The Concrete Pearl (16 page)

I was getting nowhere real fast.

“What about the police? Anyone file a missing person’s report yet?”

“Filed last evening. I wanted to wait for as long as possible before getting the authorities involved. I’m sure from where you’re standing, you understand my apprehension over messy legal matters.”

For a time we both eyed the river while Sonny sniffed the pavement, searching for an insect to kill.

After a while I said, “You’re taking over the PS 20 job.”

The big man nodded, contemplative eyes on the river.

I added, “Under the circumstances, Peter, you don’t see your direct involvement as a conflict of interests?”

He turned back to me.

“I’m a professional,” he said. “When the Albany School Board asked me to take over, I dropped everything. You realize it’s a direct possibility that PS 20 will pull up stakes, move uptown to make way for the convention center. It means that not only will I be able to negotiate their existing property for the Pearl Street Convention Center, but the district will also require a new school facility.” He smiled. “You know how the game works, Spike. If I can make the project principal’s happy now, I just might have a shot at negotiating a badly needed Pearl Street parcel. ”

“How nice for you,” I said. “Taking into account your status as the convention center construction manager, you just might have a monopoly on the entire boatload of new Concrete Pearl work.”

His smile faded.

“What I do in the interest of Marino Construction,” he said, “I do legally.”

“What about Albany Development Limited?”

“I’m a member of the board of trustees in good standing.”

“I’d say you’re getting your cake and devouring it too.”

“That’s the American way, Spike. Land of economic prosperity and opportunity.”

“Funny you talking about opportunity when Harrison Construction has been shut out of the convention center…And I have you to thank for that.”

Peter reached out with his claw, set it heavily on my shoulder. When he squeezed it I felt my stomach do a flip.

“You’re a health and safety liability,” he said. “And now the DA is talking about indictments. Do yourself a favor, Spike. Ignore that hard head of yours and put Harrison Construction out of its misery. Bury it and forget about it.”

He slipped his claw off my shoulder.

“I have a proposition for you, young lady,” he said. “When this thing blows over, I want you to come to work for me. Who better to finish up PS 20 then the GC who started it.”

He was smiling, bushy eyebrow perked up at both ends like the devil.

“Somehow I’m not sure my presence on site would be greatly appreciated by the Albany School Board.”

He shook his head again, the wiry ends of that devil eyebrow trembling in the stiff wind. Sonny farted and went back to panting.

“You’d run the job from the office,” Peter clarified. “Not a soul would know the difference.”            

How ironic. In just a few minutes time, I’d gone from certain state indictment to a job offer. All over the same asbestos contaminated Pearl Street school project.

He tossed a quick glance over his shoulder at the warehouse demolition and his crew of construction workers.

“I’d better be getting back to my job,” he said. “Remember, I asked you out here because your dad gave me advice once and now I’m here to pass along some advice to you. I know he’d want you to do the right thing. Your best bet is to cooperate with Santiago and this will all pass you by very quickly.”

He was grinning when he turned towards the demo-in-progress warehouse, dragging Sonny behind him. But before taking more than five steps, he turned back to me.

“Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot.”

I locked eyes with him.

“As you know, my daughter spoke to me about your unscheduled meeting yesterday at her residence. She mentioned how anxious you were over locating James… Hunting him down, as it were. And that you might have even gone out to the spot where he was thought to have gone fishing last Saturday morning.”

He pursed his lips like a load of wet clay was weighing heavily on the mind.

“I can only assume you also located James’s new BMW at Dott’s Garage. You might even have searched it, perhaps in hopes of finding some sort of clue that might lead to his whereabouts.”

“What are you getting at Peter?” I said. But in my mind I pictured the spent shell casing. I pictured all the stuff I’d collected this far; the evidence Joel wanted me to pack up and deliver to his office…A-S-A-Fucking-P.

“If you’ve discovered anything, Spike,” he said, “anything at all that might aid official investigators in their search for my daughter’s husband, it would be in your best interest to reveal them to me personally…Naturally you understand?”

