In This Rain (23 page)

“Inspector,” he said. “You accused me of being responsible for vandalism at least, and probably murder. In front of two cops, one of them a friend of mine.”

“I was following the money.”

“Really? You see a lot of that here?”

“I see a major site about to come into play, something someone could make a fortune developing.”

“Commercially. The proposal we presented to the mayor was strictly not-for-profit.”

It flashed on fast, her smile. “Don’t be disingenuous. There’s a lot of money in that world, too. You have quite a kingdom here in Harlem, Mr. Corrington, but its real estate is dispersed. The Block A site would give it a capital city.”

“Inspector, what’s the point of this conversation?”

“Like Luis Perez said, I’m corruption. My orders are to look into Walter Glybenhall. Or, to be exact, Three Star. To make sure whatever’s behind these accidents in the Bronx, it’s not the tip of some corruption iceberg.”

“And

?”

“Suppose I’m right, what I said before. Suppose Walter Glybenhall’s only doing the Mott Haven site to give the mayor an excuse to hand Block A over to him.”

“That would be an extraordinary length to go to.”

“Not really. It’s not as if he’s going to lose money up there. If everything works out, Glybenhall will come out with a small profit. And have a large development in New York in his portfolio for the first time. Which, according to him, are reasons enough.”

Ford shrugged. “Maybe they are.”

“Sure, and maybe I really am Wonder Woman. Walter Glybenhall wouldn’t bend down to pick up a small profit if it were lying on the sidewalk.”

“All right, suppose he’s got a deal with the mayor. Then what?”

“Then I find your consortium wants the site, too. But that’s a harder sell. If Mott Haven works out and a lot of the people you might expect as allies— ”

“White liberals, like yourself.”

She arched her eyebrows. “— if white liberals could throw up their hands and say, Gee, Mr. Glybenhall’s proved he can operate in a community like this, he’ll do a wonderful job in Harlem, they could avoid getting Charlie Barr mad at them. And you and Harlem would be on your own. So, hypothetically and in spite of what you say, if you didn’t think you could win on your own, maybe a little preemptive sabotage would be in order.”

“If, hypothetically, all this were going on, why would I march into a police station and call attention to it?”

“Maybe some of what you said is true. T.D. was working for Kong, say. But maybe— hypothetically— Kong was working for you. And maybe it was about to come out some other way. No man looks as innocent as the one whose own words make him look guilty, only he opens his eyes wide and says, I didn’t think of that.”

Ford gazed at her, registering the fact that she’d remembered, and used, the street names of the two dead boys. He turned away, toward the soft June breeze drifting in the window. Across the avenue, the shadows of wrought-iron railings zigzagged down the steps of five identical rowhouses. When those houses were built, they were six, and dazzling: twining vines carved into limestone door frames, granite medallions set on brick facades; mahogany mantels and pressed-tin ceilings behind high parlor windows. Now each house was eight apartments. Now the glass was cracked and the mahogany, where it hadn’t been ripped out, had been painted so many times the edges were rounded, the hollows filled. Stone foliage choked on a century of smoke and dust. And now the five buildings stood three on the north, two on the south of a lot mounded with the ruins of the sixth. The city had knocked that down a decade ago after a fire left it wrecked and dangerous. Every year since, they’d slapped a violation on the absentee landlord for not clearing the debris. He never responded. In a front corner of the lot, an ailanthus tree— the dandelions of the city— had broken through and flourished, reaching, by now, nearly ten feet.

Ford turned back to Montgomery. “Inspector, everything you’re suggesting is wrong, and, incidentally, offensive. I don’t know who Kong was working for, but it wasn’t me. And for the record, I had no idea Walter Glybenhall was interested in Block A until you mentioned it, and I still have no idea whether it’s true and, again for the record, I’ll bet you don’t either.”

“I said I was speaking hypothetically.”

“I dislike your hypothesis.”

“Occam’s Razor. The idea that— ”

“— the simplest solution’s likely to be the truth. I have a BA and a JD from Harvard, Inspector.”

“And I was kicked out of two boarding schools, ran away from another, and finished high school on a GED. I have a BA from Oberlin and a JD from NYU. And I think Occam’s Razor can cut this another way.”

