Authors: Peter Spiegelman
“That’s unfortunate,” I said evenly.
Neary gave a grim little laugh. “Unfortunate, yeah, like a root canal with a wood chisel. He came on nearly two years ago. And in case you’re wondering, he’s the same asshole he’s always been, only fatter now. All in all, a low profile is a good idea.” He dug into his food. I did the same.
We worked our way through dinner, and as we did, Neary gave me some background. Brill and Parsons and Perkins, the accounting firm, were serving, in part, as high-priced librarians—sifting through the ocean of paper left behind when the bank was closed, and classifying and cataloging each document they found. And there were lots of them, dealing with everything from a multimillion-dollar bond issuance to an order for a thousand desk calendars—and a whole range of things in between. Loan applications, catering bills, deal tickets, expense reports, meeting minutes, account statements, car leases, letters to clients, and contracts for cleaning services. As Neary put it, it was like trying to alphabetize sand.
Taming the paper was only part of the job. Parsons used the documents to help evaluate creditor claims, sometimes reconstructing years of transactions to calculate what MWB owed to someone. Brill helped MWB’s lawyers respond to the endless stream of subpoenas and discovery motions churned out by the task force and assorted defense counsel. Brill also provided physical security for the MWB offices around the world. In New York alone, Brill had twenty people at MWB, not including security guards. Parsons had over forty.
Neary echoed Mike’s view that the investigation was a zoo, especially when it first got going. According to him, the first few months were classic interagency feeding frenzy, with everybody seeing MWB as a chance to make his or her bones. Things had settled down with the formation of the joint task force, though Neary thought there was still plenty of bad blood between DiPaolo and her counterpart in San Diego, Chris Perez.
“In a fair fight, I’d have to pick Shelly,” Neary opined. “Perez has her on weight and reach, but she’s got him hands down when it comes to just plain mean.”
“She really that bad?” I asked.
“And getting worse,” Neary said. “She made a good start on this case, got some convictions right off the bat. But now it’s been a long time between wins. Rumor has it the folks in D.C. are getting a little antsy with Shelly. They’re looking for some good news on the terror front, I guess, or to show how tough they are on white-collar crime. Apparently she’s feeling the heat, and it’s not helping her mood.”
The waiter had cleared our dishes and brought the dessert menu. Neary ordered a flan and I went for the rice pudding and we both had coffee. We were quiet for a while, then Neary cleared his throat.
“You hear from the old guy?” he asked. I knew he meant Donald. I nodded, thinking about the call I hadn’t yet returned.
“He doing alright?” Neary asked. His voice was low.
“He’s still working, still fishing and hunting. And they still love him up there. He’ll be sheriff as long as he wants. If he’d let them, they’d probably elect him to Congress,” I said. But I wasn’t answering his question. The answer to that question was no, Donald wasn’t alright. He was light-years from alright, and he’d never get back there again, not any more than I would.
The waiter came by and topped off our coffees. I picked up the check, and we said our good-byes on the sidewalk. Neary would call me next week to set up a visit to MWB. He headed toward the Brill offices, and I caught a cab.
The sky had filled with bruise-colored clouds that promised rain or snow. On the ride uptown, it started to do both. I leaned my head against the cab window, and watched through half-closed eyes as it all came down. My head was full of upstate, memories of the case, of Pell, of Donald, and, inevitably, of Anne.
I shut my eyes completely and saw the dock, the gravel path and the porch steps, the blood and the fat, black flies. Suddenly, I was bone weary, and every breath was an effort. I’d intended to do some work that night, maybe start to look for Al Burrows, but when I got back home I lacked the energy even to turn on the lights. Still in my coat, I stood in the darkness, looking out at the night. My chest felt hollow and cold, empty except for a dull ache. I put my hands over my face.
It had snuck up on me. It had been so long since I’d felt like this, I’d gotten complacent and it had snuck up on me.
“Fuck this,” I said softly.
And then I heard it. From upstairs.
Thump, thump
—
whump.
Thump, thump
—
whump.
Rhythmically, and in rapid succession. Not boxes being moved. Not furniture. Probably not livestock. A pogo stick? Tennis?
