Marta flopped the box over on its back and sawed the latch with vigor. The padlock wiggled back and forth but the saw’s teeth barely etched the surface of the metal. She sawed again and almost amputated her index finger, which was frostbitten anyway. Not a good idea. She threw the saw back in the truck and searched the chest again. An old iron horseshoe! Marta hooked the shoe through the lock and tried to wrench it off. No go. There had to be something in the truck that would open this goddamn padlock! The truck was a hardware store on wheels!
Marta got out of the truck with the strongbox and slammed the door behind her. She stormed to the back of the truck and yanked the back door open. The forge, a tiny oven without a door, was on the left. She could melt the strongbox down!
Marta tried to shove the box into the forge, pressing with her shoulder. The box was too wide. She grabbed the box and slammed the lock against the back edge of the forge, but succeeded only in denting the forge. The padlock stayed fast. What a product! What a company! Marta wondered momentarily if it were publicly traded, then grabbed the box and drop-kicked it across the snow. It landed in a snowdrift and disappeared. Uh-oh.
Marta ran after it, growling, and dug it out. Fucking padlock. They weren’t kidding in those commercials where they shot the shit out of the thing. She set the box down out of the snowdrift and jumped on it over and over, like a trampoline. She climbed off and looked down at her handiwork. The lock survived, as did the frame of the box. This wasn’t funny anymore. Marta snarled and whirled around. Her gaze fell on the pickup truck. Of course.
She left the box in the center of the street and sprinted back to the truck. She climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The driver’s clock said 7:01. She still had time. She could make this happen. Christopher would be working for her. Everything would be okay as soon as she cracked the box. She released the emergency brake and twisted on the ignition. The truck coughed twice and turned over.
Marta heard herself cackling softly as she gunned the engine. A padlock against a lawyer? No contest. She wrenched the steering wheel to the left and aimed straight for the box.
47
Bennie barreled in her wet parka down the marble corridor of City Hall, past the glass-etched sign that read ADMINISTRATION REPORTERS. The elegance of the sign belied what was beyond the next door. The City Hall press room was even filthier than a precinct house, which was why Bennie loved it.
She flung open the mahogany door and deftly avoided the newswire machine that obstructed an entrance hall choked with empty vending machines and a grimy shelf of mailboxes. The floor was a gritty brown tile strewn with crumpled memos, discarded gum wrappers, and curly faxes. A dusty dictionary with marbleized endpapers sat on a battered bookstand. An old wooden coatrack had fallen against the wall with the weight of reporters’ coats. The air smelled vaguely electrical with a hint of body odor.
On either side of the entrance hall stood eye-level partitions covered with dirty burlap and wrinkled clippings. Beyond them were offices filled with cluttered wooden desks and dingy file cabinets. Bookshelves were packed with papers, plastic spiral notebooks, and superseded style manuals. Each newspaper had its own office in the press room and on the door of the News office hung an open shark jaw.
Bennie peeked over the left partition at the starchy back of an old friend, Emil Gorebian. Emil sat erect at his keyboard and tapped with an expert’s skill. He had covered the City Hall beat for thirty-four years but had been demoted to the night shift when he declined to retire early. The city editor had told him the newspaper “wasn’t downsizing, it was right-sizing,” and Emil had politely allowed as how a human being wasn’t a suit. But it didn’t matter, the suits were in control. Which was why Bennie could never work for anybody else. “Emil!” she called over the partition.
“Bennie!” Emil said, the alarm in his voice tinged with a courtly Middle Eastern accent. “What am I hearing about you? Your office, murders. How terrible!”
“I know.” Bennie dripped into the office, slipped out of her snowy hat and parka, and popped them on the back of an empty chair. She looked around. The other desks were empty. The dirty gray computers were on, their screen savers ever-changing, but the scuffed chairs sat vacant. “Where is everybody?”
