to get in.”
Goodness. He was making a presentation. I guessed he had a whole set of PowerPoint slides stored in that slim computer.
“Aren’t you forgetting something? People live there now. And how many local merchants will be happy to have the competition move into the commercial space?”
He looked at me with an assessing eye. “That’s where you come in. Darcy wasn’t wrong about you. You live nearby, you have the background, and you know the people. Reluctant as I am to admit it”—I saw the tiniest hint of a smile—“we might, let us say, be blinded by our own vision.
What really gets people upset about this? What can we offer that would make this generally accepted? You know, many people would, in fact, will, call this progress.” He sounded aggrieved. “Change is what keeps a great city alive! Did you know Lincoln Center was built on the slums that are the setting of
West Side Story?”