The Concrete Pearl (10 page)

I climbed back out onto the scaffolding platform, took a good look around at the construction site and the designated contractor parking area. No cop cars visible. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t being watched.

I dropped down to my knees, then eased my left leg over the edge of the platform. Exhaling a breath, I eased myself down over the side. I was gripping the top most steel bar while searching for some solid footing when I first heard the siren. The siren was coming from the direction of the lower Concrete Pearl. The siren was getting louder with each hand over foot motion I made on the slow climb down the scaffolding.

My heart shot into my throat. The siren got louder, more intense. I descended as fast as I could without losing my footing or my handhold.

The siren blared.

No choice but to ignore it while I inched my way down, the moist palms on my exposed hands slapping the metal scaffolding bars, my booted feet cramping in the narrow “V” sections where the vertical cross-bar supports joined together.

Only when I made it to the bottom did the cop car speed passed the Pearl Street jobsite. The cop had to be doing seventy miles per. Every cruiser light was flashing.

Maybe my booted feet were sore, but I sprinted across the jobsite to the open road as fast as those sore feet would carry me. No doubt about it, the game of cat and mouse had begun.

Chapter 18

My back was covered in sweat, mouth dry, heart beating a mile per second. I drove in silence for what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than fifteen or twenty minutes. On the bypass I passed a backlit billboard that read, “Hurt on the Jobsite? Call 1-800-LAW-1010! Get the Money You Deserve.” And another with a massive black and white photograph of a sickly bare-chested man. “Exposed to Asbestos! Mesothelioma is Lethal. Call 1-800-GET-HELP.”

The world was full of things that killed you, especially on construction sites.

In the end, only the lawyers survived.

Eventually I pulled into a convenient store parking lot. I needed something cool and wet to calm me down. Maybe that cop hadn’t been after me. But I knew that if I’d been caught breaking into my own red-flagged jobsite, I would have faced immediate arrest. Maybe my little PS 20 B-and-E hadn’t been worth the risk. But then, when I decided to do something, there was no talking me out of it. My stubborn streak was notorious. So my dad reminded me on a daily basis (Apparently I took after my mother).

Inside the brightly lit store I patted my left pocket for some petty cash. The pocket was empty. There was an ATM located in the far corner of the store. I went to it.

I pulled out my wallet, slid out the MasterCard debit card, slid it down the designated vertical slot. When the machine asked me for my four-digit PIN, I punched it in. It asked how much cash I wanted. $20; $40; Quick-$60…

I punched in $40.

The machine told me I would have to pay $3.00 for the privilege of getting at my own money. It asked me if I wanted to continue, despite the extortion.

“
Yes or No?
”

I fingered “Yes.”

The machine asked me to be patient while it contacted my bank and processed my request.

Stacked on the linoleum floor beside me, the evening edition of the Times Union Newspaper. The headline read, “
Albany
Elementary School Contaminated
.” Below that headline was printed a small teaser: “
Pearl Street’s PS 20 tainted with asbestos fibers; students exposed to deadly carcinogen
.”

There was a second Concrete Pearl-related story printed further down on the front page.

“
Common Council Ponders Albany Development Proposal for June Convention Center Groundbreaking
.”

The A.T.M. issued an electronic beep. I refocused my attention on the machine. When the main screen reappeared, it said “Request Denied. Insufficient Funds.”

Ice water shot up and down my spine. I shot a glance over my right shoulder at the cashier standing behind the counter up at the front of the store. She was a tall African American woman. Thin and attractive and college young. She wore a brown acrylic vest over a white tank top. The vest said “Stewarts” on it in white block letters. She was painting long fingernails while listening to hip-hop on a portable boom box. The hip-hop drowned out the complimentary piped in Muzac.

She returned my glance with a glare.

I cancelled the transaction, got my card back out, went through the whole procedure again.

Same result.

Insufficient funds.