“The young Turks? Most can’t get in because of the snow, they are too tender. The others are hounding the innocent, like good reporters. Myself, I am waiting for my editor to call, to give me some very important instructions like I don’t know what I’m doing. So tell me, what is going on?”
Bennie flopped into the ratty chair and shook the chill off. “I’ll sue the paper for you, I told you. We don’t have to go to court, it’s a union paper. We can grieve it. It’s easy.”
“No.” Emil pursed his lips, which were full and vividly pink under a frosty gray mustache. His eyebrows were shaped like thick commas over round eyes. His nose was a parrot’s beak set against exotic olive skin. “They are not worth my anger, or yours.”
“You’ve given over thirty years to this newspaper. You’ve won awards and your experience—”
“Please. Times have changed. It’s a spot news operation now. They care nothing for history. Experience has no value. It’s what happened today, not yesterday. Now tell me what is happening. Can I help?”
“I need information about someone who used to work here in the sixties.”
“Who?” He cocked his head, his interest piqued. “I know everyone who worked here then.”
“His name is Eb Darning.”
“I don’t know him,” Emil said immediately.
“What? You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Think about it. You know everybody here?”
“I do. If I don’t know him, he wasn’t here.” Emil patted his tie, which he wore with a white oxford shirt, still pressed despite the lateness of the hour. Or the earliness.
“How can you be sure so fast?”
“I’m sure that fast. How slow do I have to be to make you feel confident of my answer? I told you, I don’t know him, so he didn’t work here.”
Bennie smiled, remembering that one of the reasons she liked Emil was that he was the only person more hyper than she. One day she’d introduce him to Bean and they’d kill each other. “Darning may have worked for L and I or Fleets. Maybe the Parking Authority.”
“Very specific.”
“Work with me, Emil.”
“Is this about those murders?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” Emil’s gray head, with its puffy side part, snapped to his computer. He hit a few keys and pressed ENTER. “Eb Darning, you say his name is. Eb is a name?”
“Yes.”
Emil frowned at the screen. One neat wrinkle creased his forehead deeply, as if even his brow had been starched. “What kind of a name is that?”
“Not Armenian. He was black and a youngish man at the time. He might have had a daughter. He definitely had a drinking problem.”
“In City Hall, it’s a job qualification,” Emil muttered as he focused on the screen. “These old 286 machines annoy me. They take too long. Here.”
“What?” Bennie scooted her chair closer. On the computer screen was a list of names.
“Here are the L and I employees for 1960. No Darning is there.”
“Let’s try 1961.”
Emil hit a key and drummed his fingers while the computer cranked away. “Why aren’t you married, Bennie? You should be married.”
“I’m dating a very nice man, who’s unfortunately out of town.”
“Dating isn’t married.” Emil frowned at the monitor. “I have someone I want you to meet.”
“No. Your last fixup was a disaster.”
“This one likes women who work.”
“How enlightened.”
“An Armenian, of course. A member of my church. His wife died and he wants to remarry.”
“Forget it.”
“Bennie,” Emil said, his eyes focused. “I want to see you h
appy. I hope you will find a husband.”
“I don’t need a husband. I need Eb Darning.”
Another list finally materialized on the flat matte monitor. Names in faint green letters floated in an inky background. Emil’s sharp eyes ran down the list. “No Darning.” He hit another key. “I’ll try the next year.”
“Thanks.” Bennie struggled to keep up with Emil as he read. “Darning might have been a building inspector.”
“Not here,” Emil barked before he was off to the next list. He and Bennie checked employee lists for all the City Hall departments for the past thirty-odd years, but Eb Darning’s name didn’t appear on any of them. Then they checked variations on Eb Darning’s name, including Heb Darnton, for the same time period. No variations appeared either. Confused, Bennie produced Eb’s clean-shaven photo and showed it to Emil.
“Never saw the man,” he said, handing it back.