Thump, thump
—
whump. Thump, thump
—
whump.
Enough was enough. I took the stairs up.
The fifth-floor corridor was just like the fourth—long and narrow, lit by hanging fixtures of thick, frosted glass. The stairwell was at one end, the elevator at the other, and the apartment door was in the middle.
Thump, thump
—
whump.
It came through the door, along with some music. Annie Lennox, it sounded like. A small, embossed card was taped above the doorbell. “J. Lu,” it said, in thin black lettering on thick, cream-colored stock. I knocked—hard—and the noise stopped in mid-thump. Then the music got lower.
“Yes?” a woman’s voice called from inside.
“It’s John March. I’m your neighbor on the fourth floor. I don’t know what you’re banging on in there, but could you keep it down—just for tonight?” I sounded peevish, even to myself. I heard footsteps approaching the door, and someone opening the peephole. Then some locks slid back and the door opened.
“Oh, gosh. I’m sorry. Really. I couldn’t find the box with the mats, and I didn’t think sound would carry through these floors. Really, I’m very sorry,” she said as she toweled off her forehead and neck. Her voice was a pleasant contralto. She wore a genuinely fretful look. But she made it look good.
She was Asian. Small, but not tiny, maybe five foot three or four, and slim, but not skinny. No, there was nice, compact muscle in her arms and thighs and calves. Her abs and obliques, too, from what I could see—which was a lot. She had on gray spandex shorts that came to mid-thigh and a matching tank top that left her flat midriff bare. Her hair was inky black, and cropped short—just to the stylish side of severe. She had a heart-shaped face, with delicate brows, large, brown—almost black—eyes, and high cheekbones. Her nose was small, with a nearly flat bridge. Her mouth was beautifully formed, her upper lip a perfect bow shape, her lower one full—almost pouting. She wore an emerald stud in each ear, and in her right ear, above the emerald, she wore a diamond stud as well. I guessed she was around thirty.
Her face and slender neck were flushed from exertion. Her tank top, between her small, round breasts, was dark with sweat, and so was the waistband of her shorts. Sweat glistened on her arms and on her belly too, and her hair was damp at the ends. Behind her, I could see the reason. In the center of the apartment, in a space cleared from a thicket of stacked boxes, a heavy bag swung from a metal stand. Her hands and wrists were taped like a boxer’s, and so were her ankles and bare feet. I could see where some layers of tape, over the striking surfaces of her hands and feet, had been scuffed away by contact with the bag. Her elbows and knees were a little scraped up too.
She was looking at me, and I realized I was staring. I was also regretting my peevish tone. Her fretful look vanished, replaced by a little smile. “You’re Lauren’s brother, aren’t you? You guys look alike.” She stuck out her taped right hand. “I’m Jane Lu.”
Chapter Seven
“Al Burrows? Yeah, that was my father. He died last year, at ninety-eight. But he never worked in no bank. The bastard barely worked at all.” She paused to belch demurely. “What else you want to know?” Ada Burrows had a thick Long Island accent and sounded pretty old herself, but she was one of the more accommodating Burrowses that I’d spoken to all day.
“You know any other Al Burrows—any brothers or cousins or uncles by that name?”
“Nah, not too many Burrows men still alive. None named Al. I got a cousin Albert on Mom’s side, but he’s a Boyle, and I think he’s dead anyway. What else?”
“Nothing else that I can think of,” I said. She sounded disappointed. I was too. I crossed another name off my list.
Besides globalizing the market for junk in people’s attics, and bringing joy to pornographers everywhere, the Internet has been a boon to private investigators, at least to the ones it hasn’t put out of business. Thanks to the many search services available on the Web, the job of finding people, a staple of the PI trade, is vastly easier these days. Easy enough that a lot of folks dispense with PIs altogether and do it for themselves. The relentless march of progress, I guess.
Personally, I use the services all the time. Provide them with your subject’s name, and you’ll get back a list of people, complete with addresses and phone numbers, which just might contain the person that you want. The more data you can supply—a city, a state, maybe a date of birth—the better your results. And you can get more than just addresses and phone numbers. Many services provide information on criminal convictions, property ownership, bankruptcy filings, marriages, divorces—a whole range of public data. Much of it is available immediately, online. But while the services are big timesavers, they’re not magic. If you’ve got nothing more to go on than a name, and that name isn’t Rufus T. Firefly, or something equally distinctive, you may get back a very long list indeed. And then it’s time for some old-fashioned legwork, or, as in this case, phone work.