I knew I had more than fifteen Gs in the Harrison Construction “petty cash” checking account. That’s after taking into account the ten I advanced Farrell for his payroll. There had to be a glitch in the automated teller machine system.

I turned, walked across the store floor to the coolers in the rear. I picked out a tall Diet Pepsi, brought it back with me over to the counter. I set it down.

I handed the young woman my debit card. She set the nail polish brush back into the bottle of red nail polish. She looked at the Diet Pepsi, condensate bleeding down its sides. She looked at the debit card beside it.

“The card…just for a fuckin’ Pepsi?” she said, blowing on her wet nails.

“Just run it please,” I said. I was in no mood.

She glared some more, did a mock head bob and shoveled up the card with the nails on her dry hand, ran it through the computer register.

She waited.

I waited.

The card didn’t take.

An old man walked into the store. He stood behind me, clearing his throat. I turned to look at him. He was gripping a stack of blaze orange Lotto Quick Draw tickets in his hand. I knew he was anxious to cash them in; anxious to play again and again and again.

“Card…don’t…work,” the cashier said. “Insufficient…funds.”

“There’s plenty of money in there,” I said, the ice water in my spine replaced with a slow burn.

“Computer says you tight, yo.”

The old man behind me cleared his throat. Again.

“Finished?” he said.

I took back my debit card, leaving the Diet Pepsi sitting on the counter in a small pool of its own condensate.

Outside the store I called the number printed on the back side of the debit card. The automated operator said to press “2” for balance information.  Then the operator said “Account placed on indefinite hold.” The computer voice was both pleasant and to-the-point direct. She said to contact a bank customer representative at the eight-hundred number listed on the back of the card.

Ending the call, I redialed the 800 number.

I pressed “0” for a human animal.

The automated operator told me I’d have to wait forty-five minutes for the next available customer representative. Muzac followed. A tinny version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Yeah, this was a thriller all right.

I wanted to fucking punch somebody, starting with the convenience store counter girl. Instead I made the decision to drive straight home. Better to drown my sorrows in Budweiser beer than to commit aggravated assault.

Chapter 19

Ten minutes later I was walking across the parking lot outside my apartment building. My Blackberry vibrated. Joel Clark, Esq. said the I.D.

“Joel,” I said, pressing the phone to my ear.

“What prompted you to hire Farrell?”

“You gotta to ask? His asbestos removal bid was low. He got the job fair and super square.”

I pictured the graying lawyer seated behind his mahogany desk inside a tenth floor high-rise office, desk drowning in piles of paperwork. He apologized about being in depositions the entire day and therefore so out of touch. Then he told me he’d already seen the papers and the television news. But he wanted my take. He wanted me to tell him everything from the time I arrived on the PS 20 jobsite that morning up until now.

I told him everything, standing right out there in the open lot. From the moment I split the jobsite all the way up to being denied cash from the convenient store A.T.M. By the time I was done it was dark out. The parking lot lamps were illuminating the lot in a hazy orange afterglow.

“Jesus, you’re one headstrong wrecking crew of a woman,” he barked. “You’re lucky you’re not already standing in county lockup for tampering with state evidence. You got yourself snagged up on that PS 20 scaffolding that’s exactly where you’d be.”

But now that the scolding was over, he told me to keep out of touch.

“Damage control,” he called it.

He counseled me not to speak with Stewart or with anyone from the press (meaning Chris Collins), or any one of the project principals directly—the project principals being the architect and the school board president. He would take care of the communications issue first thing in the morning. If at all possible he wanted to arrange an emergency project meeting at his downtown office tomorrow afternoon with the intent to resolve the safety situation at the school. Only when it was possible to re-enter the main building without risk would we address the issue of performing removal procedures all over again. This time according to plans and specs.

“You’re gonna have to take a serious hit on this, Spike,” he said. “You’re gonna have to hire another asbestos removal company, get them on site a.s.a.p., if only to show good faith. Even then there’ll be no guarantee that PS 20 will be clean.”