I understood loud and clear. Marino must have already put two and two together. He must have known I had found something up at the Desolation Kill and in Farrell’s car, or he would have never said a word about it. He wouldn’t have asked me to meet him. The job offer, the advice, the kind words about my old man: transparent frosting to lull me into his confidence.

But then I had to ask myself this: how did Marino know about the evidence in the first place? Why would he care? Was it possible Marino was with his son-in-law at the public access fishing area just prior to Jimmy’s disappearance?

It was time for me to end this meeting.

I took a step back.

“I’ll think the job offer over,” I said.

“Remember, young lady,” he said, “if you found anything…anything at all, I would very much appreciate knowing about it.”

I kept backing up, careful not to back up off the pier into the river.

Something occurred to me then.

“Peter,” I said.

He shot me a glance over his shoulder.

“If you’re so sure PS 20 is going to be relocated uptown,” I said, “why bother finishing the project up at all?”

“Ours is to do or die,” he quoted with a devilish smile, yanking on Sonny’s leash.

I turned and walked away, the hairs on the back of my neck still standing up on end.

Chapter 34

Driving. Out of the port towards the Concrete Pearl.

At a stop sign I dialed 411 information on the Blackberry, asked for the main number to the Albany Police Department. Information dialed the number for me. When an APD switchboard operator came on the line, I told her I needed to speak with someone who worked on missing persons. She asked me if I was a reporter.

“Just a concerned citizen,” I said.

She asked me the name of the missing person. I told her. She told me to hold.

When she came back on the line she said that a report had been filed yesterday, late afternoon.

“By whom?” I asked.

“Inner departmental,” she said.

“In other words no one from Farrell’s family filed it.” A question.

“Okay, what TV station you work for?”

I hung up before she ran my number.

Marino lied about filing the missing persons report on his son-in-law.

Big surprise.

What did it all mean?

It meant he either didn’t care about Jimmy’s well being or the last thing he wanted was to have to speak with the cops. The real answer probably lay somewhere in between.

The phone vibrated.

Spain’s name came up on the caller I.D.

And I was the one everybody called stubborn?

I thumbed IGNORE and drove in the direction of PS 20.

Chapter 35

I pulled up to PS 20.

I’d come not to collect my project files in accordance with my lawyer’s carefully thought out counsel, but to take them home with me. Hide them until I figured out a better plan of action than simply giving up.

But I was too late.

Just outside the trailer stood the team of project principals. The tall, gawky Albany School Supervisor, the bearded architect, DA Santiago along with two or three uniformed APD. A blue-jean clad Diana Stewart also occupied her little personal square foot of blacktop. She stood beside Joel Clark. And one more person too: Private Detective Spain.

Maybe I should have answered his call after all.

The bigwigs were standing in semicircular formation around the set of aluminum steps leading up to the red-flagged project trailer door. It’s not that I had forgotten about the
come-to-Jesus
between the project principals—the meeting in which Joel would represent me in my absence; where he would announce my full cooperation to surrender myself and my files to the DA. It’s just that it wasn’t supposed to happen until later in the afternoon. According to Joel I had plenty of time to get at my files.

So much for trusting my life-long lawyer.

I watched them from a distance, the Jeep hidden behind a stand of overgrown pines that bordered the northern edge of the school property. The trailer door opened up. The party took a collective step aside to avoid the unidentified man who was carting my metal file cabinet out on a dolly, down the wood steps to an awaiting GMC suburban.

Another car pulled up.

A Porche convertible.

Marino.

He hadn’t been far behind me. He got out of the car like a movie star, shook hands with several team members, including Santiago and Joel. He ignored Spain. He was wearing razor thin sunglasses and had a bright smile planted on his face, no doubt visions of dollar signs flashing through his brain. Here the Italian contractor came to save the day now that the health and safety liability had been tossed off the job; now that his son-in-law had been officially reported missing not by him or Tina, but by the APD themselves.