By Monday afternoon, I’d been through nine A. Burrowses, Ada included. That was over half the number I’d turned up in a search restricted to the New York metropolitan area. Based on what Pierro had told me, the A-for-Al Burrows I was looking for was a white male, over six feet tall, and by now in his late forties or early fifties. Eighteen years ago he’d been heavyset and had thinning, dirty blond hair. By now he could be a bald blimp or, technology being what it is, a skinny redhead. No way to know until I found him.
Ada’s father was my second dead A. Burrows, the other one having been run over crossing Queens Boulevard two years go, at age twenty-seven. His mother was inconsolable still, and I was sorry that I’d bothered her. I’d found Albert Burrows, out in Chatham, New Jersey, who might have been the right age, but who assured me, in barely civil tones, that he’d never worked in banking, and that eighteen years ago he’d been living in Capetown. Arthur Burrows, of Dobbs Ferry, was also about the right age, but his career had been in B&E and GTA, and eighteen years ago he’d been right in the middle of his second nickel bit upstate. Next to Ada, he was the chattiest Burrows I’d spoken with, and he told me more than I wanted to know about his personal relationship with God.
I’d found an Alexander in Katonah, who was in banking, but who’d been in junior high at the time in question. And I’d found Alberta, Arlene, Akeema, Amy, and Alyssa Burrows, scattered about the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Some were suspicious, some annoyed, others impatient, and a few downright surly, but none knew any man by the name of Al Burrows—or would tell me, if they did. I had just two Manhattan names on my list. Alfred Burrows had turned out to be a thirty-year -old black man; Alan Burrows was, so far, just a voice on an answering machine.
I shut down my laptop and pushed my chair back from the long oak table that serves as my desk. I stretched and worked the kinks out of my neck. Between dialing for Burrowses, checking in with Mike, and talking to Tom Neary, I’d been on the phone for most of the day. I’d told Mike about my walk in the park and about my meeting with our client. He’d already heard from Pierro.
“He called to thank me,” Mike had said, “for bringing you in on this. He said it was a great move, and that you were a great guy, and that everything would be great.”
“Great,” I’d said.
Mike had chuckled. “He’s a salesman—you’ve got to make allowances.”
“Is he really as optimistic as he sounds about all this?” I’d asked.
“At some level. Mostly, I think he’s boxed it up in his head and pushed it off to the side.”
“It works, if you can keep it up,” I’d said.
“It takes a lot of energy.”
I’d told Mike about my meet with Neary, too. He went quiet at the mention of Fred Pell.
“Another reason to go carefully,” he’d said after a while. I hadn’t replied. “I’ll interpret your silence as agreement,” he’d said hopefully and rung off.
Neary’s call came right after. I could have my tour today, he’d told me, if I could meet him at the MWB offices at three-thirty. I was surprised, and pleased, that he’d gotten back to me so soon, and said okay. I rubbed my eyes and checked my watch; it was one-thirty—just enough time for a run.
It had dried out over the weekend, but was still blustery, so I pulled on tights and a wind shell. I headed due west, toward the piers along the Hudson. I hadn’t much time, and I’d done a long run on Sunday, so I was aiming for a quick four miles. I turned north at the river, toward Chelsea Piers. I was running into a steady wind now, and it was an effort to keep an eight-minute pace. The wind eased as I came up to 23rd Street, and I picked it up a little. As I ran, my thoughts turned, not for the first time, to my new neighbor.
I’d seen Jane Lu only once since knocking on her door, and then only briefly. She’d been leaving the building as I was coming back from my run on Sunday morning. She was with a clean-cut, frat-boy type with blond hair and lots of teeth. She was wearing jeans, an orange turtleneck, and tiny, wire-rimmed sunglasses, and she’d given me a smile and a friendly hello. After fifteen fast miles, I wasn’t sure that I’d said anything coherent in return.