She met his eyes and smiled; her cheeks were flushed pink.

He let her eyes hold his. Something about them was strange. Their color: not quite matched. One like water, one like sky. He reached to the windowsill and plugged the kettle in. “What way?”

She crossed one trousered leg over the other. “Do you remember me, Mr. Corrington?”

“Should I? Have we met?”

“No. But three years ago, Dolan Construction? That DOI inspector who went to prison? He was my partner.”

Ford thought back: the news stories, the press conferences. The little girl’s funeral. “You testified in court.”

“My partner was innocent. But Edgar Westermann and Charlie Barr were both eager to burn him at the stake. So were a lot of people. You were the only voice of moderation coming out of your community. You stood up to the Borough President and the mayor.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but what I said then had nothing to do with your partner. He might have been guilty. In fact I thought he was.” He’d raised his voice on that last sentence to override her protest, but she sat wordless, watching him. “My point was, the DA, under what anyone could see was pressure from the mayor, had let the real criminal, the one who’d paid bribes to keep using the bad practices that actually killed that child— they’d let him grab a plea so the city could clean its own house. Whatever your partner did, he was the lesser criminal. But he was the one who was making Charlie Barr smell bad. Personally, I don’t care how Charlie Barr smells. I care about little black girls dying.”

“And I cared about a friend of mine being railroaded. You were a voice of sanity. It doesn’t matter why. Maybe I feel like I owe you something.”

That caught him off balance, and he laughed. “And that’s why you accused me of sabotage and murder?”

“No. It’s why I did some rethinking after you stormed out of the police station.”

The kettle began to sing. He clicked it off. “Do you want some tea?”

“Coffee?”

“Oh, right, you only drink lattes. Sorry, just tea.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear. What kind?”

He pointed to the row of mismatched tins along the sill. She stood, walked over, picked up one, another, a third. “This.” She held a silver box out to him.

“You like kukicha?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had it.”

“It’s made from twigs.”

That didn’t seem to deter her so he scooped some up, dumped it in the pot.

She didn’t return to her chair, but stood looking out across the avenue. “I’m persona non grata in my own agency,” she said. “I was supposed to resign when Joe went to prison. Protocol.” A bus rumbled by; her eyes followed it. “But I was too angry. So I stayed. For three years now I’ve had nothing to do and they’ve made sure I’m in Far Rockaway and Tottenville doing it. Suddenly I’m hauled in from the ends of the earth and handed a delicate assignment. Look into Three Star, in other words Walter Glybenhall, a dear pal of our dear mayor. They promised me permanent reassignment back to Manhattan, and some nice juicy cases, if this ‘works out.’ ”

Ford heard the quote marks in her voice. He poured deep brown tea into a lumpy mug made by some child in a long-ago ceramics class and handed it to her, wondering suddenly what child had made this mug and what had become of him, or her.

“And it would work out,” he said, “if you came to the conclusion that Walter Glybenhall was pure as the driven snow.”

“Walter would enjoy that image. It’s so

white. Yes, that’s what I assume is going on, from DOI’s point of view.” She gave her tea a tentative sip. “You don’t know Glybenhall, so you say. But I do. I have since I was a child. He’s greedy and cold-blooded.”

“You don’t have to know him to know that.”

She nodded. “What made me angry earlier was the idea that you might be behind Three Star’s accidents. Instead of Walter.”

“Glybenhall? You think he’s attacking his own project?”

“For the insurance. His finances are often shakier than you might think. I haven’t got a full accounting report yet, but I’ll bet his cash flow is off. There’s an accident, he claims lost time, the insurance money makes the payments— salaries, suppliers— that he couldn’t actually have made. It’s the construction equivalent of burning down your own warehouse.”

Ford watched her lift her mug in both hands and sip her tea.

“You like it?” he asked.

“The tea? Yes. Tastes like I always thought mud pies would when I was little.”

“Did they?”

“Mud pies? They were awful. We lived in lots of places and I tried the mud everywhere, but they were always awful.”

The breeze snaked in the window to ruffle the fronds of a fern.

“I’m getting an image of windmills,” he said. “And knights with lances. These things never work out well for Sancho Panza.”

“It’s not the right metaphor. Those windmills weren’t really dragons.”