Bennie returned it to her jeans pocket. She didn’t tell Emil that Darning was the same man Elliott Steere had killed, for the same reason she hadn’t told Bean. He didn’t need to know it to help her. “Emil, I know Darning worked here and he might have gotten paid in cash. How is that possible?”
Emil smiled tightly. “I was afraid of this. Perhaps he was a party employee, not an employee of the city.”
“So?”
“So he worked for the party. He performed jobs for the party. City Hall was a different place then. You know that. You’re a hometown girl.”
“So you’re saying that Darning wouldn’t show up in the employee lists. He was invisible, at least officially.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody would know him, and if they did, they wouldn’t say.”
“Yes. He may have been paid for odd jobs. For influence. Even for vote-getting. Does that jibe with your information?”
“Yes,” Bennie said. Her thoughts hurried ahead. What was it that Carrier had let slip? “Like ‘street money’?”
Emil nodded. “Payment for votes. It was commonplace then. Now, not so. Or so I choose to believe.”
Bennie eased back in the chair and tried to process the information. So Eb Darning was a drunk on the party payroll, who was paid street money by someone for votes. Was Steere the someone? He had to be. Why else would Steere kill him? Steere hated the mayor because the city wasn’t ponying up for his properties. Maybe Steere had paid Darning to fix votes against the mayor in the last election, and Darning had decided not to keep quiet about it any longer, so Steere killed him. Steere wouldn’t take the risk otherwise, especially a personal risk.
It made perfect sense, and Bennie had been around enough official corruption to know it followed the same sleazy patterns. It wasn’t Philly’s first encounter with vote fraud, and no matter what Emil chose to believe, it wouldn’t be the last. Something was rotten at City Hall and Bennie could smell the stink. She stood up and grabbed her wet jacket and hat. “Where’s Jen Pressman’s office?”
“The chief of staff? Down the hall next to the mayor’s. Why?”
“I have to ask her some questions. How can I get a meeting with her? She hates my guts. Because of the police misconduct cases. Every time I sue the city, I put her in the chair.”
“I know Jen Pressman. She likes me. I’d be happy to go with you.” Emil’s dark eyes flickered with the remembered thrill of the hunt.
“No, what I have to discuss with her is confidential.”
“I won’t go in with you, I’ll merely introduce you. Get you in. Pave the way. If it’s something big, you’ll give me the exclusive.”
“You dog.” Bennie smiled. “What about that phone call you were waiting for from your editor?”
Emil glanced up at the ancient black clock on the wall. “It’s eight o’clock. My shift was over a long time ago. Let him call somebody who’s the right size.”
48
Marta stood over the metal strongbox in amazement. She had run the thing over in the pickup and it lay crushed in the deep rut of snow. Still, the Master padlock had stayed intact even after the hinges on the strongbox had popped. What were these padlocks, kryptonite? No matter, if Marta couldn’t get past the fucking lock, she’d go in through the broken hinges.
She picked up the box, wrenched cruelly out of shape, and squinted through the hinges. She could see the edge of a manila envelope. Her heart beat quicker. She pried the hinges with her fingers but her gloves were clumsy. She tore them off and held them in her teeth while she tried to wrench the lid off the box. No luck. It was too badly smashed.
Marta ran back to the truck with the box and sat in the driver’s seat while she searched the tool chest. Chisels, hammers, and about three hundred pritchels tumbled by. Why hadn’t they been this easy to find last night? Her fingers groped the bottom of the chest and she came up with a thick Phillips head screwdriver. Good enough.
She grabbed the box and drove the screwdriver between the demolished lid and the box, trying to pry them apart with the screwdriver as a lever. She couldn’t wedge the screwdriver in because she’d crushed the box too flat. She tried again and again, breaking a sweat even in the cold car. It was late. The sun was up. She had to hit the road before the cops found Bogosian’s body.