I threw the Jeep in drive. As I pulled out I took one more look over at Santiago. I also took one last good look at the devil-browed Marino, at Joel, at Stewart…

…At Spain.

Had the private detective called to warn me about my files being confiscated by the cops? As I pulled out from behind the trees, I was certain the PI caught sight of me. My eyes focused in on the rear view mirror, I watched him silently watching me as I drove away from the school, out of sight, but not out of mind.

Chapter 36

It was going on half passed one when I pulled into Lanies Café.

I spotted Tommy’s black Ford F-150 pickup parked right outside the entrance. Soon as I walked in I saw that he occupied his usual corner stool behind the pool table and the popcorn machine. The stool gave him a good unobstructed view of the ceiling-mounted television.

I sat myself down on the empty stool directly beside his. He automatically ordered me a draft beer from the young woman tending bar. The dark-haired college girl looked up from the magazine she was reading, retrieved my beer, set it down in front of me.

“Take it out of here, Tommy?” she asked, digging manicured fingers into the pile of cash laid out on the bar.

“’Course,” Tommy said.

Then, turning to me, he said, “Santiago is threatening to indict you …What now?”

I took a small sip of the cold beer, then told him about the confiscated files.

“Joel wants me to give up,” I said. “Wants me to cooperate with Santiago, strike a deal with the county. Word is I’ll be fined. No prison time.”

He looked at me hard.   

“You haven’t done shit,” he said, voice bitter. “Anymore than you cut that carpenter’s fingers off earlier this year.”

I sat silent for a moment, my eyes veering from the bartender who was back to reading her magazine and the television which was tuned into the 24-hour local news—Tommy’s personal information source. The bartender’s black boy-beater T fell just short of her navel. Her tight belly sported a brand new
phat tat
of a green palm tree bending in the wind.

“Any clue where your old lover boy took off too yet?”

He followed up with one of his grins.

I took a sip of beer and glared back at him like,
Don’t even go there
.

Then I told him I had no new word on the subject. But I was able to tell him about the liens placed on the Harrison accounts. Told him about the little introduction to Natalie in the flesh at Thatcher Street; about how upset she seemed; about how she denied knowing a whole lot about Farrell. That is until she forwarded a short Mpeg to me proving she and the golden boy were more than just bar room acquaintances and how Marino, of all people, acted as cameraman. I let him know about my surprise meeting with Diana last night and I told him about my impromptu meeting with Marino at the port late that morning.

Tommy took it all in, especially the part about both Marino and Diana wanting me to turn myself over to Santiago, just like Joel wanted.

“Marino,” he said. “Bastard is taking over our job even though his son-in-law caused this entire mess.”

“And I’m the one fighting the law,” I said, downing the rest of my beer before sliding off the stool. “Listen Tommy, I have to lay you off for a while. I want you to put in for unemployment.”

“I need a vacation anyway,” he said. “But not until I help you get out of this mess.”

I reached into him, kissed him on the cheek.

“Easy,” he said. “People know me here.”

No one else occupied the bar. Only the bartender, her eyes still buried in her mag, that little palm tree swaying with her every breath. She was young enough to be Tommy’s granddaughter.

“My apologies, Romeo,” I said.

“I’m worried about you,” Tommy said. “You’ve been doing a lot of snooping in the past twenty-four hours.”

“You think Marino is scared about what I uncovered at that fishing hole? The bullet casing?”

He sat upright on his stool, crossed thick arms over barrel chest.

He said, “Could be that by finding out about what happened to Farrell, you also stand the chance of uncovering something about Marino. Something buried deep he doesn’t want you to uncover. And that’s always some dangerous shit.”

My mobile vibrated.

Joel.

No doubt calling to inform me that the Harrison bid files had been confiscated by county authorities. He’d also want to pin me down for a time when I would voluntarily surrender myself to Santiago.