“You have a better one?”

Her grin flashed again. “Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia?”

“What do you want, Ms. Montgomery?”

She leaned forward. “Access. People here will talk to you in ways they’ll never talk to me. T.D.’s girlfriend, Kong’s homeboys: whomever I need.”

“I have a lot at stake here. I can’t afford to be left holding the bag.”

“What would it take?”

In his mind he saw the mayor’s glossy conference table, the pile of prospectuses. He heard Charlie Barr’s furious voice: Harlem’s not the only thing that’s not for sale. “Minimally, to know you’re right about Glybenhall and Block A.”

She nodded and put down the mug. “You’ll hear from me,” she said, standing abruptly. She turned and left.

Harlem: Frederick Douglass Boulevard

Ford finished his tea, sipping slowly. He stared through the open office door, watching the business of the Garden Project go on. A cornrowed little girl waved to him as she dropped off a sheaf of papers with Yvonnia; he waved back and she ran off giggling. Two social workers passed in the hallway, heads bent together, one of them gesturing emphatically: some kid’s future might be about to change.

A rooftop park. A gym, a theater. Safe, cheap apartments with heat in the winter, working elevators, and wide windows.

Or brownstones, bistros, and supper clubs, with tourist buses out front and private parking in the back.

Used to be, the black musicians who played the clubs had to come and go through the back, except in Harlem.

Of course, in his day so did Mozart.

Ford sighed and stood. He walked down the hall and stuck his head in the social workers’ office.

“On a third-grade level,” Peter Muller was saying from a chair in front of Kathy O’Loughlin’s desk. Peter, dark and tall as Kathy was dark and small, never made a point without circling it in the air, and as he waved his huge hands around, Ford feared for Kathy’s mounds of unfiled papers. “But his raps? In the internal rhyme there’s a sophistication you can’t— ” He stopped and looked at Ford.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Ford said.

“No problem.” Peter seemed suddenly to notice his hands, still in the air. He pulled them down.

“Just a question. Either of you remember a kid named Armand Stubbs?”

“A-Dogg?” Kathy asked.

“That’s right. Know where he’s staying now?”

She shook her head. “Running the streets, is all I know. Took up with Kong, and Kong brought him into that hard crew.”

“I know the crew. I need to talk to Armand alone. Oh, well. Thanks.”

“Oh, wait! Try Wimp’s.”

Ford had turned to go, but he turned back.

“Wimp’s? Boy has a weakness for sweet potato pie?”

“He’s working there, unless I’m remembering this wrong. Condition of probation, from his last arrest.”

“What was that for, you remember?”

“He and Kong boosted a dozen CD players from an electronics place. He got nailed, Kong walked. First offense, so they gave him a choice: Rikers or get a J-O-B. The day manager at Wimp’s knew his mama, thought she did badly by the boy.”

“We were involved?”

“No.” Kathy’s look was almost embarrassed, as though she’d been caught at something. “Some of them, I just keep track. No reason. Just in case

you know.”

“Yeah,” Ford said. “I know.”

“You thinking, you could use Kong and T.D. for object lessons, this might be a good time to pry A-Dogg loose?”

“No, I wasn’t,” Ford replied. “But it’s not a bad idea.”

*

Wimp’s, on the north side of 125th, had renovated just this last year. The cracked tile floor and the old thick-glass hanging lamps were gone. The show window ran sidewalk to ceiling now and a fluorescent-lit mezzanine perched over the counter floor, for folks who couldn’t wait until they got home but didn’t want to shovel down their massive slabs of cake directly in front of the bakery, out on the street.

What had not changed was the cake. Or the cupcakes, pies, or aluminum dishes of vanilla, banana, coconut pudding. In air swirling with allspice and chocolate, Ford stood at the counter, glad for the line: he needed the time to make his choice.

“Can I help the next customer?” a young woman with high, wide curls sang out. Ford let an older lady, leaning on a cane, go ahead of him. He smiled in answer to her thanks, wondering why the world couldn’t be full of such win-win situations: he’d had time to make up his mind, and the next free counter boy was Armand Stubbs.

“Help you?” Armand’s mouth beat his eyes by a half-second. His glance narrowed with suspicion as his customer’s identity registered.