The muscles in my stomach tightened.

“How do I pay for that?” I said. “It could run a hundred grand.”

“By back-charging what you can to Farrell’s A-1 Environmental Solutions.”

“F-Y-I,” I exhaled. “Farrell is paid up to date, plus.”

“You advanced Farrell funds—”

“For the sake of expediting the project.”

“That’s the school’s money, Spike.”

“Not exactly. I advanced him ten large from a Harrison cash account so he could make payroll. Why do you think I’m personally on his trail?”

“Well you’re going to have no choice but to put up what cash you can, then go after Farrell’s bid bond. I’ll take care of the bond issue from here in my office tomorrow.”

He didn’t say anything for a second or two. But I got the feeling there was something else on his mind.

“It’s too late now, Spike,” he said, “but you should not have left the jobsite for any reason.”

Joel was right. Dad taught me better than that. By being absent, I’d only made it look like I had something to hide. I tried to put myself in the shoes of all the PS 20 mothers. I wasn’t a mother myself. But I knew they’d be worried sick about their children.

“One more thing,” he said. “Keep in mind if one of those kids or faculty members should start screaming cancer, you’re going to find yourself in more trouble than you ever thought possible.”

My sternum went tight at the thought of a sick child. I decided to put it out of my mind the best I could.

“What do you want me to do with the shell casing? And what about the other stuff…the chewing tobacco tin and the Thatcher Street business card?”

“Don’t touch it more than you have. Pack it up and drop it off at my office. We got a real missing person’s case or, God forbid, a homicide, the cops will want to confiscate it all.”

“So what do you suggest I do now?” I said, voice betraying me by cracking mid-sentence.

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you,” Joel said. “Lay low and do right thing.”

“Listen, there’s a hold on my petty cash account.”

Joel sighed. He was a big man who was good at big sighs.

“My guess is the school has placed a lien on your accounts pending rectification of the asbestos contamination.”

“They want their money back is what they want Joel.”

“They’re simply trying to protect themselves. I’ll see about bonding the liens tomorrow morning after I go after Farrell’s bid bond.”

“What do I do for money in the meantime?”

“Use your personal checking account.”

“All thirty-five cents of it?”

What I didn’t have the guts to tell Joel was that lately, I’d been using the Harrison cash accounts as my own personal accounts.

“You must have credit cards.”

“Harrison Construction AMEX,” I said, knowing I had maybe a grand left on it before it was maxed out.

“Just use that,” Joel said. “Pay it off later.”

With what?
I wanted to say.

I hung up, retrieved my briefcase from the Jeep, headed for my apartment which was located appropriately enough, in the basement.

Chapter 20

I made my way into my bedroom. From out of my pocket I pulled out the misspelled “Closed Untill Further Notice” note with the odd sketch on the back. I set it, along with my briefcase on the desktop. I turned on the laptop. While I waited for it to boot up, I touched my lips with the tips of my two fingers, pressed them to Jordan’s mouth—the Jordan that appeared for me in the framed black and white studio headshot I kept of him directly beside my computer.

I went into the kitchen, grabbed a cold bottle of beer, brought it back into the bedroom with me. I sat down at the desk, logged onto the Harrison Construction website and typed in the password that accessed my email. The new emails fell one by one into a vertical column like rapidly stacked bricks. There had to be thirty or more new messages, most of them from the Tiger Lady.

It had been one hell of a long Monday. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d accomplished anything. Maybe I wasn’t any closer to finding Farrell, but I was a little closer to finding out what happened to him.

I opened the briefcase, pulled out all the items I’d collected at the public fishing access site. I picked up the spent shell casing, took a good look at the back rim where the pin had left its indentation mark.

Winchester .9mm rounds, 362 grains. Chrome-plated.

Holy crap, had Farrell been shot, his body ditched somewhere, his car towed to Dott’s? Obviously homicide was a possibility. According to Joel anyway.

I picked up the empty Skoll chewing tobacco can.