Marta abandoned the screwdriver for a hammer, braced the box on her lap, and pounded the twisted metal hinges. The jarring hurt her legs and the pounding reverberated in her skull, but she hammered away. She was about to scream with frustration when the lid popped up. She tore it off and it flopped aside, hanging by the padlock.
Marta’s mouth went dry. Inside the smashed box was a manila envelope, the kind her L.A. office used for mailers. The envelope was crumpled from being run over and there was no writing on the front. She ripped open the envelope with a nervous hand. Inside was a stack of paper, which she pulled out and set on her lap. They were printed pages that looked like computer entries:
>18 294 827
>03 04 95
>03 06 85
>03 31 99
>F
>5’7”
>BRN
>C
>–
>*/1
>Jamie Rodriquez
>110 Kenwall Avenue
>Philadelphia, PA 19103
Underneath the single-spaced grouping was a UPC code, a miniaturized signature, and a photograph of a young man with a fuzzy goatee and slacker’s expression.
Marta reread the entries. They appeared to be some sort of identification. It was familiar, but Marta couldn’t place it. She studied the next set of information, also grouped together:
>29 837 471
>11 10 95
>11 06 55
>11 30 99
>M
>6’2”
>BLU
>C
>–
>*/1
>Cliff Jay Martin
>3329 Dickinson Street
>Philadelphia, PA 19147
Again, underneath was the bar code, a miniaturized signature, and a photo. The photo showed a gaunt man with glasses; its harsh lighting made him look cadaverous. What photo could be so unflattering? Marta thought a minute. It was an ID with a photo. A photo ID that made everybody look their worst. A driver’s license!
She skimmed the lines of information excitedly. BLU, for eye color, and the M, for gender identification. Birthdays at the top and expiration and renewal dates. It was the information entered for a driver’s license, fields in a record, for computer use. Marta’s office grouped information in records like this for form letters and fee agreements. She was looking at a computer file of driver’s licenses. But what did it mean?
Marta flipped through the stack and estimated the page count. Just under a hundred pages in the stack and most pages had four fields, each with photos. Why would Steere hide this? What was incriminating about it? It appeared to be perfectly innocent, but nobody buried something innocent.
Marta flipped through the pages for a clue. The drivers all lived in Pennsylvania, so presumably they were issued Pennsylvania l
icenses. The ages, race, and sex of the drivers were different. Black women, white men, the old and the young, stared up at Marta from the sheets, revealing nothing.
Marta skimmed the addresses. Bustleton Pike. Wolf Street. Ninth Street. Baltimore Avenue. E Street. Apartments and houses, all around the city. She looked again. All the addresses were in Philadelphia. Marta thumbed through the pages to double-check. None were from suburbs or towns outside the city. So? What did this file have to do with Darning’s murder? Marta stared out the frosty windshield, thinking. A dusting of snow lay on the truck’s hood, too thin to conceal its dings and dents.
Suddenly she heard an engine sound and a jingling in the distance. The sound got louder, coming from the main drag. Marta slouched low in the driver’s seat and watched the street from the driver’s side mirror. A new snowplow drove past the cross street with chains jangling on its tires.
Marta checked her watch. 8:30. Her gut tightened. She was late. The business day had started. People were moving around. Snow dripped off the trees like raindrops. She had to get going. Fast. She gathered the papers into a stack, shoved them back into the envelope, and stuck it in her purse. She’d have to do her thinking on the way back to Philly. She wondered what the jury was doing. Would Christopher be able to do the job?
Marta tossed the file aside and twisted on the ignition. It made a noise, then nothing. The truck wasn’t turning over. No! Not now, for God’s sake! It was working before! This wasn’t fair. It couldn’t be happening. Marta tried to stay calm and remember what Christopher had told her.
Be patient. She just needs to warm up. Don’t flood the engine.
Fine. Marta fed the gas gently and turned the ignition key. It cranked, then died.
Talk to her. She likes when you talk to her.
“Start or I’ll sue your fucking ass!” Marta shouted as she hit the ignition. The truck started right up.